Monster

by Shane Peacock

  The door is wide open. There is no sign of Lucy or Tiger.

  18

  Edgar frantically searches the house. There is little evidence of a disturbance. The loaded cannon sits there facing the front door, as if it hasn’t been so much as touched. There are no bullet holes in the wall, nothing. Then he sees little drops of red on the floor, as if from blood, a few strands of hair, copper colored, but none black.

  “Whatever came here didn’t have much trouble,” he mutters. “It surprised Lucy and took her.” He looks around, thinking the villain broke in just after he left, before Tiger got back. “It was watching the house!” He goes out the front door but halts on the step, unsure what to do, feeling absolutely impotent. “Where’s Tiger?” he asks himself. Then his stomach nearly turns. “Where, dear God, are the other two?” They are abducted or dead or dying or being tortured and he is standing here unable to do anything about it.

  Think!

  He wonders if he should indeed go to Vincent Brim’s house in Kensington and extract information from his uncle at sword-point. He starts to run along Progress Street back toward Mansfield and then onto Highgate Road. There aren’t any cabs to be seen and he doubts there will be any for some distance at this hour. He runs harder and reaches Kentish Town Road and then plunges downward and southward toward central London, the air getting colder, as if a storm is brewing. A lone cab passes heading north and he thinks, for an instant, that he sees Tiger sitting inside. But that’s impossible. She must be moving the other way, or deep in the city, frantically searching for Lucy.

  He imagines Vincent Brim’s luxurious home, the private lab that might be in it, just like Alfred had in his house, and what might be going on there. Edgar had been in his uncle’s house once. He can’t recall the exact address, but he thinks he may be able to find the street, and if he can, he knows he will recognize the house. He imagines what he will do if the painted Carmilla tells him his uncle is not at home—he will take her by the hair, her fake powdered white face terrified, and hold Lear’s razor-sharp blade to her throat until she tells him where his uncle is. But he thinks about how far away Kensington is and imagines all that could happen before he gets there. Then a memory comes to him. He stops.

  He sees an image of Dr. Godwin the other night climbing into the hansom cab.

  “I have a wonderful imagination,” Edgar says out loud, breathing hard, reassuring himself. “Everything in life is bright and intense for me. I remember everything.” Now he hears Godwin’s voice calling out an address to the driver.

  “The Midland Grand Hotel!” he had shouted.

  That isn’t far from here! Just keep south a little, then a little east. It is right near the St. Pancras Railway Station, almost built into it. He turns onto Camden Road and races down it, not noticing anyone or anything in the foggy gas-lit night. Before long, he’s on Pancras Road and can see the hotel and the station in the distance.

  It’s an ominous looking building made of red brick and huge, like Dracula’s castle looming above the London streets. Black turrets rise into the sky along its roof, a clock tower at one end, another tower at the other. It is nine stories high, and the towers are the height of nearly fifty men, the tallest occupied building in the metropolis.

  “Godwin must live there!”

  Edgar runs up the hard steps under the red and blue arches, and past the uniformed doorman through the front door. He stops inside, stunned by the elegance of his surroundings. Everything is blue and red—the carpets, the grand winding staircase, even the glittering chandeliers. He feels a big hand grip his arm from behind. He turns to see a doorman with a broad, lined face and a vein-filled nose under a smart red and blue captain’s cap.

  “Might I help you, young man?” The fellow’s eyes slide down to the rip on the shoulder of Edgar’s frock coat, a line of blood evident where the whip had creased him.

  “I…I’m here to see Dr. Godwin.”

  “Is that so?”

  Edgar realizes that he has come to a dead end. This man will never let him see the esteemed surgeon, let alone tell him where he is. And the only clue Edgar has, the only shred he can hang onto as his friends go to grisly deaths, is the possibility that Graft has been bringing his specimens here in sacks, and that somehow, something can be done about it before the night is out. Or maybe he can still fly to Vincent Brim—he could easily break in there, overpower the old servants. No, it is Godwin he must pursue, the great surgeon himself! Edgar has his sword, which he can feel in his frock coat, easily accessible to his right hand. He could take it out now and demand to know where Godwin is.

  But then another plan comes to him.

  He tries to look calm and reaches under his outer coat to the breast pocket of his suit coat. Godwin had given him several of his personal cards so Edgar might run whatever errands were needed. Doctor Percy Godwin, Chief Surgeon, The London Hospital.

  He produces the card and hands it to the doorman, who looks at it with some surprise.

  “Dr. Godwin asked me to visit him tonight.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Yes, it is an emergency. I am to take a note from him to a Dr. Vincent Brim at the hospital, who is performing a most delicate surgery tonight.”

  “Dr. Brim? I’ve heard of him. He has been here.”

  “He has? Tonight?”

  The man gives him a puzzled look. “Not that I know of,” he says. “You may go up.”

  “Up? I don’t know where Dr. Godwin’s room is.”

  “Top occupied floor, seven up. Seven hundred and seventy seven is his. Good evening, sir.”

  —

  Edgar doesn’t bother with the new electric elevators. He takes the stairs one step at a time until he is out of view and then takes three and four at each leap until he reaches the seventh floor, completely out of breath. The hallways are decorated in blue and red too and pillars are carved into the walls at each end, a sort of Far Eastern décor. The door to the apartment at 777 is wide and wooden. Edgar stands in front of it for a few moments wondering what in the world he will do and say when Godwin appears. Then he realizes that what he observes after the door opens will help. If the surgeon is just out of bed and confused by Edgar’s appearance, Edgar will tell him everything, all of his concerns, his worries, what he saw Graft doing, of Jonathan’s bloody hair, Lucy’s disappearance, of his suspicions of his uncle…but if Godwin comes to the door fully dressed, as if he is at work upon something…Edgar will take up his sword!

  He bangs on the door. He bangs again. No answer.

  “Godwin!” he hears himself shout. “GODWIN!”

  A door opens down the hallway and a man steps out into the corridor in his dressing gown. He stares at Edgar, who returns his look with a glare. The man disappears back into his room.

  Edgar won’t wait any longer. He can’t. He takes out his sword, holds the thick blade high above his head and drives it through the door just above the lock. The door shudders and splinters. He reaches in and turns the knob from the inside and opens and closes the door quickly, stepping into the apartment. There’s no sound in the vestibule. He looks along it into the living room and sees the lamps on Euston Road through the tall windows on the far wall, casting dim light into the whole space. He sees chairs, sofas, an ottoman, a writing desk and table. He moves toward them.

  “Godwin!”

  But there still isn’t a sound. He turns left in the living room and into a dark tight hall that leads toward a doorway that he can barely see. It must be the bedroom. The blade ready in his hand, he advances toward the door.

  When he is almost there, Edgar puts his back to the wall outside the room and listens for a response to his footsteps, for any sound at all. But there is just the distant hoof-claps and shouts in the London streets outside. He slides into the room. There seems to be something on the bed.

  “Godwin?”

  Nothing.

  Edgar advances, blade pointed toward the thing in the covers. He touches it with the sword and the
n smacks it—still nothing. It’s just a lump in an unmade bed. Godwin, after all, is a bachelor.

  Edgar searches the other rooms in the apartment and finds them empty. He heads back toward the outer door, unsure what to do next. He steps out into the hallway and gently closes the door behind him, only aware of the sound of his breath. Something tells him to look down. There’s mud on the floor, just tiny bits but evident when you look closely.

  “That could be from my own shoes,” he tells himself.

  But the mud goes in a trail in the opposite direction from which he had come. Edgar follows it, walking past a window that looks out over London, and discovers that this trail leads toward a door at the far end of the hall. He goes through it and finds a staircase. There is more dirt evident on the steps that go upward. Edgar climbs. When he reaches the next floor he sees another window and when he looks out he can not only view the London streets but the roof of the Midland Grand Hotel, dark and ominous in the foggy night. But the stairs keep going upward and so does the mud. He puts his head against the window and gazes straight up the exterior wall and realizes that only the clock tower is above him. Godwin, or someone, must have come up here, either with muddy boots or dragging something with mud on it. Some of the dirt looks clotted and red. Edgar swallows and walks up the next flight, then another, his blade in hand. At the top of the last one, he encounters a big black door. When he tries the knob, it turns. He steps inside and releases the door behind him. It shuts with a bang, as if on a spring.

  It is a remarkable room, about forty feet across, round and with a spectacular cone-shaped ceiling. It smells of chloroform and animals. A crash of lightning sounds the instant Edgar enters and he looks up to the roof to see a large open window and something thrust into it—a long steel pole. He follows the pole down to the floor and sees Godwin standing at its base, smiling at him. Gaslights and rows of kerosene lamps give the room an eerie glow, as if lighted that way for effect. There are a half dozen tables against the walls and a bigger one right next to the celebrated surgeon. Much brighter lights illuminate it in a dazzling spotlight. There’s a body on it, strapped down, struggling.

  Lucy.

  Edgar takes a step toward Godwin with his sword but it is immediately struck from his hand with great force from behind. Graft picks up the weapon with a thick hand and shoves Edgar toward the surgeon.

  “Lovely to receive you!” says the good doctor. “I see you listened carefully when I uttered my address. Well done! Perfect!”

  “You wanted me to come here?”

  “Why, yes, my boy. I made the scientific calculation that you would be drawn into my lair if I played my cards correctly. I believe that is the expression. There is humor in that way of putting it, is there not?” He looks at Edgar questioningly and lets out a laugh, then stops it. “Perhaps not, but still, it is indeed lovely to see you.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Edgar can see Lucy clearer now. Her mouth is gagged and she has turned her head and is staring at Edgar with her eyes wide. The corpse sack is under her on the steel table and he can see that her dress is nearly ripped off and her hair is disheveled and her shoes are gone; she is bruised and there are little dabs of blood on her. She had fought back. Godwin has a big scalpel out.

  “Oh this?” he says, pointing down at Lucy. “I am happily in possession of a very healthy and still living young woman, almost seventeen. Fresh, fresh, fresh!”

  “But…that’s Lucy.” Edgar can feel tears coming to his eyes.

  “Yes, I know,” says Godwin. “Isn’t it marvelous? This has all worked out so well. I have been thinking for some time that I needed a young woman and man simultaneously to make my experiment work effectively.” He nods toward another table. Edgar turns and sees Jonathan lying there, almost motionless, only his chest moving gently up and down. His face is battered, his hair matted with blood. Edgar turns to Graft and sees blood on him too, a nasty bruise on his protruding brow, a rip in a clotted ear. Jon had indeed fought back.

  “This has been a trying night and day, Edgar, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t create a fuss. Graft and I have had to bribe the hotel employee who operates the back-door lift, twice! Two fresh bodies had to be got up here in sacks. Normally, we simply have parts delivered via the hotel butcher’s ice-and-meat lorry. Graft is a good friend of his, you know, beautiful man. Twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, organs and limbs and skin on ice arrive in the back kitchen and find their way up here! One can’t have such things brought in past the front doorman, you know.”

  There’s another sound in the room, a sort of animal groan. It is coming from a darkened area. Edgar thinks he can see the outline of the panther trying to get to its feet in a cage, but its head doesn’t look like a panther’s anymore.

  “Where is the monster?” asks Edgar.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Where is the monster you’ve made? Do you know that it has escaped several times and attacked people? It killed my friend Professor Lear. It killed my adoptive father.”

  “Oh dear, I suppose that was awfully upsetting for you. But I know nothing of a Godwin-made monster of which you speak.”

  “You are lying.”

  “No. No, I’m not. I have not, unfortunately, ever created a human being.”

  “Then who has?”

  “That is a very good question, my boy. One I have been exploring all my life.”

  “My uncle, Vincent Brim, does he work with you? There IS a monster, I tell you! It must be him who made it! You are in this together!”

  “Him? Vincent Brim? What an absolutely absurd idea. He has not the brains or the intestinal fortitude to do such a thing. He is an inferior sort. I would place him low on the eugenic scale of humanity. Deep down, he is too soft. He does not have the brain capacity or the necessary morality to do what you suggest.”

  “And you do?”

  “Why, yes, I do. Thank you for saying that. I believe that was a compliment.”

  “I beg you to let my friends go, sir.”

  “Why on earth would I do that? I have searched all my life for a situation like this. What we have here is a confluence of opportunities for me. You see, I have come to the conclusion that I must eliminate all four of you and I also need healthy young people to make my creature. And here we are!” He holds out his hands to Edgar and sweeps them in the direction of Jonathan and Lucy.

  “Why,” stammers Edgar, “why are you saying you must eliminate us?”

  “I know, it is unfortunate, and I take no pleasure in it. Pleasure is an interesting concept for me. I am not sure about it, still. The ladies at the hospital and even some in the streets, many of whom throw themselves at me, seem to be in pursuit of pleasure when they interact with me—after all I am blessed with a strapping big body and I have taken great care to adjust myself and make myself as handsome as possible—but personally I have not experienced the same interest in the opposite gender or even my own.” He looks sad for a moment. “I am trying, though.”

  “What do you mean…you have made yourself as handsome as possible?”

  “Facial surgery, my boy! I have used advanced techniques on myself, exclusively on myself, and transformed my face. This is the way of the future! Do you like it? No, you probably aren’t moved by it. You are a male who appears to be heterosexual. Perhaps I should ask your friend Lucy here?” He looks down at her. “Do you find me attractive, young lady?” He gives her a particularly dazzling smile. Her eyes bulge and she struggles with the straps. “Oh,” he says, “I forgot. She is muzzled. How silly of me!” He attempts another laugh and then looks at Edgar for approval.

  “There is another one of us!” shouts Edgar.

  Graft drops the big blade and seizes him from behind.

  “Not for long, my young assistant of the remarkable red hair. You are quite a striking lad, I think—I can calculate why your two young ladies are intrigued by you—and you are sensitive and humane in the extreme and females appreciate that. I w
ould have much to learn from you. But alas, you indeed must be eliminated. Strap him to the third table, Graft.”

  The wide, hairy man instantly has Edgar in a hold that goes across his chest and under his shoulders, paralyzing his arms and making him feel like he is being gripped by a huge vise. He tries to struggle.

  “Is this funny?” asks Godwin. “I am never sure.”

  Graft lifts Edgar right off his feet and smashes him onto a table, then climbs on top of him and pins his chest with his knees. As Edgar thrashes about, he sees the hag’s face on Graft’s and it multiplies his terror. He freezes for a moment and as he does, he is tied down to the table. The straps cut into his wrists and ankles. Another holds him tightly at the waist. Graft picks up Lear’s sword and sets it on the table next to Edgar, tantalizingly close.

  “Is this funny in any way, Graft?” asks Godwin. “Or is it sad? Or frightening? What is it?”

  “It is a money maker, sir, that’s what it is.”

  “Indeed. You are correct. For you, it is most certainly that, and for me it is a scientific accomplishment! A bonanza!”

  “You won’t get away with this!” shouts Edgar. He hears Lucy sobbing. “Our friend will come after you. Tiger is indestructible.” He imagines her out in the city somewhere, searching for them.

  “I believe what you are now exhibiting is pride,” says Godwin. “No one, no human being is indestructible, as you say, Master Brim. I find a statement such as that from you rather disappointing, very unscientific. This Tiger thing, that hermaphrodite friend of yours, is quite easy to destroy and of interest for use in these experiments as well. We shall have her! One just needs the sufficient amount of masculine brawn to bring her to heel. Graft, you know where she lives, though she may have wandered up to this other one’s address.” He nods down at Lucy. “Find Miss Tilley and bring her back here!”