Phosphor

By R.C. Ray II

Stuck with the graveyard shift outside Seattle, veteran homicide lieutenant James Cattell, and his young partner, Dave Fosse, are called to the scene of an amazingly unusual murder at a nursing home. Teaming up with their deadpan colleague Ed Wazetski, the aging director of the police forensics lab, they begin to investigate a stunning death that defies all known physical law. Because only the body of the victim has burned – incinerated completely in a matter of seconds, not hours – while leaving everything else around it virtually untouched. Even the strange reports of spontaneous human combustion don't seem to fit.

Yet even as they stand speculating, another murder is occurring at a motel only a few miles away. And this time, there is a witness. Wounded and in shock, a woman is taken from the scene of the crime and placed in the care of Dr. Sandy Hansen, head of the psychiatric wing of the local hospital.

Forced to work together, Lt. Cattell and Dr. Hansen reawaken a past love affair, as they sift through clues and an old, unsolved FBI report about similar murders of male family members from a small New England town. Woven through it all is the one, cryptic name veiled in myth and fear that keeps recurring ominously –

Phosphor

But who is this shadowy killer? The deeper they move into the case, the more legends they find, as they uncover a vendetta that spans decades and generations - and a fabulous secret held by the people being stalked. But first, you have to survive.

In a race against time to find the last victim, Cattell realizes that the woman he loves may hold the only thing that can save him, in a stunning finale where ghostly memories and luminescent dreams collide in an iridescent tale of life and existence.

Phosphor is a fabled story of multiple creation; of living energy and breathing humanity linked within a never-ending chain of renewal and entropy, in a technological age where our waking nightmares may still be made of more than science and sealed circuitry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.C. Ray II
• Release date: Jul 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311950567

R.C. Ray II

R. C. Ray II inhabits the Pacific Northwest. He lives with his wife Linda in a modest home which is owned by a small black cat named Cleo some miles southeast of Seattle, WA. For many years he has made a living writing commercially for technologies from aerospace to software, while his personal interest in creative work has gathered numerous competitive literary awards for screen and stage plays, strange stories, children's books and novels. He likes to refer to his novels as modern mythologies.

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Phosphor

R.C. Ray II

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 R.C. Ray II

Published by R.C. Ray II at Smashwords

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Before It All

"Of all the elementals, only energy is truly alive. Constantly reborn, it is the unending creation of all things. It is the seed of stars, the spark of souls, the heat of hearts and the power of minds. All else is naught without it. It is the crowning light of the universe, and the very hand of the King of Worlds. Deep within all of us we finally understand this, for it is not the water of the river that fascinates us, but the rivers’ dance…"

The Parables of Light, G. Westwater.

He was alone.

The universe breathed around him, and all manner of existence moved past him, carried on timeless currents. This was a place of separate reality, of power and light, presented in radiance and energy. All that was the sum and substance of immortal life was here. All borne on The Winds.

The Winds, carriers of an infinite spectrum of brilliance and beauty, carved their way around his place of being, leaving him behind. Passing him by as they cascaded onward in their grand and ageless journey. It had always been this way, and would never change. To them, he simply did not exist. Because his form was unlike anything else - beyond known life, and totally unrecognizable. As such, The Winds could never reach him; would never understand his being.

Because he did not live. He existed. Long ago someone had called him a name - and he had taken it, like a grasping thief with a priceless gem, and used it ever since.

He had been a dawning creation--an elemental thing--animated in an ancient progression that had led to the life that teemed around him now, left only to serve and protect. And so he stayed and watched the luminous host in its glowing parade, as it sailed toward a glittering horizon he could never know. The majesty of the spectacle was hypnotic, but there was nothing there for him. Turning away from the vista, he moved toward the Pillar of Light. The ancient rock that made up its column was now dark and uninhabited, its consciousness occupied elsewhere. He paused before it.

Yasheen, Voice of Voices, have you left me so soon? The thought drifted from him, unanswered.

He had begun calling it brother, a concept the thing did not understand, any more than his use of gender or names. These were uniquely human, which he brought back with him from the various times he had been in their world. And while Yasheen knew nothing of humanity, these titles were accepted as if they were some alien honor. Perhaps because it was Yasheen who sent him out, who gave him his tasks. So the tasks were given, and so they would be done. The Pillar of Light had dispatched him to all of the spheres of life at one time or another, including humanity.

Back to the human world, Yasheen had said. He would return to man.

Yasheen spoke the voice that was law - in absolutes, in keeping with his creation. He was another immortal, bound to his consciousness and rarely straying outside of its boundaries. He did not lie. Yasheen did not even understand the concept. Unlike mankind, if something did not exist, then it simply was not. He had given up attempting to explain why or how humanity did this not-truth to Yasheen. In reality, he understood it little himself, no matter how many times he returned to their realm.

He turned away from the Pillar of Light, his glowing form drifting toward one of the gravity wells. It was the same gateway he had used to enter humanity so many times before. He hesitated, considering what had to be done. Part of him wishing to remain, the other wanting to go. Urging him to feel what being human was like once more. To dream dreams and rejoice in being even marginally alive, marginally human.

But to suffer again…

To return to the memories and feelings he only dimly sensed now; the thoughts and emotions that could hurt him. That portion of mortality, which relentlessly haunted his conscious intellect.

He paused, finally giving in to the inevitable. The resonance of magnetics and gravity reached out for him, gently tugging as he allowed them purchase. Slowly at first, he let himself fall away, giving himself up to the forces around him. And as he gained momentum he changed, his form becoming an incandescent star.

CHAPTER ONE

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the old lady, Chase just had other things to do. Like making a hot date with a petite blond coffee chemist at the Starbucks coffee shop down at Fourth and Union by seven.

Actually, he really liked old Mrs. Gardiner. But he was entitled to a life too, wasn’t he? And he was already late for his bus. If he missed it, the next one didn’t show up for another thirty minutes. Say good-bye to creamy dreams of hot coffee love, sugar. The blonde barista was definitely not the kind of lady you kept waiting.

Whoa…shit! Oh, sorry Doctor. Watch it. It’s slippery out here!

He pushed his way a little farther out the door, opening it wider for Dr. Meyer as they left the nursing home. Welcome to fall in Seattle, with every walk covered in a mat of soggy leaves that squished beneath your shoes and threatened to skate your feet out from underneath you if you weren’t careful. A warm memory of San Diego, his hometown, popped into his mind. But the faint yearning was quickly flattened by the reminder of the money he was making in the Pacific Northwest.

So screw the leaves and let me get going, he thought. The place was starting to get on his nerves. I’ve been here waaaay too long today….

Dr. William Meyer followed him out into the damp evening, the peppery smell of October tweaking his nose as he carefully maneuvered his considerable size over the leaf-covered walk. Standing well over six-feet, his slight paunch and graying hair completed the picture of a fatherly authority figure he used constantly. The Doctor Bill routine came in damn handy, actually. Running a nursing home could be a real public relations nightmare at times, and he’d used the warm, concerned father image successfully on a number of occasions to finesse some touchy issues. Not that he was a phony, mind you. He really did maintain a level of concern for the people under the care of his facility. It was just that he also maintained a highly developed sense of self-preservation.

And right now, he was legitimately worried about Mrs. Gardiner. Chase was the best orderly he had, and with him going off shift, that left her in the care of the night staff. Which left him vaguely uneasy. They were good, but Sally Gardiner had recurring problems with adema in her lower extremities. The swelling in her legs and feet in particular bothered Meyer, who suspected circulation problems that would only worsen as she continued to age. She was such a sweet old girl that she never complained, and was one of Doctor Meyer’s favorite patients. But she would lay in absolute agony all night because she didn’t want to bother anyone, a fact that posed a real risk to both herself and the nursing home. From here on, she would have to be watched carefully.

I’ve told the night staff to check on Sally every two hours. Meyer shifted his weight nervously, looking at Chase. I don’t want a repeat of last night. You check on her first thing in the morning, just to ease my mind…

A sudden and very unpleasant wave of world-class shivers ran up his spine and nestled in the small hairs at the nape of the good Doctor’s neck, stopping him cold.

What the hell was that?

Meyer hadn’t had a case of the crawling willies since his field hospital days in Vietnam. Back then it had been an almost daily occurrence, a byproduct of the constant stress of war; a daily dose of death and destruction. That had been years ago and a lifetime away. Not today--and certainly not in suburban Seattle, WA. But whatever it was, it was catching, because he could tell Chase felt it as well. The young orderly was looking around like an imaginary freight train might be bearing down on them. Instinctually, Meyer followed suit, checking the area out for himself.

Nothing. But the feeling kept building.

Uh, yeah. Chase said. I told ‘em too. Don’t worry. I’ll check. Look, I gotta get moving, or I’ll miss my bus. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?

The young man shot a quick look around one more time, and then hurried across the lawn for the street, giving a wide berth to the dark pools of shadow that surrounded the trees and bushes in the front of the place.

Meyer watched him go, forcing himself to stay put, dealing with the irrational feeling.

This is silly…

The door was right behind him. He could duck back inside, if he wanted. But he didn’t want. As a matter of fact, just the idea of being caught inside the nursing home right now filled him with a visceral terror that was almost beyond belief. What he wanted was out. Away from the facility entirely.

He strained his senses, standing his ground a moment longer. There was nothing there… Everything appeared normal. The lights of the valley spread out in the distance before him. Everything in its place. Everything quiet.

And that was it. Like being in a sensory deprivation room. No sound, no vibration – like having a soft wet cloth wrapped around your head, smothering you in layers of leaden silence.

This was just like it. Total silence. Highway 99 was always busy, twenty-four hours a day, and only a few blocks away. It was six lanes of noisy car and truck traffic that never went away. Until now.

And that wasn’t all.

Nothing moved on the street…no people…no wind…no birds. A complete absence of activity. A preternatural silence had settled over the area, as if the world around him had suddenly shifted down, the engines of life going into neutral as it waited for whatever was going to happen. And whatever that was, it would happen here.

Soon.

The sound of the taxicab he had called broke the spell as it rounded a corner and headed up the street towards him, tires hissing on the wet pavement. He was flooded with relief as he scurried for it, reaching the curb and yanking the door open the instant it pulled up. Music drifted out faintly from inside, snapping reality back into drive. Dr. Meyer hesitated, enveloped in the protective noise for one last time as he stood with a foot inside the vehicle, his senses straining beyond the tinny rock lyrics. Whatever it was, it was still out there. Waiting for something. But he wasn’t.

He driver cleared his throat impatiently in the front seat, but Dr. Meyer needed no urging. He ducked inside and slammed the door, turning with relief as they pulled away to watch through the rear window as the building shrunk in the distance.

2

Water dripped down on his naked form, steaming softly as it vaporized in tiny white tendrils. From behind a screen of photinia bushes he had watched them, his faintly glowing blue-white eyes focusing on the two men. The hairless, fleshy form that enclosed him was human in every way outwardly, but the face was nightmarish in its lack of surface detail.

He studied them, analyzing their gestures and vocalization carefully, then turned his attention to a large advertising sign on the roof a nearby building. A serious-looking businessman was selling suits from a factory clothing outlet. The sign meant nothing to him – but the unmoving image of the man was what he needed.

He began to shift, matching the body and face. Becoming human again. He captured all the detail, matching eyes and hair, expression and posture. The body coverings were a curiosity. They always seemed to change every time he came back, and varied from human to human. Other variables entered into it also, such as radiant and ambient energy levels, location and sex. The woman had told him about it - tried to make him understand. But in the end, he simply catalogued the information, gathering rather than understanding. Long ago he had simply accepted the wonderful strangeness of this existence. To move amongst them without resistance he would select a being, and make sure that his form was a perfect mirror.

Having mass, the solidity of tissues, was a truly unique. There was a compression of matter, a confinement of skin. And the rush of sensation. The spectrum of response in this sphere was wonderfully disorienting, and he always looked forward to it as he adjusted to being back. The touch of heat and cold. The vibration of sound. The soft impact of gas molecules against his face. The texture of the cloth surrounding him. Skin and channels of nerves bled torrents of tactile information into his hungry, glowing self, hidden inside.

I am flesh again, he thought. I am parts of man.

The wave of nausea hit him then. Emotions.

Lovehatredenvyfearpaniclongingdeniallossjealousydistrustpityforgivenessyearningneedpassiondesireloathingcontempt…

It crashed over him, swamping the core of his senses. The body of flesh… his body…spasmed. Hands and fingers twitched as he fell back against the cold brick exterior of the nursing home. For an instant, he was blind and utterly helpless. The sound of the taxicab driving away was lost to him. From the storm raging deep within him, a massive, dark thing rose up, dominating all else, blotting out everything with its sheer brute force.

Sorrow.

Mind-numbing, gut wrenching sorrow. He doubled over as the raw brutality of it hammered his psyche. HER! Every human memory of her crunched into hard focus. Her touch…her voice…her words…her love. All his memories of her. His feelings. His sorrow.

The woman was no longer here. No longer human.

He gasped, filling the cavity in his upper torso with air, fighting it down. A soft moan rattled from his throat. His human voice had returned. He focused on it, working to make it like the older man’s voice he had heard, using it to pull his consciousness back into balance. Slowly his control returned. He straightened up, pushing the emotion down. Not as far as he wished, but as far as he could. He peered around him.

Even with the human eyes he now possessed, he still could see the unusual and delicate shadings of energy that formed a corona around every living thing. A corona that left a trail of faint, glittering streamers and splotches when anything moved. It was that trail which had brought him to this location. That frail trace of power that marked the movement of life.

He knew that one of the humans he sought was here. Every point of energy deep within him acknowledged the fact, reinforcing the feeling. But he had to move carefully. The trail here was so strong that his senses blurred, and he knew he would have to be very cautious as he drew closer.

He moved warily around the outside of the building, slipping from one darkened area to another, analyzing the structure for a point of entry. Stopping at steel door at the rear of the nursing home, he ran his hands lightly over the cool texture of the metal. Very faint here. Nothing living had touched this place in a while. It was forgotten. Ignored. The sign by the lock said Fire Door, Emergency Use Only - Alarm Will Sound When Opened! He considered it, remembering this written language they used. Fire he knew. It was their word for raw, unintelligent energy. But the idea of making a specific point of entry for it into the structure was odd. Another small, human mystery he did not comprehend.

He grasped the doorknob, wrapping his fingers around it as he released a small scrap of power. The metal began to glow softly, deforming like butter. His arm began to thrum softly, in a low harmonic dance that made the tiny cloud of sparks generated around his hand shimmer and whirl.

3

Charles Simpson woke up, instantly alert. Outwardly, he made sure that he maintained a relaxed appearance beneath the covers, but his right hand tightened under his pillow. Playin’ Possum, his father had called it, and it had saved his life once, many years ago. His eyes opened imperceptibly, faint slits that allowed him to survey the soft glow of the nightlight across the room. If anyone were watching him, they’d never know he was awake. It was an old trick, and one he’d used successfully many times, faking out the night staff when they would occasionally peek into his room on their night rounds, just to check on him. Their visits used to drive him nuts, but to complain would draw unwanted attention, so he shut up and watched.

In fact, Charlie had nearly shot one of the young orderlies two weeks ago when he came in and stood over his bed, worried about a cough from a slight case of the croup the old man had picked up. Simpson had always been a light sleeper, but the kid had been almost noiseless, and managed to get right over him before he knew it. I had scared the bejeesus out of him. The softhearted little shit should have minded his own business. If he had shot the kid, he’d have been arrested, and the gun would have been taken away. Which would have left him stuck in a jail cell somewhere, unarmed, waiting around like a Thanksgiving turkey. Just the thought of it had given Charlie the cold sweats, and he went to work on the door to his room the next morning. He mooched a spray can of automotive brake degreaser from a janitorial closet down the hall. The staff used it to clean up wheelchair axles. He’d used the brake cleaner on the door hinges, finishing up the job with a saline mixture he had made himself using a shaker of cafeteria salt and a bit of tap water from his private bathroom. Now the door squeaked, ever so softly, whenever anyone opened it. Just a little bit of added insurance. The young orderly might have been an Indian in a former life, but he couldn’t get inside Simpson’s room without a sound anymore.

Nossir.

Outwardly, Charles Simpson was just another one of the many inhabitants of the Rose Hill Nursing Home, and he’d worked hard to keep it that way. He had gotten his son to set up a story about a progressive case of Alzheimer’s disease featuring occasional lapses in mental ability, which allowed him to avoid any questions about his past, while giving him maximum freedom. So far, he had been able to outfox the unsuspecting nursing home staff. After all, they were here to help people, not to play J. Edgar Hoover. A fact he had counted on. So Charlie Simpson had managed to fade into the rank and file of the regular population at Rose Hill, his thin manila case folder buried along with the rest of the paperwork on the aging inhabitants. Tucked away in his tiny backwater of humanity outside of Seattle, he had become virtually invisible to anyone who might have been looking for him. It would have made an interesting exercise, however, if Dr. Meyer had been able to compare the little folder they had on their Charles Simpson, to the four inch thick version that had been compiled by the FBI - encompassing not only Charlie, but the rest of the males of the five New England families who had scattered across the United States some twenty years ago. The description of the homicides alone would have stretched Good Old Doctor Bill’s sanity to the breaking point.

Simpson waited for his eyes to adjust. Making a soft, unintelligible noise, he shifted his body, head lolling on his pillow. Merely a subconscious movement. Just an old man lost in some long-ago dream. Except he could now see all of the dimly lit room. And he studied it through slitted eyes like his life depended on it. Because it did.

Had the door opened?

Nothing moved in the room, except for a cheap glass vase filled with marbles that supported a stalk of silk flowers on a corner table. It rattled softly in response to the dim vibrations of a jet. Rose Hill had been built on West Hill, on the edge of the city of Kent, overlooking the Tukwila Valley. South and a little east of Seattle proper, it was barely outside the flight path for Seatac Airport. Occasionally a jet would vary its approach or takeoff, and make a nuisance of itself. The rattling of the marbles must have been what woke him up.

He watched the table, alert for any other movement. That was it. The soft murmuring of the turbines got a little louder. The old window that faced the street jiggled for a moment, wedging itself further into the sill and stopping. The thrumming noise rose in intensity. One of the marbles in the vase got excited and hopped over to visit a neighbor with a sharp click.

Jeez, he thought. Can’t you let an old man get some rest? He looked up at the ceiling in disgust.

And froze.

Someone was up there. It was a guy in a suit, as if some bizarre joke, crouched in the far corner of the ceiling like a great bat. Watching him. That was where the deep, thrumming turbine sound was coming from.

Simpson went rigid with shock. It was here. It had found him. The air in the room was suddenly charged, and he could feel the hair on his body come to life, responding to the buildup. He fought down panic. Panic would kill him. He had to remain calm. He had practiced for this. He knew instinctually he only had one chance. He let his face go blank, unreadable. I got to get it closer…

The thing unfolded itself from the ceiling, drifting down toward the foot of Simpson’s bed as if totally weightless. Its movements were measured, fluid. It watched him without blinking.

Closer…

"Old One … I seek you out now." The voice sounded like a soft, synthetic version of a human being. It had an odd, hollow texture, and the inflection was weird. Inhuman. Give away your madness and I will leave you forever. I need no revenge.

Somehow it knew he was awake. No matter. Two could play cat-and-mouse. Charlie opened his eyes all the way and shook his head sadly. His whole body sagged, the image practiced and perfect. Just a tired old man in the end, cornered and pathetic.

Sooo…You finally found me. After all these years. His voice wavered as he shifted his weight in the bed and sat up, his bony knees making a valley. His hands were under the covers.

Closer…Just a little bit more…

Simpson pulled one of his hands out from under the covers, wiping a wisp of thin hair from his face. Just like wiping away a tear. He spoke in a sorrowful whisper.

Shame about the woman…No one meant to hurt her. She just - got in the way. Something moved under the bed sheets. "Just like you! " He hissed.

The covers on the bed jerked three times, as the rapid, muffled PHUFFT-PHUFFT-PHUFFT of the silencer on Simpson’s automatic punctuated his last words, leaving a darkened hole in the sheets by his knees.

The thing that looked like Dr. Meyer was flung backward instantly, doubling over and gasping in agony as a shower of sparks erupted from its midsection. The body hit the wall, sliding down onto the floor beyond the edge of the bed, sputtering energy like an arc welder.

Simpson leapt out of bed, his bedclothes flapping against his thin body, his face a mask of hatred.

I GOT you! I finally got you! You fucking bastard! He spat out the words, his whisper filled with loathing. He approached the body cautiously, taking no chances. The automatic weighed in his right hand; never leaving the crumpled mass on the floor that seemed to give off wave after wave of sparks. The arm of the thing moved.

Simpson shot it four more times, just to be sure. He listened for any noise from the corridor outside, then he grabbed the phone on the bedside table and dialed quickly, smiling grimly to himself. Cradling the phone to his ear, he turned on the beside light to get a better view of the carcass of the creature. Unlike the other men of the families, he had never assumed that it was human. But whatever the thing really was, his Yankee common sense had told him that if it was real enough to kill, it was real enough to be killed. Now that he had succeeded, he had no intention of hanging around to answer any stupid questions. Let somebody else figure out what the damn thing was. Or wasn’t. He didn’t care. He and his boy would be back in Maine before anyone stumbled into the room next morning. It would be good to see his wife again. And the money…oh, yes…all that money, just waiting for the taking.

The other end of the line clicked. Charlie began speaking without even waiting. He knew it was Gabriel.

"A-yah! I got him, Son! You git a move on an' git down heah, now! Happ’n jest like I said. He’s hard as a carp now, you betcha! You move it an’ git down heah! I want t’ be outa heah soon as poss’ble…"

Charlie hung up, cutting off the cry of triumph on the other end of the phone. Enough time for that later. Truth be told, he had never felt so alive. No more hiding. He had won. To the victor go the spoils, Yessirree, Bob! But first there were other things he had to do. And premier amongst those was getting out of here. Cleanly and quickly.

He peeked out of his door into the hall. It was deserted. No one had heard anything. Good so far. Perfect, in fact. He had chosen this