‘I am here to help you,’ I said.
‘You shot Fergus,’ an unseen voice protested.
‘Only in the shoulder, now carry this girl to the kitchen.’
‘You’ll shoot us.’
‘No I won’t.’
‘We’re going to call the coppers.’
‘He’ll recover.’
‘You still shot him.’
“At that point, the unfortunate Fergus awoke, and bestirred himself, mumbling in his incoherent Irish brogue. A wave of relief passed through the crowd.
‘You see, I told you he'd recover. When I leave this place I shall take Franklin with me, and I shall employ him in my household as a coachman and he shall never want again. I so solemnly swear.’ The crowd was greatly moved by this fine promise. ‘Now bring the girl to the kitchen. I shall follow!’
“So with the lack of efficiency that is the hallmark of the Irish race we made our way to the greasy, soot-blackened kitchen of this hellhole. The filthy animal who called herself Kathy was fully conscious by the time we laid her on the rough, splintery trestle that served as a kitchen table, and despite my instructions to the contrary, she attempted to rise.
‘You there,’ I said to my guide.
‘Mrs. O’Hanlon,’ she said.
‘Yes, make this beast hold still,’ I said. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’
“So saying I tossed her a penny and she raised a wooden ladle and delivered Kathy a great rap on the head that dropped her flat upon the table. Flush with success she rapped the unconscious Kathy on the head again, then raised her arm for another blow.
‘That will do, Mrs. O’Hanlon. Now boil some water and remove these rouges from the room. I require utmost privacy for the acts I am about to perform.’
‘I rapped ‘er two times,’ said Mrs. O’Hanlon. ‘Yew owe me another penny.’
‘Very well, you beast,’ and I threw the penny into the hall. The disgusting woman ran after it, fighting for it with her fellow tenants as wild pigs will do battle with one another over a small helpless child, giving me the opportunity to close the plank door and secure the baling wire hook upon its latch. I pulled my leather work gloves from my coat and set to work.
“I shall spare all of you a retracing of the gruesome geography of this unfortunate mongrel’s body, but there were several points of interest: a strong, greasy smell of pork was upon her; her skin was unnaturally smooth and clean around her most animalistic regions; tiny bruises covered the majority of her thighs, both inside and out; and needle scratches were much about her neck, ankles, wrists and stomach.
“Finished with my examination I covered the girl and unlatched the kitchen door. The populace of the house stood outside in the dark, sooty hallway and they turned their hairy, blank faces towards me as I spoke.
‘There are interesting things in this house, for a man of learning and education such as myself, and I wish to study them at my leisure. I shall rent a room in which to work. Here, old crone,’ I said, passing a dime to Mrs. O’Hanlon. ‘Take my lodgings out of this.’
“A murmur went through the dense knot of inebriates as the coin flashed in the firelight from the kitchen.
‘I do not want any obstacles to my work, nor do I intend to smooth my stay here with liberal dispensations of currency. I am a doctor and I am here to help you. It is in your own best interests to give me your full cooperation. Do I make myself clear?’
“The murmuring turned dark and ugly.
‘What’s 'e say then?’
‘E’s not going to pay us?’
“The largest, and ugliest, of the crowd stepped close to me, pushing me back with his puffed-out chest.
‘Look ‘ere. The way we see it, yoar our boarder and you owe each of us a coin like the one yew gave to Mrs. O’Hanlon ‘ere.’
‘I do not.’
‘Yew do.’
‘I’m warning you, Mick, don’t put me in a position where I must do you harm.’
‘What’d yew call me?’
‘Stand down, sir,’ I said firmly.
‘I’ll stand down yoar arse,’ he roared.
“And so I shot him.
“He went down like a load of coal and the crowd rushed forward like a surging wave to tend to their injured companion.
‘You’ll notice that I have only wounded him in the leg,’ I pointed out.
“It was Mrs. O’Hanlon who finally pushed herself forward, and shook her gnarled and crooked finger in my face.
‘I expect yew’ll be givin’ ‘im a job in yer house, next, sir.’
‘Oh yes, he shall be employed as a footman and I shall pay him three dollars a week.’
“An admiring murmur rippled through the gaggle of miscreants, but did not take hold. Their eyes were still hard.
‘And I shall give him free room and board.’
“With that the floodgates opened and they clapped their bleeding companion on the back in a congratulatory fashion which caused him to grin through his bloody teeth. Somehow he managed to smile up at me.
‘God bless ‘ew, sir.’
‘Nonsense, you’re a hardy fellow. You shall fit right in with my staff. Now, if there's nothing further to discuss, I wish to establish an examining room here by the kitchen fire and examine each of you in a scientific manner.’
“Hours later, my joints stiffened with exhaustion, my fingers and ears grown cold, two pairs of leathern examining gloves soiled beyond reclamation and burnt in the fire, I looked up from my last subject to see that night had fallen on the house as thoroughly as if it had been submerged in a brackish lagoon. Unwilling to die for science, I rejected Mrs. O’Hanlon’s offer of a bowl of greasy water dotted with floating gristle, and retired to my room upstairs where I pored over my notes late into the evening.
“My clear penmanship combined with my colorful writing style made the situation instantly clear to me: many of the pathetic residents of this overgrown hovel shared similar symptoms. The men bore bruises around their nether regions. The few women — many of whom had to be sluiced with water and have their matted hair removed with a knife before I could even determine their gender or age — bore the same symptoms, but no scratches were found on any but tiny Kathy. Nor were the unspeakably animalistic regions of the other women as clean, or as bruised, as Kathy’s.
“I sat back and lit a cigar while pondering this enigma, and realized that I still did not know the identity of the Harry whom Kathy had mentioned. Determined to spend not a minute more in this stinking pile than I must, I launched myself into the bowels of the house to find Kathy and question her severely. To this end I brought with me a short length of leather filled with shot to make a sturdy yard-long cudgel. A crude weapon, but an essential diagnostic tool.
“The hour was late and the sound of drunken squabbles echoed throughout the house. Suddenly, an increase in the smell of rotten garbage informed me that the kitchen was near, and from behind its door I could hear a wet sucking sound. On stealthy feet I approached and peered around the jamb to be greeted by a most un-Christian sight.”
“What was it, man!” said Drake.
“It was the young ragamuffin, Kathy, in a state of complete dishabille. She was standing next to the kitchen table, illuminated faintly by the orange glow of the dying hearthfire. And here is where this story takes a turn towards the grotesque, gentlemen. In her hand she was holding a cake of bacon fat and she was slathering her body with it. Rubbing the greasy block over all her limbs and torso, and around her darkest unspeakables. She performed this activity with no small measure of excitement, briskly and sensuously lathering her body.
“I was struck dumb, but had the presence of mind to secure my grip upon the cudgel. She soon finished her oleaginous chore and dressed herself lightly in rags. My heart leapt into my throat as she moved directly towards the doorway where I lay watching. In one deft move, I sprang into the deepest shadows. Kathy walked out of the door, looking neither left nor right, and quickly made for the interior of the hous
e. I followed her as best I could. It was a task of no small difficulty to keep her in sight as she darted through the dim interior of the sleeping ghetto as if she had been born there.
“Our journey came to an end at the suicide's dormer of Dr. Hagedorn. The girl plunged into the room and closed the door behind her. I pressed my eye immediately to the keyhole, and through it I observed the mean apartment in which this girl was conducting her rendezvous with the unknown.”
“What was she doing?” asked Lewis, unable to contain himself.
“She was undraped. Standing in the center of the room, lit only by a cheap tallow candle which cast its sickly yellow glow upon her skin, which was shining brightly with bacon grease. She turned herself this way and that, as if dancing to unheard music, exposing every inch of her flesh to the moon’s blind eye. Little sighs and moans escaped her parted lips, and I quickly realized that she was not alone.”
“Not alone?!?” cried Drake.
“Not alone,” continued Mortimer, “for on her flesh, her resilient youthful flesh, were indentations. They moved with a purpose and in an orderly path from her neck and shoulders to her back and stomach and then to her bestial protuberances. It was as if an invisible hand was kneading her flesh like dough. Where it moved, the bacon grease disappeared as if it was being pulled into the aether by whatever invisible force roamed freely over her body. Hours passed before she was deposited in a limp heap on the floor. She was panting and gasping, quite nearly unconscious, as dawn’s watery light crept in.
“Desperate to interrogate her I flung open the door and knelt by her side.
‘Kathy! Kathy!’ I cried, roughly shaking her shoulders. Her eyes, half-closed and glazed with a lustful exhaustion, could not focus on me, but I snapped her head to and fro until she turned it in my direction and bestowed me with a sickly, satiated smile.
‘That was Harry,’ she sighed, then dropped into unconsciousness. Unwilling to be discovered like this yet again, I left her on the floor and retired to my room to record the nauseating events of the evening.
“The next day, I made my way to the kitchen. No one was present except what I took to be the normal human garbage, sucking great portions of rough barley porridge into their horrible maws. I enquired as to Kathy's whereabouts, and after enduring many lewd and suggestive innuendoes, I was informed that she was in an undisclosed location doing piecework. Hours later she returned to the Weeping House, her fingertips red and sore. Without giving her a moment in which to order her thoughts I pounced. Using logic and reason I soon had her isolated in my rooms, sobbing and in no condition to dissemble.
‘Kathy,’ I said, ‘I saw you in the kitchen last night, and I saw you go to Dr. Hagedorn's room. Do you remember this?’
“She shook her head.
‘Liar! You told me that you had seen Harry, and that he had assaulted you. You smeared yourself with grease and performed lewd gyrations.’
“Her beady eyes, sharpened with tears, fixed me with a wanton look.
‘Did yew like seeing that, sir?’
‘My god, no. It was like watching animals rutting in the barnyard. However, as a doctor I was compelled to observe it carefully.’
‘Yew liked it, dincha’, sir?’
‘I want to know who Harry is, and why you smeared yourself with bacon grease, and exactly what was going on in that room. I want to know all of these things, and you will reveal them to me posthaste!’
“My thundering put her in a pensive state of mind. She bit her lips, she twisted her hands, she squirmed in her chair. Finally, she took a great breath and spoke:
‘I don't know.’
‘Oh for the love of God! Are you a sentient being? Shall you go from the cradle to the grave without even the simplest perception of your surroundings? Tell me what is happening here or I shall beat it from you.’
‘It’s ‘arry, sir. ‘e likes lickin’ the grease offar me. It tastes good to ‘im, sir. Please don't beat me, sir. I’m tellin’ the truth, so ‘elp me.’
“I looked into her dumb eyes and realized that she was telling the truth, but I decided to thrash her anyway to confirm my hypothesis. After a few minutes’s frenzy I sat down in a chair.
‘Kathy, I now believe that you are telling the truth,’ I said, panting. ‘So you must help me to capture this Harry.’
‘ ‘e won’t like that, sir.’
‘No, I suspect he won’t. What is he? Does he speak to you?’
‘ ‘e whispers things in my ear when ‘e’s lickin’ off the grease, sir, but I canna be sure if I’m hearin’ things or if ‘e’s really sayin’ them.’
‘Let’s assume that he is saying them. What is he saying?’
“She told me, and I blushed.
‘That’s quite enough of that. How long have you been visiting Harry?’
‘Quite some months now, sir. ‘e leaves me very tired.’
‘And are you the only one who has relations with Harry?’
‘ ‘e tells me that ‘e goes after all the boarders — th’ menfolk an’ th’ women. But I’m ‘is favorite. ’at’s what ‘e tells me.’
‘And what do you think Harry is?’
‘I t’ink ‘e’s a ghost, sir. Only…’
‘Yes? Speak up.’
‘Only ‘e’s very hairy and I dinna’ know that ghosts were an ‘airy lot.’
“I had never heard of this before, yet it stands to reason that if an individual possessed a large quantity of hair in their life, then in death their mind might shape their ectoplasmic form so as to resemble hair in order that they might feel as if they were still bound to this earthly plane. A paper on the phenomena of post-mortem hair would be most informative and educational.
‘May I go now, sir?’
‘Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere, Kathy. You're going to get some rest, and tonight we shall capture this Hairy Ghost.’
‘I t’ink ‘arry will not like ‘at, sir.’
‘I tend to think the same. However, I am a man of science and am disinclined to allow the objections of others to stay my hand.’
“I dismissed her, drawing forth a promise to meet that evening in the kitchen where she would apply the bacon grease and we would go together to dear, late Hagedorn’s room to speak severely with Harry, the Hairy Ghost.
“That night, after the house was asleep, I dragged the protesting Kathy out of bed and brought her to the kitchen. There she coated her body with bacon grease while I averted my eyes. She warmed to her task, and I had to walk quickly to keep pace with her as she practically ran to the room designated for her ectoplasmic assignation.
“She proceeded into the room and stood in an over-eager attitude in the middle of the rude apartment, whilst I lurked outside the door, cudgel in hand. I did not have long to wait before the noxious spirit made its presence know.
“The first sign was a slight glassiness to the girl’s eyes, followed by a line of spittle that appeared to run from the corner of her mouth. I swiftly noticed the telltale imprints of the invisible form pressed upon her flesh and soon it was making its presence known most gratifyingly. Her debauched sighs and carnal moans merely tempered my resolve, and I tightened my grip on the leather cudgel in my hand. I waited until things had proceeded to a point most inappropriate before my sense of decency recoiled and I was propelled into action.
“I leapt into the room with a cry, and the spirit instantly ceased its mauling of the girl’s nether regions. Sensing the phantasm’s hesitation I brought my cudgel down on the area which I judged to contain the invisible beast, and I was rewarded with a tactile shudder as my blow struck home. And then several things happened at once.
“Kathy dropped to the floor, insensate; an unearthly cry pierced my ears; and immediately the spirit manifested itself. And its appearance turned my soul to ice.
“There, writhing in lurid agony upon the floor was a short creature, perhaps two feet tall. It was covered with red, wire-like hair on every inch of its exposed flesh. A bristling beard sprung fro
m its acne-scarred face, as did a pair of bushy eyebrows, and long tufts of untended hair, the same shocking red color, unfurled from its nostrils and its ears. On its head it wore a green cap, and a stained leather apron covered its body. Its feet were shod in shiny leather shoes with bright brass buckles, and it was, upon first glance, a man. A small man. A small man with red hair and green clothes.
“Judging by my surroundings, and the ethnic swamp in which these people lived I should have guessed earlier that what plagued this house was nothing less than the Cluricaune, the Lurikeen, the Irish blight, the potato homunculus: the Leprechaun. This randy, common fairy had been sating its lust on the good, albeit disgusting and filthy, people of this boarding house; depositing in them the seed of its drunken lusts, and taking from them their vital fluids, as well as the bacon grease lapped from the flesh of young Kathy.
“The Leprechaun growled, and launched itself at my knees. I beat at it with my cudgel, but the little demon was too devilishly quick for me. My center of gravity is quite high, which those who know me will admit makes me an exceptional dancer, but it is a distinct disadvantage when doing battle with Leprechauns, gnomes, or Black Forest dwarves, all of whose low stature gives them the gravitational advantage. The creature upended me with its attack on my lower body and I sprawled across the floor.
“It crawled up my trousers as I lay prostrate and snatched and grabbed at my johnny, attempting in a stupor to unbutton my trousers, a most debased scheme flashing in its bloodshot eyes; foul, Gaelic mumblings dribbling from its thick, chapped lips. I threw the hideous thing against a nearby wall, but immediately it was back upon me, and I had to beat it off with my cudgel, dealing myself several glancing blows in the process.
“Our battle raged on and the sound of splintering wood echoed throughout the house and drew a crowd of onlookers. As this sleep-addled throng pushed into the doorway I managed to stagger to my feet and struck at the leaping Leprechaun as it ran from me. It pulled out its prodigious member and urinated at me from a great distance, spattering my clothing with its foul-smelling bile. I lashed out at it with my cudgel, smashing the floor, and delivering not a few blows to its johnny, legs, back and head.
Dead Leprechauns & Devil Cats Page 2
