The Album of Dr. Moreau
Page 13
Melanie stepped out of the hallway. “Mami?” Her eyes were small with sleepiness. And then, suddenly, she was wide awake.
* * *
“Melanie,” Luce said. “Sweetie.” The girl ignored her. She stared at the people in the room, her mouth open. Luce said, “I need you to go back to bed.”
Finally, Melanie looked at her mother. Her eyes were full of tears. “Is this . . . ? Is this . . . ?”
Real? thought Luce. Yeah.
“Hey now,” Bobby said softly. He was sitting on the floor a few feet from Melanie. He leaned forward and bumped his head against her hand. “Don’t be nervous. I’m Bobby.”
“I know!” the girl wailed. “You’re so soft!”
Bobby grinned. “I am, right?”
Devin came forward and extended a hand. “You must be Melanie,” he said. “I’m Devin.”
“Hi, Devin.” She was trembling, and tears were running down her cheeks.
Tusk had gotten to his feet. “We heard you were a pretty big fan.” He extended his trunk. Melanie shook it without hesitation. Matt reached out with his left wing and introduced himself. Tim slid off the chair. He was about the same height as Melanie. “I hear you write songs,” he said.
“No, not like, okay, yes, but . . .”
Luce watched, her right hand tight on the gun.
Devin said, “We were leaving town, but we thought, why not stop by and sing a song with our biggest fan?”
Melanie stared at him. She wiped at her eyes. “With?”
“We heard you’re a pretty good singer,” Devin said. “Do you know this one?” He glanced up at Kat, and she sang a note: A over middle C.
“Can you see . . . it?” Devin sang. His voice was almost a whisper. He looked down at Melanie. The girl glanced back at her mother.
Luce thought, Fuck it. She nodded.
“On the horizon,” Melanie sang. Her voice was shaking, but she was on key.
“Can you feel . . . it?” Devin sang.
“Our own special island,” the girl sang back, stronger. Tusk and Tim and the others seemed to lean in.
“I think it might be,” Devin sang. “It just might be . . .”
The WyldBoyZ sang out in mighty five-part harmony: “Home.”
Melanie and Devin sang the first verse together:
“I thought I was lost, and you brought me here,
Where the sun is warm and the water’s clear.”
The two kept singing, and other voices wrapped around them, braiding and blending. The WyldBoyZ were only a few feet from her, and she couldn’t tell which were singing which notes.
And then, at the end of the third verse, Tim stepped between Devin and Melanie, threw out his hands, and held them there. The singing stopped.
Tusk tapped his foot, and it sounded like the pedal of a bass drum: wump, wump, wump.
Devin clapped his hands and called out, “Timmy says what? Timmy says what?”
“Timmy says bongos,” the pangolin said.
Melanie squealed and jumped back. She knew what was coming. Devin raised his hands and then brought his palms down on Tim’s armored head. Started drumming. The rhythm was fast and intricate. The ape shouted, “Bedtime, babies, bedtime!”
Everyone started chanting and hooting along with the drumming. Matt screeched high-pitched percussives, and Melanie started shouting, “He-ey! Ho! He-ey! Ho!” Luce thought, Is this from a video? How does she know how to do this?
Suddenly Timmy yelled, “Stop!” The silence hit like its own drumbeat.
Devin chanted, “Bobby says what? Bobby says what?”
Bobby jumped onto the trunk. “Bobby says dance!”
Luce stepped back, into the wall. Bobby spun around, did a James Brown split, and popped up again—all without slipping off the table.
Devin pointed at Melanie. The girl was pogoing madly, hands in the air. Devin said, “Mel says what? Mel says what?”
Melanie yelled, “Mel says stomp!” No hesitation.
Tusk trumpeted. Luce had never heard him do that before. He lifted one big foot and slammed it down. The house shook. He did a shimmy and stomped the other foot. Melanie clapped, madly. The glass posters rattled against the walls. Luce thought, If he breaks the house, no one will believe me.
Then she heard a voice sliding through the tweeting and stomping and drumming.
“Can you see it . . .”
It was Kat. She was standing off to the side, her head thrown back, one hand on the slight bulge of her tummy.
“Can you feel it . . .”
And someone answered: “Home.”
“Can you see it . . .”
Another voice sang back: “Home.”
“Can you feel it . . .”
and over and over, call and response, until, without Luce understanding how it was happening, the voices joined, became one voice, and then all of them—Kat and the WyldBoyZ and Melanie and now Luce, too, her voice emerging without her willing it—they were all singing together.
The song ended, and Melanie turned to her mother, her eyes wide in astonishment. Then she noticed what was in her mother’s hand.
Luce looked down. Ah. The Glock. She said, “You need to go back to bed, Melanie.”
“Mami?”
“It’s all right, we’ve got to go,” Kat said. She looked at Luce. “Are we going?”
“Melanie,” Luce said. “Now.”
Melanie had never heard that tone in her mother’s voice. It shook her. She walked to the hallway, stopped. “Good night, everybody. Bobby, I’m really glad you’re not in jail.”
Kat said, “You’re very talented, Melanie. I hope you keep singing.”
“I hope you do, too,” Melanie said.
Luce waited until Melanie’s bedroom door closed—and was 100 percent sure her daughter was standing on the other side with her ear pressed to the door.
“That was nice of you,” Luce said to the band. “But it doesn’t change my decision.”
They looked at her. So many strange faces.
Luce lowered her voice. “You don’t get to murder someone, even if they’re a terrible person. Even if they’re 90 percent scumbag. We live by laws.”
“‘And he who breaks the law goes to the House of Pain,’” Kat said. “I’ve heard it before.”
“You got it,” Luce said. “You break the law, you get punished. That’s what separates us from animals.”
“Us?” Kat said.
“But the punishment has to fit the crime,” Luce said. “And I won’t be responsible for a genocide.” She tucked the pistol behind her, into the waistband. “I sentence you to exile.”
The room was quiet for a long moment. Then Bobby groaned. “Can someone pleeeease tell me what’s happening?”
Kat looked at the trunk, then at Luce. “What’s in there can hurt us,” Kat said.
“I promised I’d return it,” Luce said.
Kat reached for the latch. Luce didn’t move to stop her. Kat lifted the lid—and frowned. She reached inside, knocked on the floor and sides. The trunk was empty.
“Don’t worry,” Luce said. “Before I give it back, I’ll clean out all the bad stuff.”
Kat laughed. “Fair enough.”
“I still don’t know what’s happening,” Bobby complained.
“Back to the car, love,” Kat said. “It’s time for us to vanish.”
Bonus Track
P.S. I once made the mistake of telling an Englishman my story, and he turned it into a novel. And not just any novel, but a bestseller. He didn’t pay me a dime. I swore to myself that next time I’d write my own story. I hope you and your mother enjoyed it.
P.P.S. Tusk asked me to add that the island has a full studio. In fact, the enclosed CD was produced entirely on-site. He would be delighted to work with you—correction, work with you again (he’s such a pedant, but he has dined out for years on the fact that the WyldBoyZ were Melanie Delgado’s first collaborators).
P.P.P.S. If it wouldn’t be
too much of a bother, my daughter Lucy would love a signed T-shirt (women’s Medium). Also, my son, Bertie (men’s Medium), my younger daughter, Ivy (girls Large), and my youngest, Indigo (do you sell onesies?). Oh wait, I forgot about Tusk’s children, and Tim’s, and Devin’s (too many to count). Fuck! Just send a box and I’ll distribute.
With love and admiration,
Kat
Apologies
I would first like to apologize to my children, musicians all, whom I shamefully mined for their expertise. My firstborn, Emma, brought the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC into our house when she was eight years old, when those bands were at the height of their popularity. I rolled my eyes and complained, for which I’m sorry. I think I was afraid that her obsession with bubblegum pop would stop her from appreciating the gritty authenticity of the bands of my youth, such as the Partridge Family and the Monkees. Instead, her music became part of the soundtrack of my life—and . . . I want it that way (tell me why).
I asked my second born, Ian Gregory, to write the first draft of Tim’s impassioned defense of pop music, and they gave me the perfect rant. Third-born Mars Tozer-Whiteside helped with the Spanish. Kyle Tozer-Whiteside, fourth in line, had no idea he was helping me when he sent me videos of his band.
I would like to ask the forgiveness of my friends and fellow writers who had to listen to me talk about this silly story for a long time, and read drafts of it, especially Jack Skillingstead, Nancy Kress, Ysabeau Wilce, and Chris Farnsworth. Griffin Barber provided info on police procedures, and Erin Cashier, who is also a nurse on the COVID-19 front lines, found the poison I needed for the plot. I’m sorry if I messed up any details.
I owe Dave Justus a huge apology. This idea for this novella started with a conversation we had during a car ride between Austin and San Antonio. I say “conversation,” but it was more of a ninety-minute riff session, each of us trying to crack up the other person with animal puns, the lewder the better. Dave, I’m sorry this book doesn’t have more of those jokes.
I would also like to apologize to Liza Trombi, who put up with my extreme introversion while writing this during lockdown. She bought me the beautiful illustrated edition of The Island of Dr. Moreau with art by Bill Sienkiewicz, which I went back to time and again while writing this.
My sincere apologies to my agent, Seth Fishman, for springing this on him; to my editor, Jonathan Strahan, for refusing to change the title; and to Irene Gallo, Emily Goldman, and all the people at Tordotcom Publishing, for asking you to support such a ridiculous mashup. Your enthusiasm is baffling to me.
Finally, I would like to apologize to T. S. Eliot for breaking every one of his five rules for detective stories. I thought I might have to obey #5, and then he went and used the masculine pronoun for detectives. In the words of one of today’s pop princesses, Demi Lovato, “Sorry, not sorry.”
About the Author
Liza Trombi
DARYL GREGORY’s most recent publication from Tor.com was the Hugo finalist novelette “Nine Last Days on Planet Earth.” He’s the author of six novels, including Spoonbenders, a Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award finalist now in development at Showtime. His novella We Are All Completely Fine won the World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Awards, and was a finalist for the Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus Awards. Many of his short stories are collected in Unpossible and Other Stories, a Publishers Weekly best book of the year. Daryl lives in Oakland, California, where he recently finished a decidedly less silly novel, forthcoming from Knopf.
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Also by Daryl Gregory
NOVELS
Pandemonium
The Devil’s Alphabet
Raising Stony Mayhall
Afterparty
We Are All Completely Fine
Harrison Squared
Spoonbenders
SHORT FICTION
Unpossible and Other Stories
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
T. S. Eliot’s Five Rules of Detective Fiction
Intro
Track 1: “Wakin’ Up (Next to U)”
Track 2: “Catastrophe”
Track 3: “Party Animal”
Track 4: “Lock Up My Heart (and Throw Away the Key)”
Track 5: “Heavy Petting”
Track 6: “Girl, You Take Me Higher”
Track 7: “Can’t Forget You”
Track 8: “Skin in the Game”
Track 9: “You Don’t Know Pop”
Track 10: “Beast Folk”
Track 11: “Left Hangin’”
Track 12: “Home [extended version]”
Track 13: “Killer Track”
Track 14: “Where Do We Go from Here?”
Bonus Track
Apologies
About the Author
Also by Daryl Gregory
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE ALBUM OF DR. MOREAU
Copyright © 2021 by Daryl Gregory
All rights reserved.
Cover design by FORT
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
A Tordotcom Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
120 Broadway
New York, NY 10271
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
ISBN 978-1-250-78211-3 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-250-78210-6 (trade paperback)
First Edition: May 2021
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