Instantly young Coover’s jaws snapped shut with such ferocity that his teeth were in danger of shattering. The boy’s throat began to tremble, ripple, and the passage of the tag was marked by the heaving of the chest. There was a lull during which the doctor capped the bottle and slipped it back into his pocket. Then Coover slid from the bed and became a sodden, stinking heap on the floor. A gibbering heap.
Dr. Malikudzu knocked lightly on the door and Dr. Dowsie opened it. “Had enough?”
“I think so. The sedatives seem to have taken effect. Keep me posted, will you? I’d like to stop in this afternoon if that’s all right.”
“He might be in jail this afternoon. I’m trying to see it doesn’t happen.”
Dr. Malikudzu bit his lip. That would be unfortunate. He didn’t know anyone at the jailhouse who might let him in.
“Best of luck,” he said.
“I still don’t understand your interest in this kid,” she said. “What’s he to you?”
He glanced at his watch. “Sorry, I’ve got an appointment with the Chancellor. Shall we talk later?”
She shook her head and called a nurse to let him off the ward.
His phone rang at 3:30, as he sat with his collection of little liquor bottles arrayed on the desk before him.
“Malikudzu? This is Therese Dowsie—”
“Dr. Dowsie, I was just going to call you. How is our patient? Not taken from our arms yet. I hope.”
“He’s not going anywhere. There’s no way to restrain him. I think the cops are afraid to touch him.”
“Why, what’s happened?”
His heart, which had finally slowed after the events of the morning, now began to beat faster than ever. His dreams were coming true so suddenly!
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on. He seems to be… deteriorating… quite rapidly.”
“Please describe.”
“Bone structure is liquifying. His skin is mottled, as if something’s sucking up the melanin; looks like someone spilled bleach all over him. And his eyes… God, it’s like looking at an octopus. They still blink. They’re yellow. We tried to move him an hour ago and he just sort of… sort of oozed out of his clothes and the strait-jacket. He’s still intact, somehow metabolizing, though I don’t think he can breathe. I wondered if you might have any idea how his happened. You seemed so interested in him this morning. It’s become plain to me that this is not a mental problem.”
“It sounds… terrible.” He had almost said “wonderful.” “Shall I come over and have a look?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Glad to.”
Dr. Dowsie herself was waiting to take him up to the ward. This time, unfortunately, she chose to accompany him into the room. He would have liked time alone with the remains. Perhaps it could still be arranged.
“I think you should call Gavin Shiel,” he said. “A higher authority seems necessary now. A new stage in treatment.”
“Treatment?” She looked considerably aged; her words were shrieked. “What can you do for that?”
She had seen too much at once, without forewarning. He had expected something like this… this malign jelly. The two tags had met, given the proper host, and powered by their fusion they were eating what had once been Mr. Coover from the inside out—like earthworms processing soil, they were eating but not destroying him. They were transforming an ordinary old life into an amazing new form. It was wonderful. He prodded at it with his foot, trying to locate the brain center. Abruptly it opened a pair of golden eyes and winked at him.
“My God, did you see that? I can’t take any more of this.” Dr. Dowsie bolted from the room, forgetting to shut it behind her. He heard her tennis shoes squeaking down the hall.
Dr. Malikudzu had come prepared. As he stooped toward the mass he said, “Intelligent, aren’t we? More intelligent than Mr. Coover, I’d imagine, hm?”
The jelly shook faintly, as if in accord.
“And hardy? Durable? Life, perhaps, everlasting? As difficult to eradicate as cancer itself?”
He had located brain, heart, liver—other major organs. The lungs seemed to have lost their utility. He extracted a long scalpel and began to stroke randomly at the surface of the thing; it was like trying to slice pudding. The slits closed instantly. He stabbed the brain half a dozen times, executing neat twirling trepanning gestures deep in the cortex, but all without effect. The eyes narrowed, staring more brightly than before. Liver, heart, nothing was harmed by his knife—and in fact he was positive that all the organs were moment by moment becoming less differentiated. This quivering protoplasm was life itself, nothing less.
“Fire might do you in,” he said, and it gave him such a look that he almost pitied it. “I wish I could carry you away from here to a safe place. With time we might learn to speak to each other. But I’m afraid I’d need a large bucket for that task—something like one of your custodial drums. There isn’t the time. So many experiments don’t quite pan out. Eventually, however, we will succeed. I think that personally my chances are excellent.”
He bowed slightly, stepping back as the mass extended a pseudopod and flowed toward him, flexing resilient tissue that fell somewhere between muscle and bone in organization and function. He could see it taking on new forms, working out new definitions, discovering itself. He could see how strong it might eventually become. If it lived that long.
They would kill it, of course. They always did. With fire or water or chemical reagents. The world was hard on foundlings.
He turned to the exit, left ajar by Dr. Dowsie, but somehow Coover got ahead of him. A thick snaky arm slipped under the door and drew it shut. There was no latch on the inside.
Dr. Malikudzu regarded the arm with curiosity. It ended in a flat, paddlelike hand from which a dozen wriggling fingers sprouted. Shifting, liquescent, the arm now thrust itself into the air like a fleshy cobra wishing to shake hands. It swayed toward him, thrusting past his half-hearted parry. He was keen to see what it would do.
What it did was cover his mouth. A scream was out of the question. The cupped palm exerted a slight suction on his lips, drawing them open as it gripped his jaw. Several fingers explored his gums, his tongue, and finally came to rest atop the edges of his teeth. In the center of the room, watching him from a distance, the yellow eyes of the cancer flared. The grip tightened. His teeth snapped together, severing the fingertips inside his mouth. For a moment they lay cold and oozing on his tongue, until arousing themselves, they made quickly for the passages of soft tissue and began their burrowing odyssey toward his heart.
This journey had begun with cocktails. If only it could have ended half so pleasantly.
“The Liquor Cabinet of Dr. Malikudzu” copyright 1987 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in Night Cry, Summer 1987.
GOOD ’N’ EVIL, OR, THE ONCE AND FUTURE THING
This is my confession.
On this 13th day of the Third Moontide of the Smoldering Beagle Year, at the urging of both Professor Tadmonicker and my own troubled conscience, I, Maven Minkwhistle, set pen to paper. Never again will I type a single character; the mere sight of the clumsy old Underwood fills me with self-loathing for the misdeeds I have done, the falsities I have perpetuated in this already too-false world. I pray that this manuscript will not meet with incredulity in a public that has learned to doubt my word—indeed, my very name. It is not an apology, for I know that society finds such fawning to be more offensive than any crime. Nor is it an eleventh-minute attempt to polish my reputation with further pleas of innocence. I am more concerned for my father—dear Father! I never wanted it to end like this.