The Mammoth Book of Body Horror

by Marie O'Regan

  “An excellent idea, Hélène,” said my husband when the maid appeared with the champagne after our candlelight dinner. “We’ll celebrate with reintegrated champagne!” and, taking the tray from the maid’s hands, he led the way down to the laboratory.

  “Do you think it will be as good as before its dis integration?” I asked, holding the tray while he opened the door and switched on the lights.

  “Have no fear. You’ll see! Just bring it here, will you?” he said, opening the door of a telephone call-box he had bought and which had been transformed into what he called a transmitter. “Put it down on that now,” he added, putting a stool inside the box.

  Having carefully closed the door, he took me to the other end of the room and handed me a pair of very dark sunglasses. He put on another pair and walked back to a switchboard by the transmitter.

  “Ready, Hélène?” said my husband, turning out all the lights. “Don’t remove your glasses till I give the word.”

  “I won’t budge, André. Go on,” I told him, my eyes fixed on the tray, which I could just see in a greenish shimmering light through the glass-panelled door of the telephone booth.

  “Right,” said André, throwing a switch.

  The whole room was brilliantly illuminated by an orange flash. Inside the booth I had seen a crackling ball of fire and felt its heat on my face, neck and hands. The whole thing lasted but the fraction of a second, and I found myself blinking at green-edged black holes like those one sees after having stared at the sun.

  “Et voilà! You can take off your glasses, Hélène.”

  A little theatrically perhaps, my husband opened the door of the booth. Though André had told me what to expect, I was astonished to find that the champagne, glasses, tray and stool were no longer there.

  André ceremoniously led me by the hand into the next room in a corner of which stood a second telephone booth. Opening the door wide, he triumphantly lifted the champagne tray off the stool.

  Feeling somewhat like the good-natured kind-member-of-the-audience who has been dragged on to the music-hall stage by the magician, I refrained from say ing, “All done with mirrors”, which I knew would have annoyed my husband.

  “Sure it’s not dangerous to drink?” I asked, as the cork popped.

  “Absolutely sure, Hélène,” he said, handing me a glass. “But that was nothing. Drink this off and I’ll show you something much more astounding.”

  We went back into the other room.

  “Oh, André! Remember poor Dandelo!”

  “This is only a guinea pig, Hélène. But I’m positive it will go through all right.”

  He set the furry little beast down on the green enamelled floor of the booth and quickly closed the door. I again put on my dark glasses and saw and felt the vivid crackling flash.

  Without waiting for André to open the door, I rushed into the next room where the lights were still on and looked into the receiving booth.

  “Oh, André! Chéri! He’s there all right!” I shouted excitedly, watching the little animal trotting round and round. “It’s wonderful, André. It works! You’ve suc ceeded!”

  “I hope so, but I must be patient. I’ll know for sure in a few weeks” time.”

  “What do you mean? Look! He’s as full of life as when you put him in the other booth.”

  “Yes, so he seems. But we’ll have to see if all his organs are intact, and that will take some time. If that little beast is still full of life in a month’s time, we then consider the experiment a success.”

  I begged André to let me take care of the guinea pig.

  “All right, but don’t kill it by overfeeding,” he agreed, with a grin for my enthusiasm.

  Though not allowed to take Hop-la – the name I had given the guinea pig – out of its box in the laboratory, I tied a pink ribbon round its neck and was allowed to feed it twice a day.

  Hop-la soon got used to its pink ribbon and became quite a tame little pet, but that month of waiting seemed a year.

  And then one day, André put Miquette, our cocker spaniel, into his “transmitter”. He had not told me be forehand, knowing full well that I would never have agreed to such an experiment with our dog. But when he did tell me, Miquette had been successfully trans mitted half a dozen times and seemed to be enjoying the operation thoroughly; no sooner was she let out of the “reintegrator” than she dashed madly into the next room, scratching at the “transmitter” door to have “another go”, as André called it.

  I now expected that my husband would invite some of his colleagues and Air Ministry specialists to come down. He usually did this when he had finished a re search job and, before handing them long detailed reports which he always typed himself, he would carry out an experiment or two before them. But this time, he just went on working. One morning I finally asked him when he intended throwing his usual “surprise party”, as we called it.

  “No, Hélène; not for a long while yet. This discovery is much too important. I have an awful lot of work to do on it still. Do you realize that there are some parts of the transmission proper which I do not yet myself fully understand? It works all right, but you see, I can’t just say to all these eminent professors that I do this and that and, poof, it works! I must be able to explain how and why it works. And what is even more important, I must be ready and able to refute every destructive argument they will not fail to trot out, as they usually do when faced with anything really good.”

  I was occasionally invited down to the laboratory to witness some new experiment, but I never went unless André invited me, and only talked about his work if he broached the subject first. Of course, it never occurred to me that he would, at that stage at least, have tried an experiment with a human being; though, had I thought about it – knowing André – it would have been obvious that he would never have allowed anyone into the “transmitter” before he had been through to test it first. It was only after the accident that I discovered he had duplicated all his switches inside the disintegration booth, so that he could try it out by himself.

  The morning André tried this terrible experiment, he did not show up for lunch. I sent the maid down with a tray, but she brought it back with a note she had found pinned outside the laboratory door: Do not disturb me. I am working.

  He did occasionally pin such notes on his door and, though I noticed it, I paid no particular attention to the unusually large handwriting of his note.

  It was just after that, as I was drinking my coffee, that Henri came bouncing into the room to say that he had caught a funny fly, and would I like to see it. Refusing even to look at his closed fist, I ordered him to release it immediately.

  “But, Maman, it has such a funny white head!”

  Marching the boy over to the open window, I told him to release the fly immediately, which he did. I knew that Henri had caught the fly merely because he thought it looked curious or different from other flies, but I also knew that his father would never stand for any form of cruelty to animals, and that there would be a fuss should he discover that our son had put a fly in a box or a bottle.

  At dinner time that evening, André had still not shown up and, a little worried, I ran down to the labora tory and knocked at the door.

  He did not answer my knock, but I heard him moving around and a moment later he slipped a note under the door. It was typewritten:

  Hélène, I am having trouble. Put the boy to bed and come back in an hour’s time. A.

  Frightened, I knocked and called, but André did not seem to pay any attention and, vaguely reassured by the familiar noise of his typewriter, I went back to the house.

  Having put Henri to bed, I returned to the labora tory where I found another note slipped under the door. My hand shook as I picked it up because I knew by then that something must be radically wrong. I read:

  Hélène, first of all I count on you not to lose your nerve or do anything rash because you alone can help me. I have had a serious accident. I am not in any particular d
anger for the time being though it is a matter of life and death. It is useless calling to me or saying anything. I cannot answer, I cannot speak. I want you to do exactly and very carefully all that I ask. After having knocked three times to show that you understand and agree, fetch me a bowl of milk laced with rum. I have had nothing all day and can do with it.

  Shaking with fear, not knowing what to think and re pressing a furious desire to call André and bang away until he opened, I knocked three times as requested and ran all the way home to fetch what he wanted.

  In less than five minutes I was back. Another note had been slipped under the door:

  Hélène, follow these instructions carefully. When you knock I’ll open the door. You are to walk over to my desk and put down the bowl of milk. You will then go into the other room where the receiver is. Look carefully and try to find a fly which ought to be there but which I am unable to find. Unfor tunately I cannot see small things very easily.

  Before you come in you must promise to obey me implicitly. Do not look at me and remember that talking is quite useless. I cannot answer. Knock again three times and that will mean I have your promise. My life depends entirely on the help you can give me.

  I had to wait a while to pull myself together, and then I knocked slowly three times.

  I heard André shuffling behind the door, then his hand fumbling with the lock, and the door opened.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that he was stand ing behind the door, but without looking round, I carried the bowl of milk to his desk. He was evidently watching me and I must at all costs appear calm and collected.

  “Chéri, you can count on me,” I said gently, and put ting the bowl down under his desk lamp, the only one alight, I walked into the next room where all the lights were blazing.

  My first impression was that some sort of hurricane must have blown out of the receiving booth. Papers were scattered in every direction, a whole row of test tubes lay smashed in a corner, chairs and stools were upset and one of the window curtains hung half torn from its bent rod. In a large enamel basin on the floor a heap of burned documents was still smouldering.

  I knew that I would not find the fly André wanted me to look for. Women know things that men only suppose by reasoning and deduction; it is a form of knowledge very rarely accessible to them and which they disparagingly call intuition. I already knew that the fly André wanted was the one which Henri had caught and which I had made him release.

  I heard André shuffling around in the next room, and then a strange gurgling and sucking as though he had trouble in drinking his milk.

  “André, there is no fly here. Can you give me any sort of indication that might help? If you can’t speak, rap or something . . . you know: once for yes, twice for no.”

  I had tried to control my voice and speak as though perfectly calm, but I had to choke down a sob of des peration when he rapped twice for “no”.

  “May I come to you, André? I don’t know what can have happened, but whatever it is, I’ll be courageous, dear.”

  After a moment of silent hesitation, he tapped once on his desk.

  At the door I stopped aghast at the sight of André standing with his head and shoulders covered by the brown velvet cloth he had taken from a table by his desk, the table on which he usually ate when he did not want to leave his work. Suppressing a laugh that might easily have turned to sobbing, I said: “André, we’ll search thoroughly tomorrow, by day light. Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll lead you to the guest room if you like, and won’t let anyone else see you.”

  His left hand tapped the desk twice.

  “Do you need a doctor, André?”

  “No,” he rapped.

  “Would you like me to call Professor Augier? He might be of more help.”

  Twice he rapped “no” sharply. I did not know what to do or say. And then I told him: “Henri caught a fly this morning which he wanted to show me, but I made him release it. Could it have been the one you are looking for? I didn’t see it, but the boy said its head was white.”

  Andre emitted a strange metallic sigh, and I just had time to bite my fingers fiercely in order not to scream. He had let his right arm drop, and instead of his long-fingered muscular hand, a grey stick with little buds on it like the branch of a tree hung out of his sleeve almost down to his knee.

  “André, mon chéri, tell me what happened. I might be of more help to you if I knew. André . . . oh, it’s ter rible!” I sobbed, unable to control myself.

  Having rapped once for yes, he pointed to the door with his left hand.

  I stepped out and sank down crying as he locked the door behind me. He was typing again and I waited. At last he shuffled to the door and slid a sheet of paper under it.

  Hélène, come back in the morning. I must think and will have typed out an explanation for you. Take one of my sleeping tablets and go straight to bed. I need you fresh and strong tomorrow, ma pauvre chérie. A.

  “Do you want anything for the night, André?” I shouted through the door.

  He knocked twice for no, and a little later I heard the typewriter again.

  The sun full on my face woke me up with a start. I had set the alarm clock for five but had not heard it, probably because of the sleeping tablets. I had indeed slept like a log, without a dream. Now I was back in my living nightmare and crying like a child I sprang out of bed. It was just on seven!

  Rushing into the kitchen, without a word for the startled servants, I rapidly prepared a trayload of coffee, bread and butter with which I ran down to the laboratory.

  André opened the door as soon as I knocked and closed it again as I carried the tray to his desk. His head was still covered, but I saw from his crumpled suit and his open camp bed that he must at least have tried to rest.

  On his desk lay a typewritten sheet for me which I picked up. André opened the other door, and taking this to mean that he wanted to be left alone, I walked into the next room. He pushed the door to and I heard him pouring out the coffee as I read:

  Do you remember the ashtray experiment? I have had a similar accident. I “transmitted” myself suc cessfully the night before last. During a second ex periment yesterday a fly which I did not see must have got into the “disintegrator”. My only hope is to find that fly and go through again with it. Please search for it carefully since, if it is not found, I shall have to find a way of putting an end to all this.

  If only André had been more explicit! I shuddered at the thought that he must be terribly disfigured and then cried softly as I imagined his face inside-out, or perhaps his eyes in place of his ears, or his mouth at the back of his neck, or worse!

  André must be saved! For that, the fly must be found!

  Pulling myself together, I said: “André, may I come in?”

  He opened the door.

  “André, don’t despair; I am going to find that fly. It is no longer in the laboratory, but it cannot be very far. I suppose you’re disfigured, perhaps terribly so, but there can be no question of putting an end to all this, as you say in your note; that I will never stand for. If necessary, if you do not wish to be seen, I’ll make you a mask or a cowl so that you can go on with your work until you get well again. If you cannot work, I’ll call Professor Augier, and he and all your other friends will save you, André.”

  Again I heard that curious metallic sigh as he rapped violently on his desk.

  “André, don’t be annoyed; please be calm. I won’t do anything without first consulting you, but you must rely on me, have faith in me and let me help you as best I can. Are you terribly disfigured, dear? Can’t you let me see your face? I won’t be afraid . . . I am your wife, you know.”

  But my husband again rapped a decisive “no” and pointed to the door.

  “All right. I am going to search for the fly now, but promise me you won’t do anything foolish; promise you won’t do anything rash or dangerous without first letting me know all about it!”

  He extended his left ha
nd, and I knew I had his promise.

  I will never forget that ceaseless day-long hunt for a fly. Back home, I turned the house inside-out and made all the servants join in the search. I told them that a fly had escaped from the Professor’s laboratory and that it must be captured alive, but it was evident they already thought me crazy. They said so to the police later, and that day’s hunt for a fly most probably saved me from the guillotine later.

  I questioned Henri and as he failed to understand right away what I was talking about, I shook him and slapped him, and made him cry in front of the round-eyed maids. Realizing that I must not let myself go, I kissed and petted the poor boy and at last made him understand what I wanted of him. Yes, he remembered, he had found the fly just by the kitchen window; yes, he had released it immediately as told to.

  Even in summer time we had very few flies because our house is on the top of a hill and the slightest breeze coming across the valley blows round it. In spite of that, I managed to catch dozens of flies that day. On all the window sills and all over the garden I had put saucers of milk, sugar, jam, meat – all the things likely to attract flies. Of all those we caught, and many others which we failed to catch but which I saw, none resembled the one Henri had caught the day before. One by one, with a magnifying glass, I examined every unusual fly, but none had anything like a white head.

  At lunch time, I ran down to André with some milk and mashed potatoes. I also took some of the flies we had caught, but he gave me to understand that they could be of no possible use to him.

  “If that fly has not been found tonight, André, we’ll have to see what is to be done. And this is what I pro pose: I’ll sit in the next room. When you can’t answer by the yes-no method of rapping, you’ll type out what ever you want to say and then slip it under the door. Agreed?”

  “Yes,” rapped André.

  By nightfall we had still not found the fly. At dinner time, as I prepared André’s tray, I broke down and sobbed in the kitchen in front of the silent servants. My maid thought that I had had a row with my husband, probably about the mislaid fly, but I learned later that the cook was already quite sure that I was out of my mind.