The Teratologist

by Ward Parker

  Then it all came back to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he lowered Diana to her feet.

  “Darryl? You’re back!”

  “Miss Strom, it wasn’t me who did those horrible things—I can’t even recall all of what I’ve done. It was the Ferryman.”

  “Don’t worry, I understand.” Her voice wasn’t angry, but she spoke quickly with panic. “Everything will be all right, but you need to surrender at once to the men behind you or they will kill you.”

  He turned and saw in the moonlight a group of men and reflections of light on metal.

  The Ferryman’s voice whispered in his ear, “You have to make a choice now and make it fast. Accept and serve Him with the chance for eternal life. Or die like a dog.”

  Darryl wanted nothing more to do with this demon and all the misery it had caused. He was now a criminal through no fault of his own and he felt used and disgusted. There was nothing to do but throw himself on the mercy of the law.

  “Go bugger yourself,” Darryl whispered.

  He stepped forward and raised his arms in surrender.

  Then a bullet struck his left shoulder, making him spin around.

  “Why?” he shouted. He had been betrayed and the insult of it overwhelmed him before he even registered the pain of his wound. Why did he have to go through life hated and feared? Why did he have to be born with this freakish body? Why did God hate him so?

  * * *

  After the random shot came from one of the Pinkertons, Follett moaned when he saw Darryl was hit. Then Swineborne shouted an order and the entire skirmish line fired a volley and Darryl flew backwards into the Houtani where he hung like a crucified man from their branches.

  Diana shrieked and Clemens shouted an expletive. As the Pinkertons advanced toward Darryl, passing Follett and Clemens, another gunshot rang out. Swineborne dropped to his knees in the water, his eyes staring blankly. Follett saw a bullet hole in his forehead and splashed over to him, grabbing his suspenders before he slipped under the water. There was no pulse in his carotid. Follett had no idea who had fired the shot. He called for two of the men to attend to their commander while he splashed ahead to check on Darryl.

  Just as Follett reached him, Darryl looked into his eyes. Yes, it was Darryl in control. He whispered, “Hello, Doc. It wasn’t me. None of this was me. But I was never meant to be happy, was I?”

  Follett spotted at least five bullet wounds all over his body.

  “Darryl, hang on. We can save you.”

  “Doc, remember…to sense with more than your senses.”

  Darryl slid from the branches into the water, slowly dropping backwards beneath the surface. Blood swirled like oil in the water.

  Follett reached beneath the water and pulled him out, propping him on the Houtani’s branches. He was dead.

  “Darryl, my God. All that you’ve been through. All I wanted to do is to help you and learn from you, yet I idiotically asked you to probe the spiritual world. How could I have been so selfish? I failed you as your doctor and as your friend.”

  Suddenly the hair all over Follett’s body stood on end and a bone-chilling wind swirled around him. Panicked clicking sounds came from the Houtani and they quickly dispersed, blending back in with the mangroves. The one that held Darryl’s body dragged it out of the water and left it atop the mud and mangrove roots before it, too, disappeared.

  The wind roared, creating whitecaps in the water between Follett and Darryl’s body. Follett sensed a presence—as if the wind was sentient. Then, as unexpectedly as it had appeared, the wind moved away to the north, leaving stillness behind.

  Diana stood in the water near the shore, her face stricken. As Follett waded to her his foot hit something in the water. He reached down and touched a rifle lying on the sandy bottom. As he pulled it from the water, he and Diana exchanged glances and he knew who had shot Swineborne. He let the rifle slide back under.

  When he reached her, she grabbed his forearms tightly.

  “Is he dead? Is Darryl really dead?”

  Follett nodded.

  “He didn’t deserve this,” she said. “He never meant any harm. I’m positive that all the people he killed were really killed by the demon.”

  “I agree,” Follett said.

  “And what of the demon? Is it dead, too?”

  “Let’s not talk about that,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Tell me how you are. Do you have any injuries? You went through a dreadful experience and need to rest.”

  “No, tell me first about the demon. What happened to it? It’s not dead, is it? That wind…did it have something to do with that?”

  “I don’t know if a demon can be killed. All I can say is it lost its host when Darryl died and it has gone somewhere else, I can’t imagine where.”

  Follett put his other arm around her and held her tight, her heart beating against his chest, and tried to calm her. He didn’t know if he succeeded, but despite the despair he was experiencing, hugging her made him feel a little better, a little less lost. A little less alone for the first time in years.

  Chapter Thirty

  William Stockhurst sat on his porch staring at the horizon as a hint of orange creased the purple pre-dawn sky. He apparently didn’t notice Follett standing politely on the walk leading to the porch, reluctant to intrude. An unfamiliar young valet came out onto the porch holding a linen suit.

  “Is this the suit you’ll be wearing on the train, sir?” he asked.

  William glanced at it and nodded. Then he noticed Follett.

  “Are you just going to stand there, Doctor? Come in.”

  “I’m very sorry about your losses,” Follett said as he climbed the steps.

  “Both my father and my son on the same day. And just days after my wife was murdered. Dan’s gone away. I’ve lost everyone.”

  Follett placed a hand on William’s shoulder. “Were you told the causes of death for your father and Darryl?”

  “Yes. My father had a stroke or aneurysm or something. I didn’t even know he was in Palm Beach. And Darryl,” he said struggling to cry, “poor twisted Darryl, was murdered by the Pinkertons. Diana says you were there.”

  “I was. He didn’t deserve to die.”

  “Frontier justice. I will, of course, file a lawsuit against Flagler for ordering this. He may be rich enough to intimidate law enforcement, but when it comes to lawyer versus lawyer, he and I are on equal ground. I expect to inherit my father’s fortune.”

  “Will you take on the operations of his companies?”

  William sighed. “I know virtually nothing about the chemical industry. Though father did try to teach me until it became clear that I was not cut from the same cloth as he. Once Darryl was born, I dedicated myself fully to his care and therapy. I might seem by many to be a libertine, but I centered my life around Darryl. I tried so hard to be a good father.”

  Tears flowed as he tried to compose himself.

  “How do you comfort a boy who causes fear and disgust in everyone who sees him?” he continued. “How do you convince him that he’s a good lad, even though no one will be his friend? How do you handle a son who said he wanted to kill himself when he was only eight years old? How often do you apologize to him that he was born that way?”

  “You can’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Follett debated telling William the truth but decided it would be too cruel.

  William stared at him for a while with an inscrutable expression, finally saying, “I know you interviewed my wife before she was murdered. Yes, Dan told me you were there. Did she mention anything about my father?”

  “As a physician I’m not supposed to divulge—”

  “Please spare me that nonsense. Did she tell you my father raped her? She was always such a liar. It wasn’t rape; my father visited her bed on many a cold night and she never had a problem with it until he changed form once while in the act,” he chuckled bitterly. “That was quite a shock—she had
no idea he was a cral.”

  Follett was astonished that William had known all of this. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Yes, I am quite aware that Darryl was my father’s child,” William said. “It was my fault for neglecting my duty as a husband while knowing what a lecher the old man was—all crals are, in fact. So I really am to blame, however indirectly, for Darryl’s plight: being trapped in the body of a half-breed. Not really cral and certainly not human enough to live among us happily. I never told Darryl why he was the way he was and I’m sure Father never did because he was so secretive about his true nature. And I never gave Father the satisfaction of knowing that I knew.”

  “If you knew the truth about Darryl, why on earth would you want my services?”

  “Appearances, my dear doctor, appearances. I wanted to stop people from calling him a monster and making conjectures about why he was born that way. You had his features nicely cataloged with birth defects found in humans and, given time, you would have surely blamed them on some chemical or another. I was hoping it would be one of the ones my father manufactured.”

  “I feel ill-used,” Follett said.

  “You never did name a price for your services. Please do.”

  Follett waved him off. “At least your love for Darryl was sincere.”

  “It was,” William said, his face grown sad again. “I loved him as my son. I tried to make his life easier for someone who didn’t belong.”

  “You were a good father.”

  “Thank you.”

  As Follett turned to go, he asked, “Crals—are there many of them?”

  “Not anymore, not in the wild at least. There are some who live among us but they keep it secret. I never understood why my father kept his secret from me, but when you grow up in a mansion it’s easy to hide things from your children. Once a cousin of his was visiting and told me the truth when he was drunk. Then I did some research of my own and I eventually learned to recognize crals in human form. More than a few visited my father, ones who had grown wealthy or achieved great power in the human world. You’d be surprised to learn who.”

  “Please tell me!”

  “Absolutely not. That kind of knowledge means certain death if crals know you have it. And believe me, they would find out if the names ever cross my lips.”

  “But tell me this: How do you recognize them?”

  “By the hunger in their eyes. You’d recognize it if you knew what to look for. And the more wealth or power they have, the hungrier they are. An all-consuming hunger that can never be sated.”

  * * *

  When Follett left the house, the sun was up and the singing birds seemed determined for him to share their joyous mood. But he simply couldn’t. As he walked down the sandy lane he came upon Diana headed to the Stockhurst house, carrying an empty box. She wore a black frock and her eyes were puffy from crying.

  “How are you holding up, Diana?”

  Her lower lip trembled as she fought back tears. He reached out to pat her back and suddenly her empty box was on the ground and she had both arms tightly around him and heaved with sobs.

  “I’m so sorry. Shhh, don’t cry,” he whispered.

  Her sobs subsided, but she continued crying softly, still hugging him. He hugged her back and felt her tears against his cheek. He began to relax and settled into her body as they hugged. They remained like that for a long time, saying nothing, listening to the birds sing and her occasional sniffle.

  They were crossing the bounds of propriety, hugging so closely like this for so long, but he didn’t want to push her away in her grief. It was actually becoming quite pleasant, being so close, feeling her warmth and drinking in the scent of her hair and the hint of perfume she wore. Could it really be so wrong to find comfort in one another, regardless of the danger to her reputation? He hugged her more tightly and reveled in how right it felt.

  Their faces turned and met at the same instance and somehow they were kissing, the electric jolt of her lips and her breath inside his mouth tasting of peppermint. In the back of his mind he wondered if there was somewhere more private they could go until he realized this was proceeding too quickly.

  He pulled his face away, but still held her tight.

  “Why stop?” she asked, breathing heavily.

  “I’m not being a gentleman.”

  “You are, but you are still married to your wife in your heart.”

  It sounded ridiculous, but it occurred to him that she was right.

  “She hasn’t yet gone to heaven. She’s stranded somewhere, not in this world and not in heaven.”

  “There’s that ‘stranded’ word again. It seems too many creatures are stranded in one way or another.” She looked at him ironically.

  “Do you imply that I’m stranded as well?”

  “Not married, but not a bachelor. A physician, yet not in the conventional world of medicine. A New Yorker far from home in a strange, frontier land. Yes, stranded.”

  He laughed. “But perhaps I have found someone to rescue me.”

  She took his arm and he walked her to Stockhurst’s rental house, both of them flush with unresolved passion. He asked and received permission to call on her at her home someday after Darryl’s funeral.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Late that afternoon, after Follett dozed in a rocking chair on the veranda, he turned a corner from the rotunda into the lobby and saw a porter pushing a wardrobe trunk on a hand truck past the front desk into a service hallway. It was Dr. Greer’s trunk, the one he’d seen Sidney load the other day.

  Something felt wrong. Sense with more than your senses.

  “Pardon me,” Follett said. “Where are you taking that trunk?”

  “To the lost luggage room, suh.”

  “I know who it belongs to. It’s not lost.”

  “They found it on the platform after the last train yesterday.”

  “Surely that’s a mistake. It belongs to Doctor Greer.”

  “Says here on the label ‘Mrs. Craughton’ of Boston.”

  “Let me see that.” Follett bent to examine the tag. The porter was right.

  “My apologies, then. Strange thing—Doctor Greer’s trunk looks exactly like this and it’s not a common design.”

  “Strange things happen all the time here, suh,” the porter said, wheeling the trunk away from him and continuing down the hall. “Good day, suh.”

  “Wait,” Follett called to him. “Why isn’t the hotel shipping the trunk to the Craughtons in Boston?”

  “’Cause we don’t know their address. We didn’t have any guests by the name of Craughton.”

  Follett stayed rooted in his spot, watching the trunk as the porter resumed pushing it until he reached a door far down the hall. The porter stood, silhouetted by the dying sun coming through a window in the service door at the end of the corridor, and pulled out a large keyring, searching for the right key. Another black worker passing by stopped to chat. The porter laughed at a joke. And then Follett could swear he heard the other man say, “Better hope this one don’t stink up the whole place.”

  Follett drifted closer down the hall to the two men.

  “Yeah, packed wild game in his suitcase, my ass!”

  “I betcha it was his mother-in-law.”

  Follett cleared his throat loudly. The two men looked at him, alarmed that they may have been overheard.

  “You said a suitcase smelled of rotting meat?”

  “Well, sir, people pack all sorts of crazy things in they’s suitcases,” the porter said. “Fish they caught, critters they hunted. They don’t think ahead that the ice might melt off. Sometimes they don’t even put it on ice.”

  “Why don’t you simply throw out the rotting material?”

  “Well, we can’t, sir. We’re not allowed to open the cases or trunks. That’s a violation of the guests’ privacy.”

  “And they don’t trust us workers,” the other man said. “Think we’ll steal stuff.”

  “How do y
ou know there really isn’t a dead mother-in-law in one of those trunks?”

  “None of the guests ever disappeared,” the porter said. “Never any reason to think there’s a body in there.”

  “The suitcase you were talking about—the one that smelled—is it still in the lost luggage room?”

  “I suppose so,” the porter said. “It don’t smell no more.”

  “I want to open it,” Follett said.

  The porter looked alarmed. “Oh no, suh. You can’t do that.”

  “You’d have to ask one of the managers,” the other man said.

  Follett considered doing that, but knew he would be stonewalled. He would need a court order or Flagler’s permission to open that suitcase by the rules.

  Follett pulled out his wallet. “If I were to give each of you fifty dollars, would you leave the room unlocked and go away, never saying a word about this conversation?”

  The two men thought about it with worried expressions.

  The porter spoke first. “How ‘bout I lock the door like I’m supposed to and you force it open?”

  “I can get you a crowbar,” the other man said.

  “We have a deal. What does the suitcase look like?”

  “We wrapped it in a tarp to cut down on the stink.”

  The porter pushed the trunk he’d been delivering into the room, removed the hand truck and locked the door. The other man returned with a crowbar. Follett handed them the cash.

  “Is this a safe time to break in?”

  “Not a lot of workers passing by at this time, but I can’t promise anything.”

  Follett thanked them and they exited through the service door at the end of the hall. He looked both ways down the long hall and saw no one. He inspected the door; it was wooden and inward-opening with brass hardware. Inserting the flat end of the crowbar between the strike plate and the door, he gave a firm push. The door wouldn’t yield. He tried again and heard some wood creaking but still nothing happened. Frustrated, he violently yanked the crowbar back and forth with all his strength and suddenly there was a loud crack and the door popped open.