“Dr. Wicked, I presume?”
****
Dr. Wicked leads Wally and me past the gamers into a tiny backroom. Incense instantly fills my nose. A monkey skull sits on a desk, surrounded by a collection of other tiny skulls, bones, and animals in jars full of fluid. Books line the walls, written in languages that I don’t even know that I don’t know. On the opposite wall, a collection of figurines pile upon a shelf. One figurine has the body of a man and the head of an octopus with tentacles falling from where the mouth should be. Another cheery scene shows one man with a large headdress ripping out the guts of another. Jewelry, candles, and other talismans fill every single inch of free space. Clearly, we’ve now found the good stuff.
Dr. Wicked sits behind the desk with the monkey skull. I suck in my gut so as not to knock anything over, when Wally taps me in the shoulder. He nods at the wall above the good doctor’s seat.
Just above the tall man’s head is a poster. The moonlight. The swamp. The title. I’ve seen this before. At least, I’ve seen most of it. The only difference is that smack in the middle of this one stands a tall, black, scaly thing with glowing eyes, fangs that’ll rip your neck out and claws that’ll cut through human flesh like one of those late night ginsu knives go through steel cans. It’s The Creature.
“You’re a fan too huh?” I ask the doctor.
“Much like Mr. Offerman,” Dr. Wicked steeples his hands in front of his face, “I am a collector.” I swear I can hear the words slide over his tongue.
“How do you know Mr. Offerman?” Wally asks.
“He and I did business together several times. As I said, we are both collectors,” the Doctor leans back. “Kindred spirits.”
“He was a collector,” I correct. “He’s dead now.”
“Unfortunate.” Dr. Wicked says with a tone that implies it’s not unfortunate at all. Or maybe I’m just hearing things.
“Yes, very,” I say. “He won’t be able to ride any of the rides at Badhorn Island. He’s too short now. Both halves of him.”
“That’s too bad,” Dr. Wicked starts to stroke the monkey skull as if it were still a monkey. “It’s so rare to meet anyone who appreciates the fine arts such as he did.”
“He certainly seemed to like his horror movies,” says Wally.
“Yes,” the Doctor agrees, “but what he especially appreciated was the quality of the classics. The emotion, the feeling of a good scare. Not the cheap thrills, not the gore, of these films today. If we can even call them that.”
“Well, someone certainly appreciated the gore,” I say. “He was ripped in two and chewed up. Not a lot of quality in that.”
Dr. Wicked looks unmoved.
“He actually has that same poster in his room.” Wally points up to The Creature. “Well, almost the same.”
“Of course, he does. I procured it for him,” the doctor volunteers. “As well he should. Any serious collector should have a work of this...caliber. He’s only fortunate that I could find a second.”
“So, this Creature, it’s rare?”
“Extremely. Only a handful exist, and I was lucky enough to come across two.”
“Lucky you,” I say.
Dr. Wicked lets go half a smile.
“The only difference between his and yours,” I say, stepping closer to Dr. Wicked, “is that his don’t have no creature in it.”
“That must make it extra rare.” Wally matches my tone.
The doctor looks to Wally, completely ignoring me. “A misprint on this poster would, indeed, be extremely rare. And valuable,” The doctor remembers me. “But that’s not the case. The poster I sold is an original, 1954 The Creature print. I inspected it myself before selling it to Mr. Offerman. In fact, I considered trading mine with his, so exceptional was the print. But I just knew I couldn’t live with myself if I did something so heinous.”
“Who could?” I say, matching his gaze. “But, regardless, Karl’s print is now creature-less.”
Dr. Wicked offers us a look of non-explanation.
“When did you sell Karl B. this picture?”
“As you know, three days ago.” That is what the receipt said.
“Was there anything unusual about Karl B. at this time?” I ask.
“Not at this time, no.”
“At another time?” Wally picks up on the doctor’s word choice.
“There was a problem with Mr. Offerman’s payment going through. The problem was, and is, that it didn’t.”
“The payment didn’t clear?” Wally asks.
“No, and now it seems that the poster has been defaced as well.” Dr. Wicked looks away and then back at us. “All of this in addition to the grisly details of Mr. Offerman’s death. This is a mess.”
“It certainly is, doctor,” I put my hands on the desk. “Did you and Karl have any sort of discussion about this payment?”
This time, the doctor meets my gaze. “I called to tell him that there was a problem with the payment. He assured me that he would check into it and clear the whole thing up right away. I have worked with him several times in the past, always without incident, so I simply chalked the whole thing up to a bank error or a misunderstanding of some sort.” The doctor pauses. “Though, it was for quite a sum of money.”
“How much we talking, doc?” Wally asks.
The doctor tells us.
“That’s a lot of cheese,” I say.
“Yes it is detective.” The doctor’s fingers glide over the skull, as his eyes do the same thing over my face. He’s looking for something, but I’ve closed myself up to his type long ago.
“So, Doctor Wicked,” I meet his gaze. “Which wicked med school did you go to exactly?”
“It’s a Ph.D. actually,” He stands, his suit straining with the effort. “From Badhorn University. In History. Ancient History.”
“Quite a leap from Ancient History to Modern Cinema.” Wally is playing with one of the figurines on a shelf. It’s the mad chief and his sacrifice.
“Don’t touch that please.” Dr. Wicked walks out from behind his desk. Now things are starting to get tighter than that suit. “And not such a leap. The stories we tell today are not so different from the stories told thousands of years ago. Only now,” the Doctor takes the figurine out of Wally’s hand and places it gently back on the shelf, “we watch the horrors on TV, instead of real life.”
I’m not so sure about that. “Sure Doc. We’ll be in touch.”
****
I drop Wally off back at the station.
“Creepy, huh, Detective?” Wally tries to hold back a shudder. “That guy makes me feel like a ant under a magnifying glass.”
“Welcome to Badhorn, kid.” But Wally’s right; something don’t add up about that guy. He was holding out on us for sure. “Get some rest Wally. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.”
A chill engulfs my body as Wally opens the car door. It’s gotten colder. Wally shuffles over to his ride. I put mine in drive and head home.
****
I sit in the dark and watch as the snow keeps coming down. In the last few hours, not only has it changed months, but it seems to have changed seasons as well. The day, like my bones, has gotten much too cold. This case, though, I won’t let that cool off. The good doctor wasn’t telling us everything, but then, what exactly was he hiding? Was he the kind of guy who would rip a man in half over a movie poster?
Yeah, I’d say he was.
I swirl the last finger of whiskey in my glass and shoot it down. It does nothing to warm my belly. Jeannie has long since gone to bed, and I should join her. I’ve spent too many nights sleeping in this chair, dreaming of bad guys. Tonight, I haven’t even taken my Colt off my shoulder.
I stand up and start to walk towards the stairs when the sound of running water catches my ear. I must have always heard it, the sound blending into the background. How long has it been going? It’s not like Jeannie to leave the sink running, but then sometimes we forget. I wonder how she doesn’t forget more
things with me being so out of it over the years.
Oh, what in the….
My socks splish-splosh as I enter the kitchen. The running water has overflowed the kitchen sink, and now I’m toe deep in water.
“Jesus H.” I look into the sink. It’s dark, but there’s something clogging up the drain. There’s always something.
I reach down and start feeling around. Something clammy, scaly, comes under my hand. Did Jeannie have fish for dinner? Ow! I feel my finger drag over one of the scales as I pull my hand back. There’s a pretty nice cut on my index finger. Good job, old man.
I put the finger up to my mouth to try and stop the bleeding. It looks like I’ll live. I stick my left hand down into the water, trying to be more careful this time.
I feel the fish scales again, right over the hole for the drain, but for whatever reason I can’t pull it out.
I feel around some more. The water is stiff, almost sludgy, over my arm. Looks like we’ll have to get that checked out too. Suddenly, I don’t have to find the fish guts anymore. They’ve found me.
Like a thousand little bullets, something clamps down on my arm. I feel my skin, muscle, bone, flesh being ripped away. Then another something clamps down and I feel it all over again. And again. I pull my arm back.
Blood. Bone. Stump.
Stupid, old man.
Out of the darkness of the water, something jumps up at me. About a foot long. Scaly. The moon light catches the tip of the dorsal fin and the rows of the razor sharp teeth.
I don’t think. With my one good hand, I just punch the little shark in its face.
It goes flying back into the sink. I’ve never been accused of being the smartest knife on the rack, but I stick my face over the sink to see about half a dozen miniature sharks fighting over the remains of what used to be my left hand. One notices me and takes a flying leap for my face. This time I swing my stump, sending blood flying, as I knock that death machine back into the water. It’s not getting my good hand.
Speaking of good hands and knives, I use the one to grab the other out of the knife block next to the sink, and I start stabbing wildly. Blood. water. Shark guts. Pieces of my arm. They all go flying. This ain’t the first time I’ve had to stab something under water, and it probably won’t be the last.
I don’t know how long this goes on, but I stop swinging when the sink is a stew of blood and fish brain. I stop to catch my breath, and I hear a splash of water behind me. Did one of those buggers slip by me?
I turn around to see something behind me, but this ain’t no shark. It’s tall, black, and scaly. It’s got glowing eyes, fangs that’ll rip out my neck, and claws that’ll cut through what’s left of my flesh like one of those late night ginsu knives through steel cans. It’s the thing from that poster, The Creature. Well, at least I’ve found him.
I decide I’d rather bring a gun to this knife fight. I throw down the blade and take out my Colt. I fire once and hit the thing right between the eyes. It keeps coming, faster now. I fire again. And again. And again. I empty all six shots into its face before it finally falls down. The Creature is dead. In my kitchen.
“Raymond?” I hear Jeannie’s voice from upstairs. “Everything ok down there?”
“Yes, dear.” I kick the Creature in the head for good measure. “Just cleaning up the kitchen.”
****
The snow has stopped falling, and the sun is just coming up as I pull off 46 and into the strip mall. The docs fixed me up real good. Looks like I’ll have to give up my dream of being a famous violinist, but I can still shake hands, and I can still shoot. And I’m not interested in shaking Dr. Wicked’s hand.
I may only have to buy one glove from now on, but I found out I still came out better than Wally. The guys tell me that they found him doing his best Karl B. Offerman impression. Half of him they found inside his place. The other half outside, beside a set of large, Yeti-sized footprints.
Anywhere else they would have locked me in the looney bin when I told them my story. But this is Badhorn. They start searching for the Yeti.
No one -not my cop buddies, not the docs, not Jeannie- is thrilled about me heading out to pay a visit to Dr. Wicked, but I go anyway. The parking lot is empty, save for a couple early risers looking for their cup of mud over at the Starbucks. No one is kicking or punching at Grandmaster Yu’s. I pull right up to the curb and storm out.
I walk up to the front door of Dr. Wicked’s Bazaar of the Bizarre (and other Creepy Collectibles) and bear down on that front door like it’s my job to open it, but it don’t budge. I bang on the door with my good hand.
“Dr. Wicked! Open up!” In all my rage, it takes me a minute before I see the “For Lease” sign hanging right in front of my face. I get right up next to the glass and look in. Empty.
Just yesterday, that room was full of every type of horror you could think of. A group of nerds in the back. Steve at the front counter. Now, all gone. Completely empty. I step back to see the “Commerical Property! Call 812-555-6667!” sign. I look to my left: Starbucks. To my right: Grandmaster Yu’s. This is the right place. I look in again. I can see the door in the back that leads to the cramped office of Dr. Wicked. I can only imagine that that is empty as well.
“Damn it!” I kick the bottom of the front door. Now I have a stump for an arm and a broken toe. An old lady gives me a look as she heads in for coffee. I hobble back to my car and head out.
****
We never find the Yeti that ripped Wally and, I presume, Karl B. in half. And somewhere between my home and the morgue, the bodies of that shark apocalypse and the Creature are forever lost. I try to dig a little deeper. No records of anyone ever named Wicked earning a history doctorate at Badhorn U. Nor are there even any records of the Bazaar of the Bizarre (and other Creepy Collectibles) ever being registered in the strip mall. The website. The phone book listing. All have just vanished like they never existed.
But the bodies of Karl B. Offerman and Walter J. Souza have not disappeared. They’re still in the ground at Badhorn Cemetery. My left arm is still a stump, and I’m still here, with the BPD. Where the unusual is too usual.
I still do some internet searches for “Dr. Wicked” or Perch of the Blood Monkeys or The Creature. But just as the good doctor told me, those originals are hard to come by. Hard, but not impossible.
Sometimes I find something interesting. Like this morning, on E-bay, I come across a rare 1954 original poster from Phantom Brothers studios. The glowing eyes. The fangs. The ginsu claws. Its The Creature in all his glory. I feel my hear start beat a little faster as I read the ad below:
ALL ORIGINAL CLASSIC MONSTER MOVIE POSTERS!
THE CREATURE! NIGHT OF THE YETI! SCAREWOLF! AND MORE!!
BEST PRICES! CALL TODAY! 100% ORIGINAL!
DR. WICKED’S CURIOUS CURIO (AND OTHER ALARMING ANTIQUES!)
666-555-1980
I think I will call today.
###
THE END
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J. Michael Best
About the Author
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