Читать книгу Drag Thing; or, The Strange Case of Jackle and Hyde: A Novel of Horror - Victor J. Banis - Страница 4

CHAPTER ONE

Poor Dick lasted exactly 48.3 seconds. In less than a minute, he had gone from a robust, feisty, a notably horny, tomcat to a shredded mass of black fur and guts and blood splattered across the walls of the cage. His Ee-Yow of surprise and terror had been mercifully brief. In its wake, the scent of fresh blood and suddenly released feces mingled with the chemical odors of the laboratory, creating a pungent perfume.

That did not mean that She Cat Number One, into whose cage he had so recently and hopefully been introduced, was actually through with her would-be paramour. She spent the next several minutes reducing the smelly pieces of fur and bone and entrails to smaller and still smaller pieces, muttering angrily under her breath the entire time, a steady stream of hiss, growl, hiss growl, hiss....

For their purposes, however, the two white-coated women watching from outside the cage considered the incident over. Doctor Melissa Hyde switched off her stopwatch and washed some errant droplets of red from her hand before she sat at the computer and typed a few brief notes into a file labeled “Alley Thing.”

“I think we can conclude that batch was way too potent,” she said with a sigh. “Poor guy. He hardly knew what hit him.”

“Personally, I would be tempted to go with it just as it is,” Janet Jackle said. “Think how many rapists and mashers we could be rid of in no time if we turned the women of the world on to this stuff.” She patted the wire of the cage. “Nice She Cat,” she crooned. “Good puss.” She Cat snarled over her shoulder and continued her efforts to remove every trace of her late would be Romeo.

“The whole point of the project, my dearest,” Melissa said, “Is to empower women, not to make monsters of them.”

“She Cat is certainly a monster, that’s for sure.” Janet chortled. From her cage, She Cat hissed in agreement. “Look, so what if we did make monsters of a few women? We would just be balancing the scales a little, if you ask me. God knows there are plenty of male monsters roaming around out there, aren’t there, too often using their brute strength to take advantage of women.”

“Yes, that is certainly true,” Melissa said, “And if we can make women physically stronger than men, and boost their aggressiveness at the same time, we can put a stop to that forever, and that is a goal devoutly to be desired. But my darling, the whole idea of Alley Thing is to liberate women from the prison of male physical dominance. We would do the women of the world no favors if we landed them in cages of a different sort. We do not want women emulating She Cat: ripping their would-be lovers to shreds and going to prison for it.”

Janet, who personally thought that there were plenty of men out there who deserved to be ripped to shreds—she could think of one or two she wouldn’t mind tearing into herself—shrugged.

“Well, we know we’re on the right track, anyway,” she said matter-of-factly, “It’s just a question of fine-tuning the formula. Do we feed She Cat before we go?” She slipped out of her white smock.

“I think she’s taken care of that for herself.” Melissa thought for a moment and made another brief note in her file and closed it. “That was the last of our male subjects, wasn’t it? We’ll need to find some more volunteers.”

“Fortunately for us, there’s never a shortage of fellas looking for a little action,” Janet said. “What number was this last one?”

“Number twelve.”

Janet wrote the number on a pair of labels and glued them to the vial and the syringe. “That’s the end of the B trials. We will have to start with the C series tomorrow.” She glanced at her partner and saw her look of dejection.

“Cheer up,” she said, dropping an affectionate arm about Melissa’s slumped shoulders. “We’ll get it. You will, anyway. I know you will. There’s no one brighter than you are. And just think of what we’re working toward. When we’re done, when we’ve made a success of Alley Thing, no man will ever again dare try to force himself upon a woman. It will change the course of history.”

“That certainly sounds wonderful,” Melissa said. She glanced at the big clock on the wall and grimaced. “But, you know, darling, we have been working for thirteen hours straight. I think tonight I will settle for a cold beer and a pastrami sandwich.”

“And a soak in a tub,” Janet said solicitously. “And a nice rub with some pretty smelling oil, to get you properly relaxed, and who knows what else might happen after that? What do you think, Missy?”

“I think I prefer not to be called Missy, if it’s all the same to you,” Melissa said, but she softened the remark with a smile.

“It’s just a pet name,” Janet said.

“Then give it to a pet.” Melissa motioned toward the cage. “Give it to She Cat. She can be Missy if you like.”

“First rule of the business, never give pet names to lab animals. It personalizes them,” Janet said. “Never a good thing to do.”

“And a good second rule is, be careful about giving them to girl friends,” Melissa said. “Particularly to girlfriends who don’t welcome them. My dad used to call me Missy. When I hear that name, it makes me feel like a little girl again, all helpless and insignificant.”

“Ah.” Janet nodded her head in understanding. “And still waiting for that approval from Daddy that never came, I’d bet.”

“You’re probably right,” Melissa said.

“In that case, Melissa it shall remain. Though I still think Missy is cute. And, to be honest, the thought of you helpless in my power is definitely a turn on.” She pulled her partner to her and kissed her warmly.

For a fraction of a second only, Melissa hesitated. This woman-on-woman thing was still new to her. Then, any reluctance vanishing, she happily and ardently returned the kiss.

The woman thing was new to her in the physical sense, at least. If she were to be completely honest with herself, however, she had entertained fantasies of women for years, all the while that she had played the role of a straight woman. Oddly, those fantasies had usually featured the centerfold types of beauties, airbrushed and silicone-filled and glossy, and not anyone even remotely like this thin, angular woman with the thick glasses and the unmanageable copper hair who more commonly smelled of formaldehyde and ethyl alcohol than she did of flowery perfume.

It was Janet, though, who had rescued her from an abusive relationship into which she had fallen, who had restored her dignity and her sense of self worth to her, and who had made her feel like a whole person again.

It wasn’t just gratitude, either, that made her tighten her embrace fleetingly. It was Janet she loved, loved not only for her body but for her mind as well, loved her courageous spirit and her good sound sense.

I am a lucky person, she thought to herself, to have someone so dear.

“I’ll get my coat,” she said aloud, already thinking of that tub, and the rub with the perfumed oil. And the hint of things to follow. Yes, that would be a wonderful antidote to her frustration with Alley Thing. “Let’s lock up.” She gave Janet a loving smile.

* * * *

Caleb Wald waited until the women had locked the lab door after themselves and disappeared into the elevator before he cautiously emerged from the office across the hall in which he had concealed himself. He used his passkey to open the locked door and slipped into the laboratory they had just left.

Though he was the owner of Wald-Med Pharmaceuticals and Jackle and Hyde’s employer, it was part of his agreement with the two scientists that he had to keep his distance from the laboratory and their work. Melissa had insisted on that from the beginning: no interference, no nosing around. She would be the one to decide when she had something to give him. In the meantime, they must be free to pursue their goal without any oversight from him. Thus, the need for his stealth.

That agreement, however, though he had sworn to it, was one that it troubled him not at all to violate, at least clandestinely. He was paying for what they were doing, after all, and in his opinion that entitled him to nose around all he wanted, though he was not about to say that to Melissa. At this stage, he couldn’t afford to have her get temperamental. He knew how stubborn she could be if she got her back up.

Nevertheless, he snuck into the lab often when they were absent, to check on their work—though for all his efforts he had yet to learn much about their progress.

As usual, he paused as he came in to admire himself in the mirror along the front wall. It was practically impossible for him to pass any mirror without a moment or two of self-admiration. He knew that he was good looking. Tall, maybe just a little heavier than might be considered ideal. I really will have to cut back on the carbs, he thought, but without much conviction.

Still, he always liked what looked back at him from the mirror. His thick mop of wavy black hair was truly beautiful, and he had undeniably sexy eyes. Every woman he had ever been with had told him that. Even his nose, which was admittedly a little large for his face, could almost be described as beakish in fact, had been complimented often.

“It gives your face character,” was the opinion most commonly offered. He turned sideways now and rolled his eyes hard to the left, to get a better look at his reflection. Yes, it was assuredly true: his nose gave him a noble profile. No wonder broads adore me, he thought with a sense of satisfaction.

Reluctantly—he could spend hours admiring himself, and often had done so—he turned his attention from the mirror to the laboratory reflected in it. Almost the first thing that he saw was a syringe and a vial lying on the counter. He picked them up and glanced at the labels: B12.

At least they were making progress, then. On his last visit, they had just started on the B series. And truth to tell, at this stage, progress was direly needed. His backers were getting increasingly impatient with the delays, and the last thing he wanted was their displeasure.

He removed the cover from her cage to check on She Cat. Jesus, he thought, his eyes going wide. The beast had gotten bigger since the last time he had looked, and that had been just a couple of nights ago.

The cat caught sight of him and spat at him furiously. By now, he and She Cat were old acquaintances, and not of the friendliest sort either. As he always did, Caleb took a broom from the nearby storage closet and used the stick to reach through the bars of the cage and poke at the cat. She yowled in anger and swatted at the broomstick, trying to get a grip on it. It was all he could do to hold on to it. Obviously the Cat had gotten stronger too, and smellier: she smelled like burning hair.

He wrinkled his ample nose and pulled the broom out. She Cat hurled herself against the door of the cage with a loud thunk, trying to get at her tormentor, and he felt a little nip of fear zigzag up his spine. Was it only his imagination, or had the bars of the cage actually bent when she rammed into them? If that animal ever got out, there was no telling what damage she could do. He was pretty sure, too, that he was one of the things she would want to damage. She eyed him with burning hatred.

Nervous, he put the cover back on her cage, careful to stay out of reach of her straining claws. He returned the broom to the closet, looking around to be sure he hadn’t left any signs of his visit, and gave another glance at the vial of serum. He was tempted to take it with him and have it analyzed elsewhere, but the women would be sure to notice that it was missing. They would know he had been here and had violated their agreement and there would assuredly be hell to pay. He had too much riding on this project to want to risk a major clash with them now.

Instead, he left the vial and the syringe on the counter exactly where he had found them, and let himself out of the room, pausing for just one more admiring glance at the mirror.

* * * *

They popped into her mind all of a sudden: the vial and the syringe!

It was not until they were in the car on their way home, an Ella tape scatting into the semi-darkness, that Melissa Hyde remembered them. “We left the vial and the syringe lying on the counter,” she said.

“It’s all right, don’t worry about it. There’s nobody there at night. No one’s going to be in the lab,” Janet said with an unconcerned yawn.

“The janitor will be there, won’t he?”

“That pansy?” Janet snorted her disdain. “He can’t get his mind off his silly frocks long enough to get into any kind of trouble. Stop fretting, my pet, they will be just fine where they are until morning.”

* * * *

“Pansies! That’s it!” Peter Warren cried aloud.

“Pansies?” Teri Warren paused in buttoning the blue tunic of her police uniform and gave her husband a puzzled glance.

“Pansies,” Peter repeated. He pointed at the drawing board before him. “The ball gown I have been working on. That’s what I want. White silk, with red pansies cascading over the bodice and down the skirt.”

“I don’t know, honey,” Teri said in a doubtful voice, “It sounds a little, well, off the wall, don’t you think?”

Peter grimaced and tossed his pencil aside. It hit the wastebasket and bounced to the floor. “Well, if I am ever going to make a name for myself as a dress designer, I’m going to have to establish my own style. I’m sure never going to do it by copying what everybody else does.” He gave a disconsolate sigh and, getting up from the drawing board, popped a movie into the DVD player—Fantasia, his favorite—and dropped into a chair in front of the television as the movie began to play.

“You sound beat, honey. Shouldn’t you be taking a nap?” Teri asked. “You’ll be walking in your sleep by the time you get to Wald-Med.”

“Oh, it’s just cleaning—sweeping floors and dusting. It’s not like I couldn’t do it in my sleep.” He watched her strap on her holster and fit the Smith and Wesson into it. “God, I wish you weren’t out there at night with all that violence I hear about on television. I worry about you, you know.”

“Ah, it’s not as bad as you think, believe me,” Teri said. “Most nights it’s every bit as boring as your janitorial job, if you want to know the truth. Riding round and round, up and down, back and forth, all over town, and then just occasionally you get to chase down some punk or bust a dealer. It mostly comes down to five minutes of adrenalin and eight hours of boredom.”

“If only I had a real job,” he said morosely, unconvinced, “You wouldn’t have to be out there dealing with the dark forces every night.”

She came across the room and knelt by his chair. “You have got something even better, darling, you have got a dream,” she said. “And you will make it. I know you will. One day you will be a famous designer, like that guy in the magazine ads, Calvin What’s-His-Name.”

“Calvin Klein,” he said automatically, watching the hippos and the alligators on the television screen, cavorting to The Dance of the Hours. He grinned as a hippo in a pink tutu did a grand jeté.

“Right. Or that Don Karen fellow.”

“It’s Donna. Donna Karen,” Peter said. “He’s a she.”

Grimalkin, their blue point Siamese, padded into the room from the kitchen and rubbed against Teri’s leg. She reached down absent-mindedly to stroke the cat’s fur.

“Okay, Donna,” she said. “The point is, you will be big one day too. I’m sure of it.”

Grimalkin offered a meow of agreement.

“And when I am, will you be happy then?” Peter asked, looking directly at her and momentarily forgetting his movie. “With a dress designer for a husband? You know what everyone will think.”

“Probably the same as what Abner Kravitz next door thinks.”

“Exactly.”

“Oh, that old bigot, who cares? So he thinks that you’re gay? So what? Let him think what he likes, and anybody else, too. We certainly know the truth.” She kissed him tenderly. “Besides, you don’t think I get the same thing all the time? People see me, a woman in a police uniform, the first thing they think is that I’m a dyke. Half the guys on the force are convinced I’m a lesbian. But, hey, I don’t care, I like my job, and I still come home to you every morning, and that’s when the pudding gets proved, as the old saying goes.”

She kissed him again and stood up. “Okay, boy genius, back to the drawing board. There are bad guys out there, and crime on the streets, waiting for me to set things right.” She paused at the door. “But I still think you should take a nap.”

* * * *

He should have taken a nap. Peter realized later that night that Teri had been right after all. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open as he mopped the floors and dusted the counters at Wald-Med Pharmaceuticals. First floor, second floor, then the third. Mop the floors, dust the desks and the counters, empty the wastebaskets, clean the toilets, wash the sinks. The same old thing every night, one corridor after another, one more office, never a break in the unvarying routine.

He hated his job: the forbidding silence, the sterile walls, the antiseptic smell. The fluorescent lights glared over-brightly. By this time of night his hands stung from the strong detergents and his clothes were permeated with the smell of TSP and Pledge, which no amount of laundering could ever entirely eradicate. Sometimes it seemed to him like he smelled them in his dreams.

If only...he resorted once again to his favorite daydream, his great white whale of a future, always looming ahead of him, just out of reach, teasing him. If only he could interest one of the big fashion houses in his design portfolio, he would be out of here in a second. It wasn’t that his designs weren’t any good, either. He knew they were. He sighed.

Why was life always so hard for someone artistic? He thought that things would be a great deal simpler if he were just a mechanic or a plumber.

Yawn. He used his passkey and let himself wearily into the locked research laboratory and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was barely one o’clock in the morning. Almost two more hours to go, he thought dispiritedly and he was nearly finished already. Two hours to kill before he could clock out. Maybe he would find someplace secluded and take that nap after all.

He thought of Teri, and wondered where she was just at that moment. Taking a nap in her cruiser, he hoped, though knowing her, he doubted it. More than once he had contemplated abandoning his dream of becoming a fashion designer and looking for a serious job instead, something that would support the two of them and make it unnecessary for her to remain a policewoman. He wasn’t cut out to be a mechanic, and he knew nothing about plumbing, but he could work in a department store, couldn’t he or—well, there must be plenty of jobs out there, if you weren’t too choosey.

In his heart, though, he knew it would make no difference if he did. Notwithstanding his fears, Teri loved her job as much as he hated this one. On the rare occasions when she had seen some action, chasing a thief down, or breaking up a melee between street punks, she had come home to tell him about it with eyes afire. With her body afire too, all charged up and eager to share her adrenaline rush with him.

Then, at least, as they frantically coupled on the bed, he had nothing to complain about. It was only later that the worrying set in again.

He swiped the mop listlessly across the linoleum floor and took a damp dusting cloth from the pocket of his apron to wipe down the counter. Ho hum.

He was surprised to see the vial and the syringe on the counter. Nothing was ever left out in here, lest the wrong person stumble upon it. The truth was, he had only the vaguest idea of what those two women scientists did here in the research lab at Wald-Med. Even if he had ever found anything before, he would probably have had no clue what it was. He was not scientifically inclined.

There were such things as industrial spies, however, weren’t there? You read about stuff like that in the papers. And there had to be a reason why the laboratory door was always locked. When they had hired him for this job, they had impressed on him the need for security, which had left him with the impression that whatever went on here in the laboratory was top secret.

He debated with himself whether he should leave the vial and the syringe where they were, or try to put them away somewhere? He felt certain his employers would not want anything important just sitting about where anyone could put their hands on it—but he had no idea where to put them.

Creak. Scratch. The noise from behind him made him start. He glanced around guiltily, half expecting to see one of the laboratory scientists glowering accusingly at him—but no, he was still alone in the room, the door firmly closed. He was alone in the entire building, so far as he knew.

He heard it again, the scratching sound. Puzzled, he looked around. There was a row of a dozen wire cages along one wall, all of them covered with fitted sheets. When he had first started on the job, they had told him emphatically to leave the cages alone, and he always had done just that, had never paid any attention to them at all—had ignored them so completely, in fact, that he had nearly forgotten they were even there.

Now, however, he realized that the noises were coming from one of the cages. The noise, and an odd smell, like iodine or...or like spilled blood. That thought popped into his head unbidden. He grimaced and, curious, he gingerly lifted the cover from one of the cages, the one nearest to him, and peered into it.

“Well, hello there,” he said to the cat staring back at him through the bars. “My, you are a big kitty, aren’t you?”

The unkempt cat regarded him solemnly from her cage. She was not just big, in fact, she was enormous, nearly the size of a cocker spaniel; spotted orange and white, like a calico, but her hair was shaggy and unkempt.

She was certainly not a pretty animal but she looked docile enough at the moment and he was fond of cats. He reached a tentative hand through the bars to stroke behind one ear, just where Grimalkin liked to be petted. For a second or two the cat allowed his attention. Then, without warning, she yanked her head around and bit down hard on his finger.

“Yipe!” he yelled. He leapt backward so violently that he almost fell. With his other hand, he reached at the counter behind him for balance, and felt a sudden prick, and looked down to discover he had stuck himself with the syringe lying there.

In alarm, he snatched it up and looked at it. “Alley Thing,” the label read, and beneath that someone had written, “B12.” He checked the vial. Its label read the same.

He thought for a moment and breathed a sigh of relief. That was all right, then, surely. B12, it was just some vitamins. Maybe Alley Thing was the brand name, though it did seem an odd name for a line of vitamins.

Maybe that was what the two women scientists were doing here: developing a line of health aids. Or maybe one of them took B12 for energy. It was supposed to be good for that, wasn’t it? And the pair often worked long hours. Sometimes they were still here when he came in to clean, so it made sense that they might very well need a pick-me-up from time to time.

The important thing was, whatever was in the syringe, it was surely nothing he need be concerned about. No doubt that was why it had been left out. Probably it was of no importance whatsoever. If you thought about it, they certainly wouldn’t have left it out otherwise.

The hand that the cat had bitten, however, was another matter. There was not much blood to be seen but her teeth were plenty long, and they must have gone pretty deep. And there was something downright unhealthy about her appearance, now that he thought of it.

He looked around for something to sterilize the wound with, and spotted a jar of alcohol on a shelf above the sink. Holding his hand over the sink, he poured alcohol onto the bite wound. Yow! He gave his hand a brisk shake. The alcohol stung, but heaven alone knew what that mangy looking cat might give him. Better a little alcohol burn than an infection.

He glanced again at the puncture wound the syringe had made. For such a tiny wound it looked awfully red already, and it was even swollen a little. For good measure, he poured some alcohol on that one as well. There was no sense in taking chances.

The cat gave a low mutter, as if she were warning him of something. “I hope you didn’t do me any damage, you devil,” Peter said. He flicked the cover back down over her cage, uncomfortable with her malevolent scrutiny. This time he took special care to stay out of reach of her nasty claws. She threw herself violently against the door as the cover descended over the cage, making the cage rock precariously.

“Golly, you are a vicious beast, aren’t you?” he said. “I hope this cage is well secured.”

Alley Thing. His thoughts went back to the syringe and he glanced at it again. That really is an odd name. Thing....

It was his last thought before he woke up in his own bed hours later.

After the Moes.