by J. F. Penn
“I am the true heir of John Hunter,” Mascuria said proudly, “and this will be my legacy to the world. While he lived, Hunter was criticized and feared for his scientific methods. In the same way, if what we did here was revealed, I too would be treated as an outcast. But this way, I can perform my great work in peace, and soon I will be as celebrated as Hunter.” He waved his arm at the shelves. “I think you’ll agree that I have some particularly amazing specimens from the labs upstairs.”
“Where’s Polly?” Jamie said, uncaring for the rest of the dead. Only her daughter’s remains mattered. Mascuria’s eyes hardened and he raised the Taser.
“No. Not yet. First appreciate my collection and understand the importance of my work, then you may be allowed a glimpse of my next subject.”
Jamie wanted to rush him and smash one of the jars into his face, obliterating his perverted brain. She could barely contain her need to see Polly but he still had the advantage. She turned and walked towards the rack of shelving, her stomach churning as she saw what was inside. Like the Hunterian, it was both fascinating and revolting to see the freakish remains, grouped according to type, the first shelf containing fetuses and babies, nightmares that Jamie wished she could un-see.
The fluid around each was yellowish, making it seem as if they rested in a kind of amber. In one, she glimpsed a baby with a normal body but two heads, squashed onto the same neck, with skulls flattened as if the child had been violently murdered as it exited the womb. In another jar, triplet fetuses were suspended, tiny arms wrapped around themselves as if they were cold, each with a tuft of hair on its bald head. But there were only patches of skin where their eyes should be and their faces were featureless. Next, a huge baby’s head, its skin wrinkled like an old man, on top of a round body, the limbs only stumps of fingers and toes. Jamie felt an overwhelming compassion for these unborn children, but also a kind of gratitude that they had not had to endure life as monsters. She knew that the physical body didn’t define the life inside, but she also understood through her daughter the pain of rejection, the instinctive human response to turn away from those who were less than perfect. But who are we to say what perfection is? And does that make the Creator a eugeneticist, choosing only those good enough to live?
Jamie gazed into other jars, wanting to bear witness to the myriad forms of forsaken humanity that were left alone here, motherless. Here was a true monster, aspects of humanity in the facial structure and arms, but the rest of its body was more like a fish. Its skin was puckered and ruptured in places, as if it had been sewn together. In the next jar was a pitiful specimen, its head perfect but the body just an abdomen with skin split open to reveal the guts within. This was dead flesh, no spark of life, for what is the human body except for us to dwell in briefly, ruin and burn, bury or dissect, returning it to the stardust from which it came.
“Were these children born here?” Jamie asked, her voice echoing round the lab. “Were they created by Neville Pharma?”
“Some were created as a by-product of the teratology research.” There was pride in Mascuria’s voice. “We investigate the effects of various drugs on pregnant women, to find the stage that affects the fetus the most. After Thalidomide, it became illegal to test on pregnant women but of course, it has to be done, and the money is excellent, so some are willing to be part of the research. Others are unwilling, but … well, let’s just say, they end up joining us anyway. They are from the margins of society so none of the women are missed, and they often end up part of the Lyceum, their offspring preserved forever. Who would object to such a fate?”
Jamie’s head was reeling with the implications of what went on here but then his words sunk in.
“So this isn’t the Lyceum?” she asked.
Mascuria’s hollow laugh blurted out, the sound quickly absorbed into the shelves of fluid glass.
“Oh no, they butcher the living, but I use only the dead. Of course, I have to prepare specimens differently, depending on their future use. Removing flesh is only one task. Here’s one of their last victims.”
Mascuria walked over to a huge copper vat in the corner. It was as pristine as the rest of the lab, but as he lifted the lid, the putrid smell made Jamie wince and her nostrils flared at the familiar stench of death. He beckoned her over and she met his challenge, walking to the vat, the anticipation of what she might see making her heart pound. Jamie peered over the edge, her cuffed hands on her mouth and nose to stop the gag reflex. The liquid inside was a deep brown color, with fat glistening on top. Mascuria grabbed a long handled ladle from the bench and poked it into the soup, fishing for something more solid. There were thicker, heavier parts at the bottom of the vat and he hooked one of them, dragging it up to the surface. It was a human femur, mostly bone now with just a little flesh hanging off. Mascuria smiled at her evident revulsion.
“One option to destroy flesh is to put the body in an enclosed space with flies which eventually clean the bones completely. But an alternative is to hack it into pieces and boil it in a vat until all the flesh and sinew is gone, like this. Of course, anatomy is always a sensory experience, the permanent stench of the dissection room lingers on clothes, the pervading odor of decay. Did you know that Hunter was known for tasting bodily fluids?”
Jamie grimaced as he raised the ladle towards his mouth. Mascuria laughed again.
“Come now, Detective. You know nothing human lingers here. The first time you clutch the cold flesh of a body, when you smell decay and corruption, you know it’s not a person anymore. It’s only entropy in action, chaos disintegrating the body, returning it to the atomic state. We’re only revolted by the dead because the corpse represents the end of life, which we are meant to fear. But I don’t fear it, I’m tempted by it. I only know what life truly is because I embrace the death in it.” Mascuria replaced the lid on the vat and walked back to the wall units. Pulling one of the freezer doors open, he slid a gurney out, the wheels loud on the tiled floor. “Now, come and see your daughter.”
Jamie walked slowly to the open freezer, as Mascuria unzipped the bag in which a body lay. Silent tears ran down her cheeks as Jamie looked down at Polly’s face, her skin a lighter shade now, all color gone. Her eyes were shut and she looked more than asleep.
“How dare you?” Jamie whispered, barely controlled anger in her voice. “How dare you disturb her rest. She’s suffered enough.”
Mascuria reached out a fingertip and stroked the girl’s cheek, running it down over her lips, then he poked it into her mouth.
“I dare what I want with the dead,” he said, drawing it out again and then thrusting the finger back inside.
Jamie’s face contorted with disgust at the offensive action and she whipped her cuffed hands up, striking him across the face double handed as she leaned over the gurney.
“Bastard,” she screamed. “Monster.”
Mascuria’s head snapped back and he stumbled from the blow. Jamie rounded the gurney at speed and slammed into him, sending him to the floor as she fell on top of him, using her legs to try and immobilize him. But she couldn’t hold him and he twisted beneath her, pushing her away to make a space between them. She heard the crackle of his Taser and felt pain shoot through her body. Jamie’s muscles spasmed into rigidity and she lay prone as the agony pulsed through her, centering in the place where he had thrust the device. Mascuria rose and stood over her as Jamie fought to try and regain control of her body.
“You have no power here, Detective,” he said, patting himself down, dislodging any dust and brushing it off onto her. He reached down and grabbed her cuffed hands, dragging her, unable to resist, over to the wall near the door. He pulled down a meathook to lever around the cuffs and then started to winch the thick steel cable up. “This will hold you still while I work. I seldom have company when I process a body, but we have some time before the Lyceum commences tonight. Time for you to witness what I have planned for pretty Polly.”
Jamie felt some feeling return to her limbs and sh
e tried to fight the winch, but it just kept rising until she was high on her toes, calf muscles taut. She couldn’t unhook herself in this position, she had no leverage. She opened her mouth to beg but only a rasp came out.
“Hmm,” Mascuria said, noting her attempt. “I like quiet in my lab, so you’ll need a gag.” He fiddled around on a nearby lab table, producing a wad of surgical gauze. Jamie tried to move her head, resisting him but he grabbed her jaw in a skeletal grip and forced it into her mouth. He wrapped a bandage around her mouth, tying it behind her head to stop her spitting the gauze out. She tried to scream then, feeling her strength returning but it was too late and Mascuria only laughed at her tears of frustration.
He looked at the clock on the wall.
“Time to get started,” he smiled at her with malice, “and just enough time to make you truly pay for the way you treated me.”
He picked up a scalpel and approached Polly’s body, standing on the far side of the gurney so that Jamie could see his actions. She looked at her daughter’s body and in her mind, she screamed for God to help her, a God she didn’t even believe in. Part of her was trying to rationalize that this wasn’t her daughter anymore, that Polly’s spirit was gone, that she wouldn’t feel any pain at this man’s abuse. But her eyes told her this was still her beloved daughter, the baby born from her blood and pushed from her own body, who had grown into a lovely young woman. Jamie couldn’t hide the pain in her eyes, even though she didn’t want to give Mascuria the satisfaction of seeing it.
He cupped the budding breast of the corpse with a bare hand, his fingers rubbing at the pale pink nipple. Jamie felt herself gag and had to force the vomit back down. She wanted to look away but knew she had to bear witness to his cruelty.
“Sometimes I keep the body whole,” Mascuria said. “Kept frozen like this, they stay perfect for a while longer. I bet little Polly here was a virgin as well, and she will be all tight and cold inside. Perfect.”
Jamie struggled furiously against her bonds, rattling the chains. She swore then that she would kill Mascuria, whatever it took. He couldn’t be allowed to continue his depraved practices.
“I see the fury in your eyes, Detective, and it inspires me. I shall make Polly a perfect specimen for my collection. She will live on here amongst the monsters, labeled and tagged, her spine a source of fascination in death. And will it hurt you more, I wonder, to watch me take pleasure with her body or to see me cut her into pieces?”
Mascuria looked into Jamie’s eyes and she stared straight back at him, daring him to make any move on her daughter. He laughed and reached around the body, flipping Polly over so that she now lay on her front. Her body couldn’t lie straight on the table, and the deformity was clearer from the back, the twisting exaggerated. Jamie screamed, moaning into the gag, wrenching on the hook in an attempt to get to her daughter.
“When dissecting a body,” Mascuria began, pointing at the corpse as if giving a lecture, “the guts are the first parts to putrefy so usually one would begin by slitting open the abdomen, folding back the flaps of skin and fat and removing the digestive parts, stomach, intestines, spleen, gall bladder and pancreas. Then one would open the chest, sawing apart the ribcage to remove the lungs and expose the heart.” His fingers danced down Polly’s spine, dipping between her buttocks as he smiled at Jamie’s fury. “Of course, the mastery of dissection requires intricate knife skills, but also brute strength to saw through bone and hack off the parts not required for a particular preparation. Removing the limbs so that I have a nice, clean torso to work with is always a good first step, because a big part of the artist’s job is deciding what to leave out,” Mascuria grinned wildly as he saw the panic in Jamie’s eyes. He turned and wheeled over a trolley, on which were laid out scalpels of various sizes and a large bone saw. “I think I’ll start with removing her legs.” He reached for a scalpel.
Chapter 24
The door slammed open, hitting the wall inches from where Jamie hung behind it. Mascuria froze, one hand holding Polly’s leg and the other clutching the scalpel above her thigh. His face fell as he saw who had entered. Jamie tried to twist around but she couldn’t see.
“Edward, darling,” Esther Neville’s crisp British vowels filled the room. “Do you really have time for that?”
Mascuria’s eyes flicked to Jamie and the door was pulled back. Esther stood there, no trace of the mousey scientist, the grieving mother or wronged wife remaining. Instead she was the proud ruler of this underground domain, channeling dark spirits below while she created abomination in the labs above. Her clothes were curious, her waist nipped in with a corset and the dress an extravagant eighteenth century costume, out of place in the modern lab. Esther’s serpent green eyes drilled into Jamie.
“Detective, why am I not surprised to find you here?” She stepped forward to check that the bonds were secure, nodding her head. “Good job, Edward.” Jamie could see that Mascuria reveled under this compliment from his mistress. “But we already have a vivisection subject for the Lyceum tonight.” Esther paused and Jamie could see that she was considering the options. “I’d like the Detective to witness her future fate, but we can get more for her at an exclusive event, for those select few who might enjoy intimacy with her kind of flesh.” Esther stepped closer, her smile one of triumph. “And what do you think of the wonders we have here, Detective?”
Esther pulled away Jamie’s gag, wanting to hear her speak. Jamie’s mind flashed over all the insults she wanted to spit out, but she still held onto some hope that she would get out of here. Perhaps Esther could be goaded.
“You’re just sick and depraved. There’s no real science here.”
Esther’s eyes flashed with anger.
“Of course, I couldn’t expect a mere police detective to understand, but this is truly magnificent work. We’re developing weaponized teratology. By introducing pathogens into an environment, we can corrupt a region, making the inhabitants into monsters who will be rejected, murdered and thrown into mass graves. We can target genetically, causing extra limbs to sprout from bodies, horns from heads, perversions of nature. It will justify the killing of those groups in the eyes of those considered normal, but more than that, it becomes a judgment from God, afflictions sent as punishment for sin. Humans are so ready to slaughter those considered Other.”
Jamie thought of the gas chambers of Nazi Europe filled with the bodies of the Other - Jews, gypsies, the mentally ill and those considered defective. She thought of Rwanda and the description of ‘cockroaches’ stacked in mass graves, seen as inhuman by people who were once their neighbors. It was terrifying to think that this lab could hold the key to unleashing atrocity on an even grander scale. But she still didn’t have all the answers.
“What has the Lyceum got to do with this?”
“Why, Detective, it’s just a little fun, in the medical tradition of course.” Esther did a little twirl in her costume, meager breasts pushed up by the tight bodice, full skirts swinging. Against the backdrop of the bottled remains, her delight was all the more macabre. “The Lyceum Medicum Londinense is an old institution, first started in 1785 in the days of the great anatomist John Hunter to replicate his experiments, a crucible to facilitate his scientific legacy. Hunter only trusted his own eyes, so now, in turn, this is what we offer in the resurrected Lyceum. We experiment as Hunter did, exploring the very edges of human experience. Unlike you, most people don’t get to see the dark side of reality anymore, it’s all so sanitized. They don’t get to see death or experience the end of life until they meet it themselves in some pathetic care home. But people want a taste of the extraordinary in their boring lives, they want the freak shows, the crazies. Otherwise this world is just one long dull day after another. These elite seekers are desperate for a glimpse of the other side. They crave this interaction with the dead, for it is like seeing our own future. On the slab, we are all the same.”
Esther stepped closer, holding Jamie’s gaze. “At the Lyceum, we remove the vene
er of civilization and deliver raw truth through vivisection of the body. We want our members to see, to weep and experience deep pleasure. It matters not what they feel, only that they feel something. This becomes an addiction, an expensive one, for sure, and when we find a new member, we try very hard to find them an experience that will change them. Religion offers a way to look into the divine, but the Lyceum offers a way to look into our base physical selves. For what truth is greater than the realization that we are meat, mere chunks of flesh that can be cut away? If we dissect to the last capillary, will we find the essence of the person? No, we cannot, because it has already gone.”
Jamie saw the promise of her own death in Esther’s eyes, an end through flayed flesh and agony. Where Mascuria delighted in the dead, Esther was addicted to killing. It was a perfect partnership.
“Enough.” Esther turned and addressed Mascuria. “Use the ketamine and dress her in something more appropriate, then string her up next to the altar. And Edward, I mean now. You can return to your - specimen - later.”
Esther strode from the room, her heels clicking on the stone as she walked away. Mascuria rested the scalpel gently on Polly’s back and patted her buttocks.
“I’ll return for you later,” he whispered, almost lovingly. He looked up at Jamie and the veil in his eyes came down, obscuring any humanity. He picked up a syringe from the surgical table and then filled it from a bottle.
As he walked towards Jamie, she began to struggle, aware that ketamine was a powerful sedative but also that it could produce a dissociative state, hallucinations and visions. She wanted to remember Mascuria’s perversions and she wanted to punish him for it.
