Fear of the Dark: An Anthology of Dark Fiction

by Maria Grazia Cavicchioli

  They arranged surgical instruments beside the corpse — scalpels, scissors, forceps, and other gadgets of varying shape and purpose. Young Blackwell moved tentatively, his gaze seized on the body. He was still unaccustomed to working with the dead, much less a dead woman bloated with child. In fact, this was his first time bodysnatching.

  “There, there, Blackwell. You look a bit ill.”

  “Just a bit tired is all. I’ll be right as soon as we get to work.”

  Dr. Crouch smiled and began rolling up his sleeves. “That’s the spirit, lad. A man’s work should drive him to excel.”

  “I agree, and I am willing to pour my heart into my profession, but there is one thing that quite unsettles me.”

  “Oh? And what is it that ‘quite unsettles you,’ Thomas?”

  “Well, if I may be so bold, grave-robbing seems a bit crude and sinister for men who are expected to possess a strong moral character. Don’t you think?”

  Dr. Crouch raised his eyebrows and observed his apprentice over the top of his spectacles. “Blackwell, as you very well know, we are not grave robbers. No, we are simply exhuming specimens for medical research. You must understand that, at times, we are required to perform our duty in a rather — shall we say — unorthodox way.”

  “I understand clearly, sir, but…”

  “Are you telling me you haven’t got the stomach for it?”

  “Not exactly, it’s just that — well, a woman with child, sir. This is simply… grotesque, and utterly immoral. Where do we draw the line?”

  Dr. Crouch drew heavily on his pipe. Curls of smoke lingered about his face. “Immoral, eh? Well, then, perhaps you should reconsider being a surgeon, eh, Mr. Blackwell? If this is how you feel then I suggest you try your hand at some other trade. I hear they’re seeking labor at the textile factory just up the street.”

  Blackwell said nothing.

  The doctor sighed. “Oh come now, Thomas. Her body affords us a glance of anatomy rarely encountered in our profession.” He withdrew his pipe and began counting off on his fingers. “We get to anatomize her body. We get to anatomize the body of her child. No, no, I’m not finished. We also get to observe the anatomy of prenatal development, and I should say that our deed is warranted, for the knowledge acquired will prove useful to the betterment of other lives. Now, I think you’ll make a brilliant physician, Thomas. You just need some time to get used to the darker side of it.” He patted Thomas’ shoulder. “We should go ahead and get started then, hmm? Sleeves up, now, sleeves up.”

  Blackwell, though reluctant to proceed with this morbid task, rolled up his sleeves. It was then that someone began pounding on the front door of the warehouse.

  Dr. Crouch tilted his head toward the ensuing silence. The knocking came again; three successive raps. Alarmed, he looked at Thomas and pointed to the body and twirled his finger. Thomas understood and rushed over to cover the corpse. Then they waited, listening to the silence, hoping this late-night visitor would move on. But the knock resumed. It was a desperate knock.

  “Just ignore it, lad. It’ll pass.”

  But the knock continued.

  “Of all nights,” said Crouch, visibly angered. “Stay here and wait. I want to see what this is all about.”

  “Are you mad, sir? You’re not leaving me alone with this body.”

  Dr. Crouch sighed. “C’mon, then, c’mon.”

  He pulled open the laboratory door and Blackwell followed closely, shutting the door after them. They crossed the storeroom, jostling through a maze of crates, and approached the front door, which was flanked by two windows laced with grime.

  Dr. Crouch pressed his ear to the door and then spoke through it. “Who is it?”

  There was a brief silence, followed by feet ascending the stone steps outside the door.

  “Doctor Crouch?” said the voice. “Doctor Crouch, it’s Officer Neville.”

  Dr. Crouch composed himself. He turned to Thomas and whispered, “I’ll handle this. And remember, we’ve nothing to hide.” He curled his fingers around the knob and pulled the door open just wide enough to reveal his face. “Ah, good evening, Officer Neville. What can I do for you at this late hour , sir?”

  Officer Phillip Neville was a short man with a thick barbell moustache. His large, sympathetic eyes were like those of an English bulldog. “Good evening, Dr. Couch,” he said. For a minute I thought no one was here. Anyhow, I’m terribly sorry to bother you at this hour, sir, but while I was making me rounds earlier I noticed your encounter with ol’ Mr. Briery. Just checking in to see if everything is… Oh, good evening, Thomas.” Blackwell appeared behind Dr. Crouch in the doorway. Neville continued: “Just checking to see if all is well.”

  “Well, er, yes,” said Dr. Crouch. “Yes, everything is fine. Why do you ask?”

  “Well…” Officer Neville put his hands on his hips and slowly dragged his eyes from left to right, as if the night had ears. As if the buildings around them were listening. He leaned forward, arching his brow. “Crazy fool, he is. Been acting real strange tonight, running up and down the streets, babbling strange talk.”

  “Who is?” said Crouch.

  “Why, that fool, Briery.”

  “Oh? And what exactly was he saying?”

  “Well, he was crying out ‘There will be life!’ And then, almost whispering, he said ‘death.’ So when he said it altogether, it came out like, ‘There will be life — death.’ Just rubbish, really, but bloody strange.”

  “That old fool should be hanged,” said Blackwell. “He’s gone completely mad.”

  Dr. Crouch made a dismissive gesture at the boy and turned to Officer Neville. “Yes, that Briery is a rather odd character, but we’re fine here, sir. We do appreciate your concern.”

  “Any time, gentlemen, any time. Never hurts to be too careful, you know.” Officer Neville raised his chin, trying to peer into the warehouse. Crouch leaned a bit, blocking Neville’s view. “Working late tonight, are we?”

  “Oh, yes — yes just compiling some of our research notes for a medical journal. Drudge work, really. Nothing a good pipe and strong tea can’t fix. Besides, Mr. Blackwell here has been assisting me at all hours of the night. Soon he will be one of England’s premier surgeons.”

  “Oh…I see.” said Officer Neville, though he did not. “Well, I’ll not burden you any longer, gentlemen. I’ll be making me rounds, should you need anything.” He touched his cap. “Evening, Dr. Crouch — Mr. Blackwell.”

  They stood in the doorway watching Officer Phillip Neville amble down the street and round the corner. They turned to reenter the warehouse, and so doing, there came the alarming sound of glass breaking within. It was coming from the room.

  ○

  The night did indeed have ears.

  He waited in shadow between two buildings across the street from the warehouse — across from them — listening to the exchange. So they think I am mad, he thought. Think I should be hanged, do they? He gritted his necrotic teeth. They shall pay for their monstrous deed. The hand of the good Lord shall strike them dead. Aye, this He shall. Poor shameful souls.

  He grinned ear to ear and retracted back into the darkness. Dogs howled far off in the brooding night.

  ○

  On reentering the room they looked immediately at the shelves, and then at the ground where — sure enough — the shattered remains of a jar lay strewn amid preservation fluid and indefinite fleshy material.

  But turning their attention to the corpse on the table, they witnessed the birth of what would mature into a sequence of horrors. They noticed that a dark, red substance had bled through the sheet. They regarded each other with perplexed faces, then proceeded to unwrap it. The substance grew slicker and thicker, in amount and in texture. And when at last the woman lay exposed before them, they further noticed that her belly was no longer distended. Now it was flaccid. Now it was emptied of the life inside her.

  Without comment, Dr. Crouch l
eaned and studied the birth substance smeared between the woman’s legs, watched it ooze from her fleshy center. But most disturbing was the umbilical cord, extending from her vagina, dangling over the edge of the table like a dead eel.

  Blackwell glanced frantically around the room. As if he’d lost something of dire importance.

  Dr. Crouch knelt and peered beneath the table, where he saw shallow pools of blood mixed with amniotic fluid shimmering with firelight. Unfamiliar with post-mortem pregnancy, he considered whether it was possible for a fetus to simply slip out of the womb. He mentally calculated the likelihood. Muscles lost all function at death, but surely not enough to drop a fetus. Besides, there was no fetus here. Though he considered this a naïve presumption, there was nothing else to presume. But that’s when he saw the small, bloody handprints on the stone floor.

  He felt his heart knock against his chest. The ground beneath him felt unstable, and the walls of the room seemed to weigh heavily against his body. He covered his mouth in horror. He tried to stand, but in vain. This was a situation with which he was completely unfamiliar. He was not a man who fancied superstition, nor had he ever attributed any truth to notions of the fantastic. Science, facts, and logic were the concepts to which he’d fastened his beliefs, though tonight the foundation of his philosophy had endured a tremor of something indeed singular.

  As he pondered some explanation for this anomaly, there came the terrified sound of Blackwell’s voice from above.

  “Good God! Doctor!”

  The lad had seen it — all of it — crawling out of the room. The evidence was on the floor.

  Distraught, Crouch managed to stand, albeit wearily, and followed Blackwell’s gaze.

  At once he saw the source of his pupil’s concern: a series of those red handprints, on the floor, leading out of the room and into the dark of the hallway.

  “I saw it…crawling…horrible.” Blackwell backed away from the table, terrified, pointing toward the hallway. He cowered away in the corner and sat hugging himself in the fetal position.

  To this there was nothing Crouch could say. His was a silence born of fear.

  He grabbed the lantern and turned toward the hallway. The doctor initiated a step forward and stopped. He held the lamp toward the corridor, dissolving the darkness therein.

  He turned to Blackwell, seeing the lad visibly shaken. “Stay here,” said Crouch. “There has got to be a reasonable explanation to this madness.”

  The boy had no problem complying with this. He merely nodded, buried his face in his knees, and began to weep; there was something about his terrified state that alarmed Crouch.

  Driven by some inexorable force, Dr. Crouch entered the corridor, his shadow an amorphous shape upon the wall. He followed the infantile handprints into the main room, where they turned right, now heading toward the front of the building. He looked up and scanned the warehouse. Some of the wooden crates were knee height, while others stood large enough to harbor a man. He held his breath and listened to the darkness. A dog barked outside. The wind rattled the windows. Here, darkness was a living thing.

  He held the lantern aloft and the glow shifted to the ceiling. For a moment he thought he’d seen movement in the rafters. Absurd. He looked back down at the planked floor and the prints upon them. The wood was splintered and worn. He tried for a moment to reconcile his emotions, to assure himself that the world he’d woken up to this morning (a world devoid of supernatural intervention) was the same world in which he now existed. Dreams had never felt this real. Never had they been as palpable as this moment.

  Although he hadn’t seen this “fetus,” although this development seemed to him absurd, Crouch could not deny the evidence stamped on the floor. He wished he’d brought his pistol. But what had he to fear from an infant? As he inched around dark and dusty crates, following the prints, he saw something that assured him he had everything to fear…

  …one second passed, two seconds. Three…

  For no longer was he following handprints. Now, it was footprints.

  Feeling a renewed surge of panic, he staggered backwards and braced himself against the wall. He looked to his left and saw the pulsating glow exuding from the room.

  “Blackwell,” he called. “Blackwell!”

  He waited — but heard nothing. He did, however, see something. A glimpse from the corner of his eye.

  Movement.

  A vague human form in miniature descended the wall opposite him and scurried across the room into the hallway. He heard the door slam shut, closing off the light, producing a sound of dreadful finality. Then, like some tormented voice rising from the chasms of hell, a monstrous scream emanated from within. It was Blackwell; this he knew. Crouch rushed to the door to find it locked. He rammed his shoulder into the solid wood, but in vain. He kicked it, rammed it again, but still the door did not give. And to confuse his plight still, someone was now banging on the front door of the warehouse, all the while ranting and raving profusely. The voice was muffled and indistinct with drunkenness, though Crouch thought he’d heard the words ‘life and death.’

  Trying to cope with this onslaught of terror, he returned his attention to the ordeal consuming his pupil, whose terrible cries had subsided to a guttural moan. He now felt a paternal need to rescue Blackwell. “You hang on, lad! I’m coming, straight away!”

  In his haste, Crouch tossed the lantern to the ground. The glass casing shattered and liquid flame splashed across the floor. Oblivious to this prospective catastrophe, he sprinted a few steps backwards, putting space between himself and the door. He then steeled himself and dashed forward with a primal roar and smashed open the door. He fell face forward and scrambled to his knees. He looked up — but it was too late.

  ○

  “They be inside there! They be inside doing sinister deeds, I say! There will be life — death! Hah, hah… There will be death, I say!”

  Lewis Briery was outside, hammering away at the door with his bony fists. So hard, in fact, that his knuckles were split and bleeding, and his blood scarred the wood.

  Officer Neville had been patrolling one block away when he’d heard Briery’s drunken snarl echoing in the night. He’d taken off running in the direction of the clamor and hustled round the corner to see Lewis Briery pounding on the door.

  “Lewis Briery, you devil! What is the meaning of this? Back away from there at once or I will beat you like a dog.”

  But Briery did not heed the officer’s warning, nor did he turn to acknowledge his presence.

  With caution Neville began to ascend the steps. He reached for the club at his side.

  “I will say it once more and only once more: You back away, Mr. Briery. There will be order here.”

  Still, the drunk, battering at the door and screaming ghoulishly, heeded not the command, and so Officer Neville accosted him, raising his club to the night. Briery turned and saw the club descending, but sidestepped, parrying the bludgeon. He screamed like a maniacal fiend and lunged toward Neville. He latched his arms and legs around the officer and bit his ear until blood shot out. Neville screamed and fell to his knees, hands groping wildly at his assailant. Briery, teeth still locked on his victim, twisted his head away, tearing the tip of Neville’s ear off. Neville cried out and began wriggling like a worm on hot street. Briery unlatched himself and took up Neville's dropped club. He turned and struck the window to the left of the door. The window shattered inward, shards of glass crashing and tinkling. He stepped through the jagged opening and into the warehouse. The flames within were growing and smoke began trickling out of the window frame.

  Meanwhile, Neville rolled onto his side in pain, clutching at his ear with one hand, blowing repeatedly into his whistle with the other. Before long, other night watchmen would come to his aide.

  ○

  Seldom had there been moments of sentimentality in Amos Crouch’s life; yet now, faced with the death of his collaborator, his world was one of sentimental
confusion. There was no use trying to revive him, for the umbilical cord was wrapped so tightly around the lad’s neck that his face was flushed purple with blood, and his bulging eyes were fixed in a state of dispassion. His tongue hung from his mouth agape, while the rest of his lifeless body lay sprawled on the floor, his legs twisted in a posture that only the dead can exhibit.

  “Thomas?” he whimpered. “Dear me… Thomas.”

  He walked to Thomas’ corpse and knelt beside him. “Thomas…”

  Crouch dragged his eyes from left to right, scanning the room. Surgical instruments were scattered on the floor about the table. He saw the flames beginning to swell in the warehouse beyond the door. Angered with fear, Crouch darted toward the chair on which he’d hung his coat. He reached into the breast pocket and withdrew the pistol. Cautiously, he searched the room, the pistol outstretched. He could no longer deny the reality of supernatural forces at work; he could no longer ignore the sinister offspring that somehow was at this moment lurking in shadow. He glanced at the shelves, the corners, the dead woman — and it was then that his feelings were affirmed; for the woman’s belly was now bloated with child once more. But not only was it bloated; it was moving with life, undulating with the being within.

  The fire was growing. Smoke began creeping into the room, and he could hear the fire crackling and devastating the ancient wood of the warehouse. And among these terrible sounds consuming him, among the impossible events unfolding before him, he noticed movement from the corner of his eye. He turned to see Lewis Briery, standing at the threshold of the room. The flames danced behind him, showcasing his gnarled silhouette.

  Crouch raised the pistol toward him. “You stand back! I’ll not tolerate any of your devious actions, you demented fiend.”