The Last Harvest: Dreams Chapter 8

Never Enough Time

 

  The next couple of weeks brought nothing new. Nothing happened and Gabriel and Jason simply spent days roaming the streets and listening for gossip of any hints that may lead them to Xaphan.  The first time the ground started shaking took them by surprise, but Jason said he had heard of these “earthquakes” and that they didn’t need to be too concerned. None of the quakes were very powerful and damage around the city seemed minimal.

  Gabriel was starting to get used to life in the living world. He finally felt he had mastered their money and even felt he was becoming use to the culture. He no longer felt it necessary to buy from every street vendor who approached him. Jason had been thoroughly entertained each time Gabriel was cornered by an aggressive salesman and even came to his rescue a few times.

  Worse than the hawkers during the day were the people peddling their wares at night. Gabriel had been shocked the first time a young woman approached him offering a “free sample.” One trick Gabriel learned quickly was to give a menacing scowl to anyone approaching him. His height and build, along with the uninviting expression, sent most people running.

  One night, after getting a late night snack from the café across the street, he entered his room to find Jason waiting in the sitting area.

  “This isn’t working,” he said simply. Gabriel didn’t answer; he had heard the same thing a few times already.

  “I mean it, Gabriel. This isn’t working. We aren’t getting anywhere!”

  “I know. What do you think we should do?” Gabriel replied as he prepared for another evening of useless and directionless discussion.

  Jason gripped the arms of his chair and nodded as if he had just made up his mind about something.

  “I’m going back to the White City tomorrow.”

  Gabriel was expecting that this would be the eventual conclusion, but he expected it to be a “we are going back.”

  “Just you?” he asked felling slightly nervous.

  “Somebody has to stay here,” Jason answered matter-of-factly. “I’ll go back and see if anything can be learned from the White City and you’ll have to continue our search here.”

  Gabriel sat in the seat across from Jason pondering what this would mean for him. He felt somewhat comfortable in this world now but he always had Jason to fall back on. Sure he could listen to the talk on the street and wander the city, but what if something actually happened.

  “What if I find something?” he started, “or find Xaphan?” He tried to keep his tone level, he didn’t want Jason to think he was scared, which he wasn’t, but he didn’t know how to proceed if an encounter actually took place.

  “You’re a smart guy, Gabriel. Just gauge the situation and don’t act irresponsibly.” He smiled mischievously at Gabriel. “In other words don’t get yourself killed.”

  Gabriel was still unsure and he must have let it show on his face.

  “Listen, Gabriel. Let’s say by some random chance you did find yourself face to face with Xaphan. If you feel threatened then just turn and run.”

  Gabriel scowled at the idea.

  “Don’t act like that,” Jason retorted. “I’m serious. Xaphan is not to be taken lightly. If it comes down to you trying to battle him you’re probably going to lose. So, just don’t fight him.”

  Gabriel knew Jason was making sense, but the idea of turning and running appalled him. Jason, having said all he needed to, stood up to leave. When he reached the door he turned back to Gabriel.

  “We haven’t found him so far so I don’t see much changing in the next few days and I’ll be back by then; hopefully with a better idea of what to do next.”

  Gabriel nodded as Jason closed the door behind him. Jason was probably right, there really was nothing to be worried about. He stood up and walked to the window looking down on the city. It was beautiful from this distance and he wished he didn’t have to know it up close and personal.

  Still the White City was really no better. Every night he had been in the living world his thoughts had returned to the White City and specifically to the Selection Center. The terrified young lady who had been viciously maimed and forced to be a prisoner. A Thelusiana. It sounded like a beautiful word but knowing the meaning sapped any splendor from the sound. Being selected as a Thelusiana was nothing more than being chosen to be a living sacrifice.

  Gabriel’s mood darkened as he thought more on the White City. What else was being kept from the general population? He thought back on his test, why does it seem so long ago? He thought about the weird creature whose life he had taken. He thought of the creature at the bottom of the stairs that only his group seemed to face. He thought of Al Hiqpid taking him aside and warning him not to be used. What did he mean? He thought of the Old One’s shame over the selection center. And then the young woman’s face again. That deathly smile. She had paid the ultimate price, and for what? He didn’t even know.

  Feeling wetness on his hand he was shocked to look down and see his own hands bleeding where his nails had dug into his palms. It was painful to release the tension in his fingers but he did so little by little.

  “I will do what I can to fix the White City,” he said aloud. He had no idea how he would do it, but he knew he could not continue on until some things were changed. The Old One would understand, maybe Eric and Brian too, and then there was Katie. He remembered the feel of her hand when they stood in the Hive; how she didn’t release his hand. He could almost smell the sweet berry scent that seemed to always accompany her.

  He felt himself finally calming down. There were horrible things in the White City and the living world as well, but looking out into those endless glimmering lights, that were the city of Hillsburg, he knew that there was beauty and love as well. As he laid himself down to sleep his last thoughts were blissful ones of seeing his friends again.

 

 

  There was never enough time in the day. There was never enough time period! Imagine if one did not have to worry about such things. There would always be enough time if people were not so… mortal. If death were not an unconditional eventuality then life could happen at a more leisurely pace. Of course, a relaxed existence is not something the doctor would ever consent to, but the sheer prospect was enticingly stimulating.

  It was looking less like a dream and more like reality every day. He was so close to unlocking the secrets to the body’s potential. Other doctors and scientists were focused on what they could introduce into the body to fight disease. Dr. Slate knew everything needed was already there, he knew the body had the power to fight off any disease, to reverse the aging process, to reach heretofore unfathomed levels; it just needs to be told how. 

  Most would not agree with the manner in which he had got to where he was now, but he recognized it as the most expedient and resourceful available to him. Sacrifices were a necessary element when chasing greatness. Historical successes have almost exclusively been brought forth on the carcasses of those who made the ultimate sacrifice. The world would not agree with him now, but fast-forward a hundred years and the masses will be singing his praise. And he planned to hear it himself.

  The speed of his research and testing was also hampered by the fact that he had to work by himself. No one else had the gumption to do what was necessary. Everyone saw him as the saint, the one who would take a transient off the street and give them the care needed. To be honest those were the patients he looked forward to the most, the ones who would not be missed. No family, no friends, no one to care if they went missing, and often they did wander off. Such is the way of the drifter, or so everyone believed. They did not know of the good doctor spiriting these patients off for his own righteous purposes.

  It was quite easy to convince easy to convince those he chose to visit him in his home. These poor people had seldom known a luxury in life. So the chance to come to the renowned Doctor’s house was not one many could refuse. He treated them as kings and queens, won their confidence if not their complete adoration. By the end of the night they were more than willing to help in his great plan. Maybe slightly inebriated, but always willing to, perchance, be part of something historic.

  Everything had gone well until a couple of months ago when a young homeless man had come into his house.

 

 

  Jaron seemed no different than the others that had visited. He was wowed and amazed by the classy environment, he ate and drank as if he had never had the opportunity to eat to his appetite’s content, he even seemed genuinely excited about the offer of a chance at immortality, but when the doctor led him back to the laboratory attached to the back of his house Jaron hesitated.

  “I’m not so sure about this,” his eyes darted this way and that and he licked his lips nervously reminding Doctor Slate of some pathetic cornered rat. Inside he felt disdain towards the coward who whimpered before him, but outwardly he did his best impression of a man who cared.

  “Don’t worry,” he said through a tight smile, “in no time at all you may well be the most famous man in the world. You will live forever; you will have everything you ever wanted. There is no reason to fear.” This seemed to assuage the young man slightly and he even chuckled a little.

  “Well, they say you’re a good doc.” He walked, or stumbled, to the center of the large cavernous room, assisted by the doctor, where a shimmering hospital bed waited with one spotlight hanging overhead. The light swung slightly making shadows dance across the room in horrifying patterns. The spotless bed stood in stark contrast to the otherwise grimy room.

  “Seems like somethin’ from a frickin’ horror movie.”

  The Doctor laughed in an encouraging way. “We are not doing anything too serious here there really is not any need for a lot of equipment.” It was not far from the truth after all. Most of the prep work he performed at the hospital. He had only what was absolutely necessary in his home laboratory. In reality, he did not want any suspicion centered on his home and he could play off his laboratory as an average junk garage.

  He helped Jaron lay down on the bed and began to tie his arms down when Jaron jerked his arm away.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said in a nervous tone.

  “I always follow all safety standards. It is one of the qualities that makes me a successful doctor.”

  “But why would you need to tie me down? You said this wasn’t going to be anything serious.”

  The Doctor could tell the young man was nervous enough that he probably was not going to willingly cooperate.

  “Fine, fine. Do not worry about it, we do not need to strap you down. Let me get you another drink to settle your nerves.” Doctor Slate was annoyed but didn’t want the chance of the young man making a run for it and spilling the secrets he had been allowed to know. He made his way back into the main house and to the bar. He mixed a new drink for Jaron and added a new ingredient as well, an oral sedative. He wanted Jaron conscious but calm as well.

  He returned to find Jaron sitting on the hospital bed examining his surroundings with obvious trepidation.

  “Here you are,” his fake smile and tone where tuned to perfection, “another one to calm the nerves.”

  Jaron took the drink eagerly and downed it in a single swig.

Within a minute or so the sedative began to take effect and the doctor had his arms and legs strapped down to the bed. Finally, it was the moment of truth. He felt that this time, at last, he had found the correct mixture, the precise combination to send the proper messages to the appropriate portions of the body. This young man did not realize exactly how lucky he was. 

  Doctor Slate injected his cocktail into the young man’s bloodstream and felt a surge of adrenaline in his own.

  Nothing happened.

  He waited for five, ten, fifteen minutes and no change. He checked vitals and everything seemed… normal.

  “There should be some reaction at least,” he muttered disappointedly to himself.  Resigned, he prepared the lethal injection that would end young Jaron’s life. Nobody could be allowed to carry his secrets outside. Just as he was ready to administer the fatal shot he heard a voice coming from the house.

  “Gene. Gene, are you here?”

  What a wretched time for his sister to decide on a visit. He could not let her see any of this. He set the deadly concoction next to the young man and hurried in to head off his sister. He caught her in the dining room heading toward the back of the house.

  “Shae, I wasn’t expecting you.” He attempted to sound and act casual but knew he had failed by the quick look of concern in her face.

  “Are you okay?” she asked with real worry.

  “Yes, I am fine. I have been really thinking a lot about a couple of cases at the hospital,” he lied.

  “You look like you’ve been sweating,” she moved towards him to place a hand on his head. “You don’t feel too warm. Have you been sick?”

  “No, I really am fine, j-just extremely busy.” He never stuttered and saw the concern in Shae’s face grow at the breech in behavior.

  “Well, I just came over to drop off a few things from mom.” She set down a couple of bags on his dining table when… BAM! A deafening crash came from behind the house. Shae jumped up in alarm.

  “What was that!?” She took a step toward the back door before the doctor raised his hand to stop her.

  “I knew I had seen an animal back there,” he said, not daring to make eye contact with Shae in case she caught his fabrication.

  “Well let’s call someone,” she said going through her purse looking for her phone. Doctor Slate was in a near panic but tried not to let it show.

  “No, no. Do not worry about it. I will take a look and call in animal control tomorrow morning.” He reassured her that everything was fine many times over as he ushered her out the door claiming he needed to rest. As soon as he could no longer see her taillights from the living room window he made a mad dash back to his lab.

  The single rusty light swung wildly from the ceiling the supporting chain squealing in agony. The door leading outside was attached by only one hinge and swung wildly in the wind. The jumping light was disorienting and it took him a moment to notice that the bed was lying on its side. He ran to it, crouched down, and saw the arm restraints had been ripped clean off the table. It was disturbing but what was truly alarming were the bloodied appendages that remained strapped on the lower half of the bed. Bone glistened with blood where Tibia and Fibula protruded from raggedly torn flesh and skin. Jaron had actually ripped his legs off at the knee in order to escape. The doctor, on hands and knees, lowered his head to the floor and watched the still bleeding, loose skin flap uncaringly in the wind.

 

 

  The doctor had been more cautious since then. Reinforced doors and straps for the bed had ensured that the last few volunteers would not be able to escape, but the reality was it was not needed. He had not been able to repeat the results from the episode with Jaron. It was possible that his last few prospects had not been in the same peak shape that Jaron’s body was in. Still, it was disheartening. He needed to find a new subject and soon. He had made a few modifications to his recipe and felt it would have a less harsh effect on the subjects.

  The problem was that there were no prospects at the hospital. He had been present as often as possible, but each patient had ties to someone that would miss them. He was growing anxious and had thought about driving the city to find his next patient.

  Just when he made up his mind to, at least, scout the city he heard a knock at his door. He moved from his chair and headed toward the door thinking it could only be his sister at this time of night. She had made her visits more regularly since the episode with Jaron. Annoyingly more frequent.

  He put on his prepared smile and opened the door to greet her. His smile faded as he faced the mountain of a man before him. He tried to say something but his tongue felt frozen and his jaw locked. The man was enormous! He wore a ragged gray cloak that had seen better days judging by the multiple holes and frayed ends. He carried a large pole with a bag tied around one end. Where it not for the man’s alarming size Doctor Slate thought the man looked like a stereotypical hobo straight from a book with his possessions tied in his bindle.

  The man shuffled his feet presumably uncomfortable with the lack of some greeting from the Doctor.

  He lowered his hooded head to watch his busy feet and muttered.

  “Is this the place people can come to when there’s no place for them?”

  It was a mutter but it rumbled like the bass of rolling thunder. There was power in the voice, power in the stature of the man, everything about him resonated strength. Doctor Slate was uneasy but this opportunity could not be passed in. With a clicking sound he finally was able to unhinge his jaw.

  ”Of course, please come in,” he tried to use his practiced warm and confident voice but it fluttered and squeaked and sounded more like a teenager speaking for the first time to their crush. He cleared his throat in an attempt to cover his beleaguered attempt to control the conversation.

  “And please leave your… bag,” he sneered, “outside, if you don’t mind.”

  The large man shook his head and chuckled deeply. “Oh, when you’ve led the life that I have, you learn to never leave anything you don’t want to lose out of sight.”

  The doctor nodded his consent and moved aside to let the man inside. As he stepped by the Doctor noticed an old smell about him. It was grimy almost a rotting smell. He wrinkled his nose against it but was unsurprised seeing how old the cloak looked.

  “Can I at least take your coat?” he asked hoping to at least contain the smell near the front door.

  “Thank you very much.” As the man slid out of his cloak and handed it to him, the Doctor noticed that he looked even more intimidating without the cloak. He wore a black shirt that lay loosely on his chiseled frame. The Doctor guessed him to be at least seven feet tall and probably weighed around three hundred pounds with not a visible sign of fat. He couldn’t help but comment.

  “You have kept yourself in extremely good condition.”

  The man chuckled warmly again. “Well, at my age you have to take care… to take care!” he laughed at his play on words and the Doctor joined in. The doctor ushered him over to a seat by the luxurious fireplace.

  “Have a seat. I’ll grab us some drinks and we can get to know each other better.”

  “Thanks,” the man said as he lowered himself dwarfing the outsized armchair. He laid down his bindle and the bag shifted awkwardly.

  Doctor Slate could not believe his luck! This man was the perfect test subject. He was so giddy he decided to use his expensive liquor he kept hidden from most eyes. He returned to the room to see the man patting his bag reassuringly. The Doctor thought he saw the bag moving in response.

  “Umm,” he started carefully, “what do you have in the bag there?”

  “Oh, this?” he asked lightly kicking at the bag, “just my most prized possessions.” He said it so casually it made the Doctor question if he had seen him patting it just moments ago.  Doctor Slate shook his head as if trying to dislodge any insecurities about his visitor.

  “Well, let us start with the basics,” he said as he handed the man his drink and took a seat across from him. “What is your name?”

  “Oh, it hardly matters anymore. I’ve not had anybody use it for a long time. Usually I’m pretty well avoided. I don’t think many people can ignore me with all this,” he gestured to himself and the Doctor had to agree it would be quite difficult to ignore a man of his build, “but being ignored or avoided pretty well end up with the same result.”

  The Doctor took a drink from his cup. “Just the same I would still like to know your name.” He took another sip.

  “Well,” the stranger started as he regarded the liquor in his glass as if it were the most important thing in the world, “I have the name I was born with but I’m not overly fond of it.” The doctor noticed how he twisted the word born. He took another drink. I was given the name Lucas but it doesn’t really fit me.” The man looked up and the Doctor found himself trapped by the grey eyes that stared at him. He had to tear himself away from the gaze and tried to focus instead on the man’s drink.

  “Th-that’s not a bad- a bad name at all,” he stammered. “You haven’t even touched your drink though.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really drink, but I thought it might be rude to refuse.”

  The doctor nodded and searched for something else to say. He didn’t dare look up into the man’s face again, it just made him feel… unnatural. He also didn’t want to lose this opportunity. The silence seemed to stretch on endlessly although it couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds. Just then the Doctor noticed the bag move again. It was definitely not a trick of the eyes.

  “What is in your bag? I just saw it move.”

  The stranger ignored him. “Bringing light, giving light- or whatever Lucas means, it just doesn’t feel right to me.” The bag squirmed again.

  “I’m serious what’s in your bag?” the doctor felt panicked and pushed himself back in his chair as if trying to get as far away as he could without seeming to.

  The man ignored him still. “I don’t feel like I bring light, at least, not in the sense it’s intended.” The bag rustled and lurched.

  “Please!” the man stopped and looked up at the doctor. “WHAT IS IN THE BAG?”

  The man looked at the bag and smiled. The doctor was on his feet now.

  “You want to see? I don’t show it to many people. It takes an extremely special occasion for me to open this bag.” The man reached down to untie the bag and paused. The Doctor noticed a tattoo of a triangle on the man’s hand. The man stared straight into the Doctor’s eyes and once again held him fast. “By the way, the name I go by these days is Xaphan.” He untied the bag and as it fell loose from the staff it uncovered a horror. Bones meshed with the staff in a jumble of sinew and blood.

  The Doctor tried to scream but there was no sound. His very breath seemed to be taken away. The mass of gore shifted until the Doctor could make out a head, neck, and arm that stretched away from the staff. He could hear bones creaking and cracking as the atrocity turned to look at him. The eyeless horror stared at him and a smile stretched across the rotting skull. This is a nightmare, it has to be!

  The excruciating pain of being shredded to pieces was definitely real.