by Jay Barnson
But, the images inevitably darkened as her rosy cheeks paled and the sickness overtook her, a sickness for which there was no cure. During her days of suffering he had cursed science, cursed medicine, and cursed himself for being unable to heal her. Then, more woeful visions would rise. Memories of her recovery and hope, followed by confusion and grief, would torment him.
One evening, just after the red sunset surrendered behind the dark city skyline, the rattle of the lock and creak of his prison door woke Marcus from his restless pondering. A silhouetted figure thanked someone beyond the entrance as it accepted a chair. Squinting in the light of the oil lamp, he watched the small man carefully position the chair across from him. Otto settled himself into his seat and set the lamp on the floor.
Marcus rose to a seated position while Otto removed his bowler hat and ran a hand across his bald scalp.
“Dr. Wells, why were you on the train from Edinburgh to London three months ago?” Solemn and clearly fatigued, Otto looked more at the floor than at Marcus.
“Please, sir, I have done nothing wrong. Why are you keeping me here?” Marcus begged.
“I told you, it is for your own protection,” Otto replied, unmoved by his pleas. “And it also happens that you are the only link I can find to the series of murders that started in your hospital at the time of your return to London.”
“It is not me, I swear it. I am a physician. I am not the Ripper.”
“Yes, of course,” Otto snapped. “You’ve not progressed nearly far enough for that. Now, answer my question, Dr. Wells. Why were you on that train?”
“Progressed? What are you talking about?” Marcus’ pulse increased. But the strange man merely continued in his impatient glare and waited for an answer to his question.
“I . . . I was returning from visiting family,” Marcus muttered. He refused to give the details of that mournful journey, least of all to the man responsible for his bondage.
“And you traveled alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see anything unusual on that train?”
“No.” Anger began to boil in Marcus at his inhospitable treatment.
He set his jaw and looked away, as a heavy sigh escaped his interrogator. A scuffing on the floor surprised Marcus when a chair was set down by his side.
“I will leave this with you. I am aware that this situation is less than ideal, but we are working under extreme circumstances.”
The strange man paused in his trite apology, and the shadows in the room raced about as he lifted the lamp off the floor. Marcus squinted in the glaring light as Otto’s face came so near that Marcus could feel his breath on his cheek.
Otto spoke absently while inspecting him, just as Chin had done many times before. “Pray that we find this beast quickly, that we may move you to more suitable holdings.” He paused in his examination. “Curses, we may not have time for—”
A solid uppercut nearly knocked Otto off his feet as three semesters of boxing at university proved their worth. Jumping to his feet, Marcus rushed in to follow up with a blow to the temple. He put all of his strength into the thrust. But instead of the solid impact of knuckle against skull, his fist met the fleshy palm and firm grip of Otto’s hand. Still, the smaller man slid back along the floor from the force of the punch. Marcus’ own strength surprised him, yet Otto, somehow, held both his footing and his viselike grip on Marcus’ fist.
“Very little time indeed . . .” Otto gritted through clenched teeth.
Sharp pains from Marcus’ fist drew his attention away from Otto’s intense glare. He recoiled at the sight of the talons that drew blood from his fist as they extended from the strange man’s fingers.
“Save your strength, good doctor,” Otto growled as he released his grip and turned to the door. “You are going to need it.”
A short while later, Marcus heard the creak of the door again. This time, it was Chin and Gordon who entered, bringing with them two more chairs, a table, and rations for the three of them. Chin approached the corner, where he sat nursing his wounds. Seemingly unconcerned by his attack against Otto, she took his hand and inspected his injuries.
“He must like you,” she commented, before moving on to inspect his face and neck again.
“Otto is right. It will come soon,” she reported flatly over her shoulder when satisfied.
Gordon sighed and sat down at the table where his partner joined him. “I bloody hate this part.”
They seemed to think something was happening to him. Recalling the terrible claws of Otto, Marcus shuddered and pushed the nightmarish fantasy from his thoughts. What had he done for his life to be cursed like this? He felt the cool wall against his cheek as he turned to stare blankly at the damp corner and the bits of dust and dirt that had been given up on long ago. His captors waited for something. He racked his mind in search of some answer.
What he would not give to be with Emily now, to see the shine in her sea-blue eyes. He had been so full of hope once, hopeful in their union, hopeful in her recovery. He still remembered every word of her last letter.
My dearest Marcus,
I want you to know that I am fine. In fact, I am more than fine. Despite your scientific doubts, the fresh Scottish air is working wonders on me. I have not coughed in days and my strength is returning faster than the nurse can keep up.
I feel I must tell you, before it becomes a lie of omission, that there has been one small incident. I hope you will not be too alarmed. One evening, before my improvement, I had such a coughing spell that I simply had to get out of doors into the cool night air. I know you would have disapproved, but I was in such a terrible way, I could do nothing else to soothe my lungs.
It must have been a mad animal that came upon me. I was attacked and bitten, but not badly. The doctor checked and treated me thoroughly, and I have suffered no ill effects.
I have waited to tell you because I did not want to interrupt your work. I know how important it is that you do well in your residency. I know you will want to come here immediately and see to me, but please know that I am well. It was weeks ago, and I have since not only healed from the small wounds, but am thankfully recovering from the sickness as well.
I only tell you now because I know you will rush here to check on me. That is just as well, because I want to come home. The Doctor says he will clear me to return in another week. By the time you arrive, I will be free to be home with you, never to be parted again.
Please hurry, my love,
Emily
The rise of murmuring voices interrupted Marcus’ despair.
“You played that before!” Chin accused. Turning his head ever so slightly, he found Chin glaring at her companion over a table of playing cards.
“Wha’? Now, sweetie, that ain’t no way to be talkin’ amongst mates.”
“You are a liar and a cheat!”
“If ye don’ like the way the cards is played, ye’ll jest have to find someone else to play with.” Gordon attempted to feign offence as he reached to take a card. A sharp object struck first, forcefully pinning the card to the table.
Marcus sat up. What he had first assumed to be a dagger turned out to be far more surprising. It was a claw-like blade—or perhaps a blade-like claw—nearly twelve inches in length. He followed its crescent shape up to its hinged joint. His eyes widened as he realized that the joint connected it to a slender limb, which in turn, connected to Chin by another joint near her wrist.
“What are you people?” he found himself saying aloud.
Chin’s clawed extension retracted slowly, then lay against her forearm and slid into a fold of skin, making it almost imperceptible. An unexpected softness came over her as she bit her lip and avoided his stare.
“We ain’t people no more,” replied Gordon solemnly over his shoulder. Chin motioned to her partner and their game resumed without further hostilities.
Overwhelmed with shock and fear, Marcus sat as still as stone for what felt like an hour. Were they al
l monsters? Gordon and Chin did not seem intent on hurting him. Aside from detaining and ignoring him, they treated him well enough, supplying generous portions of food and drink. If they planned to murder him, surely they would have done so by now.
Could he be turning into one of them? Though his mind refused to believe it, he could not ignore the signs in his own body—his surprising manifestations of strength, and his rapid healing—and neither could he ignore ominous remarks by his captors.
Otto had been interested in the London murders. What could he, or that train ride from Edinburgh, have to do with the murderer? Marcus recalled little of that long journey, the last leg of his trip home without Emily.
Arriving in the tiny Scottish village of just north of Sterling, Marcus had gone straight to the small sanatorium where Emily recuperated. His joyous expectation of bringing her home in good health was quickly overturned when he found nothing but black ash where the home had once stood.
Empty looks of fear and suspicion met the panic in his eyes when he burst into the local pub. No one was willing to tell him what had happened. Every face looked away at the mention of the sanatorium, and his pleas got him no answers that night. Over the following days, he pieced together that the villagers themselves had burned the building. They had burned it to the ground to rid themselves of some horror that had happened there.
A week before, while Marcus was still traveling, the home had gone strangely silent. When no one from the house came to the market that week, the villagers called on the recovery home to check on the residents and staff. What they found, they would not say in detail, but it was clear that everyone in the recovery home was dead.
Marcus called on the authorities, but got little help. The law was thin so far out in the country, and had little interest in following a case with no leads. Eventually, Marcus also surrendered. Emily’s ring brought him to it. When he found it some days later among the building’s remains, he buried all hope of seeing Emily alive again.
He did not remember much of the carriage ride down to Edinburgh the next day, nor much of the train to London, either. The only interaction he had was with a peculiar Scotsman.
Marcus was sitting alone, staring out the window as the solemn moors raced by to the rhythm of the clacking rails. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. The broad-shouldered Scotsman walked by him twice, each time eyeing his doctor’s bag, before sitting down in the booth with him.
Despite his fairly good size, the man seemed awkward and nervous. The Scot wiped his brow with a pale hand before speaking.
“Yer a doct’er, right?”
Marcus remembered stirring only slightly from his stupor and nodding.
“An’ yer headed to London, right?”
Again, he nodded in time with the chattering cabin.
“They have good doct’ers ther’?”
His interest somewhat piqued, Marcus noticed the profuse sweat that accumulated on the man’s brow.
“I suppose they do,” he obliged.
“An . . . an wha’ kind of medicine is it that you do?” The man wiped his face again.
“General medicine. I am a resident, still in training.”
“Ah.” The stranger looked down at his hands as the padded leather seat bounced beneath him.
“What kind of doctor are you looking for?” Marcus started to welcome the distraction.
“I . . . I dunno, exactly. I’m just a simple fisherman from Dundee. I sometimes wake up . . . ” His countenance paled, and his voice came as a whisper when he continued. “It’s a dream I wake up from . . . a real terrible thing, it is. An’ I can’ make it stop.”
The Scotsman again looked at his lap.
“It sounds like you just need a holiday,” Marcus replied. “Why not go spend some time with your family?”
“They . . . they’re dead,” Marcus caught a glimpse of the man’s reddened lower lid and a glistening in his eye.
“I am so sorry,” Marcus replied, empathizing with the man in their common grief. “Here, then—come to St. Thomas’ Hospital, near the river, once you settle in. I will see what I can do.”
The Scotsman hurried away without responding. Marcus did not see the man the rest of the trip, and the steady motion of the engine soon lulled him back into his unending grief.
Marcus bolted upright in his drab prison room as realization struck. The strange man, the talk of the hospital, the deceased family—they all suddenly made sense.
“The Scot!” Chin and Gordon started. “It is the Scotsman! I met him on the train. He—he wanted a doctor, and I told him which hospital I worked at. It must be him.”
Gordon and Chin looked at one another.
“What do you know of him?” Chin quizzed.
“He was from Dundee, I believe.”
Gordon nodded at Chin. “A Baurcat, jus’ like we thought. Near Dundee’s where I got mine.”
“Is there anything else?” Chin pressed.
Marcus’ eyes darted about as he thought. “Yes, his clothes. His clothes were rather small for him.”
“Ha! It’s gotta be a Baurcat.” Gordon slapped his knee. “He’s likely as bloody big as me by now.”
“I will tell Mr. Otto.” Chin rose from the table and quickly left the room.
“Won’t take long now, mate,” Gordon said mirthfully to Marcus. “Knowin’ where he come from, Otto will figure out who he was, and track where he started in the city. He’s smart like that, an’ Baurcats is easy to predict once you know that’s what they is.”
“What is a Baurcat?” Marcus asked, glad to be getting real conversation out of someone.
Gordon paused. “Well, Otto usually likes to do the tellin’. We ain’t even spos’ed to talk at all, ’til we sees if you can make it or not . . . But it’s so close, now, an’ if it’s true, then we’re practically brothers, you an’ me.” Pausing briefly, he raised his large arm into the lamplight. A sudden change came over the limb.
“A Baurcat’s what got me. It’s what I is now.” His hand doubled in size, taking on a savage new form, producing heavy claws at his fingertips. “An’ it’s what you’ll be soon enough.”
Marcus could not help but stare. His own voice sounded choked as he blurted out, “And the woman, Chin, is she also . . . ”
“Naw, she’s a werekind, but not a Baurcat. She’s what they call a Southern Harpy—hers make her fast an’ light, ours makes us big an’ strong,” Gordon explained before adding with a chuckle, “Jes’ don’ ask to see her beak or she’ll cuff you one. She don’ like showin’ that bit o’ the change.”
“But, how? What brings it on you? Is it an infection?” The physician in Marcus surfaced as he pondered the horrific revelation.
“Them’s bigger questions than I can tell. All’s I know is that ye get bit and it comes. Best t’ save that talk for Mr. Otto.”
“Can it be stopped? Can it be reversed?” begged Marcus.
“Only if we catch it early, Doc. Otto’s got a cure that’ll kill the thing inside without killin’ the outside. But, it’s too late for blokes like us. It takes a couple a months for it to set in, but even though yours ain’t come out yet, you’d be a goner wi’out what’s inside.” The large man’s hand returned to its normal size as he spoke. Marcus paused as he thought back to the mysterious injection the attack victim received under his care—certainly the work of Otto and his colleagues.
The door opened, and a new, unfamiliar man joined them, presumably a replacement for Chin. The conversation ended as Gordon pretended he had not been speaking with Marcus. He and the newcomer began discussing the events outside the room and how Otto was going to find the rampaging Scotsman. Marcus gathered that he was amongst a group of monsters led by the man Otto, and that they were hunting for some rogue of their own kind responsible for the recent murders.
His thoughts, however, focused on the revelation of the creatures themselves—and what it meant for him. It was the stuff of fairytale, of legend, of myth. But what he had seen in j
ust the last few hours challenged everything he once thought he knew about fact and fiction.
With the image of Gordon’s grotesque change in his mind, Marcus inspected his own hand. The wounds from Otto’s claws had nearly healed in mere hours. Could the scar on his shoulder in fact be the bite of this Baurcat? As sleep overtook him and conscious thought gave way to dark and fearful dreams, he struggled to make sense of all the pieces.
A hand on his shoulder woke Marcus some hours later.
“Here, drink this.”
The warm contents of the tin cup forced on him carried a smell of strange herbs that stung in his nose. Otto’s familiar spectacles met Marcus’ gaze when he looked up from the mug.
Taking the cup, he blinked and wiped his face, pushing away the stupor of sleep.
“We got him,” Otto spoke in a hushed tone, “thanks to you.”
“The Scotsman, is he all right? Could you help him?”
The man looked at the floor, and chair behind him creaked as he sank down into it.
“It does not work like that,” he sighed. The oil lamp on the table, now turned down low, cast only a faint glow that left the walls in shadow.
“I hear you have been talking to Gordon.” Otto motioned to the corner where the goliath snored in his chair. Chin had returned as well, and was likewise resting. “If we can catch a spawn early enough, we can kill it safely. But, beyond a certain point, there is nothing that can be done. The werekind takes over, and the victim falls into madness.”
“But, what about Gordon? Or you? How have you escaped such a fate?” If Otto spoke truly, Marcus feared for his own condition.
“That is why you must drink,” Otto reminded Marcus. “If we cannot catch the spawn before it is invested, the only other choice is to subdue and control it before it controls the host. Then, the two can work as one. There is but one opportunity, and it is up to the host to seize it. It is up to you, for your time has come.”
