They stepped inside the lab and took a seat at one of the tables. “How’s your father?” Logan asked.
“Busier than ever. It’s like I told you — he seems to have found a new life.”
Logan glanced around at the lab tables; the scientific equipment; the animal cages. He sensed a false brightness coming from the naturalist’s daughter. “Did Pace go into town?”
“No. He’s out searching for the dogs.”
When Logan looked at her silently for a long moment, Laura lowered her eyes. “Actually, that’s not true. Kevin’s left us.”
“When?”
“Just yesterday afternoon. Packed up and took a taxi into Lake Placid, without a word of warning.”
“Why, exactly?”
“Why not?” Laura shrugged. “The isolation, Mark’s death, the dogs running away — but I think it was the killing of the ranger that was the final straw.” She glanced at him. “Was it… as bad as the others?”
“Worse.”
She shuddered. “Still no suspects?”
“Well, there’s a paroled killer named Saul Woden the authorities were keeping their eyes on. However, he has a foolproof alibi for when Randall Jessup was killed. Now the suspicions of the state police have shifted to the Blakeney clan — and shifted strongly, I might add.”
Laura shook her head. “Typical backwoods prejudice. Oh, I’ve no doubt the Blakeneys are an inbred, reclusive, perhaps illiterate family. So I’ve always heard, anyway. Such things aren’t their fault — it’s a product of the environment in which they’ve always lived. But naturally, I suppose it would make them a target of suspicion — especially for the ignorant.”
There was a brief silence. “Laura,” Logan said at last in a gentle voice. “I’m sorry to have to say this. But the first time you and I spoke, you professed never to have heard of the Blakeneys.”
Laura flushed red. She turned away.
“Jeremy—” she began.
“No,” he interrupted. “I think it would be easier if I did the talking.”
After a moment, still turned away from him, she nodded.
“I have a theory. Not all the pieces are there — not necessarily — but I think most of them are. You see, I read your father’s last two articles: the ones you said subjected him to even more severe ridicule from the scientific community than before. One speculated on ways the moon’s atmosphere could be responsible for the lunar effect: something your father demonstrated to me most convincingly. The other — the last and in some ways more pertinent paper — spoke of transformational biology — in effect, metamorphosis — and how animal DNA could perhaps precipitate the mutation of human DNA. I also know that your father visited the Blakeney clan — and in exchange for money, obtained DNA swabs and, in the case of Zephraim Blakeney, plasma. Zephraim Blakeney, who suffers from some genetic affliction that causes actual, if temporary, physical changes in the presence of strong moonlight: the light of the full moon.”
Laura remained silent, facing away from Logan, as he spoke.
“Your father was convinced — rightly so — about the veracity of his hypothesis on the moon’s atmosphere — specifically, the composition of lunar dust — precipitating the lunar effect on earth. But now, burning with rage at the way his work had been spurned and scorned — and perhaps witnessing Zephraim’s ‘moon-sickness’ with his own eyes, as I did just last night — I think your father revised the theories he put forward in his second paper. Instead of animal DNA influencing human DNA, human DNA — in particular, that of Zephraim Blakeney — could influence animal DNA.”
He paused. Laura remained silent.
“Your father is a skilled biochemist as well as a naturalist — you told me so yourself. That secret lab of yours is filled with equipment more suited to a medical or biology lab than it is that of a naturalist. It’s not much of a leap to assume that — using Zephraim’s DNA, in concert with the developments he’d already made on his own — your father synthesized a serum to cause just such a transformation. And since the serum was dependent on Zephraim’s condition, it would only manifest itself during the full moon. I would imagine that, human DNA being so different from that of small animals like the ones you keep in these labs, the serum would be incompatible with them — it would either have no effect, or it might kill. Your father could reproduce behavioral changes in shrews and mice, via artificial moonlight, but not morphological ones — a larger creature would be necessary for that. And that is why he ultimately tried the serum on his own two dogs.”
Logan stood up and began pacing the lab. “It makes perfect sense. That’s why the dogs were acting strangely when I saw them last, just after the full moon had passed its cycle. And that’s why they’re missing now — during the full moon. Right? For whatever reason — perhaps some artifact overlooked in the DNA resequencing — he added not only superior strength and abilities to those animals… but uncontrollable violence, as well. Violence not present in Zephraim or his kin. Is this the result of confronting nature, Laura — of trying to play God? In a desperate attempt to prove his theories, your father unwittingly created two monsters, monsters he couldn’t control without risking his life and yours… and they have now been unleashed upon the world. And killed four people.”
Now, finally, Laura turned to face him. And the expression on her face stopped him in mid-stride.
“You’re very clever, Jeremy,” she said in a quiet voice. “And you’re very good at what you do. It’s true, what you say — at least, most of it: the synthesis of the serum, the use of it on a control subject. In fact, you’re right about almost everything… except for one item, one very important item. The fact is, all this time you’ve been going down the right road, looking in the right direction — but all that same time, the final piece, the piece you’ve missed, has been staring you in the face. You just haven’t seen it yet.”
Logan looked into the unreadable expression in Laura Feverbridge’s eyes. And then all at once — with a stunning, terrible moment of revelation — he understood.
35
“Your father,” Logan breathed. “He used it on himself.”
“Who else?” Laura replied. “Do you think he would let any other living being but himself be the guinea pig? His daughter? His dogs?”
Logan nodded slowly. In retrospect, it made perfect sense. Feverbridge had been a ticking clock. The academic slights and humiliations he’d suffered had caused him to attempt suicide — was using the experimental serum on himself such a leap? Hardly: he was clearly obsessed enough to do so. And if it had succeeded on a human — if he had been able to conclusively demonstrate physical changes caused by the full moon — his disgrace would have been turned to immediate success.
But something had gone wrong — terribly wrong.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I hadn’t known he was going to do it until it was too late. He had already worked out how to employ certain metamorphosing qualities of caterpillars — using human analogues of imaginal discs would be necessary for the incredibly rapid cell division required for the transformation he wanted. Once he’d acquired the DNA of Zephraim Blakeney, who obviously demonstrated morphological changes under the influence of the full moon, he combined it with his research on imaginal discs. Then he resequenced this into a formula that could be administered to a human. Just as Zephraim returned to his normal self after moonfall, he assumed that he would, as well. But as a safeguard, he built a kind of ‘memory’ into the imaginal discs — a protein that would denature after a certain number of hours — to ensure that the transformation was temporary. He ran an exhaustive battery of tests and simulations. And then he — he injected himself with it.”