Read Online Biblical by Christopher Galt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christopher Galt
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stripped out the ballpoint and refill, leaving the empty sleeve. Corbin handed him a plastic bottle of sterile water and he sluiced out the pen sleeve, wiping it down with a fresh antiseptic wipe before laying it on the one he had spread out on the ground. As he did so, Macbeth felt as if something indefinable had changed in his environment; a subtle shift in lighting, or air pressure, or a vague scent suddenly carried in the air.
Not now
.
The priest was now wheezing loudly, urgently, his eyes filled with tears.
“Is … it … true? Is … it … true?”
“Easy, Father,” said Corbin, laying his hand on the injured man’s forehead. “We’ll have you breathing easy in a moment.”
Macbeth felt it coming. He always felt it coming, as if his mind had to prepare itself. The feeling he had – that something had shifted in the spectrum of his surroundings – was always the prelude to an episode. He knew it was the stress of the situation that was bringing it on. Stress he no longer felt directly as the episode started to form. He looked across at Corbin’s anxious face, then back down to the patient who would die if he didn’t act decisively. Immediately.
Everything around Macbeth was now harder and brighter and even more sharp-edged, as if his eyes had been refocused beyond the physically possible. He looked out across the Plaza towards the Reflection Pool. Everything sparkled on its black water, the mirrored lights of the Prudential Center, One-Eleven Huntington and the other surrounding buildings becoming dancing diamonds on its surface. He knew that none of it was real. These weren’t real people. The architecture around him didn’t really exist.
He heard Corbin talk to him, his voice sharp and clear, but the words, the syllables, meaningless as language became an absurdly abstract concept.
Macbeth didn’t exist.
He had arrived at the heart of the event; to the place it always took him. To the same absolute, incontrovertible conclusion: he did not exist. Like Corbin, like everyone else, he was a fiction.
He realized in that moment, as he had realized in all of the moments like it before, that there was a reason why he had such a bad memory for biographical events. His were the patchy remembrances of an invented, sketched-out life.
He looked down at hands so totally disconnected from him that he was surprised when they started moving. One hand held the skin of the priest’s chest, exactly at the fifth intercostal space, and pulled it taut between thumb and forefinger while the other made an inch-and-a-half-long incision, cutting deep through the subcutaneous layers. The priest moaned as the hands slid the pen-sleeve tube into the cut.
There was a wet, hissing sound as air and blood syphoned from Mullachy’s chest. Corbin jumped back as the blood splashed onto the flagstones.
“Jesus!” shouted the sergeant. “What the fuck you done? He’s bleeding to death!”
“It’s already spent blood,” Corbin told the cop, and Macbeth realized he could understand language again. “He’s bled it intohis chest cavity already. He could have lost as much as half of his blood supply and you wouldn’t have seen a drop.”
Macbeth heard the priest take a deep, pained breath, then utter a moan, before beginning to breathe more normally.
Mullachy looked up, locking his eyes with Macbeth’s. He grabbed Macbeth’s suit collar and pulled him close. The breathing had eased, but his eyes were no less wild, no less desperate.
“I saw it …” the priest hissed into Macbeth’s face.
“Saw it? Saw what?”
“I saw it,” said Mullachy earnestly. “When he jumped … when he took me with him … he said he would show me. He showed me. I saw it …”
“I don’t—” There was the sound of sirens and Macbeth became aware of the presence of two men in Boston EMS outfits easing in beside him. One of them was black and with the strange detached observance of detail that came with one of his
Not now
.
The priest was now wheezing loudly, urgently, his eyes filled with tears.
“Is … it … true? Is … it … true?”
“Easy, Father,” said Corbin, laying his hand on the injured man’s forehead. “We’ll have you breathing easy in a moment.”
Macbeth felt it coming. He always felt it coming, as if his mind had to prepare itself. The feeling he had – that something had shifted in the spectrum of his surroundings – was always the prelude to an episode. He knew it was the stress of the situation that was bringing it on. Stress he no longer felt directly as the episode started to form. He looked across at Corbin’s anxious face, then back down to the patient who would die if he didn’t act decisively. Immediately.
Everything around Macbeth was now harder and brighter and even more sharp-edged, as if his eyes had been refocused beyond the physically possible. He looked out across the Plaza towards the Reflection Pool. Everything sparkled on its black water, the mirrored lights of the Prudential Center, One-Eleven Huntington and the other surrounding buildings becoming dancing diamonds on its surface. He knew that none of it was real. These weren’t real people. The architecture around him didn’t really exist.
He heard Corbin talk to him, his voice sharp and clear, but the words, the syllables, meaningless as language became an absurdly abstract concept.
Macbeth didn’t exist.
He had arrived at the heart of the event; to the place it always took him. To the same absolute, incontrovertible conclusion: he did not exist. Like Corbin, like everyone else, he was a fiction.
He realized in that moment, as he had realized in all of the moments like it before, that there was a reason why he had such a bad memory for biographical events. His were the patchy remembrances of an invented, sketched-out life.
He looked down at hands so totally disconnected from him that he was surprised when they started moving. One hand held the skin of the priest’s chest, exactly at the fifth intercostal space, and pulled it taut between thumb and forefinger while the other made an inch-and-a-half-long incision, cutting deep through the subcutaneous layers. The priest moaned as the hands slid the pen-sleeve tube into the cut.
There was a wet, hissing sound as air and blood syphoned from Mullachy’s chest. Corbin jumped back as the blood splashed onto the flagstones.
“Jesus!” shouted the sergeant. “What the fuck you done? He’s bleeding to death!”
“It’s already spent blood,” Corbin told the cop, and Macbeth realized he could understand language again. “He’s bled it intohis chest cavity already. He could have lost as much as half of his blood supply and you wouldn’t have seen a drop.”
Macbeth heard the priest take a deep, pained breath, then utter a moan, before beginning to breathe more normally.
Mullachy looked up, locking his eyes with Macbeth’s. He grabbed Macbeth’s suit collar and pulled him close. The breathing had eased, but his eyes were no less wild, no less desperate.
“I saw it …” the priest hissed into Macbeth’s face.
“Saw it? Saw what?”
“I saw it,” said Mullachy earnestly. “When he jumped … when he took me with him … he said he would show me. He showed me. I saw it …”
“I don’t—” There was the sound of sirens and Macbeth became aware of the presence of two men in Boston EMS outfits easing in beside him. One of them was black and with the strange detached observance of detail that came with one of his
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