Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes Read Free

from them, they did laugh, albeit in nervous spasms.
    “. . . got to tell Hans!” Oktavian said. “He’ll flip out!”
    “And Marie-Luise. And Jakob !” Marianne grinned like her Saturday evening self.
    “Better have a party. Soon. Because the time is short.” Oktavian spoke earnestly across the table.
    Marianne knew what he meant. They made plans, drew up a list of a select twelve or so. It should be next Tuesday night, they decided. Next Saturday might be too late, the hospital might have discovered the state of the cemetery and done something about it.
    “A ghost party,” said Marianne. “We’ll come in sheets—even if it’s raining.”
    Oktavian did not reply, as Marianne knew him well enough to know that he was in accord. He was thinking, could rainwater contribute to the growth of those insane tumors? Could the soil? After the supply of blood in the corpses had been exhausted, could the busy blood vessels that fed the cancers start capturing earth worms, maggots for their meager nutrients? Did the capillaries even reach out for adjacent corpses? Whatever the answers to those questions, the fact was plain that the death of the host did not mean the end of the cancer.
    There were some smirks, some cynical disbelief, when Oktavian and Marianne extended discreet verbal invitations to the Real Ghost Party Tuesday Night at the Cemetery of the National Hospital Number Thirty-six. Wear a sheet or bring one and turn up at a quarter to midnight were the instructions.
    Again it rained slightly on Tuesday evening, though there had been two or three days without rain, and Oktavian had hoped that the good weather would hold. However, the Schnürlregen did not dampen the spirits of the dozen or more medical students who arrived at the cemetery more or less punctually, some on bicycles, as they had been warned not to make any noise, because nobody wanted the hospital staff descending upon them.
    There were muted “Ooohs!” and other exclamations when the sheeted students investigated the burial ground, though Oktavian had admonished everyone to keep silent. “It’s phoney!—Plastic balls! You so-and-so!” one girl whispered loudly to Oktavian.
    “No!— No !” Oktavian whispered back.
    “Wheest! My God, look at this!” cried a young man, trying to keep his voice low.
    “Cancer patients? Holy Mother of God, Okky, what kind of experiments are going on here?” said an earnest fellow near Oktavian.
    Sheeted figures circled the cemetery, drifted among the tombstones in the moonless night, shining pocket torches carefully downward to avoid tripping and detection. Oktavian had imagined calling for a circular ballet-of-ghosts round the cemetery, but was afraid to use his voice for this, and there was no need. Out of nervous excitement, fear, collective puzzlement, the students began a dance not at first in the same direction, but a dance which soon organized itself into a counter-clockwise ring which stumbled, recovered, held hands, hummed, giggled softly, and wafted its pale and sodden sheets in the wind.
    The lights of the National Hospital glowed as ever, nearly half the windows bright rectangles of light, Oktavian noticed. He was holding Marianne’s hand and that of another fellow.
    “Look at this! Hey, look !” said a boy’s voice. The boy was focusing his torch on something as high as his hip. “ Pink below! I swear !”
    “ Shut your trap, for Chris ’ sake!” Oktavian whispered back.
    At that moment, Oktavian saw a young man on the other side of the ring kick at a pale lump, and heard him laugh. “They’re fixed in the ground! They’re rubber !”
    Oktavian could have killed the fellow! He didn’t deserve to get his medical degree! “It’s real, you fool,” Oktavian said. “And shut up !”
    “ Measles, magpies, maggots, mumps! ” the students chanted, swinging their legs as in a conga line. The circle slowly rotated.
    A whistle blew.
    “Okay, run !” Oktavian shouted, realizing that a