Read Online Ante Mortem by ed. Jodi Lee - Free Book Online Page B

Hill,” she said. “Doctor Lundgren.”
    “ She took care of you?”
    “ He – and he did. I still see him from time to time. He might even know what’s going on.”
    Brautigan doubted that, but said nothing.
    Gallows Hill was a Victorian manse rising from a wooded summit. Rain ran down the barred windows and cobbled walkways to the gate, where a guard stood with shoulders slumped. Brautigan offered a wave. “We’re here to see Doctor Lundgren.”
    “ I know him,” Lacey said, and called, “Marc?”
    The guard didn’t move. As they drew closer, they saw why. He had wrapped an extension cord around his neck and tied it off at the top of the gate. His face was blue and bloated. Brautigan placed a hand of Lacey’s shoulder, but she only said, “That’s not Marc.”
    The gate swung open without resistance. They walked to the entrance and pushed open the double doors.
    The interior had a more modern feel, despite the fact that the lights were out, and everything was cloistered in shadow. Brautigan’s socked feet slapped against the tile floor of the lobby. “Anyone here?”
    “ Lacey?” A haggard-looking man in a white coat emerged from the darkness. He was about Brautigan’s age, and kneaded his hands as he slowly crossed the room. “What brought you here?”
    “ I didn’t know where else to go,” Lacey said.
    Doctor Lundgren nodded. “We went into lockdown two days ago. Patients were throwing themselves at the windows, beating their heads against the walls… then the staff as well.” He mopped sweat from his brow with a kerchief. “Those who are still alive are under restraint. But they won’t eat.”
    He glanced past them, through the open doors and the storm, and frowned at the dead guard. “He was thirty.”
    “ What?” Brautigan’s heart leapt into his throat.
    “ It’s happening to older people now,” Lundgren muttered.
    “ Why?” Lacey asked. And Lundgren actually had an answer.
    “ The only thing I can think of—although it doesn’t entirely bear out under scrutiny—is a dormant gene. Activated first in pubescent youths, which has somehow triggered a systemic response in older generations. I’m still trying to work out the mechanics of it.” He wiped his forehead again. “But I can almost certainly tell you why it’s happening now.”
    This time it was Brautigan who pressed him .”Why?”
    “ I’ve studied the human condition my entire adult life,” Lundgren said. His hands went back to kneading one another. “We’re the most evolved, the most aware—and the most irrational, the most self-destructive. I’m hardly the first to point that out, but few have advanced the theory that we’ve hit an evolutionary wall—that Nature, of which we are part, will not only turn in on and consume us, but cause us to consume ourselves.” He looked hard at Brautigan. “Do you understand? I don’t mean that the external, Mother Earth, is attacking us. Our own genes are rebelling against the mind, the ego, some might even call it the soul.
    “ Come with me,” the doctor said then, and led them through a door into a long hallway. It was lined with doors containing caged portholes, and Lundgren glanced through each as he led Lacey and Brautigan deeper into darkness.
    “ Oh, God! Mister Gray!” Lundgren fumbled through a collection of keys and unlocked one of the doors. Brautigan stepped into the room after him and saw that it was padded floor to ceiling—and that the straitjacketed patient within had crammed his head into the corner and suffocated himself.
    “ How old was he?” Brautigan cried. “How old?”
    “ Fifty-two,” Lundgren breathed. “I don’t know, he might have done it on his own. I don’t know…” He stared oddly at Lacey. “Doctor Wolfe.”
    The girl gasped. Brautigan whirled and saw her in the grip of a female doctor, who had planted a hypo in the base of Lacey’s neck.
    The world fell into slow motion. Brautigan started forward, throwing his hands out.