The Nameless Dead by Paul Johnston

voices, a lot of them crying. I went through a ruined city, but there was no one around. Just more voices…’ The scene seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
    ‘That’s very gratifying,’ Dr. Brown said.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘The “katabasis” was induced by my process,’ she said proudly.
    I found my bearings. It so happened that I knew what the term meant—a descent, specifically to the Underworld. When I was at college studying English, I did a project on the literary tradition of such journeys. I’d always been fascinated by the depiction of hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost . That had led me in all sortsof strange directions: from Wilfred Owen’s subterranean First World War trench poems, to the trips to the death god’s realm described by Homer and Virgil, to the urban wastelands of T.S. Eliot. I’d brought in works of art, too—ancient vases and sculptures showing Charon and Cerberus, visions of demonic horror by Hieronymus Bosch and Peter Brueghel, Rodin’s sculpted Gates of Hell . The fact that the Rothmann conspiracy had involved a satanic cult called the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant and had previously spawned a killer who left maps of hell attached to the victims meant that the literary and artistic traditions had extra significance for me, no matter what Alexandra Brown’s drugs and other methods of suggestion had brought out.
    ‘So you did brainwash me.’
    She gave me an imperious look. ‘Certainly not. My process is directed toward the extraction of material from subjects, not the insertion of predetermined stimuli. The emphasis is on making use of structures already present. Do you have some knowledge of underworld voyages?’
    ‘You’ve read my file. My whole life has been one of those recently. What about the triggers?’
    ‘What about them?’ said Rivers.
    ‘Wakey, wakey, Lester. Do you think Alex here’s process has nailed them all?’
    ‘Please don’t call me that,’ the pale woman said.
    ‘How about Sandra? Or Lexie?’
    ‘Please, Mr. Wells.’ She was irritated. One-nil to me.
    ‘Probably,’ Rivers said, in a low voice.
    ‘Is that a scientific term?’ I asked.
    ‘Unfortunately it is,’ he replied. ‘We have now identified a total of one hundred and seven trigger words and phrases. The likelihood is that there are few, if any, remaining.’
    ‘It’ll only take one,’ I said, remembering the murders in the cathedral. That shut them up.
    Eventually they loosed my bonds and let me go. My legs were unsteady and there was a vile metallic taste in my mouth. Dr. Brown said those side effects would soon disappear. I hoped the same could be said for any psychological effects of her process.
    On my way out of the lab, to my surprise, I saw that it was after four in the morning. The gorilla had been told to escort me all the way back to our apartment. I managed not to screw with him by turning into a werewolf on the way. Karen was awake, but drowsy, so I kissed her and lay down beside her.
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘They told you I’d be late, didn’t they?’
    ‘Yes. What was Rivers doing?’
    ‘He’s got a new sidekick. Dr. Alexandra ‘I’m Pale Because I Only Come Out at Night’ Brown. She’s not only a grade-one weirdo, but she’s got a process.’
    ‘That sounds worrying.’
    I gave her a rundown, wondering if she’d be put through it after she’d given birth. Were the drugs safe? Then I felt myself heading rapidly toward sleep’s Niagara Falls. I managed to kiss her again before my barrel went into the watery void. My last thoughts were: what exactly was in Dr. Brown’s pharmaceutical cocktail? And was I about to set off on a trip to hell?
     
    I woke up with a clear head and serious hunger, having had no dinner the previous evening. It was nearlynoon. Karen was encamped on the sofa, watching a kids’ cartoon on TV.
    ‘I’m getting in training,’ she said.
    ‘Yeah, we’ll be seeing a lot of those in the next few years. How do you