by Pete Rawlik
Also by PETE RAWLIK
Reanimators
The Weird Company
AN ARKHAM ROMANCE BY
Pete Rawlik
NIGHT SHADE BOOKS
Copyright © 2016 by Pete Rawlik
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Start Publishing, 101 Hudson Street, 37th Floor, Jersey City, NJ 07302.
Night Shade Books is an imprint Start PublishingLLC.
Visit our website at www.nightshade.start-publishing.com.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rawlik, Pete, author.
Title: Reanimatrix / Pete Rawlik.
Description: New York: Night Shade Books, [2016]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016018015 | ISBN 9781597808804 (softcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | Paranormal fiction. |
BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Paranormal. | FICTION / Horror. | FICTION /
Mystery & Detective / Hard-Boiled. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. | Mystery
fiction. | Horror fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3618.A948 R43 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016018015
Print ISBN: 978-1-59780-880-4
eISBN: 978-1-59780-601-5
Cover illustration by René Aigner
Cover design by Jason Snair
Printed in the United States of America
for
Bob and Wilum and Joe
who showed me how
The most dangerous and frightening of mankind’s emotions is love, and the most dangerous and frightening kind of love is not love lost, but love of that which we cannot have. The unconsummated love festers in a man’s mind, becoming cancerous, crowding out all other affections that might find home there. Rare is the man who can battle such a malignancy, and rarer still is the man who can overcome it and remain free from the hungering emptiness it leaves behind.
—Robert Blake
PART ONE
Robert Peaslee
1919–1924
CHAPTER 1
“Revenge of the Reanimator”
From the Letters of Robert Peaslee May 5 1919
My dearest Hannah,
You must forgive me for dispensing with the usual pleasantries; I promise to send you a more formal letter at a later date, but for now you must make do with this haphazardly written missive. Under the circumstances, it is the best that I can do. So much has happened in the last few hours; I have so much to tell you about that I can hardly keep myself contained, and yet, at the same time, I am hesitant, for what I have seen defies the bounds of common decency, and borders on the absurd, and likely wanders into the realm of pure madness. It may all be simply too much for a simple boy from Arkham to take in. That, in itself, is amusing, for it was because of Arkham that I was drawn into the strange events that have so disturbed my mind, but I get ahead of myself.
Paris is a madhouse. I thought perhaps it was because of the end of the war, that the Peace Conference had drawn not only the great powers of the world to the city, but the madmen as well, but I think it is simply the nature of this place. As a member of the security detail attached to our mission, I must, on a daily basis, sift through the reports generated by the locals, constantly searching for evidence of some threat that might disrupt the conference or endanger the staff. Each day brings a new revelation, a new wonder, or a new horror. Last month, the authorities arrested a man they suspected of murdering dozens of women. Criminal geniuses joust with the police. Masked vigilantes armed with super-science haunt the streets, doing battle with infamous thieves, murderers, and nefarious organizations. It is not uncommon to see strange inventions roll down the streets or glide past amongst the clouds. Such things had become routine, so it was a surprise when my commander ordered me to the outskirts of the city to help the gendarmes. He wouldn’t tell me much, but the words “Arkham” and “Miskatonic” had been uttered. He knew I was from Arkham, knew our family history, and decided I needed to be the one to take a more detailed look.
Montmartre is an odd little part of Paris. Before the war, it was home to a thriving artistic community, but now, it has slowly become home to a rather unsavory element that needn’t be discussed here. Hidden within this labyrinth-like neighborhood are several small estates of several acres each, some of which have been turned into private sculpture gardens for the more well-to-do members of this community of eccentrics. One of these was named the Locus Solus, and was the playground of the prominent Dr. Martial Canterel, a scientist and inventor whose fame in Paris rivaled that of Edison, but whose eccentricities rivaled those of Tesla. Although I have no direct knowledge, rumor has it that Canterel was responsible for the so-called “Miracle of the Marne,” which used taxi cabs to transport reserve troops to the front lines: an absurd proposal to be sure, but one that worked, and changed the course of the battle. This, then, was the nature of Canterel’s reputation and work: the adaptation of one invention to another use that seemed absurd or completely impractical, but in practice worked, and produced what could be thought of as scientific romances or engineering art.
As I left the street, the gateway to the estate was not-unexpectedly bizarre, consisting of facsimiles of teeth from some titanic beast that curved into the air to form a kind of arch. Normally such a thing would be considered macabre, or perhaps outré, but the fact that each immense tooth had been painted in splashes of various pastel colors made the thing simply laughable. I may have been walking into the maw of an immense beast, but it was candy-colored, and that made it somehow acceptable.
The pavers upon which I trod were equally as whimsical, for each one was connected to a pneumatic system that responded to each step. In essence, as I walked from the street to the house, my gait provided its own processional beat, until I at last reached the door and was announced by a rich contralto bleating. The door, which was a thick steel thing colored purple, swung open to reveal a familiar face, one of my colleagues, a man who like me had served in the war, but was found to be too useful to ship home, at least just yet. Gatsby had a way with numbers, and with people, so the Brass had kept him on, though not for much longer. He had been accepted to one of the upper-crust British universities, and was just days away from starting his life over as a student.
Gatsby ushered me inside and in a veritable whirlwind of activity moved down the corridor to the library. He sat me down in a chair shaped like an octopus, looked at me oddly, and then smiled. “In a few seconds a man, Dr. Martial Canterel, is going to come through that door,” he said, pointing at a fragile-looking panel of glass and lead. “When he does, he is going to talk to you as if he knows you. You need to play along, and follow him when he moves. Whatever you do, don’t try to stop him. Do you understand?”
I nodded my affirmation as Gatsby backed away.
As soon as he was clear, the door swung wide and a suave man wearing a ridiculous green-and-purple paisley suit walked in. He was thin and well groomed, and walked with that odd way of carrying himself that told me he wasn’t an American. He smiled as he approached and greeted me warmly, taking my right hand in both of his.
“My dear Doctor, I am so glad you could come,” he said as he vigorously shook my hand. “It has been so long since we last spoke, twenty years I suppose. Has it really been that long since I was in Arkham? I heard that you had some trouble with the faculty at Miskatonic?”
I was utterly confused. “I’m sorry, I’m not a doctor. I think perhaps you have mistaken me for Professor Nathaniel Peaslee; I’m his son, Robert.”
I looked around for help, but Gatsby had vanished.
Canterel let go of my hand. There was a smell, actually two odors, one of perfume; an attempt to mask the other, a stench that hinted at rotting food.
“Of course, still, what do those old fools know?” he replied. “If it weren’t for men like us, those milksops would still have us in the Dark Ages shaking bones and muttering incantations.” He spun around and seemed to be listening to something. “Yes, but I assure you, my friend, there is no need. I have a demonstration set up in the garden, and I brought a suitable specimen, and a sample of my reagent.” He paused once more. “Yes, it is derived from the one we worked on so long ago, but I’ve made a number of improvements since then. It may not produce the exact response we are looking for, but the results are consistent, reproducible between subjects.”
He turned back toward me and leaned in to where I was sitting, so close that I had to slouch back into the chair. When he spoke again, it was in a sly, almost secretive whisper.
“Come into the garden, my dear Herbert, let me show you what my Resurrectine can do.”
From his pocket he produced a small glass vial of fluid so green that it nearly glowed, and flecked with small grains of purple. Doing as I was told, I rose from my chair and followed Dr. Canterel into the garden. As we strolled down the hall, Gatsby was nowhere to be seen.
Outside in the garden, free from the bonds of architecture, Canterel’s work was awash in the nonsense that has infused the art movement known as Dadaism. The whole landscape was surreal, and I was reminded of the worlds described by Lewis Carroll, and in some ways L. Frank Baum. There was a tree hung with lunch pails, which when Canterel touched them would bark like schnauzers. There was a grove of books, chiseled out of marble, with the pages attached and moveable using great stone rings, themselves carved out of the stone.
He pointed to a goggled-eye light fixture. “When I was a young man, I found that on the beach. I believe it to be part of Nemo’s Nautilus. Some kind of death ray I suppose. For me, it is my favorite lamp, which I keep lit using a small jar of glow bugs.” He paused suddenly. “You have no interest in such things, do you, Dr. West?” He shook his head and went tsk tsk through his teeth. He pointed at a large empty space. “Not even in my giant diamond aquarium? You see that cat? And the head?”
I looked, but there was nothing there. I could not understand why I could not see it. He paused and seemed to be listening.
“Yes, it is the head of the famed politician Danton. I reconstituted it and administered an early version of Resurrectine. The head still speaks, but it needs motivation. Thus the cat will occasionally stir the thing. Ignore the dancing girl, she was an afterthought, but now that the piece has been installed, I find it too difficult to alter it.” It was as if he was seeing something that wasn’t there, or had been once, but was no longer.
We wandered down the garden path a little ways before Canterel stopped once more. “Indulge me for a moment, my friend,” he pointed to a bas-relief map of Paris, upon which a small red light was slowly moving about. “Throughout the city I have placed a net of radio receivers tuned to capture the regular signal of a small transmitter which I attached to a feral dog. By using the signal strength from each of the receivers, I can estimate the location of the dog almost instantaneously on this map. By recording those locations, I can create a history of the dog’s movements, a kind of travelogue if you will.”
I looked at where he was gesturing, but again the space was empty.
“It is an amusing little project, but I cannot for the life of me find a practical use for it. It could be used to track people as they move through the city, and perhaps direct police or reroute traffic as needed, but I find it hard to believe that we could convince the masses to wear my devices in support of such a cause.” He paused and his face took on an annoyed expression. “Please, my friend, there is no need to be so angry. What you wish to see is just around the corner, come follow me, and you shall see what I have done with your reagent. It is truly a masterpiece.”
Once more, he waddled down the path, and I dutifully followed, but, this time, as we came around a hedge, I was greeted by the most astounding of sights. There were eight enclosures; glass cubes each about ten feet on a side. Inside were people, one per cube, all different, and all doing different things. There was a woman rocking a child to sleep, though the child itself was a doll. She just sat there rocking the doll, singing to it, over and over again. She made no deviation from her pattern, made no attempt to acknowledge our presence.
More disturbing was the marrying man, a man dressed in a tuxedo in front of a dummy dressed as a priest. Beside him was an articulated mannequin on wheels dressed in a wedding dress. A speaker mounted on the side of the priest dummy would recite vows, which the man would acknowledge. There were pauses were the mannequin would supposedly speak as well. At the end of the ceremony, the man would kiss the bride and then run down an aisle. After about thirty feet, he would suddenly stop. A hidden cable would drag the mannequin back to the priest, and the groom would join them. I thought it was a kind of performance art, but the precision with which it was repeated was disturbing. I might even say unnerving.
Canterel motioned me down the path in a way that made me think he was trying to be quiet, but as I approached he started giggling and then addressed me in a normal tone.
“I’m sorry, I tend to forget that they don’t acknowledge our existence, so it doesn’t matter how we speak or act. They are so lifelike, a magnificent tableau vivant, all thanks to my reagent, my Resurrectine. It brings the dead back to life, and then they continuously reenact the most important event in their lives, at least from their perspective. It is not perfect, mind you; there is still the matter of decay. The decomposition may have been slowed, but they do rot. And of course there is the matter of nutrition, but the less said about that the better.”
He smiled, and I stared at the young man who was acting out fishing in the river and pulling up a rather large, but wholly unidentifiable fish. “Perhaps tableau vivant is the wrong way to describe them, tableaux mort might be better.”
He stepped away and then turned quickly. “My secret ingredient, of course it is the Vril energy. I infuse it into the reagent during formulation. It affects the mind, you see.”
Suddenly Canterel spun around and looked at his arm. “Sir! Just what do you think you are doing?” He reached for something that I could not see. Whatever it was, he found it. He twisted left and right, and then spun around. “I haven’t corrupted anything,” he yelled. “I haven’t made a mockery of your work; I’ve turned it into an art!”
He suddenly spun around and screamed, “DOCTOR WEST!” His voice gurgled and his back arched. I saw the light in his eyes grow dim as he crumpled to the ground. He lay there for a moment, still as the grave, but only for a moment. Without warning, he was convulsing and screaming. Canterel’s body was flopping around on the ground like a dying fish. He screamed again, and then went quickly silent. Without a word, he stood up and in silence he walked away, passing me and returning to the house.
I did not follow him, for as he stood, I saw what lay beneath him. I ran instead, ran from Canterel, ran from the estate called Locus Solus, ran through the streets of Paris, and took refuge in the American Consulate, where I could drown away what I had seen with French wine and Kentucky bourbon. I didn’t need to follow Canterel back into his house to know what was going to happen next. I had seen enough, seen what had happened, and I knew I didn’t need to see it again.
Canterel was going back inside, back to the library, where he would once again act out the last few minutes of his life, the moments during which he had met with the man who had invented the reagent, the basis for his own Resurrectine, and during which he could at last boast of his achievement to the one man whom he respected. It was an encounter that Canterel would consider the greatest of his life: one that would end with one man attacking the other, and Canterel being murdered.
> If only he had stayed dead, but whoever had killed him, a man, a doctor by the name of Herbert West, had found it amusing to dose Canterel with his own creation, his own version of the reagent, his so-called Resurrectine. Canterel was trapped, not alive, but not dead either, at least until he succumbed to starvation, or rotted away.
Until then, he was no longer Doctor Martial Canterel the artist; he had become what he cherished the most: a work of art.
Your dearest brother,
Robert Peaslee
CHAPTER 2
“The Sepia Prints”
From the Letters of Robert Peaslee June 24 1919
My dearest Arthur,
My apologies, I did not mean to scare you. Most mornings I wake screaming. I have bad dreams, but those dreams, they help keep me sane. The fact that such things still terrify me, in an odd way I find comforting. My sister likes to say that I came back from the war changed, others nod and whisper words like “shell-shock,” but it wasn’t the war that did this to me. It was something worse, something far worse.
It was just after the war, but at this point what isn’t—I was still in Paris working as security for the American delegation to the Treaty of Versailles. I was on leave following a disagreeable turn of events involving a strange estate on the outskirts of the city and a rather disreputable doctor who, like me, was from Arkham. The Major had given me some time off and I had squandered most of it by wandering through the streets of the city, searching for something, though what exactly I cannot say. There was a sense of ennui within my soul, a longing that cried out to be fulfilled, but try as I might I could not find what I needed. Unable to satisfy myself I instead indulged in more earthly delights.
It was thus that I found myself one night on the balcony of the hotel that many of our mission had laid claim to. I was intoxicated, but not incapacitated. I was enjoying the view—the balcony was five stories above the square, and provided an excellent point from which to observe the comings and goings of those below, without being too close to those sometimes-maddening crowds. As I have said, I was intoxicated, lost in the drink and the beauty of the city, for suddenly I was no longer alone at the ledge. There was a woman standing next to me, staring wistfully out at the city lights and its people. She was an attractive young woman, in a European way, but she was also disheveled. Her clothes were ragged, some of her hair had broken free from where she had pinned it, and three of her fingernails on one hand were broken.