Twelve dead bodies, dressed identically in white, were laid out on catafalques, three rows with four in each row. As we all followed Bridget into this precise geometry of corpses, I smelled something foul and pungent. I refused at first to speculate on its source, for it seemed that speculation would lead inevitably to regurgitation.
A closer look revealed something worse than cadavers in a morgue, though it would prove to be the least of the horrors that the Oasis would soon reveal.
|?32?|
The rectangles on which the seven men and five women lay were not catafalques, after all. They were made of pressboard coated in white melamine for easy cleaning. Topped with three-inch vinyl air mattresses and vinyl pillows, the twelve slabs served as beds. Dreaming on in spite of the suddenly brighter light and uninvited visitors, the sleepers were not wound in shrouds; they wore identical white pajamas. Lying on their backs, nine of the twelve slept with their arms crossed on their chests, the position in which they’d evidently gone to sleep; as for the other three, their arms had slipped down to their sides, palms turned up like those of supplicants.
Beside each bed stood an oxygen tank, its air hose drooping into another device, a one-foot-square two-foot-high gray box. The readouts on these boxes were what had produced the twelve faint lights like spirits floating in the darkness when Bridget had first opened the door. The hose emerged from each box and trailed up to the sleeper, feeding a nasal cannula. As none of those on the beds appeared wasted by disease, I suspected that the gray-box device introduced a measured dose of sedative to the flow of oxygen, to ensure that each of these individuals would remain unconscious until someone came to turn the tanks off.
Again I heard ghostly voices, tormented people crying out from the bottom of an abyss. I wasn’t able to discern words, but I could feel the anguish in their cries. If a nascent telepathic receptivity was aborning in me, then what I heard must have been the stifled unconscious pleas of these drugged sleepers.
Every one of the twelve who lay insensate in this dormitory was of Asian descent, in their thirties and forties. Beyond an archway lay what appeared to be a large communal bathroom.
Sparky said softly, “Emmerich would have done a lot of business with Asia before he retreated here. Maybe his companies still do.”
Although it seemed that whispering was not necessary, Bridget whispered anyway. “But surely he wouldn’t draw so many followers from halfway around the world. He doesn’t advertise the cult.”
With the certainty of a seer, Panthea said, “These aren’t his acolytes. These are trained workers with special skills. They keep the mechanics of this facility functioning.”
“But why would they need to sleep this way?” I asked. “They can’t all be insomniacs.”
“They’re not paid workers,” Panthea said. “Perhaps once there was a skilled staff, when the Oasis was a frolic. As it became a dark and then darker place, when Emmerich eased into depravity and powerful associates visited here for experiences that the infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein might have found alluring, staffing the operation would have become increasingly difficult. And now, getting skilled tradespeople and technicians to work in this slough of madness must be impossible. These people lying here are slaves. They can’t be left awake when Emmerich and the others are sleeping. They might escape—or kill their masters. They’re put to bed and awakened and overseen by the soul children or someone else.” Stepping to the nearest bed, she indicated a dog collar around the sleeper’s throat. “They’re all wearing one of these. It appears to be mostly copper mesh, with a small compartment that probably holds a disc battery, microwave receiver, and punishment mechanism. I’d guess that with a remote control, a painful shock can be delivered. Look closely at this man’s throat. Scar tissue.”
Sparky could not comprehend submission to such torture. “Why don’t they strip off their collars?”
“They can’t,” Panthea said. “These probably aren’t buckled on or held by a clasp. They’re custom-fitted to each person and then fixed permanently with a crimping tool.” She touched the face of the sleeper and closed her eyes and stood swaying for a long moment, as if she could turn the pages of his memory and read them. “If you try to cut the collar off yourself, you’ll be severely punished. Succeed in taking it off, and you’ll be caught before you can escape—and punished nearly to destruction.”
The source of the foul and pungent smell that I had thought must be related to the presence of cadavers was now recognizable as the stink of urine and feces. Four or five of the sleepers, unable to rise to toilet in the long sleep of the day, soiled themselves and were lying now in their own waste, where they would remain until awakened and directed to clean up after themselves.