by Peter Rawlik
The victim of my assault had been the deputy who had brought the Fishers to the hospital, and behind him in the doorway was Frank Elwood. Like myself, they had come to investigate the screaming nurse, and instead fell victim to my panicked attack. The deputy tumbled to the floor, and his gun flew backwards, bouncing off of Elwood’s chest before impacting on the floor and sliding to a stop at my feet. Nurse Clemens stood frozen and I screamed at her to run. She stared dumbly at me and then back at the trio of undead that were whipping their heads back and forth between us. I threw the chair at them to get their attention, and shouted once more for the stunned nurse to run. As the chair was casually tossed aside, the woman found her senses and dashed out of the room, leaving only Elwood and myself to face off against the beasts.
I glanced sideways to speak to the young man, but somehow he was no longer where I thought he should be. Instead he was in front of me with the gun in his hand, pointing it at the Fishers. “Stay where you are,” he announced, “or so help me I’ll shoot.” The three paused at the sound of his voice, but it was only for a moment. The three things seemed intent on stalking forward, slowly, stealthily, but inevitably they moved toward us.
I put a hand on Elwood’s shoulder. “I don’t think they can understand you or the concept of a gun anymore. They’re animals, nothing more.” I cast a glance at the limp body of the deputy. “We need to get out of here.”
Elwood flexed his shoulder and knocked my hand away. He shook his head and in a firm voice he made his intentions clear. “No, Doctor. I’m through running and hiding. I let Walter tell me what to do, and I lost him. I didn’t kill him, but I could have saved him, could have gotten him out of that rat hole. Instead I let him die. If these things get loose they’ll kill people, maybe lots of people. I can’t let that happen.”
I took a step forward. “Frank, I really appreciate that, but I don’t think the gun is going to do much good. They’re already dead, at least as dead as they ever can be.”
There was an odd backward glance and then a sudden light filled his eyes. He sneered evilly and leveled the gun at one of the three monsters. “Now there’s a theory that needs to be tested,” and the sound of three shots filled the hall.
The heads of two of the things that had once been Fishers exploded, coating the third one with bits of brain and shattered skull. Their bodies collapsed to the floor, convulsing violently, but no longer a serious threat. The third one, who I still believed to be Edward, may not have understood the concept of a gun, but he sure enough saw the results. He leapt over the thrashing bodies of his brothers and in an instant was through the door that Nurse Clemens had herself escaped through.
Elwood cursed and dashed off after the escaping thing. I made to follow, but in the flashing light I caught sight of what was hidden in the corner. Clemens had not been Edward’s first victim. An orderly, whose name I knew only as Dennis, lay beaten and covered in blood behind the reception desk. He had, given the gaping wound around his neck, been bitten and his throat had been torn out by the deranged thing that had been Edward Fisher. I made to leave, and join Elwood in his pursuit of the Fisher-thing, but as I reached the door an unexpected thing happened. Dennis, the orderly who was clearly dead, moved. His fingers were vibrating madly in a spastic freakish manner that was so fast they blurred. The seizure traveled to his hands and arms, and then appeared in his legs. He bucked wildly against the floor as the convulsions took hold of his torso. It had been years since I had seen such a violent reaction, but I knew it for what it was. At the moment I had no explanation, only a desire to bring the horror to an end. In a daze I ran back into the procedure room and obtained the largest bone saw I could find. It gleamed silver in the light as I marched determinedly back to the hall. As I came around the reception desk, Dennis’ reanimated body sprang up and reached for me. I slashed purposefully and in one motion took the saw through the thing’s neck. The head fell, bounced against the top of the desk and then fell to the floor, coming to rest next to the body it had once crowned.
Reinvigorated, I careened through the doors and after Elwood and his monstrous quarry. A trail of blood and other fluids led up the main stairwell of the hospital. Based on the footprints that Elwood left behind smeared into the vile trail, he seemed to be not far behind the creature, but I had heard no further gunshots since the first two. I took the stairs by twos and threes, following the spatter past the second, then the third and up onto the fourth floor. There the tile and walls were smeared crimson as if the thing had stumbled or slid. I was grateful that this particular floor had been cleared of patients, but cursed the darkness that came with the lights being turned out.
I took a few cautious steps down the shrouded hall, but before I had gone ten paces it became apparent that the corridor was simply too dark for me to proceed safely. Blindly, I backed up and purposely pinned myself against the wall. “Elwood,” I whispered in desperation.
There was a sound like cloth tearing, and a sweet cloying smell like roses. Something moved behind me. I readied the bone saw, intent on lashing out blindly if I had to. A hand grabbed my wrist and pinned it against the wall. Another came out and covered my mouth just as I began to scream. “Shhhh,” whispered Elwood. “I think we have it trapped on this floor. All the windows are barred and the door at the other end is chained shut. Maybe we should hold him here and wait for help to arrive.”
I lowered his hand away from my mouth. “That might not be a good idea. I don’t know how but I think that this condition is infectious. The more people that we involve, the more likely that it will spread.”
Somewhere down the darkened hallway Edward Fisher smashed against the door and howled in pain and anger. Elwood dragged me slowly back toward the light. “I have an idea, but you have to trust me.”
With little choice in the matter I took the gun he was placing in my hand and followed him slowly back to the stairwell. “You do know how to use that?”
I nodded; my time in the war had served me well, and I knew how to handle a variety of firearms. “Take the gun and head down to the lobby. I’m going to try and lure him out to a spot where you can get a clear shot. You might only get one chance, so make sure you make it count.”
He barreled down the hallway screaming, while I went down the stairs leaping from landing to landing as fast as I could. I could hear both Edward and Elwood as they finally met and then careened down the hall, one in pursuit of the other. I stumbled down the last few stairs and slid into position.
I watched as three stories above me Elwood suddenly appeared on the landing. He cast a quick glance in my direction, and then let loose with a tremendous and frightening shriek. There echoed back a bone-chilling snarl and the sound of something large pounding down the hallway at breakneck speed. The building shook and once more there was that sound of tearing fabric. I yelled at Elwood to move but he was already gone, and in his place was suddenly the form of Edward Fisher. He seemed to float there for a second, and in that moment he seemed oddly graceful, almost serene, like a leaf drifting in the wind. Then that moment was gone and the creature was flailing, falling, crashing through the stairwell, bouncing off of hand rails and posts as the force of gravity accelerated him down and into the floor in front of me.
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 t
he 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.