Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

So—“What kind of medicine do you think will help me?”

The doctor, who had been eyeing her intently, seemed surprised by the question. “What? Ah, the medicine. Oh, to sure be. Hmm!”

He got up and opened a few drawers, then took out a funny-looking bottle with a funny-looking powder in it. “In my native island Sumatra,” he explained, “I was very interested in natural history and botany, zoology and pharmacology, also hunting and fishing. And so therefore. But. Details.”

She eyed the powder. “Do I take it by the spoonful? Or in a capsule, Doctor?”

He was again staring at her with his odd and shining eyes. “Take — Oh, but first I must you examine,” said he.

Well, what he did with Dorothy before, during, and after the examination was certainly no worse than what had been done with her by others, not that most of them had been doctors, though this doctor used his fingers fairly freely. It was…well…interesting. And the couch was nicer than the back seat of a tatty old jalopy, and the spices and incense certainly smelled lots better than auto grease.

“Gnumph,” he said, after helping her on with her clothes. “You seem in excellent physical condition, exception of thin, skimpy figure, of course. The medicine substance; it is a glandular one which I prepared myself from — but details you would not be fond. I will dilute with water,” he said, moving to the sink. But nothing came from the faucet save a wheeze, a grind, and a trickle of rust.

“Ah, I had forgotten. Repairs; they had informed me. No water for a while. So. Another liquid. Not alcoholic. What? Ho!” He took up the small bottle of celery tonic. It was still half full, and he pulled the odd stopper out of the odd bottle and emptied the carbonated beverage into it. Swirled it several times. Handed it to her.

Well! This certainly beat paying a drugstore, and it was better than an injection! She closed her eyes and swallowed. And swallowed. How did it taste? A little like celery and no worse than she had expected. Much easier than exercises! “How much do I owe you?” she asked.

Once again the liquid look. “Owe? Oh. Please pay me with the pleasure of listening with me some of my maternally native music. Here is one gramophone. I shall play some gamalan.”

After quite some of this unusual music the doctor asked how she felt. She said she felt sort of funny; he said he would examine her again. She said she would go to the bathroom first; and then, removing her shoes and holding them in her hands, she silently left the premises of Songhabhongbhong Van Leeuwenhoek, Dr. Philosof, and went home.

After a night of odd and restless dreaming, in which she seemed to be rather high up in a greenish place with lots of grass and trees and some rather, well, funny-peculiar people, Dorothy awoke with a faint sick-headache. Was it—? No, it wasn’t; wrong time of the month, for one thing, and it really didn’t feel like that anyway. She drifted back to sleep, this time with no dreams, and awoke again. As she stirred in her bed the thought came that she did feel heavier than usual. The medicine! Had it begun to work so soon? She hurried to the bathroom and hopped onto the scales. As she looked down she realized two things: For one, she had certainly gained weight! And, for another, her feet were covered with dark hair.

“Oh, my God !” she whimpered and, slipping off her nightie, she turned to face the full-length mirror.

It wasn’t just her feet.

It was all of her.

As far as she could see, and even in the mirror she couldn’t see all of her — she had turned into a gorilla.

It was certainly better than turning into a giant cockroach. But that was all she could think of in its favor.

The pounding on the door had been going on for a long time. Of course it was impossible to let anyone see her — and what good luck that her father had gotten one of the irregularly occurring jobs which kept the household going, and was away helping build sets on location somewhere. She’d better speak through the door. But someone was speaking through the door to her !

“I know you’re in there, hairy!” the voice was shouting. Hairy ! Then…then they already knew ! How—? Who—?

She peered through a gap in her bedroom curtain, being careful not to move it, but in vain! Though she scuttled away in terror, whoever was outside began tapping, rapping on the bedroom window. Suddenly she remembered whom she’d seen. Not “hairy”! The man was shouting for “Harry,” her father!

Dorothy’s mother, smelling of whisky and perfume, had vanished from their lives some years ago — but she had left debts. Lots of debts. Dad had borrowed to pay the debts, then he borrowed to pay the money he had borrowed.

The whole thing had spiraled and doubled and tripled, and then fallen into the hands of the Greater Los Angeles Punitive Collection Agency. In fact, as she tiptoed into the living room she saw that another of the familiar cards had been slipped under the door. Bang! Bang! Bang! “ I know you’re in there, Harry! Better open up and let me talk, Harry! We can’t wait forever, Harry !”

On the card was printed the name of Hubbard E. Glutt, District Agent. Mr. Glutt wasn’t an entire stranger. He wore a once-white shirt and a once-gray suit, both with ingrown ketchup stains, and he had extremely hairy nostrils. It could not be said, even with the best of intentions, that he was a very nice man. His breath smelled, too.

“Go away, please go away,” Dorothy said through the door. She was thankful to note that her voice was unchanged. She wasn’t thankful for much else. “My dad’s not in—”

“I don’t care who’s not in,” yelped Mr. Glutt. “Ya gunna pay sompthing?”

“But I have no money!”

Mr. Glutt made a noise between a grunt and a snarl. “Same old story: ‘My dad’s not in and I have no money.’ Huh? Still not in? Well, I gotta sudgestion.” Here his voice sank and grew even nastier. “Lem me in, and I’ll tell ya how we can, mmm, take mebbe twenty dollas affa the bill, liddle gurl, huh, huh, huh…”

Dorothy could stand it no longer. She jerked the door open and pulled Mr. Glutt inside. The scream had not even reached his throat when Dorothy’s new-formed fangs sank into it.

As though in a blur, she dragged the suddenly inert body into the breakfast nook. And feasted on it.

Moments passed.

The blur vanished. Oh God, what had she done? Killed and partially eaten someone, was what. But how? Gorillas don’t eat people, gorillas eat bananas… don’t they?

Therefore she wasn’t even a gorilla. She was some sort of monster — like a werewolf? A were-gorilla? Trembling with shock and horror and fear, she stared at her image in the big front hall mirror…and gave a squeal of terrified loathing. The hair that covered her was now darker and coarser, and her facial features had coarsened, too. Her fingernails had become talons, although fragments of the Pearly Peach nail polish still remained. And examining her mouth as the squeal died away, she saw that it was full of yellow fangs. She began to sob.

How could something like this have hap pened to her? That’s what girls always asked when they found themselves unwantedly pregnant — as if they didn’t know how! But this was worse than pregnancy, a million times worse…and besides, pregnancy had a well-known cause, and she really couldn’t imagine what had caused this .

Then a sudden thought came, echoing like a clap of thunder, illuminated as by a flash of lightning: that…that weird glandular-extract med icine which she had taken only yesterday! To make her figure fuller. Well, fuller it certainly was! But oh, at what a price! There was nothing to do but call the doctor and have him come over, and give her something to undo its effects. Only — only — would he make house calls? Well, she’d just have to see.