“It’s all right,” said Tristan, wondering if it was. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay?”
West cocked an eyebrow at Tristan. “Spare me the hysterics. I thought I told you I went for brainier sorts than you.”
Tristan could not stop his lower lip from trembling. “Oh, I just,” was all he could manage. But then he felt anger rising in him, hot, pricking resentment at being treated shabbily by West—teased about the thing he was most sensitive about—and after doing everything he could to help! “I’m going back inside!” he cried. “I’ve never in my life met such a horrible, ungrateful … I can’t believe I helped you—I can’t believe I thought you were cool! I hope you do fail that stupid class, and I hope—”
Tristan almost slipped on a patch of ice when West grabbed him by the hand and pulled him down into a kiss, right there in the snowy brightness under the lamppost, but West’s grip was like iron, and it kept Tristan steady on his feet.
It wasn’t the only thing hard about West, either; the pressure of his lips on Tristan’s was so intense it was almost painful. Tristan didn’t pull away. It was his first kiss, after all, and while it startled him to discover that West’s tongue was as rough as a cat’s, and his breath tasted strangely of formaldehyde, Tristan thought it was pretty wonderful to be kissing someone, God help him.
“You’re brainy enough,” whispered West, pulling away only enough to mouth the words under his breath. “I was just being mean because I was angry.”
“S’okay.” Tristan, eager for more, initiated the kiss this time, even if West’s diminutive stature put a serious crick in his neck. Surely God, in His wisdom, wouldn’t have made kissing another boy so fun, were it a sin? Because this was fun, innocently fun … well, except for the drum-like thrills shooting along the length of Tristan’s stiffening cock. That wasn’t so very innocent. Tristan was more aroused than he could ever remember feeling, things were getting almost painful down there. He dearly wished he could adjust himself, but feeling it would be indelicate, he let instinct take over and instead pressed his erection against West’s belly with a moan. The pleasure definitely helped him bear the discomfort. He might be lost in Heaven without a map, but clearly his directional sense was decent enough.
“Well, well, well.”
Tristan released West with a gasp and, horrified, turned around to see that Dr. Quinley had been standing behind him.
It was the worst possible thing. What could he possibly say to excuse what he’d been doing? There was no excuse for it. And all this after Dr. Quinley had been so nice to him … he felt a sudden pang over his betraying the professor. The man was all right.
Quinley, for his part, looked like Christmas had come early that year. Sick with nerves, Tristan turned back to West for guidance, but West had that weird, triumphal expression on his face again, the one he’d worn in class only a few short hours before. Was West … insane? If Quinley spread the word about them, the consequences would be dire, likely beginning—and ending—with Tristan being summarily expelled from the divinity school. And as for West…
“Dr. Quinley,” stammered Tristan, at last finding his voice, “I—what are you …”
“I was wondering how West managed to sneak into the party,” said Quinley. “It seems he had inside help, hmm? What a shame, I’d thought better of you, Mr. Langbroek. Helping a misfit like West doesn’t reflect well on your character, not at all. And that’s without the sodomy.”
“Sodomy!” West snorted, before Tristan could protest. “Oh come now, Dr. Quinley. Don’t be melodramatic. Tristan didn’t help me get into the party. I just walked in the door, and as for the other—”
“You didn’t just walk in the door.” A cold wind kicked up along the deserted side-street, and Quinley, shivering, popped the collar of his overcoat against the cutting breeze. “I asked the … bouncer, ticket-taker, whatever. He said the first time he saw you, you were storming off.”
“Well, however you think I got in there, surely you’ll accept it wasn’t with Tristan’s assistance. Look at him, he couldn’t help assemble a ham sandwich.”
“Nice boyfriend,” remarked Quinley, looking piercingly at Tristan. Tristan flushed, but said nothing, his power of speech as frozen as the ground.
West began anew his attempt to dissuade Quinley that Tristan had been involved in his crashing the party or that they were romantically involved, even going so far as to claim Tristan had been whispering something to him; that Quinley’s eyes had deceived him into thinking he’d seen a kiss. Tristan didn’t try to help defend West—or himself. He watched his ruin unfold in silence, without emotion. Quinley and West’s argument seemed to be happening somewhere very far away, like he was watching through the wrong end of a telescope.
It was all just too terrible. Tristan took a step back, hoping to put even more distance between himself and the altercation, which was growing more heated as Quinley laughed away West’s explanations. The less Tristan was involved the better. He wasn’t like West, he would wait, go in early to try to catch Dr. Quinley in his office, apologize for his error and beg for mercy. Surely if he explained the situation Quinley would see reason. It didn’t seem fair to punish him for such a momentary indiscretion as letting West gate-crash. And as for the other, this entire experience was enough to convince him that boys just weren’t worth the trouble.
West, however, was moving in the opposite direction, advancing on Quinley so angrily that the professor was starting to look nervous. Though short and slight, when he began shaking his finger and raising his voice, West was pretty scary. Quinley was casting about, clearly hoping to see someone else walking along the lonely stretch of sidewalk. But there was no one around, and the wind swallowed rather than blew away West’s words, even when he shrieked, “I will make you see logic if you refuse to do so on your own!”
“West!” cried Tristan, the peril of being implicated in his companion’s belligerent craziness too much to bear. He took a few, careful steps on the crusty, crunching ice toward where the quarrelers quarreled. “Stop this, let him go! There’s no sense in this, you’re going to—”
It happened so quickly Tristan wasn’t sure what he saw. As ginger as his own steps had been, West was not being careful, nor was Quinley in his haste to put some distance between himself and the two boys. And walking backwards on slick concrete freckled with patches of black ice was hardly a good idea under any circumstances. So it wasn’t that Tristan thought West had actually swiped out his foot under Quinley’s own in some horrifying, deliberate attempt to trip the professor—not really. It was just an accident when Dr. Quinley slipped.
The professor windmilled his arms in am attempt to regain his balance that proved futile, and it wasn’t that Tristan thought he saw West push him. He must have been trying to grab the man’s tie, or shirtfront perhaps, in an attempt to keep him on his feet. Yes, that’s what happened. An accident.
But an accident that resulted in them both kneeling over Dr. Quinley’s prostrate figure.
Laying on the sidewalk like a corpse on a slab, an upsetting pool of steaming black blood spreading out from under the back of Quinley’s head, Tristan, in something of a daze, reached out and touched the professor’s brow. It was still warm—and when he looked, he saw that a pulse yet beat at the man’s throat.
“I think he’s alive,” said Tristan softly.
“And a good thing, too,” said West, grinning ghoulishly. “We’d be in an awful lot of trouble if he died, don’t you think?”
Tristan gawped at West. “What?”
“There’s no time for stupid questions! We must, as he made the point in class earlier, act in our patient’s best interest, and that means getting him to my dorm room. I can help him there.” As Tristan wondered if this was truly what Quinley would want, West half-lay down on the sidewalk beside Quinley in his effort to get his arm around the professor’s neck, slumping the body—no, Dr. Quinley—into half of a fireman’s carry. “A little help, please? I can’t carry
him by myself. He’s too heavy, the great oaf.”
“Shouldn’t we take him to the infirmary?”
“No! That’s the worst thing we could do!” West sighed as if it was the most obvious fact in the world. “We need to reason with him once he wakes up. So he doesn’t blab to the police.”
“The police!”
“Obviously we know it was just an unfortunate accident, his fall, but who knows what he might say about us? Do you want to risk him spilling the proverbial beans? Over our kiss? Your helping me get into the party? What if he gets confused and wakes up believing I tried to trip him? We’d both be ruined!”
Tristan felt a yawing in his stomach, as if he might be sick. “All … right,” he agreed. West was right, damn him. “How far is it to your dorm?”
“Not very.” West grunted as they both heaved at once and got the distressingly-floppy Dr. Quinley on his feet. Quinley moaned weakly, and Tristan’s stomach did a barrel roll. “If we see anyone, act intoxicated. Sing a Christmas carol loudly, shout, that kind of thing. That way they’ll think Quinley’s just drunk, too, and we’re helping him home.”
The walk back to West’s dorm could not have taken fifteen minutes, but it felt like an eternity to Tristan. Quinley’s body became increasingly burdensome as Tristan’s arms began to shake with the effort of holding him, and his head lolled when one of them failed to support it properly. And despite Tristan’s hopes, they did see a few people, but no one seemed to notice there was something strange happening, as West and Tristan pretended at making merry until any potential witnesses were out of sight.
Then there were the stairs. West’s room was on the second floor, so there were clanging doors to worry about, and also the brighter light inside that better illuminated their misdeeds—and revealed that the damage to the back of Dr. Quinley’s head was not so minor as Tristan had hoped. His skull looked almost caved in a little, though the man continued to breathe shallowly. Tristan hoped that meant he’d be okay.
“You’re doing great,” said West in soothing tones, when they finally reached his door. He pushed most of Quinley’s deadweight onto Tristan as he fumbled for his key. “It’s nice, having someone to help with this sort of thing—I’ll have to keep that in mind. But now we’re here, you can go home once we get him inside. I understand if medical matters make you nauseated.”
Tristan’s heart soared momentarily—the prospect of getting away from West, Quinley, and really everything about this night was a lovely one, a blessing—but then he realized he couldn’t leave Dr. Quinley alone with West, and certainly not in such a helpless state. He would have to see this thing through to the end.
“There must be some way I can assist you,” he said, trying to sound braver than he felt. “What are you planning to do?”
West turned the knob and his door swung open. “I have a few ideas,” he said, as Tristan’s jaw dropped.
The inside of West’s room was filled with more microscopes, test tubes, Bunsen burners, pipettes, clamps, forceps, and wire brushes than a chemistry department’s supply closet. Actually, given the labels on some of the items, perhaps the chemistry department’s supply closet was a little less than full these days. Tristan’s eyes began to water immediately, not just from the greenish steam or smoke produced by weird fluids bubbling away merrily in their beakers. He felt deeply creeped out, most of all because along with the scientific equipment, the place was absolutely decked out for Christmas. Garlands dripped from the ceiling, ornaments glistened everywhere, and there was even a tiny tree, listing slightly in its stand, on top of a stack of books with titles like Alternative Ideas On The Human Nervous System and Do I Not Bleed? A Concise History of Blood Transfusion.
“What the …” he said, catching himself before he swore. “West, what is all this?”
“My work,” said West absently. “Let’s get him settled, all right?”
As they finagled the limp Quinley into a metal chair beside a square table crowded with equipment, Tristan asked, “What sort of work?”
“Great work. Humanitarian work,” answered West. He had left Dr. Quinley to Tristan’s care, turning his attention to titrating some glowing greenish solution into a beaker. “Something that will change the world as we know it. I am on the brink of a great discovery, you see.”
Dear Lord. “Should we perform first aid?” asked Tristan. As fascinating as West’s discovery surely was, Dr. Quinley’s face had lost all its color, and he didn’t seem to be breathing any more.
“What for?”
Tristan made an incredulous noise in the back of his throat. “I think he’s dying, Herbert!”
“Well yes, of course he is.” West looked up from agitating whatever was in the beaker with a stirring rod. “He’s well beyond ordinary medicine at this point, I’d say. But I am not an ordinary doctor.”
“You’re not a doctor at all!” Tristan cried, his horror mounting as it occurred to him that perhaps West had never intended to save Dr. Quinley.
“Not yet,” West conceded. “But trust me, once I am able to publish my discoveries, the Nobel Prize shan’t be far behind.”
“I hope you enjoy it behind bars!” Tristan backed away from West, back towards the door. “He’s going to die, and that makes you a murderer!”
West sighed. “Really, Tristan, you must learn to control these outbursts! He’s not going to die. I’m going to save his life!”
“How?”
“With this—my reagent,” he said. He set the beaker down carefully. “It restores life to those on the brink of death.”
Tristan, despite himself, was impressed. He shouldn’t have doubted West, West wasn’t a psychopath or homicidal maniac, of course he wasn’t. He was just a medical student, if one with more than his fair share of ego. “Thank God,” he said with relief.
West smiled. “Get his coat off and roll up his sleeve while I prepare the syringe.”
Once Tristan had Dr. Quinley’s forearm free and bare, West swooped in like a falcon and jabbed the syringe into the professor’s most prominent vein. Depressing the plunger, West whimpered a little, as if experiencing a jolt of pain—or pleasure—and then withdrew the needle.
Tristan imagined the result would be instantaneous, like Lazarus rising from the dead or some other famous miracle. Instead, Dr. Quinley continued to slouch in the chair as he had been, looking, well, corpselike.
West set down the syringe, folded his arms, and watched Quinley clinically. After perhaps a minute of this Tristan cleared his throat.
“Ah, should he …”
West checked his watch. “Soon, if it works.”
Wait. “If?”
“Well … this will be my first time using it on a human.” West looked at Tristan in surprise when Tristan gasped. “What, do you think Miskatonic supplies its medical students—even its most brilliant ones—with an endless supply of near-death human specimens? I’ve had promising results with lab animals like rats and guinea pigs, but trust me, stealing anything with a more complex brain and circulatory system is nigh-impossible.”
Tristan sank to his knees. Dr. Quinley had yet to show any signs of life. As a perturbed expression crept across West’s face, Tristan began to doubt he would.
This was it for him, really and truly It. He might have been able to recover from a scandal like an illicit kiss, but murder? While God might forgive him, the legal system would surely require more penitence than a prayer. Perhaps if he demonstrated good behavior they’d let him work in the prison chapel…
“Damn it,” muttered West, checking his watch once again. “Perhaps I miscalculated the dosage … it’s possible Quinley’s even fatter than I thought.”
“Could we still get him to the infirmary?”
West raised both eyebrows. “If we get him anywhere it will be back to where he fell. That way we can make it look like an accident.”
“It was an accident!”
“Oh, Tristan. If you’re going to assist me in my work, you must dry off beh
ind the ears!” West chuckled pityingly as he looked down at where Tristan yet knelt. “If what we learn from our failure with Quinley yields new insights that can help the sick, won’t it have been worth it?”
“The end doesn’t justi—”
“Oh, please. Come on, let’s get him on the dissecting table, all right? The fresher he is, the more I’ll be able to find out.”
Tristan didn’t move. He just shook his head and stared at the carpet. It was flecked with brownish stains.
“Well I can’t let your attitude stand in the way of science,” said West, with the air of a disappointed parent telling a child that no, they could not get ice cream, and it was all because he had cried while having a band-aid ripped off his skinned knee. “Get out of my way if you won’t help.”
Tristan’s legs felt like they belonged to someone else; he couldn’t make the muscles move. He heard West sigh again, somewhere above his head, and then West stepped over him, leaning down to pull open one of Quinley’s eyes. He shone a light onto the glassy pupil.
“Hmm,” he said.
Tristan didn’t ask what was worthy of comment, which is perhaps why they both heard the low moan that came from neither of their throats.
“Was that …” asked Tristan, but West didn’t answer, for Quinley’s hand had shot straight out and grabbed him by the neck.
“Dr. Quinley!” cried Tristan, suddenly on his feet. What on earth was the man doing? Trying to murder his murderer?
But at least he was alive!
Tristan watched in terror as Quinley threw West across the room. His body hit the cement block wall with a thump, and Tristan cried out when West fell to the floor, which made Quinley turn his head and look at the divinity student with bleary eyes.
“Urnnngh,” he said, and lurched toward Tristan.
“Dr. Quinley, I know you’re disoriented,” said Tristan, slowly backing away. What was wrong with the man? Why was he looking at him so queerly, like he wasn’t really seeing him—or recognizing him? “Please, if you’ll come with me, I’ll get you to the clinic, or the hospital, you need help, you need … Dr. Quinley? Dr. Quinley, can you hear me?”
Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2012 - Issues 10 through 20 Page 75