by Graeme Davis
The next day Mr. Townsend went to the real estate agent who had sold him the house.
“It’s no use,” he said, “I can’t stand it. Sell the house for what you can get. I’ll give it away rather than keep it.”
Then he added a few strong words as to his opinion of parties who sold him such an establishment. But the agent pleaded innocent for the most part.
“I’ll own I suspected something wrong when the owner, who pledged me to secrecy as to his name, told me to sell that place for what I could get, and did not limit me. I had never heard anything, but I began to suspect something was wrong. Then I made a few inquiries and found out that there was a rumour in the neighbourhood that there was something out of the usual about that vacant lot. I had wondered myself why it wasn’t built upon. There was a story about it’s being undertaken once, and the contract made, and the contractor dying; then another man took it and one of the workmen was killed on his way to dig the cellar, and the others struck. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I never believed much in that sort of thing anyhow, and then, too, I couldn’t find out that there had ever been anything wrong about the house itself, except as the people who had lived there were said to have seen and heard queer things in the vacant lot, so I thought you might be able to get along, especially as you didn’t look like a man who was timid, and the house was such a bargain as I never handled before. But this you tell me is beyond belief.”
“Do you know the names of the people who formerly owned the vacant lot?” asked Mr. Townsend.
“I don’t know for certain,” replied the agent, “for the original owners flourished long before your or my day, but I do know that the lot goes by the name of the old Gaston lot. What’s the matter? Are you ill?”
“No; it is nothing,” replied Mr. Townsend. “Get what you can for the house; perhaps another family might not be as troubled as we have been.”
“I hope you are not going to leave the city?” said the agent, urbanely.
“I am going back to Townsend Centre as fast as steam can carry me after we get packed up and out of that cursed house,” replied Mr. David Townsend.
He did not tell the agent nor any of his family what had caused him to start when told the name of the former owners of the lot. He remembered all at once the story of a ghastly murder which had taken place in the Blue Leopard. The victim’s name was Gaston and the murderer had never been discovered.
AN UNSCIENTIFIC STORY
by Louise J. Strong
1903
For all its ability to chill a reader’s blood, Frankenstein is more science fiction than horror, and the same is true of this next tale. Once again, a scientist probing the nature of life has cause to regret his researches; but where Mary Shelley’s classic tale is unrelieved Gothic horror and doom, Louise Strong’s take on the theme is lighter of touch, and as apt to raise a wry smile as a shudder.
The story first appeared in Cosmopolitan—a magazine with a much more general readership in those days—in January 1903. Some have seen it as an allegory, reminding men that the creation of life is the domain of women, while to others it is an admonition of those men who would rather bury themselves in their work than deal with their wives, families, and social obligations.
On a more superficial level, the story is reminiscent of Mickey Mouse’s dilemma when he played “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in Disney’s classic movie Fantasia. The professor’s creations reproduce uncontrollably, ask inconvenient questions, and demand things of him that he would prefer not to give. To many fathers of that time—and afterward—children had many of the same disquieting properties.
Louise Jackson Strong is little remembered today. She wrote short stories and novels, including Legs for the Chiefty, a children’s novel published in 1911, and The Swoop of the Week, or, The Treasure at “Ma’s Legacy.” According to the website of her great-grandson, artist George Asdel, she also composed music.
He sat, tense and rigid with excitement, expectancy, incredulity. Was it possible, after so many years of study, effort and failure? Could it be that at last success rewarded him? He hardly dared to breathe lest he should miss something of the wonderful spectacle. How long he had sat thus he did not know; he had not stirred for hours—or was it days?—except to adjust the light by means of the button under his hand.
His laboratory, at the foot of his garden, was lighted day and night in the inner room (his private workshop) with electricity, and no one was admitted but by especial privilege.
Some things he had accomplished for the good of mankind, more he hoped to accomplish, but most of all he had been searching for, and striving to create, the life-germ. He had spent many of his years and much of his great wealth in unsuccessful experiments. He had met ridicule and unbelief with Stoical indifference, upheld by the conviction that he would finally prove the truth of his theories. Over and over again, defeat and disappointment had dashed aside his hopes; over and over again, he had rallied and gone on with dogged persistence.
And now! He could not realize it yet! He leaned back, and clasped his hands over his closed eyes. Perhaps he had imagined it—his over-strained nerves having deceived him. Was it an optical illusion? It had happened before. There had been times when he felt that he had torn aside the veil, and grasped the secret, only to find that a few abortive movements were all that existed of his creation. In sudden haste he turned to the glass again.
A—h! He drew a long breath that was almost a shriek. It was not illusion of sight, no delusion of his mind. The creature—it was plainly a living creature—had grown, and taken shape, even in those few moments. It lived! It breathed! It moved! And his the power that had given it life! His breath came in gasps, his heart beat in great throbs, and his blood surged through his veins.
But soon his scientific sense asserted itself, and he carefully and minutely studied the prodigy. Its growth was phenomenal; the rapidity of its expansion was past belief. It took form, developed limbs, made repeated attempts at locomotion, and finally drew itself out of the glass receptacle of cunningly compounded liquid in which it had been created.
At that the learned professor leaped to his feet in a transport of exultation. The impossible had been achieved! Life! Life, so long the mystery and despair of man, had come at his bidding. He alone of all humanity held the secret in the hollow of his hand. He plunged about the room in a blind ecstasy of triumph. Tears ran unknown and unheeded down his cheeks. He tossed his arms aloft wildly, as if challenging Omnipotence itself. At that moment, he felt a very god! He could create worlds, and people them! A burning desire seized him to rush out, and proclaim the deed from the housetops, to the utter confounding of brother scientists and the theologians.
He dropped, panting, into his chair, and strove to collect and quiet his mind. Not yet the time to make known the incredible fact. He must wait until full development proved that it was indeed a living creation—with animal nature and desires.
It had lain, quivering, on the marble slab, breathing regularly and steadily, making aimless movements. The four limbs, that had seemed but swaying feelers, grew into long, thin arms and legs, with claw-like hands, and flat, six-toed feet. It lost its spherical shape; an uneven protuberance, in which was situated the breathing-orifice, expanded into a head with rudimentary features. He took his spatula, and turned it over. It responded to the touch with an effort to rise; the head wobbled weakly, and two slits opened in the dim face, from which looked out dull, fishy eyes. It grew! Each moment found it larger, more developed; yet he could no more see the growth than he could see the movement of the hour-hand of his watch.
“It is probably of the simian order,” he made memorandum. “Ape-like. Grows a strange caricature of humanity.”
An aperture appeared in the oblong head, forming a lipless mouth below the lump of a nose; large ears stood out on either side.
The caricature-like resemblance to humanity increased as it grew older. It crawled a space, sat up, made many futile efforts and at last succeeded in standing.
It took a few staggering steps. It made wheezy, puffing sounds in its motions, and drivelled idiotically. Finally it squatted down on its haunches, the knobby knees drawn up against the rotund paunch, the hands grasping the ankles.
“It grew!”
“The attitude of primitive man,” the Professor muttered.
For long it crouched thus, increasing in size, and beginning to display a crude intelligence; looking about with eyes that evidently saw—noted things: the arc of light, the glistening glass and brass, and most of all, himself.
It had as yet made no manifestation that indicated desire; but soon a fly, alighting near it, was snatched up and thrust into its mouth with incredible quickness and an eager, sucking noise. At this expression of animalism, the Professor’s hand shook so violently that he could scarcely record the movement.
Nervousness only! He would not admit to himself a feeling of startled misgiving. He was worn out. For days he scarcely tasted food, and he had dozed only at long intervals. A half-hour’s sleep would refresh him, and the creature could not change much in that time, for its bodily development seemed nearly completed. His head dropped on his arms, and he slumbered profoundly.
He was awakened by a sense of suffocation and a gnawing at his neck; he started up with a cry, pushing off a clammy mass that lay heavy on the upturned side of his face. Merciful heaven! It was the beast attacking him; its teeth, which he had not before discovered, seeking his throat!
It lay where he had thrown it, its long tongue licking the shapeless mouth, its eyes hot with an awakened bloodthirstiness. In a wave of repulsion, he struck it savagely.
He was appalled at what he had done; he seemed to have committed a crime in striking it.
He went to the anteroom, where fresh food was left for him daily, and selected different sorts, questioning whether any would or could satisfy a creature which had been brought into existence in such a marvellous manner.
It met him, with alert expectancy, and ate, with a ravenous gluttony that was loathsome, of all that he put before it.
Apparently it possessed all the animal senses; all had been tested but hearing. He spoke a few words in an ordinary tone; it lifted its face, with an expression of inquiry.
He paced the room in perplexed thought. Could it possess mental faculties beyond those of an ordinary animal? He had not hoped to produce anything but a lower form of life. Never had he imagined a creature of his creating, with consciousness of its existence; that was a responsibility for which he was not prepared.
Exhausted in body and mind, he locked the creature in the inner room, and threw himself on the couch in his study for a night’s rest.
The creature was standing when he entered, next morning, and, stepping toward him, it correctly repeated every word he had spoken the night before, as if reciting a lesson, showing an eager expectancy of approval.
“Good heavens!” ejaculated the Professor, reeling against the door.
“Good heavens!” it echoed, its small orbs sparkling.
He sprang toward it as if to force back this evidence of intelligent reason; it fled, keeping the table between them; brought to bay, it dropped on its knees, and put up beseeching hands, mumbling a prayer—a prayer from its own inner consciousness!
Aghast, terrified, he gazed at it, tremblingly assuring himself that many animals made imitative sounds—parrots readily learned human speech.
The curious creature had shown no bodily growth for several days; it had perhaps reached maturity, and would soon show signs of decay. Already a lump had appeared on its breast, which it picked at uneasily; he must not much longer delay exhibiting it. Yet he hesitated to do so until he was more certain concerning it.
He tested its power with a multitude of words that it not only easily repeated but retained perfectly, muttering them over, forming and reforming a number of proper sentences with various definitions, which it seemed to submit, in comparison, to some inner or waking intelligence.
Once, after long muttering, it came to him, with timid perplexity, and put the astonishing question: “What am I?” And when he answered not for amazement the poor creature wandered about, repeating the words. Like one rallying from long unconsciousness, it seemed seeking a dimly remembered clue to its identity.
Fear clutched him! Impossible! Oh, impossible that he had a human soul imprisoned in such hideous form! A soul that would, by and by, fully awake to the wrong he had done it! No! No! He spurned the thought as a wild fancy. But even so—he had done nothing unlawful. Man was free to use his intellect to the utmost. He had brought into existence a living creature, but he was not responsible farther than the body. To the Keeper of souls be the rest.
Possibly some long-disembodied spirit, grown wise in its freedom, animated the creature, and its full development would open a channel for such knowledge as the earth had never before known, and the world would ring with his name, and honour and fame be his! Again he exulted while making record of its mental unfoldment, which was as rapid as had been the development of its uncouth body, and with much the same distortion. It recognized him as its creator, did him reverence, and obeyed his commands.
The lump, which he had taken for a symptom of decay, assumed the appearance of a large scale, and dropped off. When he would have examined it more closely, the creature put a hand over it, looking up at him with a show of hostility and cunning, for the first time disregarding his command; and he would not enforce obedience.
He was confounded next morning to find that the scale had developed into a second creature! About it the first hovered with evident joy and pride, inviting his attention to it with the gushing babble of a child. He had not imagined it possessed the power of generation, but here was reproduction with an ease and rapidity beyond any creature of like size in existence.
The second one, fed and taught by the first, matured in body and mind more quickly; and they invented or discovered a speech of their own—a strange jargon (of which he could make nothing) by which they exchanged thoughts and conversed, and which he tried in vain to help them reduce to a written language, through which he might obtain the wisdom for which he hoped.
And reproduction went on; while he subjected them to many tests to determine their nature.
As they grew in age and numbers, they began to evince for him less reverence; and an animosity appeared, that burst out at times in a horrible flow of invectives—a mingling of their own strange speech and his.
When he did not comply with their desires, they wailed piteously—demanding: “Why?” “Why”—or hurled blasphemous defiance at him.
These things convinced him that they were a lower order of humanity, possessing souls; for no creature but man observed, with like or dislike, the bodily form in which its life was manifested. He was torn and racked with dread and a crushing sense of guilt and responsibility. It was as if he had started an avalanche that might overwhelm the world.
Already they had become a heavy burden to him. He was obliged to make nightly visits to the markets for food to satisfy their rapacity—food which he flung to them as to so many dogs, and which they pounced upon and fought over, with curses at each other’s greed. Yet at a word of reproof from him, they banded solidly against him, each for all.
All complacency over his handiwork had vanished; never could he bring himself to exhibit to mortal eye these repulsive creatures. His only thought was the unanswerable question: what should he do with them? On this he brooded continually, reaching no conclusion because he could no more contemplate destroying creatures possessing human intelligence, however distorted and degraded, than he could have taken the life of a born idiot or one insane.
In his absorption he neglected to lock the door one day, and roused to find them swarming in his study. Besides the high skylight there was one large window, securely closed by a heavy inside shutter, above which was a long narrow opening admitting air. Some of them, clinging to shutter and casement, and uttering low, sharp cries, like wolves scenting their prey, had cli
mbed to the opening, and were peering out with gloating eyes. They clawed and jibbered, with hot tongues lolling eagerly, the saliva dripping from their ugly mouths—hideous pictures of unsatiated animal appetite.
And what was it that so aroused their ghoulish lust? His little children playing on the lawn, their innocent voices rising like heavenly music in contrast to the hellish sounds within. A rippling laugh floated on the air, and the creatures’ eagerness increased to a fury; with tooth and nail they strove to enlarge the opening, not heeding his horrified commands.
In a frenzy of rage, he snatched an iron rod, and swept them to the floor, driving them with blows and maledictions to their room. They fled before his wrath, but when he turned his back to lock the door, they flung themselves upon him, with desperate attempts to reach his throat.
After a sharp battle, he beat them off, and sent them huddling and whimpering to a corner. “Monsters! Monsters!” he cried, pale with the discovery. “Monsters, who would prey on human flesh! What a curse I have called forth! It is of the devil!”
“Devil; devil; yes, devil,” one muttered, a leering and malicious knowledge gleaming in its oblique eyes.
In that moment he saw his duty—all hesitation vanished, and he made up his mind—they must be destroyed effectually, and he could not survive the destruction.
By that occult sense or power they possessed, which was beyond anything he had ever found in man, they divined his decision almost as soon as it was formed, and prostrated themselves with cries of mercy. They hastened to lay at his feet propitiatory offerings of their belongings: cards, pencils, picture-books—all that he had provided for their amusement and instruction—entreating him for life, the life that he himself had given them.
Their prayers and offerings rejected, the creatures became his open enemies. Intent on escaping from their prison, his every entrance was a battle with their persistent efforts to gain control of the door, the only outlet to the room.
