Rick Yancey: The Monstrumologist

He flung the sheet over her face and turned away.

“We haven’t much time. Where there is one, there must be more. Anthropophagi are not particularly prolific. They produce only one or two offspring per year; still, we do not know how long they have gone unnoticed here in the New World. Regardless of the exact number, somewhere in the vicinity of New Jerusalem there is a breeding population of these man-eaters, and it must be found and eradicated-or we shall be overwhelmed.”

“Yes, sir,” I muttered in reply. My head felt light, my arms and legs heavy, and his face swam in and out of focus.

“What is it?” he demanded. “What’s the matter with you? I can’t have you collapsing on me now, Will Henry.”

“No, sir,” I agreed, and then I collapsed upon the floor.

He scooped me into his arms and carried me up the stairs, through the kitchen that glowed with the tender light of the spring sun, to the second floor, and then up the little ladder to my loft, where he laid me upon the bed atop the covers, without bothering to strip me of my blood-spattered clothing. He did pull the hat from my head, however, and hung it upon the peg on the wall. The sight of my tattered little hat hanging forlornly on that peg was too much for me. It represented all that I had lost. To disappoint him in my lack of fortitude and manly stoicism was unthinkable, yet I could not bear it, the sight of that hat and the memories it represented juxtaposed against the surreal horror of the preceding hours.

I burst into tears, curling into a sobbing ball and clutching my stomach as he towered over me, making no move to comfort or console, but studying me with the same intense curiosity as he had the testicles of the male Anthropophagus.

“You miss them, don’t you?” he asked softly.

I nodded, unable to speak around my gut-wrenching sobs.

He nodded, hypothesis confirmed. “As do I, Will Henry,” he said. “As do I.”

He was quite sincere. Both my parents had been in his employ; my mother had kept the doctor’s house, and my father, as I would after he was gone, his secrets. At their funeral the doctor had laid a hand upon my shoulder and said, “I don’t know what I shall do now, Will Henry. Their services were indispensable to me.” He seemed oblivious to the fact that he was speaking to the child left orphaned and homeless by their demise.

It would not be an exaggeration to say my father had worshipped Dr. Warthrop. It would be more than an exaggeration-indeed, it would be an egregious lie-to say my mother had. Now, with the acuity that comes with the passage of many years, I can state unequivocally that the chief cause of friction between them was the doctor, or rather, Father’s feelings for him and Father’s intense loyalty to him, a loyalty that trumped all others, including any sense of obligation toward his wife or his only child. That Father loved us, I have never had any doubt; he had simply loved the doctor more. This was the root of my mother’s hatred for Dr. Warthrop. She was jealous. She was betrayed. And it was that sense of betrayal that led to the most vehement quarrels between them.

Many a night before the fire stole them from me, I had lain awake listening to them through the thin walls of my room on Clary Street, the sound of their voices crashing against the plaster like storm surges smashing against a seawall, the culmination of the conflict that had begun hours earlier, usually when Father arrived late for dinner-late because the doctor had kept him. There were times when Father did not return for dinner, times when he did not return for days. When he at last came home, after my joyful greetings at the door, he would raise his eyes from my adoring ones to the decidedly less than adoring pair belonging to my mother, give a sheepish grin and a helpless shrug, and say, “The doctor needed me.”

“What of me?” she would cry. “What of your son? What of our needs, James Henry?”

“I am all he has,” was the unwavering reply.

“And you are all we have. You disappear for days without a word to anyone about where you are going or when you’ll return. And when you do finally drag your thoughtless carcass through the door, you will not say where you have been or what you’ve been doing.”

“Now, do not go on with me, Mary,” Father would caution her sternly. “There are some things I can tell you and some things I can’t.”

“Some things you can? What might those things be, James Henry, for you tell me nothing!”

“I tell you what I can. And what I can tell you is the doctor is engaged in very important work and he needs my help.”

“But I do not? You force me into sin, James.”

“Sin? What sin are you talking about?”

“The sin of false witness! The neighbors ask, ‘Where is your husband, Mary Henry? Where is James?’ and I must lie for you-for him. Oh, how it galls me to lie for him!”

“Then don’t. Tell them the truth. Tell them you don’t know where I am.”

“That would be worse than a lie. What would they say about me-a wife who doesn’t know where her husband’s gone?”

“I don’t understand why it should gall you, Mary. If it weren’t for him, what would you have? We owe everything to him.”

She could not deny that, so she ignored it. “You don’t trust me.”

“No. I simply cannot betray his trust.”

“An honorable man has no need for secrets.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mary. Dr. Warthrop is the most honorable man I have ever known. It is a privilege to serve him.”

“Serve him in what ?”

“His studies.”

“What studies?”

“He is a scientist.”

“A scientist of what ?”

“Of… of certain biological phenomena.”

“And what does that mean? What ‘biological phenomena’ are you talking about? Birds? Is Pellinore Warthrop a bird-watcher, James Henry, and you the porter of his field glasses?”

“I will not discuss this, Mary. I will not tell you any more of the nature of his work.”

“Why?”

“Because you do not wish to know!” For the first time, Father raised his voice. “I am telling you in truth that there are days when I wish I didn’t know! I have seen things that no living man should ever see! I have been to places where the angels themselves would fear to tread! Now push no more upon this, Mary, for you do not know of what you speak. Be grateful for your ignorance and take comfort in the false witness it forces you to bear! Dr. Warthrop is a great man engaged in great business, and I shall never turn my back upon him, though the fires of hell itself arise to contend against me.”

And that would be the end of it, at least for a time; usually it began again after he put me to bed. Before joining her in the parlor to face her fire, a fire only negligibly less intense than that of hell, he always kissed me on the forehead, always ran his hand through my hair, always closed his eyes with me as I said my bedtime prayer.

My entreaties to heaven complete, I would open my eyes and stare into the kind face and gentle eyes of my father, secure in that tragically naïve way of all children that he would always be with me.

“Where do you go, Father?” I asked him once. “I won’t tell Mother. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Oh, I have been so many places, Will,” he answered. “Some so strange and marvelous you would think you were dreaming. Some strange and not so marvelous, as dark and frightening as your very worst nightmare. I have seen wonders that poets can only imagine. And I have seen things that would turn grown men into squalling babes at their mother’s feet. So many things. So many places…”

“Will you take me with you the next time you go?”