She nodded to herself a number of times as if convinced of the surety and righteousness of her words, and pointed a pudgy but thick hand at Anastasia. “That thing is a cat, isn’t it?”
Harry couldn’t believe people like this actually existed, but here was proof right in front of him. He tried reasoning with her. “No, ma’am, she’s a girl.” He stopped, momentarily frustrated by having to deal with someone so dense and started to get up in an attempt to be friendly. “Look, have you ever heard of a man named Nurmelev? He might have been the one…”
His forward motion stopped when Tillman cocked the pistol in his direction and he abruptly sat down again. This woman’s face had shoot-to-obliterate written all over it. “If you’re talking about that there Russian man, that furriner,” she said, and Harry realized she meant foreigner, “then yeah, I’ve heard of him. I’m fifty-seven years old, been up here for the last fifteen years and I know the people ‘round these parts. Met him once and I can’t say I care for his company.”
“What kind of company do you care for?” Harry asked.
Tillman got up and waddled over to stand less than six inches away from him. “My own, and that’s good enough for me.”
She shoved the barrel of the pistol under his chin, pushed his head up, and cocked the hammer. In spite of his proximity to death, he felt no fear, only rage. “Now I’m gonna ask you again, what are you doing with that she-cat and give me the truth!”
After he slowly put his hands up, she pulled the pistol back a few inches and clicked the safety on, and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “I told you before, my name is Harry Goldman. I’m a researcher.”
Tillman considered what he’d said and laughed. “You’re researching what? You look like a high school kid.”
“I am a high school kid,” he countered. He was supremely tired of the BS he had to wade through in order to make people understand. “I’m special schooled, all right? I research transgenics. That’s the science of using animal DNA in a human to cure disease.”
Her eyes widened between the mention of the words “animal” and “human”, and then narrowed as she caught the full meaning. “So you’re trying to change what God intended,” she stated. “Now I have heard it all. I don’t know what you’re up to, but this is a sin.”
Tillman’s words made him stop to consider things in a broader context and he realized she was a lot sharper than she let on. In the back of his mind, he remembered his father’s warning, but in this situation the notion of playing God would probably be lost on this person. He lowered one arm and pointed at the skins on the table. “You’re stuffing animals. That seems pretty sick to me.”
“That’s my job,” she said and the smile came back to her fleshy face. “My pappy trained me as a taxidermist. That’s what I did back home in West Virginia and after my husband Bert died, I decided to ask God to find me another place to live.”
Harry said nothing, but he wondered what kind of man her husband had been and then figured it was useless to even think about it.
Tillman went over to the table where she gently stroked the skins with one hand while keeping her weapon trained squarely on his chest. “I prayed and prayed for guidance and finally God spoke to me and said I should go to these here parts. I set up this shack and live off the land. Don’t think I’m a sponge like one of them freeloaders who’s on welfare all the time, no sir! I pay my fair share of taxes, kill what I need and send out my orders to my loyal customers.”
Harry stared at her and realized she wasn’t totally crazy—but she was seriously deluded. “So God told you to kill these animals?”
“Just the cats and dogs,” she replied and gave a slight shrug. “I hate ‘em both. Other animals, well, they’re pretty useful critters, but cats and dogs are the devil’s creation. I’m just doing what the good Lord tells me to do. Now I have to decide what to do with you. I know what to do with your friend.”
Her threat to Anastasia—and he was pretty sure by this point in time that it would be carried out—scared him, but anger won out over fear. He started to get up, kept his gaze focused on her pistol, and knew he could wrench it away from her before she had a chance to fire.
However, the massive woman moved faster than he thought possible and brought the barrel of the pistol across his temple just as he got to his feet. He felt a massive wave of pain and the flashing lights came and the pain got worse.
Being hit all the time without getting the opportunity to hit back pissed him off…and without warning the floor came up out of nowhere to smack him in the face.
“Aw, crap.”
The sound of his voice, racked with pain and frustration, made him feel worse than anyone had a right to feel. Harry swam up from the depths of unconsciousness and found himself in a corner with Anastasia at his feet. His hands were bound behind his back and try as he might, he couldn’t work his way out of them. Granny Tillman sure had a way with ropes.
The room was dark and the only light came from the ancient oil lamp on the table. Any movement caused him to wince, but he told himself to put up with the pain, turned his head to the right, and peered through a crack in the wall. Night had fallen. He heard a faint moan and painfully twisted his way back to his girlfriend. “Anastasia, are you okay?”
She stirred briefly, tried to rise, and then fell back to the floor again. Her hands had also been tied and very securely, too. In the dim light, her features had shifted yet again, her cheekbones getting higher and her face more feline. Her body, though, had remained essentially the same.
Then the memory of her eating an animal she’d killed—eating it raw—came back to him. When would she devolve? Would there be any human component of her left, or would she think like a cat? Little by little her body would be taken over, and she’d be forced to give up what she’d been. He tried to calculate the hours it would take for the animal genes to overwhelm her human ones and then gave up. It made his heart hurt too much.
Anastasia moaned again, which interrupted his musings. This time she became totally conscious and managed to roll over on her side. She shook her head and asked, “Where are we?”
“In some crazy person’s house,” he answered. “I don’t know which is worse, Ivan or this nutcase.”
Granny Tillman walked in from outside carrying the carcasses of two rabbits and a cat in one hand and her pistol in the other. The smell of fresh blood turned Harry off, but he saw Anastasia’s eyes had started to shine. The fat lady walked over to them, waving the fresh kill and smiled—malevolently, it seemed to Harry—at his girlfriend.
“So, you want some of this, girl? Or are you a girl?” Tillman asked with a spiteful tone in her voice. “Can you talk or just mewl like the animal you are?”
Anastasia started to reach her body toward the rabbit, but pulled up short and set her mouth in a straight line. “I can talk just fine, you fat pig,” she said coldly. “What are you going to do with us?”
Tillman lost her look of confidence for a moment, and then resumed waving the fresh meat around. Droplets of blood flew through the air, spattering them both, and with a quick motion the fat woman dumped her killings on the table. “You ought to watch yer mouth,” she said and hefted the pistol in her hand. “This is a righteous weapon I have. You make one wrong move and you’ll end up hibbled.”
Anastasia glared at her defiantly. “What does hibbled mean?”
Tillman returned the stare threefold. “Let’s just say that if you’re hibbled, it’s only a shade better than being buried.”
“Try speaking proper English,” Harry said. He had the feeling this nutball was going to kill them anyway and he was tired of simply letting people dictate his future. He might die, but not without getting the last word in.
The woman’s stare continued, hot enough to cut through steel. She gave a derisive snort. “It means to cripple someone. Hobble them. Are you satisfied now? My way of speakin’ has nothin’ to do with what you’re gonna go through if you don’t come clean.”
Fine, she could speak fairly decent English, he thought. “So what are you going to do with us?” he repeated for his girlfriend’s sake.
Tillman scratched her head. “I don’t rightly know,” she finally said after mulling the question over. “I went huntin’ before, and while I was in God’s country, I decided to ask Him for a little advice. He said I should talk to you and make you realize the error of your ways before I set my course.”
Which course is that, Harry wondered. Then he stopped wondering. He knew. “Lady, if you kill us you’re going to get into a lot of trouble with the law. The FBI is after me and her, and if you think…”
His rant got interrupted when the whale waddled over and slapped him hard against the side of his head. That started a fresh wave of pain, and with a supreme effort he forced himself to sharpen up and focus in on her words.
“Don’t you talk to me about the law, sonny!” she snapped. “I know the law! There is the law of man and the law of God. God made men who make the laws to follow His will. Nothing you can say or do will change that!”
“Would it do any good to try?” he asked.
No, of course not, as she started spewing more words about the Bible—the Old Testament as well as the New—and Harry felt profoundly grateful his parents had raised him in a secular environment. He had nothing against religion unless it was taken to the extreme, and this woman embodied the word extreme.
Finally, she stopped ranting and pulled up her chair to sit in front of them, her pistol pointed at Anastasia’s heart, but she addressed Harry first. “If you’re some kind of doctor or scientist, then how can you explain this creature?”
He started to tell her about the science of transposing genes, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out she wouldn’t understand and more important, she didn’t want to understand. Finally, he decided on a different course. “I can’t. That’s not what my research was about. I was trying to cure her. The man—Nurmelev—he might know what’s going on.”
Tillman took in his words without batting an eye. Finally, she stood up, heaved in a deep breath, and shook her head. For the first time her face actually had a look of regret on it. “Son, Lord knows I want to believe you, but you won’t accept His reasoning.”
She turned around and picked up a meat cleaver from the table. “I won’t kill you, though, on account of you being human. Your friend, though…”
Her voice abruptly cut off when a familiar roar sounded followed by a deep and menacing growl. Anastasia’s ears twitched as did her nose, and Harry knew what would happen next. The fat woman’s mouth quivered. “What in the good Lord’s name was that?”
He eyed her impassively. “That’s the real abomination, and he’s going to be here very soon. Cut us loose and we’ll help you out.”
Another roar sounded and this time it was closer. Tillman dropped the cleaver and pulled the pistol out of her pants. “It’s the devil himself sending a minion to do his work,” she breathed. Her head swiveled left and right and she crossed herself repeatedly.
The bellows of rage continued and the house fairly shook. Tillman frantically swung her gaze in every direction, and then looked upward as if to call down some divine intervention. No one answered her plea and her eyes came to rest on Anastasia. She pointed the pistol at her and cocked it. “The devil himself has followed you here, cat-girl, and you’re the cause of it! It’s the devil, I tell you!”
“No, it’s someone who’s like me and he’s coming here!” Anastasia’s voice cut through the air and seemed to shake the woman into semi-sanity. “Cut us loose!”
The fat lady hesitated, and then she took a knife from the table and sliced through their bonds. “You’d better be good to your word!” she threatened.
The door burst open and Ivan stood there, his breathing heavy and loud. He took a step into the room, and then another, and his beady red eyes targeted everyone with a laser-like accuracy. Tillman backed up. “Oh, sweet Jesus, save us,” she implored, her body shaking with fear.
No, God had nothing to do with it, Harry decided. “Shoot him!” he yelled.
Tillman did, opening fire. She had good aim. All six of her shots went right into the monster’s chest, a nice, tight grouping. It didn’t slow him down for a moment.
Ivan staggered forward, and even in the dim light, Harry saw the wounds close almost instantaneously. The bear-creature lunged forward, slapped the pistol out of her hand and grabbed her around the throat. He effortlessly lifted her off the ground. She thrashed and gurgled, and her eyes practically popped out of her head from the pressure of his grip.
“Don’t kill her!” Harry yelled.
The monster grunted, looked at him, and dropped the fat woman. Tillman briefly stirred, so checking just to make sure, Harry knelt down and put a finger to her neck. No, she wasn’t dead. She’d just fainted.
Anastasia backed off, body tense and claws fully out, but managed to keep her rage in control. Much as Harry wanted to blow this creature’s head off, right now Ivan held all the cards. Besides, Tillman had used up all her ammo.
He cautiously sidled over to the monster and shook his head. Harry’s heart beat so hard he thought it would crack out of his chest, but oddly enough, right at this moment, he felt no fear. He looked up at Ivan, noticed the saliva dripping from his fangs, felt a stab of fear and fought it off. “Hey, you want to kill me, go ahead,” he said, “but don’t kill the lady. She’s crazy, but she didn’t do anything to you.”
The monster raised his massive arms and Harry looked at certain death. He stood there, waiting, and suddenly Ivan dropped his arms and gave a faint nod. Good, the creature understood what was going on—maybe.
“Harry,” Anastasia said, “hold me, please.” The very sound of her voice gave him a measure of courage.
She retracted her claws and he put his arms around her. “You know what’s coming next, don’t you?” she asked.
He did, and then Ivan let loose with a mighty swipe which caused their heads to bang together sharply. Anastasia dropped to the floor as if she’d been shot and Harry fell beside her. In his last second of consciousness, he hoped his death would be a merciful one.
Chapter Thirteen
In the Mouth of Madness
Harry dreamed of bears and lions and cats and…
Somewhere in the middle of his dream he realized it hadn’t been a dream, more like a nightmare. He remembered Anastasia snarling and spitting, the bear-thing standing over the old woman, and he recalled the impact of the almost casual slap which sent him on a collision course with his girlfriend and into a world of spinning pain only to find he was…
Awake!
He opened his eyes and thought he’d finally lost his mind. The world tilted at an angle, he felt his body swaying back and forth, his head throbbed, and everything seemed to be upside-down somehow. A groan came from his mouth, and after sensing someone beside him, he turned his head to the right. The movement sent shock waves of pain through his body. Anastasia was in the same position, her arms limp, and then he realized he was hanging upside-down. They both were.
Crap.
“Anastasia,” he whispered. “Are you up?”
She didn’t answer and he swung his gaze around the room. It was dim, but squinting hard, he made out they’d been taken to some kind of storage area. A door lay to his left, an air vent sat above it, and a larger door lay in front of him which presumably led to the main room. Well, Captain Obvious to the rescue. They’d been captured and he was pretty sure what would happen next.
Anastasia stirred briefly and lapsed back into unconsciousness. He twisted his neck up and found his legs had been tied with thick rope and tightly bound to an overhead beam. Helpless, they were helpless, and sick to his stomach, he now understood this whole adventure had been one big plan to trap them. Lured in and caged, they’d traded one cell for another, and it didn’t look like they were going to get out of there any time soon…
The sound of the door opening caught his at
tention. Light filled the room and he tried to focus. “I see you are awake,” a voice said.
A small, bald man who appeared to be in his fifties walked over to him along with Ivan, the lumbering nightmare. The man flicked a switch on the wall and the light came on, a harsh, yellowish-white glare which came from a single overhead bulb. Harry’s vision blurred for a moment, and then cleared. “Are you gonna cut us down or what?” he asked.
The man whispered something to his bearlike assassin. In response, the creature reached up and slashed at the cords which bound Harry’s legs to the pole and he fell heavily to the floor.
“Get up,” the bald man said pleasantly, a faint accent in his voice. “I will explain everything, and then you may ask your questions.”
Harry rubbed his legs to get the circulation going, and then slowly got to his feet. The huge bodyguard stood near the door, his tiny, beady eyes constantly on the move, searching out, categorizing, and sorting data. Just like my girlfriend. He’s been trained to remember every detail.
He also recognized the scars from the bullet holes. Tillman had hit him at point blank range as had the hunter…and then to his shock, the wounds had suddenly closed up and healed, just as Anastasia’s had. Enhanced regenerative capacity, he thought, and then the bear creature smiled, his teeth and fangs yellow and dirty with the remains of something he’d recently eaten. Harry didn’t think it was worth asking if the thing was a vegetarian.
The bald man had a tiny smile on his face. “Come into the main laboratory, please.”
He followed the man and Ivan into a combination cellar-laboratory and recognized the same lab equipment he’d used both at the university and at the FBI labs, along with a computer on a table in the far corner. A heavy duty gurney with an IV-drip stand sat in the opposite corner. And yes, wooden walls, cables, and a string of overhead light bulbs completed the picture—Anastasia’s only memory of this place.
So this was where the madness had all begun, the madness that resulted in his girlfriend and Doug being transformed into what they were. This whole thing was just sick, a twisted dream by a psycho.
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