Basilisk

by Graham Masterton

  ‘What’s it to you where I park?’ Nathan demanded. ‘You’re maintenance, not traffic management. Go maintain something.’

  He climbed the steps and pushed open the double doors. The maintenance man said, ‘Hey!’ but Nathan ignored him. He walked along the corridor to the very end, with the man repeating ‘Hey!’ and ‘Hey, fella!’ at regular intervals. He didn’t answer to ‘fella’, especially today.

  When he turned the corner at the end of the corridor, he found Patti Laquelle standing outside his laboratory, wearing her red squall and a very short skirt and Ugg boots, chatting on her cell.

  Patti said, ‘Millie? Have to call you later, babes. Professor Underhill has finally showed up.’

  ‘So how did you get in here?’ asked Nathan, as she followed him into his office. ‘This whole building is supposed to be restricted.’

  ‘I used my amazing charm, of course. And my identity badge.’

  Nathan took hold of the plastic card that was safety-pinned to her windbreaker, and peered at it. It was a genuine Philadelphia Zoo Visitor ID, but on close inspection it was obvious that Patti had glued her own photograph on top of the original.

  ‘OK, I picked it up from your desk,’ she admitted. But then she said, ‘Did you see my article? I thought it came out really, really great.’

  ‘I haven’t had time yet, Patti. To tell you the truth, I overslept.’

  ‘It came out really, really great. At least, I thought it did. My Rotten Break: By Dragon’s Egg Egghead.’

  Nathan sat down at his desk, and switched on his computer.

  ‘That was the headline? “My Rotten Break: By Dragon’s Egg Egghead”?’

  ‘You really need to read it,’ Patti insisted. ‘It’s totally simpatico. I put in all that stuff you told me about Alzheimer’s and cystic what’s-it’s-name and Parkinson’s disease.’

  ‘Good. Great. Thank you.’

  He checked his emails. Patti stayed where she was, on the opposite side of his desk, smiling.

  He looked up. ‘Did you want something else?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not really. I wanted to tell you that the story came out good, that’s all. And maybe I could do a follow-up.’

  ‘A follow-up?’

  ‘Absolutely. You are going to try again, aren’t you? You are going to grow another gryphon’s egg? I’d like to cover it right from the moment of concepción.’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what went wrong with this one yet. And it all depends on my funding. The Zoo isn’t going to give me a blank check to go on breeding mythical creatures if none of them survive.’

  ‘But they must. Like – this research that you’re doing, it’s much too important for them to pull the plug on you.’

  ‘Well, I agree with you, Patti. But tell that to the funding department.’

  Richard knocked at the door. He had fastened his lab coat with the wrong buttons, which made him look even more lopsided than usual, and the parting in his hair was a zig-zag. ‘Morning,’ he said, looking suspiciously at Patti. ‘Traffic bad, was it?’

  ‘Like I was telling Ms Laquelle here, I slept late. Did you make a start on the necropsy yet?’

  ‘You’ve had about a zillion phone calls, but I didn’t pick up. I guessed it was probably the media, you know.’

  ‘I’ll deal with the media later. What have you done so far?’

  ‘OK . . .’ Richard took a crumpled Kleenex out of his sleeve and fastidiously wiped his nose. ‘I’ve taken DNA samples. I’ve taken soft-tissue specimens from the muscles and internal organs, including the liver and the spleen. I’ve also taken bone-marrow samples from the skeleton, and keratin from the feathers and the beak. I’ve started growing seven different bacterial cultures from the various body fluids.’

  ‘Good work,’ said Nathan. He was impressed.

  ‘It’s kind of early to tell what the primary COD was,’ Richard told him. ‘But so far I think that you’re probably right. Or mostly right. We are dealing with a Group A Streptococcus. But maybe something else, too.’

  ‘Did you read my article, Richard?’ Patti interrupted him. She was sitting on the corner of Nathan’s desk and her skirt was hiked up so high that he could see her pink polka-dot panties, so he immediately looked away.

  Richard wiped his nose again, and sniffed. ‘On the Web? Sure. I read it.’

  ‘And what did you think? Didn’t you think it was great?’

  Richard thought for a moment, but then he said, ‘I have to admit it, yes, it was reasonably accurate. Apart from the headline, that is. We’ve never actually tried to breed dragons as such.’

  ‘Well – dragons, gargoyles, gryphons,’ said Patti. ‘They’re all the same kind of thing, aren’t they? It’s just that your average Web reader wouldn’t have a clue what a gryphon is.’

  Nathan’s phone rang. He picked it up and said, ‘Cee-Zee Lab.’

  ‘Oh, hi! This is Kevin McNamara, senior science editor on The Philadelphia Inquirer. Can I speak to Professor Nathan Underhill, please?

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr McNamara. Professor Underhill isn’t here today.’

  ‘Oh. Pity. I just wanted to ask him a couple of questions about his work on mythical creatures. In particular, the gryphon that just hatched.’

  ‘The gryphon was stillborn. You can read all about it on the Web.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But I wanted to ask Professor Underhill if he intends to continue his research, of if he’s ready to admit that it’s never going to come to anything, and throw in the towel.’

  Nathan said, ‘My impression is that Professor Underhill is pretty much determined to carry on.’

  ‘Oh, really? He told you that?’

  ‘That’s the impression he gave me. But of course the ultimate decision rests with the zoo, whether they’re prepared to fund him or not. You’ll have to ask Doctor Burnside about that. He’s in charge of the purse strings.’

  ‘I already did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I don’t think that Doctor Burnside has said anything to Professor Underhill yet, but I don’t think that Professor Underhill is going to like it, when he does.’

  ‘Oh, really? What did Doctor Burnside have to say?’

  ‘He didn’t mince his words, let’s put it that way. He said that Professor Underhill has spent five years and more than two million dollars and yet he still hasn’t produced a single viable hybrid. He said that the zoo isn’t prepared to invest a single penny more into Professor Underhill’s project. He called it a “wild gryphon chase”. A complete waste of valuable resources. And I quote.’

  Nathan looked across at Richard and Patti. He could feel a muscle in his left cheek begin to twitch. He said, as calmly as he could manage, ‘For your information, Mr McNamara, Professor Underhill is recognized as one of the most imaginative and ground-breaking research zoologists since Thomas Hunt Morgan.’

  ‘Well, that’s as may be. But he’s trying to recreate creatures that lived hundreds of years in the past, isn’t he? That’s if they ever lived at all.’

  ‘You’re right, yes. You’re absolutely right. But if he’s successful, he could single-handedly take medical science hundreds of years into the future, overnight. He could cure multiple sclerosis, for Christ’s sake.’

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Nathan could almost hear the Inquirer reporter grinning.

  ‘I’m talking to Professor Underhill, aren’t I? Come on, Professor, admit it!’

  Nathan grimaced. He should have kept his mouth shut.

  ‘Come on, Professor! Tell me how you feel about your project being deep-sixed.’

  ‘I told you,’ said Nathan. ‘Professor Underhill isn’t here today. He won’t be here tomorrow, either. Or the day after.’

  ‘Professor – all I want is one short quote. “Dr Burnside is a short-sighted reactionary bastard,” that’ll do.’

  Nathan slowly and carefully hung up, and then sat back in his chair.

  Richard was furiously blinking. ‘Wha
t’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘Has something gone wrong?’

  ‘It’s all over,’ Nathan told him. ‘Burnside is closing us down. You might as well toss everything into the incinerator bin, what’s left of it. Then we can all go home.’

  Patti said, ‘That’s it? It’s all over? No more dragons? No more gryphons?’

  ‘No,’ said Nathan. ‘I’ll be lucky if they put me on chimp-sexing duty. That’s if they decide to keep me here at all.’

  ‘But they can’t do that, can they?’ Patti protested.

  ‘Oh, they can, and they have. And do you know what the most frustrating thing is? I shall never know how close I came to recreating a mythical creature. Or how far away I was.’

  ‘Well, I think you were very close,’ said Richard. ‘Very, very close indeed.’

  ‘Thanks. But we’ll never have any way of knowing it, will we? Not for sure.’

  Richard said, ‘Maybe I should put the embryo back in the chiller. You never know.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  The phone again. This time, it was Dr Burnside himself. His voice was as dry as Saltine crackers.

  ‘Nathan? I need to see you in my office. As soon as possible, please.’

  ‘It’s all right, Henry,’ Nathan told him. ‘I’ve heard the news already. You can spare me the crocodile tears.’

  ‘We need to discuss your future, Nathan, here at the zoo.’

  ‘So what are you going to offer me? Engineer, on the PZ Express? –’ that was the kiddies’ train ride that circled around the zoo – ‘everybody over forty-eight inches has to be accompanied by a small child.’

  ‘Come on, Nathan. I know you’re upset about this. I fully appreciate all of the research work you’ve done. You’ve made some outstanding progress in the field of cryptozoology, you know that. It hasn’t all been wasted.’

  ‘Not what you told The Inquirer.’

  ‘Come see me. Please. We need to see what we can profitably salvage from your research, and we need to decide which direction you’re going to go in now.’

  Nathan took a deep breath. ‘There’s only one direction I’m going in now, Henry, and that’s to Fado’s, for a very large Irish whiskey.’

  ‘Nathan—’ said Dr Burnside, but Nathan hung up.

  He put on his coat, and took a look around his office. ‘You coming?’ he asked Patti. ‘I could do with a shoulder to cry on.’

  ‘Sure,’ Patti said, and picked up her bag.

  ‘Richard? How about a drink?’

  Richard said, ‘No thanks, Professor. A little too early for me. I’ll stay here and clear everything up.’

  Nathan left his laboratory and walked back along the corridor, with Patti hopping and skipping to keep up with him. ‘Maybe you can find somebody else to finance you,’ she suggested. ‘You know, a big corporation like Coca-Cola or Macdonald’s. Or even the Pep Boys.’

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ said Nathan, as he pushed open the doors. ‘I’ve spent all of that time and all of that money and I’ve failed to come up with the goods. Nobody’s going to throw good money after bad. Especially the amount that I’m going to need.’

  He stepped outside, just in time to see a big red tow truck dragging his car around the corner of the maintenance block. The maintenance man in the green coveralls was standing at the bottom of the steps, his arms folded in satisfaction.

  He whistled, and ran after the tow truck, and managed to flag down the driver just before he reached the exit gate.

  ‘You want to unhook my goddamned car, please?’

  ‘Fifty bucks,’ said the driver, relentlessly chewing gum. He looked like another member of the mandrill family, except that his hair was wiry and gray.

  ‘Fifty bucks? What the hell are you talking about? I work here. I’m a research professor.’

  ‘Listen – you could be St Francis of Assisi, for all I care. Fifty bucks. That’s the tow charge. We’re a private contractor, no connection to the zoo.’

  ‘If you think I’m going to pay you to get my own car back, then you’re out of your mind.’

  The tow truck driver shrugged. Then he switched off his engine and picked up a copy of the sports section. ‘Bad Call, Sloppy Ball Costs Phils Against Cubs.’

  Nathan turned away. It took all of his self-control not to pick up the concrete-based sign saying NO PUBLIC PARKING and smash it against the tow truck door.

  Patti came up and said, ‘Hey – they’re, like, towing your car? That’s so not appreciative.’

  Just then, her cellphone played ‘Oops . . . I Did It Again.’ She flipped it open and said, ‘Yes? Who? Really? You’re kidding me! You’re kidding me! OK, then.’

  She came up to Nathan and said, ‘That drink . . . I’ll have to take a rain check. Some seventy-year-old woman in Fishtown has just been arrested for strangling her spaniel. And cooking it. Spaniel cheesesteak, can you imagine?’

  ‘OK, whatever,’ Nathan told her. He wasn’t really listening. He took out his wallet and counted out fifty dollars. He walked back to the tow truck and held the money up in front of the driver’s open window. His hand was shaking. ‘Here you go. Here’s your fifty bucks. I surrender.’

  The driver climbed down from his cab. He took the money and counted it, licking his thumb to separate the bills.

  ‘Do you know what my motto is?’ he said, as he tucked it into his pocket. ‘Never beat your head against a brick wall. You know why? Because it’s brick.’

  Instead of going to Fado’s, Nathan drove home. He was depressed, but he didn’t relish drinking whiskey on his own, staring at his unkempt reflection in the mirror of a noisy Irish bar. Besides, it was raining again, heavily, and he didn’t feel like driving around and around with his windshield wipers flapping, looking for someplace to park.

  As he arrived outside his house, he heard loud music coming from Denver’s bedroom. He opened the front door and it was almost deafening.

  He went upstairs and knocked on Denver’s door. There was no answer, so he opened it. Denver and his friend Stu Wintergreen were standing in the middle of the room, their knees bent, their eyes screwed tight shut, flinging their hair from side to side and thrashing wildly at two invisible guitars.

  Nathan watched them for a while. But then Stu opened his eyes and saw him standing in the doorway. He pushed Denver so hard that Denver almost lost his balance.

  Denver turned around, and his cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Nathan shouted, over the music.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who’s this? Which band?’

  Denver looked baffled for a moment, especially since Nathan hadn’t asked him what the hell he was doing out of school.

  ‘Pig Destroyers!’ he shouted back, in his hoarse-teenage voice.

  ‘Pig Destroyers, huh?’

  ‘They’re a deathgrind band from Virginia! This track is called “Rotten Yellow”!’

  ‘I see! They’re pretty good, aren’t they?’ He paused. ‘Pretty loud, anyhow!’

  Stu blinked at him from behind his thick-rimmed eyeglasses. ‘They’re totally awesome!’

  Denver gave him a push, as if to warn him not to be so friendly to his dad. But Nathan said, ‘OK. See you guys later,’ and closed the door.

  So Denver wanted to take a day off school, and jump around in his bedroom pretending to be a Pig Destroyer? Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter any more.

  It stopped raining around three p.m. The sun started to glitter on the pavement outside, and Denver and Stu put on their windbreakers and sneakers to go out. Nathan was sitting on the living-room couch with his laptop and a cold can of pale ale, and Diagnosis Murder was playing on the television with the sound turned off.

  ‘Pops? We’re going over to Stu’s house to play Halo 3.’

  ‘OK.’

  Denver hesitated. ‘Tell Mom I’ll be back around six, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  An even longer hesitation. Then Denver said, ‘Like, ah – what are you doing home?’<
br />
  ‘I’m taking some well-deserved downtime. Any objections?’

  ‘No, of course not. I thought things were crazy at the lab, that’s all.’

  Nathan looked at him. How could he explain to Denver that everything he had been trying to achieve for the past five years had come to nothing at all? Hundreds of tests, thousands of experiments. Hours of squinting into a microscope, until his head thumped and his eyes went blurry.

  He wasn’t concerned that Denver would mock him about it, or be triumphal, because he didn’t believe that he would be. But he was worried that he might come to the conclusion that study and hard work were not ultimately worth the effort, because there was always some bureaucrat who could pull the plug on you, even if you might be inches away from success.

  ‘Don’t be too late, OK?’ he told Denver; he didn’t even add ‘because you have school tomorrow.’

  Grace arrived home only twenty minutes later. As she was parking her car, Nathan opened the front door for her.

  ‘Hey – what are you doing home?’ she asked him, as she collected up her shopping.

  ‘Denver asked me the same question.’

  ‘Denver was here?’

  ‘I surprised him. Him and his friend Stu. They were doing a little home study. I think the subject was Intolerably Loud Music, Grade Three.’

  ‘That boy. I swear to God.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Nathan, as he followed her into the kitchen, ‘you’re the one who’s always saying we should make allowances.’

  She put down her shopping sacks on the kitchen table. ‘What are we having tonight?’ he asked her, peering inside.

  ‘Jambalaya,’ she said. ‘You still haven’t told me why you’re home so early.’

  ‘You want it straight? I’m home early because I’m out of a job. Henry Burnside has decided that the zoo is no longer prepared to finance the breeding of mythical creatures.’

  ‘Oh, you’re kidding me! Oh, Nathan, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I should have seen this coming months ago. Like you said, I probably overhyped it. I gave the zoo all kinds of unrealistic expectations. I bet they believed that they’d have baby gryphons running around by now. Maybe they even thought they could put them on public display. You know – Gryphon World. You can’t really blame them for cutting my funds off.’