Edward Lee: The Innswich Horror

It was with little positivity that I contemplated the potential of his explanation. Based on the little I’d read I knew that, in theory, the study of human genes (particularly human genes still in developmental stages such as infancy) could not only enhance understanding of human life but could alter human life. I was forced, next, to ask, “What is the purpose of their studying us on a genetic level, Zalen?”

“That’s the worst part,” he said. “They hate us, Morley. They want to wipe us out, but not by brute force.”

“With what, then?”

“With disease, deformity, sterility.”

“Of course,” I croaked, aware now of the ramifications. “Via research and experimentation on the newborns, the fullbloods could identify our biological vulnerabilities and produce viruses, malignancies, and contagious disease mechanisms that could lay waste to the human race from a multitude of angles.”

“That’s right. That’s what they want to do eventually—”

“And you’re helping them!” I snapped.

He frowned in the moonlight. “I thought I was helping you. I’m helping you and your precious Mary escape. Remember that.” He turned then to the bedraggled vehicle. “Start praying, Morley. Pray to your God that this has a starter button instead of a keyed ignition…”

I actually did pray for that, but before the prayer was done, I’d leapt back, yelling in fright, for when Zalen opened the truck’s dented and paint-faded door, he didn’t lean in, he was pulled in—

—by a pair of long, thin, bizarrely jointed and musculatured arms with hands more resembling the forepaws of a frog, but with slick, webbed digits nearly a foot in length. I never saw its face, though I clearly understand what it was by the pungent smell which gusted from the truck when Zalen opened the rusted-patched door. It was the smell of a fish- pile tinged by the earthy stench of creek scum. Creek scum, too, was what the thing’s skin looked like. It took moments in these wedges of shadow for me to compose reactive thought. I did seem to see its bump-pocked sickly green skin shine as if wet, and as the commotion ensued within the truck I also heard wet sounds , slopping sounds, and then sounds which were more refined and more ghastly.

Only the word evil could describe what I heard next, though to make direct simile I’d have to say it sounded like someone dislocating the joints of a raw chicken, only the “chicken,” in this case, was Zalen. A heftier tearing sound followed, after which came a great, wet splat as all of the long-haired malcontent’s internal organs were tossed out of the truck, and after that came the addict’s destitution-worn black rain jacket.

Then came the arms, uprooted at the shoulder sockets.

Then the legs.

It’s taking him apart, piece by piece, I realized.

And last came the torso, though Zalen’s genitals appeared to be absent from the groin. I could only hope that the chewing sound I heard from the truck was my imagination.

I do not consider myself a coward, however, for not attempting to intercede with my pistol, for what you must understand is that the above dismantling of Cyrus Zalen expended only a matter of a few seconds. Instead, I rolled behind a rotted tree stump of considerable breadth. Reflex more than my conscious brain directed my positioning; I lay on my belly, both hands outstretched gripping my weapon, doing my best to establish a firing lane over the area I knew the creature must venture into if it were to pursue me. Shooting eye lined up over the weapon’s small sights, I waited.

And waited.

Come out! I pleaded.

No significant movement could be detected within the truck, though I believe I noticed minor movement. A moment later—and for only a moment—the faintest greenish luminescence seemed to fluoresce within, and I could only judge that it was coming from the passenger side of the vehicle’s interior. A second later, it was gone.

What guided me to re-examine Zalen’s torso I can’t imagine, but as I did so I made the sickening revelation that the cad’s head was no longer in connection with his neck. Why had the batrachian monstrosity within ejected everything but the head?

Something arched in the darkness, thumped, then rolled to answer my question.

Zalen’s head.

The head grinned in a manner that mirrored Zalen’s snideness to perfection. The whites of its eyes, in a faintness that was less than minute, glowed with the same greenish ghost-light I’d noticed in the truck. “Think about what you’re doing, Morley,” came Zalen’s corroded voice, yet a wet, slushy titter now companioned the words. “You don’t have enough bullets to take them on, but you do have choices.”

The dead words wracked me in a near-paralysis. Zalen’s head chuckled when I shakingly aimed the gun at its brow. I noticed, too, that the torn and bloody stump of the neck glowed phosphorically with the thinnest tendrils of whatever netherworld-elixir had been administered into it—the reagent, I presumed, that had also reanimated Mr. Nowry, Candace, and Lord knew how many others.

“What… choices?” I finally managed.

“Join Olmstead’s town collective—”

“Bombast,” I said in spite of my revulsion and fear. “I will not be a party to infanticide, nor will I aid and abet the enemies of my race.”

“Jesus, man. If you don’t join them, you’re dead. Oh, sure, you might take down a few of them with that peashooter of yours, but they’ll get you eventually.” The severed head winked. “And when they do, it won’t be a pretty sight.”

“I’d sooner shoot myself.”

“Well, that’s the only other choice you have. If you’re not gonna join them then you better do yourself a big favor and put that gun to your head right now and pull the trigger, Morley. That thing in the truck just pulled me apart in less time than it takes to bat an eye. You have any idea how much that hurt? ” and then the dead mouth bayed wet, mushy laughter.

When I looked up, I spotted the silhouette of the thing standing just outside the truck now, staring at me in great attendance. The eyes which shined in the darkness were gold-irised and seemed the size of adult fists. Its evilly webbed hands hung down well below the joints that sufficed for its knees.

“Of course,” the wretched head continued, “if you’re gonna kill yourself, you’ll need to kill Mary first—”

“Mary?” I exclaimed.

“If you don’t join the collective, they’ll do things to her that will make the Holy Inquisition look like a couple of kids playing in a sandbox. They’ll torture the daylights out of her, Morley, with their chemicals and their tools, and then they’ll kill her, and then? They’ll bring her back just to do it all over again.”

“Shut up!” I yelled and put the gun to the head’s eye.

“But none of that’ll happen if you join the collective. You’ll have your Mary, happily ever after.”

Tempting as they may have been, I knew that I could not fall prey to his promises. If I agreed, they would kill me just the same, for what I knew. I prevaricated, biding time—there was still the fullblood at the truck to deal with—“Let me think about this,” I delayed—but then I looked back to the truck and saw that the heinous, scum-skinned creature was no longer there.

“Too late,” Zalen intoned with a chuckle.

If was from behind that the slime-gloved hand came round and encompassed my entire face; I was hauled back, unable to breathe, and my pistol fell out of my hand. The foot-long fingers encased the full of my head, and thin as they may have been they exerted such force that I knew only seconds would be required before my skull burst like a pressured gourd. Zalen’s execrable head continued to cackle as my struggles grew more enfeebled; worse, the aberration’s other flagitious hand was slipping its way beneath my belt and into my trousers. What I suspected is had used Zalen’s genitals for were about to be duplicated with my own.