This was nowhere near the goodbye I needed but at least I had something. My mind sank as I thought of going back home having come so close to saving him, to bringing him with me only to leave empty-handed. I wasn’t even sure I could move on with my life. I wiped the tears off of the tablet screen, Eli’s face paused in a sad smile, and handed it back to Rick. He took it silently, not meeting my eyes. Maybe he did feel bad after all. But Eli was wrong, in his video. He wasn’t just hurting himself; he was tearing me apart. I sniffed, wiping the tears on the back of my hand and blinking up at the lights. If I had to leave, I at least wanted to know if my brother was alive,
“Can-can I see him?” I asked, my voice wavering as more tears built up, ready to fall. Rick looked down at the floor. “What?”
“He hasn’t woken up yet. We don’t know if he will.” He looked sad, but I knew he was thinking about his project, without his lead scientist, not about the person behind the science. I tried to swallow the fear, the desire to break down in gut-wrenching sobs teetering on the edge. “I can show you the footage we have from the lab and, if you want, I can take you there before you leave.” I nodded, cautious of the sudden kindness. I could only assume he was anticipating getting rid of me as soon as possible. He pressed a couple of icons on the tablet, bringing up a slightly grainy screenshot before passing it back to me. Before I pressed play, he stood up, the fabric of his suit brushing against the chair upholstery as he did so. “I’ll leave you alone to watch that. There are some street clothes over there for you.” He pointed to a bag by the door. “When you’re ready, come outside and I’ll take you out.” He paused for a second, mouth open as if he wanted to say something else, but didn’t, closing it with a snap of his teeth and stalking back out of the doorway.
I waited until I heard the door click into place before I turned my attention back to the tablet screen. Residual tears were still leaking from my eyes, making trails down my cheeks, some soaking up into the bandage on my face. I’d almost forgotten about my injuries in the midst of Eli’s revelation, but they were still there, adding to the growing panic thrumming quietly under the surface. Taking a deep breath, I tapped the tablet screen, the slightly blurry image immediately jumping to life. It showed three people; one was Eli, I could recognise him instantly, but the other two were people I hadn’t seen before. They were stood either side of a table, lowering Eli down and strapping his arms to the side of the table. I pressed the fast-forward button, watching the miniature scene in double time. I wasn’t sure I could sit through it otherwise. They hurried around the table, moving in different trays and pieces of equipment. A door at the far end opened and another lab coated technician rolled in a table, covered with a lumpy sheet. They moved the table next to Eli and removed the sheet. I closed my eyes for a second as I realised it was the adult wolf from Lab 3. It didn’t look like she was alive anymore or at the most, not for much longer. The two people conferred with Eli briefly; the first placed a mask over his face, which I assumed was some kind of knock out gas.
Within a few breaths, Eli had gone very still on the table. I pushed the video into an even faster speed, my stomach churning. The technicians flitted about the room, moving from one table to the other. They seemed to be taking skin from the wolf and attempting to graft it onto Eli which must have been what he meant when he said he needed to change tact. Instead of trying to create an animal, modifying a human to look like a werewolf would have the same effect and would probably be easier to control.
It was when they began to mess about with components other than skin that I had to turn away, only sneaking glances when I felt like I wasn’t going to throw up. I paused the recording when I could get a clear picture of Eli’s face, leaning in close to try and make it out. What I could see from the blurry image made me feel like I was going to pass out all over again. They’d not only attempted to alter the surface of his appearance, but it seemed they’d tried to change the actual shape of his face as well, a lot like plastic surgery, just on a much bigger scale. Even from the high, blurry angle, I could see they had extended his nose to make it look more like a snout and had attached more cartilage to his ear to elongate it. One side of his face, however, was still human, with Eli’s skin and his ear and his hair. It was like a mash-up.
From what I remembered of reality tv on plastic surgery, sometimes procedures had to be done in stages in order to ensure they didn’t overload the body. It looked like they were trying to do something like that here. The only thing that puzzled me was the abundance of different injections they seemed to be giving him. I already knew that Eli used a growth accelerant in most of his research, but what else he could have suggested they use, I didn’t know. He wasn’t at his most sane right now. I skipped ahead to the end of the video, unable to watch the scalpel cut through another part of his body. I started playing the video again when they left the room, leaving Eli covered in bandages on the table. They wheeled what was left of the female wolf out of the room with them. As the main light turned off, the video cut out, leaving me staring at a blurred image of half of Eli’s face. I threw the tablet to the side and jumped down from the bed, grabbing the bin from the corner as the vomit that had been building throughout the video finally won out. I was shaking as I threw up, most of my brain refusing to believe that what I had seen was real. The tiny part that had accepted this crazy world was calmly telling me that Eli was probably dead. I leant back from the bin, sweat beading on my forehead.
This isn’t happening. THIS ISN’T HAPPENING. It’s a dream. You’ll wake up any second now.
Unfortunately, when I opened my eyes, I was still confronted with the same room. As I glanced around feverishly, my eyes fell on the bag of clothes. I didn’t know what else to do. Dragging myself over there, I pulled out some jeans, a t shirt and a hoodie. Standing on shaking legs, I threw off the slacks and shimmied into the pieces of clothing, the mundane task of buttoning the jeans and zipping up the hoodie momentarily distracting me from this altered reality I seemed to be living in. Every part of me that wasn’t on edge was in pain. The skin across my face was sore, irritated by the tears that kept slipping from my eyes. Any pressure I put on my leg sent spikes up and down my entire side. Even my ribs were aching, each breath a little more rattling than the last. Eventually, I was dressed; I clutched onto the wall to keep myself standing and inched to the door that felt a hundred times heavier than it looked.
The hallway was light, daylight streaming in from an overhead skylight covered slightly by fallen leaves. A nondescript man in black was waiting just down the hall. He nodded at me as I edged my way towards him and set off at a brisk pace. I struggled to keep up, but stumbled along, keeping my eyes on his back as he led me through a maze of corridors. Soon, we began to fall into darker hallways, the lino and the metal creeping back in, signalling the start of the labs. I tried to take in my surroundings, but my ears were ringing and most of my energy was taken up trying to keep upright. When we passed through some double doors into a lab however, I did snake my hand out and grab a pair of scalpels from a nearby table, just in case I ended up needing them. I didn’t want to be completely defenceless in the middle of the vipers’ nest. After another few minutes of walking, we entered an even darker corridor with a long glass window. The man stopped in front of it, waiting for me to catch up. As I neared him, he turned and nodded at someone in the shadows. Rick stepped out.
The hatred that ran through me was intense, almost causing me to stumble to the side. He didn’t say anything, just turned to face the glass, so I did too. I recognised it from the recording; directly in front of me was a table with a body on it. His feet were bare, but he was still wearing jeans and I knew if I could see his face, I would see half of Eli. A light flickered on above the table as the two technicians walked in, their faces drawn. They made their way over to Eli, pulling at corners of the bandages to inspect the grafts. As they got to the face, they paused, surprise flickering across their features and they quickly pulled the bandage off, discussi
ng something between them. I looked at Ricks face, not missing the small moment of relief as he watched them smile and nod through the glass. I was less relieved. I looked back to Eli as they hurriedly began jotting something down.
Did his toe just move?
I snuck a sideways glance at Rick, but he was watching the technicians. As I looked again, Eli’s right big toe moved, ever so slightly. I couldn’t help my small grin. The technician’s unwound the bandages from the rest of Eli’s torso, a pile of gauze building up on the floor. When they had undone the last bandage, they shared an amazed glance and turned away from the table to study a machine that was attached to his arm. They didn’t see his sudden twitch, a full body convulsion that seemed to spasm from his chest.
We did.
Rick tapped on the glass, his eyes wide and they turned to look at him. As he pointed frantically to Eli’s body, I saw his toe twitch again. My hand went to the scalpel in my pocket. This wasn’t over yet. Both the technicians turned back to Eli as he bolted upright with a furious yell. I let out a small gasp as his eyes met mine through the glass, one a golden yellow, the other the same sea-green. His lips pulled back in a grin, revealing sharp canines. Black fur covered one side of his face, his ear pointed. The technicians began to back away as he leapt at them, their screams muted by the glass. Rick was staring in open-mouthed horror at the scene in front of him, but I was more focussed on him. As I prepared to bring the scalpel out of my pocket, I realised that at this point, I wasn’t sure there was a good guy in this story.
Just a brother driven mad and a sister who would do anything to get him back.
Inverness Inquirer
Tourists found dead in Loch Ness. Seventeen still missing.
Eye witness reports claim a tour boat from the company Nessie Boat Tours was attacked by the Loch Ness Monster yesterday afternoon.
On Tuesday afternoon, four dead tourists and three members of ship crew were pulled from Loch Ness amid reports that a boat had been attacked by what eyewitnesses are calling the Loch Ness Monster. The four tourists, at this point unidentified, had been out on the morning Nessie Boat Tour when there had been a large disturbance under the water. They had not been the only ones in the boat; seventeen other people are still missing, at this point presumed dead. Initial reports from the Captain, who radioed back to the main office, said it looked like some kind of whale that had caused a surge in the current. The office then lost all contact with the boat.
Eye witnesses around the Loch said that the boat seemed to be being thrown about in waves that had apparently come out of nowhere. There was no wind and no forecast storms. Reports then claimed that a large creature had risen out of the water with a ‘long, snaking head’ and ‘whip-like tail’. The creature began bombarding the boat, knocking the side until the passengers started falling into the water. One man, who saw the event from Urqhart Castle, said that as soon as people had fallen in, they had been pulled under by something and the water around the boat had turned red. The bodies that came up onto shore were allegedly missing limbs and had bite marks across various parts of their bodies.
At the moment, the police have restricted access to the Loch, grounding all tour boats and private vessels whilst a full search is conducted into the reasons behind the passengers’ deaths. So far there have been no more sightings of the alleged Loch Ness Monster and no photographic evidence has been found, although there were multiple eye witnesses who claimed to catch the entire attack on video. When they were asked to produce these videos, the files had been corrupted. This attack follows a blurry image taken by a hiker of a strange creature in a Loch near the village of Kincraig. The image appears to be of a large creature surfacing in the Loch. It matches the description of the alleged attacker in Loch Ness, with the same snaking head and long tail. However, the body of the creature cannot be seen in the image so scientists are contemplating if this could in fact be a multitude of creatures instead. We will continue to bring you more on this story as it develops over the next few days.
Freiburg Gazette
Strange creature found in Freiburg B&B. Currently at large.
A maid found an otter-like creature locked in a room in a Freiburg B&B yesterday morning.
A maid heard scratching from a room in a local Freiburg B&B when completing cleaning rounds yesterday morning. A Do Not Disturb sign had been placed on the door, but when the scratching continued, she unlocked the door to check. Upon entering the room, she was confronted with a small, furry, light grey, otter-like creature. The creature allegedly squeaked rapidly before darting between her legs and disappearing down the corridor. The maid spoke to us and informed us that she had never seen anything like the creature before and that it seemed distressed. In the room, she also found provisions for the creature, along with a large backpack. No identification of the person renting the room was found and, despite a search across the B&B, the creature was not found. A local later revealed that they saw a creature fitting that description racing into the Black Forest not long after the incident was reported at the B&B. As of now, the creature has not been found.
To Be Continued…
Acknowledgements
Under Loch and Key has been years in the making and since I first decided I’d challenge myself to write a book in twenty days, I’ve had a lot of people help me with it and a lot of people to thank.
First, and always, I want to thank my parents. Mum, for reading it through countless times over the last few years (and hopefully never getting bored of it even if it’s not your kind of book). Dad, for our discussions that saved me a lot of Google searching and for going through the book with a fine-toothed comb to check for any last mistakes. I also want to thank both of you for continuing to support me, not just with this book, but with all my writing. Here’s to someday buying you that villa!
Barney, thank you for putting up with years of my back and forth, self-doubt and anxiety, for reading each chapter as I wrote it and coming back into the room to ask me to write the next chapter so you could keep reading it and for pushing me to branch out on my own and finally publish it.
Gemma, Emily, Catherine, Mary, Izzy, Tegan, Jess, Adri; thank you all for your support, for late night messages and video calls, for reading Under Loch and Key at its various stages and for listening to me try and figure all of this out (and helping me not give up altogether).
To both Sophie and Kerry from Loughborough University, I think I’ll be thanking both of you for the rest of my writing career! Without your advice and teachings through my degree and job, I wouldn’t have ever been able to write Under Loch and Key. Thank you for your support with previous work (Case Files of the Supernatural) which only made me more determined to keep producing books and striving towards my dream!
To Tom and Mark for inspiring two of the characters.
To everyone who read Under Loch and Key or who supported me with Case Files, who has ever read any of my work and reviewed or given me feedback or even just support, thank you.
Here’s to the next step in my writing journey. I hope you all enjoy the ride.
About The Author
Kathryn Cockrill
Kathryn Cockrill is an author, writer and poet based in Cambridgeshire, UK. Her first book was published in 2018, a collection of short stories entitled Case Files of the Supernatural. When her head isn't buried in a book, Kathryn can be found drinking bubble tea or living out her heroine protagonist dreams by training in horseback archery or knife-throwing.
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