Walk on the Wild Side - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,8

of the faceless, plastic world he had grown old in. No one would mark his passing...

“No.” He shook his head and politely disengaged her hand. “No, I’m not quite ready for limbo. Not now. Not ever.”

And the book-lined walls of his study rose solid about him once more.

The last writer sits alone in his study.

His eyes glow bright, and his gnarled fingers labor tirelessly to transform the pictures of his imagination into the symbolism of the page. His muscles feel cold, his bones are ice, and sometimes he thinks he can see through his hands to the page beneath.

There will be a knock at his door.

Maybe it will be death.

Or a raven, knelling “Nevermore.”

Maybe it will be the last reader.

Into Whose Hands

Originally, back during the War (which Marlowe understood to be World War II), Graceland State Psychiatric Hospital had been an army base, and some of the old-timers still referred to the center as Camp Underhill. Marlowe was never certain whether there had been a town (named Underhill) here before the base was built, or whether the town had grown about the periphery of the base (named Underhill) at the time when it was carved out of the heart of the scrub and pine wilderness. Marlowe probably could have found out by asking one of the old-timers, had he ever thought to do so, or had he even cared to know. It was more to the point that no wing of the red brick hospital was of more than two stories; further, that each wing was connected to the next by a long corridor. This, so Marlowe had been told upon coming here, had been a precaution against an air raid—an enemy sneak attack could not annihilate the outspread base with its absence of central structures and its easy evacuation. Marlowe was uncertain as to the means by which an Axis blitzkrieg might have struck this far inland, but it was a fact that the center contained seven miles of corridors. This Marlowe had verified through many a weary weekend of walking to and fro and up and down through the complex, making rounds.

On this weekend Marlowe was feeding dimes into the slot of a vending machine, chained to the tile wall of one labyrinthine corridor. After judicious nudges and kicks, the packet of crackers was spat from its mechanical womb in a flurry of crumbs. Marlowe eyed the tattered cellophane sourly. An industrious mouse had already gnawed across the pair on the end. He should have tried the machines in the staff lounge, but that meant another quarter of a mile walk.

At his belt, the beeper uttered a rush of semi-coherent static. Marlowe, shaking the nibbled crackers onto the tile floor, thumbed the beeper to silence with his other hand and plodded for the nearest nursing station. He swiped a cup of virulent coffee from the urn there, washed the crackers from his throat with a gulp of boiling fluid, and dialed the number to which he had been summoned. “This is Dr Marlowe.”

“You have an involuntary admission on South Unit, Dr Marlowe.”

“I’ll be down once I finish one on North.”

The voice persisted. Marlowe sensed the speaker’s anxiety. “The patient is combative, Doctor. He’s delusional, obviously hallucinating. If you could give us an order....”

“What’s the problem? Do we know anything about this one?”

“This is his first admission here, and all we have are the commitment papers the deputies brought. He’s obviously psychotic. He says he’s Satan.”

“Hell, that’s my third this month. All right, seclude and restrain. I’m coming right down, and I’ll sign the order when I get there. ” Marlowe glanced at his watch. It was past ten, he still hadn’t eaten dinner, and the deputies from Beacon City were due to arrive on East with that adolescent runaway who’d slashed her wrists. Best take care of South Unit quickly. The coffee was sour in his stomach, and he regretted discarding the mouse-chewed crackers.

He was in North Unit, which was actually Central, since the northernmost unit was the Alcoholic Rehab Unit, but the walk was going to be a brisk five minutes in addition to the time lost in unlocking sectional doors. Marlowe, who showed a footsore limp under the best of circumstances, knew better than to wear himself out this early in the weekend. It was Friday night. Until 8:00 Monday morning he would be the only doctor on the grounds at Graceland. In that time he might have twenty to thirty admissions, on an average, in