Syndrome E

25

Lucie hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. How could she even begin to forget the horrors viewed in the neuroimagery unit? How could she rest easily after such a burning flood of darkness? Huddled in a corner of the hospital room with her laptop, she replayed over and over the hidden film that Beckers had burned for her on a DVD.

The film within a film, adjusted to the right contrast, speed, and brightness settings.

The one about the rabbits and the children.

Children, for the love of God.

Once more she pressed PLAY, feeling the need to understand, beyond the images themselves, what could have happened in those distant, forgotten years.

The images succeeded one another at the rate of five frames per second. It made for a staccato viewing experience, with gaps in information between each scene. But the feeling of movement and continuity was almost there, filtering through at the edge of the senses. With repeated watchings, Lucie’s eye had learned to focus on the scene that interested her, and to screen out the initial, superimposed, parasitic image. At this point, she saw only a single film: the hidden film.

Twelve children, girls, were standing, squeezed together, hands clutching their chests. They were all wearing pajamas that were surely white, a bit too large for their slight frames. Their eyes were rolling in their sockets, and almost every face was twisted in thick, tenacious fear. It was as if a heavy black storm full of monsters was thundering over them.

Almost every face… Because the one on the child from the swing was frozen in a cold expression, the same emptiness in her eyes as when staring down the immobilized bull. She stood in front of the group, at the head of the line, and didn’t move.

Thirty or forty rabbits, little creatures not yet fully grown, were trembling in a corner. Ears flat back, fur raised, whiskers twitching. The cameraman was probably located in another corner, which allowed him to keep both the girls and the rabbits in his field of vision, at a distance of about five or six yards.

The child from the swing suddenly turned her gaze left. Quite clearly, she was looking at someone unseen by the viewer. The same mysterious presence that hovered over everything was lurking outside the camera’s range and seemed to be coordinating the whole scene.

Who are you? Lucie thought. Why are you hiding? You need to see without being seen, don’t you?

Suddenly, the girl’s lips pulled back, uncovering her teeth. Her features creased. Lucie had the sudden impression of confronting an incarnation of absolute evil. Like a warrior, the child began running toward the rabbits, which hopped in every direction. With a rapid movement, she grabbed one by the scruff of its neck and, with a grimace that must have been accompanied by a shriek, ripped its head off.

Blood spattered over her face.

She dropped the tattered animal and attacked another, still yelling. Lucie clenched her fists. Even though the film was silent, one could gauge the power, the savageness of the child’s scream.

In a cacophony that the cop could easily imagine, all the girls started panicking. They huddled tighter together, while the terrified rabbits ran between their legs. Their faces turned toward the corner where the girl from the swing had looked the first time. Lucie was certain that someone was standing there, talking. Someone the cameraman had taken care never to film. No doubt the organizer of these abominations. The guru. The monster god.

The children’s features tensed further, their shoulders drooped, their terror burst forth. One of the girls rushed out from the group with a howl and leaped at the animal hopping in front of her. She grabbed it by the ears and slammed it against a wall.

The next pictures defied anything the human spirit could conceive.

Carnage, hecatomb, madness: this is what emerged from the horrifying sequence. One by one, the little girls set about slaughtering the animals. Spurts of silent shouts, blood, bodies flying, crashing against walls, or being trampled. No limit to the horror, the barbarity. The image wavered as the camera hesitated, not knowing where to turn next. The cameraman tried to catch the girls’ faces and movements, zooming in and out to capture the dizzying quality of the scene.

In less than a minute, the forty or so rabbits had been massacred. Dark spots polluted faces and clothes. The children were panting, on their feet, on all fours, squatting, completely disunited from one another. Their faces had become haggard, their eyes staring at guts and blood.

The film ended. Black screen on the computer.

Lucie folded down her laptop with a long sigh. She opened her hands, palms stretched toward her face: her fingers were still shaking. Uncontrollable tremors that hadn’t left her since the day before. Once again, she felt a physical need to hold her sick daughter. In pajamas, she rushed toward Juliette’s bed and hugged the sleeping child in her arms. On the verge of tears, she caressed her hair tenderly. She rarely wept these past years. You can sob so much during a period of depression that it seems like you’re all cried out. But here, she felt the faucets threatening to open again, that a rain of grief could submerge her. A cop’s equilibrium is so fragile. It’s like a nutshell that slowly cracks open, with every tap of a manhunt or crime scene.

Feeling an irrepressible need, Lucie got up suddenly, picked up her cell phone, and dialed Sharko’s number, which she’d gotten from administrative services. She had to talk about this case with someone. Spew it all up into an understanding ear, someone who could listen, who was in tune with her. Or so she hoped. To her great dismay, she got his voice mail. She took a breath and blurted out:

“Henebelle here. We’ve got some news about the film—I’d like to talk to you about it. How’s it going in Egypt? Call me when you can.”

She hung up, stretched out on her back, and closed her eyes. The film was her obsession, its images seared into her brain. Kashmareck hadn’t been very talkative on the way back either. Though they should have been going over the case in detail, each one preferred to concentrate on the strip of asphalt, lost in private thoughts. The captain had merely said, “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, Lucie. Tomorrow, okay?”

Okay, tomorrow. It was already tomorrow. A sleepless night populated with monstrosities.

Juliette suddenly turned and nestled against her mother’s chest.

“Mom…”

“It’s okay, baby, it’s all okay. Go back to sleep. It’s still early.”

Sleepy voice, full of love.

“Will you stay with me?”

“I’ll stay with you. Forever.”

“I’m hungry, Mom.”

Lucie’s face beamed.

“You’re hungry? That’s great! You want me to—?”

But the girl had already fallen back asleep. Lucie sank into a sigh of relief. Maybe the end of the tunnel. This particular one, at least.

Children, she thought, returning to her case. Hardly older than Juliette. What monster could have forced them to act that way? What mechanism could have triggered such violence in them? Lucie could still see the room, the outfits, the antiseptic environment. Was it a children’s hospital, like this one? Were those girls patients suffering from some commonplace illness, or a serious mental disturbance? Was the man who always kept out of camera range a doctor? A scientist?

The doctor and the filmmaker. A cursed pair, who had worked together some fifty-five years ago. And whose ghosts had perhaps returned.

These unanswered questions circulated endlessly in her head. Flashes popped before her eyes, while dawn gradually spread its first colors over the steel and concrete of the medical center.

Who had created that sick film, and for what reason?

What had they put those poor girls through, lost in the thankless anonymity of concealed images?

If there had been a large cave nearby, Lucie would have taken refuge in the darkest corner, knees huddled against her chest, and thought, thought, and thought some more. She would have tried to give the killer a face, flesh out the silhouette. She liked to feel the killer she was tracking, smell the odor he left in his wake. And she was pretty good at that game; Kashmareck could attest to that. Beckers, with his scanners, would surely have seen in her brain an area that didn’t light up in anyone else when confronted with a scene of violence: that of pleasure and reward. Not that she felt any pleasure; she pretty much felt like puking at each new investigation, vomiting to the death before the horrors that humans were capable of inflicting. But an invisible lure snared her every time. A hook that ripped out her throat and destroyed her inside, but she couldn’t get rid of.

This time, it wasn’t a little fishing gear that had titillated her.

No, the line was much heavier than that.

Perfect for going after sharks.