walls. I remember during my time in Afghanistan entering a barn that had been used to house a herd of goats. The sun had baked the inside of that barn, making the air hot and fetid, and filled with the aromas of hair, food and waste. I had been forced to run for the open before the atmosphere caused me to vomit.
This building was much larger, of course, and therefore the smell was not so strong. Still, I couldn’t help but think back to that Afghan hut.
The floor was filthy, littered with torn bedding, half-chewed bones and dark stains I didn’t wish to guess at. For all Mitchell’s talk of civilisation, it was clear his animal army hadn’t stepped far from their feral behaviour.
Mitchell clearly sensed my disgust. No doubt it showed clearly on my face.
“I am not here to strip away what makes our animal friends what they are,” he explained, “unlike Moreau with his determination that they should be made vegetarian, stripped clean of their urges and needs.”
“Fear the Law -” I said “- Isn’t that what you shouted when you wanted them to behave? Doesn’t sound like real freedom to me.”
“Well,” Mitchell squirmed slightly, “I’ll admit I have had to maintain some sense of order, just to ensure we’re all working towards the same goal. It’s in their best interests.”
“That’s what all dictators say.”
He led me down several flights of stairs then through to a small side room, the central feature of which was a large column covered with a heavy black sheet.
“Here,” he said, “then you will finally understand the miracles I have created.”
He tugged at the sheet, revealing a tall glass water tank. Inside, floating, fully clothed, was Lord Newman, the Prime Minister.
“Dear God, man!” I shouted, circling the tank to try to find a method of opening it. “He’ll drown!”
“If he were going to drown,” Mitchell replied, “he would have done so long ago.” He pulled his fob watch from his waistcoat and checked the time. “Our noble guest has been in there for nearly an hour.”
“Impossible.”
“See for yourself, he still lives.”
I pressed my face up against the glass, looking the dignitary in the eyes. His long hair and beard, so often criticised by the opposition as undignified, looked decidedly so now, bobbing around his pale face like seaweed fronds. His thin lips were tightly pressed together, as if he were holding his breath, and yet his skin showed none of the ruddy tones one would expect from a man deprived of oxygen. As I looked, his hair parted and just for a moment I glimpsed the organs that had newly grown on either side of his throat—narrow, fleshy slits that rippled as they allowed air bubbles to filter between them.
“Dear God!” I exclaimed. “You’ve given him gills!”
“Only indirectly. I injected him with the serum I have prepared, that Holy Grail of governmental research. He has simply adapted to his environment the quickest and simplest way his body could think of.”
“But that’s …” I couldn’t finish my sentence. I was simply too in awe of the sight in front of me—the absurd, grotesque impossibility of it.
Suddenly Lord Newman convulsed, his whole body twitching like a fish caught on a line.
“Damn,” said Mitchell, stepping closer to the glass. “I was so sure he would last longer than the rest.”
“Longer than … What are you talking about man? What’s happening to him?”
He convulsed again and a shocking gobbet of blood burst from between those tightly pressed lips. It hung in the water for a moment, then sunk, immediately followed by another, and then one more. Soon his whole body was thrashing, and the water grew increasingly pink as he haemorrhaged.
“Every time,” said Mitchell, “the body goes so far and then breaks down.”
“You’ve got to get him out of there!” I shouted, looking around for something I could use to break the glass. I moved no more than a couple of feet before the leopard creature gripped me by the arms and raised me slightly off the floor. I thrashed in his grip, just as Lord Newman thrashed in the tank, neither of us to any positive effect.
“There’s no point,” said Mitchell, staring through the glass as Lord Newman slowly vanished in the murky soup. “He’ll be dead in a few moments. It’s almost akin to tissue rejection, as if the whole body begins to reject itself once the changes bed in. Fascinating—” he looked away “—but so terribly disappointing. He was to be my spokesman for the brave new age. Mind you,” he grinned, “I didn’t vote for him, did you?”
“Inhuman bastard!” I was beside myself with rage, not caring that the claws of the creature were tearing holes in my upper arms.
“Oh yes,” said Mitchell, “isn’t that the point?” He looked once more at the water in the tank, still and red now, and the hirsute silhouette that floated within. “Shame. Still, if at first you don’t succeed...” He looked at me, and the ferociousness of his lunacy burned hot in those eyes. “Let’s hope you manage to last a little longer, eh?”
I was carried out, and dragged down the adjoining corridor to another small room.
Mitchell pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. “You’ll have to forgive the smell,” he said. “This is the secure area where we keep our animal friends when they first come into our care. They are understandably disorientated at first, and sore from their surgeries. We find it best to keep them somewhere dark and peaceful until they have come to their senses.”
He opened the door and once more I was hit with my memories of that Afghan barn, before I was thrown inside and the darkness consumed me.
I landed painfully on my knees, and rolled to my side in what felt like damp straw.
My arms burned from where the creature’s claws had drawn blood.
At that moment I could have happily killed Mitchell—he seemed to be the most terrible, loathsome beast of all.
Eventually I began to calm down, though the image of Lord Newman’s death lingered with me in the darkness. I was simply unable to see anything else.
After a while, as much as I tried to nurture my moral indignation, my thoughts turned instead to my own predicament. Clearly I was to share the same fate as the Prime Minister. Perhaps not the water tank—I had a feeling that Mitchell would always be eager to experiment afresh—but certainly something like it. Perhaps I would be buried alive, left to writhe like a worm until I ruptured into the soil. Or would I be dissected—forced to regrow myself ad nauseam like a lizard that has shed its tail?
I have often had cause to imagine death. Indeed, in the months since Mary’s passing I almost wished it on myself. But not like this. I could never have imagined anything approaching the horror of a death like this.
Still, as the hours went by, I could see no other way out of it. All I could hope for was that an opportunity to break free might present itself. Certainly, I would rather die at the hands of one of my animal pursuers, cut down as I made a break for the open, than become a scientific horror of the kind I had witnessed.
And then the moment came. I heard footsteps advancing on the door to the room, the sound of the key in the lock.
“It’s now or never,” I said. “Get ready John, old man!”
But Mitchell had not come for me. Instead he had brought me company.
“Go on!” he shouted and, just for a moment in the light thrown from the open doorway, I saw Holmes, Challenger and Mann stumble into the room. Then the door was shut and all was dark once more.
“Holmes?” I shouted. “I might have hoped to see you on better terms.”
“Ah!” my friend’s voice replied. “Is that you Watson? Not the most convivial of surroundings is it?”
“Damned disgrace,” Challenger shouted. “Treated like a blasted animal!”
“If only his intentions were that kind,” I said.
“Yes,” Mann agreed, “I have a feeling we’ll know worse yet.”
So, this is where my insistence on having the inspector join us had led. His wife would likely never set eyes on him again, poor man.
“It’s not good,” I said, before telling them of the fate of Lord Newman.
“Unbelievable,” said Mann.
“Just what I said, myself,” I admitted. “But I can’t really see a way out of our situation. He has an army of those beasts to fight against. We’re outnumbered, overpowered and trapped here in the dark.”
“I know,” said Holmes, and I could swear that the man was smiling. “I’ve got him just where I want him!”
Which is when the room shook in response to a nearby explosion.
