by Pete Rawlik
There was no way for me to tell Dr. Willett that I had already seen something that suggested otherwise, that is without revealing any of my own sordid past. My physical examination of Pulver revealed highly abnormal physical and neurological conditions, but these while beyond those thought normal, were not beyond my own experience. I had read about such abnormalities in the notes of Dr. Stuart Hartwell, for they were common amongst some of his experimental subjects, experiments that explored the reanimation of dead animals and humans. Of course I had also observed them directly in a subject that I had direct access to, an example of a reanimated individual that I examined on a daily basis. Abnormal breathing, strange heart rates, cold skin, poor nervous reactions, they were all things I saw every day. These symptoms, they were frighteningly similar to the result of Hartwell’s reanimation reagent, or something like it, for I knew those symptoms all too well. For the individual I had observed on a daily basis for these long years, the one who had died and then been brought back by Hartwell’s experiments, was myself!
The next morning Willett and the other senior staff had breakfast in the staff dining room before bidding farewell, and leaving me in charge of the orderlies, the old cook Mrs. Davis, and the dozen or so cats that served to keep the grounds free of vermin. The oldest and largest of these was a great calico which the staff referred to as Doc, for his claws were as sharp and as swift as any surgeon’s scalpel. This title was well-earned, for guests who crossed the beast would be quick to learn to steer clear of him in the future. Only the physicians on the staff, and of course Mrs. Davis, who provided his meals, knew any kindness from him. With the senior staff gone, I was left alone to make my rounds, with Doc trailing behind me. With just a few patients, all of which were minor cases, the majority of my regular work was completed in just a few hours. The only patient I had not seen was the enigmatic Mr. Pulver. Sammons was with him in the library, where he was perusing a small book. Dismissing Sammons, I sat down across from Pulver and introduced myself.
The young man closed his book, which was revealed to be Castaigne’s translation of The King in Yellow. “I know who ye are Dr. Wilson, and I know what ye are.” He waved the book in front of me. “Have ye read this? ‘Tis quite an amusing tale.”
I was taken aback by the man’s archaic speech, but confessed that I hadn’t read the book, then paused and asked, “It seems we have something in common Mr. Pulver. I trust I can count on your discretion, as you can count on mine?”
The younger man smiled at me, “I am sure that ye and I can come to some arrangement while my father and Dr. Willett deem it necessary to detain me in this place.” Pulver it seems had developed several curious habits as a result of his mania, the most noticeable of which was his affectation of an archaic accent, vocabulary and mode of speech. More distressing was his desire, or as he put it, “craving” for fresh raw meat. He needed a significant portion on a daily basis, for it supplied a vital energy without which he would surely wither away to naught but dust. At these suggestions I laughed, thinking the man was playing the clown. However, that laughter turned to morbid shock once I realized that the man was genuine in his desires.
Normally such a request would have been ignored, but I was faced with a horrible dilemma, and risked exposure of my own secret. Thus, I with some amount of secrecy set about determining how to meet the odd demand. My investigation of the pantry was disappointing. In summer the kitchen would be stocked with fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, shellfish, poultry, beef, ham, mutton, and even a selection of wild game. However, in the winter, with all but a few guests and staff, supplies were limited, and while some meat was available, it consisted mostly of dried beef, smoked sausages, and salted fish, none of which could remotely be considered to meet Pulver’s expressed desires. Inquiries at the nearby farms were rejected, for none of the local poultry men were in a position to supply me with the daily regimen that Pulver had suggested. However, while making my way back to the hospital, I through happenstance encountered young Simon Grau, who during the summer often provided us with small game. I explained my need, though not the motivation behind it, and he suggested that he likely could provide each morning a rabbit or two. Though, he warned, that given the season, the beasts might be rather lean. We negotiated a price that was acceptable to both of us and Grau assured me that he would deliver no later than eight each morning.
True to his word, the next day Grau was at the kitchen door just after seven and delivered two carcasses, skinned, with the heads and paws removed. At these, Mrs. Davis scowled and examined them roughly. She glared at the boy and warned him not to be bringing any “dachahse” roof rabbits into her kitchen. The boy swore that he would do no such thing, and bid us farewell till tomorrow. Confused, I pressed Mrs. Davis for an explanation. She was reluctant at first, but then using the bodies, explained that when properly prepared the carcasses of rabbits and cats were nearly indistinguishable, and in lean times the unscrupulous hunter would often substitute one for the other. She assured me that the meat supplied by Grau was indeed rabbit. I thanked Mrs. Davis and asked her to make the one rabbit for my dinner, while I took the other one as it was. This left the old cook quite perplexed, but I just took the rabbit and waved her away.
Despite the cold, Pulver was in the garden on a hill overlooking the bay. As I approached, Sammons saw the covered serving tray and intercepted me. “He’s already had his breakfast.” I nodded and dismissed the man. Marching up the hill against the wind I barely felt the cold. As I reached the crest Pulver turned to greet me. There was a strange look in his eyes, a desire that I knew to be a perverse kind of hunger. He greedily snatched the tray and tossed the cover to the side. I had thought the animal rather large, indeed I expected to share the one Mrs. Davis was to prepare. However, in the hands of Mr. Pulver it suddenly seemed small, for it vanished quickly in the most rapacious of manners. In mere moments the bones had been sucked clean, nary a morsel of muscle, ligament or cartilage remained. I found his whole process of feeding almost obscene, and despite this I could not look away when he cracked open the bones and proceeded to suck out the marrow. I gagged a little when he finally turned to look at me with those strangely intense eyes and said in a voice that was not asking, but rather ordering “MORE!”
Against Willett’s orders I fled, leaving Pulver alone. On my way back I passed Sammons and gave him a perfunctory order to keep an eye on Pulver. I cannot begin to think what Sammons must have thought at the sight of the blood-covered patient, and to be honest, at the time I did not care. I knew that the reanimation process often resulted in subjects exhibiting all sorts of irrational behavior, indeed my own wife became a kind of plague demon, a mindless killer whose first victim was myself, and was the cause of my own exposure to the reanimation reagent. Yet despite this knowledge, I found Pulver’s ravenous behavior almost intolerable, and I found myself wandering the halls fretting over the issue.
Eventually, I had no choice and after he was served dinner, I confronted him on the issue. At first he thought I had come to feed him again, but I made it clear that I could only guarantee him one rabbit a day, but on occasion two might be possible. He cursed at me, calling me a slew of archaic derogatory names, and warned me that if I did not help him, he would take matters into his own hands. It was then that I realized that my fears were unfounded. Pulver was not a threat to me, he was a madman, a patient, and no matter what he said about me or my condition, no one would believe him. I steeled my nerves and ordered Sammons and the other staff to confine him to his room and the common areas inside the hospital. That night I took comfort in the fact that it was I who was in control of the hospital, and not the madman below. My sense of satisfaction must have been palatable, for it was strongly reinforced by the constant affections of the cat Doc, who spent the night curled up on the bed with me, purring loudly.
For the next few days I had Sammons deliver Pulver’s special meals, but included both rabbits, for although Mrs. Davis is an excellent cook, I found the dish she made
from the beast a bit too gamey for my tastes. I also made a constant effort to avoid Pulver. I had no need to interact with him, and he made no requests for my attention. This arrangement went on for more than a week, until at last one of us broke the pattern, though in a very subtle way. On the morning of the Twentieth, Sammons approached me very meekly and suggested that he may have committed some offense and shirked his responsibilities. Pulver it seems, had been writing letters, and had convinced one of the junior orderlies to post them for him. Most had been addressed to remote locales in Europe, but the one Sammons had confiscated had been directed to a legal firm in Philadelphia, but the addressee was identified as “Efraim Waite, or his Legalle Heir.” The packet was rather thick, and heavy, indicating a significant number of pages were enclosed. I thanked Sammons for his forthrightness, suggested that the junior orderly be reassigned, and promised that we would not speak of the matter again.
Sammons thanked me, and made to leave, but then suddenly stopped and commented. “The staff is scared of him Doctor Wilson, the cats too.” I nodded, and hoped that he wouldn’t be with us much longer. I thought about opening the packet and examining its contents, but instead I threw it whole into the fire. Whatever secrets Pulver had, I had no interest in them, I had pried into secrets before, and it had cost me dearly.
It was three days later that the morning sky turned grey and the wind shifted, and the air grew bitterly cold. Grau commented on the change in the weather when he came to drop off the rabbits in the morning. He lingered longer than usual, and sampled Mrs. Davis’s coffee. By the time he left a fog had begun to roll in off the bay, and swaddle the island in its murky embrace. Through the day and the night the temperature continued to drop, and the air took on that peculiar smell that warns of a winter storm. Grau came, but with only one rabbit, the fog being too thick to hunt in. An hour after he left the snow began, and by the time the sun went down several inches had accumulated, but the storm itself showed no sign of letting up.
For five days the wind howled and beat against the windows. The snow whipped and danced across the frigid pale landscape, and piled up against the doors until they could no longer be opened. Grau had ceased to come, but whether this was because he had no rabbits to deliver, or because it was too cold and treacherous to make the trip, I did not know. Yet while the young hunter no longer came to us, we had other, albeit unwelcome, guests. The storm had kept all of us inside, and presumably it had kept Grau from hunting and delivering his rabbits; it also had driven the rats from their usual haunts in the fields and into the refuge of the hospital itself. It was most disturbing to hear them as they moved about the rooms, not where you could see them, but rather in the places in between. The hospital had rats in the halls, in the kitchen, in the rooms, and even in the walls.
It was Friday the Thirtieth when the invasion of vermin grew too much for me to tolerate and I convened a meeting with Sammons and Mrs. Davis to decide on a course of action. In a store room we found a case of traps which were easy enough to operate, and large enough to handle even the largest of rats. I, however, admonished my staff to be careful in their placement so as not to cause injury to our few guests, and the plethora of cats that had apparently been unable to deal with the infestation. At this both Sammons and Davis seemed to blanch, and I pressed them on the issue. Both seemed reticent to answer, and were frankly amazed that I hadn’t noticed myself.
Neither had seen any of the cats for days, even old Doc had seemingly vanished. It was true, it had been days since I had seen any of the feline residents of the institute, but given the capricious ways of cats, I had not taken any notice.
It was a mystery, but one that I would have to investigate later, after the issue of the rats was taken care of. Given the size of the traps it was best if they were set by two sets of hands, rather than one. Thus I found myself working through the building with Sammons, and as things progressed, we struck up a casual conversation, mostly about the island and its more eccentric residents. In time, the dialogue eventually worked its way to the young hunter Grau whom had been supplying the rabbits for Pulver. Sammons found Pulver’s consumption of the raw animal flesh disturbing, and suggested that the blizzard be used as a ploy to cease providing such fare, and that he be weaned off of the psychological need for raw meat. I nodded, for I found the suggestion intriguing were it not for the case that Grau had ceased delivering when the storm started, and given the cold and snow, was not likely to be starting up again anytime soon. It was then that Sammons made the most unusual comment, for he wondered how many rabbits were left to keep feeding Pulver’s mania.
Confused I told him that there were no rabbits left, there had never been any storage of rabbits in the pantry, and they had been delivered daily by Grau and then conveyed to him fresh each day. The last delivery had been almost a fortnight earlier. Sammons shook his head, surely I was mistaken. Perhaps Mrs. Davis had laid in a supply. For he had seen Pulver devour the carcass of an animal, or disposed of the bones of such a feast, almost every day of his incarceration!
I stumbled back and found support in a library chair, while the wave of heretofore unconnected events and ideas washed over me. They coalesced in my mind, working together into a tapestry that revealed the horrid truth of what had happened here. Pulver had warned me that he would take things into his own hands; I should never have distanced myself from Pulver. Knowing what he was, I should have supervised him myself, or at least told him that the supply of raw meat had ceased. Mrs. Davis had warned me about “dachahse,” roof rabbits, but this warning was misplaced. She should have told Sammons, and maybe then we could have prevented Pulver from devouring the cats that resided at the hospital, presumably including my beloved Doc!
My retribution over this slight was swift and severe. I and Sammons forcibly sedated the man, and then bound him into a straightjacket. He was confined to a padded room with none of his personal items, or any of the books which he had borrowed from the library. Later that evening, once I had regained my composure, I set about examining Pulver’s belongings and quickly discovered flecks of a blue paint on his shoes which I realized was the color of the beach chairs used by the hospital. As it was winter, these were in storage in a detached shed that was situated between the hospital and the beach. Intrigued but fearful, I was careful not to let any of the staff see me make my way through the snow to the outlying building.
That Pulver had been using the building was apparent, but what he had been doing was incomprehensible, and I dare not relate it here. Let it be said that Pulver had been carrying out experiments, though it would be difficult to say that the undertakings were purely scientific, rather they were perhaps alchemical, or even necromantic in nature, I also found concrete evidence of his having used the shed to kill and skin the cats before eating them. All of this I gathered up in some old flour sacks and took to the furnace where I destroyed it. It gave me great satisfaction to burn those things, for the experimental equipment had obviously taken some time to cobble together. That I was able to extract some quantum of vengeance against the man was somewhat comforting.
The next morning there came the beginning of a warming spell, and by the third of April enough of the snow had melted to allow for foot traffic to come in and out of the hospital. The first visitor was Grau who came without any game, but rather to apologize for his absence. While his visit had no direct impact on our operations, he was a welcome sight, and he engendered in the staff a desire to visit friends and relations in nearby Jamestown. Given that we had been trapped inside the facility for several weeks I could see no good reason to deny Sammons and Mrs. Davis some well-deserved leave. After all, the rats had been controlled; Pulver was confined to a straightjacket, and the few other patients could easily be handled for the day, either by myself or Barrass the remaining junior orderly.
It wasn’t long before the flaw in my plan made itself plain. By noon, the wind off the bay had brought in a new storm, one filled with driving, freezing rain. I watched from my window
, frustrated and helpless as the walkways that had been cleared were now suddenly covered with ice and impassable. By nightfall, it was clear that Sammons and Davis were not going to return and that for the immediate future Barrass and I were on our own. This would have been fine, were it not for the sudden flicker in the lights. The rain no doubt had seeped into the wiring that ran between the main building and the furnace building where the generator had been installed. By the time the clocks struck seven Barrass and I had broken out the candles and hurricane lamps. We prepared sandwiches for ourselves and the patients. Pulver refused his dinner, and cursed me for denying him the blood-rich raw meat he needed. After Barrass closed the door, I checked and made sure that the cell was properly locked. I then left Barrass to keep watch while I rested, with the full intent of relieving him around one in the morning.
My sleep was restless, and truth be told I have not slept well, or much in all the years since my reanimation. It is I suppose a side effect of the process, and I would not begrudge the living their peaceful nights, the loss of a good night’s sleep seems a small price to pay for more life. It would be tolerable, this life I live, I am never ill, never tired, even my melancholy seems surmountable. Life, life as I know it would be more than acceptable, were it not that I suffered from bad dreams, nightmares really, the same nightmare over and over again, the night of my death, and my rebirth.
