Here Be Monsters - By M T Murphy Page 0,22
through the walls, was reading her a story.
“No,” she sobbed, her voice breaking into a croak, her throat suddenly dry.
So much pity and horror in the dreamer’s eyes.
“He is your father.”
“No.”
“He did this to his own child.”
“NO!” her voice grew into a howl that ripped through his mind. He fell to his knees, useless hands cupping useless ears.
Up was down and unbearable pressure choked them before an implosion released the emptiness.
It was white. Not a white room. Just white.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“A blank page.”
“I don’t like this,” he took her hand. “Let’s go back to mine. I haven’t shown you everything yet. And I can make so much, whatever you want.”
She pulled at the edge of his bandage. The finger underneath was pink and healthy.
“I have to go now.”
His hands were shaking in hers.
“And me?”
“You live here.”
He looked up for a moment, confusion, then horror spreading through his features.
“I can’t. I can’t make anything…I can’t leave,” he turned to her, “please….please, not this.”
“It’s the only way.”
“Plea—”
A nurse picked up the comic that had fallen from her lap. Lux blinked in the half light of predawn and smiled at her.
*****
She found the answer in his old books, the ones yellowing in the attic. Cryptozoology was just something to keep herself entertained until she noticed the little annotations scattered throughout the text.
Dates and places, nothing more. The dates spanned the years before he began experimenting, and the locations were random towns, sometimes addresses, all over the world.
Lux knew that he had travelled; the house was full of mementoes. Now, it seemed his wanderings had been a quest. The Doctor had brought something home, something he could use.
It was all around her. The machine was missing a heart.
The blood had to go through a delicate process of temperatures and speeds, while being enriched with minerals and metals, to a perfect balance, until the immortal heart could beat again. Then the heart would pulse this blood into the subject strapped to the table. It burned, it screamed inside the soft human veins, and it came with terrifying images and wild feelings.
When it was over, the heart would turn to cold hard marble once more.
Lux used to admire the detailed work, where the arteries were broken in irregular patterns. She knew now it wasn’t the product of tiny chisels, but of tearing it from someone’s chest. An immortal that could turn to stone.
*****
Just as with the books and files, he had left her alone at the computer for too long. It was easy, her fingers knew how. The Complex had an Emergency Clean-Up program in place. It only required a few minor adjustments.
As she walked out, resetting every door, the system went into lockdown, irreversible until the procedure had been completed. The robots began as soon as she left. Computer hard drives were wiped clean, every surface disinfected, every machine turned off in an orderly sequence. The Doctor could hear it all, step by step, from his plastic cell. Just for insurance, in case he had devised secret escape routes, she took his biometrics. Eyes, vocal cords, fingerprints. Easy to burn.
Locked cell, knots and straps to keep him in the chair, broken fingers. Magic that out, Houdini.
He wouldn’t die of these injuries, and hunger and thirst took longer than three days. After three days, the robots would fire up the furnace and incinerate every piece of organic matter, dead, alive or frozen.
*****
Lux had flown many times, but this was the first plane she had wanted to take.
The marble heart was a cold reassuring weight in her handbag. It knew her; she could feel it coursing through her veins at inhuman speed. There were several creatures of legend that came from stone, but all her evidence pointed in one direction.
And Paris seemed like the right place to start.
Lux dozed happily in her first class seat and wondered how hard it would be to climb the façade of Notre Dame in the dark.
Figs
Jeremy C. Shipp
© 2011
All rights reserved.
The black ink on the bathroom wall tells me, There is hope in God. And below that, God is a lie. And below that, Your mom is a lie and a whore. Then, a drawing of a cross-eyed stick woman having sex with an anthropomorphic teacup. I search the stall and find the word whore four times. Fag, nine times, and eventually, I hear a woman screaming. I can’t paint over the graffiti, so I do the next best thing. I take the Nikon out of my backpack, and