Reanimators (23 page)

Carefully, I removed four strips of skin from Erik’s belly, while West went off to obtain replacement strips from our donors. Each donor was color-coded Blue, Red, Green, or White, so that there would be no mistake as to the origin of any successfully transplanted tissue. Carnby acted as a go-between, bringing each strip up from West’s laboratory to me as it became available. I worked as fast as I could, suturing in tissue first from Blue, then Green, then Red, and finally White. As I tied off my last piece of silk I noticed that West had not yet returned from the catacombs to join me in evaluating the response of Erik’s body to the transplanted tissue.

Leaving Carnby with explicit instructions, I dashed down into the catacombs and flew into West’s lab. There I found West violently pinned to the wall by the patient designated Green but whom I immediately recognized as Dewart. The soldier’s hand was wrapped around West’s throat, dragging him up against the cavern rock. Grabbing a wooden chair, I smashed it against Dewart’s remaining leg, sending the man to the floor and West sliding back to the ground.

Brandishing the leg of the now-shattered chair like a club, I helped West up while keeping an eye on his attacker who floundered, unable to right himself with only one leg. Having some experience with such uncontrollable patients, West and I proceeded to strap Dewart down to his bed, and then gag him as well. We checked on the remaining donors, who all appeared secure, and then returned to the surgery to monitor Erik’s progress.

After a few moments it was clear that Erik’s body was rejecting three of the samples. The flesh around the transplants had swelled up, become red and warm to the touch. Agglutination of the blood between the recipient and the donated tissue was apparent even with the reanimation agent acting to suppress rejection. Fearing a serious reaction, West crudely ripped through my sutures and threw the offending tissue into a waste bin. He cursed as he studied the last transplant area, which showed no signs of rejection. We had found a compatible donor; unfortunately our only compatible donor was August Dewart.

West ordered Carnby to follow him, and the young scholar soon returned pale and frightened. I had a sneaking suspicion of what he had seen, but the medical procedure we were endeavoring to undertake allowed no time to coddle the meek. I took the two strips of tissue that West had carved out of Dewart and quickly sewed them into the vacancies created by the earlier rejection. As I finished, West appeared with a third strip and that was quickly installed as well.

We waited an hour. The tension was high. Carnby knew something unseemly had just happened, but either didn’t or couldn’t understand exactly what that was. I could see he wanted to tell the Lady de Chagny something, but he remained silent. For our part, West and I periodically checked the transplant sites. While the original donation seemed to be well received, we both feared that the reanimated tissue would complicate the procedure. Fortunately for both of us, the treated tissue showed no signs of initiating an adverse reaction. Without hesitating, I began to work on removing the skin from Erik’s head while West left to obtain the replacement tissue.

I began my incision on Erik’s chest just below the neck, and then made cuts that traveled over each shoulder heading toward his back. Then, carefully and with Carnby’s help, we lifted Erik and I connected both cuts at a spot just between his shoulders. I then sliced from the back up his neck and over the rear of the skull. With care I gripped both flaps and peeled the skin away from his body, much in the way that you would peel an orange, on occasion using my scalpel to slice through areas of difficult connecting tissue. Once I was over the shoulders and the crown of the skull, I had Carnby hold the body up as I pulled the now hoodlike mass of skin up and off of our patient. The resulting skinless apparition was monstrous to behold. Thankfully, Lady de Chagny had mercifully passed into unconsciousness before the bloody raw shape of her son’s head was ripped out of his skin.

Moments later, West arrived with the replacement flesh, including the cartilaginous tissue we needed to construct a nose. I nodded, thankful that for once he had put medical care above experimentation. West had performed nearly the same cuts as I had, so once the nose tissue had been pinned in place it was only a matter of wrenching the new skin over the skull, centering the face into place and then trimming and suturing it at strategic places to take up slack. The whole procedure took less than an hour, after which we took a moment to admire our work. Erik’s new face was not particularly handsome, but it was a vast improvement over his own. He was still bald, but at least now he had a nose, although this last feature was rather large and flat. Combined with the mustache and beard that had belonged to Dewart, Erik looked like nothing so much as an operatic Mephistopheles.

Making sure that Erik was fully unconscious so that we could begin the next stage of the procedure, we were suddenly interrupted by a great and violent wailing, the source of which was obviously deep in the catacombs. West and I, accompanied by Carnby, dashed down the stairs to find Dewart free from his bonds and flailing about the room. Skinless from the chest up, the creature was like some ghoulish revenant come back to seek revenge on his tormentors. Furniture was thrown about the room, glass shattered, instruments flew, and as we three moved in to subdue the monster I saw it grab a slightly phosphorescent syringe, and the vial of glowing fluid that lay beside it. West and I could do nothing to stop what happened next. The syringe flew across the room like a dagger, only to lodge in Carnby’s right shoulder. The vial was thrown as well, shattering against the wall and spraying reagent across the other reanimates. Enraged and empowered either by the events or by overexposure to the reagent, the three patchwork soldiers ripped through their bonds and began to lurch violently toward us.

Knowing full well that a disaster had been set in motion, I grabbed Carnby and ordered us all back up the stairs. West furtively grabbed his medical bag and followed us. We could hear the creatures thrashing about the room as we stumbled frantically away. Hearing the screams, the few nurses that were on duty came rushing into the hall. I ordered them up the stairs as well, but they paused in confusion. It was then that the door to West’s private lab burst open and the creatures began to stalk down the hall and into the ward. They were horrid visions of phosphorescent death, killing the other patients without pause or remorse. Worse were the traces of reagent that they carried with them, which seeped into the wounds of their victims, spreading the plague of arisen dead throughout the catacombs.

Overwhelmed, and with the nurses in tow, we reached the top of the stairs and slammed the door shut, bolted it, and then lodged a large masonry statue between it and the floor. The nurses fled out the front gate into the night. Carnby fled toward our surgery, while West and I immediately began to think about how to deal with an apparent rampant reanimation problem growing underneath our feet. Our ruminations were shattered when Carnby cried out that the Lady de Chagny was not breathing.

I sprang to her side and checked her vitals. She was cold, so very cold, with no heartbeat or pulse to be found. I cursed my eyes. The Lady de Chagny had not passed out at the sight of her son’s surgery; she had succumbed to her cancer. I shook my head, indicating that she had been dead too long, and that there was nothing conventional that could be done to save her.

West and I exchanged knowing glances, which Carnby caught. Never before had I seen such a look of resigned terror on a man’s face. Helman Carnby knew what we planned on doing and knew that there was nothing he could do to stop us. Resigned, he slunk out of the room and left us to our own devices. What we did next needed to be done; it is what the Lady de Chagny had asked us to do, and it is what she would have wanted us to do. Erik’s surgery went well, and in the end the skin transplants on his face and hands healed quickly and his recovery was rapid. He suffered a bout of melancholy over the loss of his mother, but he had been prepared for that event and overcame that tragedy as well.

As for the things beneath the house, we only ever opened the door once and then only briefly to add one last victim of our reanimation reagent to those who roamed below. Only Carnby, West and I knew the truth of what had happened that night, and we all agreed to keep the truth from Erik, believing that the less he knew the better. We foolishly hoped that the catacombs would have contained their horrid secret, but it was not to be. As we tended to Erik in our snowbound fortress, the moaning that had leaked out from the great door slowly ceased. We all suspected the worst, but all of us refused to open the door and venture below. Our suspicions were confirmed when word reached us from the nearby village. War-crazed soldiers had pillaged the local towns, attacking and killing residents without mercy. Inevitably, one of these madmen was captured and hanged for his crimes. When the body with its broken neck refused to cease moving, there was talk of necromancy and the superstitious peasantry quickly consigned the undying thing to a raging bonfire.

The winter held horrors for those in the trenches as well. Reports of diseased soldiers carrying out ghoulish acts on both sides of the lines were rampant and added fuel to the vile rumors of the German Kadaververwertungsanstalt or corpse-rendering works. Likewise frequent were the reports that echoed those of the Angels of Mons, of a spectral lady in white with red gloves, who would roam the field of war singing the most beautiful of operatic arias. Many of the French officers, older men who had spent some part of their youth in Paris, swore they recognized not only the melodies and lyrics, but even the haunting voice. Troops seduced by her siren song and longing to embrace her ghostly beauty walked out into the no man’s land between the trenches, and were never seen again.

In March the thaw was such that the four of us packed up what things we could and made our way to Paris by horse and cart. Carnby took what portions of the library he dared, and I know that West absconded with The Pretorius Commentary on the Journals of Victor Frankenstein. Erik took his viol, a tintype of his mother, as well as several volumes of music and librettos, but left the vast majority of his life behind. Once in Paris we met with the managers of the Paris Opera, and with the aid of letters from his mother he obtained a position in the orchestra under an assumed name. West and I returned to the front and served and experimented until the powers called an end to hostilities. Carnby took passage to the United States and returned to California to study with his brother. I heard that many years later, something untoward had occurred between the two and both were lost when their Oakland house caught fire.

Over the years, I corresponded with Erik. He was perhaps one of our greatest scientific achievements, and I longed to follow his progress. He quickly became something of a minor celebrity, renowned for his music, his baritone voice and wicked appearance, all of which allowed him to be cast in various productions concerning supernatural forces throughout 1918 and 1919. His last letter to me was dated from 1920, after his return from a tour of European capitals in which he performed as the Devil who travels to Tblisi in Georgia and challenges a young farm hand to a musical duel. Sadly, the tour had seemed to take a toll on the young man. He had lost his voice, and the skin on his hands and face seemed to have aged dramatically in just a few weeks. He wondered if, after all these years, he could be undergoing a rejection of the transplanted tissue. I wrote back suggesting a course of treatment and the possibility of my coming to examine him personally. I never heard from him again, and my inquiries at the opera house were ignored as well. Still, I treasure the review Erik had sent me from his London performance.

While some would suggest that the production currently on stage at the London Opera House caters to the less refined tastes of the populace, this critic finds the performance of Erich Zann to be a significant contribution to modern operatic endeavors. Zann’s performance as the Devil is complemented not only by his physical appearance but also by his nearly divine singing. Moreover, his voice is complemented, perhaps even surpassed, by his technique in playing the viol. So magnificent is his bowing style that it is my humble opinion that those most magnificently delicate hands must have been a gift from God himself, or perhaps stolen from some fallen angel of music.

Chapter 20.

THE RETURN OF CAIN AND WEST

By late 1922 I had buried myself in my practice and my long-term experiment of inoculating a portion of my patients with the prophylactic version of the reagent. Any concerns I had about Daniel Cain who had begun a small and seedy practice across town had faded, and I was free to worry about the more mundane things in my life. My partnership with young Dr. Randolph White, who had replaced the traitorous Dr. Wilson, was stable and genial, and I visited his office in Kingsport a little more than weekly. I had full confidence that Dr. White had become and would remain a fine and upstanding community physician.

In the closing days of the year, young White called to inform me that one of our patients, the writer Randolph Carter, had suffered some kind of seizure during the Christmas holiday and was being moved from the meager facilities in Kingsport to St. Mary’s in Arkham. As his physician, I was of course concerned for his well-being, but more importantly Carter was one of my many experimental subjects and as such he should have been resistant to physical trauma and disease. I could not help but wonder what had triggered his sudden illness.

At the hospital Carter seemed physically healthy. He responded to stimuli and his vital signs were adequate, though slightly suppressed. His mental state, however, was of greater concern, for he seemed not only distracted but nervous as well. He seemed overwhelmingly relieved that he had been transferred to Arkham and out of Kingsport. At the mere mention of that seaside town which he had apparently spent a few days in, his respiration and heart rate would suddenly increase, his skin would become clammy, and his limbs would become uncontrollably frenetic. I soon concluded that whatever had happened to the man was not physical in nature, but rather psychic. Something in Kingsport had affected Carter in a most horrendous fashion.

Knowing that Carter was a writer of weird and fantastic fiction, I suggested to the staff that a pen and notebook be placed by his bed. Given access to such tools, he might just find a way to exorcise whatever demons he had allowed to possess him. Oddly, my suggestion was met with some resistance. Several of the staff recalled Carter’s tale “The Attic Window” that had appeared more than a year earlier in a magazine called Whispers, and the furor that it had generated amongst certain vocal critics who had called for its censorship. Thankfully these silly milksops were overruled by more senior hospital staff and Carter was allowed the tools of his trade.

This course of therapy seemed to accomplish its goal, for within a day the man had filled the notebook with the observations and occurrences that he had made and witnessed while in Kingsport and seemed much improved by the process. By the end of the week I declared him healthy enough to leave the hospital and oversaw his transfer to the ancestral Carter manse that sprawled southwest of Arkham. I made several visits to Carter while he recuperated and soon concluded that the rambling old house, with its overgrown gardens and dark wooded acres with the accompanying isolation, while familiar, may not have been conducive to his full recovery. Carter had always shunned the wealth he had been born into, preferring to live a more bohemian lifestyle that was more appropriate to his image as a writer. I suggested that it would behoove him to move to an area more in keeping with his needs. Somewhere he could be with more people that might understand the ennui that seemed to be gripping his soul. He agreed, and by the end of February he had packed a small bag and set off for the bustling city that was New York. The change of locale seemed to do him good, for although he complained about the lack of work and money, his writing seemed to flourish and I read with much gusto the draft stories and poems he routinely sent me.

I had apparently been too absorbed in my work, for in March Miss Soames chastised me for failing to notice that someone new had moved onto the street. I had never been much for socializing with my neighbors, the nature of my secret experiments was not conducive to such casual acquaintances; and the relationship I had with Peaslee and any of his family had long since ceased after Peaslee had recovered from his affliction. Soames knew that I was not very personable, but she also knew that certain modes of decorum had to be conformed to. The neighborhood doctor simply had to introduce himself to the two new bachelors who had moved in down the street.

I put off the visit for a few days, but eventually became annoyed with Soames’ periodic badgering, and one fine Saturday morning I wandered down the street to give my regards. From a distance it was obvious that they were still in the process of moving in, for boxes and crates of all sizes, some bearing familiar markings, littered the front lawn. As I drew closer, the markings and shapes of the packing crates grew more familiar, and I soon recognized the brand of a local medical supply firm.

A house away I could hear voices that seemed startlingly familiar, and even though I could not place them, I was suddenly filled with a menacing foreboding and the overwhelming need to turn and flee. I could not, though. Something more powerful drew me forward, and with each step my desire to flee grew but my need to see grew as well. There was no denying this fearsome magnetic force and it drew me to my new neighbors like a moth to a flame. The voices grew louder, and just as I reached the edge of the property the two men who were in conversation appeared in the doorway and sauntered down the flagstones toward the pile of crates.

The sight of them broke whatever spell I had been subjected to, and I casually slipped behind a large elm to conceal my presence. I peeked around the trunk and watched surreptitiously as they maneuvered a large wooden crate up the path and through the door. The one man, the one with ebon hair and a subservient demeanor, I recognized immediately, and I cursed the day that I found it necessary to allow Dr. Daniel Cain to remain free. That the man had not been banished from the city and state for his monstrous acts and horrific medical experiments was wholly my fault, for it was I who had convinced the investigators that his written confession was the result of a drugged-induced hallucination. I had hoped that upon his release, free from the unholy bonds that linked him to Herbert West, Cain might have returned to his native Illinois. Instead, the years of servitude had apparently robbed Cain of any real capacity at self-motivation, and he had fallen back into familiar habits, remaining in Arkham and catering to the most meager and least discriminating of patients. What had suddenly possessed him to move into new more genteel accommodations, and on my own block for that matter, I could not immediately fathom.

It was only after the second man turned slightly that I understood why Cain was here. The slight figure that directed Cain as he carried the various crates into their new abode had changed since I had last seen him. His hair was no longer yellow but had for some reason turned shockingly white. As he moved about I could see that he had suffered some degree of physical trauma, for scars encircled his neck, wrists and shoulders. I thought at first that he must have suffered an injury during the war, but recalling Cain’s confession there was no mention of such an event. Not that it mattered much, and despite his change of appearance I had no doubt of the identity of the man who along with Daniel Cain now occupied the abode just a half of a block away from my own. As the two men returned to the interior of the house I caught sight of the sign that had recently been installed on the wall to the left, the sign that in its simplicity confirmed what I had already deduced. It was a simple wooden plaque, with four words painted in white that declared to the world a horror that most would not understand.

Cain and West, Physicians

The prospect of having these two monsters residing and practicing just yards from my own home filled me with dread. I had no desire to engage them socially, but knew that such an encounter was likely. What’s more, I also knew that those two were not likely to have abandoned their old practices, despite the fact that Cain had already confessed to a multitude of crimes including multiple murders and grave robbing. I had no doubt that the authorities were watching Cain, and had good reason to believe that if they acquired proof of West and Cain’s renewed activities, any investigation would surely expand to include my own practice and residence. Such inquiries were something I surely could not afford.

I considered a variety of options, and will not deny that the act of murder crossed my mind. Other less drastic measures, including trading places with White, closing down my offices on a temporary, or even permanent basis, were evaluated and also dismissed. In the end it seemed that I had little choice but to do as I had done so many years ago. I would shadow these two men, watch them and wait for an opportunity, and when it came I would inflict on them a wound so terrible that they would have no choice but to abandon Arkham and flee. At least, that was my plan.

Whatever had happened to West during his two-year hiatus had changed him and his understanding of medicine and the science of reanimation. Their nightly excursions took us, Cain and West in one car, and I in another, throughout the city and the county acquiring the bodies not only of humans but of animals as well, for not only did we haunt morgues, cemeteries and funeral homes, but stockyards, pet stores and zoological gardens as well. For weeks such material flowed into the basement laboratory that they had equipped, and although I never saw what they produced with such raw materials, the sounds that emanated from the cellar door hinted at things both marvelous and hideous. That none of this organic material ever left the house, while the furnace seemed to run constantly, suggested that West and Cain were not above routinely disposing of whatever they were creating.

Not that the two madmen were particularly cautious. For all their knowledge and medical skill, they were exceedingly sloppy and left a host of clues and trails in their wake, any of which could have easily led investigators back to the two of them. Knowing that if they were exposed I too was put at risk, I was faced with the unenviable task of cleaning up behind them. I swept away footprints and tire tracks left in sawdust, mud and grease. I destroyed receipts that documented their purchase of certain chemicals and equipment. When necessary, I called in false alarms to draw police away from wherever they were. On one occasion I even recovered Cain’s billfold containing not only his business card but his identification as well. I returned it to him by depositing it on the back porch of their residence in a location where he would assume he had dropped it as he and West left for their sojourn the night before.

I did these things, knowing full well that I was aiding the very people I had reason to despise. These men through their actions had killed my parents, assaulted dozens, committed crimes against natural and human laws, and through me could be blamed for the deaths of millions throughout the world, though I doubted they were aware of that particular fact. All these horrible things could be laid at their feet, and only a few others and I knew the truth. A good man would have done something about it, but somewhere along the line I had ceased being a good man. My need for vengeance had corrupted me, seduced me, and I had become immune to the morality of life, death and the strange undeath that we in our arrogance wielded. One day I would be free to reveal my reagent to the world, but until then I had to keep it a secret. West and Cain were no longer my nemeses, but rather bumbling fools who through their base actions and crude experiments might reveal my own purer goals before they were entirely congealed. Frustrated, I once more considered a plan of action and resolved myself to doing what I thought needed to be done.

Late one moonless night, one that was unseasonably warm for May, my two subjects casually left their residence and afforded me the opportunity that I had been waiting for. Carefully I climbed through an unlocked second-floor window and with care and speed made my way into their basement laboratory. I quickly found West’s logbook and scanned the most recent pages for the formula of his latest batch of reagent. It was a satisfactory concoction, one that I had experimented with myself several years ago, and I could discern what West was trying to gain from this particular direction. Unfortunately, as West had noted, the formulation as it was led to a certain kind of instability in his subjects, and was prone to instances of rejection, particularly at the juncture of distinctive tissues. Thankfully, my own version showed none of the weaknesses inherent in West’s and as quickly as I could I went about emptying the contents of the prepared syringes and replacing them with my own formulation. After I finished, I retraced my steps and left the way I came in, secure in the knowledge that I had left no trace of my unauthorized visit. The whole excursion had taken me little more than thirty minutes, and it was easily another hour before West and Cain returned. Where they had been I was not sure, but it must have been nearby. After ascertaining that the streets were clear, the two opened the back doors of their sedan and with no great amount of care unloaded what, even though it was draped in a blanket, was clearly a body, though somewhat small in stature.

The lights of the basement burned brightly that evening, and through the dawn as well. I left soon after the sun rose, not because I believed that whatever the two were doing was completed, but rather because in the light of day I could no longer conceal myself from my neighbors and the tradesmen who would soon be arriving to carry out the business of the day. As I left I noticed a sign on the front door that announced that the practice was closed for the day, and wondered when either West or Cain had mounted it, and how I had missed it, even in the dark of the night.

Whatever they had accomplished that night, West remained out of sight for a week, although Cain actively saw patients. Late one night I watched as Cain carried what appeared to be the same slight body, wrapped in the same blanket, back out to the car and drove off with it. I followed him and was shocked when after a few minutes he slowed and casually parked the black sedan near the back entrance of the University’s museum of ancient history.