“I know.”
“Then I don’t think I understand how such menial tasks-”
“Do you want to work for me?” Boudreaux asked over Alex’s protesting.
“Well, yes, but-”
“Do you want to learn from me?”
“Of course, but-”
“Do you—and this is the most important point—desire the invaluable credit hours this internship will provide you? Because they could just as easily go to some other deserving soul willing to work harder than you are.”
Alex’s bravado fled in the face of Boudreaux’s threatening tone. “Yes, sir.”
“Then you will do the work required of you. Which includes a little cooking and cleaning. Is there a problem with that?’
“No, sir.”
Boudreaux chuckled. “Don’t look so crestfallen, lad. I wouldn’t ask you to lower your station as such, but my personal staff has taken to illness lately. First the cook, then the maids, and finally my valet. In short, I am shorthanded, lad, and I need your help.”
Which of course explained the lack of a doorman, the filth of the parlor, and the state of the doctor. And he did ask for Alex’s help. “I’ll do my best.”
“I’m sure you will. Now, come. Let me show you around.”
Alex Meeks spent the rest of the day familiarizing himself with the Boudreaux estate: a one-story house of enormous size, complete with empty stables (the doctor explained he owned no horses at the moment) and a roomy but unused barn (the doctor owned no livestock). The house itself consisted of a simple layout: a single floor with fifteen rooms, most of which were boudoirs, all of which were in dire need of cleaning. Alex was told to select a room, only to be warned that he would have to prepare it himself, considering the housekeeping staff was on sick leave.
Then it was on to the basement and the marvel within.
“You will spend most of your time down here,” Boudreaux explained as they reached the bottom step.
The stairs emptied into a single, enormous room, and Alex’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the place. The laboratory of Dr. Henry Boudreaux. It wasn’t quite the marvel he expected. For starters, it was even filthier than the rest of the house combined, but with all things considered, Alex was still pleased. The room was dominated by the signs of science hard at work: gears and gadgets, machine upon machine, test tubes and countless other pieces of miscellaneous lab equipment. On the back wall hung a huge tapestry woven through with da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.
Here in this lab, the legendary doctor improved upon the design of man.
And, in turn, Boudreaux’s designs revolutionized mankind.
His first invention, the ‘Cardiac Replicator,’ consisted of a clockwork instrument that mimicked the very actions of the human heart. His next accomplishment was the ‘Nephrodialic Machine,’ a set of mechanical kidneys able to filter and cleanse even the most toxic of blood. A few years later, the doctor presented the world with his ‘Mechanoid Prosthetics,’ mechanical limbs that functioned almost better than the real things. After this, Boudreaux faded from the pages of modern medicine. Some said he had given all he could and retired a wealthy man to his summer home in the mountains of North Carolina. Others said he took on a project so ambitious that even he and his limitless talent couldn’t conquer it, and thus he withdrew from the limelight out of shame.
Alex knew better. Having spent most of his life admiring Boudreaux from afar, Alex believed the doctor still worked away on that unconquerable project. Some new and amazing medical device that could and would save thousands of lives. And now here Alex stood in Dr. Boudreaux’s lab, as his assistant, ready to do Boudreaux’s bidding. Ready to learn at the feet of the master.
“This is the main work area,” Boudreaux said, indicating the bulk of the room. “I’m sorry for the chill, but I find it hard to keep the basement as warm as the house.” He motioned to a row of tables at the back. “That half of the lab is for building and fine-tuning equipment. And the opposite end of the lab is reserved for the biological specimens and live subjects. Rats and the like.”
“Keep the metal from the man until the time is right,” Alex quoted.
Boudreaux tilted his head at Alex. “I see you’ve been reading my work.”
“I know it all by heart. Your manifesto on the importance of modern biological research. Your experiments with earthworm regeneration via galvanization. I’ve even read your paper on genetic fabrication, ‘How to Fake a Face.’ A satirical piece, I believe?”
“Oh dear, I’d almost forgotten about that one. Yes, satire it was. They caught me in a rare moment of levity. I assure you, it won’t happen again.” Though Boudreaux’s grin forced Alex to suspect otherwise.
“It really is an honor to serve under you, sir. No matter what I am asked to do.”
“Good. Because your main duty here will consist of getting this place into shape. I’m afraid my last laboratory assistant—I forget his name—left in a bit of a hurry-”
“Frank Sumter,” Alex said over him.
Boudreaux narrowed his eyes at Alex. “Excuse me?”
“Your last lab assistant. Franklyn Sumter.” Confusion continued to fill Boudreaux’s eyes, so Alex explained, “We were at university together.”
Boudreaux visibly relaxed at this. “Ah, I see.”
“In fact, when you first contacted the school regarding an assistant a few months back, I was in the running for the position. A lot of us vied for the spot. Very stiff competition, you see, but it came down to Frank and me.” Alex sighed. “Frank’s grades were a measly half a decimal point better than mine, so he won it in the end.”
“I find academic types rely too heavily on numbers and not enough on heart.”
Alex nodded. “When you wrote the school to say good old Frankie was relieved of his position, Dr. Beck offered it to me.”
“Then it worked out for the best.”
“I hope you don’t mind working with a runner-up.”
“Not at all. I’ve seen your academic files, and in my opinion you’re way …” Boudreaux paused as if searching for the right word, before he said, “Let’s just say you’re way ahead of your friend. Yes. By an arm and a leg at least.” Boudreaux smiled to himself, at some private joke, in the most disturbing of ways.
“Thank you, sir. You should know he never came back to school.”
“Did he not?”
“No.”
“Do you know what became of him?”
“He must’ve quit, but no one knows for sure. I thought he would’ve at least finished his semester. I mean, it was paid for in advance. He didn’t even say goodbye. But I guess he couldn’t handle not being the best after you fired him.”
“I’m sorry he took it so hard. Does that bother you? Does it put you under pressure?”
“I must confess it does, a bit. But our engineering professor has a saying: If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the boilers.”
This made Boudreaux grin wider. “Wise man. Shall we find some supper and call it a night?”
“Yes, sir.”
That night saw a restless Alex tossing and turning with the anticipation of his new position. In fact, he hardly slept a wink, and the moment a sliver of sunlight touched his window, he sprang from bed as nervous as a child on Christmas morn. Throwing on his clothes, he made his way down to the laboratory where he half expected his master to await him, bent over the shell of some complicated project on which the man had surely stayed up all night working.
But the lab was dark and the doctor was still asleep. The night before, Boudreaux requested that Alex meet him in the lab at eight o’clock sharp. Alex looked up to check the time; it was just seven forty-five. Still fifteen minutes before his first official day on the job? He couldn’t wait fifteen minutes! So Alex decided to get things ready while awaiting further instructions. He all but buzzed around the lab, electric with both excitement and the giddiness that comes from lack of sleep. First he would straighten up the welding bench,
then the fitting table, then empty the specimen cages-
“What are you doing?” Boudreaux roared.
Alex looked up from his task with a proud smile. “I thought I would get an early start.”
Boudreaux stormed into the lab, fists clenched and teeth bared. “Did I tell you to get an early start? Well? Did I?”
“No, sir,” Alex squeaked.
“What did I tell you?”
“To be here by eight.” Alex took a few steps back, as the space between him and the much larger man seemed all at once far too narrow. “But I was excited and couldn’t sleep, and so-”
“I don’t give a fat lab rat’s ass what you can or cannot do!” Boudreaux followed Alex, face to face, step for step. He backed Alex into a corner of the lab, hissing his words from behind clenched teeth the whole while. “When I give you a command, I expect it to be followed! To the letter! Do I make myself clear?”
Alex swallowed hard and tried not to tremble. He failed.
Boudreaux, perhaps seeing the effect he had upon the poor lad, drew a deep breath, smoothed down his wild hair, and took a few steps away from the trembling intern. “I don’t like being thought of as unpleasant, but I do expect more from my staff. You will find I have few rules, but this one is cardinal: Do not, under any circumstance, enter my laboratory without my accompaniment or, at the very least, my knowledge. I like to think of myself as progressive, but having a student running about willy-nilly in my lab, alone, will not be tolerated. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Alex finally managed.
The doctor clapped, loud and sharp, before he rubbed his hands together. “Well, since you’re so eager to get started, let us get started. You can begin with the refuse traps under the specimen cages. There are enough droppings under there to fertilize an entire farm.”
“Yes, sir.”
The following days passed with depressing regularity. Save for that single outburst, Boudreaux was pleasant and, at times, downright amusing. Yet he wasn’t much of an instructor. Alex thought that, as the doctor’s aide, he would snag a precarious place on the razor’s edge of technology. But all too soon, he found he was more personal assistant and less lab assistant than he desired. Cleaning beakers and making lunch was not his idea of learning advanced biomechanics. But Boudreaux was the boss, a fact of which he reminded Alex at every chance afforded.
After almost a week of this repetition and monotony, boredom begat insomnia, and so his mind, unchallenged during the daylight hours, took to wandering at night, leaving poor Alex exhausted upon sunrise. There was little he could do to combat this sleeplessness. Night after night, he sat in his room, wide awake, reading or working complex algebra or composing poetry, anything to wear out his restless intellect.
It was just such a night when Alex heard the thumping in the basement.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound drifted up through the floorboards, a soft series of pulsating throbs that emanated from somewhere deep in the level below. At first listen, he thought it sounded like a boiler acting up. The university back home was known to have noisy pipes and, as his professor described it, ‘a mouthy boiler.’ Perhaps the doctor had similar issues with his pipes? Boudreaux did mention that the boiler was very old. Ancient. Yet the thumps didn’t sound like pipes or a feisty piece of machinery. They sounded thick, almost damp, and heavy with untold weight. Intrigued by this distraction, Alex got to his knees and pressed an ear against the cold wooden slats of the bare floor.
The pounding was rhythmic. Alex listened for a few moments, trying to discern a pattern to the thumps, seeking telltale signs of a bent pipe or busted coil. He couldn’t tell for certain what he was hearing. Not through the floor like this. No, he would have to go down and have a good listen from the basement.
And there lay the problem. Boudreaux was emphatic about no one entering his lab without permission. Alex sat back on his heels for a moment and considered this. His conclusion was dreadful. If permission was needed, then permission must be requested.
He would have to wake Boudreaux.
Alex hauled himself to his feet, filled with utter dread. Sliding into his dressing gown, he stepped into the darkened hallway, hissing at the chill in the air. The atmosphere of his bedroom was augmented by a well-maintained fire, while the rest of the house suffered from the dropping winter temperatures with which the ‘ancient boiler’ was unable to keep up. It was one reason Alex kept to his room rather than roam in the midnight hours. But spurred by the power of curiosity, he pushed aside his hatred for the cold and made his way down to Boudreaux’s room.
Rapping gently on the door, Alex called out, “Dr. Boudreaux?”
A light snore drifted through the thin wood.
Alex looked to the heavens for help, then rapped again. “Doctor? I need to speak with you. Sir?”
More snoring, followed by a loud snort, then even louder snoring. Boudreaux was indeed a heavy sleeper, and poor Alex, at a loss for direction or advice, went on back to his warm(ish) bed.
And there the thumping haunted him.
It seemed so much louder now, though it probably wasn’t. Alex believed the knowledge of the sound made it seem louder. It was the expectation of the thumping that amplified the noise. No, not amplified. Honed, directed, and propelled the thumping straight into Alex’s very soul.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
After a good hour of listening to this, Alex finally sat up in his bed.
“That’s about enough of that,” he whispered to no one in particular.
Slipping back into his gown, Alex lit a lantern and set off to discover the root of the noise. He worried that one of the lab rats had escaped. Or perhaps a squirrel had made its way into the basement insulation? Either way, such animals could prove a terrible danger to the sensitive lab equipment. Alex would rather be wrong and brave Boudreaux’s sharp tongue for disobeying, than just let some vermin wander about the laboratory alone.
As usual, the lab was far colder than the rest of the house. Alex shivered as he climbed down the stairs, partly from the chill in the air, partly from his overwhelming fear. Should Boudreaux awaken and find his wayward assistant alone in the lab, there would be such hell to pay! Yet the moment Alex reached the bottom step, where the thumping echoed with such intensity that it rattled the beakers in their racks, he knew he had made the right choice. Something was down here.
Something or someone.
Alex stood in total silence, straining to listen for the source of the noise. It was so strong down here, he was surprised it didn’t reverberate more throughout the house. He realized good insulation was probably to blame for dampening the sound. But nothing dampened it here. Alex closed his eyes and listened. The thumping seemed to come from everywhere at once. No, wait … not everywhere. The sound was ahead of him, across the room. Alex sought the noise with a nervous pace, keeping one eye on the stairs and his ears trained to the heavy thumping ahead of him as he inspected every inch of the lab. Eventually, he reached the opposite side of the room, where after checking under each bench and across every table, inside every cabinet and behind each shelf, Alex found nothing.
Yet still, there came the thumping.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
He stood motionless again, back to the tapestry, ears alive with the droning thumps, when he felt an odd sensation—a breeze. The fingers of a chilly current caressed his bare ankles and threatened to blow straight up his dressing gown should he remain still for much longer. Alex held the lantern out and turned this way and that. The very edge of the tapestry—the corner nearest him—swayed with the same draft. His curiosity renewed, Alex approached the hanging, gripping the corner and pulling the heavy fabric aside.
Behind the tapestry lay a huge metal door.
Without thinking twice, or even once, Alex reached out and tried the handle, only to find that there wasn’t one. Alex presse
d a hand against the door instead, seeking a latch of some kind, but no sooner had he laid his bare fingertips against the metal than he drew back with a hiss. The door was cold. Ice cold. Wisps of chilled air curled from around the frame and under the door, reaching out for Alex with frozen tentacles. Atop this development, Alex realized he now heard the thumps with resounding clarity. Whatever or whoever was causing the thumps was doing so just on the other side of this door. This very large, frozen metal door.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Alex stared at the frozen door, more curious than ever as to what on earth could cause such a racket.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
“Hello?” Alex called out as loud as he dared.
At which the thumping promptly ceased.
Alex gave a small shriek of surprise in the wake of silence. In a rush to cover his traitorous mouth, he fumbled his source of light. The metal-an-glass contraption tipped from his trembling fingers and fell to the floor in a loud clatter. The flame puffed out. Gloom swallowed him whole. Remaining as still as his twitching body could manage, Alex drew ragged breaths while his heart hammered against his breastbone with all the pace of a jackrabbit’s overactive feet. Several moments passed, which stretched into several minutes, but Boudreaux never appeared. Counting his lucky stars, which were many (the fact that the lantern didn’t shatter on impact, that he had the forethought to bring extra matches along, and that Boudreaux was such a heavy sleeper), Alex lit the lantern again. Just as it flared into life, the sound began anew. Alex clutched the lamp tighter to keep from dropping it a second time.
The thumping was irregular, still rhythmic but odd in its timing. Soon, a pattern emerged: three short thumps followed by a series of heavier beats, followed again by the three frantic thumps, then a long pause before the sequence was repeated.
Thump-thump-thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Machina Mortis: Steampunk'd Tales of Terror Page 8
