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Shamblers in Darkness (Cthulhu Mythos) (Pt2)

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Shamblers in Darkness (Part  2)

A Cthulhu Mythos short story by Spike Valance


***


“Wait, wait” I interrupted him “What do you mean?”

Clarence cast me an enigmatic glance worth of Sidney Poitier in a detective motion picture.

“Let’s go by degrees” my friend said after a sip of his coffee.

“As I’ve started checking the corpse” he went on “I haven’t detected any injury, scratch or other signs of tearing, just a faint ecchymosis at the base of the nape. As I felt the neck, I also noticed it was too much limp to the touch, like boneless.”

“Oh, so?”

“At closer inspection” Clarence continued “I realized that the cervical vertebrae were as crushed and splintered as shattered cornflakes, like “ironed” by a steamroller or crunched by a gargantuan Boa constrictor. And then comes the bone-white pallor of the skin…”

“Porphyry?” I hesitatingly inferred.

“Nope, but…” he said “believe it or not, the victim was utterly devoid of blood or haemocytes.”

Indeed I couldn’t believe it. I just raised an eyebrow objecting that there weren’t signs of injuries as he told me.

“And I reaffirm it” he insisted “same when I’ve opened: I haven’t found either a drop or a coagulated chip of haematic tissue in none of the blood vessels. Like he had been drained up, hard to establish whether from the outside or the inside.”

“Maybe mine is just a silly idea” I began “but could a quite deranged murderer bleed the victim white with needles and syringes? That would perhaps leave no detectable sign and with all the weirdos shambling around in darkness it wouldn’t be that unrealistic.”

“You said it” Clarence objected “even the smallest of the needles always leaves a dim trace on the skin, difficult but not impossible to spot.”

“Well, what about the bruise on the neck, then?” I objected.

“At first officers have indeed considered the serial killer hypothesis, conceiting a really weird modus operandi” Clarence admitted “but however many are the deranged lurking out there with minds so distorted to plan even the unconceivable, could really and practically a murderer be able to drain a human body deep into its organs and tissues? And in such a brief time lapse to pass unnoticed and without leaving the feeblest track as well?”

That objection of his indeed was difficult to refute and the only thing I came up with was just an idle comment half puzzled half ironic while I was browsing a case history.

“It wouldn’t sound bad in a vampire story…”

“If so it would be the weirdest plot ever conceived…” Clarence glossed “but it’s not over, Dan. There’s some more to know.”

“Oh, lawd, what else?” I asked mockingly.

“It’s about when I’ve started inspecting the victim’s inside” he added “I told you that I’ve found neither the smallest blood drop, right; by the way while I was about checking the organs I’ve found something which shouldn’t be, at least not inside a man.”

Then I took my eyes off the case gazing at my co-worker with a baffled inexpressive face.

“So?”

A sardonic half-smile scarred Clarence’s dark face.

“Feeling the mesothelial tissue covering the intestines” he went on “I’ve felt a weird hollow thing opposing some resistance to the touch. By position I inferred an abnormal extension of the bladder at first but histological analysis points out an independent origin from mesenteries. Call me mad or stupid but I’m fairly sure that the cells are in all respects uterine.”

I took my eyes off the cartel and stared at my friend speechless.

“A womb? Inside a man?” I repeated and Clarence nodded as much incredulous.

“Do you understand my own puzzlement now?”

At first I too was bemused but soon after rationality or instinct suggested me a more logical explanation or something close.

“Are you sure that the victim was really male?” I began “Mightn’t he be a transsexual or a woman about changing sex actually? It would not be the first case of people subjecting to similar and that thorough operations…”

Now it was Clarence gazing at me with almost sarcastic eyes.

“I’ve checked and verified the victim’s whole anamnesis and case histories” he said “Everything about him was recorded here at Northern Methodist Hospital since he was a child, analyses, CT-scans, genetic exams and last the blood exams for the conscription. Everything points that the chap was a man in every respect before he died.”

“Maybe a weird kind of tumour or a teratoma then?” I tried to object.

“Cells were newly formed” he replied “neither cancerous or metastatic though. They made up quite an oogonic tissue, endowed with male gametes as well yet quite not “masculine”. How do you explain it?”

“I don’t. I give up!” I said shrugging my shoulders “But are you sure there was neither the smallest hint in the anamnesis?”

“Nothing, Dan. Absolutely nothing” he insisted “But I can’t say the same about what was inside of the womb-thing.”

Needless to say that I was increasingly bewildered yet still morbidly curious to know more of that anatomical riddle, but I couldn’t expect I would have almost jolted down the couch by surprise.

Strange black ovules two simple adjectives and one noun in plural were enough to further shake my own incredulity.

“…with a purplish yolk and branching sprouts, like shark eggs” Clarence added casting further shadows on those more than shady facts.

“I should perform a more thorough exam but I’m pretty sure that it’s really yolk and something small was stirring inside each of those yolks. I don’t know what else saying, I swear."

Revelation came from the last words which eventually drove me to burst in a laugh and slap him on the shoulder, finally aware that my co-worker was just teasing me with a horror pulp story.

"You moron! At first I supposed you were serious..." I said laughing. Yet Clarence wasn’t sharing my irony nor confessing his own joke, he just went on staring at me seriously, slightly annoyed by my own incredulity.

“Do you think I’m kidding?” he eventually asked me “If you don’t believe it, I can’t blame you, so am I disbelieving what I’ve seen, but I have no more logical options to explain it.”

“Oh, come on!” I insisted “I don’t like jokes or ghost stories, above all in view of night shift, you know!”

I wasn't sure whether my friend was joking or serious, but if by chance he was bluffing, my incredulity led him to raise.

“Come with me down in the morgue then” he suggested “so that I may prove you everything and I defy you to find an explanation.”

Even now I can’t deny I was then eager to see the mysterious corpse my friend Clarnece was portraying as the riddle of the Century, at least to ultimately unmask the prank of his. I was intrigued to see how far my co-worker wanted to go with his own tall story so I ended up with accepting.

“After you…” I said pointing to the elevator with a smug grin. I believed he wanted to dark-humorously take revenge for a silly trick I’ve played on him when we both attended the college, therefore I did or said nothing to spoil the thing and decided to keep on playing the game along. How miserable I’ve been, now that I think of it.

To be continued
Shamblers in Darkness (Part 2) (Cthulhu Mythos) Previous Next 

Another attempt to an original Cthulhu Mythos written short story… with a smell of gauzes and formalin too.

Credits for preview image to :iconwemmastock:
© 2016 - 2024 SpikeValance
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lordhadrian's avatar
Well done, the story is intriguing and the implications are quite horrifying :):)