Chapter Text
“Doctor Warthrop? Good Morning, Sir! Would you like me to put a kettle on?” I received no answer to my call as I removed my hat and coat, slinging the both of them over the staircase railing. The house echoed with silence, but that didn’t mean all was well. Often it meant quite the opposite here on Harrington Lane.
“Doctor?” I passed through the entryway to the cluttered kitchen, noting a half-full pot of black tea on the stovetop. He had probably spent the night awake as usual. The basement door stood slightly ajar, which answered my wonderings as to my employers location. I put together a meager breakfast on a tray and shouldered my way down to the dank dungeon in which the doctor locked himself away all hours of the day and night.
“Doctor Warthrop?” I called as I reached the bottom of the steps, and a gangly form gestured sharply from the examination table in the center of the room at my appearance.
“You’re late. Snap to, James Henry, we have work to do!” he commanded in his usual brusque manner, and I set the tray on one of the counters that lined the room with hard learned quickness. The scent in the basement was by now familiar to me, but that did little to decrease its unpleasantness. A mixture of the sharpness of bleach, the dankness of a windowless underground chamber, and the undeniable stench of death permeated the doctor’s workspace, and I steeled myself before obeying my employer with the utmost haste.
“Scalpel, quickly!” he ordered and I retrieved the instrument from his assorted doctoral tool kit, placing it in a blood spattered glove. He hunched over the table bearing some kind of furry beast the size of a hefty sow but shaped like a hideous rat. He sliced open the creature’s midsection and mumbled something into his mask. I could not understand him and therefore waited for him to repeat his words. He pointed violently to the tool kit, splattering drops of creature blood across the floor.
“The clamps, James, the clamps!” I handed them over and he pinned back the hairy outer dermis so he could get at the parts he was really interested in--the organs. I had long since learned to suppress my gag reflex, and the squelch of organs being removed from the chest cavity hardly phased me. I quickly fetched several specimen jars from the shelves of containers floating with multitudes of unmentionable things, filling them with a combination of alcohol and formalin specifically designed for the preservation of organs of a more inhuman nature.
“Heart,” he extended the muscle and I quickly caught it with the container, capping the jar and sealing it. A stomach, a lung, a spleen and two miscellaneous smaller organs later he brushed his hands together satisfactorily, a useless gesture, and turned to me with eyes that glowed excitedly. It was that mad glimmer that never failed to make me nervous and send a thrill of exhilaration through me in the same instant. The doctor’s passion was my own, infectious and intoxicating.
"This is a marvelous find, James! It was brought to me at the crack of dawn by a fellow from the Chicopee river. There have been reports of rodents of unusual size in the area back to the early colonial period, but never did I imagine such a healthy specimen of such size! Do you realize the importance of this discovery James Henry?" he lowered his face mask, running a hand through his wildly unkempt locks as he removed his gloves. I took them from him, hurrying to the sink to clean the blood and gore from the rubbers.
"I'm sure you will enlighten me soon enough, sir," I replied with a smile. He paced restlessly, a caged panther, as I cleaned all the bloody surfaces his antics had soiled.
"But you're sharp, I certainly hope you would be capable of deducing for yourself. Don't disappoint me, James Henry!" he chided, and I sighed as he fiddled uselessly with the row of meat hooks dangling from the ceiling.
"I suppose it would mean your original hypothesis you shared with me several weeks ago regarding the size of the creatures was incorrect. And if they are reaching this size they must have a steady diet of food available... Perhaps their burrow is somewhere near a dump?" I suggested as we hauled the body up onto a meat hook, smearing gore across his smock and my arms. He turned to me, dark eyes backlit with that sunfire I had come to personally know, sometimes fear and almost always love.
"Good, James Henry! You're getting much better," he commented, and I allowed myself a self-satisfied smile as he gripped my shoulder briefly with his slender hand before sweeping past me to rummage for labels for the newest jars. He tossed them to me before I even had a chance to clean my hands, and I set about lettering the stained papers in my moderately legible handwriting.
"Now the question is, why haven't there been more sightings? A healthy population of creatures of this size, even being nocturnal, would surely have been noticed by now. My question, James Henry, is what is keeping their numbers down? These Rodents of Unusual Size have no known natural predators in the New England area--at least none that could devour a healthy adult--and yet something is restricting their growth. Habitat? Impossible, they could flourish near any source of scavenge. And why come out of hiding now? What is it, James?”
He stared intensely at the hideous creature as if it would come to life and give him all the answers he required, and I shook my head, plastering the final label of ROUS--SPLEEN to the corresponding jar.
“I don’t know sir,” I admitted, and he took to pacing again, across the bare floor of the basement nearly to the stairs and back again. He passed the large map of the country several times, barely sparing it a glance, and I approached it thoughtfully. The Chicopee River ran through southern Massachusetts into Connecticut, fed by a small body of water.
“Doctor, isn’t this where they’re building a new dam?” I asked, and he paused in his flutterings, coming to stand beside me. His lean form passed my own in height slightly, and he flicked out his spectacles to peer at the location I indicated. He pounded his hand into his fist in excitement, whirling on me and gripping both my shoulders as he was taken with an almost insane excitement.
“Of course! Construction noise and work would drive them out of hiding, and perhaps the human interference is exactly what keeps their population down! It would also explain the rash of sightings occurring of late! James Henry, I knew I kept you around for a reason!” he cried, then swirled off to the stairs. I followed somewhat breathlessly, catching only snippets of his tirade.
“...must journey there at once...of utmost import...a whole species at risk...relocation perhaps?...are you listening James Henry?”
“Every word, sir,” I lied, catching the partially stocked field kit he kept about for just such an occasion as he threw it to me. He dropped to his knees in the closet, rummaging around for something.
“Make ready the horses, we shall ride to Quabbin Lake and make inquiries. Bring my pistol, and the winchester too. It may be dangerous come nightfall,” he called, his voice muffled. I frowned in unhappy surprise.
“Shall we be gone that long, sir?” I inquired, and he emerged wielding a large box with holes drilled in the lid of it. It resembled a giant mousetrap.
“Almost certainly. If they are nocturnal creatures we must hunt them when they roam!” He replied, as if it were obvious. I nodded, but could not hold my tongue.
“Should I inform the missus then?” I asked, and he blinked at me as if confused by my question.
“Whatever would you need to do that for?” he responded quizzically, and I set several boxes of ammunition in the field kit, avoiding his piercing gaze.
“The wife and son are expecting me for dinner, sir. If I’m to miss I’d best let them know,” I explained, and he dismissed my concern with a wave of his slender hand, diving back into the contents of the closet.
“If you must. But be quick about it, we’ve an expedition to attend to!” He cried, and I moved something inside the kit to reveal the putrefying carcass of a small mouse. I lifted it by its tail and disposed of it, heading outside to ready the horses. If I could finish hastily enough then there would be time to leave word with a neighbor to pass on to Mary. She would love that, and I’d doubtless pay for my negligence at a later date. Will would be disappointed that I wouldn’t be home again, but the doctor needed me.
I had promised to stay at his side, and that was a promise I intended to keep.