by Jerry
I was seeking the laws of causation, the principles which govern the factors of growth, and I had the most sanguine hope that I might thwart nature, which is so lavish with life for the species and niggardly with her allotment to the individual.
At the beginning of my experiments in the field of cytology,[1] I had my laboratory near the outskirts of a small western town. But when some repulsive monstrosities resulted from my first attempts at chemical stimulation of cell growth, I felt it advisable to move to a more isolated district.
My first success was one-sided. My formulae stimulated only certain cell tendencies, the bone-producing ones. The dog into which I had made the injection grew to the size of a pony. Its teeth grew out like tusks, interlocking and protruding beyond the upper and lower jaws, so that I was obliged to give it nourishment through a tube. But all other cell activity remained normal. The muscles, skin and flesh stretched, trying to keep attached to the huge bones. The dog was never able to move after the second week.
But I was greatly encouraged, for I had accomplished cell activity under artificial stimuli.
It was not that I wanted to produce large animal growths; my purpose was to find the secret of cellular division and multiplication, so that I might stimulate or retard it at will.
One does not need a fertile imagination to visualize what might result from perfect artificial cell stimulation. Wounded or diseased tissue could then be extirpated by skilled surgeons and regrown; so also could new teeth, arms, legs—the possibilities were astounding.
I most certainly would have tried other solutions upon my monstrous dog, in the hope of stimulating the growth of flesh to conform to the bones, had it not been for some of my inquisitive and meddlesome neighbors, who reported the dog to the police. In the end I was ordered to kill it.
After that I set about trying to find the flaw in my formulae.
I tried new combinations and the result was as startling as in the case of the dog. In trying to promote the flesh growth, I experimented upon a cat. I had an Idea that my fluid would probably act more uniformly if given internally, than if injected directly into the veins. I poured a small quantity of the solution into a graduating glass. Then I started to put the cat into a common gunny sack, so that I might handle it more easily. But when the feline clawed my arm violently I involuntarily released it. It sprang upon the laboratory table and overturned the solution, and in my effort to save the solution I paid little attention to the cat at that time. I did notice, however, that it shook its head and pawed at its eyes. The chemical was not caustic, but it must have been painful to such tender organs as the eyes, for the cat hissed, and leaped out the open door and was gone. At that time I was out of one of the ingredients for my formulae and had to wire for a refill before experimenting further, for the cat had spilled all that I had.
A FEW days later the cat came in, meowing piteously. Its eyes were large and globular and spread so that they actually touched each other across its face. I was sorry for the cat, for I realized that light was now exceedingly painful to its eyes. The daylight blinded it, so I caught it rather easily, and put it in a dark room. Now I was sure that my new solution was the one I needed to correct the flaw in the first experiment, and I waited eagerly for my refill, hoping to be able to bring the cat’s whole body up to the proportion of its eyes. But the delay was fatal, for in the meantime the cat escaped. Then imagine the presence of a pop-eyed cat running loose through the town, one that hid by day and prowled by night, and peered into windows as it grew hungry for food. The town really became crazed with a superstitious fear by the time it was captured. Eventually the animal was discovered to be a product of my laboratory and I was asked to abandon my experiments or move to a less inhabited location. People did not seem to understand the purpose of my work.
For a few months I remained where I was, inactive but plotting a defiance against the “narrow-minded” citizens. But when I heard of a stone house under the cliffs at the mouth of Deep Canyon, I realized that my work must come before my pride, and so decided to move.
It was an isolated spot and it struck me as ideal for my work. Accordingly, I arranged for a two years’ lease, and had my equipment moved, together with some rabbits, two goats and a horse. The place was some miles off the main highway, and one got to it over a little-used road which wound across bare mesas and down into Deep Canyon.
As soon as I was established in my new quarters, I prepared the two solutions and mixed them, and injected a small quantity into one of the rabbits. For some weeks I thought my experiment was a complete success, and I set down the formulae carefully in my diary so that the discovery should not be lost in case anything happened to me. Then I found there was still a serious error to be overcome. I could start growth but I had no means of stopping it.
For long weeks after that I worked hard trying to find some method of retarding the inevitable cellular multiplication after it had reached the desired growth.
It was about that time that Donald Shane drove out to see how I was faring in my new quarters. Don was a young, likeable chap with whom I had become acquainted in the town which had treated me so sourly. He was boyishly interested in cytology, and with everything that concerned my adventures with the unknown elements. We had formed quite an attachment for each other.
I met him outside the door to welcome him to my hermit quarters. As his car stopped, he leaped out and rushed to me.
“Well, here I am, professor,” he shouted, grinning broadly. “I got to worrying about you away out here by yourself. I was afraid one of your monsters might swallow you. I guess that’s about the only excuse I’ve got for not waiting for an invitation.”
A Spider
I DIDN’T say much as I grasped his hand, but merely mumbled something about how glad I was to have him. But I was really touched that the young man should take so much trouble to come so far to see me. It was no small trip over those wild bare mesas.
I remember now how he held onto my hand, and there was something in his fine gray eyes which gave me the feeling that here was a friend such as few men had; the kind of a friendship that brushed away the twenty years’ difference in our ages.
Don was talented and energetic and there is no prophesying what he might do for the good of the world. He had and still has an insatiable zeal for knowledge, and a courageous and daring persistence that should carry him far—but I am getting ahead of my story.
He followed me into the house, and after we had talked for a while about commonplace things, I took him around. In one corner I showed him a perfectly developed rabbit about the size of a big hog, and told him I would soon have to kill it, for it was growing so fast it would soon be too big for its cage.
Donald was enthusiastic. It was evident he wanted to know my formulae, and seemed afraid something might happen that might cause the loss of my discovery to the world. But at that time I was not ready to give anyone the secret for I wanted first to correct its flaw.
After that trip he came out rather often, and he always displayed a sincere enthusiasm—such as one man rarely betrays for another’s discovery.
My experience with the rabbits proved I needed something smaller to experiment with. I wanted more time to study a specimen before it outgrew my control over it. Donald tried to get me some white mice, but unable-to find any in the town, he ordered two dozen from the east. In the meantime I had to kill the last of my rabbits.
At that time my mind was wholly upon my work and I fretted at the delay in going on with the tests. The night before I had captured a spider, one of the Lycosidae[2] or Salticidae.[3] This species was rare in our canyon, so I had placed it in a large mouth bottle, intending to give it to Donald when he came again, for he was making a collection of spiders.
There the tiling remained sulking in the bottle upon the laboratory shelf. Impulsively one day I picked up my tweezers, uncorking the bottle, I lifted it out. Then I immersed it in my new solution and dropped it back into the bottle, naturally recorking the
bottle. I knew that the spider would be ravenously hungry in less than an hour, so I got the fly swatter and went to the barn on a still hunt for blue-bottle flies. I was still killing them when Donald drove up. He had the white mice and had driven out directly from the express office.
A Disappearance
I TOLD him about the spider and he was anxious to see it, so we went back into the laboratory, taking my small catch of flies. The spider was circling around and around at the bottom of the big bottle, its legs feeling with a ceaseless insistence for some exit from its glass cage. The solution was certainly having a fine effect and the spider must have been very hungry. I opened the bottle and reached my tweezers down for the frantic insect, but it leaped out upon my hand and buried the claw joints of its falcest[4] deep into my flesh and sank its proboscist[5], feeling for blood to satisfy its acute hunger. I threw up my hand involuntarily, as one will, in disgust at seeing it feeding upon my own blood. But I was not afraid of its sting; for I knew enough about spiders to realize that the small amount of poison in its sac would not harm me.
Don laughed boyishly. The spider hung on and I brushed it off against the shelf. It fell behind the table among some demijohns and jugs, and though we searched around for it we could not find it.
“We must find it, professor.” Don insisted, “It’s somewhere around here.”
We hunted methodically, moving every bottle and box in that part of the room; but our search was unrewarded. It was evident the spider had escaped through one of the many cracks about the floor of the old house. Don was more uneasy about it than I. His vivid imagination had it growing to mammoth size and preying over the country side. And, though I knew as well as he that spiders are predaceous, I told him I was certain it would show up around the place before it had grown very large, and then I could either capture or kill it.
Don left the next morning after we had inoculated one of the mice with my new serum. No more had been said about the escaped spider, and Don promised to come back the next Sunday hoping to find the mouse as big as a packing-house hog.
Frankly, I was more upset by the loss of the spider, at that time, than I would admit even to myself. Not that I had Don’s fear that it would run away and spread havoc over the country, for I believed it would be hungry and hang close about the house. There was no food for even a spider on those bare malpais mesas which surrounded the canyon. What did disturb me was the thought that it might crawl into my room and feed upon me during the night. I have a horror of sucking parasites. Further, the doors to my bedroom did not fit well; there were many crevices through which the insect could crawl to pounce upon me as I slept.
I HAD an imaginative and restless night, and little better one the next. On the third day after inoculation, the mouse was big as a wharf rat and eating greedily. It would take a month at least for it to grow as large as the packinghouse hog Don had spoken of. Cellular division is very rapid: its progression may be likened to the fabled price a certain king offered the blacksmith to shoe his horse; one cent for the first nail, two for the second, four for the third, eight for the fourth and so on. However, as the mouse had fewer cells than the rabbit to start with, its growth was much slower.
Knowing this, I supposed that it would take an even longer period for the escaped spider to attain an appreciable size. Imagine my surprise and concern on the fourth day, to find a hideous, short-furred mass in a badger’s hole just outside my door. That hole was eight or ten inches in diameter, yet the thing in it was so large as to fill the hole’s mouth completely. It required a second look for me to accept the mass as the tiny spider I had treated but a few days before.
It must have been very hungry to be running around now. For, though the sun had already gone down, it was quite light in the canyon, and I knew this species to be nocturnal in its habits. I was so startled by the size and ferocious look of the thing, I allowed it to escape from the hole before making the slightest attempt to confine or kill it. Then I had no opportunity at all, for the monster leaped, spreading its eight legs and glaring hungrily at me from each of its eight eyes. It leaped again with such swiftness that I escaped it only by a miracle. I fled into the house and slammed the door after me. Then I heard one of my goats bleating.
Arming myself quickly with a heavy board (I had no gun in the house) I ran outside to kill the thing, for I was in terror of what it might grow into. I might have killed it then, but the goat became panicky and fled with the black mass of the thing sticking down hungrily upon it. The spider’s proboscis sunk into the large vein of the animal’s throat, and its long-jointed legs clutching like the tentacles of a devil fish upon its victim.
I have since tried to account for the extraordinarily rapid growth of that spider. Why should it have developed so much more quickly than the mouse? For a long time I concluded it was because the spider, being a blood-sucking insect, therefore assimilated its nourishment more quickly than the mouse. Since then I have arrived at another conclusion. I cannot prove my theory, and anyone is at liberty to advance his own explanation for the differences in rates of growth. My own is that the spider, although the smaller, has far more cells than the rat, more even than a cow or other brutes, but simply that the cells are smaller. This would give a larger number of cells to start dividing and they might swell with blood much as a tick does. This theory is partly substantiated by the fact that the spider has four times as many eyes and twice as many legs as the rodent, indicating its whole organism is much more complicated. Be that as it may, the unexpected rapidity of the spider’s growth and the fact that I did not keep a gun upon the place was to wreck the whole scheme and structure of my scientific career.
At the Door
I SPENT two days searching for that spider, armed with nothing but a board for a shield and a stout stick for a weapon. I found no trace of it until the third morning when I started early on my continued search. Out by the barn was a ghastly bulk of evidence indicating that the thing had not quitted the place. I was disquieted, even alarmed by the exhibition of the destructive power of that predaceous monster. For stretched out I saw Barney, my horse, lying dead in its stall, shrunken and withered as though it had been drained of every drop of its blood and moisture. Here and there upon its body were deep incisions where the big spider had buried the hooks of its falces into the hide. The depth and width of the incisions told me plainly that no life would be safe, either human or animal, while the spider was at large.
I knew there was no time to be lost; I must hunt the thing down immediately and kill it. It would grow larger and more dangerous each day.
Yet the stick and plank I carried about were ridiculously ineffective weapons against anything of the proportions implied by those wounds.
Don had promised to come out again the next morning and he might, as he occasionally did, bring along his 30-30 Winchester rifle for a shot at stray lobo wolves or coyotes upon the mesa. I decided to keep to the house that day and wait for Don, hoping he would bring along the gun. If he did not bring it I would, of course, ask him to go back for men and guns at once. I determined to be ruthless now and get the thing killed as soon as possible. The way the thing had leaped at me; the shrunken horse and the size of the dark hole where the proboscis had entered its neck to drain the warm blood from the beating heart, all put a queer, chilly fear upon me.
I went back into the house and locked my doors. I spent the rest of the day miserably and all night my imagination played with the ghastly thought of what the monster could do should; it kill me before I had time to warn Don or the surrounding ranches. I knew that when it could find no more food about the place it would steal away into the night to pounce upon man or beast.
Soon after dark I heard it drop to the roof from the canyon wall. It had a scratchy crawl as it crept over the flat top of the house; and the timbers creaked and groaned. It seemed lightfooted but very heavy. Then I heard it leap to the yard.
After a moment when I heard the goat bleat pitifully, I poked the four hundred-foot b
eam of my flashlight through the window and searched the yard, but the thing leaped away from the blade of light and took the goat with it. A few minutes later I heard the rats squealing as their cages were smashed.
After that all was silent for a long time, and then the thing seemed to smell or sense my own warm blood. It came close to my bedroom door which opened directly outside. I leaped from my bed and grabbed the stout stick I had brought into the room with me, and turned my flash upon the door. The beast scratched and pried. The claws of its falces crept in under the door, five or six of them at a time, as the thing rasped heavily and the thick oak door creaked under the strain.
It kept that up most of the night and I was glad for the coming of day when the bright clear sky and the new sun drove it back to the cliffs. I went outside and found the hulk of the goat and the mice, but otherwise everything seemed calm and peaceful. There was not a breath of wind or a speck of cloud.
About noon Don came and I rushed over to his car.
“Did you bring your gun?” I asked before he had stopped.
He stared at me in alarm.
“Then you haven’t found it.”
“Great Lord, Don! It’s horrible!”
“You mean it’s gone?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I think it’s hiding somewhere up in the cliff.”
“How big is it now?” he asked.
“It must be as large as a calf; I haven’t seen it for two days, but it was very heavy upon the roof.”
Don dragged out his 30-30 and worked the lever; then he looked over the mechanism carefully and filled the chamber with cartridges. This completed, he turned to me and smiled.
