Reanimators (31 page)

The body hit the floor of the hospital, sending cracks through the stone that radiated out until they were lost to the walls. One of Edward’s legs turned to pulp on impact, while his other leg seemed to snap at the hip. I stepped back and lowered the gun, for I saw no need to shoot. That was until the thing reared its head and clawed out with a shattered but still functional arm. Panicked, I pulled the trigger wildly and serendipitously blew a hole through one of his dull and lifeless eyes.

Once more Elwood appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the gun from my hand. He carefully took aim and fired once more, this time sending a bullet deep into the center of the skull. I gave him a puzzled look to which he responded simply, “Better not to risk it.”

It took us an hour to gather up the bodies of the Fisher brothers and the orderly Dennis. Dawn was not far and we had to dispose of these monstrosities before someone official arrived to take control. We tried to get down into the furnace, but the door was locked and we had no time to search for the key. Instead we loaded the bodies into the trunk and back seat of my car and drove to the construction site that was not far from the University.

In the shadow of the nearly completed Tillinghast Building the construction team was still working on the foundations of the subterranean railway, and freshly poured concrete was everywhere. We took advantage of a driverless concrete truck and, while Elwood poured, I tossed the bodies of our four victims into the pit. In mere seconds the Fisher brothers had sunk into the thick grey composite that would soon solidify and imprison the bodies forever.

As the sun rose, the two of us drove to my home on Crane Street, and for the first time I personally invited someone down into my secret laboratory. Together we piled my notes and research journals into the center of the room. We dumped all of my tissue samples, and smashed any glassware that held any trace of reagent. Then we doused the house with rubbing alcohol, cooking grease and kerosene. As the day began, Frank Elwood wished me well and left me just as I lit the first match. I strolled up the stairs, casually lighting matches and making sure that the flames spread quickly and irreversibly through my home. In my office, I turned on the gas, closed the door behind me and calmly walked down the street.

I hoped that all traces of my work were destroyed in that fire, but I know that is not true. Still, as I walked down Crane Street I realized that for the first time in twenty-five years I was free. Free of obligations, free from the desire for revenge, free to do whatever I pleased. I started to laugh; I was still laughing when the police hauled me away, and three hours later when the doctors finally came. I didn’t stop laughing until the nurses at Sefton Asylum sedated me and locked me away in the same cell that Allan Halsey had occupied for so many years.

As I write these final words, as I complete the documentation of the events that led me to this place, I cannot help but look back and wonder. Why is it, exactly, that they think me a monster?

Epilogue

FROM THE FILES OF
DR. AMBROSE DEXTER

The incarceration of Dr. Stuart Hartwell in the Sefton Asylum did not last. Following the completion of his so-called confession he entered a state of catatonia and would no longer respond to external stimuli. Beginning in January 1930 onward, despite being under the treatment of four doctors, he remained uncommunicative, and showed no improvement. Attempts to validate the contents and events documented in Hartwell’s account have met with mixed success. Inquiries into the whereabouts of Doctors West and Cain continue. All traces of Hartwell’s reagent and his notes were lost in the fire that destroyed his home and office.

On December sixth, 1930, two men and a woman entered the Sefton Asylum and demanded to speak to the director. Staff described the woman as small, with an olive complexion and large wide-set eyes. The younger man was described as tall and nervous-looking with strange, violet eyes that held a far-away introspective look. The third individual was perhaps the most memorable, for he towered over the others at nearly seven feet. Swathed in robes and wearing thick white mittens, those who saw him took him to be a Turk or Hindoo based on both the turban he wore and the thick long beard that covered most of his face. Some who saw him up close said that his eyes seemed lifeless and suggested he might have been blind.

According to the hospital staff, the three strangers spoke to the director in private for approximately fifteen minutes, after which he escorted them to Hartwell’s cell. Over the objection of senior staff the director ordered the patient placed in care of the visitors whom he said had specific authority to transfer him to another facility. Hartwell was taken to a large black sedan and, accompanied by the three strangers, was driven off. The director of the Sefton Asylum has no recollection of these visitors or of ordering Hartwell’s release. As of this writing there have been no credible sightings of Hartwell, and the identities of his liberators remain unknown.

It is my opinion that locating Dr. Hartwell should become a priority of the Bureau. Given the recent departure of agent Hadrian Vargr to private practice, it is my recommendation that another special agent be assigned to the case immediately. The fact remains that Dr. Stuart Hartwell is free and may once more be able to carry out his experiments. It must be presumed that his liberators had just this in mind when they took him. It is even possible that some of his former patients, or victims, collected him to exact some sort of revenge.

Any other intent seems unlikely, but it should not be discounted as a possibility, and an agent assigned to investigating alternatives should be considered. It is possible that Hartwell’s associates were more interested in his involvement in the Peaslee Affair, the Innsmouth Quarantine, or even the devastating Dunwich Event. It should also be noted that Hartwell is not the only resident of the area to go missing recently. As noted, the author Randolph Carter has vanished, the mathematics student Frank Elwood is likewise unaccounted for, as are Detective Robert Peaslee, and his wife Megan Halsey-Griffith, the daughter of Hartwell’s mentor. That their cases are related seems highly unlikely, but stranger things have happened. If these cases are related, one must ask by whom have they been taken, and for what possible purpose?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Reanimators wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the people who helped lay its foundations, obviously this includes H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, Dashiell Hammett, Earl Derr Biggers, John P. Marquand, Rex Stout and Robert Bloch. Less obvious, are the authors who have served to inspire me including Henry Kuttner, Wilum H. Pugmire, Brian Lumley, Lin Carter, Cody Goodfellow, Charles Stross, Alan Moore, Kim Newman, and Neil Gaiman.

I also need to thank those editors who took a chance and gave me needed breaks: Robert Price, David Hartwell, Kevin J. Maroney, Scott David Aniolowski, Kevin Ross, Brian Sammons, Glynn Owen Barrass, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mike Davis, and of course Ross Lockhart of Night Shade Books.

Finally, there are family and friends who supported me even if they didn’t know it: My son Peter (surprisingly not the third but still a trip), Becky (for immoral support), Mike (
ZombieMountain.com
), Brad (for editorial comments), Gin and Andy (Formerly of Inhouse, now of 900 Seconds), and of course, my parents Peter and Susan (Thanks for reading me “The Rats in the Walls” as a bed time story).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pete Rawlik was first exposed to Lovecraft when his father read him “The Rats in the Walls” as a bedtime story. He has been collecting Lovecraftian fiction ever since. In 1985 he drove four hours in a “borrowed” Buick Skylark to see Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator. Since 1991 he has been active in issues related to Everglades restoration and monitoring, and has published extensively on the subject. For more than two decades he has run Dead Ink, selling rare and unusual books. His fiction has appeared in the magazines Talebones, Crypt of Cthulhu, Morpheus Tales, Innsmouth and the Lovecraft Ezine, as well as the anthologies Tales of the Shadowmen: Femme Fatales, Dead But Dreaming 2, Future Lovecraft, Horror for the Holidays, and Urban Cthulhu. His fascination with pulp fiction, secret histories, Arkham, its lesser known residents, and occasional visitors, inspired the creation of Reanimators, his first novel. He lives in South Florida.