by C W Briar
Here is what transpired from the time Mr. Wells and I became separated.
While I lay under the locked grate, shivering, I heard splashes in the running water. I correctly feared the worst—that the transmuted being was approaching. My situation rendered fighting and fleeing impossible. The tunnel walls pinned my arms against my ribs, and my only path of escape was cut off by an animal that had killed two men.
I stayed motionless and prayed it would ignore me. What other strategy remained?
Not only did I hear the being’s raspy breaths, I felt them on my shin. Mr. Wells tried to draw it away by shouting “Here” repeatedly. Meanwhile, using the method I had been taught, I calmed myself by squeezing my fists and focusing on getting past the danger. I breathed through my wide-open mouth to be quieter, even though it meant tasting the rancid, sickening miasma of decay that poured through the grate.
My situation resurrected horrible memories from the orphanage, of times when the older boys stuffed me in a chest and sat on the lid until I nearly passed out from shouting. I felt trapped like one of the victims of Lenorso, the King of Leon who buried chained prisoners in coffins with starved rats.
Small, scaly paws marched up my shins to my knees, then they seized one of my boots. The being dragged me with surprising strength and ferocity into a deeper part of the duct. I struggled to keep my mouth above the water, and Mr. Wells’s shouts quieted as my ears flooded.
The being shook my leg, slamming it against the walls. I ripped free from its grip and stomped its paw and cheek. My actions gained me a few moments of reprieve but also retaliation from the angered attacker. The being growled and clawed the skin on my calf.
I yelled, dropping the knife. The dragging resumed. After my body caught on a corner between the duct branches, the boot pulled free.
I could see little of the creature besides the outline of its head. When Mr. Wells crashed into the iron door and the bang reverberated like cannon fire, it snapped its ears back and convulsed. Further percussions caused it to spasm and shriek.
Excessive noise agitated it, and likely to the point of pain.
I used the opportunity to crawl away. I did not get far. The being seized me again and thrashed until it pulled off my other boot. It retreated into the black gullet of the duct with my footwear in its clutches.
This behavior intrigued me so much that once my heart stopped exploding with each rapid pulse, I crawled after it. Along the way, I recovered the dropped knife. I eventually emerged in a room lit only by faint light leaning through a doorway. As I climbed out of the drainage hole, I crawled over the mangled grate that used to cover it.
Like a mothman lured by a mob’s torches, I crept toward the light, limping because of my wounds. A sensation like gnawing fire enwrapped my lower legs. I reached a hall where crates stuffed with bones and rolled animal hides were stored. Black mold covered the wall like a mural of indistinct shapes, except for one shape that looked somewhat like a hay wagon.
The air tasted sour, and the reek of death oozed down my throat with each breath.
The chamber at the end of the hall unfurled its horrors as I snuck nearer. The few electric bulbs that continued to burn mottled the shadows with swathes of dim, orange light. Hooks, saws, and knives hung from nails on the ceiling beam. Jars on a blood-stained table contained, according to my best guess, lumps of flesh with a rainbow of grotesque discolorations. The skull of a bear or wolf stared at me from atop a pile of bones. One of three brass vats in the nearest corner had rusted through and bled out a gelatinous, mustardy substance.
A golden plaque hung above the door on the far wall. The finely engraved Latin phrase on it read De Deo errores, de homine perfectio.
From God’s mistakes, mankind’s perfection.
The so-called perfections were on horrifying display in stacked cages. Red, hairless mice with spider eyes and pouches of sagging back skin. Six songbirds connected into one feathered caterpillar with spider legs and a rat skull for a head. An eel with cat jaws and white spikes hanging from a canopy of green slime. An eyeless pig that had swollen until it burst, its dried innards stuck to the surrounding floor and wall.
Those specimens accounted for only a part of the zoo of nightmares. A few of them still moved. If you are curious enough to endure descriptions of the rest, ask Mr. Wells.
I will proceed to the contents of the two large cages. In the open one lay the white-bearded corpse of a man dressed in a butcher’s apron. I could tell by his desiccated appearance and the thriving maggot metropolis on his neck that he died quite some time ago. A tipped stool, a misshapen phonograph, and lengths of rope occupied the cage with him.
The other cage remained locked, and it contained the things that pain me the most to describe. An emaciated dog with multiple bald scars raised its head. Its hind legs had been replaced with useless, gangrenous human ones, and it flopped erratically like a beached fish as it tried to get away from me. The mutated dog collided with the recipient of its legs, an object I can only describe as a sack of raw flesh dressed in burlap.
The repulsive mass reached toward the hound with one of its human arms.
The abomination reached out, Professor. It is that forsaken image I cannot tear out of my sickened memory.
That thing with flesh like a skinned pig reached out. Mr. Wells has insisted since the incident that the thing was dead. Fully dead, cold, and not awakened like a genuine ghoul. He promised that corpses can twitch involuntarily. I made him swear he was not lying, because once I deduced what the headless mound of flesh used to be, I could not bear the thought of it still being alive.
I spotted a doll in the cage. A child’s toy. My sight blurred with tears. I staggered and braced myself against a shelf covered with knives, syringes, and other instruments of torture. Grief, unlike any I have ever known, tore my heart as I tried to comprehend this handiwork of evil that surpassed all rationality.
I heard rustling beneath the table. The creature leapt out from the shadows and landed between the cage and me. It lowered its chin and chest to the floor and hissed with such ferocity that its bared fangs quivered. Its ears pointed back in a sign of clear aggression.
I raised my knife and readied to fight, but after a moment, I lowered it. The being was not hunting me. It was protecting the wretched creations in the cage the way a dog might guard her pups. And I read fear in the being. I terrified it as much as it terrified me.
In spite of the risk, while the creature clawed the ground, I knelt and laid down the knife. The creature lunged, then halted inches away from me and swatted the blade aside. Its hisses changed to an undulating growl. Spittle flew from its teeth onto my vulnerable throat.
I drew in a breath, and slowly reached out one open hand.
The being backed away and sat on its burlap-wrapped hindquarters. We stared silently at one another for perhaps a minute before it reached out and tapped my empty palm with its claws.
“If you won’t hurt me, I won’t hurt you,” I said.
Afraid to make an unwise move, and also because I was awed by the being’s behavior, I stayed there on the floor. The being dragged my stolen boots to the cage and slid them onto the swollen monstrosity’s canine legs. It dressed the nightmarish mass the way a mother dresses its child—or the way I used to put shoes on the younger orphans. It also tossed bread to the dog and slid cups of water to it through the bars.
The being even spoke to the creations, though with gibbering noises rather than any discernible words. It sat in front of the cage door, held the lock, and spoke with gargles and purrs.
The Haughtogis Point mystery gave up its final secrets. The corpse in the open cage was Charles Voor, the creature’s original victim. I guessed he perished when his creation escaped in violent fashion. I struggle to evoke any sympathy for him, for in addition to inflicting countless cruelties, his sins have scarred my dreams.
I tried to deny the reality of my other discovery, but further reading from the pavilion’s records has since confirmed the loathsome
truth. I know the identity of the creature and the caged abomination because I also know what became of the two children who disappeared from the Ragiston quarry. They are one and the same.
De Deo errores, de homine perfectio.
No, Charles Voor. If the transgressions you created were your idea of perfection, then may we all live as imperfections. The only error was the blackness of your soul, and your creation has dealt with that. You, sir, were the monster of Haughtogis Point.
Professor, you no doubt wonder what became of the transmuted being we called “ghoul.” I will let Mr. Wells explain, but understand the threat it posed did not end when I made peace with it. When a gush of steam blew through pipes in the laboratory’s ceiling, the being scurried into the shadows. Unseen gears whirred in another room, and a series of dull clangs sounded on the other side of the plaque door.
The noises threw the being into a fit of convulsions and growls, but it recovered by the time the door opened. It ignored or did not understand my pleas to settle down. Instead, it tensed its legs and readied to pounce, and the spines on its back writhed.
Consider this: The last person who entered through that door lay in a decaying heap on the laboratory floor.
22
I, Gideon Wells, stood outside the underground door. I had no idea of the things Rose shared in the previous letter. In order to be ready for an ambush, I pulled the net out of my shoulder bag and offered it to Claude.
“Why are you giving this to me?” he asked.
The answer should have been obvious. “Because the others have guns,” I said, referring to the sheriff and James. “I need your help if we fight, and this is better than bare hands.”
“You mean to catch it?”
“I mean to stop it by any means necessary.” I patted the net. “This counts as any means.”
Claude grimaced. “I was never trained to fight like you.”
“Mr. Ragiston, I need to save my friend, and you need to redeem your family’s name. Do you understand?”
He nodded. His clenched jaw and furrowed brows revealed that at least a seed of resolution had taken root inside of him.
I pulled the door open and entered with my gun at the ready. Incandescent bulbs, half of which had burned out, lit the room with a weak, flickering orange glow. Surgical and butchery tools hung from the ceiling. Iron bars formed about twenty cages of varying sizes along the back and right wall. The sights, though ghastly, were but a trifle compared to the sickening, fetid stench of waste and rotting gore.
I covered my mouth and nose. “The devil’s blazes!”
Sheriff Richt heaved and held his hand over his stomach. “What horrible place is this?”
“Evil’s birthing room.”
My attention galloped from corner to corner, quickly collecting details and interpreting the vile history of the laboratory. I witnessed the same caged atrocities Rose described in the previous letter. Most of the creations had died from starvation or from the strain of their own unnatural existence. Some still lived, swelling and deflating with each growling breath.
I recoiled from something squirming close to my leg, then realized the movement came from maggots devouring a putrefied corpse. The body, which we would later identify as Charles Voor, lay beside a phonograph with a dented, mangled horn. In a neighboring cage, an injured hound wriggled beside the corpulent, lifeless remains of a failed experiment.
The grotesque discoveries spurred my urgency to find Rose. “Follow me,” I said and sprinted toward a dark hallway. I traveled no more than a few steps before my accomplice stood up from one of the shadows that streaked the room. Her cheeks glistened with tears.
“Rose! Thank heavens—”
Rose shushed me and whispered, “It’s here.” She pointed toward her feet.
As quietly as possible, I leaned and aimed my gun around the edge of the table. The creature snarled at me like a rabid fox and uttered a gurgling hiss. I nearly pulled the trigger, but Rose waved for me to stop.
“It’s human,” she whispered.
How I wished she were wrong. However, the creature’s torso, its burlap garment, and most of all its expression confirmed it possessed a vestige of humanity. Its darting eyes, regardless of their bestial form, conveyed desperation, anger, and a calculating mind. Charles Voor had done the unthinkable and transmuted a human.
Truth be told, I still would have shot it if not for my trust in Rose. We faced an enraged monster with a history of killing. I had no proof the creature’s human elements could ever quell the savage, animal instincts that had overtaken it. Logic ordered me to end the wretch’s life, a life which never should have existed. But Rose held out hope; therefore I did as well.
How then to capture it? The wise approach would have been to calmly lure it into a prepared trap, but we had the older, idiotic James with us.
He shouted “I found it” loudly enough to make even me wince. The creature folded its ears back, rustled it spines, and thrashed the air with tooth and claw.
Professor, permit me some conjecture, and consider the following. The creature killed Joseph Prentice after he found it scavenging through his grocery delivery and wounded it with his swordstaff. It attacked Mr. Hill as he smashed rocks near an entrance to the creature’s lair. As for Miss Murphy, she was clawed when she screamed in close proximity to it. Pain and loud noises agitated the ghoul.
It should not then be difficult to imagine the creature’s response when James fired his rifle and winged its shoulder.
Rose cried “No!” Sheriff Richt shoved the barrel of James’s weapon toward the floor, but the fight was already triggered.
The creature shrieked and scrambled toward the hall while holding its wound. For a moment, I thought we would once again have to chase it, but it stopped mid-sprint and rushed at Rose. She dove out of its path and crashed into a shelf of metal and glass jars. A few fell and shattered.
The creature bounded off a cage, dashed over the table top, and pounced at James. I dove and by sheer luck grabbed one of its hind ankles, saving the boy. Both the creature and I collapsed to the floor, but it recovered more quickly than I. By the time I got to my knees, it flung itself at me and stabbed my shoulder with a swarm of its quills.
I let out a manly cry of pain and tried to shove the fiend away, but it latched onto my forearm with its teeth. A vigorous shake from its head spread the tears in my flesh. Then it released me, jerked its head up, and darted away just in time to avoid a bullet from the sheriff’s revolver.
Rose called, “Gideon, are you—”
“Grab a weapon.” I clambered backward to a pile of bones and leveled my revolver at the dark, cluttered space beneath the table. The ghoul took refuge in there, hiding in the clutter.
I slid my bag from my injured shoulder and reached in to take the net out. It was empty. I had forgotten I gave the net to Claude.
Sheriff Richt moved into the corner and pressed his back against the cages. His chest heaved with each breath, but at least he kept his revolver ready. The fight had been scared out of James. He fled the room and peeked ever-so-slightly from the doorway.
Claude, to my surprise, stood poised inside the entrance. He held the outstretched net in front of his body.
Rose crouched low into an animal-like posture and picked up a broken glass jar. She also pulled skinned hides out of a crate and tucked them under her arm.
“It responds to loud noises,” she said.
“You and I have different definitions of ‘respond.’” I raised my bloody shoulder and forearm, both of which felt like I had pried them out of a bear trap straight from the blacksmith’s fire. “At least I look good in red.”
“Prepare yourselves.” Claude shuffled sideways into the open cage, the one with Charles Voor’s corpse. Claude righted the phonograph and began to turn the crank. A choking growl emanated from under the table.
“Claude, stop.” I got to my feet and crept toward him. “This is a terrible idea.”
“Don’t shoot
it,” Rose pleaded.
“It’s too dangerous,” I said. “I am sorry for what happened to it, but this has to end.”
“It’s frightened and hurt.”
“What about me?” I would have rolled my eyes were I not keeping an unblinking watch for hostile movement. “What am I if not frightened and hurt?”
“We won’t shoot you either.”
The phonograph clicked to life, and the needle scraped over the record. String and brass instruments blared the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The music accentuated the barbarity of the room, and even now I struggle to understand Charles Voor’s apparent wisdom and culture coexisting with his depravity.
Claude’s action resulted in the desired, but terrifying, effect. The creature flashed into the open, screeching. With only a couple of hops, it flew into the cage and flung the phonograph against the wall, snapping off the horn.
Claude threw the net on the creature but failed to keep his grip on it, which meant he did little more than dress the beast. It pounced on his chest and dug its claws into his sides.
I raced toward the cage. Claude was screaming in pain. In so doing, he raised his chin and exposed his jugular vein.
The creature brought its head back like a coiled rattlesnake, extended its fangs, and snapped at his neck.
I swung my open bag in front of the creature’s face and caught it by its jaws, saving Claude.
My momentum wrenched young Mr. Ragiston and the creature to the ground with me. Even though blinded and muzzled by my bag, the creature continued to cut and stab us. Claws flailed and quills thrust in search of flesh.
Sheriff Richt ran toward us, but Rose moved faster. She dove over me and pulled the net taut, pinning the creature to the ground. Then she wrapped the creature’s sharp bits with the skinned animal hides, placed a broken bottle of chloroform by its nose, and rubbed the back of its head.
She shushed it. “Stop now. It’s over. No more fighting.”
Sheriff Richt gathered rope and helped us bind its limbs. After a few minutes, the creature stopped tensing and its eyelids drooped. Eventually it fell asleep to Rose’s purring hums.