The Resurrectionist The Lost Work of Dr. - By E. B. Hudspeth Page 0,20

were no more surgeries. He simply vanished. In 1925, his home in Philadelphia was turned into a small museum, where docents offered tours and lectures explaining his life and work. The museum closed in 1930. The property changed owners several times until 1968, when the last owners suddenly moved out, complaining of strange noises. The building is presently condemned.

The final clue to Dr. Spencer Black’s fate is a letter addressed to his brother, Bernard, sent seven years after their last correspondence. It is the last known document written by Black. He had just returned from a six-month excavation and research trip from the northernmost point of Greenland. The letter indicates that he had been actively pursing some bizarre treatment for his wife, Elise. Prior to receiving the letter, Bernard had no knowledge that Elise had been burned in a fire, or that Spencer had performed any kind of surgery on her. Bernard shared the letter with the police before embarking on a trip to find his brother.

February 1908

Bernard,

I have no choice but to conclude the fallacy of my previous studies, however painful it is to accept. I am writing you tonight to give the deepest thanks and offer the most sincere apology a man such as I can manage. Deluded by my own aims, I could not heed your most eloquent and obvious warning. I could not listen well enough to hear that the future of my work had been foretold by the mistakes of my predecessors, men I hadn’t the courage to name as mentors … especially you.

I now languish in the solitude of this letter, lamenting. Your laughter at my expense or your scorn would be a salve upon my mind. Nothing can help me, I know; it was I who was the cause of my peril.

I cannot be certain if you will ever receive this letter, nor is there much I would expect to arise from it if you could read it now. I can be certain, however, that if any news of me arrives to you it will be this letter and this letter alone. I have hidden my notes for you to retrieve. Please, brother, help me keep this from the sleepless man, my son, Alphonse.

I fear you know of what I am to write, but I fervently hope that you do not. I pray that my work, my labor of the past ten years has exceeded any science or philosophy that the learned shall ever endeavor, or be called upon, to examine. If that is so, then perhaps it will end here with me—this box that I have opened. I have succeeded, I have done what none other before me has.

I write only to you. I know that by now I am wretched in your esteem and that you haven’t even a decent man’s regard for me; I had once hoped that, perhaps, before we were in the grave, we could once again be friends … I know that cannot be.

My beloved and eternally precious Elise … how beautiful she was. I did love Elise dearly, but that is not why I ventured to perform this wicked work. I have butchered many men; all are innocent when they are on my table, all are exquisite.

My purpose has exceeded my function, I am afraid. I have spent my life, the vainglory of my youth, consumed and drunken with the most sadistic of all exploits—study. How can one dare travel into the unknown? Something quite terrible is waiting there, a destruction that would not be mine had I not sought after it.

There was a time in the world when nature wore a different mask; since I set out to discover her secrets, my trials have only increased. What struggles, attempting to see that original face, nature’s original design. Now destiny has fulfilled her carefully plotted plan, my eventual and total ruin. Now she laughs and I will hear that mother of nature every night until my time arrives; I will hear her calling. That wretch, that filth-soaked thing whose foulness is exceeded only by her demon song.

Death, so terrible an object; you look away from it, fearing that it may see you and call your name. I have seen many die, scream, and many more writhe in anguish at the hands of disease, injury or healing. I am shamed to confess that when a patient screamed I was relieved some––I know their agony was less than what it could have been. But know this: if they