The Madness of Annie Radford Page 22

  Something in German.

  “Katia,” Annie continued, “I'm only -”

  Suddenly she let out a gasp of pain as she felt a knife slide straight into her back. She flinched, causing the blade to slide against bone, and then she reached out and grabbed the side of the door in order to hold herself up. Already, she could feel blood soaking down her back. She tried to turn, but her knees buckled and she dropped down. As she landed, she made sure to hold Katia tight, to keep her from getting hurt, even as her mind was racing with all the possibilities. And then, slowly, Katia pulled herself free and stepped back, and Annie looked up to see the little girl grinning down at her.

  “What did you...”

  Reaching around, Annie felt the knife's handle sticking out from her back.

  Katia replied in German, muttering a few words.

  “Annie, run!” Nurse Winter screamed, her voice echoing inside Annie's skull. “Get out of there! It's him! I don't know how, but it's him!”

  “What did you do?” Annie gasped. “Why did you...”

  She waited, but Katia merely stared down at her.

  Opening her mouth to ask another question, Annie instead felt a sudden burst of pain in her spine, enough to send her crumpling down onto her side. Rolling over, she saw Katia standing over her.

  “Hello Annie Radford,” Katia said, still grinning. “It's been a long time since our encounter at Lakehurst, but I'm glad that you're going to be here to witness the end. You remember me, don't you?” Her smile grew. “Surely you remember your old friend, Doctor Rudolf Langheim?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  November 22nd, 1942.

  “Come in!” a voice barked from the other side of the door.

  “This whole thing gives me the creeps,” Dolan muttered, turning and looking back down at Katia as the terrified little girl stood a few steps further back. “There's something wrong with her. We should just keep gassing her again and again until it works.”

  “Come in!” the voice shouted again, sounding even more impatient this time. “And be quick. What do you want?”

  Sighing, Dolan opened the door and stepped into the office.

  Still thinking about his annoying neighbor Karlheim, Mannix grabbed Katia's shoulder and pushed her into the next room. Although he'd agreed with Dolan that the whole situation with the little girl was rather unusual, he had no particular interest in figuring out what had happened. He simply wanted to hand the girl over to somebody else, so that she'd be somebody else's problem, and then he could get back to his duties.

  And to the task of figuring out how he was going to humiliate that pig-faced moron Karlheim.

  “Doctor Langheim?” Dolan said cautiously. “We're very sorry to disturb you, but something happened in one of the chambers and we were told to bring the girl to you immediately.”

  Glancing up from his papers, Doctor Rudolf Langheim stared for a moment at the child.

  “Why is she not dead already,” he muttered darkly, “with the rest of her wretched kind?”

  “That's just it,” Dolan replied. “She was put in one of the chambers, and the gas was administered. And then, when we went in to clear the bodies... She was still alive. She was standing there, staring at us.”

  “Then do it again,” Langheim said.

  “We did.” Dolan hesitated. “Sir, she's survived six gassings now. Each time, we put her in the chamber with some new arrivals, and each time she survives.”

  Langheim hesitated, before opening a drawer in his desk.

  “And you brought her straight here?” he asked.

  Dolan nodded.

  “Did you tell anybody else?”

  “Absolutely not,” Dolan replied. “We're aware of the order, Sir. We know that there's a rule here, that anything unusual is to be immediately brought to your attention.We understand that people who do this are... Well, there's been talk of rewards. I don't know what kind of rewards, but I'm sure that you're a very generous man.”

  “I am indeed,” Langheim said, before turning to Mannix. “And what about you? Have you mentioned the girl to anyone?”

  “No,” Mannix murmured.

  “A man of few words, I see.”

  Mannix hesitated, before nodding.

  “You can leave the girl with me,” Langheim said after a moment, looking straight at Katia. “Gentlemen, your cooperation is greatly appreciated. I shall provide you with your rewards shortly.”

  “Of course,” Dolan said, before he and Mannix turned and headed back toward the door. “Come on, let's get out of -”

  Suddenly a shot rang out, and the back of Dolan's head exploded as his body slumped forward and hit the wall.

  Katia screamed.

  Mannix stared at his dead colleague. His first instinct was to run, but then he realized that maybe Dolan has deserved to be shot. After pondering this for a moment, Mannix decided against causing a fuss, so he turned to go to the door, hoping that he'd simply be allowed to leave.

  A fraction of a second later, a second bullet blasted the front of his skull clean away and he too fell dead to the floor.

  Katia rushed past them, just as the door swung shut and the lock clicked.

  “Little girl,” Langheim said, still holding the gun as he stepped around his desk, watching as Katia desperately tried to get the door open, “your suffering is not going to last for much longer. You appear to have a very special gift, something very rare, but I always knew one of your kind would be delivered to me.” Stepping up behind her, he put a hand on her shoulder, causing her to immediately freeze. “It is destiny,” he continued with a faint smile. “I am a great man, and it is my destiny to live on and on.”

  He crouched down and looked at the back of Katia's head.

  “You will be my method of ultimate escape,” he purred. “Not yet, but one day. Hitler is a fool, his strategies will lead to nothing but defeat, but the Americans will want me. And eventually something will happen to my body. I know that. I shall need another, and you will be the perfect vessel. Nobody will ever expect that I am inside a child.” He leaned closer, as Katia began to soil herself and as dribbles of urine spattered against the floor between her bare feet. “You are right to be scared,” Langheim whispered, as Katia began to sob. “You are going to suffer so terribly, but try to remember that you will be helping me. Try to think of the bigger picture behind your inevitable sacrifice. One day, you will aid me in taking control of the entire world.”

  ***

  Several years ago

  “My great achievements are ready to be shared with the world,” Langheim's voice continued, reaching out from his mind as he sat in his wheelchair at Lakehurst. “The results of my experiments have been written up and sent for publication. As a result, my presence here will become known. I refuse to be captured by these idiots, so I prefer to let my physical form die. I have no doubt that in death, I will be recognized as the great genius that I have always been.”

  “But you won't be around to enjoy it,” Nurse Winter told him.

  “That's where you're wrong,” he replied. “My body will be destroyed in the inferno, but my mind is already out there, floating through the world as radio waves. I will be everywhere at once. I will see and hear everything. Of course, my peers will condemn my past even as they recognize my brilliance, but I'll be able to hear their private thoughts. I'll be in all their minds, and I'll see that they truly respect me. I won't need my own body. I'll be everywhere.”

  Around them, the pipes began to creak once again, as if Lakehurst was struggling to hold itself together.

  “You changed me,” Nurse Winter said to Langheim. “You manipulated me and made me who I am today.”

  “Of course I did,” Langheim's voice continued. “It was necessary, and...” He paused. “It's too late for you,” he continued finally. “Morris did his job well. It's time for Lakehurst to go up in flames.”

  And then it happened.

  A huge explosion ripped through Lakehurst, destroying
the lower levels and immediately weakening the supports of the rest. As the floor gave way, the ceiling crashed down and smashed against Langheim. His wheelchair fell and his body, still strapped into place, tumbled through the burning wreckage. For a few seconds, he reached out with his mind, trying to flee his body, but somehow he felt himself still anchored into place. It was as if his brain wouldn't quite let his mind be free.

  Finally Langheim came to rest on one of the lower floors, tilted onto his side. The heat was intense and he could already feel his flesh blistering, but he'd learned long ago to withstand such pain. Besides, he wouldn't have been able to scream even if he'd wanted, so he focused on reminding himself that he'd prepared for this moment. For all his talk of no longer needing his body, he knew that his brain was not quite so replaceable. He had a theory that his mind could survive as radio waves even after the destruction of the brain itself, but – despite all his bravado earlier – he wasn't quite ready to put that theory to the test. Not yet, not when the cost of an error would be the snubbing out of his brilliance.

  So instead he waited.

  Sure enough, after a few minutes, he felt himself being pulled out of Lakehurst's burning wreckage. His acolytes, the people who would one day form the spark of another cult, had been positioned near the building, ready to pull him out if necessary. They'd found the signal from a beacon hidden in his chair, and now they were braving the inferno to drag the old man inch by inch from the ruins. Langheim himself could only let out a faint gasp, and he could already feel blood running from several wounds on his neck and chest. He knew his old, original body would not be of use for much longer, but he also knew that he'd prepared for this moment.

  A private jet was waiting to spirit him away to a distant hospital, where a terrified young girl would finally give up her body in order to ensure Langheim's survival.

  ***

  Two weeks ago

  “Do you hear me, Doctor Langheim? Please, tell me you hear me.”

  Once again, Doctor Langheim opened his eyes. This time he felt that the rushing in his head had subsided a little more, and as he looked out across the interview room he realized he'd seen this place before.

  “Doctor Langheim,” Malcolm continued, “can you tell me your first name?”

  Langheim's lips began to move, but for a moment he couldn't quite remember the answer.

  “Rudolf,” he whispered finally, as a memory of his mother flooded back into his mind. He saw her kind, smiling face. “Rudy.”

  “That's a huge breakthrough,” Malcolm said, turning to one of his colleagues. “That's the first time since the transfer that he's shown signs of knowing who he is.”

  “I am Doctor Rudolf Langheim,” Langheim continued, “and I...”

  His voice trailed off for a moment, and now in his mind's eye he remembered being at Lakehurst, and he remembered falling through the burning building while still strapped into his wheelchair. For a few seconds he struggled to make sense of these memories, until he realized that the moment must finally have come.

  “Show me,” he whispered.

  “Show you what, Doctor Langheim?”

  “Show me my face.”

  “I think we should wait a -”

  “Show me!” he snapped. “You work for me, remember? Show me my god-damn face!”

  Malcolm hesitated, before taking a small mirror from one of the nearby carts. Still, he held back for a moment, not quite wanting to let Langheim see his new reflection. Not yet.

  “The original plan was to do this gradually,” he explained, “and -”

  Before he could finish, Langheim reached out and grabbed the mirror, quickly turning it around until he saw a face staring back at him. Not his own face, however. This was the face of a young girl, and there was still vestiges of fear in her eyes, even as Langheim himself looked out from inside the skull.

  “Poor little Katia,” Langheim purred as he saw her face in the mirror. “Tell me, what did you do with her brain?”

  “You told us to destroy it, so we did,” Malcolm replied. “We used the acid.”

  “Good,” Langheim replied, still unable to stop staring at the reflection. “And what of the entity? Have you been able to track its precise location?”

  “At first we assumed it had been freed during the destruction of Lakehurst,” Malcolm explained, “but later we learned that it seemed to still be trapped in the old mining tunnels beneath the surface. Fortunately, it was subsequently freed during an incident involving staff from the Middleford Cross hospital. Since then, the entity seems to have drifted in the weather system, although we've picked up signs of its consciousness. It seems to be aware, at least on some level, of attempts to draw it down into a human body. We believe it has noticed the efforts of the various cults.”

  “Such useful idiots,” Langheim replied. “There is no -”

  Suddenly he winced, and for a moment he once again forgot who he was or why he was seeing a young girl's face in the mirror.

  “This is too much for you,” Malcolm said, reaching out to take the mirror.

  Langheim pulled away.

  “It's been a few years since you were rescued from Lakehurst,” Malcolm explained. “The transfer itself was fairly easy, although we had to make certain adjustments to ensure that your brain would fit. But as anticipated, the recovery time has been long. You won't remember, but for the past couple of years you've been...”

  His voice trailed off, as if he hesitated to contradict his boss.

  “I've been what?” Langheim asked.

  “Well, this is only the second time we've been able to untie you. The transfer induced a form of madness on a level that I've never seen before. There was screaming, there was violence. We tried to untie you a few months ago and...”

  Again, his voice trailed off.

  “And what happened?” Langheim asked. “I assume from the look on your face that the experiment was not, at that point, a success?”

  “You attacked the orderly,” Malcolm said. “In your madness, you bit into his neck.”

  “Did he survive?”

  Malcolm shook his head.

  “Impressive,” Langheim said with a faint, satisfied nod. “It's good to know that even in this repulsive little body, I still have some degree of power.” He held his hands up and stared for a moment at the fingers. “Most of my former colleagues would be repulsed by the idea of inhabiting a little Jew's body. Fortunately I am made of sterner stuff. This body is so remarkable, it transcends any other qualities that might appear negative. I was never one of the raving lunatics back in Germany. I was always much more logical, although the lunatics were very useful at times.”

  “Until today, you didn't seem to even know your own name,” Malcolm explained. “There were times when we wondered whether you ever would again.”

  “But now I do,” Langheim replied. Still he stared at his hands, as he tried to steady his thoughts. Finally, however, he returned his gaze to the face in the mirror. “I am truly brilliant,” he continued finally. “I have managed to survive such a dramatic change, and a recovery time of just a few years is really rather exceptional. Certainly I anticipate the entity struggling a great deal more, now that it is free from the ruins of Lakehurst. I might even -”

  Before he could finish, he let out a faint gasp, and he felt a foul taste in the back of his mouth. As his lips parted once more, a faint cloud of gas emerged from the back of his throat.

  “There are small pockets of Zyklon B still in the girl's lungs,” Malcolm explained. “Not enough to be harmful, but the nature of her captivity of the past few decades means that they weren't able to be expelled until now. The process should be over within a few hours, but until then it might be a little... unpleasant.”

  Langheim hesitated for a moment, before stepping forward and starting to make his way across the laboratory. For the first few steps he struggled, unable to get accustomed to the legs and feet of a young girl, but he forced himself to keep going and finally he
stopped to steady himself against a nearby bench. Looking down, he spotted several scalpels and saws ranged out on a dish.

  “Tell me,” he said after a few seconds, “are we done here?”

  “Done?” Malcolm paused. “The main part of our work is complete. Sally and I are the only ones here now. As you ordered, we've run the place with a bare-bones staff. I wouldn't say that we're completely done, however. There's still more work to be done, to ensure that you adapt properly to your new body. Plus, we need to decommission the site and get everything ready to be dismantled, and then there's the shredding process to go through. We estimate that it should take between five and eight weeks to get the entire job done, and to ensure that nothing is left behind.”

  “Fire will do all that,” Langheim whispered, reaching out and taking one of the scalpels in his hand. “And I require no further adjustment. I need to draw attention to myself, so that people come for me. The cults will be ready, and the entity must by now have loosed itself from Lakehurst. The cults know about this Katia child. The idiots will take me straight to the entity, and then I can complete my work.”

  “What was that?” Malcolm asked, stepping up behind him. “What do you need us to do?”

  “I need you to get out of my way,” Langheim continued quietly, adjusting his grip on the scalpel's handle, preparing to strike. “I need you to die.”

  ***

  A few hours later

  “What's your name, honey?” the man asked, still smiling into Katia's face. “I'm Robert. This is my wife Carol and our daughter Martina. We're friends, we're just here visiting from out of town. Do you live round here? Do you have someone looking after you?”

  “We can't adopt some homeless kid,” the man's wife sighed. “Just give her some nickels if you're so worried, and let's go!”

  Behind his back, Langheim gripped the scalpel even tighter in Katia's hand. There was already blood on the blade, and on his fingers too. Having killed Malcolm and his assistant, he'd already regained his taste for murder.