by Sasha Pruett
Chapter Nineteen
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
I Corinthians 1:19
Dr. Harold Pintac hovered in the same position he had taken over three hours ago, staring determinedly into the microscope at the strange hairs recovered from both the remains of the Sheeres and the recently discovered remnants of the town sheriff. It had been more than three and a half hours since the call had come in from Charleston, a call that he refused to accept. The lab reported that a match could not be found, since then Harold had been striving to prove them wrong and ensue his superiority.
“New species indeed! There’s a match and I’ll prove it. What do they know anyway?” was his response to the technician’s news, but as the minutes ticked by turning into hours he was still no further in his identification than when he began, and that infuriated him even more. Not just in his lack of progress, but the nagging truth that a new species meant he was trapped in this one brain town even longer. Harold leaned back from the scope’s eye piece and rubbed his eyes, maybe it was a crossbreed between wild animals or a mix between a wild and a domestic, making the sample slightly irregular and throwing off his and the lab’s results.
“That must be it,” he whispered thoughtfully. “Maybe in this backwards town instead of chasing cats the dogs are mating with them, that or Bigfoot found the people here too stupid to notice him and took up residence.” Wait a minute! Bigfoot? What was he saying?
“Ahh, I can’t think. I don’t know what I’m saying... or doing. I wish I had never started this whole thing, then everything would be alright and normal, but now I’m teetering between my hope of what it really is and my fear of what it could be. Here I am, all alone, going out of my mind and for what... this thing... this stupid thing in front of me, but if I don’t find the truth of what it is the consequences of failure could haunt me for the rest of my career. Wait what if I just go ahead and classify it as... whatever? I could go back to civilization and no one would ever know. Yeah, that might... no, no if they were to find out I would be ruined. I won’t be ruined by this hick town, no they won’t get me that way. Oh dear Lord in Heaven what do I do? These late nights are beginning to take a toll on everything I’ve worked so hard for.” Harold looked around, convinced that his soliloquy had come from somewhere or someone else. He couldn’t believe what he had been thinking or saying or that it was he that had been rambling on at all.
He didn’t believe in God and he sure doesn’t think like... that either. There had to be some other explanation, some other reason for his little “episode”. Improper storage of hospital and embalming chemicals that were affecting his thought process or something like that, yes that must be it, it had to be. Then in his moment of denial an idea of pure genius inspired and excited him.
Why was he punishing himself with this third rate equipment in this armpit of a town. All he had to do was pack up the samples and other evidence and be back in his office and civilization in no time. His demeanor changed as a tiny smile played his lips as he hurriedly, but carefully packed the slides into his briefcase, grabbed his suit coat, and headed for the door... out into the oncoming storm. The clock above the exit read 11:10. With a little luck he’d be back in Charleston by midnight and all of this would be nothing but a bad memory; or a fading nightmare which he was soon to awaken from.