Vernon was waiting for us when we got back, or perhaps he was in the kitchen on his own business. Either way, he took the empty buckets from Emrick before the door was even closed and deposited them in the sink.

I was about to return to my room when the doctor said, "You've been awfully quiet. You usually have so much to say."

He was not wrong. I knew if I railed at him (the way I burned to), it would only put him on guard and give him the opportunity to conceal his barbarous experiments. If he had a hint of my plan, I'm sure he'd have hidden the subjects away, by the time I got the police at his door. Or worse, he might destroy them. Then, he would have no difficulty explaining the presence of medical cadavers to the authorities and make me look like a lunatic. So, I'd kept my councils to myself on the walk back. I needed to make him think I was leaving, defeated and dejected.

I said, "What do you want from me? Have you not gloated enough? Fine. You won. Congratulations. Is this what you want?"

"Maybe you should have a seat. You seem upset." He tried to guide me with a hand on my sleeve, but I knocked it aside with a violent shrug of my arm.

Upset hardly covered it. My face was hot with fury, and the sharp tone of my voice still rang in my ears.

Through clenched teeth, I said, "I'm getting my things and leaving."

"Just take a chairt, and we'll talk this through," Emrick said amiably, but Vernon stepped forward. His eyes cold like steel.

In that guttural seafarer's accent, he said, "He really doesn't have a clue what the hell is going on? Does he?"

"Easy, Vernon. It's alright." He turned to me and said again, "It's alright. Come. Let's talk."

"I won't spend another minute here."

Vernon said, "But you can't leave, can you?"

I raised my finger to him. "Don't you tell me—"

"Look, Vernon's right. You'll be staying with us. So, let's just go easy here and discuss it like reasonable men." He spoke with a mollifying calmness and stood close enough to smell his aftershave and the lingering iron odor of red meat.

"You don't have to worry about me." I retreated from him, moving to the center of the room. My words came out loud and high pitched. "I'm not going to steal this cure of yours. You certainly haven't told me enough for me to reproduce it. And if I could, I wouldn't want to...want to... create any more of those poor things out there." The thought of those bestial perversions of nature brought bile to my gorge.

Emrick put his hands up as though patting me from a distance. "I'm not concerned about that."

"Then, I'm leaving. Now."

Vernon blocked my way, and without considering my actions, I lunged at him. My shoulder caught him in his chest and bowled him backward against the wall.

"Listen to me." Emerick's voice grew as he ran over to us. "You need to calm down. This isn't good for you."

It had been a long time since I fought a man, and Vernon was a good deal younger than me, but I had no problem making him wince when I landed a couple of solid blows to his gut. Still, he held onto my upper arms with a bone-breaking grip and pushed me back. I kicked out at his leg, but he easily dodged it. Step by step, he drove me across the kitchen.

When a cold air chilled the sweat on the back of my neck, I realized we were nearing the larder. Spittle sprayed his face while I clawed at his wrists.

The memory of that dank and putrid room caught in my throat and put a strap around my heart. I no more wanted to be pushed into it than I would a grave. Or back to the muddy trenches in France. I howled and tried to shake loose from his grip to no avail.

With a mighty shove, I fell backward and landed on the wet floor among the slushy remains of the ice blocks.

"Son-of-a-bitch," he said, slamming the door.

I was on my feet, pounding to get out, kicking furiously to bash it open, the dark and cold wrapping around me like a heavy cloak, stifling my movements.

"Please." Emrick's voice was muffled but urgent. "You need to calm down. Aggression only speeds it up."

"What on Earth are you talking about? Let me out of here." I punctuated my demand by slamming both my hands against the door.

"The degeneration."

"This is crazy. You can't keep me as a prisoner."

"You're not a prisoner. You're a subject."

"You're lying."

I swept over the shelves searching for a tool to force the door, but all I encountered was the wet and jellied residue of the butchery, and farther in, what was left of the meat stores.

Emrick's voice followed my frantic, blind exploration. "When I heard you'd died, it was simply too intriguing to resist. I mean, what better way to prove my biggest critic wrong?"

"I'm not dead," I screamed, running at the door, the light beneath it serving as a guide. My shoulder thudded into it, but only the slightest shudder ran through the wood. "Open this door. You can't treat me like this, you bastard. I'm not dead."

"I understand that it's hard to accept, but let me ask you something: how did you arrive at Foxcroft House?"

"I..." There would have been a train. I'd made the journey many times between Chicago and Boston, changing lines in New York. Yes, I could picture it clearly. Yet, the occasions that came back to me weren't this one. Conferences, consultations with peers, invitations to witness new medical procedures, but never a trip to see Emrick.

I cast my mind back to packing, the invitation, anything. The more I tried to dredge my memory, the more darkness welled up from the depths and clouded everything like silt in a lake. My mind grew muddy, and no clear remembrance of my existence before Focroft could be summoned.

The door opened, and Emrick leaned down to where I crouched weeping. He placed a hand on my shoulder. "For what it's worth, old man, I was hoping it would be different with you. That you would stay with us." It was left unsaid, but I could see in his face, the alternative was to be out there with them.

A raw, lightning burst of anger and pain ripped through my muscles. My hands shot up but stopped before they reached his throat. The strength drained from my arms until I could no longer lift them from my side.

"Perhaps it would be best to leave you here for now. Hmm? I don't think you're ready for the woods yet, and Vernon will feel better—safer if we didn't return you to your room. And at least, you'll have plenty to eat here. I'll check in with you tomorrow."

#

Time in the dark larder passed in a nebulous, untrackable way, stretching out further than one night. Longer than a week, it seemed. Eons, possibly. With my head in my hands, I whispered, "Owsley," over and over again like one of those fakirs with their mantras.

I would never get to fulfill my promise to him. Never redeem myself by saving anyone from a similar fate as his. Never atone from my sin of chopping him to pieces and turning him into meat for the crows and foraging animals.

Worse of all, never would I be allowed to follow him to those nameless shores where he now dwelt. 

-THE END-