Crypt of Bone

Chapter 2

2

Ezra Institute. Jerusalem, Israel. 8.32am

The Ezra Institute was in chaos.

Somehow one of the patients had escaped and they were still searching for him. The alarm had gone off before dawn and the bell still rang at intervals, jolting everyone anew. A team had been sent out with the police to try to find him, so the Institute was short-staffed.

But something else had triggered a reaction in the patients and Dinah Mizrahi had been called in to sort it out. As Deputy Director of the facility, she was frequently left to deal with emergencies while her boss spent his time dealing with fundraising. At least that’s what he called it, Dinah thought as she hurried down the tiled corridor. There was a problem in the women’s ward. She could hear the wailing all the way to the reception area. At the door to the ward, the security guard asked for her pass.

“Seriously, Mikael. Do we have to go through this every morning?” She fumbled at her waist for the card.

“You know the rules, Dr Mizrahi,” the guard said with a smile, used to the routine. He knew that the complaining medical staff were truly grateful for the protection in this dangerous city. He buzzed her into the main facility.

Only Israel could possibly have a place like Ezra, a specialized institution for those suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome. It manifested as a set of mental phenomena associated with the religious aspects of the Holy City, generally affecting Christians and some Jews. Patients thought they were Mary, the mother of Christ, or John the Baptist, Elijah or other religious figures connected with Jerusalem. They often claimed to be messengers from God. Many recovered when they were removed from the city but some were too entrenched in their psychoses and they were brought here to Ezra. The women’s ward had four Mary, mother of Jesus and three Mary Magdalenes. Today they were united in a chorus of wailing, an intense outpouring of grief.

Entering the ward, Dinah saw Abigail, the ward Sister, struggling to cope with the mass emotion in the usually well behaved ward.

“Do you know what triggered this?” Dinah shouted, struggling to be heard above the din.

“It started suddenly, just after dawn,” Abigail replied. “They won’t speak. They just wail. They’re inconsolable. I didn’t want to sedate them until you’d seen them like this.”

“Thank you but I think we can sedate them now. The other patients will be fretting with the noise. Have there been any other incidents?”

The nurse looked at the floor.

“I’m so sorry Dr Mizrahi but the Marys have taken all my attention. We’re short staffed at the best of times. I haven’t even had time to check on the others.”

Dinah dismissed the nurse’s concern.

“It’s alright, I’ll go check on them now. I’ll start with Abraham.”

Dinah headed down the long corridor towards the wing where patients were kept in individual rooms. It wasn’t solitary confinement so much as a private mini ward where the patients couldn’t hurt others. They had tried bigger wards but the re-enactment of certain biblical events had caused them to keep the more seriously affected separate. The patient called Abraham had been there almost two months now.

He had never given them another name and had no ID on him when he had been admitted. He was clearly well versed in scripture and Dinah couldn’t fault his knowledge. With her combined expertise in psychiatry and theology, she felt Abraham was one of the patients most deeply embedded in his own psychoses. He truly believed that he was Abraham, the prophet of God, servant of the Most High.

The only patient who came close to this was Daniel, who had escaped from the facility this morning. He believed himself to be John of Patmos, the writer of Revelation. Dinah decided to visit Abraham first and then check Daniel’s room to see if there were any clues to his disappearance.

The corridor she walked down was bright basic white with no decorations. The Institute team had found that any kind of visual stimulation was interpreted by the patients as a message from God. As she approached Abraham’s door, she could hear a low voice praying in a stream of connected words. At least he wasn’t screaming the place down.

Then she looked through the glass window into the small room, and immediately pressed the alarm call button next to the door.

Dinah swiped her card and burst into the room.

The stench of blood and feces made her flinch and she put a hand to her nose as she took in the scene. Abraham was kneeling on the floor by the bed, his eyes glazed and staring. He was naked, rocking his body back and forth as he prayed on his knees in a pool of blood.

At the end of each string of prayers, he cut himself with a long razor blade, eyes unflinching. In some places it looked as if he had sliced down to the bone. He hadn’t hit a major artery yet but his blood already soaked the floor. Dinah crouched near him, down on his level but out of the reach of the razor.

Protocol said she shouldn’t even be in there, she should wait for security, but she knew this man. She could help him. If he didn’t stop soon he would bleed to death.

“Abraham, can you hear me?” she said in a low calm voice.

He continued praying but in a louder tone as if to drown her out. Dinah couldn’t make out his words. She tried again.

“Abraham, you’re safe now. Please talk to me.”

He seemed to be winding up towards a crescendo in his prayers, and Dinah willed the security guards to get there faster. If they could just sedate him, the cutting would stop.

“It’s OK,” she said. “Just put down the razor now.”

Abraham went silent and c****d his head as if listening.

Reversing his grip, he suddenly rose on his knees and plunged the razor blade deep into his belly, grunting as he ripped it across and down.

He fell sideways to the floor.

“No ... no!” Dinah shouted and reached for him, unafraid of the blade now as it had served its dark purpose. She crawled through the blood to gather Abraham in her arms. A stream of blood and entrails erupted from his belly, as he had effectively disemboweled himself with the sharp instrument. The noxious smell made her gag but she held him anyway.

His eyes flickered open.

“Why Abraham, why?” Dinah pleaded.

For a moment she saw lucidity there. He seemed entirely rational and spoke in barely a whisper.

“God told me to do it.”

His breath rasped and then quieted, his last sound a sigh. Dinah felt a part of him slip away as the alarms rang on and the guards finally arrived with the crash cart.

But they were too late.

Dinah sat there holding Abraham’s body, her white coat and hands covered in gore. She looked up to the wall above his bed. Scrawled there in blood and feces was a line drawing, a horse rearing up on its back legs as if to crush the body below. The rider on the horse was a black wraith, as if Death itself had come to claim this victim.

“Dr Mizrahi? We need to take the body.” One of the orderlies spoke from the door, a new guy funded by the last grant from Zoebios.

“Of course, sorry ... I just thought … I thought I could get to him in time.”

Dinah tried to rise, slipping in the bloody mess. He helped her stand, supporting her to the door.

“Sometimes there’s no stopping them,” he said. “This one looked on the edge,”

Dinah looked at him more closely, something in his tone alerting her.

“Sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“It’s Jacobsen, I only started last week. It seemed like a relatively quiet place then, but now this and of course, Daniel.”

“What have you heard about Daniel?” Dinah asked with growing concern. “I haven’t been able to get to his room yet. Is he still missing?”

The orderly shook his head.

“Word just came in that he’s dead too. Jumped from the top of the Western Wall. The Army have his body and they’re sending someone to talk to you later.”

Dinah looked up at the looming figure of Death on the wall. He had claimed two of her patients today and she would not see him take another.

Something had changed, something was wrong here.

She didn’t trust her boss, didn’t trust the others here, but there was someone she did trust. It was time to call in a favor from a friend she hadn’t seen in far too long.