The Lady Screams

by Cross, Amy

  The house is so utterly quiet.

  “Have you come to a new idea, Sir?” Jack calls out from the basement a moment later, his voice filled with a rather uncharacteristic hint of worry. “Sir? Are you coming down, Sir?”

  Ignoring him, I start making my way up the stairs. I believe I hear him shout out again, but I told the man to wait and he must simply do as he is ordered. Indeed, by the time I get up to the landing, I can no longer hear him at all. Making my way over to one of the doorways, I stop and look through into the room in which Catherine lay while she was so sick, and I immediately spot her bell resting next to the bed.

  There is nobody in the room.

  There is nobody on the bed.

  Yet I know the sound of that bell, I have lived with it for so long, and I am certain that just a moment ago I heard it ring.

  “Is anybody here?” I ask, affecting a calm and measured tone. “If there's anybody here, I insist that you show yourself at once. This is a private residence and I shall not tolerate foolish games.”

  Yet as I wait for any reply, and as I hear only the silence of the house, I realize that there is indeed nobody hiding anywhere. Is it possible, then, that I somehow imagined the sound of the bell? After all, my senses are surely being affected by lack of sleep, and the sound of that bell is deeply ingrained in my consciousness. If any sound were to replicate itself in my thoughts and then return unbidden to my waking mind, in moments of fatigue, then I am sure it would be the bell. It sounded so real, though, and so deliberate, and I am not yet ready to write it off as a symptom of tiredness.

  Making my way over to the dresser, I pick up the bell and give it a gentle shake, causing it to briefly ring out through the house.

  It is the same sound that I heard a few minutes ago.

  I am certain of that, and yet -

  Suddenly sensing somebody behind me, I turn with a start, half expecting to find that Jack has disobeyed my orders and come up from the basement. Instead I find that I am still quite alone, although there is still a strange feeling that somebody is in the room. Indeed, as I slowly look around, I feel a very faint tingling sensation on my left side, and after a moment I find myself staring at the metal-framed bed in which Catherine languished during her illness. I had thought several times to throw the cursed thing out now that it is no longer needed, and this idea only strengthens in my mind as a shudder runs through my chest.

  Stepping over to the bed, I reach out and gently shake the frame, which emits a loud creaking sound.

  “Rusty old thing,” I mutter, finding my mouth to be a little dry as I speak.

  I pause for a few seconds, before wondering to the window and looking out.

  The street is rather busy this morning, with more carriages rattling past. If even one more of those wretched things hits my wall, I am liable to go out there and shout at the driver like a madman. It is perhaps fortunate that the street is so noisy, at least on this occasion, since the general tumult would surely go some way toward hiding any untoward sounds that might emerge from the house. Still, I know that eventually a scream would be heard. If Catherine is allowed to cry out, people will eventually come to the front door and demand to know what is happening, and no doubt they will refuse to accept any explanations that I am able to come up with. For now, Jack is able to keep Catherine silent, but this situation cannot last forever.

  I am so close to getting her back. And as I watch the street for a moment longer, I realize that deep down I do know how I might advance the situation. I have merely been delaying the moment of true horror.

  Chapter Eight

  Maddie

  Today

  Pulling open the hatch in the bedroom, I look down at the muddle of notebooks and other items that I found last time I was here. I reach in and gather a selection of them up, before gently lowering the hatch again.

  ***

  “The brain stem revitalizes the nervous system, which in turn reconnects the brain in a... something...”

  I can't quite make out the rest of the spidery handwriting, but to be honest it's not the writing that's the most fascinating part of these notebooks. No, it's the bizarre anatomical drawings that look like something out of some terrible, vivid nightmare.

  Take the one on the next page, for example, which shows two female figure side by side. Their chests are both open, and it looks like there are all sorts of wires or tubes running between them, connecting them together in some manner that makes absolutely no sense to me. There are some scrawled annotations, complete with arrows, but I genuinely can't figure out what I'm supposed to be seeing here. I mean, I've flicked through textbooks in the past, and I like to keep abreast of the latest news, but I've never heard of anything like this being done to people. Some of these drawings look more like something from a science-fiction movie about a mad doctor.

  Maybe this Charles Grazier guy was some kind of complete fantasist. Maybe he liked coming up with ideas of new operations that he never actually got around to performing. I mean, it's not like anybody would ever agree to let him do something like this. For one thing, I can't believe that any patient could survive having their chest torn open so brutally, and for another I doubt this type of thing would even be possible today, let alone back in the Victorian age. I mean, it looks almost as if he was outlining plans for a head transplant, or at least for a -

  Suddenly I hear a loud banging sound coming from outside the house, as a car backfires in the street. Turning to look over at the boarded-up window, I feel a brief ripple of irritation at the intrusion, and I wait a moment and listen to the sound of the car driving away. I guess I've been sitting here in silence for so long, I'd almost forgotten that the world is right outside.

  And then, noticing a strange taste in my mouth, I take a moment to lean back in the creaking leather chair. I lick my lips, but the taste seems to be coming from way back in my throat. It's like I've been eating peaches, although I honestly can't remember the last time I had a peach.

  Figuring that the taste will pass, I start flicking through some more pages and I find several sets of notes. I can decipher a few words here and there, even some complete sentences, but for the most part these notebooks seem to have been designed for a man who wanted merely to remind himself of his thoughts. There's certainly nothing to suggest that they were intended for anybody else to read them, and for a moment I try to imagine this Grazier guy sitting right here at this desk on the ground floor, furiously scribbling his ideas down. It looks like he had a kind of shorthand that he used, and which I doubt anybody else could ever fully decipher.

  Maybe he was a complete madman.

  Or then again, maybe he was just ahead of his time.

  Suddenly I'm filled with the idea that Charles Grazier might well have been working on something that other people – his contemporaries, maybe even people today – would have had trouble understanding. What if he was working away in secret, trying to achieve some goal against all the odds, driven by some kind of brilliance? Maybe he...

  As suddenly as it came, the idea fades and I'm back to staring at these seemingly fantastical drawings. At the same time, I notice that the peach taste has faded.

  I start looking through the notebook again, and then I stop as I reach another page and see a pretty gruesome sketch of a naked women with her belly all torn out. The picture is nasty enough, but I can't shake the feeling that I've seen something like this before. It takes a moment before I finally remember the bizarre figure I hallucinated in an alley a couple of days ago, back when I was wandering the city in a daze. I thought I saw a woman whose belly had been ripped open, and I thought I heard her asking something about a missing child. I even ended up calling Officer Wallace and getting him to go take a look, although he said he found nothing.

  Holding the notebook up to get a better look, I can't help thinking that the woman in this sketch looks a lot like the woman I hallucinated. Even her hair and facial features are strikingly similar.

  I guess coincidences
can be pretty weird.

  Turning to the next page, I'm surprised to see that suddenly the handwriting has completely changed. Whereas before I couldn't make out very much at all, now I'm able to read whole sentences. This particular handwriting is much messier than the scribbles that came before, and barely even keeps to rigid lines across the pages, yet in some way it's a lot easier to read whatever the person wrote.

  “...at every threshold,” I whisper out loud as I follow the text with a fingertip, “to ensure there is no transgression.”

  Then there's something I can't make out, followed by a few legible lines.

  “If it is her,” I read, “she can be held in this manner.”

  I pause for a moment, trying to work out what those lines mean. Unfortunately, when I turn to the next page, I find that the handwriting quickly becomes a mess again, and I can only pick out a few occasional words.

  I flick to the next page, and to my surprise I see that there are some shapes and patterns in the same handwriting. The crazy thing is, these shapes look very similar to the carvings I found on the bottom step, so I take the notebook and head out into the hallway.

  Crouching down at the foot of the stairs, I take a moment to compare the two sets of symbols, and I realize with a growing sense of curiosity that they're exactly the same.

  “Huh,” I mutter, turning to the next page and finding more of these symbols, and then finding more again on the page after that. In fact, it's clear that somebody was getting really obsessed with these carvings. I guess maybe Doctor Grazier – assuming that it's still his handwriting, which I suppose I shouldn't assume at all – was maybe trying to decipher the symbols, but it doesn't look as if he got very far.

  I spend a few more minutes looking at the symbols, and then I flick back through to the front of the book. The drawings and sketches are pretty fascinating, although I'm still not convinced that they're anything more than the jottings of some complete fantasist. For example, one sketch even shows what looks to be a severed human head with various tubes running out of the bottom. I start looking through the pictures for a second time, fascinated by their invention, but then I stop as soon as I spot one that I saw earlier.

  This is the picture of two bodies side by side, connected somehow, but I'm only now noticing one particular detail about the surface beneath the body on the right.

  I hesitate for a moment, before getting to my feet and heading over to the basement door and then making my way down the steps. I have to switch on my flashlight so that I can see properly, and when I get to the bottom I head straight over toward the slab in the center of the room. Setting the book down, I take a moment to examine the deep grooves and channels that cover the slab's surface, and then I turn and take another look at the drawing.

  The cuts in the slab are identical to the cuts on the slab in the drawing. It's clear that this Doctor Grazier guy was designing some kind of procedure that he intended to carry out right here in the basement. It's also clear that some of his ideas were completely nuts, but that he seems to have taken them very seriously. In fact, there's just enough detail in these old, slightly stained pages to make me thing that he intended to actually try these procedures. And when I look over my shoulder, I see all the tools still resting on the counter next to the far wall, and a faint shiver runs through me.

  What happened in this house?

  Chapter Nine

  Doctor Charles Grazier

  Tuesday October 2nd, 1888

  “Hold her still, damn you!” I mutter, as Catherine twitches again and as her broken ribs scratch against my wrists. “How can I be expected to work when you keep letting her move in this manner?”

  “I am sorry,” Jack replies, his voice tense with the effort. “I shall endeavor to be firmer.”

  “But do not hurt her,” I continue, looking up at Catherine's face and seeing that Jack's hand is still clamped tight across her mouth. Such a dirty, rough hand, not fitting for the task at all. I am starting to wish that I had acquired a better assistant, someone with a little more refinement. Then again, I suppose he will be sufficient for now.

  “I am sorry,” Jack says again.

  “Hold her still,” I explain, “without being overly strong.”

  “I -”

  Jack hesitates, clearly rather troubled by this instruction, but then he adjusts his grip on her face.

  “I shall find a way,” he says finally. “I can still feel her trying to open her mouth, Sir. If I let go, even slightly, her scream will most certainly ring out once more.”

  “Then do not let go,” I reply. “Just remember that it is my wife you are manhandling here. She is a good woman, and she deserves the utmost respect.”

  “Do you think she can feel what is being done to her?”

  I open my mouth to reply, but in truth that is a question I have avoided asking myself. I look at Catherine's eyes for a moment and see that she is still staring straight ahead. Since she woke suddenly last night, she has not once looked directly at me, or really acknowledged my presence in any manner. I have supposed this to be due to a sense of shock, yet in truth even this is not a matter of which I can be certain. It is almost as if the scream is the only part of her that is animated, although I quickly remind myself to put such ideas out of my mind. The real Catherine is in there somewhere, locked in her mind, and I am certain that the restoration of her heart – well, of a heart, at least – will encourage her true self to return.

  Looking back down at the heart that rests in my hands, I realize that once again I am delaying the moment.

  I move the heart into Catherine's open chest and then, supporting it with just one hand, I maneuver the organ until it is roughly in its proper place. Then I use my other hand to take hold of the black wire that I have already begun to thread into the heart, and I move the tip up to the stump of the primary artery. There is a part of me that wishes to delay some more, but instead I start pushing the sharp tip through the artery's side, and slowly I begin the process of sewing the heart into Catherine's body.

  After a moment I look up at her beautiful face, watching in case there is any sign of pain, but her expression seems not to have changed one jot. How that can be, I do not understand, yet she is still simply staring straight ahead. Perhaps, then, the answer to Jack's question is that Catherine does not feel any of this, which I suppose would be a blessing. Hopefully when she awakens more fully, and when she is back to her old self, she will not remember any of this horror, and I shall not hesitate to lie and tell her that the process was smooth. She does not need to know what really happened.

  Glancing at Jack, I see the fear in his eyes.

  “Keep her still, man,” I mutter darkly, annoyed by his reaction, and then I look back down at the heart and focus on threading the wire through another section of the heart. “Don't make me tell you again. If she moves too much, I am liable to make a mistake, and then you shall bear the full burden of blame.”

  Thankfully he says no more, but I have no doubt that I shall hear more of his incessant prattle at some point. Indeed, as I continue to sew the heart into Catherine's body, it occurs to me that Jack seems much changed today, almost as if he has been shaken to his core. When I first met him, he was gleeful and gloating, and he seemed to think that he was in charge of everything. Now he struggles with questions, and this pleases me.

  It is good that he finally understands his lowly place in the world.

  ***

  “There,” I whisper, finally daring to remove my hand from the heart, letting it hang from the stitches in Catherine's chest. “It is in place. She has a heart again.”

  I pause for a moment, before taking hold of the broken ribs and starting to force them back into their proper position. The task is not easy, and in truth the final result does not appear very normal, but at least the shape is roughly approximate to that of a rib-cage. I then take hold of the flaps of skin and fold them over until Catherine's chest is more or less closed, with one bare breast on either side
of the thick, bloodied cut that runs down from her collarbone to her belly. I know I shall have to open her up again soon, but I hope very much that the main task is now complete.

  “Are you done, Sir?” Jack asks.

  “The heart is in position.”

  “What of the kidneys and the liver? What of the -”

  “I shall get to those,” I reply, interrupting him. “All in good time. For now, I wish to give her some better form of appearance. Catherine has always paid a great deal of attention to her appearance.”

  “But if -”

  “Cease with this constant barrage of questions,” I add, already starting to sew the edges of Catherine's skin together, so as to close her chest. “You would not understand the answers, even if I were to explain fully.”

  “I suppose I would not,” he says dourly.

  “There, Catherine,” I continue, forcing a smile as I briefly look up at her face. “You must have been horrified when you awoke and saw the tattered state of your body. Now that it is being sewn up, you can start beating your heart again, and then all will be well. Do you understand? Nothing is stopping you. Once your heart beats, the other parts of your body will start to function properly and then your appearance will improve. Not that you do not look beautiful at the moment, of course. You look as divine as ever.”

  I hesitate, before leaning down and kissing her bare knee, although I immediately regret that move. After all, her skin feels so cold and rubbery against my lips. When I look back up at Catherine's face, I cannot help but see the disgust in Jack's expression.

  “Do not watch me!” I say firmly.

  He immediately looks away.

  “I am sorry, Sir,” he says, his voice filled with a sense of distraction.

  “Even your gaze is filthy,” I continue. “Try to look at Catherine as little as possible. Her beauty should not be sullied by your eyes.”