Reanimators (21 page)

Cain’s confession, a virtual autobiography of the horrors he and West had committed over the years, revealed too much of the past. It detailed their early experiments, their failure with Dr. Halsey and again with John Robinson and scores of other unnamed victims. But as I read on, a slow creeping horror reached out to drag me back to that night in Boston. For it was clear from Cain’s writing that Major Clapham-Lee had died in the war. He had been decapitated and then both parts had been reanimated by West’s perverse sensibilities. That the head and body of the Major had been destroyed in a volley of German artillery was never proven, and would seem now to be in doubt. For even though he had seen little in the attack that had shattered the basement wall and carried West away, he had seen enough: The body of a man dressed as a Canadian major, a body with no head, the same thing I had glimpsed in the lamplight on the street when my master had stumbled and fallen, allowing the false wax head to bounce away and into the street where the tires of the truck crushed it like a paper carton.

It took me weeks, but I managed to convince the authorities that Cain had made the whole story up, that it was a drug-induced hallucination, and that the man should be released. I could see no other way to resolve the situation. He came to see me afterwards, just once. I asked him what had really become of the wooden crate that had been delivered that terrible night, the one he claimed to have burned in the furnace. He shrugged, opened his mouth to speak, but never said a word.

I thought that would be the last of it, but a few weeks later the postman brought a thick envelope bearing Cain’s name and a return address on the other side of Arkham. He has started his own practice amongst the poor and uneducated Italian and Polish immigrants who either don’t know or don’t care about the scandals of his past. The contents of the envelope, pages upon pages of handwritten notes, were a manuscript of sorts, a missing chapter from his confession in which Cain and West seem to actually do some good with their experiments. I suppose somehow or another Cain felt he owed me something. I just wished he would find it in his heart to leave me alone.

Chapter 19.

THE MASQUERADE IN EXILE

Note

The following document was recovered by Federal agents from the home of Dr. Stuart Hartwell while he was in custody for events that resulted in the apparent deaths of several of his patients. It was in an envelope bearing the return address of Dr. Daniel Cain and the handwriting matches that on file for Dr. Cain. It is included here as the contents have some bearing on the validity of Hartwell’s confession.

—Hadrian Vargr, Special Agent in Charge

Much has been written of the Great War, and indeed I have set forth my own accounts of my exploits in the trenches with my constant companion and fellow Dr. Herbert West. But I have until now refrained from writing of one of our adventures out of respect for those who were involved. Yet, this day the paper brings notice of disaster in the Antarctic and with it the sure death of the polar explorer the Comte de Chagny. The report states that he died heirless, just short of his seventieth birthday, and that his title will transfer to his nephew Emille Belloq. No mention is made of his wife and son who vanished so many years ago at the height of the war. Strange how the papers have such short memories, but I suppose that the war did its best to wipe clean the memories of newsmen either through death or simple overload of information. Still, as I appear to be the last living participant in those strange events, I see no reason why I should not convey the tale, and let the truth be known.

Dr. Herbert West and I came to fight in the Great War in service to the Canadian forces not as soldiers but as medical personnel, and I must admit we did not volunteer wholly out of a willingness to serve our Hippocratic Oaths. No, our motives also included a desire, an unwholesome need, to have unfettered access to a supply of both the freshly dead and the dying. With such specimens and in such quantities we could further our experiments into the science of reanimation and perhaps, given our skills as researchers and some luck, we might have found the key to resolving the problem of death itself. If only we had realized the truth of how deluded we were. That war is no place for men of science, that war devours not just truth and innocence but rational thought as well. We came to the war hoping to find the cure to one of man’s greatest flaws. Instead the war corrupted us and we inevitably sunk into depravity, finding dark joy in carrying out the most twisted and amoral procedures on the mortally wounded committed to our supposed medical care. None were safe from our predations, for we experimented on allies and enemies alike, of all ranks from the lowliest private to the most highly decorated officers. Even those who knew of our secret tests were not immune from our machinations. West and I hardly hesitated from experimenting on our commanding officer and colleague Major Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee when his plane crashed during a battle in Flanders in March of 1915.

This is not to say that West and I did no good upon the field of battle. I particularly remember the Battle of the Somme, which raged from July through November of 1916 near Belloy-en Santerre. This prolonged engagement brought me wounded from around the world, including a trio of Legionnaires. Though I could do nothing to save the poet Alan Seeger from his mortal wounds, I was able to do better by his comrades Randolph Carter and Etienne-Laurent de Marigny. After several weeks of care and with the capture of the Ancre River, conditions in the war-torn countryside and of my patients were sufficient to ship the two and others to Bayonne for recuperation. Both West and I had grown weary of the frontline, and when the opportunity came to rotate to a field hospital several miles back we eagerly volunteered.

The Chateau d’Erlette was a small manor whose master had volunteered it as a staging area for injured troops to be taken to for stabilization before being moved to more competent facilities further away. Our liaison was a young American with a pale appearance and wild hair named Helman Carnby, who explained as he drove us to the house that his mistress was the wife of a well-respected member of the aristocracy who was serving overseas in some undisclosed capacity. The war had not been kind to the landscape. The roads had been turned into paired ruts of mud and filth bordered by running mounds of debris. The refuse of years of human conflict littered the barren frozen fields of fire. Denuded trees stood like reapers, skeletal sentinels watching over the few emaciated cattle that still roamed the once-lush farmlands. There was no other animal life to speak of, save for the two horses pulling the cart. The war, hunger and disease had taken their toll. What animals had survived the battles and the need to feed its soldiers had fled to less unhealthy places. Over all of this dismal landscape hung the vilest of stenches, an unhealthy blending of rot, gun smoke and the strange metallic scent of bitter deadly cold; a miasma that would have sickened weaker men, but one West and I had grown used to.

The chateau was built on a squalid grey hill overlooking fields of crop stubble and clods of frozen earth. The building itself was originally of medieval French architecture, all gothic arches and flying buttresses, but it had long since become a chimera of features including heaped renaissance ornaments and baroque symmetrical facades that had long ago cracked and fallen into disrepair. In the barren hellish countryside of war-torn France, the Chateau d’Erlette was just another horror to inflict on the already shell-shocked populace and the men who had come to make war on their land.

The interior of the house was as bleak as the exterior, lit by meager oil lamps that did little but turn the deep shadows a murky grey. Only the massive fireplace with a roaring fire provided any real light and heat. Without invitation both West and I gravitated toward the comforting blaze while Carnby went to fetch his mistress. It didn’t take long before West was browsing through the various accoutrements of the room.

“Daniel, these books, this library, there are things here that not even Miskatonic has.” I wandered over to where West was perusing the shelves that lined the walls. It was a fascinating collection of volumes highlighted by the most wonderfully dark titles, some of which puzzled me.

“West, I thought I had read all of the works of the Marquis de Sade, but these: Los Reliques, La Cure de Prato, and this Tancrede, I’ve never heard of these.”

West nodded and pulled down a strange, green, leather-bound volume.

“This is an original copy of Cultes de Goules, written in 1665 by the Comte d’Erlette. Most of these were burned during the revolution. I’ve been trying to see the University copy for years.” Just then my colleague audibly gasped, and I watched as he carefully replaced the precious Cultes de Goules and lifted out another folio, this one heavily beaten and stained. “I thought this was a myth: The Pretorius Commentary on the Journals of Victor Frankenstein.” He clutched the book with two hands, unable to look away from the cover, like a bird caught in the gaze of a snake.

“If you prefer, Dr. West, you can study that volume while you are here.” The voice was angelic, full of music and poetry, but controlled. There was a trace of an accent, something Scandinavian, but the diction was perfect. We two turned to face the source and did encounter such a vision that both of us were stunned into silence. Our hostess was an older woman of substance and grace. Her iron-grey hair and firm figure were accented by an air of self-assurance and pride. When she moved, she glided across the floor, and not a hair on her head fell out of place. Had it not been for my medically trained eye, I would have thought her in her mid-forties, but certain lines around the eyes and spots on her hands suggested that she might be into her fifth decade of life.

West stepped forward to greet the charming woman. “Lady d’Erlette, I presume. You honor us with your hospitality.”

I went to make my own greeting, but was quickly silenced by our hostess. “I am sorry, Dr. West, but the House of d’Erlette is all but extinct, at least in France, put down by the crown and the people one too many times to survive. Though I hear there may be surviving members in the Americas. These lands are now held in trust by the family of my husband, the Comte de Chagny; you may address me as Lady de Chagny.”

With these words I recognized her immediately. “Lady de Chagny, your talent and fame are second only to your still-radiant beauty. Your likeness still hangs in one of the halls at the Paris Opera. We are at your service.”

She nodded almost imperceptibly. “You are too kind. I have prepared a meal. Afterwards we shall show you the patient wards.”

She led us out of the hall and into a once-grand formal dining room, now fallen into disrepair. The table had not been polished in years, and the chairs were threadbare with signs of dry rot. But the meal that Carnby served to us, a simple roasted pig with winter vegetables, was welcome after so many months in the trenches eating nothing but rations. The meal was accompanied with a bottle of house champagne, an extra dry rose that reminded me of the days of my youth, when my parents would host lavish parties on New Year’s Eve.

After the meal the Lady de Chagny and Carnby took us to the wards. I was taken aback when Carnby unlocked a heavy oak door revealing a poorly lit stairway made of stone leading down into the bowels of the house. As we proceeded by torchlight, our hostess explained that the house had been built over the top of an ancient and vast series of catacombs that were used for a variety of purposes, including as storage for the vineyards and a refuge in times of trouble. Under the current state of war she had ordered them converted to a ward for injured soldiers.

As she remarked on this last usage, we rounded a corner of the descending tunnel, passed through yet another door, and found ourselves viewing the most astounding of sights. The cavern before us was a large tunnel approximately thirty feet wide, twenty feet tall and stretching a good two hundred feet back. Light was provided by a series of ornate chandeliers hanging from hooks drilled into the ceiling, which illuminated what I can only describe as a makeshift hospital ward. Four rows of beds ran the length of the cavern, only a few of which were occupied by soldiers in various states of injury. Six women milled about tending to the wounded and discharging various other duties as if they were trained nurses in a city hospital. All in all it was a magnificent operation, though one could see the weaknesses that simply could not be overcome. There was a shortage of linens and of proper clothing. Many soldiers still were dressed in the tatters of their uniforms, which revealed them to be of a variety of nationalities, including French, British and Canadian. Actual medical supplies were lacking, and we could see that many of the patients were suffering from either infection or crippling pain.

Though such conditions would normally lead to a cacophony of screaming, such cries were absent, replaced instead by the sound of a viol playing the most mesmerizing of melodies. It was a tune so hypnotic that it calmed even the most seriously injured patients. As we moved into the cavern I glanced upwards, following a wrought iron ladder set into the wall beside the entrance. There above the passageway, hidden behind a curtain, was a small alcove that was apparently the source of the music. Light from within the room cast shadows on the curtain and revealed the musician as he gracefully played his instrument. Never had I heard such music before, and I wondered aloud about the identity of the composer. The Lady de Chagny smiled and casually informed us that the piece was written by the violist’s father as part of an operatic masterpiece entitled Don Juan Triumphant.

Without hesitation West and I began evaluating the conditions of the patients and the abilities of the ward itself. From what we could gather the majority of the patients had come from a single skirmish that had begun not far from the vineyards. A running battle, the injured had been left where they fell, and the Lady de Chagny, unable to tolerate the screams of the wounded, organized the staff and pulled the survivors from the fields. There was some talk amongst the staff and amongst those who were rescued concerning the equal treatment of enemy soldiers, but that was quickly squelched. Carnby was brutal in his reprimands and stressed to the wounded and caretakers alike that the Lady herself was not French and that accidents of nationality should not come to bear in determining who received aid and who was left to die. That was not to say that tensions did not run high, and all arms had been confiscated from both factions. The only things left for them to fight with were their minds, their hands, several decks of cards and a chess set.

There were thirteen patients in the cavern, and while most were well on their way to recovering from minor wounds, some were not. Based on West’s assessment there were two legs and one arm that needed to be amputated as soon as possible. Additionally, there were numerous bones that needed to be set, and several infections that needed to be drained. Sadly, there were three cases that West saw no hope in wasting any effort on trying to save, including a poor soul who still had a bullet rattling around in his skull. West, with Carnby’s help, had these three moved to a different room, one with a strong door and medical restraints. I knew that West had identified them as potential subjects for his reanimation experiments.

In a similar room, we constructed a surgery. Sadly, the equipment and supplies available to us were simply inadequate. Some resources had been liberated from abandoned field hospitals, but the supply of sulfa drugs, painkillers, and proper bandages was woefully low. When he inquired about anesthesia, the matron in charge pointed to a small cask of brandy and then laughed. West cursed and then made sure that his patient had three shots of the liquor before downing one himself and cutting off two of the young man’s gangrenous fingers.

“Just remember,” lamented West, “this isn’t Hell.”

I gagged as the man I was holding down vomited under the pain of having his leg re-broken. “No,” I said, “not Hell, but on a clear day I bet you can see it from here.”

Working through the middle of December, West and I kept to a strict schedule of tending to the wounded. While such a routine left little time to strategize or experiment, West found a way to reorganize the makeshift staff and cavern, and created a small ward for the isolation of those patients that were beyond the hope of any normal medical practices. In this we were aided by Carnby, who we found to be an able assistant and particularly skilled in translating the languages of the soldiers that made up our patients. Born and raised in Oakland, California, Carnby was the minutes-older of twin brothers who had decided to dedicate their lives to the study of the occult. Helman Carnby had come to France several years ago to specifically visit and study the library at the Chateau d’Erlette. When the war broke out, he found himself unable to abandon the Lady de Chagny, and stayed on in her service, all the while studying the vast collection of grimoires and occult treatises.