Chapter Text
Taken from the recordings of Dr Frederick Chilton, MD, PhD, PsyD. Present are Dr Chilton and Barney Matthews, Senior Orderly.
FC: (agitated) What do you mean there’s a problem with Hannibal Lecter? What sort of problem?
BM: He’s not eating. Hasn’t been since he got here.
FC: It’s been three months – I think he’d be dead by now if that was the case.
BM: Well he’s picking at the food; takes the meat, but that’s about it. The staff have been noting it down like they should, but the shifts don’t get the chance to talk to each other much save handover. Far as I can make out, most that got passed on was that he was a picky eater.
FC: (muttering) I can imagine. (at normal volume, and sarcastically) So what, now he’s got scurvy? Beri-Beri? Has medical been involved?
BM: It’s strange. We noticed the problem at the general patient review when the notes were checked in more depth. But there hadn’t been any reason to suspect it. Lecter looks well enough although he’s thinner, but that wasn’t unexpected given the change in diet. Dr Josephs came down to take bloods and do a check-up, even weighed him, and he’s healthier than he has any damn right to be.
FC: (impatiently) Then it doesn’t seem to me that there’s any problem. Perhaps he just has a slow metabolism.
BM: I’ll keep an eye on things all the same Dr Chilton.
Noise of moving chairs and footsteps indicate Mr Matthews leaving the room. Dr Chilton sighs.
FC: (to himself) Who cares about the welfare of Hannibal the Cannibal anyway? Let him starve. It’s no more than he deserves.
----
In the Baltic country of Lithuania there is a very old saying recorded by a monk in the book of folk tales ‘Tunc De Populo’ in the mid 1200s; ‘Hunt nothing which wears the night as a coat’. Brother Andrew Iustus, whose origins and provenance remain a mystery outside of this and several other tomes which have been resting in the archives of Tytuvenai Monastery since the 14th century, noted that the superstition of avoiding any animals that have a pure black pelt was a common one in the areas that he visited on his travels through the region. When questioned more closely about the reasoning behind this practise, the Lithuanian peasants told him of creatures they called plėšrus elnias, the ravenous or wolflike stag. Such beasts were said to be feathered like a bird, black as the mouth of a cave, with antlers like sharp spears and jaws which would crumple metal and shatter wood. They would prey on men and women who went too deep into the forest, and had a particular fondness for hunters, luring them away, killing their dogs before doing the same to their masters and eating them after. These stags were both feared and worshiped, Iustus reports, leading occasionally to outcasts and criminals being staked out in the woods in a form of human sacrifice. In keeping with Christian tradition regarding pagan beliefs, Tunc De Populo positions the plėšrus elnias as creatures of the devil or perhaps demons taken on animal form. However it is not necessarily the case that these beings represented evil in the pagan Lithuanian tradition of the time. They share more in common with the animalistic wildness of nature spirits or the Gaelic Sidhe; capricious and not kind to mortals but not malicious if avoided. Symbolically they represent the parts of the physical world that at that time were poorly understood and uncontrolled by human action, encapsulating life and death, the cycle of nature. This is supported by stone carvings discovered buried outside the village of Betygala in 1998 (Urquhart et al.), which depict feathered stags devouring men beneath bare-branched trees, but when the leaves return, the creatures bring wild boar to feed the village, a clear parable for the deprivations of winter and the plenty of spring and summer.
- An excerpt from ‘Pagan Mythology of the Baltic Region’, 2003, C. Finch, Professor of Slavic Folklore, Oxford University
----
Second extract from the recordings of Dr F. Chilton. Dr F. Chilton and Mr B. Matthews present.
FC: More problems with our star patient?
BM: Guess you already heard.
FC: I’ve heard a lot of nonsense! Hannibal’s been getting inside their heads in that way he has – he can make almost anything sound reasonable. I’ve experienced that much from him myself. He plays with people; that’s his pathology. Why, I imagine he could convince the credulous that a trick of the light is something unnatural. There’s something unnatural about him, after all.
BM: He’s been saying he wants to talk to you.
FC: I’m not allowed to talk to him. Not after he framed me and arranged to have me shot. People seem to think I might get ideas. Still... (pause) what they don’t know won’t hurt them. Alright yes. Perhaps then he’ll stop all this posturing and manipulating.
----
Third extract. Dr F. Chilton and Dr H. Lecter present.
HL: Good evening Frederick. I’m glad to see you down here. Those scars from Miriam’s rather impulsive action have healed well. They possess the beauty of art, I must admit. Do you admire them every morning as you shave?
FC: (snappish) You’d do better to be polite to me Hannibal. I’m only here because you asked for me, if you’ll recall.
HL: It must have been such a blow when they decided that treating me would be a conflict of interest. Of course professional ethics has never been of great concern to you.
FC: What is it, actually, that you want?
HL: I really must implore that you speak to your caterers Frederick. The food here is simply abysmal.
FC: And what would meet your standards, precisely? Should we order you in a meal from a Michelin Star restaurant? Fine wine with your dinner?
HL: One of your orderlies might do nicely.
(Silence.)
FC: (angrily) Shoring up your insanity plea? No, don’t think you’re going to pull the wool over my eyes! I will get to the bottom of this, whatever game it is you think you’re playing. If you believe a pitiful attempt at a hunger strike and spooking a few of my employees is going to get you anywhere, you’re sadly mistaken.
HL: Oh, this isn’t hunger yet Frederick. I am well acquainted with the true meaning of starvation. You will know when I am truly hungry.
----
An interesting example of cross-cultural influence at this time is the appearance of the late-pagan feathered stag figure in French folktales, the earliest example of which is in a variation of the ‘Beasts of Gévaudan’, a similar mythologizing of historical events. In 1790 in the then-province of Orléanais a number of animal attacks were reported – hunters disappearing with only gnawed bones left to be found some days later. A local fisherman claimed to have seen the beast responsible from his boat on the river, describing it as a black stag which brought a man down and gnawed at his flesh like a wolf. The stag, he said, had a crest of feathers like a raven. He also attributed the arrival of the beast in France to a Lithuanian nobleman by the name of Robertus Lecter, who had bought property in the area; saying that like those men who can don the form of a wolf, this nobleman donned the skin of a devilish stag.
Baron Lecter may indeed have brought the stag over from his native Lithuania in the shape of an idea. Judging from local records he was quite involved in the affairs of his new home and might have shared stories which caught the imagination of the locals. As to the fisherman, accusing a nobleman in this manner shows a certain prejudice towards outsiders hardly uncommon during this time, but it was not a wise move for a peasant to accuse his lord. The fisherman was arrested, and his fate after that remains unclear.
- An excerpt from ‘The Werewolf: Man and Monster’, 1990, L. Primeaux
----
From the medical notes of H. Lecter, approximately one month prior to the incident:
Presenting complaint: Patient suffering from widespread discolouration of the skin suggestive of bruising. No history of trauma or previous clotting disorders. Given recent history of malnutrition, most likely diagnosis is vitamin deficiency.
Plan: Repeat bloods for a full coagulation screen, B12, folic acid. Patient must be carefully monitored for bleeding. IV vitamin K may be required, and should be kept at the orderly’s station. Meanwhile oral vitamin supplements will be given, or IM injections if the patient continues to refuse oral intake.
Excerpt from medical notes, three days later:
PC: Patient now bleeding from gums. Bruising unchanged; areas of black discolouration persist. He continues to refuse oral intake apart from small amounts of protein. Noticeable loss of body fat on examination but as yet seemingly no breakdown of muscle tissue. Coag screen and platelets returned normal, ?lab error.
Plan: Repeat bloods. We may have to consider force feeding either by NG tube or total parenteral nutrition until his psychiatrists can resolve the underlying issues with food. Sedation would be necessary, requiring a move to the hospital wing under high security arrangements. Patient is accepting vitamin supplements, but ?impaired absorption. Continue to monitor physical condition closely.
----
You have to consider how keen the Nazis were on the paranormal. That whole business with the Spear of Longinus, the Thule Society, the pagan influences. Is it really so hard to believe they would go in for cryptozoology as well?
Do you believe that was a key motivation behind Operation Barbarossa?
Well, not a key motivation. It was a side benefit, certainly. If you look at the historical record, there are tales about these particular cryptids going back centuries. In medieval times they were worshiped as spirits, confused with something mystical in the same way the rhino and the narwhal combined to become the unicorn. The fact that these stories have persisted up to the modern era though lends credence to the fact that they are a real creature of some kind, just not one currently known to science. But with that pagan connection, it does make sense that a couple of those battalions had more occult squads attached to them.
So let’s get back to the skull itself.
Yeah, lets. A lot of people have tried to brush it off as a fake from the post-war years, but the more precise dating methods we have these days have put paid to that idea. It’s been analysed – it’s a real skull, real bone, real horn. You can see the teeth here... those don’t belong on any stag skull I’ve ever seen, but we can tell that they haven’t been artificially put into place. This is clearly a carnivorous species.
If it is so obvious, then why hasn’t mainstream science accepted it?
There was some interest, but for a long time this skull was in Soviet hands. Let’s just say they don’t entirely trust it – and I think they’re wrong about that. Not that it’s a uniform opinion by any means. But those that believe otherwise, also believe the species is extinct. There hasn’t been a sighting since before WWII, and we have only this one specimen to go on, which is a lot compared to say, many of the dinosaurs, but given that this has been shunted off into the disreputable world of cryptozoology, no-one is willing to put their career on the line to take a closer look.
- Excerpt from the History Channel series ‘Cryptids: Fact of Fiction’