Volker shook his head. “I don’t know. ”
“What do you know? What did Gibbon say?”
“He … thanked me. ” Saying it seemed to cause physical pain for the doctor. He winced and touched his chest. “God help me…”
“Thanked you?” Trout felt the moment slipping away from him. “Thanked you for what? I thought this was supposed to be a punishment. Are you telling me that this was something else? Are you saying you helped this asshole escape?”
“No! God in heaven … no. I injected Gibbon with Lucifer 113 because I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him in his coffin screaming in torment as the parasites kept him alive just so they could feed on him. He deserved it. They all deserve it. ”
“Then why did he thank you?”
“Because he thinks I helped him escape,” cried Volker. “That maniac thinks that we had some sort of agreement, that all of this is part of some plan I had to free him. He said that he knew it back when he first came to me in the infirmary. ”
“Why would he think that?” asked Goat suspiciously.
Volker shook his head, but he said, “Once, months ago, when I was briefly alone with the prisoner, I made some kind of veiled threat to him. I said something like … ‘After you go, you won’t be gone. You’ll be with us forever. You’ll know forever. ’ Something like that. It was a threat. I wanted him to fear what would happen to him when the execution day finally arrived. I didn’t want him to have a single night’s peaceful sleep. ”
“But he didn’t take it that way?” said Trout as he sat back down. He nodded to himself. “Yeah, I can see it. Twisted mind like his. ”
Volker gave another shake of his head. “On the phone … I told him the truth. I told him everything that I had planned to do to him. I told him that it was still going to consume him. I told him that he was still going to be punished for what he did. ”
“How did he react,” asked Trout.
“Gibbon laughed at me. Then he said that he would be coming for me. A hollow threat … he has no idea where I live. And, I suspect, he doesn’t have your resources for finding out. ”
Trout sneered. “But you were going to shoot yourself anyway. Just in case?”
The doctor said nothing.
Goat was shaking his head “Homer Gibbon never died? He’s alive…?”
Volker cleared his throat. “In a manner of speaking. Homer Gibbon did die. He was clinically and legally dead. ”
“But it was a dodge,” suggested Goat.
“No. He was dead. His body was dead. His mind was…” Volker shrugged. “Even in Project Lucifer we had no word for it. ‘Elsewhere’ is as good as anything. ”
“But what about oxygen starvation?” demanded Goat. “That destroys brain cells, right?”
“It does in every case except this. The parasites use their own larvae—a network of them linked through mucus—very much like a charged plasma. It’s fascinating and—”
“Seriously, Doc?” asked Trout, jiggling the pistol. “You want to brag? Now?”
Volker colored. “Sorry. ”
“So,” Goat said, “these parasites, these wasp thingies, kept Gibbon’s brain alive?”
“No. ” Volker looked frustrated. “Gentlemen, in order to discuss this, and to have you understand it, we have to step outside of our normal scientific lexicon. We are not discussing life or death as we have always known it. Those have always been the only two states of existence. However the activity of these parasites, and the unique way in which they protect and maintain their host, has no parallel in nature. This is a third state of existence. Something entirely new, though hinted at in the religion of vodou. This is, to give it a name, a ‘living death. ’ Homer Gibbon did die. That is a fact. But the parasites maintained a key few functions within his body so that, instead of dying, Gibbon transitioned into the state of living death. His body is certifiably dead. Right now his skin is putrefying, and he is almost certainly far along in the process of rigor mortis. He is dead. However, the parasites require that certain motor functions remain intact. When I spoke to him on the phone, he was a … reduced … personality. Less keenly intelligent, and yet still capable of accessing his memories, still able to speak and reason. ”
“That’s horrible…” murmured Trout. “And you wanted him to be like that in his grave?”
“It was a punishment, damn it!” bellowed Volker. “You were at his execution, Mr. Trout. You know the scope and nature of his crimes. Do I need to remind you of what he did to children? To babies?”
Trout said nothing.
&nbs
p; The doctor pounded his fist on the arm of the chair. “I have no regrets for what I had planned for Gibbon. Even with the amount of suffering he would endure … weeks, perhaps months before he truly died … I think he is getting off more lightly than his crimes deserve. Tell me I am wrong. ”