Monster

by Shane Peacock

  Edgar still hasn’t said a word.

  “Why are you so quiet?” asks Lucy, and when he doesn’t answer immediately, her pale face grows paler. “Do you have word of Jonathan?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you look like this?”

  “Because my head is full of suspicions. Someone high up in the hospital apparently asked that I be given my position there.” He pauses. “And Godwin was seen on the street behind the hospital last night with something large in a sack lying on the back seat of his carriage.”

  “Oh God!” cries Lucy, putting her hand over her mouth.

  “It could have been anything,” says Tiger.

  “Godwin told me,” says Edgar, “that he was going straight home.”

  “So, how do you know he came back?”

  “My uncle said he did. It was curious. He offered the information without my asking.”

  “Maybe it isn’t true,” says Lucy, pulling her hand from her mouth.

  “Maybe. I was away from Godwin’s lab for a while during the day, and I could swear that when I returned, the door to the Elephant Man’s room was ajar.”

  “You and I are going back there, Edgar, right now!” says Tiger. She takes him by the arm.

  “No we’re not.” He shakes her off. “The two of us can’t be seen sneaking in there. You’ve already been shown the lab and the Elephant Man’s room, so it wouldn’t make sense for you to be back in the basement of the hospital. But my presence wouldn’t arouse suspicion, if I do this right. I need to go alone. And I’ll go at night.”

  The girls don’t say anything for a moment.

  “Take this,” says Tiger finally, reaching into her pocket for the pistol.

  “No, I want you to have it,” says Edgar. Do not be afraid, he reminds himself.

  “You’ll be completely unarmed,” says Lucy. “The demon may indeed want to kill you more than any of us. It may be waiting to get you alone. Maybe you are the only one he really wants to murder.”

  “I’ll go back to Thorne House first. I’ll be armed after that.”

  “But not until you get there,” says Tiger. “I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll come with you to Thorne House.”

  “No you won’t. You need to stay here with Lucy.”

  “No she doesn’t,” says Lucy firmly. “I have the biggest weapon we’ve got just inside this door.”

  “If you leave without me,” says Tiger, “I’ll just follow you.” She steps closer to him again and their hands touch.

  Edgar hesitates, seeing the determination in Tiger’s eyes. “All right,” he finally says, “we’ll go as far as Thorne House together, but then you must come back here quickly. This is where you are needed. Kill anything that comes. Lucy, stay inside with the cannon readied and turn off the lights. I’ll return as soon as I can.”

  —

  “I didn’t tell Lucy everything,” he says as they walk quickly in the direction of Mayfair.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Godwin said he would have a fresh young body to experiment on tomorrow, a very fresh one, a young man.”

  “That might be a coincidence. Why would he warn you? It’s your uncle who concerns me. He knows all about you: exactly where you live and everyone in your house. And now he seems to be trying to cast suspicion on Godwin. He has the key to the Elephant Man’s room. Perhaps he is letting whatever is usually in there, out?”

  “I need to get into that room, free Jonathan if he’s there. That’s first.”

  “And then we have to do something about both your uncle and Godwin.”

  “Do something?”

  Tiger doesn’t respond. He knows she is capable of almost anything—she grew up on her own on the streets. Murdering someone, if necessary, wouldn’t be something she’d hesitate to do. When they reach Camden Town at the bottom of Kentish Town Road she hails a cab, and Edgar tells the driver where to drop him and then to take Tiger right back. As the carriage clops and rattles through the streets, they sit close together, not saying anything but aware of each other’s thoughts. Tiger keeps her eyes on the streets, ready to act. When they reach Thorne House and he begins to get out, she suddenly leans toward him and kisses him firmly on the mouth and then gives him a gentle shove that sends him toward the street. “Be careful,” she says.

  Edgar watches the cab leave, heading back north. Lucy would have behaved very differently, he thinks—she would have given him a gentler kiss, on the cheek, perhaps a warm embrace. Tiger sticks her head out of the window and nods at him, wearing that confident expression, the very same one she often gave him back on the playing fields of the College on the Moors when they faced the bullies together.

  Edgar pivots and heads toward the door and his thoughts return to his mission. He tries to imagine if it is really possible that Dr. Godwin has made a human being, a monstrous one that he cannot fully control, or if his uncle is the villain and unleashing the creature on them. Then he realizes something else—he and his three friends have been separated—they are each now on their own.

  —

  When Tiger’s cab goes around the corner she turns and slides open the little window behind her head and looks up at the driver. “I’ve changed my mind,” she tells him. “Take me to the London Hospital.”

  —

  Edgar enters Thorne House quietly and slips upstairs, avoiding Annabel. She is good at seeing inside him, understanding how he truly feels. She will spot his uneasiness and perhaps get things out of him and try to prevent him from returning to the hospital. He cannot tell her the situation he is in. He doubts she would believe it anyway, and if she did, she would want somehow to be involved.

  There’s something else he doesn’t want her to see or know.

  After he finishes the meal that Beasley secretly brings up to him in the lab, he sneaks downstairs and into his room. He reaches under the bed, lifts the floorboard, and takes out Lear’s gleaming sword. He touches the blade and feels its razor-sharp edge. Then he plucks the long black frock coat Annabel bought him for his graduation out of his closet, slices the lining open and inserts the big weapon into it. He also retrieves the pick-lock instrument Tiger made for him and slips it into a pocket.

  Then he waits until it is dark and sneaks out into the streets.

  —

  Tiger waits patiently in the alcove of a building on narrow Turner Street on the west side of the hospital, positioned so she can see Edgar approach either the front entrance on Whitechapel Road or the rear via Stepney Way.

  “Come on,” she says impatiently several times. But she doesn’t leave her post, nor does she bother to even lean against the wall; she stands tall and alert. She worries about Lucy, by herself at the Lear home, but can’t let Edgar do this alone. She can’t leave him, not Edgar Brim. She will watch him go into the hospital and make sure he comes out. Her hand stays on the pistol in her pocket. It has been dark for a while when she sees him approaching, rushing along Stepney Way, eyes intent on his job.

  —

  Edgar enters through the back door. All the lights are out in the basement, something he’s never seen before. He moves in the dark, feeling his way along the wall until he comes to the laboratory door. It is locked. He’s never seen that before either. He takes out Tiger’s pick-lock tool. This won’t be easy in the dark, but the lock actually proves a simple one, though when he opens the door it creaks. He stands dead still. No one comes. He closes the door behind him and locks it again from the inside. This time he won’t chance turning on lights. The lab is like a maze and filled with breakable glass and acids and potions. He cannot make a mistake. He thinks again of where everything is situated and begins to walk slowly between tables, moving gingerly. Then his hand touches something made of glass and knocks it forward. He reaches out in the darkness and somehow catches it. It takes him a while to recover, standing there with his heart pounding, clutching a big beaker.

  Finally,
he finds what he is seeking—Godwin’s lantern on his desk. He lights it and a dim glow illuminates the few feet around him. He makes for the Elephant Man’s door. It is locked now. He takes out the pick tool and soon discovers that this entrance is easy to unlock too.

  The door doesn’t make a sound. Though he is loath to close it behind him, he pulls it shut, so it might look sealed from the other side. Then he turns to the cold interior, casting the lantern’s beam around the room. Nothing comes rushing at him out of the darkness, though it feels as if something is lurking, so he keeps his back to the door and continues to use the beam to investigate his surroundings from there.

  “Is there anyone in here?” he asks, terrified that there might be a response. None comes and he relaxes a little, though shivering in the cold. He can move around. He pushes himself off the door, wishing he had time to pause over the bed, the writing desk and the table, to think about what it was like when the Elephant Man lived here, but he has to look for specific things, the most important of which is Jonathan himself…or his body. There’s still no sound in the room.

  “Jonathan?”

  He flashes the beam higher, across the walls, and sees someone staring back at him! The face is grotesque. It’s the Elephant Man.

  Edgar takes a step backward and stifles a gasp. But it isn’t really Joseph Merrick and Edgar feels like knocking the lantern into the side of his head to make himself think straight. What he has encountered is a painting, an accomplished portrait in oil that appears to have been done before Merrick died, he looks so lifelike. The deformed head, bulging in several directions, with wisps of greasy dark hair combed over on top, features two handsome eyes looking out, asking to be respected and loved.

  Edgar moves even slower now, wondering if somewhere in the far reaches or corners of this room he might find bodies hanging from meat hooks in the nearly freezing temperature.

  Then he remembers the two boxes on the floor, the ones the size and shape of coffins. He casts the beam toward the corner where he had seen them, almost hoping they aren’t there now. But there they are against a wall, looking out of place in the room. He shines the light directly on them and steps in their direction. Then his heart misses a beat.

  One of them is open!

  He steps over and slides the cover fully back and looks inside. It is streaked with dark stains, some of which look like gobs of red jelly, which he can’t bring himself to touch. But at least the box is empty. The other one is shut with four metal clasps fastened on one side. Do not be afraid. He bends down and with a shaking hand, snaps the clasps open and stands back, feeling for his sword. But nothing happens, nothing moves. He lifts the lid slightly and peers in. There’s silence, no movement. He gets down on his knees and pulls the lid open farther. He shines the light inside and almost vomits. There are several human organs in there, packed in ice, and a leg made up of two different parts, an old man’s gray-haired thigh bolted to a young woman’s smooth calf with screws. He slams the box shut. He wants to flee.

  But for a moment, he can’t get up. He can feel the hag standing over him, pressing down on his shoulders, her vile breath wafting across his ear toward his mouth. His heart starts to pound so hard that he thinks he will die. He isn’t sure where he wants to run, just away. Do not be afraid, he tells himself again. His father’s face comes to his mind. He knows he has to fight back. He has to get up and do something about all of this, just as Tiger said. He needs to find Jonathan dead or alive, find out what is after them, kill Godwin’s creature if he has made one, and kill his own uncle if he is unleashing it!

  He struggles to his feet and takes a step but immediately stumbles over a smaller box. There are several more. He shines his light on them.

  They are filled with blocks of ice.

  “Body parts are being preserved in this room,” he whispers to himself, “experimental parts.” He tries to be calm and figure this out. “Why do that? Why not just use them in the lab?” He thinks about it for another moment and it quickly comes to him. “The hospital is too risky for the most evil of operations. They are being moved somewhere else!” But something still doesn’t make sense.

  “Why not just take the parts with you every time you leave? Why keep them here?”

  He hears a noise on the other side of the door and douses his lantern and listens.

  Someone is unlocking the entrance to the lab out there. Edgar is glad he secured it after he entered. He hears the door open and then sees a line of light appear at the bottom of the Elephant Man’s door. Someone is grunting as if carrying something heavy.

  Graft!

  The gruesome gravedigger walks across the lab lugging or carrying a weight until he stops at about where Edgar figures the operating table is. Then he hears Graft grunt even louder.

  “Let’s get you up ‘ere, dear,” Edgar hears him say and there is a bang as if the weight was dropped on the table. Then there’s a very different sound, like a little cry, like someone who is semiconscious, struggling to awaken. It sounds like a female.

  “Get in ’ere, my dear, it shan’t be long until we get you where you is goin’. ’Ide you inside this, we can. You ’ave an appointment with the surgeon, you do! Let’s give you a shot for your trip.”

  Edgar imagines a needle going into the body, drugging it more thoroughly. He hears rustling and then another sound. With his heart in his mouth, he realizes what this new noise is—the ties being bound on one of Graft’s body sacks, the ones used to transport corpses.

  Edgar steals quietly toward the door and pulls the sword from his frock coat. He hears Graft grunting again, likely lifting the sack. Then he hears the hideous man’s heavy footsteps heading toward the outer door. Edgar opens his own door a crack. He sees Graft dragging something along the floor toward the laboratory entrance, then pausing to turn out the light. The second he does that, Edgar leaps through the doorway and comes after him, weapon out and ready. But he can barely find his way in the dark and by the time he gets to the entrance and then into the hallway Graft is gone. Edgar runs toward the hidden door under the stairs, pulls it open and goes out into the moonlit night. He spots Graft at the end of the back lawn, loading the sack into a carriage. Edgar runs after him, resisting the urge to shout. But he slips and falls on something: a patch of hair, as if torn from a scalp, dark blond like Jonathan’s, caked with dried blood. When Edgar looks up, Graft’s carriage is careening down the street. In seconds, he is long gone.

  Edgar sits on the ground, Lear’s sword in hand, not sure what to do. Part of him wants to pursue and murder Graft and another wants to flee again, fly away from all of this, run back to Thorne House and get into his bed or under it and try to forget everything. But Jonathan has been attacked, may be dead or still out there somewhere, worse than murdered: disemboweled, his limbs or his brain or his face being used to make some sort of human creature. And Tiger and Lucy are on their own too, or…who is in the body bag that Graft put into the carriage? And where is he going with it?

  —

  Tiger observes the short, thick-set man leaving the hospital from the rear in a hurry in his loaded conveyance. From where she is standing, she cannot see the back door of the building.

  —

  Edgar has no hope of catching Graft. He rushes back into the hospital and up to the first floor and down the hall to his uncle’s office, his face flushed red, anger replacing fear. He is suspicious that his slimy relative is still here, up to no good. He needs answers, now! He brandishes the sword, unconcerned about who might see him. But he encounters no one in the hall and when he gets to Vincent Brim’s room the door is locked and the lights are out.

  “He never locks his door!” says Edgar. “Where is he?” He thinks again of Graft’s carriage heading out into the night. “Is he going to my uncle’s home? He is the one with the key to the cold room!” He takes in his breath. “Godwin’s collaborator,” he says with a nod, “or worse.” Edgar knows where Vincent Brim lives.

  But he also knows he should
fly to Lucy and Tiger first, make sure they are alive and well. He shoves the big blade back into his coat and rushes through the hospital to the front door and out onto Whitechapel Road. He doesn’t care anything about the scurrilous people he sees now. If any man threatens him, he’ll drive Lear’s blade right through him! He screams for a hansom cab. But there are none, so he begins to run, west on Whitechapel Road back toward the city. Finally, he spots a cab up ahead, moving away. He sprints toward it.

  —

  Tiger goes into the hospital by the back door. The lights are out in the downstairs lab and there is no sign of Edgar inside. Her heart pounding, she races through the building and out the front door onto a nearly deserted Whitechapel Road. She spots Edgar in the distance, running after a cab, the only one in sight.

  —

  Edgar seizes the hansom from behind and leaps up onto it. The driver stares at him and then cocks his whip in a threatening way.

  “Off! Off, boy!”

  But Edgar reaches around and opens the passenger door and sticks his hand in and pulls out a well-dressed, red-faced drunken gentleman from the cab by the collar and deposits him on the street. There’s a shabbily dressed woman with him, the top of her dress open. Edgar growls at her and she leaps out the other side of the carriage onto the cobblestones and runs away. The driver’s whip comes snapping down from above and cuts through Edgar’s coat at the shoulder, drawing blood.

  “Now, wait a minute,” slurs the gentleman as he staggers to his feet. Edgar pulls out his huge knife and jabs it toward him. “I was just leaving!” cries the man, “please have my cab, sir!” He turns away, tripping and landing on his face on the pavement. When Edgar looks up at the driver again, he has pulled back his whip and looks scared.

  “Please don’t ’urt me,” he says. “I shall do as you say. You ain’t the Ripper, is you?”

  “Kentish Town!” shouts Edgar. “Sixty-six Progress Street! As fast as this nag will go!”

  The driver lays his whip into the horse and the poor animal almost sprints through the London streets in the early morning, making good time through and past the Old City along the nearly empty streets and then north beyond Regent’s Park to Kentish Town. Edgar gets the driver to drop him at the corner of Progress and Mansfield and runs as hard as he can to the Lear home.