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darnedchildSummary: Sherlock Holmes learns the shocking secrets of Molly Hooper's past. *Cue dramatic music and an evil laugh*
Rating: T
A/N - With apologies to H.P. Lovecraft - A modern retelling of Herbert West - Reanimator. Written for the 2017 Sherlolly Halloween fest.
Molly Hooper - (Assistant) Reanimator
Part Three - The Plague-Daemon
“Surely you don’t expect me to believe that your associate brought a man back from the dead?” Sherlock scoffed.
Molly reared back as far as her chair would let her, releasing his hand in the process. “I don’t expect you to believe anything, Sherlock. I’m simply telling you what happened.”
He immediately regretted the harsh disbelief that had coloured his tone and words. His mouth opened as he fumbled for something to say that would convince her to continue, but Molly spoke first.
“It’s-It’s all right.” She drew in a deep breath and gave him the barest hint of a forgiving smile. “I’d probably feel just the same if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
Her gaze darted toward the box for a moment, then back to him. “Unfortunately, the story is only going to get stranger from there.”
இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—
The barn fire had set their research back considerably. All of their notes, several variations of the serum, their equipment . . . all of it was lost. Months of effort, years in Herbert’s case, were destroyed in the flames.
Herbert had been working on his graduate studies and Molly was still working toward her doctorate when the H1N1 outbreak of 2009 reached critical levels.
The Arkham hospital was filled with the sick and dying. Some of the poor unfortunate souls were nurses and doctors themselves.
The desperate need for able hands meant the graduate students and upperclassman from the medical school were asked to volunteer at the severally understaffed hospital. Even Herbert, who had been on the outs with the dean, Dr Halsey, and been lured into service with the promise of the return of his temporarily revoked privileges in the dissection lab.
At first, Molly hadn’t understood why Herbert was so enthusiastic about his time amongst the coughing population. He tended to lose interest in the recovering patients, choosing to take on the worst cases that the other doctors were more than happy to pass along.
Then he stopped her on her way out of the building after a long morning at Miskatonic and an even longer afternoon at the hospital.
“Mrs Matthias was one of yours, wasn’t she?”
Molly scrunched her nose as she tried to match a face to the name. “Yeah, she’s not responding to treatment, so I . . . Wait. What do you mean ‘was’ one of mine? What happened?”
“I believe you were with another patient when she went into arrest. Dr Wilkes called her an hour and a half ago. She’s already been moved to the basement to free up her bed. You know what that means.”
“Oh God.” She barely had a second to mourn for the woman she hardly knew before Herbert grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the stairs. “Please tell me you aren’t . . . Not here. Not now!”
But he was.
Molly kept sending furtive glances toward the door to the body coolers, convinced that someone would burst through with and catch them at any moment. Herbert rolled his eyes at her concern. “We’re doctors, Molly. Very nearly. We’re allowed to be here, Mrs Matthias was your patient.”
“Is that-Is that why you brought me down here? To act as a cover for-for whatever it is you’re doing?” She didn’t wait for him to reply as she stepped closer to the drawer he’d pulled out from one of the lockers. “What are you doing, anyway? Have you managed to recreate the serum already?”
Herbert set his messenger bag on the slab and pulled a small zippered case out of it. He opened it as he answered, “Recreated, improved, and have begun testing it. Mrs Matthias will be subject number three on this round of trials.”
“Three?” Molly yelped. She quickly glanced around and lowered her voice. “You never mentioned starting the tests again.”
“You’ve had other things to focus on the last few months, haven’t you?” He pulled a syringe filled with a sickly yellow-green fluid that seemed to give off a faint glow. “How is your father, by the way?”
She frowned; whether at the question or at the way Herbert had yanked the zipper of the body bag down and pushed her head to the side so he could insert the syringe needle into the corpse’s neck, she wasn’t sure. “He’s still weak from the latest round of chemo, but the prognosis is . . . good.”
He depressed the plunger and gave her a pitying look. “Good, Molly. Really?”
She wanted nothing more than to focus on something other than her father’s condition. “You said this was test number three.”
Herbert pulled out a second syringe and held it at the ready. “Number one was a failure. But there were observable reactions with two. Shallow respiration, eyes opened.”
Molly was drawn in despite herself. “And then?”
“And then nothing.” He hurried to the other side of the slab and injected the contents of the second syringe into the flesh behind the body’s ear. “It’s a process. You know that. Trial and error.”
They both leaned over Mrs Matthias and waited. Less than a minute later, the dead woman gasped and opened her eyes. Molly swore that Mrs Matthias focused on her for one long moment with a wide-eyed, almost feral expression. Then one rotten breath escaped Mrs Matthias’ lips and the body stilled for the last time.
Molly jumped when her mobile chippered with a text alert. Almost immediately, Herbert’s did the same. She pulled hers from her bag and quickly read the text that had been sent to all the students that had agreed to offer assistance during the epidemic. “It’s Dr Halsey. He’s collapsed.”
“I’m not surprised.” Herbert packed away his things, carefully tucking the zippered case into his bag. “He’s been coughing for days. I know Carmichael told him to rest, said he would be no good to the patients if he continued to run himself down. Any idiot worth his degree would have been able to see the man was sick, not exhausted.”
“The flu?” Molly hadn’t seen the dean in more than a week, and she couldn’t help but wonder if she might have been able to do something to prevent his collapse. Most likely not.
“Undoubtedly,” Herbert agreed. He finished zipping Mrs Matthias back into the body bag, and pushed the locker drawer shut. “Go home, Molly. With one less doctor on the rotation, our work load will only get worse over the next few days. Sleep while you can.”
இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—
“He was taking advantage of the epidemic to experiment on dead bodies.” Sherlock grimaced, obviously disturbed enough to restate the obvious. Something he would have pounced on with derision if someone else had done it.
“Pot, kettle.” Molly rolled her eyes and waved her hands toward the morgue and the ceiling above, indicating the rest of the floors of the building. “Look where we are, right now. We’re in a bloody teaching hospital, Sherlock. Bodies are donated for study all the time. How many corpses have you, personally, experimented on? And you’re not even a student. Half the time it’s not even for a case, just your own morbid curiosity.”
He sighed and tilted his head in silent acknowledgement of her point.
இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—
Five days later, Dr Halsey aspirated in his hospital bed and died.
Herbert invited her to his flat that night, to commiserate over Halsey’s death with a bottle of Scotch. She’d been tired, exhausted really; but it wasn’t often that Herbert reached out for human contact, so she couldn’t bring herself to turn him down.
“I’m so sorry. I know how much you looked up to him. We all did.” Molly sipped her Scotch, careful to nurse the drink so that she wouldn’t end up fuzzy headed and tipsy.
“He was . . . my mentor my first few years at Miskatonic. He supported my research in the beginning, when so many others scoffed in my face.” Herbert set his glass to the side and pushed his chair away from the small kitchen table they’d been sitting at. “And that’s why I’m going to bring him back.”
Molly immediately felt ill. “No. No, no, no. You can’t.”
“I can and I will.” He held out his hand to her. “Are you going to help me, Molly? Or are you going to let a brilliant mind like Halsey’s fade away without even an attempt to save him from the dark void of death?”
“But last week? Mrs Matthias. The serum didn’t work.” Reluctantly, she let him take her hand and ease her out of her chair.
“That was last week. I’ve altered the formula again; ran computer simulation after simulation, and they all exceed my expectations. I think we can do it this time.”
The way he said ‘we can do it’—with such childlike hope and excitement—had her hesitantly agreeing. “Do you need me to drive us to the hospital?”
“Why?” He grinned. “I’ve got everything we need right here, in the spare room.”
She felt the bottom drop out of her stomach again. “Everything?” Surely he didn’t mean . . .
Her fears were confirmed by the sight of Dr Halsey, still in the hospital gown he’d been wearing when they had wheeled him to the basement morgue, laid out upon the bare mattress in the tiny spare room.
Herbert had already set out a tray (one that looked to have been stolen from the university canteen) with half-a-dozen syringes on the bed.
“You really think you’ve got it this time?” she couldn’t help asking as she fumbled on a pair of latex gloves.
He smiled, pleased to see she had agreed to assist so easily. “Only one way to find out.”
“Would you like to do the honours?” Herbert held the first syringe out to her. “Or would you prefer to stand by in case chest compressions are needed?”
Molly still remembered the quarter of an hour spent hovering over the body in the barn, working to manually circulate the serum through the corpse’s veins. She’d been sore for days after. She took the syringe and waited for him to indicate where he wanted the first injection to be administered.
She was readying the fourth syringe, careful to stay out of Herbert’s way as he straddled Halsey and prepared to begin compressions. Suddenly, the body jerked; Halsey’s back arched until only his shoulders and hips touched the bed. Herbert fell to the side and rolled onto the floor. The memory of Mrs Matthias’ expression before she’d died for the second time made Molly step back in fearful apprehension.
Herbert popped up, eager and undeterred. “This is it, Molly. He’s coming to!”
Halsey’s eyes had opened, his body relaxing into the mattress now that the initial muscular spasms were finished.
“Doctor Halsey, can you hear me? Can you speak?” Herbert reached for the older man’s wrist, but Halsey yanked it back with a snarl.
Molly finally found her voice. “Sir? Are you . . . What was it like? Do you remember anything?” She was desperate to know what awaited her father when he died.
Halsey twitched and turned his face toward her. Molly took another inadvertent step back. Whatever Herbert had brought back, it wasn’t Halsey. At least not as she remembered him. Instead of an advanced mind and benevolent nature, the creature on the bed was all base instinct and primal anger.
It lunged toward her with its hands curled into claws, and Molly screamed. Herbert launched himself across the bed and rolled to his feet between her and Halsey.
“The mini-fridge behind you, find something to knock him out. We need to sedate him and get him restrained. Move, Molly!”
She broke out of her stupor and pried open the cabinet to find vial after vial of drugs and chemicals that had clearly been stolen from the hospital. She heard something crash behind her, an unholy howl, and then her own yelp rang in her ears as Herbert crashed into her back. She dropped the bottle she’d been holding, crying out as the glass shattered at her feet. Something yanked at her hair, pulling her backward. Just as a strong hand wrapped around her throat, Herbert swung a metal desk lamp past her shoulder. She heard a sickening thunk as the base of the lamp connected, then Halsey’s nails dug deep into her skin before releasing her. Herbert dragged her away, once again placing himself between Molly and Halsey in some strange, uncharacteristic burst of chivalry.
Blood streamed down Halsey’s forehead, partially blinding the man who was literally frothing from the mouth. He snarled, spittle dribbling down his chin, then spun around and ran toward the lone window in the room. Herbert cried out “No!” as Halsey threw himself through the glass and loped out into the night.
“Jesus,” Molly rasped through her abused throat. “What the hell was that?”
Herbert didn’t get a chance to answer as someone began to pound on the door to his flat.
“West? Open up! Can you hear me, man? I’ve called the police!”
He grimaced. “Damn it. We’ll never be able to explain all of this.”
Molly stripped off her latex gloves and tossed them aside, her mind already shifting through options for damage control. “Answer it. Tell them-tell them a strange man knocked on the door asking for help, and then shoved his way in and-and attacked us. Stall them as long as you can. Go!”
He was able to buy her two minutes, during which she hid the remaining syringes of serum and pulled various pieces of equipment from where they’d been stored on shelves hanging on the wall. By the time the concerned upstairs neighbour pushed his way into the room, the desktop had been set up to resemble the sort of chemistry experiment one would find in a first semester class at uni. The average non-scientist would be fooled, but anyone with a background in advanced chemistry would know it was a fake with a simple glance.
Molly sat on the edge of the bed and held a clean flannel to the scratches on her neck.
“What the hell is going on?” The neighbour pushed past West and knelt at her feet. “Miss? Are you all right?”
“Yes, I . . .” She met Herbert’s eyes over the neighbour’s head. He nodded. Molly dropped her eyes and shuddered. “We were working, and that man . . . He must have known we’re medical students and have been working at the hospital . . .”
Herbert picked up the story when she faltered. “He fell into a rage when he couldn’t find the drugs he was looking for. He attacked my associate, and escaped through the window when we managed to fight him off.”
The neighbour finally got a good look at the room, and slowly stood up. “What were you doing in here, West? What is all this crap?”
“She told you, Schneider. We’re med students, and we’ve been working with patients at the hospital since the epidemic started. We’re trying to create an alternative treatment for the virus. A new, more potent vaccine.”
“Here? Isn’t that dangerous? Are we going to get sick?” Schneider jerked back from Molly, as if he were afraid she was contagious.
As police sirens echoed through the streets of Arkham, Molly was once again reminded of that horrible night in the barn and the eerie story in the newspaper about the desecrated grave. What new horror awaited the town with the Halsey creature on the loose?
Both of the local papers were full of sensational accounts of brutal home invasions for the next two weeks. Five homes broken into over a period of twelve days. Only two survivors left to tell tales of a crazed madman with superhuman strength and no mercy. Eleven bodies torn to pieces by human hands.
The papers christened the murderer the Cannibal Killer once a loose lipped constable let slip that certain details from the crime scenes. Soft tissues had been removed from several of the bodies, teeth marks left in flesh, chunks of meat ripped from limbs. The sort of grisly tidbits people loved to read about over their morning pancakes and coffee.
He was eventually apprehended on the fourteenth night of his rampage; spotted in an alley with a dead stray cat dangling from his fist. He ran out of the alley, slamming the policeman into a brick wall hard enough to break his arm. A group of police and volunteers armed with guns and flashlights followed his trail to a forgotten tool shed hidden behind overgrown brush on someone’s property. He’d made a nest for himself; stockpiling rotting meat and piles of discarded clothes and blankets obviously scavenged from dumpsters and trash cans.
Apparently, no one made the connection between the snapping, snarling madman who refused to utter a single coherent word and the recently deceased and well-respected Dr Halsey.
The Cannibal Killer was quickly deemed unfit to stand trial, and was immediately committed to a padded cell at the Arkham Asylum. In a matter of months, he had become the stuff of urban legends.
Rumours spread through the hospital about a misplaced body, but no one in the morgue would admit to anything (and risk losing their jobs). Someone was laid to rest in Halsey’s grave, but Molly knew it hadn’t been the good doctor.
Part 1/ Part 4
Rating: T
A/N - With apologies to H.P. Lovecraft - A modern retelling of Herbert West - Reanimator. Written for the 2017 Sherlolly Halloween fest.
Molly Hooper - (Assistant) Reanimator
Part Three - The Plague-Daemon
“Surely you don’t expect me to believe that your associate brought a man back from the dead?” Sherlock scoffed.
Molly reared back as far as her chair would let her, releasing his hand in the process. “I don’t expect you to believe anything, Sherlock. I’m simply telling you what happened.”
He immediately regretted the harsh disbelief that had coloured his tone and words. His mouth opened as he fumbled for something to say that would convince her to continue, but Molly spoke first.
“It’s-It’s all right.” She drew in a deep breath and gave him the barest hint of a forgiving smile. “I’d probably feel just the same if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
Her gaze darted toward the box for a moment, then back to him. “Unfortunately, the story is only going to get stranger from there.”
The barn fire had set their research back considerably. All of their notes, several variations of the serum, their equipment . . . all of it was lost. Months of effort, years in Herbert’s case, were destroyed in the flames.
Herbert had been working on his graduate studies and Molly was still working toward her doctorate when the H1N1 outbreak of 2009 reached critical levels.
The Arkham hospital was filled with the sick and dying. Some of the poor unfortunate souls were nurses and doctors themselves.
The desperate need for able hands meant the graduate students and upperclassman from the medical school were asked to volunteer at the severally understaffed hospital. Even Herbert, who had been on the outs with the dean, Dr Halsey, and been lured into service with the promise of the return of his temporarily revoked privileges in the dissection lab.
At first, Molly hadn’t understood why Herbert was so enthusiastic about his time amongst the coughing population. He tended to lose interest in the recovering patients, choosing to take on the worst cases that the other doctors were more than happy to pass along.
Then he stopped her on her way out of the building after a long morning at Miskatonic and an even longer afternoon at the hospital.
“Mrs Matthias was one of yours, wasn’t she?”
Molly scrunched her nose as she tried to match a face to the name. “Yeah, she’s not responding to treatment, so I . . . Wait. What do you mean ‘was’ one of mine? What happened?”
“I believe you were with another patient when she went into arrest. Dr Wilkes called her an hour and a half ago. She’s already been moved to the basement to free up her bed. You know what that means.”
“Oh God.” She barely had a second to mourn for the woman she hardly knew before Herbert grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the stairs. “Please tell me you aren’t . . . Not here. Not now!”
But he was.
Molly kept sending furtive glances toward the door to the body coolers, convinced that someone would burst through with and catch them at any moment. Herbert rolled his eyes at her concern. “We’re doctors, Molly. Very nearly. We’re allowed to be here, Mrs Matthias was your patient.”
“Is that-Is that why you brought me down here? To act as a cover for-for whatever it is you’re doing?” She didn’t wait for him to reply as she stepped closer to the drawer he’d pulled out from one of the lockers. “What are you doing, anyway? Have you managed to recreate the serum already?”
Herbert set his messenger bag on the slab and pulled a small zippered case out of it. He opened it as he answered, “Recreated, improved, and have begun testing it. Mrs Matthias will be subject number three on this round of trials.”
“Three?” Molly yelped. She quickly glanced around and lowered her voice. “You never mentioned starting the tests again.”
“You’ve had other things to focus on the last few months, haven’t you?” He pulled a syringe filled with a sickly yellow-green fluid that seemed to give off a faint glow. “How is your father, by the way?”
She frowned; whether at the question or at the way Herbert had yanked the zipper of the body bag down and pushed her head to the side so he could insert the syringe needle into the corpse’s neck, she wasn’t sure. “He’s still weak from the latest round of chemo, but the prognosis is . . . good.”
He depressed the plunger and gave her a pitying look. “Good, Molly. Really?”
She wanted nothing more than to focus on something other than her father’s condition. “You said this was test number three.”
Herbert pulled out a second syringe and held it at the ready. “Number one was a failure. But there were observable reactions with two. Shallow respiration, eyes opened.”
Molly was drawn in despite herself. “And then?”
“And then nothing.” He hurried to the other side of the slab and injected the contents of the second syringe into the flesh behind the body’s ear. “It’s a process. You know that. Trial and error.”
They both leaned over Mrs Matthias and waited. Less than a minute later, the dead woman gasped and opened her eyes. Molly swore that Mrs Matthias focused on her for one long moment with a wide-eyed, almost feral expression. Then one rotten breath escaped Mrs Matthias’ lips and the body stilled for the last time.
Molly jumped when her mobile chippered with a text alert. Almost immediately, Herbert’s did the same. She pulled hers from her bag and quickly read the text that had been sent to all the students that had agreed to offer assistance during the epidemic. “It’s Dr Halsey. He’s collapsed.”
“I’m not surprised.” Herbert packed away his things, carefully tucking the zippered case into his bag. “He’s been coughing for days. I know Carmichael told him to rest, said he would be no good to the patients if he continued to run himself down. Any idiot worth his degree would have been able to see the man was sick, not exhausted.”
“The flu?” Molly hadn’t seen the dean in more than a week, and she couldn’t help but wonder if she might have been able to do something to prevent his collapse. Most likely not.
“Undoubtedly,” Herbert agreed. He finished zipping Mrs Matthias back into the body bag, and pushed the locker drawer shut. “Go home, Molly. With one less doctor on the rotation, our work load will only get worse over the next few days. Sleep while you can.”
“He was taking advantage of the epidemic to experiment on dead bodies.” Sherlock grimaced, obviously disturbed enough to restate the obvious. Something he would have pounced on with derision if someone else had done it.
“Pot, kettle.” Molly rolled her eyes and waved her hands toward the morgue and the ceiling above, indicating the rest of the floors of the building. “Look where we are, right now. We’re in a bloody teaching hospital, Sherlock. Bodies are donated for study all the time. How many corpses have you, personally, experimented on? And you’re not even a student. Half the time it’s not even for a case, just your own morbid curiosity.”
He sighed and tilted his head in silent acknowledgement of her point.
Five days later, Dr Halsey aspirated in his hospital bed and died.
Herbert invited her to his flat that night, to commiserate over Halsey’s death with a bottle of Scotch. She’d been tired, exhausted really; but it wasn’t often that Herbert reached out for human contact, so she couldn’t bring herself to turn him down.
“I’m so sorry. I know how much you looked up to him. We all did.” Molly sipped her Scotch, careful to nurse the drink so that she wouldn’t end up fuzzy headed and tipsy.
“He was . . . my mentor my first few years at Miskatonic. He supported my research in the beginning, when so many others scoffed in my face.” Herbert set his glass to the side and pushed his chair away from the small kitchen table they’d been sitting at. “And that’s why I’m going to bring him back.”
Molly immediately felt ill. “No. No, no, no. You can’t.”
“I can and I will.” He held out his hand to her. “Are you going to help me, Molly? Or are you going to let a brilliant mind like Halsey’s fade away without even an attempt to save him from the dark void of death?”
“But last week? Mrs Matthias. The serum didn’t work.” Reluctantly, she let him take her hand and ease her out of her chair.
“That was last week. I’ve altered the formula again; ran computer simulation after simulation, and they all exceed my expectations. I think we can do it this time.”
The way he said ‘we can do it’—with such childlike hope and excitement—had her hesitantly agreeing. “Do you need me to drive us to the hospital?”
“Why?” He grinned. “I’ve got everything we need right here, in the spare room.”
She felt the bottom drop out of her stomach again. “Everything?” Surely he didn’t mean . . .
Her fears were confirmed by the sight of Dr Halsey, still in the hospital gown he’d been wearing when they had wheeled him to the basement morgue, laid out upon the bare mattress in the tiny spare room.
Herbert had already set out a tray (one that looked to have been stolen from the university canteen) with half-a-dozen syringes on the bed.
“You really think you’ve got it this time?” she couldn’t help asking as she fumbled on a pair of latex gloves.
He smiled, pleased to see she had agreed to assist so easily. “Only one way to find out.”
“Would you like to do the honours?” Herbert held the first syringe out to her. “Or would you prefer to stand by in case chest compressions are needed?”
Molly still remembered the quarter of an hour spent hovering over the body in the barn, working to manually circulate the serum through the corpse’s veins. She’d been sore for days after. She took the syringe and waited for him to indicate where he wanted the first injection to be administered.
She was readying the fourth syringe, careful to stay out of Herbert’s way as he straddled Halsey and prepared to begin compressions. Suddenly, the body jerked; Halsey’s back arched until only his shoulders and hips touched the bed. Herbert fell to the side and rolled onto the floor. The memory of Mrs Matthias’ expression before she’d died for the second time made Molly step back in fearful apprehension.
Herbert popped up, eager and undeterred. “This is it, Molly. He’s coming to!”
Halsey’s eyes had opened, his body relaxing into the mattress now that the initial muscular spasms were finished.
“Doctor Halsey, can you hear me? Can you speak?” Herbert reached for the older man’s wrist, but Halsey yanked it back with a snarl.
Molly finally found her voice. “Sir? Are you . . . What was it like? Do you remember anything?” She was desperate to know what awaited her father when he died.
Halsey twitched and turned his face toward her. Molly took another inadvertent step back. Whatever Herbert had brought back, it wasn’t Halsey. At least not as she remembered him. Instead of an advanced mind and benevolent nature, the creature on the bed was all base instinct and primal anger.
It lunged toward her with its hands curled into claws, and Molly screamed. Herbert launched himself across the bed and rolled to his feet between her and Halsey.
“The mini-fridge behind you, find something to knock him out. We need to sedate him and get him restrained. Move, Molly!”
She broke out of her stupor and pried open the cabinet to find vial after vial of drugs and chemicals that had clearly been stolen from the hospital. She heard something crash behind her, an unholy howl, and then her own yelp rang in her ears as Herbert crashed into her back. She dropped the bottle she’d been holding, crying out as the glass shattered at her feet. Something yanked at her hair, pulling her backward. Just as a strong hand wrapped around her throat, Herbert swung a metal desk lamp past her shoulder. She heard a sickening thunk as the base of the lamp connected, then Halsey’s nails dug deep into her skin before releasing her. Herbert dragged her away, once again placing himself between Molly and Halsey in some strange, uncharacteristic burst of chivalry.
Blood streamed down Halsey’s forehead, partially blinding the man who was literally frothing from the mouth. He snarled, spittle dribbling down his chin, then spun around and ran toward the lone window in the room. Herbert cried out “No!” as Halsey threw himself through the glass and loped out into the night.
“Jesus,” Molly rasped through her abused throat. “What the hell was that?”
Herbert didn’t get a chance to answer as someone began to pound on the door to his flat.
“West? Open up! Can you hear me, man? I’ve called the police!”
He grimaced. “Damn it. We’ll never be able to explain all of this.”
Molly stripped off her latex gloves and tossed them aside, her mind already shifting through options for damage control. “Answer it. Tell them-tell them a strange man knocked on the door asking for help, and then shoved his way in and-and attacked us. Stall them as long as you can. Go!”
He was able to buy her two minutes, during which she hid the remaining syringes of serum and pulled various pieces of equipment from where they’d been stored on shelves hanging on the wall. By the time the concerned upstairs neighbour pushed his way into the room, the desktop had been set up to resemble the sort of chemistry experiment one would find in a first semester class at uni. The average non-scientist would be fooled, but anyone with a background in advanced chemistry would know it was a fake with a simple glance.
Molly sat on the edge of the bed and held a clean flannel to the scratches on her neck.
“What the hell is going on?” The neighbour pushed past West and knelt at her feet. “Miss? Are you all right?”
“Yes, I . . .” She met Herbert’s eyes over the neighbour’s head. He nodded. Molly dropped her eyes and shuddered. “We were working, and that man . . . He must have known we’re medical students and have been working at the hospital . . .”
Herbert picked up the story when she faltered. “He fell into a rage when he couldn’t find the drugs he was looking for. He attacked my associate, and escaped through the window when we managed to fight him off.”
The neighbour finally got a good look at the room, and slowly stood up. “What were you doing in here, West? What is all this crap?”
“She told you, Schneider. We’re med students, and we’ve been working with patients at the hospital since the epidemic started. We’re trying to create an alternative treatment for the virus. A new, more potent vaccine.”
“Here? Isn’t that dangerous? Are we going to get sick?” Schneider jerked back from Molly, as if he were afraid she was contagious.
As police sirens echoed through the streets of Arkham, Molly was once again reminded of that horrible night in the barn and the eerie story in the newspaper about the desecrated grave. What new horror awaited the town with the Halsey creature on the loose?
Both of the local papers were full of sensational accounts of brutal home invasions for the next two weeks. Five homes broken into over a period of twelve days. Only two survivors left to tell tales of a crazed madman with superhuman strength and no mercy. Eleven bodies torn to pieces by human hands.
The papers christened the murderer the Cannibal Killer once a loose lipped constable let slip that certain details from the crime scenes. Soft tissues had been removed from several of the bodies, teeth marks left in flesh, chunks of meat ripped from limbs. The sort of grisly tidbits people loved to read about over their morning pancakes and coffee.
He was eventually apprehended on the fourteenth night of his rampage; spotted in an alley with a dead stray cat dangling from his fist. He ran out of the alley, slamming the policeman into a brick wall hard enough to break his arm. A group of police and volunteers armed with guns and flashlights followed his trail to a forgotten tool shed hidden behind overgrown brush on someone’s property. He’d made a nest for himself; stockpiling rotting meat and piles of discarded clothes and blankets obviously scavenged from dumpsters and trash cans.
Apparently, no one made the connection between the snapping, snarling madman who refused to utter a single coherent word and the recently deceased and well-respected Dr Halsey.
The Cannibal Killer was quickly deemed unfit to stand trial, and was immediately committed to a padded cell at the Arkham Asylum. In a matter of months, he had become the stuff of urban legends.
Rumours spread through the hospital about a misplaced body, but no one in the morgue would admit to anything (and risk losing their jobs). Someone was laid to rest in Halsey’s grave, but Molly knew it hadn’t been the good doctor.
Part 1/ Part 4