INTERLUDE  

NEW STARKHAM HOSPITAL—
NEW STARKHAM, MASSACHUSETTS

Byron Flanders had suffered several heart attacks since retiring from his career as the New Starkham district attorney twenty years ago, but this most recent one had been the worst. The night before his bypass surgery, he was having trouble sleeping. He lay in his private hospital bed hooked up to all sorts of tubes and wires, the weak fluorescent light on the wall barely illuminating the small mattress. He was cold. The pulsing of the heart monitor was like water torture. Beep. Beep. Beep.

He’d paged the nurse for the third time in several minutes to try and get an extra blanket, but no one had responded. He’d already struggled to close the curtain that surrounded his bed to stop the air conditioner from blowing at him, but it was not helping. Byron Flanders was not used to waiting, and he was becoming annoyed.

Throughout his life, Byron got what he wanted. In the courtroom, he’d earned himself the nickname “the Hammerhead,” as in shark. If you were accused of a crime, and the Hammerhead decided you were guilty, he usually found a way to put you away. His tactics were usually legal, but not always. He figured, when you have a job to do, you do it. You get it done. No matter what.

Now, if only the nurses had the same philosophy …

As he reached out for the call button again, a draft blew against the curtain, as if someone had opened the door to his room. Finally …

“Nurse!” Byron called. “I need a blanket. It’s freezing in here!” The curtain went still, but no one answered. “Nurse?” he tried again. “Hello?” Goose bumps broke out all over his frail body, and this time, it had nothing to do with the air conditioner. He could feel a presence. Someone was in the room with him.

He’d said goodbye to his children earlier that evening, but maybe one of them had come back.

The curtain at the foot of his bed was moving, as if someone were scratching at it from the other side. “Is anyone there?” he asked, though he wasn’t certain he wanted an answer. Suddenly, the scratching moved. Now it was directly to his right, next to the bed stand. Then the scratching moved again, to the opposite side of the bed. Suddenly, the entire curtain began to ripple, as if hundreds of fingers were dragging against the cloth. Eventually, the fingers clenched, balling up the fabric. They began to pull downward, putting pressure on the silver bearings that attached the curtain to the long slider on the ceiling.

The heart monitor began to beep faster and faster. Though it pained him, the old man cried out as loud as he could, “Nurse!”

The curtain was torn down, fluttering like a magician’s cape to the floor. Now Byron could see that the room was filled with people. He shrieked. Their faces were illuminated by that faint fluorescent light, making them all appear sicker than himself. He knew them. They were the criminals he’d helped convict over the course of his life. None of them spoke. None of them moved. They stood around his bed and watched as he wet himself. Then, from the middle of the group, Byron saw a man in a long gray overcoat step forward. He smiled.

“Christian? Is that you?” Byron whimpered. “You … you’re dead,” he added, pathetically. “You’re all dead.”

A new pain bloomed in his chest, like a bright red rosebush full of pricker thorns. The man in the overcoat smiled wider and chuckled as Byron’s vision blurred. He tried one last time to call for the nurse as his life slipped away into darkness, and the heart monitor finally stopped its awful beep-beep-beeping, instead filling the room with a plain and soothing hum.