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Entry tags:
"Pure Life"
"Pure Life"
4/15/2019
I.
"How are you even talking? You don't have any lungs."
On the upper surface of the gelatinous blob, a mouth developed without tongue and teeth. "I don't understand it myself," said a mellow voice with a hint of sibilance. "It just happens."
Calvin Calvert had yanked off his battered white fedora and crumpled it in both hands, wringing the hat as if trying to get water out of it. "For that matter, how can you think? What do you use for a nervous system? I can see right through you when the light hits you. There's no brain, no internal organs at all. You're like a giant clot of pink jello!"
The size of a bean bag chair, the creature flattened out its lower surface against the floor of the abandoned house. The mouth smacked its lips and replied, "Beats me. I don't seem to know much about the situation. Maybe my... errr, awareness is scattered through my substance. I can see in all directions without growing eyes. This is beyond me."
Keeping a respectful distance, Calvert pointed his much-abused hat at the thing. "Now listen, don't get any ideas about absorbing me. I've seen horror movies. You're not going to swallow ME up."
"No, no, don't worry. I ate a cat a few hours ago."
"You what?!"
"Mangy old orange cat. Homeless. It sniffed at me and, well, I sucked it in. A few bones took too long to digest, so I excreted them over there in the corner."
"Oh..." Calvert said. "Poor cat." In the fading light slanting in through grimy windows, he found a broken-down recliner and eased himself down into it gingerly. A spring poked the side of his leg. "But then, I suppose the cat didn't feel sorry for the mice it caught in its lifetime."
The blob heaved up higher and slid closer to where the journalist was sitting, not something Calvert appreciated. "You know what's funny?" the mouth on the creature asked. "I started to feel a bit like a cat does after I digested one. I want to curl up in a sunbeam and sleep all day. I want to mark my territory."
"As long as you don't expect me to scratch you under the chin. If you had a chin."
The blob shifted shape again, oozing around Calvert and stretching up toward the window. "Getting dark out soon. Maybe I should try to make it to the woods over there."
The journalist levered himself up out of the chair and moved a little closer to the creature. Not too close. "Hmm. I'm not too sure that's a good idea, buddy. You'd have rabbits and field mice to eat, sure. But what if a hunter puts a few .30-.30 rounds into you?"
"I don't know," the creature replied. "Maybe they'd pass harmlessly through me. Or maybe they'd pop my outer surface and I'd fall apart. I'm not exactly eager to find out."
Calvin Calvert scratched the back of his head. His demeanor matched his rumpled old white summer suit. The necktie hung like it had not been properly knotted in years. "Let me think this over. I've been investigating the occult and the uncanny for fifteen years now. My blog WHAT REALLY HAPPENED experiences at least three thousand hits a day and the government has warned me to keep quiet a hundred times. But, old pal, you are something new in my experience."
"I do recall having a name. Not like Bill or Sam, but more what I was called. They referred to me 'Pure Life.'"
"Fair enough. Pure Life, Pure Life, I'll shorten it to P.L., how's that?"
The mass of pink protoplasm raised part of itself to reach the window, evidently so it could somehow see outside. "Fine with me."
"Tell you what, P.L.," Calvert offered, "You stick around for now and I'll contact a real expert in the supernatural. Great guy. He's supposed to be retired, but I'm sure he will jump at the chance to help you or I don't know the Dire Wolf."
II.
Jeremy Bane had only checked into the Holiday Inn on the outskirts of Gloverton twenty minutes earlier. Decades of living on the dark backstreets of life led him to examine the room with both a sensor and with his own eyes. He found no recording devices. The windows faced, not outside, but to the open court which held a Jacuzzi, some video games and junk food machines. He would have preferred a quick exit route to the parking lot but this was no so bad. As he kept reminding himself, most of his worst enemies were dead or exiled to realms from which they could not escape easily, so he should relax his vigilance slightly.
Still, lifelong habits were hard to break. He had jammed a hard rubber wedge into the window frame and another beneath the door before he felt secure enough to relax. At sixty-two, Bane's full head of black hair had a liberal sprinkling of white in it, and wrinkles had gathered at the corners of his eyes and the edges of his mouth. But he remained lean and muscular, still moving with decisive energy of a younger man. He would always be the Dire Wolf. Coming out of the shower, his body showed the long hard muscles of a runner with no thickening around the waist as yet. He was toweling himself dry and standing by a hook on the door from which hung a one-piece bodysuit of what looked like dark silk, debating whether to wear it.
This was the fine-textured Trom armor which dispersed impact over its entire surface. He had been invariably wearing it most days for the past forty years. It had saved his life hundreds of times from everything to bullets and swords to fangs and acid splashes. It wasn't uncomfortable, he had to admit, and yet today he suddenly felt a strong reluctance to tug it on again. Maybe he was getting sick of living like a soldier in a hostile land. Enough daydreaming. He left the armor where it was, got into plain cotton T-shirt, briefs and socks before pulling on black slacks and a bright red pullover shirt.
Instead of feeling free, though, he only felt uneasy. Bane strapped a leather sheath to each forearm, making sure the silver bladed daggers were ready to be drawn. Going without them would have felt like a nightmare where you find yourself naked in public. A loose red flannel shirt concealed the sheaths with its sleeves. He glanced over at the clock on the dresser and saw seven o'clock, exactly when he had requested a meal from room service. As always, he felt ravenous. His enhanced speed had a price of being always hungry.
The Dire Wolf removed the wedge holding the door to the corridor, pulled the chain and peered out to see a young man wheeling a cart with two domed meal trays and a sixty four ounce bottle of seltzer. Bane heard his stomach rumble angrily. As he gave the porter a tip, he spotted something approaching that made his heart sink.
Calvert! Calvin Calvert of all people, hustling around the corner by the ice machine and waving that miserable old fedora like a flag. "Jeremy! Hey, Jeremy, wait, it's me!"
Ten years earlier, maybe even five years earlier, Bane would have promptly slammed and locked the door in the journalist's face. He had inevitably mellowed with time, although he might have said that a more accurate way to put it was he'd gotten worn down. He pulled the cart inside and turned to allow Calvert to barge in as if invited, getting a look at the old nuisance as he passsed by. Calvert's dark red hair was thinner, his belly a bit more pronounced. The dubious journalist strode directly into the bathroom without asking and slammed the door behind him.
"Please, feel free," Bane muttered to himself as he dropped down on the edge of the queen-sized bed. One of the meals was beer battered fish and steak chips. The Dire Wolf plowed into the food eagerly. Even though he ate as quickly as always, he was barely finishing the last chip when Calvert came storming out again.
"I bet you're surprised to see me!" the journalist cried out, tugging a chair over to sit facing his host.
"Very surprised," Bane agreed, glad he had at least downed enough food to hold him for the moment. "How did you know I was in Gloverton? We're two hundred miles from Manhattan. For that matter, what are YOU doing here?"
"I have found something big, Jeremy, monumental. It's like seeing Bigfoot riding the Loch Ness Monster out of a flying saucer. This will rock the world, I tell you. I see accepting a Pulitzer in my future."
"I see breaking rocks in the hot sun in your future," Bane snapped. He wanted the second meal but knew Calvert would try to mooch it. "First, how did you know I was here? Straight answer!"
"Oh, well, that was our mutual friend, the Trom Girl. What a sweetheart. Gosh, you know it's almost been ten years since I helped her on that 'Light That Brings Darkness Case.' You know, where that crazy old Harry Copely was materializing Tulkas. Megan and I exchanged numbers in case I ever found what she discreetly called 'a Midnight War menace too big for me to handle alone.'"
"Oh brother," Bane mumbled. He lifted the dome on the other tray and sniffed a double serving of Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and wax beans with two buttered dinner rolls. Sure enough, Calvert leaned so far over he nearly fell out of his chair.
"Gosh, that smells good. You know, I drove for five hours today to get up here in the boondocks, all I had was coffee and a Slim Jim..."
"Hold on, hold on a second." Bane took his utensils from the first meal and transferred half the second meal to the empty plate. He then handed one of the trays to Calvert. "Here you go. Luckily, I did order double servings."
Seeing that the blogger had plunged into the food too deeply to talk, Bane took a moderate chunk of Salisbury steak and chewed it as he said, "Let me guess. You stumbled on something scary. You wanted to find me, but since I closed my office last year, you phoned Megan instead. She told you I had mentioned coming up here to meet Dr Rodenwald. Am I on the right track?"
"Sharp as ever," Calvert agreed. He came close to inhaling the mashed potatoes and nearly choked. Bane got paper cups from the bathroom and poured them each some of the seltzer. After a minute, Calvert was able to continue, "That Megan is a doll. If I were twenty years younger, well, she still wouldn't go out with me but it's a nice daydream. Didn't you meet my second wife Daffodil? She was running around with the Poker Brothers..."
"Calvin! Get to the point. What did you find that you need to tell me about?"
Something changed in Calvert's manner. He placed the meal tray aside and clasped his hands in front of him. "I know you don't take me seriously, Jeremy. But tonight you have to start. Earlier I saw a monster, what looks like a single-cell organism the size of an easy chair. A giant clot of goo. It talked to me in coherent sentences. Listen. I think it has been eating people."
III.
Forty minutes later, even the attention-loving Calvert was getting tired of repeating his story and being questioned about minute details. "This is as bad as being grilled by the cops," he complained.
"I won't try to get your sources identified. Reporters protect them, even bloggers like yourself," said Bane. He had put on his black sport jacket with all its concealed pockets holding various miniature gadgets. Now he examined his long-barreled Smith & Wesson .38 before snapping it and its holster to the back of his belt.
"Even bloggers like myself...?! Well I like that. Anyway, Jeremy, the monster is hopefully still in that abandoned house on Monroe Street. If anybody can handle that thing, you're the one."
Except for the black turtleneck, the Dire Wolf was in his familiar uniform and he seemed more intense than a few minutes earlier. He dropped down on the edge of the bed facing Calvert in the plain wooden chair. "I'm expecting a call from Dr Rodenwald any moment. It's related to what you've been telling me. The question now is what to do with you?"
"Of course you can count on me, Jeremy. I'll help you."
Despite his annoyance with this impossible nuisance, Bane could not repress a wry smile. "If I throw you out in the hall, you'll find a way to follow me. When I meet with Rodenwald and when I go after this blob whatever it is, you'll somehow tag along and get in the way, and I'll have to deal with you as well as the threat."
"Oh, I wouldn't put it that way," objected Calvert with a splutter. "You'll find my assistance invaluable. Did I tell you about the time I uncovered the couple who were skinning hitchhikers and making leather goods from them? That was in Buffalo."
"My point," the Dire Wolf continued, "is that I might as well take you with me where I can keep an eye on you."
"Great, great, maybe an exclusive interview when this is wrapped up? There's not many public statements from you on record."
"No interviews," Bane said. His Link beeped and he spoke into it before clipping it back onto his belt. "Here we go. Dr Rodenwald's nurse says they're ready in Room 412. Let's go."
Leaving the room and heading down the long east-west axis of the hotel, Calvin Calvert tried to straighten himself up without success. His pockets were so crammed with scraps of paper, pens and pencils, receipts and candy wrappers that he could only rearrange the debris from one area to another. As usual, he carried a spare burner phone in case he was searched.
"You know, Jeremy, we've been friends for a long time now," he began.
"We have never been friends," Bane interrupted, not slacking a pace that verged on a full run. "You keep forcing yourself into my business and almost get yourself killed each time. And usually almost get me killed as well."
"You cut me deep with your ingratitude," the blogger replied, struggling to keep up with that stride. "Anyway, who is this Dr Rodenwald? He's not THE Dr Curtis Rodenwald who gave lectures about genetic reconstruction a few years ago?"
"That's the one," Bane said. "Listen, this is not for publication. Get me? If any of this shows up on your website, I'll have to hurt you. Rodenwald worked for the research arm of John Grim's organization."
"Oh, THAT joker again. He's been dead for thirty-something years but his inventions are still causing trouble. You know, our friend Megan told me that John Grim was a low-level telepath. He stole tech from the Trom who were secretly on his team and he didn't even realize it. He thought the breakdowns were his own ideas."
Bane stopped in mid-stride and fixed a cold steady eye on the blogger. "I'm surprised Megan told you so much. She's pretty good at not spilling information the public doesn't need to know."
"Heh, heh, I can be a smooth talker. Young women find me charming," Calvert laughed.
Not trusting himself to respond to that, the Dire Wolf set off again. "There's 407. We're here. 412." He rapped sharply with his knuckles on the door and a second later an eye scrutinized him through the tiny round porthole.
"Mr Bane?" asked a voice.
"Yes. The doctor wanted to see me as soon as possible," Bane answered, gesturing for Calvert to put the cell phone away.
When the door was opened from within, a husky brown-bearded man wearing green scrubs ushered them in. In a wheelchair with a blanket over his lap, a man not much more than a frail little bundle of bones and skin lifted his head and tried to smile. Deepset eyes were feverish over dark circles.
"Dr Rodenwald? I'm Jeremy Bane," The Dire Wolf said as he entered. He thought it better not to offer his hand to shake. "You left a message to meet you here tonight."
"Yes. Thank you so much." Rodenwald's voice was weak and reedy, but his words were perfectly coherent. "I don't have much time, I'm afraid. The doctors released me so I could die at home. Poor Lewis had to be nagged into bringing me here."
"It's a violation of professional ethics," admitted the young man called Lewis. "But I'm convinced the safety of the public is at risk." He gave Calvin Calvert a dubious gaze but neither asked who this stranger was who had come along with Bane.
"I am sure you recall the Bogus experiment from a few years ago," the ailing old man said. "Rumor has it that you captured the... ah, specimen. Bogus has not been heard from since."
Bane did not answer the implied question. "Are you saying that another Bogus was created? Don't tell me it escaped as well."
"Give me a second," Rodenwald said. "I get out of breath so easily. Yes. We were working with a sophisticated neo-protein, integrating artificial enzymes in its substance. Pure Life, we called it. It turned out quite differently than the Bogus specimen. We had high hopes its functioning might supplement stem cells to provide treatment for many diseases... even cancer."
"Where is this Pure Life right now, doctor?"
"Ah. There's the problem." He suffered a wheezing fit for over a minute before coughing up dark phlegm into a tissue. "With your record, Mr Bane, I could not think of anyone better qualified to take up the hunt."
"Oh, a hunt won't be necessary," Calvert put in. "I can take you right to the Pure Life."
IV.
Midtown in Gloverton was evidently the bad part of the city, judging by the all the liquor stores, dollar stores and check cashing places. At eleven o'clock, very few people were actually out on the sidewalks, but grown men with knapsacks rode bicycles back and forth. This was a good trick for drug dealers, since they could cut through yards this way and frequently escape police cars. A single Sunoco station was the only thing open. People straggled in and out for cigarettes and beer and glass tubes with roses in them, used as disposable crack pipes. Behind the gas station, a few dark forms huddled together in the shadows.
Turning off Broadway, Bane went up the dismal Monroe Street. Several black men sitting on a porch stared with open hostility but seemed inclined to worry about their own problems. Next block up stood the town library. It was a two-story brick building at least a hundred years old, with a big parking lot enclosed by a high chain-link fence. Calvert explained that the library had been a grade school about sixty years earlier.
Bane parked on the street next to the building. "You did some research, huh?"
"A good reporter never skips his homework. Gloverton has a history of real weird stuff. I'm surprised you haven't been here before."
While circling the block, the Dire Wolf had checked for anyone sitting in a parked car or for any figures lurking between houses. Now, before getting out, his eyes kept moving as if expecting an ambush any second. "What kind of weird stuff?" he asked absently.
"One summer, people kept reporting a group of midgets with long hair wandering the back streets. Then somehow, the engine blocks disappeared out of three different cars without anyone hearing anything. Oh, and two high school kids said they were followed by a dog walking on his hind legs like a person."
"Sounds like a Skinwalker," Bane observed. "Interesting. Maybe I should ask the local police chief if he'd keep me informed of reports like that. Let's go. Dr Rodenwald said he would give us an hour before he got here. Hopefully we can settle this before he turns up."
Getting out of his car, he reached into the back seat and came up with a red metal cylinder with a hose that ended in a black plastic cone. "This is a CO2 extinguisher," he said. "One of these worked really well against Bogus. Here, you know how to use it?"
"Oh, sure, sure. I keep one in my kitchen. What about you?"
"It's better that you hold on to it. I think this Pure Life creature will concentrate on me as the obvious threat and you can spray him without him being ready for it. Pay attention. If I yell the word 'cover,' I want you to squeeze your hands over your eyes and open your mouth wide to keep your eardrums from being ruptured. I might use a flash-bang grenade. Got it?"
Calvert propped the heavy extinguisher against one shoulder. "Sheesh, Jeremy, you play kinda rough."
"That's why I'm still alive," he said. "Is that the house over there?"
Glancing over at a delapidated one story building with peeling paint and a sagging roof on one corner. Yellow police tape stretched across the front door. Calvert gulped audibly. "Yeah. See the notice on the door, 'Unfit For Human Occupation'? It doesn't say anything about man-eating blob occupation."
"Stay behind me." Bane started walking up the cracked sidewalk, past its frequent fast food wrappers and empty cigarette packs and broken bottles. Watching his confident straightforward stride, Calvert realized again that Bane was literally not afraid at all. He was as much a dangerous creature of the night as the monsters he hunted. Following the Dire Wolf made Calvert feel much safer. He was so glad at that moment that he had not returned here alone. It was rare that Calvin Calvert admitted to feeling fear even in his own thoughts.
A long Datsun rolled slowly past, but its driver paid no attention to them. Bane stood on the sidewalk for a second, listening and peering all around, then entered the overgrown yard with its stained old mattress and broken wooden box filled with rags. On the side of the house least visible from the house, a window was broken out and Bane nimbly dove through it like a tumbler. Following with many grumbles and complaints, Calvert managed to get one leg inside and then the other before he fell the rest of the way.
The interior of the house reeked of urine, rotting meat and mildew. Calvert gasped and muttered, "I don't remember it being this bad earlier."
"Look at this," the Dire Wolf whispered. He had taken out a pencil flashlight with a powerful beam no thicker than a thread and he played that light on a pile of keys, a cell phone and a pair of eyeglasses held together by tape. The tiny pile was covered with pungent slime. "All items not easily digested."
"I swear that wasn't here before," Calvert said.
"So what?!" boomed a voice from the next room. As Bane swung the flashlight beam toward that open doorway, a glistening dark pink shape stretched up to fill the space. In the illumination, dark lumps could be seen floating within the gelatinous substance. "What do you care!"
Calvert tried to sound calm. "Your voice has changed, P.L."
"He sounds like his last victim," Bane said. "Probably some homeless person looking for a place to sleep. Sounds like the victim might have had mental illness."
"That's not your problem!" boomed the voice. The blob oozed into the room and gathered itself together into a mass big as a double bed. "It's none of your business. What are you looking at?"
Calvin Calvert squeezed up next to Bane, backing away as the thing shifted its substance into a rounded hump. "I get it. P.L. reflects the personality of its most recent victim."
"So I'm a little down on my luck. I'll be all right. Lemme alone, why don't you?" As the flashlight played over the semi-transparent goo, the recognizable shape of a human foot could be distinctly seen. A thick tendril extruded itself and waved back and forth.
"Do you remember Dr Rodenwald?" asked Bane. "Do you want to see him?"
"Mind your own business and there won't be any trouble." That extension grew thicker and flatter, shaping itself into a squidlike tentacle. "I never did anything to you."
"Yikes, Jeremy, he sounded much more rational this morning," Calvert said.
As the Dire Wolf adjusted the beam to widen it, the Pure Life attacked. Fast as a whip cracking, the tentacle lashed out and struck him hard enough to throw him across the room and crash against the far wall with a thump. The tendril curled up and shot out again with its far end sharpened into a point. Bane had rolled when he hit the floor and got out of the way as the tentacle stabbed into the space where he had been. That attack would have fatally impaled him. "Calvert!" he shouted. "Now would be a good time to use the thing."
Gathering his wits after being paralyzed with fear, the blogger pulled the pin on the fire extinguisher and sprayed a gusher of freezing white foam at the monster. Ice crystals formed over the gummy surface but the creature did not seem harmed. Another appendage slid out from the red form and thrust forward. Bane seized Calvert around the waist and tugged him out of the way, evading that slimy shaft which drove into the wall where the blogger had been standing. A framed photo fell with a clatter and plaster cracked from that impact.
"Looks like freezing this thing might not work so well," Calvert observed, trying to get behind the Dire Wolf for protection.
"You need to get over by that open window," said Bane. He had dropped the flashlight and tugged two metal rods the size of markers from an inner pocket of his jacket, twisting their caps. A blindingly white glare sputtered at the ends and he raised a flare in each hand barely in time. The tip of that tentacle was trying to encircle him around the waist. Bane jabbed the blazing tips into the gooey substance and the appendage recoiled violently. From the Pure Life, a shrill howl echoed through the darkened house.
"You wouldn't happen to be packing a flamethrower, would you?" asked Calvert more hopefully than in sarcasm.
"Quiet," Bane snapped. The flares would burn for another four to five minutes. He thought he could keep the creature at bay for the moment but if it decided to send out multiple tendrils at the same time, he would be in trouble. Bane really regretted not putting on the Trom armor because it would have given him protection. The one time he skipped wearing it....
The door to the street opened. Revealed into the wavering light of the flares, Dr Rodenwald in his wheelchair was pushed by his nurse into the foul-smelling interior. "Well," he said weakly. "This is worse than I feared."
As another tentacle formed and tried to wrap itself around his ankles, Bane bent down and stabbed the quivering substance with a flare. The sizzle and stench were unsettling, but the tendril withdrew again. "Doctor, we're open to any suggestions," he said.
"Only sacrifice will help at this point," the old man wheezed. "Lewis, bring me closer to the specimen."
"What? I don't think that's a good idea," the nurse objected, staring with bulging eyes at the nightmare which kept reshaping itself.
"It's the only way, Lewis. Do as you're told."
"No. Forget it," the young man said. "We're getting away from whatever that thing is." He started to back the wheelchair out through the doorway. Bane handed the crackling flares to a confused Calvert and intercepted the nurse. The Dire Wolf seized Lewis' right arm at wrist and elbow, levering the man down to his knees with a painful hold.
"I think I know what you're going to try," he said to Dr Rodenwald.
"Maybe it's the only way to make up for what I've done," said the feeble voice. "Unleashing this thing on the world. But I need a shove."
Without saying anything further, still holding Lewis helpless, Bane chambered one leg and kicked the back of the wheelchair hard. Rodenwald rolled across the room and collided with the Pure Life. The gelatinous mass opened a maw and pulled the old man inside itself. Before the doctor could draw enough breath to scream, he had been devoured.
"No, NO!" Lewis yelled, struggling without results against Bane's grasp. "Oh God, what did you do?"
"What had to be done," the Dire Wolf replied without triumph in his voice.
Calvert was still holding the bright flares. He shrank back away from the sight as the Pure Life's color surged to a deep burgundy. "It's.. digesting him."
For another minute, no one moved or spoke. Then they noticed black spots forming on the blob's outer surface. The Pure Life shuddered and contracted. The spots grew larger, clear acidic fluid dripped from them.
"Now what?" whined the blogger. "I can't take much more of this, it's too hard to process."
"Stand your ground," Bane told him. To Lewis, he added, "Don't struggle, you'll hurt yourself."
From within the shape-changing blob, a hideous gurgling and gasping sounded. Then the recognizable voice of Dr Rodenwald called out, "Lewissss... Lewis, it's all right. It's not your fault."
"That's not the doctor talking," Bane said to Lewis. "It's this creature assimilating some of the doctor's thoughts, that's all."
The black spots on the Pure Life had deepened into pits over its surface. The creature sagged down and spread out on the floor before falling apart entirely into a layer of dark slime. Bones and bits of flesh stuck up from the goo, and if the stench had been bad before, now it was actively toxic.
Lewis gagged and tried not to vomit as Bane slowly released him. "Poor Dr Rodenwald. Oh God. I'm going to prison. I'll be up on neglect charges. My life is over."
"No, you'll be okay," Bane told him. "Let's get out into some fresh air. Come on." Followed by Calvin Calvert, who was still holding the flares that had gone out, they emerged onto the front porch and went around to the side of the house where they were not visible from the street.
"That's better," Calvert said, plopping down onto the rank weeds and uncut grass as his legs gave way. "Whew. I couldn't breathe in there."
Gripping the nurse by both shoulders, the Dire Wolf said, "Listen to me. You're not going to be arrested. I'm calling a government agency that will clean up that house and make all the evidence disappear. I don't know how they will explain Rodenwald's disappearance but they have handled such things many times." He shook the man gently. "Do you understand, son? This was all for the best. The doctor volunteered to stop that monster."
From where he was sitting, Calvert spoke up. "Maybe I'm slow tonight, but I don't get it. Why did that monster die? Did Dr Rodenwald kill it?"
"In a way," Bane said. "The doctor was on borrowed time. His body was full of aggressive fourth stage cancers."
5/15/2019
4/15/2019
I.
"How are you even talking? You don't have any lungs."
On the upper surface of the gelatinous blob, a mouth developed without tongue and teeth. "I don't understand it myself," said a mellow voice with a hint of sibilance. "It just happens."
Calvin Calvert had yanked off his battered white fedora and crumpled it in both hands, wringing the hat as if trying to get water out of it. "For that matter, how can you think? What do you use for a nervous system? I can see right through you when the light hits you. There's no brain, no internal organs at all. You're like a giant clot of pink jello!"
The size of a bean bag chair, the creature flattened out its lower surface against the floor of the abandoned house. The mouth smacked its lips and replied, "Beats me. I don't seem to know much about the situation. Maybe my... errr, awareness is scattered through my substance. I can see in all directions without growing eyes. This is beyond me."
Keeping a respectful distance, Calvert pointed his much-abused hat at the thing. "Now listen, don't get any ideas about absorbing me. I've seen horror movies. You're not going to swallow ME up."
"No, no, don't worry. I ate a cat a few hours ago."
"You what?!"
"Mangy old orange cat. Homeless. It sniffed at me and, well, I sucked it in. A few bones took too long to digest, so I excreted them over there in the corner."
"Oh..." Calvert said. "Poor cat." In the fading light slanting in through grimy windows, he found a broken-down recliner and eased himself down into it gingerly. A spring poked the side of his leg. "But then, I suppose the cat didn't feel sorry for the mice it caught in its lifetime."
The blob heaved up higher and slid closer to where the journalist was sitting, not something Calvert appreciated. "You know what's funny?" the mouth on the creature asked. "I started to feel a bit like a cat does after I digested one. I want to curl up in a sunbeam and sleep all day. I want to mark my territory."
"As long as you don't expect me to scratch you under the chin. If you had a chin."
The blob shifted shape again, oozing around Calvert and stretching up toward the window. "Getting dark out soon. Maybe I should try to make it to the woods over there."
The journalist levered himself up out of the chair and moved a little closer to the creature. Not too close. "Hmm. I'm not too sure that's a good idea, buddy. You'd have rabbits and field mice to eat, sure. But what if a hunter puts a few .30-.30 rounds into you?"
"I don't know," the creature replied. "Maybe they'd pass harmlessly through me. Or maybe they'd pop my outer surface and I'd fall apart. I'm not exactly eager to find out."
Calvin Calvert scratched the back of his head. His demeanor matched his rumpled old white summer suit. The necktie hung like it had not been properly knotted in years. "Let me think this over. I've been investigating the occult and the uncanny for fifteen years now. My blog WHAT REALLY HAPPENED experiences at least three thousand hits a day and the government has warned me to keep quiet a hundred times. But, old pal, you are something new in my experience."
"I do recall having a name. Not like Bill or Sam, but more what I was called. They referred to me 'Pure Life.'"
"Fair enough. Pure Life, Pure Life, I'll shorten it to P.L., how's that?"
The mass of pink protoplasm raised part of itself to reach the window, evidently so it could somehow see outside. "Fine with me."
"Tell you what, P.L.," Calvert offered, "You stick around for now and I'll contact a real expert in the supernatural. Great guy. He's supposed to be retired, but I'm sure he will jump at the chance to help you or I don't know the Dire Wolf."
II.
Jeremy Bane had only checked into the Holiday Inn on the outskirts of Gloverton twenty minutes earlier. Decades of living on the dark backstreets of life led him to examine the room with both a sensor and with his own eyes. He found no recording devices. The windows faced, not outside, but to the open court which held a Jacuzzi, some video games and junk food machines. He would have preferred a quick exit route to the parking lot but this was no so bad. As he kept reminding himself, most of his worst enemies were dead or exiled to realms from which they could not escape easily, so he should relax his vigilance slightly.
Still, lifelong habits were hard to break. He had jammed a hard rubber wedge into the window frame and another beneath the door before he felt secure enough to relax. At sixty-two, Bane's full head of black hair had a liberal sprinkling of white in it, and wrinkles had gathered at the corners of his eyes and the edges of his mouth. But he remained lean and muscular, still moving with decisive energy of a younger man. He would always be the Dire Wolf. Coming out of the shower, his body showed the long hard muscles of a runner with no thickening around the waist as yet. He was toweling himself dry and standing by a hook on the door from which hung a one-piece bodysuit of what looked like dark silk, debating whether to wear it.
This was the fine-textured Trom armor which dispersed impact over its entire surface. He had been invariably wearing it most days for the past forty years. It had saved his life hundreds of times from everything to bullets and swords to fangs and acid splashes. It wasn't uncomfortable, he had to admit, and yet today he suddenly felt a strong reluctance to tug it on again. Maybe he was getting sick of living like a soldier in a hostile land. Enough daydreaming. He left the armor where it was, got into plain cotton T-shirt, briefs and socks before pulling on black slacks and a bright red pullover shirt.
Instead of feeling free, though, he only felt uneasy. Bane strapped a leather sheath to each forearm, making sure the silver bladed daggers were ready to be drawn. Going without them would have felt like a nightmare where you find yourself naked in public. A loose red flannel shirt concealed the sheaths with its sleeves. He glanced over at the clock on the dresser and saw seven o'clock, exactly when he had requested a meal from room service. As always, he felt ravenous. His enhanced speed had a price of being always hungry.
The Dire Wolf removed the wedge holding the door to the corridor, pulled the chain and peered out to see a young man wheeling a cart with two domed meal trays and a sixty four ounce bottle of seltzer. Bane heard his stomach rumble angrily. As he gave the porter a tip, he spotted something approaching that made his heart sink.
Calvert! Calvin Calvert of all people, hustling around the corner by the ice machine and waving that miserable old fedora like a flag. "Jeremy! Hey, Jeremy, wait, it's me!"
Ten years earlier, maybe even five years earlier, Bane would have promptly slammed and locked the door in the journalist's face. He had inevitably mellowed with time, although he might have said that a more accurate way to put it was he'd gotten worn down. He pulled the cart inside and turned to allow Calvert to barge in as if invited, getting a look at the old nuisance as he passsed by. Calvert's dark red hair was thinner, his belly a bit more pronounced. The dubious journalist strode directly into the bathroom without asking and slammed the door behind him.
"Please, feel free," Bane muttered to himself as he dropped down on the edge of the queen-sized bed. One of the meals was beer battered fish and steak chips. The Dire Wolf plowed into the food eagerly. Even though he ate as quickly as always, he was barely finishing the last chip when Calvert came storming out again.
"I bet you're surprised to see me!" the journalist cried out, tugging a chair over to sit facing his host.
"Very surprised," Bane agreed, glad he had at least downed enough food to hold him for the moment. "How did you know I was in Gloverton? We're two hundred miles from Manhattan. For that matter, what are YOU doing here?"
"I have found something big, Jeremy, monumental. It's like seeing Bigfoot riding the Loch Ness Monster out of a flying saucer. This will rock the world, I tell you. I see accepting a Pulitzer in my future."
"I see breaking rocks in the hot sun in your future," Bane snapped. He wanted the second meal but knew Calvert would try to mooch it. "First, how did you know I was here? Straight answer!"
"Oh, well, that was our mutual friend, the Trom Girl. What a sweetheart. Gosh, you know it's almost been ten years since I helped her on that 'Light That Brings Darkness Case.' You know, where that crazy old Harry Copely was materializing Tulkas. Megan and I exchanged numbers in case I ever found what she discreetly called 'a Midnight War menace too big for me to handle alone.'"
"Oh brother," Bane mumbled. He lifted the dome on the other tray and sniffed a double serving of Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and wax beans with two buttered dinner rolls. Sure enough, Calvert leaned so far over he nearly fell out of his chair.
"Gosh, that smells good. You know, I drove for five hours today to get up here in the boondocks, all I had was coffee and a Slim Jim..."
"Hold on, hold on a second." Bane took his utensils from the first meal and transferred half the second meal to the empty plate. He then handed one of the trays to Calvert. "Here you go. Luckily, I did order double servings."
Seeing that the blogger had plunged into the food too deeply to talk, Bane took a moderate chunk of Salisbury steak and chewed it as he said, "Let me guess. You stumbled on something scary. You wanted to find me, but since I closed my office last year, you phoned Megan instead. She told you I had mentioned coming up here to meet Dr Rodenwald. Am I on the right track?"
"Sharp as ever," Calvert agreed. He came close to inhaling the mashed potatoes and nearly choked. Bane got paper cups from the bathroom and poured them each some of the seltzer. After a minute, Calvert was able to continue, "That Megan is a doll. If I were twenty years younger, well, she still wouldn't go out with me but it's a nice daydream. Didn't you meet my second wife Daffodil? She was running around with the Poker Brothers..."
"Calvin! Get to the point. What did you find that you need to tell me about?"
Something changed in Calvert's manner. He placed the meal tray aside and clasped his hands in front of him. "I know you don't take me seriously, Jeremy. But tonight you have to start. Earlier I saw a monster, what looks like a single-cell organism the size of an easy chair. A giant clot of goo. It talked to me in coherent sentences. Listen. I think it has been eating people."
III.
Forty minutes later, even the attention-loving Calvert was getting tired of repeating his story and being questioned about minute details. "This is as bad as being grilled by the cops," he complained.
"I won't try to get your sources identified. Reporters protect them, even bloggers like yourself," said Bane. He had put on his black sport jacket with all its concealed pockets holding various miniature gadgets. Now he examined his long-barreled Smith & Wesson .38 before snapping it and its holster to the back of his belt.
"Even bloggers like myself...?! Well I like that. Anyway, Jeremy, the monster is hopefully still in that abandoned house on Monroe Street. If anybody can handle that thing, you're the one."
Except for the black turtleneck, the Dire Wolf was in his familiar uniform and he seemed more intense than a few minutes earlier. He dropped down on the edge of the bed facing Calvert in the plain wooden chair. "I'm expecting a call from Dr Rodenwald any moment. It's related to what you've been telling me. The question now is what to do with you?"
"Of course you can count on me, Jeremy. I'll help you."
Despite his annoyance with this impossible nuisance, Bane could not repress a wry smile. "If I throw you out in the hall, you'll find a way to follow me. When I meet with Rodenwald and when I go after this blob whatever it is, you'll somehow tag along and get in the way, and I'll have to deal with you as well as the threat."
"Oh, I wouldn't put it that way," objected Calvert with a splutter. "You'll find my assistance invaluable. Did I tell you about the time I uncovered the couple who were skinning hitchhikers and making leather goods from them? That was in Buffalo."
"My point," the Dire Wolf continued, "is that I might as well take you with me where I can keep an eye on you."
"Great, great, maybe an exclusive interview when this is wrapped up? There's not many public statements from you on record."
"No interviews," Bane said. His Link beeped and he spoke into it before clipping it back onto his belt. "Here we go. Dr Rodenwald's nurse says they're ready in Room 412. Let's go."
Leaving the room and heading down the long east-west axis of the hotel, Calvin Calvert tried to straighten himself up without success. His pockets were so crammed with scraps of paper, pens and pencils, receipts and candy wrappers that he could only rearrange the debris from one area to another. As usual, he carried a spare burner phone in case he was searched.
"You know, Jeremy, we've been friends for a long time now," he began.
"We have never been friends," Bane interrupted, not slacking a pace that verged on a full run. "You keep forcing yourself into my business and almost get yourself killed each time. And usually almost get me killed as well."
"You cut me deep with your ingratitude," the blogger replied, struggling to keep up with that stride. "Anyway, who is this Dr Rodenwald? He's not THE Dr Curtis Rodenwald who gave lectures about genetic reconstruction a few years ago?"
"That's the one," Bane said. "Listen, this is not for publication. Get me? If any of this shows up on your website, I'll have to hurt you. Rodenwald worked for the research arm of John Grim's organization."
"Oh, THAT joker again. He's been dead for thirty-something years but his inventions are still causing trouble. You know, our friend Megan told me that John Grim was a low-level telepath. He stole tech from the Trom who were secretly on his team and he didn't even realize it. He thought the breakdowns were his own ideas."
Bane stopped in mid-stride and fixed a cold steady eye on the blogger. "I'm surprised Megan told you so much. She's pretty good at not spilling information the public doesn't need to know."
"Heh, heh, I can be a smooth talker. Young women find me charming," Calvert laughed.
Not trusting himself to respond to that, the Dire Wolf set off again. "There's 407. We're here. 412." He rapped sharply with his knuckles on the door and a second later an eye scrutinized him through the tiny round porthole.
"Mr Bane?" asked a voice.
"Yes. The doctor wanted to see me as soon as possible," Bane answered, gesturing for Calvert to put the cell phone away.
When the door was opened from within, a husky brown-bearded man wearing green scrubs ushered them in. In a wheelchair with a blanket over his lap, a man not much more than a frail little bundle of bones and skin lifted his head and tried to smile. Deepset eyes were feverish over dark circles.
"Dr Rodenwald? I'm Jeremy Bane," The Dire Wolf said as he entered. He thought it better not to offer his hand to shake. "You left a message to meet you here tonight."
"Yes. Thank you so much." Rodenwald's voice was weak and reedy, but his words were perfectly coherent. "I don't have much time, I'm afraid. The doctors released me so I could die at home. Poor Lewis had to be nagged into bringing me here."
"It's a violation of professional ethics," admitted the young man called Lewis. "But I'm convinced the safety of the public is at risk." He gave Calvin Calvert a dubious gaze but neither asked who this stranger was who had come along with Bane.
"I am sure you recall the Bogus experiment from a few years ago," the ailing old man said. "Rumor has it that you captured the... ah, specimen. Bogus has not been heard from since."
Bane did not answer the implied question. "Are you saying that another Bogus was created? Don't tell me it escaped as well."
"Give me a second," Rodenwald said. "I get out of breath so easily. Yes. We were working with a sophisticated neo-protein, integrating artificial enzymes in its substance. Pure Life, we called it. It turned out quite differently than the Bogus specimen. We had high hopes its functioning might supplement stem cells to provide treatment for many diseases... even cancer."
"Where is this Pure Life right now, doctor?"
"Ah. There's the problem." He suffered a wheezing fit for over a minute before coughing up dark phlegm into a tissue. "With your record, Mr Bane, I could not think of anyone better qualified to take up the hunt."
"Oh, a hunt won't be necessary," Calvert put in. "I can take you right to the Pure Life."
IV.
Midtown in Gloverton was evidently the bad part of the city, judging by the all the liquor stores, dollar stores and check cashing places. At eleven o'clock, very few people were actually out on the sidewalks, but grown men with knapsacks rode bicycles back and forth. This was a good trick for drug dealers, since they could cut through yards this way and frequently escape police cars. A single Sunoco station was the only thing open. People straggled in and out for cigarettes and beer and glass tubes with roses in them, used as disposable crack pipes. Behind the gas station, a few dark forms huddled together in the shadows.
Turning off Broadway, Bane went up the dismal Monroe Street. Several black men sitting on a porch stared with open hostility but seemed inclined to worry about their own problems. Next block up stood the town library. It was a two-story brick building at least a hundred years old, with a big parking lot enclosed by a high chain-link fence. Calvert explained that the library had been a grade school about sixty years earlier.
Bane parked on the street next to the building. "You did some research, huh?"
"A good reporter never skips his homework. Gloverton has a history of real weird stuff. I'm surprised you haven't been here before."
While circling the block, the Dire Wolf had checked for anyone sitting in a parked car or for any figures lurking between houses. Now, before getting out, his eyes kept moving as if expecting an ambush any second. "What kind of weird stuff?" he asked absently.
"One summer, people kept reporting a group of midgets with long hair wandering the back streets. Then somehow, the engine blocks disappeared out of three different cars without anyone hearing anything. Oh, and two high school kids said they were followed by a dog walking on his hind legs like a person."
"Sounds like a Skinwalker," Bane observed. "Interesting. Maybe I should ask the local police chief if he'd keep me informed of reports like that. Let's go. Dr Rodenwald said he would give us an hour before he got here. Hopefully we can settle this before he turns up."
Getting out of his car, he reached into the back seat and came up with a red metal cylinder with a hose that ended in a black plastic cone. "This is a CO2 extinguisher," he said. "One of these worked really well against Bogus. Here, you know how to use it?"
"Oh, sure, sure. I keep one in my kitchen. What about you?"
"It's better that you hold on to it. I think this Pure Life creature will concentrate on me as the obvious threat and you can spray him without him being ready for it. Pay attention. If I yell the word 'cover,' I want you to squeeze your hands over your eyes and open your mouth wide to keep your eardrums from being ruptured. I might use a flash-bang grenade. Got it?"
Calvert propped the heavy extinguisher against one shoulder. "Sheesh, Jeremy, you play kinda rough."
"That's why I'm still alive," he said. "Is that the house over there?"
Glancing over at a delapidated one story building with peeling paint and a sagging roof on one corner. Yellow police tape stretched across the front door. Calvert gulped audibly. "Yeah. See the notice on the door, 'Unfit For Human Occupation'? It doesn't say anything about man-eating blob occupation."
"Stay behind me." Bane started walking up the cracked sidewalk, past its frequent fast food wrappers and empty cigarette packs and broken bottles. Watching his confident straightforward stride, Calvert realized again that Bane was literally not afraid at all. He was as much a dangerous creature of the night as the monsters he hunted. Following the Dire Wolf made Calvert feel much safer. He was so glad at that moment that he had not returned here alone. It was rare that Calvin Calvert admitted to feeling fear even in his own thoughts.
A long Datsun rolled slowly past, but its driver paid no attention to them. Bane stood on the sidewalk for a second, listening and peering all around, then entered the overgrown yard with its stained old mattress and broken wooden box filled with rags. On the side of the house least visible from the house, a window was broken out and Bane nimbly dove through it like a tumbler. Following with many grumbles and complaints, Calvert managed to get one leg inside and then the other before he fell the rest of the way.
The interior of the house reeked of urine, rotting meat and mildew. Calvert gasped and muttered, "I don't remember it being this bad earlier."
"Look at this," the Dire Wolf whispered. He had taken out a pencil flashlight with a powerful beam no thicker than a thread and he played that light on a pile of keys, a cell phone and a pair of eyeglasses held together by tape. The tiny pile was covered with pungent slime. "All items not easily digested."
"I swear that wasn't here before," Calvert said.
"So what?!" boomed a voice from the next room. As Bane swung the flashlight beam toward that open doorway, a glistening dark pink shape stretched up to fill the space. In the illumination, dark lumps could be seen floating within the gelatinous substance. "What do you care!"
Calvert tried to sound calm. "Your voice has changed, P.L."
"He sounds like his last victim," Bane said. "Probably some homeless person looking for a place to sleep. Sounds like the victim might have had mental illness."
"That's not your problem!" boomed the voice. The blob oozed into the room and gathered itself together into a mass big as a double bed. "It's none of your business. What are you looking at?"
Calvin Calvert squeezed up next to Bane, backing away as the thing shifted its substance into a rounded hump. "I get it. P.L. reflects the personality of its most recent victim."
"So I'm a little down on my luck. I'll be all right. Lemme alone, why don't you?" As the flashlight played over the semi-transparent goo, the recognizable shape of a human foot could be distinctly seen. A thick tendril extruded itself and waved back and forth.
"Do you remember Dr Rodenwald?" asked Bane. "Do you want to see him?"
"Mind your own business and there won't be any trouble." That extension grew thicker and flatter, shaping itself into a squidlike tentacle. "I never did anything to you."
"Yikes, Jeremy, he sounded much more rational this morning," Calvert said.
As the Dire Wolf adjusted the beam to widen it, the Pure Life attacked. Fast as a whip cracking, the tentacle lashed out and struck him hard enough to throw him across the room and crash against the far wall with a thump. The tendril curled up and shot out again with its far end sharpened into a point. Bane had rolled when he hit the floor and got out of the way as the tentacle stabbed into the space where he had been. That attack would have fatally impaled him. "Calvert!" he shouted. "Now would be a good time to use the thing."
Gathering his wits after being paralyzed with fear, the blogger pulled the pin on the fire extinguisher and sprayed a gusher of freezing white foam at the monster. Ice crystals formed over the gummy surface but the creature did not seem harmed. Another appendage slid out from the red form and thrust forward. Bane seized Calvert around the waist and tugged him out of the way, evading that slimy shaft which drove into the wall where the blogger had been standing. A framed photo fell with a clatter and plaster cracked from that impact.
"Looks like freezing this thing might not work so well," Calvert observed, trying to get behind the Dire Wolf for protection.
"You need to get over by that open window," said Bane. He had dropped the flashlight and tugged two metal rods the size of markers from an inner pocket of his jacket, twisting their caps. A blindingly white glare sputtered at the ends and he raised a flare in each hand barely in time. The tip of that tentacle was trying to encircle him around the waist. Bane jabbed the blazing tips into the gooey substance and the appendage recoiled violently. From the Pure Life, a shrill howl echoed through the darkened house.
"You wouldn't happen to be packing a flamethrower, would you?" asked Calvert more hopefully than in sarcasm.
"Quiet," Bane snapped. The flares would burn for another four to five minutes. He thought he could keep the creature at bay for the moment but if it decided to send out multiple tendrils at the same time, he would be in trouble. Bane really regretted not putting on the Trom armor because it would have given him protection. The one time he skipped wearing it....
The door to the street opened. Revealed into the wavering light of the flares, Dr Rodenwald in his wheelchair was pushed by his nurse into the foul-smelling interior. "Well," he said weakly. "This is worse than I feared."
As another tentacle formed and tried to wrap itself around his ankles, Bane bent down and stabbed the quivering substance with a flare. The sizzle and stench were unsettling, but the tendril withdrew again. "Doctor, we're open to any suggestions," he said.
"Only sacrifice will help at this point," the old man wheezed. "Lewis, bring me closer to the specimen."
"What? I don't think that's a good idea," the nurse objected, staring with bulging eyes at the nightmare which kept reshaping itself.
"It's the only way, Lewis. Do as you're told."
"No. Forget it," the young man said. "We're getting away from whatever that thing is." He started to back the wheelchair out through the doorway. Bane handed the crackling flares to a confused Calvert and intercepted the nurse. The Dire Wolf seized Lewis' right arm at wrist and elbow, levering the man down to his knees with a painful hold.
"I think I know what you're going to try," he said to Dr Rodenwald.
"Maybe it's the only way to make up for what I've done," said the feeble voice. "Unleashing this thing on the world. But I need a shove."
Without saying anything further, still holding Lewis helpless, Bane chambered one leg and kicked the back of the wheelchair hard. Rodenwald rolled across the room and collided with the Pure Life. The gelatinous mass opened a maw and pulled the old man inside itself. Before the doctor could draw enough breath to scream, he had been devoured.
"No, NO!" Lewis yelled, struggling without results against Bane's grasp. "Oh God, what did you do?"
"What had to be done," the Dire Wolf replied without triumph in his voice.
Calvert was still holding the bright flares. He shrank back away from the sight as the Pure Life's color surged to a deep burgundy. "It's.. digesting him."
For another minute, no one moved or spoke. Then they noticed black spots forming on the blob's outer surface. The Pure Life shuddered and contracted. The spots grew larger, clear acidic fluid dripped from them.
"Now what?" whined the blogger. "I can't take much more of this, it's too hard to process."
"Stand your ground," Bane told him. To Lewis, he added, "Don't struggle, you'll hurt yourself."
From within the shape-changing blob, a hideous gurgling and gasping sounded. Then the recognizable voice of Dr Rodenwald called out, "Lewissss... Lewis, it's all right. It's not your fault."
"That's not the doctor talking," Bane said to Lewis. "It's this creature assimilating some of the doctor's thoughts, that's all."
The black spots on the Pure Life had deepened into pits over its surface. The creature sagged down and spread out on the floor before falling apart entirely into a layer of dark slime. Bones and bits of flesh stuck up from the goo, and if the stench had been bad before, now it was actively toxic.
Lewis gagged and tried not to vomit as Bane slowly released him. "Poor Dr Rodenwald. Oh God. I'm going to prison. I'll be up on neglect charges. My life is over."
"No, you'll be okay," Bane told him. "Let's get out into some fresh air. Come on." Followed by Calvin Calvert, who was still holding the flares that had gone out, they emerged onto the front porch and went around to the side of the house where they were not visible from the street.
"That's better," Calvert said, plopping down onto the rank weeds and uncut grass as his legs gave way. "Whew. I couldn't breathe in there."
Gripping the nurse by both shoulders, the Dire Wolf said, "Listen to me. You're not going to be arrested. I'm calling a government agency that will clean up that house and make all the evidence disappear. I don't know how they will explain Rodenwald's disappearance but they have handled such things many times." He shook the man gently. "Do you understand, son? This was all for the best. The doctor volunteered to stop that monster."
From where he was sitting, Calvert spoke up. "Maybe I'm slow tonight, but I don't get it. Why did that monster die? Did Dr Rodenwald kill it?"
"In a way," Bane said. "The doctor was on borrowed time. His body was full of aggressive fourth stage cancers."
5/15/2019