Chapter Text
As I have told you, it was not long after that horrific slaying of several in our community that Moira was set to mount her final defense. The ongoing battle against the virulent staph strain did delay it several months, and Moira remained until nearly Christmas of that year. Dissertation defended and with the outbreak successfully curbed, many suspected Moira O’Deorain would readily flee the community which she felt had persecuted both herself and her research.
I knew better, however. I had become virtually indispensable to Moira by that time. I not only lent significant aid to her during experiments, but it was also through me she hoped to retain access to the university’s morgue, if a new laboratory could be created for our use.
Also, I dare say that in the time since our first human experiment, Moira had become quite fearful of being alone. Yes, the creature that had been apprehended months previously was safely locked away in the asylum, but we each lacked concrete knowledge of the whereabouts of the ghoulish thing we had first heaved through the small window of the morgue, that subject which had finally screamed out so suddenly with all the fury of the damned. Perhaps that is why she would rarely sleep alone, and even with me she was prone to restless fits.
No, Moira would not leave, not with work yet to be done. As it were, I was no longer bound by my young age to live in the campus dormitory, and the staph epidemic had left many homes within the town wanting for tenants. Moira secured for us a small home far from any other occupied dwelling, one which would be suitable not only as a place to live, but far more importantly, as a place to work.
It possessed the requisite amount of room, and far more importantly, it afforded significant privacy, with entrances to the cellar both in the yard and in the home. It was there, beneath the small sitting room, that we set about creating our new laboratory.
Yes, I did so willingly, and no, I won’t feign ignorance about what might have been lurking nearby due to Moira’s morbid practices. You must remember, though, Jack, that the goal was, in my eyes, a truly righteous one. It is absolutely true that what I had seen and heard, and in fact what I had done, had shaken me even then. But scientific progress is not easily made, and rarely is it a clean and neat endeavor. If something so marvelous, so good, as resurrection could be made possible through our efforts?
Yes, yes, I will stop trying to defend myself. There’s no use to it, in the end, for you will see things . . . well, they get no better, and they will get a fair bit worse before it is all over. I daresay indefensible.
As I was saying, while I was to continue my medical studies, Moira had completed her courses and was set into the world. As one might imagine, there is little work for a newly minted geneticist in a town brimming with academics, particularly a geneticist so vehemently ostracized by those very academics.
Between her coursework and her experience in the recent epidemic, Moira possessed enough skill in medicine to secure employment as a doctor of sorts, working with those who, for some reason or another, could not seek traditional medical care from a properly licensed physician. Young women much too good and proper to ever need an abortion, shady individuals likely injured during the commission of some equally shady act, men who burned and stung in ways they’d rather not tell their wives . . . there were plenty of patients seeking a doctor as keenly insistent on privacy as themselves.
Thusly were Moira’s days occupied, while I spent my time at the medical school, but both of our attentions were wholly focused on a return to our extracurricular pursuits. By this time, and thanks in no small part to the unfortunate passing of several of my fellow students to staph the previous summer, I had found myself as the lead lab assistant within the university’s morgue, which afforded me both greater pay and greater access to the morgue itself. Not only did I enjoy less oversight, but also I was granted use of several other entrances to the building, and it was by virtue of this promotion that I secured for Moira many more specimens for further research.
Each of us worked zealously through the nights on Moira’s concoctions. The largest hurdle was that for any given specimen a highly specialized formula was required. Height, weight, age, sex, body composition, body decomposition, all had to be taken into account, though of course we took great pains to obtain only recently passed subjects.
Between my ability to supply specimens and the fervor with which Moira developed and administered her experimental solutions, we soon found ourselves with an altogether new problem, for we had no means of destroying what was left behind. Due to our small, private residence as well as a fear we might be recognizable to the installing crew, we thought it wise not to have an incinerator placed in our home. A second fear, as I’m sure you can imagine, surrounded a second great explosion should things go awry as they had those years before.
In light of this shortcoming, we had need to return to the more rudimentary disposal method of burial, and I found that this possibility was at the forefront of Moira’s mind when she had selected the home, for if one were to exit the cellar they would only need travel a quiet, deserted back alley and short footpath until they were wholly enclosed in the thick forest which bordered the town. Moira thought it prudent that she not be the one to purchase the shovels, picks, and wheelbarrow, and so under cover of an amateur gardener I made such purchases for the two of us.
I can honestly say I’ve never been in such fine physical shape in my life, and even Moira showed some bit of a physique on her lean frame after disposing of a few of our subjects. Yes, yes, morbid of me to speak so flippantly of the results of such a dismal task, but I must remind you once more, Jack, that I did not see it as such a ghastly chore at the time. It was simply a necessary effect of our highly scientific pursuits. We had, after all, not harmed any of our subjects. We simply were putting them to use, and if the disposal of used materials seemed horrific, it was easier to stomach in light of what I hoped to accomplish in our work.
In such a way could I justify even the most gruesome tasks put to me, and from my vantage point Moira seemed even less bothered by it all than I. It was with fearsome dedication that she worked, ever seeking to harness the power she felt was so near, certain that when all was said and done she would have her vindication. However, I do believe something plagued her. It was not guilt or disgust over our ongoing endeavor that seemed to needle at her, but a lurking fear, a certainty that something watched her as we made our way through the dark woods to dispose of subjects, that a hunter stalked her if ever she left home in the evening unaccompanied by myself.
Sometimes, when her nightly fits would wake me, I would insist that that cannibalistic creature that had left us beaten and bloody was safely locked away in the asylum, but it was with a fearful tremor that she would remind me in turn of a burned out groundskeeper’s shack, and of the uncertain disposition of our first human subject.
While Moira’s fears were powerful, they paled in comparison to the all-consuming need to perfect her solution, and on that subject we did make some progress in that year. The first specimen I obtained for us was an outright failure, it neither moved nor made a sound, and Moira cursed herself for a mistake made when mixing the concoction. It was quickly disposed of in the woods, and we found better luck with subsequent specimens. One had opened its eyes, and though it did not speak, its lips twitched as though it had a mind to do so. One simply shivered violently, and yet another sat rigidly from the table, but moved no further and collapsed once more into death.
Moira made great strides, or so she said she felt, with these specimens, but always the cause of failure remained: Decomposition. If I had somehow miraculously obtained a subject at the exact moment of its death, I must still have waited until it had been processed into the morgue, and wait still longer until nightfall when I could safely remove the subject from campus. Time passed, too much time.
And so, when the opportunity arose to obtain a much more recently deceased specimen, Moira and I jumped at the chance. It was not by way of the university hospital, but instead we were clandestinely summoned by one of Moira’s less reputable clients.
You understand, I’m sure, that I knew very little about Moira’s clientele, and despite how little I knew, I chose never to ask. Heading out, I knew only that someone was gravely injured. Rarely did I assist with Moira’s work among the living, yet on this night she insisted I join her, and she had seemed quite jovial to have me along. Even then I realized both my presence and Moira’s persistently pleasant demeanor were undoubtedly due to her hope of obtaining a fresh specimen that evening. Moira would not be disappointed.
With little knowledge of what we would find, she and I set out with bags in hand. None walked with us, and as the evening turned to night even fewer others were seen walking the quiet streets. With this semblance of privacy, Moira whispered to me in earnest, deeming it necessary to provide me with at least some knowledge of the man we were to meet.
A skilled fighter, she had told me. No, not a soldier, a martial artist of sorts. All sorts, in fact, before an incident which had cost him his arm. No, no, nothing Moira had been involved in, I assure you. It had happened some years before, and by the time Moira became involved he had had a replacement made, but it was . . . unruly. A cybernetic prosthetic, much more powerful than what it had replaced.
The devastation it could create, that was why he had specifically sought Moira out. He required a physician, or someone to approximate one, to clean up the mess that arm had left behind, and to do so without prying into how such a mess was made. He had not lost his interest in combat sports, you understand, and at times his opponents would get more than they had signed up for. Much more.
I had seen no others save what we headed for that night, but Moira had imparted quietly to me as we walked tales of the men she had seen in the previous months. Calibrations, as the client had called them, could be much more devastating than intended. From the survivors, neither he nor Moira feared trouble. The bouts were held surreptitiously, and for an opponent to raise issue with Moira’s client they’d need also to admit their own wrong-doing. He only feared what might become of him if one of the men who fell in the ring did not get up again.
And so it fell to Moira to be sure that anyone who would stagger away from the match could reach a distance at least far enough to alleviate any suspicion which might otherwise be cast on the man who had called on us that night.
I had not before seen the extent of ruin this man could do, and even Moira had seemed taken aback by the sheer extent of the injuries seen in the patient we were called to attend to. He was much smaller than our employer, thankfully so. The prosthetic, cybernetic fist of Moira’s acquaintance had bruised and beaten the entire right side of his body into nearly pulpy mess, and it became clear very quickly that he would not stand again, and that he would need to be disposed of.
It was a task for which Moira was all too happy to volunteer the both of us, and I’ll say again that I suspect she had thought such a situation might occur. While I would tell you today that I do not know, had you asked me on that night if Moira had hoped that the man would die, I’d have balked at such a question to my friend’s character. After all, I’ll remind you that while our actions may seem gruesome to some, we had not done actual harm to any living person. And, at least in so far as I was concerned, our aims were of the noblest sort.
You know, there was a time, actually that very night, that I had groused over the nasty work of disposing of our subjects in the woods, and Moira had reminded me that it is difficult to do any great science without getting one’s hands dirty. The laugh she had let loose then, in the pitch-black night as we stood with shovels and picks and a freshly dead man . . . it still chills me, as it had then. But I had shaken it off then, nerves was all it had been. But I’m no longer nervous, and I can still hear that laugh.
Yes, yes, we buried him, and so you can surmise that our experiment was unsuccessful despite the excessive freshness of this specimen. We had redressed him and taken him back to our home by way of back alleys and the less inhabited neighborhoods. Each of us looked over our shoulder and shied from the streetlights, for though we had brought a man back to Moira’s dormitory in much the same fashion the summer before, we greatly feared we might be approached by a passing Good Samaritan, or worse, the police.
But once we had him into the cellar, under the buzzing fluorescent lights, stripped again and primed for injection, the fear of the police gave way to excitement. Never before had we obtained a subject so recently deceased. This, at long last, could have been a glorious display of what Moira’s solution could accomplish.
Though as you have determined, it was not so. Perhaps it was some internal injury, one of those which had led him to our cellar laboratory, which had interfered with the work. Whatever it was, the man did not stir. He did not rise up, he did not make a sound, he did not even shiver and shudder as previous specimens brought from the university had done.
And so when we had placed him into the wheelbarrow with the picks and shovels, our moods were quite sour. We lacked the wonderful rush that some new breakthrough, which we had been expecting we might see, was meant to bring, and instead it was a fear of the police that gripped us. If news that the illegal fights had finally led to a death got out, or if anyone had seen us carrying the man between us . . . We were not the most inconspicuous of individuals, what with Moira’s reputation and our friendship, one which perplexed most who knew me, and we both very much feared that there might be a knock at our door in due time.
Even when the man had been placed into the shallow pit and covered over with dirt, twigs, and leaves, we did not breathe easy, and Moira’s laughter had still rung in my ears when we each fell into a restless sleep that night.
The next day would bring nothing better for Moira, and when I had returned from my courses she had been nearly manic. I’d been certain the police had come calling, but she had been wholly busy with a new disaster, linked neither to our work nor to the man we had taken into the woods the night prior.
A child was missing. Don’t even look at me like that, I told you we had nothing to do with it. Well. That is to say—
Let me continue. I will spare you the melodramatic details, for they serve no purpose. Suffice it to say, some years previously a man of some high esteem had fathered with his mistress a son. That boy, now some six years old or so, had wandered off that morning, as young boys are apt to do at times, and his mother had become positively frantic with worry. As she had been certain that her lover’s wife had taken the child as some form of revenge, she had intended to confront the woman regarding her missing son.
This was where Moira had been called, for the man had less interest in the whereabouts of his son than in protecting himself from the revelation of the affair. He had entreated Moira to calm the woman before she did something drastic. And, while she was able to silence the woman . . . it did not go as intended. A reaction, unexpected and entirely accidental, Moira had told me. A mistake of an unlicensed would-be physician who had never completed her education, and to this day I believe that she did not intend the woman to die.
After all, if she had, I’m certain I’d have been brought along to make use of the body. Morbid as it is, that is how I know that Moira did not mean to kill the woman.
But despite the best efforts to save her patient, the woman did pass from this world that evening, at the hands of Moira and before the eyes of her lover. The man, having not only witnessed the passing of his mistress but undoubtedly at least somewhat effected by the unknown status of their son, had become so enraged at Moira’s failure that he had lunged at her in a most violent manner.
She had escaped, of course, and had made her way home where I found her that evening, trembling still, though she had calmed significantly by the time she had told me all of the goings on. The boy, it seemed, was still missing, and she feared that the man might again come for her if he should be found in some poor state.
With an eye to the local news, it was brought to our attention that the woman’s passing had gone mostly unheeded in light of the missing child. In hopes of finding the boy, some talked of forming parties to search the woods surrounding the town, and this wore at the nerves of both of us terribly.
Worry over the possible retribution from the man, of the discovery of our spent specimens, and the lurking fear of police inquiry regarding the death of the man in the fight compounded to leave Moira even more restless than myself, and we did not retire that evening until well past midnight, though little work was done on our researches.
I may not have been implicated in the death of the woman, of course, but by my acquaintanceship with Moira it was unlikely the man would see me as an innocent party if he should come calling to our shared home. However, it was the fear of the police that worried me most, for though I maintain even now, to you, Jack, that I had never willingly and knowingly caused harm to anyone, well . . . you can see quite clearly how dirty my hands had already become in Moira’s mess.
Because of this nagging worry, my sleep was fitful, and it was nearer to dawn than dusk when I was roused from what semblance of sleep I had achieved by the sound of some manner of visitor at our back door. It wasn’t a knock, or a bang, or a voice. A . . . rummaging, really. Rattling, scratching.
Moira, equally plagued by worries, woke to the noise as well, and in the moonlight I watched her fetch from the nightstand an old-fashioned revolver. I’d not known she had it, and it wasn’t until I asked later that she had told me it had been given to her by one of her less reputable clients. I hesitate to know what other deeds the revolver had done. But as it was so old that it did not need to be registered, Moira had taken it, and she took it in hand as she motioned me out of bed.
She’d told me we had best both go down, in case it was the police, or perhaps a patient in need of aide. But despite this, I know she thought more of the vengeful man than the other possibilities, for what good would a revolver do against the police? Moira may not have been a model citizen, but even she, I think, would not have opened fire on law enforcement.
And so we descended the stairs of our small home, slowly and trembling, the both of us, Moira first, and I crept along after her. The sound which had roused the both of us had not ceased, but nor had it grown louder. Never had I ever felt such a fear, for not only did I have no way of knowing what was beyond our back door, but each possibility was as horrific as any other.
Moira had stopped then, a meter from the door, and I can still see the glint of the moonlight off the revolver she half-raised at the rattling door. I do not know if she considered calling out, asking who was scratching at our back door at such an hour, but neither of us made a sound. Perhaps her voice was as lost as my own, because she only nodded at me and gave a small motion with the gun.
Have you ever heard one of those old-fashioned revolvers fired, Jack? I suppose you have, haven’t you? I hadn’t, not those heavy, massive pieces with the long barrels. It still seems a miracle to this day that no one had been alerted by the blasts, but I suppose that isolation was why Moira had picked this particular home.
No, it wasn’t the police, but nor was it the grieving man. I had not seen who—what it was until after the smoke had cleared, for it was with a suddenness I did not even think possible that, as the door was flung open, Moira fired every single round from the revolver into the thing on the doorstep.
I may not be the angelic saint you thought me to be before I began, Jack, but I’m no monster. I had no idea just what sort of damage Moira had done, or to whom she had done it to, but I could not fight my instinct to rush to the aide of what was no doubt a wounded person. They had fallen back, the impact of each round catching the silhouette in the moonlight, but by the time I had pushed down the steps to where it came to lay I could see to my great horror what had come calling that night.
As I have said, it was not a policeman, I thank God, nor a man. Well, not anymore it wasn’t, though it was something approximating a man, with the right side of his body beaten and bloody, caked in dirt and leaves. But it was not the familiar face, twisted and primal, that caused me to fall back with such fright and disgust that Moira needed catch me. It was the object gripped in death between his bloody teeth: a thin white, shiny limb seeming to glow in the moonlight, made identifiable only because it still had at its end a tiny, child’s hand.
