Page 47 (2/2)

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t,” I said

“No,” she said “It doesn’t”

That sa physician, the ht of June 14, 2007 He had treated Will since his arrival at the facility

“You know,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “he claimed he was born in 1876”

“So I’ve heard,” I said “How old do you think he actually was?”

“Hard to say Mid- to late nineties In excellent shape, though, for soe”

“Except the dementia”

“Well, deh”

“What was the cause of death?”

“Old age”

“Heart attack? Stroke?”

“One of the two, most likely Hard to tell without an autopsy But he passed his last physical with flying colors”

“Did you ever findWas there any indication ofodd about hisCan you tell me if you ever took a blood sample?”

“Of course It was part of the physical”

“And did you ever find anythingunusual?”

The doctor cocked his head quizzically, and I had the i back a smile

“As in?”

I cleared my throat Spoken aloud, the idea seemed even more ridiculous “In the journals, Will Henry talks about being, uh, infected by some kind of parasite when he was around eleven or twelve An invertebrate like a tapeworives people unnaturally long life”

The doctor was nodding For a split second I misinterpreted the nod as an assent, an indication that he had heard of such a symbiotic creature And, if that portion of Will Henry’s fantastic life story were true, what else ht be? Could it be that there was such a discipline as y practiced in the late nineteenth century by matic Pellinore Warthrop? Was it possible that I had in my possession not a work of fiction but a memoir of a truly extraordinary life that spannedthat wokein a cold sweat, the notion that haunted o back to sleepCould monsters be real?

My hope—if what I was feeling could be called that—was short-lived The doctor’s nod was not to signify recognition; it was his way of being polite

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” he asked rhetorically “But no, his blood was perfectly norh on the bad cholesterol Other than that” He shrugged

“What about a CT scan or an MRI?”

“What about them?”

“Did you ever give him one?”

“The state won’t fund unnecessary procedures in a case like Mr Henry’s My job was to make his last days as comfortable as possible, and that’s what I did Do youwith this?”

“You mean why does it matter?”

“Yes Why?”

“I’uy? Where did he come from, and how did he end up in that culvert? And why did he write that journal or novel or whatever it is? I guess the h, has to do with a promise I made”

“To Will Henry?”

I hesitated “I was talking about the director He gave ht be clues that will help us find his relatives Somewhere there must be someone who knew him before he came here Everyone has someone”

The doctor was sot it “And for now you’re the only someone he has”

I dropped the notes of my intervieith the reader and the doctor into the ever-expanding file I was keeping on Will Henry, and then I dropped the file into a draith yet another pro to obsess; I would work on it as my schedule perations, worries of my own The old leather-bound books with their cracked hides and yellowing pages re the first three under the title of The Monstru year in the hopes that so familiar in them

It was a long shot For legal reasons the notebooks would have to be presented as fiction Even if sonized the name of William Ja in his tale ht spark a randchildren with the story of the bizarre and horrifying creatures called Anthropophagi He had obviously been an educated man Perhaps at so, maybe not under his own name—if, that is, William James Henry was his nae ditch, the police had run his fingerprints The person clai to be William James Henry had never been arrested, had never served in thehis fingertips was required by law

I thought, if those first three notebooks were a work of fiction—and, given the subject matter, they would have to be—then the author, in his deht have coonist that he becas have happened to flaky writers

I had spent the entire su everyone I could think of who et of information, that heretofore undiscovered key that would unlock the truth from the stubborn confines of the past

Late in Septe from yet another severe case of writer’s block, my eye wandered to the journals Impulsively I pulled out the fourth volue Toslipped onto the desktop My heart racing with excite other scraps of paper tucked between the pages, as if the journal had served a dual purpose as Will Henry’s diary and as his scrapbook

Over the next three days I foundjournals I began a new file, which I labeled “Cuttings,” organized by their location in the journals (in other words, by volu possible avenues for more research While I can vouch for the authenticity of some of them (the New York Ti card of Abra, have yet to be fully vetted I cannot say with 100 percent certainty that they are not forgeries or part of some very weird creative exercise on the part of the journals’ author