The Scientist

The Scientist

            The following is a reflection upon a time when, in my finite knowledge, I believed not in the supernatural. But because of the occurrences soon to be revealed I was forced to have a change of opinion, or rather a change in my belief of a fact. I urge my readers to understand that before this nightmare I was in staunch opposition to any mention of the supernatural; having once spent a full night in the supposed haunted house on Brooker St, to quiet that old screwball Mulbary at the age of fifteen – dreadfully drafty place. The old kook kept going on about how the Asher family remained after their deaths to scare people off, but I silenced him when I told him that all of the Asher’s had had their hearts removed and were now buried across town in the cemetery, and that I knew this because I attended the funeral as a casket bearer for James Asher, my now eternally youthful friend. However, before I plunge you into the details of the evening at hand, I must deliver an account of the days leading up to this event, for without these details it would be just another fascinating campfire tale. But this story is true and disturbing – so much so it requires a recounting of all the facts.

            As many of my colleagues know I was a man of science and prefer the truth of tangible evidence over the mystic stories to be believed on faith alone. It is no secret that I was a staunch agnostic when it came to any question that is supernatural or clairvoyant. This, therefore, makes my experience all the more tormenting. Two nights before, I was in the lab conducting experiments on a mutt in order to prepare for an upcoming medical seminar, to which I was invited for my work in taming beasts surgically. You see, I had been developing a surgical system that would allow our society to neutralize hazardous behavior. The procedure is relatively simple; however, sometimes there is catastrophic failure because of the sensitive area of operation, and the subject can be lost. To avoid such a possibility during my showcase at the aforementioned seminar, I decided to practice on several animals before the date of my departure. Finding my nerves in shambles and the practice on the animals ineffective (all died), I decided to go home.

On my route, as I turned onto Steel Mill Rd, I noticed a man in a set of ragged clothes stumbling about. It was clear from his muttering that he was a user of opiates and likely had no acquaintance that would miss him. His scarf was old and tattered, and far too long following behind him sweeping the walkway. He was in his fifties at least, a clue given by his hoary beard. I remember thinking to myself, “What a gift, I can use him to practice my procedure.” It was a cold night; below twenty with a shivering wind. It was so cold that my hands were numb as I thrust my tool through his eye socket in an attempt to sever his prefrontal cortex connections. He kept fidgeting during the procedure and caused the ice-pick to penetrate too far, breaking through the back of his head. “What a shame,” I recall thinking to myself as I walked away wiping my tool clean. It is common knowledge that blood on iron causes rust, and a surgeon cannot have rusty tools. I felt terrible afterwards. Regretted I hadn’t been more careful since he was such a great subject for my procedure. Poor soul didn’t understand that I was trying to help him. I told him several times that my procedure would cure his addiction and he could be a man again, but he wouldn’t listen; very tragic.

            I reached my home around ten in the evening that night with dinner, which was subsequently very cold by then since I had taken so long. My wife Darla sat at the head of the table looking straight ahead. She didn’t turn to welcome me. I could smell her – she hadn’t showered – as I approached and kissed her. Still she sat motionless. I took the seat to her right – my usual place – and began to eat. Darla remained motionless still. “It is delicious sweetheart,” I recall telling her “You’re sure you won’t have some?” But she wouldn’t budge. That night she must have been the angriest I had ever seen her. Throughout the evening and the whole of the next day she sat there seething. “Darla, sweetheart, you can’t sit there forever over a grudge. Come; let me take you to the garden for some fresh air,” I told her. I proceeded to wheel her out of the back sliding door to the rear-porch, leaving her under some sunlight with a large sun-hat to shade her. The day was very beautiful, in complete contrast to the next.

            Before we move ahead, I must remind you that I was in staunch opposition against any and all foolishness about supernatural entities. Therefore, the events of the next day were influential in persuading me otherwise. It was around six in the evening on April the fourteenth, and I was walking in the upstairs hallway when I began noticing the most unusual and impossible scenes. The curtains near the landing window were swooshing as if a heavy wind was constantly at war with them; all the drawers in my office stood open; and a darkness, that should not have been, was creeping on the walls. One that stands out particularly well in my memory happened as I was leaving my bedroom to check on Darla; when I noticed someone in the bathroom. At first I thought it was Darla and ran towards the bathroom, but before I was able to reach the door it slammed shut with a loud bang. Then I recall remembering it couldn’t be her because her bedroom was downstairs, and she had no way of reaching the second floor of our home. Positive I had seen someone else; someone that should not be there; I banged on the door demanding to know who was in my home, without my permission. I threatened to phone the authorities, but that did not frighten the intruder, because there was no response. Therefore, I was resolved to enter the bathroom and force the doppelganger out. And so, I swung my leg and broke down the door, only to find the place abandoned. Abandoned, except for the outline of a man (I knew it was a man’s outline because it was far too large for a woman) on the floor in front of the bathtub. Intrigued by this, I went out of the bathroom in search of the assailant. Upon checking every corner of the entire home I determined that the rogue had escaped and I had missed my opportunity.

            Later that evening, I was sitting in front of a warm fire reading a book on numbing agents, when I felt upon my shoulder a light, cold tap. I looked up and around slowly; seeing nothing there I attributed the feeling to tricks of the mind and nerves – for I was somewhat bothered by the oddities occurring around me – and returned to my book. Moments later; I know it to be a short time because I had not yet read five pages more from my book when it happened; I felt something upon my shoulder again, this time a firm grip. I jumped out of my seat and whirled about to find nothing there. As I looked at my shoulder I noticed a burn on my dress shirt of a large hand. Now I was frightened. I reached out and took my fire-poke into my hands, brandished it as a weapon and screamed into the emptiness, “SHOW YOURSELF TRICKSTER! I HAVE NO TIME FOR GAMES!”

            I felt the strength of my hands fail me and my fire-poke, my only defense, fell from my hand and danced upon the floor. There before me stood, or rather hovered, the manifestations, in gray complexion, of people. My next realization made me fall to my knees. They weren’t just any people; they were people I knew. There before me stood my youthful friend James Asher, still as youthful as the last time he saw me, wearing the same expression of utter shock, and a bloody splotch over his heart; standing next to him were his mother, father, and two sisters; all with the same expression, all with the same mark. I covered my eyes with my face for a feeling of powerful shame washed over me, but it wasn’t shame that caressed my face, but blood. The blood of my friend and his family, the old codger Mulbary, the opiate addict, Darla’s sister Sherry, my mother, my father, and so many more who died in the name of my science.

            As I sat there on my knees face smothered in conjured blood, a wheelchair slowly creaked around the corner into the living room, came to a stop three feet in front of me, and began spinning on the spot. It was Darla’s. The next moment my fire grew cold and disappeared, lightning struck once, twice, three times outside, each time filling the room with violent light, each time shining upon a figure hanging by the neck above the steady, spinning wheelchair. Then the fire exploded into an inferno and caught my back ablaze, but I was too stunned to feel it, too numb to notice. I was staring up at the body of my sweet Darla, hanging from a noose, her neck at an odd angle, and rotating slowly in a dance with the wheelchair below her feet. The cadaver spun three times before it came to a stop facing me. Darla’s eyes opened slowly and she stared, I assume at me, because I could see no pupil within the full white eyeballs. At this time I was completely engulfed in flames that burnt me black, but did not kill me; not yet. She reached a hand up above her head and burned through the noose by slicing it with her finger. She stepped down upon the wheelchair using it as a stair, and stood before me, her head dangling at an impossible angle upon her shoulder.

            “Erik, sweetheart, haven’t you missed me?” She said, in a double voice, high pitched and low at the same time. “I’ve missed you Erik. Remember all the wonderful time we spent together? Remember how you TOOK IT ALL AWAY!?” She screamed as the flames burning me became ferocious, now licking the ceiling. “Remember Erik,” she said in a creeping calm, “how you used me as a common puppet for your science experiments? I was alive, deep within my body, in a TORTUROUS EXISTENCE! ABLE TO HEAR AND FEEL EVERYTHING YOU DID TO ME!!” Now the flames positively exploded, throwing all the furniture around me through the walls and out of the window. “But I couldn’t protest, I couldn’t beg you to stop… I COULDN’T EVEN SCREAM OUT IN AGONY! But the powers that be, have given me a gift. I get to escort you to your eternal home, where you will burn, FOREVER!” She stood there looking down at me with those empty eyes. “Do you have anything to say?”

I took a deep breath and the stench of burnt flesh filled my lungs. I remembered one thing and that alone gave me the power to speak. “It was all… for science.” I crumbled into a pile of ash and was no more.

            This experience was harrowing to say the least, but somewhat overreaching for a man of science. That is why I tell you now; to teach you, to make you believe. I myself am what I knew to never exist; a mere ghost telling you his account from beyond. But skeptics always remain and to them I say, I will speak to you from Hell.

             

© 2012 by Grikor Dovlatian