by Bryan Hall
“Your doom, Dr. Ward,” said Henri.
“Isn’t that a bit theatrical?”
“It would’ve been better if you remained sleeping.”
“Insomnia is common among medical personnel. You tripped the silent alarm on the storage unit. Do you like my handiwork?”
“A pointless exercise. Desecrating the corpses of the dead is not unique, even with a modern twist. You are a ghoul, a madman.” His hands gripped on to Madame tighter.
“Pointless? You do not grasp the genius behind my experiments. Stronger assassins. Ones that feel no pain. Follow orders without question. Obedient and loyal, a perfect weapon of terror.”
“As you say, Dr. Frankenstein.”
The doctor frowned. “Frankenstein would bow to my methods. Electricity to animate bodies? Passé. Chemicals are a superior method. Cleaner, less obtrusive. They allow for the acceptance of my modifications.”
Henri glanced at the uncovered body in the cold room. “They aren’t dead?”
“Now you see the genius. Chemical suspension of all life functions. They are perfectly preserved until needed. Pumps circulate an oxygenated fluid around the body, dopamine injected to keep them docile until needed, combat drugs to enhance their abilities, and brain modification to ensure obedience. Perfect assassins.”
“A clumsy weapon. Blunt and unsubtle. Better suited for war than assassination.”
The doctor snorted. “I have succeeded where others have failed. My work will live on long after my death and I will be hailed as a visionary.”
“Why the act?”
“You are astute. Only a rational mind could have succeeded in this endeavor. Did you expect a raving madman playing God?”
“The thought did cross my mind.” Henri gestured around the basement. “This is too neat. Too tidy. This is all too precise and deliberate. Even the bodies are merely for show.”
Dr. Ward scowled and edged toward the stairs.
Madame flashed in the basement light as Henri whirled the ax blade around. The doctor’s head rolled from his shoulders, his mouth moving in silent protest.
“You chose poorly, doctor.”
Home—The Day Before
“What are you reading?” Andre stepped into the room, carrying the local newspaper. The headlines proclaimed “Brownstone row fire destroys block of condemned houses. Police suspect arson.”
Henri didn’t look up from the journal on the dining room table. A pile of similar books lay scattered about in front of the young man, with dozens of papers. He wrote on a legal pad as his eyes scanned the cramped writing. “The doctor’s journals. There is more to this story than just a single man and his basement theater of horrors.”
“You believe he was not acting alone.”
He nodded. “That room was a sham. A showcase to misdirect and confuse.” Henri gestured to one of the piles of paperwork. “It’s taken some time, but I have traced the trail of money and front companies. He was the face of the operation.”
“I will leave you to your research.” Andre Deibler walked out of the dining room, nodding in satisfaction.
Hours later, Henri sat back and reviewed the pages of notes. Clever. Very clever. He stood up and went to the weapon rack, running a hand along the Madame’s dark wood shaft. “We have work to do. The guilty must be made to pay for their crimes.”
The Docklands—The Day After
The diesel engines of delivery trucks growled and rumbled as they moved the cargo up the paved road to the warehouses. Bright lights illuminated the yards and security guards manned the entrance, checking each truck as it entered and exited. Two large cargo ships lay tied to moorings on the dock, next to a smaller medical ship. Cranes moved cargo from dock into the holds. Men shouted over the whine of generators and truck engines. It was a hive of activity and work. Even the medical ship was busy, lights blazing and armed sailors patrolling the deck.
Henri swam under the dock, just below the water’s surface, rising only to take a quick breath before diving back under. He dragged a large, waterproof bag behind him. The ship’s hull appeared in front of him through the murky water. Barnacles and rust covered the metal in large, thick patches. Faded lettering high on the bow proclaimed the ship as the Angel’s Grace. It rode high in the water that lapped and sloshed against the hull. He checked his watch, as the second hand swept toward 2:10 a.m. The lights of the dock went dark, leaving only the lights of the ships to illuminate the night. Shouts and curses echoed in the night as the whine of electric motors died.
He deftly climbed up the side, the magnetic gloves gripping the hull to allow purchase. He was over the rail in under thirty seconds, ducking into the shadow of the forward wheelhouse. The guards milled midship near the gangplank.
“Get those fucking lights back on.”
“The mains are still out. Need to fire up the damn generators.”
“Move it, shitheads. We need to keep on schedule.”
“Yes, sir.”
Henri flipped open a hatch and dropped into the dark interior, the low-light goggles compensating for the emergency lighting. He unzipped the bag, pulled out the pouch of explosives, and fastened it to his waist. Madame was lifted out with care, along with a silenced Glock. “Sorry, Madame. I mean you no disrespect.”
He moved down the passageway, pausing at the bulkhead hatches to listen and place a charge behind the ductwork. Only the shouting above deck filtered down. There were no direction signs, only gray wrapped pipes and whitewashed metal decorated the ship. At a junction, the bulkhead door opened and a masked woman in blood-splattered surgical garb stepped through. Beyond her was another closed bulkhead door, forming a small air lock. Henri grabbed her, covered her mouth, and stepped into the head. He pressed the silenced Glock her chest and fired, a soft pffft the only sound. She slumped to the tiled floor in a boneless heap. He moved into the air lock, sealed the bulkhead behind him, and pulled the lever to open the other door.
Henri’s nose wrinkled at the stench. Unwashed flesh, human waste, blood, and sex mixed in an unholy miasma. The hold was full of rusting, filth-coated, raised metal and safety-glass cages. Each was open to the ceiling and connected with short tubes barely large enough for a man to crawl. Growls, whimpers, howls of pain and pleasure echoed off the walls, as the occupants paced back and forth. Red, angry flesh puckered around the metal and plastic implants, seeping blood, pus, and other fluids. They paced back and forth, rutted with each other, growled and snarled at Henri.
They are little better than animals. Disgusting and abominable, no person should be treated like this.
Safety glass shook as the patient pounded on the barrier. Henri stepped back involuntarily. Scars ran across her body, testaments to numerous operations. Her forearms and hands had been replaced by steel and plastic prosthetics that ended in lumpy fists. Excess flesh had been excised away, leaving puckered and scabrous scars on the chest. A single horn jutted from her forehead, the skin around it infected and shot through with angry red lines. Mad eyes stared wildly at him from a face twisted with hate, rage, and pain. Behind her lay a body, arms splayed outward, vacant eyes staring at lights high above.
At the far end of the hold stood two men in lab coats. They leaned over one of the patients strapped to an operating table with leather bonds. They looked up as Henri sprinted down the gangway, his boots pounding heavily on the metal. Madame’s axe blade flashed in a wide arc, parting the younger man’s head from his body. From the cages came howls of rage and the pounding of metal on the barriers.
“Dr. Manson. I have come for you.”
“Who are you? How did you find me?” The older, heavyset man stumbled back, a sheen of sweat on his balding brow. “You killed Philip!” His voice raised in a shriek.
“No one can hear you. This room appears to be soundproof.”
“I have powerful friends. They will make you pay.” His eyes went wide with fear and panic.
“This experiment ends here. Your life is forfeit.” Henri lifted him t
o his feet and slammed him to wall. “I will not sully Madame with your blood.” He pulled out a set of handcuffs and fastened left wrist to the right ankle. On the table, the patient moaned. The pistol made a soft sound and the pain ceased.
“Don’t kill me. I can make you rich,” the doctor pleaded. A wet stain grew on the front of his pants.
“Wealth does not tempt us, doctor.” Henri moved to a desk covered with papers, journals, and a laptop. The contents were stuffed into the waterproof bag with a single sweep of his hand.
“I can make you better. Stronger. A killing machine that has no equal.”
Henri stared down at him through the eyes of the death mask and shook his head.
“You would no longer need that archaic weapon. Your body would be a fine-tuned killing machine. Immune to pain and feeling. A true creature of this century and not some primitive relic of the past.”
“What did you say?” He stepped and kicked out with the toe of his boot. The doctor spit blood and teeth, whimpering in pain. “Do not insult Madame!” Henri hauled him to his feet and pushed him to the railing. “You are a monster. You torture and harm for your own ego. There is nothing moral about your actions. There is no justification!”
“You are no better.”
“We do not harm the innocent,” he hissed and slammed the doctor headfirst into the metal rails. “You make us sick. Living as one of those poor souls would be a just punishment, but I’m left with only a single recourse.”
The doctor cried and blubbered in a heap, blood staining the grating.
“Good-bye.” With a heave, Henri pushed the fat man over the rails into the open cage below. Manson shrieked in a high-pitched wail as the experiments descended upon the helpless scientist.
Home—Afterward
“A pity about the tragic loss of the ship.” Andre Diebler sat down a glass of Bordeaux on the end table.
Henri took the glass and raised it to his uncle. “I’m sure that it will be a minor tax loss for the corporation, if not for the scandal.” He held up the newspaper. ‘Medical ship of horrors explodes and sinks in harbor.’
“Our Patrons were not pleased with the evidence you recovered from the ship. There are contracts in play for the members of the staff. Tragedy and suicide follow many disgraced men to the grave.”
“It is done and finished,” he said. “I’m going to bed, it has been a long week. Good night, uncle.”
“Good night, Henri. Sleep well.”
“Not tonight I think.” Henri closed the study door and walked up the grand stairs, pausing at the portrait of the family founder. “Killing the guilty is easy. The innocent is difficult. Did you have to make those choices? What did you do?”
There was no answer, only the patter of spring rain on the windows.
The Ship—Before
The once-human creature clawed its way out of the cage, tearing gouges into the safety-glass walls as it climbed up. Blood dripped off the metal claws and stained its filthy skin. It hunched over on the gangway, eyes hidden behind the lens stapled across the sockets. Mouth turned back into a grimace of rage and pain, baring gore-covered incisors. Muscles twitched and jerked unnaturally. Others scrambled upward, following the pack leader. They hobbled and scrabbled to the top; twisted, bent, and ruined. Broken frames. Steroid- enhanced physiques. Artificial limbs and implants. Scars from brain surgery. Incompletely healed wounds. In the pit below, Dr. Manson’s body lay gutted and torn. One of the things yanked out a slab of glistening meat from the open belly, gulping down chunks with a wet smacking noise.
“I’m sorry. Your pain will end shortly.” Henri raised up Madame, gloves gripping the shaft of the headsman’s ax firmly. “Some sooner than others.”
The man, or perhaps woman, paused at his words. “Kill,” it gurgled, rising upright, arms outstretched.
“As you wish.”
Madame’s steel flashed in the light as the hold burst into flames.
UNDERNEATH
BY KEALAN PATRICK BURKE
“This is a joke, right?”
Dean Lovell shifted uncomfortably, his eyes moving over the girl’s shoulder to the stream of students chattering and laughing as they made their way to class. Summer played at the windows; golden light lay in oblongs across the tiled floor, illuminating a haze of dust from old books and the unpolished tops of lockers. Someone whooped, another cheered, and over by Dean’s locker, Freddy Kelly watched and grinned.
Dean forced his gaze back to the girl standing impatiently before him. Her eyes were blue but dark, her jaw slender but firm.
“Well?” she said.
He cleared his throat, dragged his eyes to hers and felt his stomach quiver.
Her face ...
Down the hall, an authoritative voice chastised someone for using bad language. Punishment was meted out; a groan was heard. At the opposite end of the hall, heated voices rose. A body clanged against a locker; someone cursed. Laughter weaved its way through the parade.
“It’s not a joke. Why would you think it was?” he said at last, aware that he was fidgeting, paring slivers of skin from his fingernails, but unable to stop.
The girl—Stephanie—seemed amused. Dean met her eyes again, willed them to stay there, willed them not to wander down to where the skin was puckered and shiny, where her cheeks were folded, striated. Damaged.
“Since I’ve been here, only one other guy has ever asked me out. I accepted and showed up at the Burger Joint to a bunch of screaming, pointing jocks who called me all kinds of unimaginative, infantile names before giving me a soda and ketchup shower and pushing me out the door. That’s why.”
“Oh.” Dean squirmed, wished like hell he’d stood up to Freddy and not been put in this position. Defiance would have meant another long year of taunts and physical injury, but even that had to be better than this, than standing here before the ugliest girl in the school asking her out on a date he didn’t want.
Then no, he decided, remembering the limp he’d earned last summer courtesy of Freddy’s hobnailed boots. A limp and a recurring ache in his toes whenever the weather changed. Inflammatory arthritis, his mother claimed, always quick to diagnose awful maladies for the slightest pains. But he was too young for arthritis, he’d argued. Too young for a lot of things, but that didn’t stop them from happening.
The remembered sound of Freddy’s laughter brought a sigh from him.
Ask the scarred bitch out. See how far you get and I’ll quit hasslin’ you. Scout’s honor. All you gotta do is take her out, man. Maybe see if those scars go all the way down, huh?
“So?” Stephanie said, with a glance at the clock above the lockers. “Who put you up to this? Is a bet, a dare, or what?”
Dean shook his head, despite being struck by an urgent, overwhelming need to tell her the truth and spare her the hurt later and himself the embarrassment now.
That’s exactly what it is, he imagined telling her, a bet. Fuckface Freddy over there bet that I wouldn’t ask you out. If I chicken out, he wins; I lose, many times over. The last time I lost he kicked me so hard in the balls, I cried. How’s that for a laugh? Fifteen years of age and I cried like a fucking baby. So yeah, it’s a bet, and now that you know, you can judge me all you want, then come around the bleachers at lunchtime and watch me get my face rearranged. Okay?
But instead he said, “I just thought it might be fun ... you know ... go to the movies or something. A break from study ... and ... I hate to go to the movies alone.”
She smiled then, but it was empty of humor.
“Sounds like a half-assed reason to ask out the scarred girl. You must be desperate.”
“No,” he said, almost defensively, “I just ...” He finished the thought with a shrug and hoped it would be enough.
“Right.”
“Look, forget it then, okay,” he said, annoyed at himself, annoyed at Freddy, annoyed at her for making it so goddamn difficult to avoid getting the living shit kicked out of him. He started to walk away, already b
racing himself for Freddy’s vicious promises, and heard her scoff in disbelief behind him.
“Wait,” she said then, and he stopped abreast of Freddy, who was pretending to dig the dirt from under his nails with a toothpick. As Dean turned back, he saw Freddy’s toothy grin widen. “Go for it, stud,” he murmured.
Stephanie was frowning at him, her arms folded around her books, keeping them clutched to her chest.
“You’re serious about this?”
He nodded.
She stared.
Someone slammed a locker door. The bell rang. No one hurried.
“All right then,” she said. “I’m probably the biggest sucker in the world but ... all right.”
For the first time, he saw a glimmer of something new in her eyes and it made his stomach lurch. He recognized the look as one he saw in the mirror every morning.
Hope.
Hope that this time things would work out right. That he would make it through the day, the week, the month, without pissing blood or lying to his parents about why his eyes were swollen from crying.
Hope that there would be no hurt this time.
Way to go, Dean, he thought, nothing quite like fucking up someone else’s life worse than your own, huh?
“Okay,” he said, with a smile he hoped looked more genuine than it felt. “I’ll call you. Maybe Friday? Your number’s in the book?”
“Yes,” she said. “But Friday’s no good. I have work.”
She worked the ticket booth at the Drive-In on Harwood Road. Dean saw her there almost every weekend. Saw her there and laughed with his friends about the irony of having a freak working in the one place where everyone would see her. Secretly he’d felt bad about mocking her, but after a while the jokes died down and so did the acidic regret.
Now, as she walked away, her strawberry blonde hair catching the sunlight, he realized how shapely her body was. Had he never seen her face, he might have thought she was a goddess, but the angry red and pink blotches on her cheek spoiled it, dragging one eye down and the corner of her mouth up. This defect was all that kept her from being one of those girls every guy wanted in the back seat of his car.