The Dead Assassin

CHAPTER 11 AN UNHOLY RESURRECTION

An underground cellar, windowless and dark. The cobblestone walls and arched brick ceiling hold the dank-earth chill of the subterranean. The space is bare apart from a huddle of tables strewn with beakers, surgical instruments, a bone doctor’s collection of amputation saws and scalpels. On a second table, glass flasks of colored liquids warm on alcohol burners, chemicals bubble in retorts. A third table holds a brassy scatter of mechanical gears, tiny pistons, flywheels. Dominating the space is a single piece of hideous furniture: a restraining chair built of huge timbers. A human figure sits pinioned in the chair.

Cold. Inert. Dead.

Weirdly, the corpse is strapped in place by iron bands at the ankles, the wrists, the forearms. A heavy metal band encircles the chest while a thinner strap pinions the head to the chair back.

A sheet of frosted glass hangs behind the chair, and now two hideous demons step from behind. They hover over the immobile corpse: their eyes glassy disks, mouths squirming with dangling proboscises. Although no, not demons, but men in rubber devil masks, the kind that might be obtained from theatrical costumers, modified to accept glass lenses and rubber hoses fitted with breathing filters. They lean, heads together, and confer in muffled voices.

“Is it ready?”

“Yes.”

“Did you inject the adrenaline?”

“Of course.”

“Are you certain? You did not forget this time?”

“The injection was given.”

“What about the damage? The bullet holes?”

“All repaired. I patched the torn arteries with veins stripped from an ox.”

“And the blood?”

“Replaced.”

“All eight pints?”

“Of course.”

“Where did you obtain so much blood?”

“A patient in the infirmary died.”

“Died of what?”

“Lack of blood.”

A dark laugh.

“Very well, then, let the reanimation begin.”

The taller demon hovers over the corpse. Hands with long, thin fingers, supple in kid gloves, tear open the dead man’s shirt (which, like the rag-bin trousers and scuff-toed boots, are beggar’s offcasts) revealing a chest that has been surgically violated postmortem — a rectangular opening sawed into the sternum and ribs so that a shiny brass box could be inserted into the chest cavity. The surgery is recent and done without the care shown to a living patient, for the enormous sutures (made with a sailmaker’s needle and thread) are angry red and rusty with blood.

The gloved hand slides a finger along the brassy surface of the metal box, searching for and finding a shallow indent. A finger depresses and a metal chute springs open. The other hand brings forward a smoked glass jar and pours in a trickle of white pellets.

“The fuel?”

“Calcium carbide pellets. They react with the water in the reservoir to produce acetylene, a combustible gas.”

The hand sets the jar aside on a nearby bench, snaps shut the metal chute, and then depresses a metal plunger. Inside, a steel striker scratches across flint and sparks ignite the acetylene gas with a dull whumph. A translucent mica window pulses with an eerie blue flame.

“And now?”

“Now, it is a matter of moments before we achieve the required steam pressure.”

There is a rising rumble and hiss of water bubbling to a boil. A pressure gauge is set flush into the face of the metal chest plate and now the needle sweeps across the dial as steam pressure builds and peaks, the needle trembling just shy of the red warning zone. Inside the metal box, pistons rise and fall, tiny flywheels spin, and a sound fills the underground space: wisssshthump… wisssssshthump… wissssssshthump.…

The second figure begins to fumble at the straps holding its mask in place.

“What are you doing!”

“This mask… cannot breathe!”

“Stop! You must not remove it. When the creature awakens it will imprint on the first human face it sees. It must not be yours!”

The masked figure hesitates, relents, drops its hands.

Heated blood begins to pump through cold, inanimate flesh. Wisssshthump… wisssssshthump… wissssssshthump.…

The gloved hands hurry to refasten the buttons of the ragged shirt, and both masked figures retreat behind the opaque glass.

Suddenly the body tremors. The chest inflates in a deep drawing in of breath. The head lifts on its thick pillar of neck. The crusted eyes startle open. Wide. Staring. Pupils pinpricked. The whites are a sickly bright yellow.

The head strains against the band clamping it in place, whipcord veins in the neck and forehead engorge and throb dangerously, muscles knot and bunch as the mouth opens and a deafening cry rips out.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The scream finally dwindles when no air remains in the lungs to push it out.

“Why do they always scream?”

“Because their last memory is of the drop. The rope. The terrible pain and the flash of light behind the eyes as the soul is ripped from its mortal frame.”

“So it has no soul?”

“None. It is nothing. It feels nothing. The human spark has fled. What remains is but a puppet of meat and flesh we have reanimated. The higher brain functions are the first to die: Memory. Personality. Morality. Only the lower functions remain. The animal drives. It feels no hunger. No pain. No pity. No remorse. It is something for us to train. To mold. Something malleable. Something biddable.”

In the hulking chair, the resurrected corpse begins to stir. The muscles ripple and flex, limbs straining against the metal bonds. The slavering mouth opens and a second howl of rage roars out: Aaaiiiiieeeeeeaaaaah!

“It is no longer human. Less than a beast. It is a creature. A monster. But it is our monster. The mechanical heart pumps four times faster than a human’s. The blood pressure is tripled, giving it enormous strength. Muscles like iron bars. It possesses no more than a splinter of intellect. The immense pressure in the brain is what feeds its terrible anger. Its mind is little more than a retort bubbling with hatred and rage. Now we shall give it something to focus that rage upon.”

The gloved hand reaches toward a magic lantern set on a nearby table and presses a slide in.

A glowing image splashes upon the large screen immediately in front of the restraining chair.

The taller demon fumbles a speaking tube to its mouth. When it speaks the voice passes through tubes into resonating chambers and emerges from gramophone bells set on either side of the chair. Amplified. Booming. The voice of an angry god.

“You are in purgatory. Neither dead nor alive, but in a place where you suffer for the sins committed in life.”

The monster writhes in the restraining chair. Rips a mournful howl.

The second demon leans close and mutters, “Are you sure nothing of the human remains? It sounds… wounded. Like a tortured man in despair.”

“Nothing human remains. It is a machine. A flesh automaton.”

A second slide pushes in to replace the first and the screen burns with the image of a portly gentleman in a fine top hat and suit. He is looking into the camera and smiling a smug, self-satisfied smile.

“This is Tarquin Hogg. Tarquin Hogg is the reason for your death. Tarquin Hogg is the reason your soul is bound in purgatory. You must find Tarquin Hogg. You must destroy him. Smash him. Only then will you be free. Only then will your soul be released from its prison of flesh.”

The thing in the chair begins a growl that ends in a spray of spittle. It thrashes violently, straining against its iron bonds with such force that the massive chair creaks and groans, threatening to tear apart.

One of the demons depresses a lever at the back of the chair with the toe of a polished shoe. The metal bands caging the beast snap open. A gloved hand jerks a lever. At the far end of the cellar, an iron-banded door flings open.

Outside, the night seethes with vaporous gray.

Released, the thing in the chair rises up on the trembling pillars of its legs. The gory head pivots as the waiting darkness draws its yellow-eyed gaze. It takes one lumbering step and then another, jerkily locomoting across the room. Then it clumsies up a short flight of stone steps. A broad shoulder caroms off the doorframe as it stumbles across the threshold and outside. Here it pauses to look up at a sky hidden behind a choking blanket of yellow-green fog. The grizzled head turns this way and that, as if sensing currents of subtle energies crackling in the air. Then the thing that had once been Charlie Higginbotham lumbers away and vanishes into the smoky night.

The gloved hand yanks a lever and the iron door bangs shut, cutting loose a surge of cold air that swirls about the cellar, setting the gas jets ajitter. The demons step from behind the cover of the glass screen.

“It is done.”

“But how can the creature find its way? How can it know where Tarquin Hogg is?”

“It is a thing neither dead nor alive, trapped between this world and the next. It senses the living, wherever they are, and tracks them unerringly. It is untiring. Indefatigable. Once set upon a target it cannot be recalled until its task is finished. It does not know hunger. It does not sense the rain. The cold. It feels no pain. No pity. No remorse. It is unkillable. Tarquin Hogg’s death is irrevocable.”