I am not sure where Malefic is at this moment. It has
never attacked me before, directly. Perhaps I am safe. Probably I am.
Initially, I did not know what to call it. The packaging
was labeled in a foreign tongue when I picked it up at the store. Some obscure
English words were mixed in, but I couldn't understand them either. And so
without the benefit of an accepted product name or description, and because of
the torment it has caused me, I've started calling it Malefic.
If I had only spent an hour and gone to the rescue center
for an old mastiff or a Scottish deer-hound the whole situation could have been
avoided. Although, you see, I was not in the market for a pet. I wanted
something. What did I want? I'm not sure. Just something to pass some time
perhaps. A hobby, nothing more. I could have taken up watercolors again and
might have even been able to sell them at the county market. I might have set
up a booth next to the blind bead maker with his three-legged dog. There are
other artist booths there and each one purveying their array of works – works
of lesser quality than what I could produce. I am something of an artist if it
is permitted me to say so. My pastel rendering of a Pierrot by a river, for
example, was well-received.
But this time I may have aimed my sights too high. I have
an eye for good art, but I am no Michelangelo. Watercolors are one thing. But
like Icarus I feel I am tumbling from the sky having flown too close to the
sun. Humility requires me to rephrase that – I may be more like a man who dug a
hole too deep, flinging the soil up out of the hole, and now cannot get out.
Ambition got the best of me, I suppose. I am capricious
like that, you know: drifting like a gadfly from one interest to the next. The
same character fault has also kept me single all these years. Not satisfied
with entomology or the djembe or playing farkle, I had to dabble in matters
beyond my ken, so confident was I.
Ah. There it goes again, upstairs in the spare bedroom. I
should have been in bed hours ago.
But it was not without some basis in reality. My career
experience in somewhat related fields, I reasoned, would make for an easy
bridge to a new endeavor. Indeed, I had labored among the engines of modern
manufacturing. I had aided in fabrication of consumer goods devised by wizards
with knowledge of elements and bio-matter, its growth and decay, the conjuring
of new creations from murky steaming vats in warehouses. I had been employed at
various times in these industries that produced useful new products to populate
the shelves of retail stores.
As a young man I had assisted as old Dr. Whitfield many a'
night as he stood hunched over the table tightly wrapped in his heavy cotton
lab coat, those straps and buckles. And the goggles perpetually over his eyes,
so dark with tint as to block them completely, like those bohemian rogues who
wear their black sunglasses even indoors. I was there the very night when he
turned a paste of composted mandrake and ethanol and a dozen other enzymes into
a new plastic with un-guessed properties.
And even within the past decade my professional efforts
had produced clever and miniaturized machines that did a small set of people
tremendous recoveries to mind and body. My customers would often venture out
through the marshes to my laboratory at the ambergris distillery. Their
gratitude was most flattering. They inquired further about my little devices
and the whirring mechanism that seemed miraculously to produce the effect, for
they had examined them and could not unlock the secret to their function. And
in the moment I silently realized that I was not altogether sure how they
worked either. But I described for them my professional opinion – a commonly
known phenomenon by which an object becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
I related to them this notion so ubiquitous in the halls of science, and it
served only to increase their wonder and respect for me. They went away bowing
and smiling as if to pay me a kind of reverence.
But I digress. And even now I hear Malefic growing more
restless. It senses that I am thinking about it and it is pacing around tapping
its claws on the wood floor. Nevertheless I will continue with my tale.
Part II
Chemicals and their esoteric connection to the sustaining
of life had always held a particular fascination for me. From the earliest days
I would put salt on a slug, and as it melted, quickly apply a solution of
camphor and ipecac and watch as it regenerated before my young boy’s eyes.
Metals were easy to work with. I never did succeed in turning a base metal into
gold, but with the help of a strong electrical pulse and copious applications
of saliva, I did succeed in transforming tungsten into molybdenum. Sadly I only
produced the effect once, which I attribute to the fact that I had a throat
infection at the time and the bacteria in my spittle was surely the key to the
transformation.
When I decided to try my new endeavor, the winter was
especially tumultuous and I could seldom get out of the house. When necessity
required it, I would don the black rubber coat and wool hat still in the coat
closet where my late grandfather left them. And then amid in the fierce night
storms and black snow flurries and tornadoes, I ventured out for what I needed,
bracing myself against the sleet, scampering from porch to tree to shed as the
lightning pursued me with vengeance, snapping at my heels. It was just such a
night when I felt I must procure some new diversion or go mad. Under such
wicked skies and hateful weather, I set out for a Curiosity Shop of some
acquaintance.
The man at the counter did not speak proper English, and
the parcel he gave me was labeled in a language that resembled his throaty,
tongue-heavy speech made up of various gargling sounds and Nordic vowels and an
occasional cumbersome English adjective. “Alchemic,” he kept saying, repeating
it with gesticulations, saying it now slow, now fast, and finally beating the counter-top with his fist as if this would stir my comprehension. In response to
my request for a hobby kit involving chemical elements with biological
applications, he disappeared for several minutes in the rear of the shop and,
returning, produced the parcel previously described. "Alchemic," he
croaked. Finally I discerned that he was speaking of alchemy.
“Ah! Alchemy. Yes, I know something of the subject,” I
replied, and I tried to describe to him my success with molybdenum. I
surrendered after a moment when I realized that I was wasting my time with him,
for he merely looked at me with an increasing intensity and a guttural
diphthong utterance at random points that momentarily interrupted my tale. As I
attempted to carry on casual shop clerk banter, he was becoming more and more
animated, if that can be imagined. And the more I tried to thank him and ask
about the parcel, the more be began to pound the counter-top and to point his
finger in my face and finally to shout what I can only assume to be rank
profanity in his glyphic and forgotten tongue.
And when he seemed to have expressed the burden of his
dialectic in the fury of passion into which he had lathered himself, he fell
silent and pointed to the door with a resolute finger and his head bowed. “But
I have not paid you yet,” I protested, in response to which he returned to his
apoplexy, and in blushing astonishment before his leaping and stamping and
swooping gestures toward the door and his voice that signaled that a seizure
was nigh, I grabbed up the parcel under my arm I fled out the door to the
frightful yodeling of his pagan doggerel that summoned twelve legions of
demons, or so it seemed to me.
Part III
When I arrived back at the manor where my great uncle had
reluctantly allowed me residence, there was not a square inch of dry fabric in
all my apparel. The chill had numbed my fingers and I fancied that my hair was
singed by the lightning that dogged me every step of the way, in stark
juxtaposition to my near-frostbitten hands. Uncle was abroad and I had the vast
dark residence to myself.
After changing into some dry things, I took my parcel to
the steel preparation table in the kitchen. Any tool or measuring device I
might need was certain to be at hand. Using scissors to cut away the cardboard
outer layer, I found, to my delight, a handsome leather satchel with a brass
buckle. I celebrated my good fortune thinking that whatever else I might find,
I had already received a good value from the parcel. The smell of the leather
was magnificent – not the heady, tart smell of new leather – that leather still
shining with the polish and stain of the leatherworker – but leather that is
supple and seasoned, that many hands have handled before, and very durable
unlike so many cheap imitations today.
I released the brass buckle and opened the bag with
anticipation. Inside to my shock was a burlap sack. “Of all things,” I
muttered. To find this rough, prickly layer inside the noble leather covering.
Who would conceive of such a thing? I did not pause long to consider the
question, but pressed ahead and opened the sack, emptying the contents onto the
table. Some articles I recognized. A finger-sized block of graphite. A prism. A
crumbling page from an old newspaper. A fifth of premium Kentucky whiskey. In one
sealed container was a ball of fur – I could not tell what sort of animal it
came from. There were included a half dozen small jars of chemicals with little
labels – antimony, iron sulfide, saltpeter and so on.
There was a vial of clear fluid, which at first appeared
to be water. Fancy if this is holy water, I thought. Removing the stopper and
smelling a distantly familiar odor, I submitted to tasting it. It was clearly
salty, but with a faint savor that assured me that it was not a regular
chemist’s compound. I gathered its source to be a human secretion, perhaps
tears. That, or the dew of perspiration, which made me shudder. Tears most
likely, I decided. Yes, let it be tears. It was at this point that the sense
that I had undertaken a project beyond my abilities, or rather, beyond what my
stomach could bear, began to come upon me.
Several other items found in the bag were simply nostalgic
articles or mysterious substances wrapped in old wax paper. I found a broken
pocket watch for example. I found a charming old locket inlaid with mother of
pearl, and a string necklace with several teeth, and a tiny key. Among the
substances wrapped in wax paper appeared to be blocks of foundational material,
like putty, in a variety of colors. I took a pinch of one color and worked it
for a moment, and then mixed in another color, and finally a third and fourth.
I pressed them together in my palms until the colors swirled together. Then I
molded the swirling putty into the shape of a bowl and began to put various
items in it: some crushed graphite, saltpeter, and a good dose of the whiskey,
of which I also took a draft and found it to be airy in my sinuses like the
effect of turpentine but as potent with its robust, amber gravitas as the
company of Latin masters. A few other ingredients were set in the bowl, and I
was ready to move to the next stage.
As I mentioned before, my experience with chemistry was of
a very different sort. I toyed and fiddled and mixed, but I saw no effect. It
seemed I was simply mixing odd materials together without direction. A notion
suddenly overtook me that I had been duped. “There is no skill in this,” I
thought. “This is a child’s play in a kitchen sink.” What would old Dr.
Whitfield have thought if he could see this? I suspect he would have scowled at
me from behind those goggles. However, even he could not have anticipated what
was really brewing in my little kitchen laboratory.
Granted, there did seem to be a sort of logic to the way
the items went together, though it may not be apparent at first. But to me it
seemed that my hands were being guided by a outside understanding that came
upon me in the presence of the moment. To this day I do not know if it was the
muse, or simply my overconfidence pressing me forward.
The little bowl of ingredients sat before me on the table,
and I began to look around the kitchen for some instrumentation. Rummaging
through drawers and cabinets, I found a hammer for tenderizing meat, a basting
brush, a thermometer, and a couple of ripe clementines. I also brought a metal
bowl back to the table thinking that I would have to knead the elements
together at some point, and I wanted to avoid a mess. But when I had returned
to the table, my little putty bowl was trying to close up into a ball by some
unseen animating principle. I watched it, and like a flower closing up at
night, its little sides were pulling together. This concerned me a little
because I had not yet put all the ingredients in and I feared an aborted
effort.
Quickly and with great care, I set the object in the metal
bowl. Not knowing why, I took the locket and the pocket watch and smashed them
with the hammer. Then I put the pieces in the bowl, followed by the animal fur,
the key, and, after another swallow for myself, the rest of the whiskey. I
squeezed a clementine, letting its citrus juice drizzle into the mix, and I
began to knead the mess with my bare hands as I hastily recited a pater noster. The mixture began to
seethe and contort in the bowl and I my stomach lurched. It gave off a smell
like nothing I’ve ever known. And then finally I knew in my soul the last step
that was required. I had to anoint it from the vial of tears.
Part IV
I took the brush and dipped it in the vial, then I began
to baste the object like a tiny Christmas ham, now merely a ball of confused
elements with jagged pieces of sharp metal and bone poking out and tufts of fur
in and through and around the messy mixture. As I applied the clear salty
liquid, the smelly lump seemed to relax its agitation. The unpleasant smell
dissipated. I would swear that if it was a living thing it could almost be said
to give a sigh of contentment as I applied the fluid. I continued to spread it
on until it had a complete coating all over.
I had forgotten the hour, but I suppose it was after
midnight. The lightning and wind had ceased and only a snowy rain mix fell and
formed a hard ice crust on everything outside. I suddenly realized my
exhaustion and again felt my zeal for this project waning. What had I expected?
Sticking the thermometer into its side, I noted the obvious, that some chemical
reaction was at work, for the temperature was over one hundred and forty
degrees. This had to be some kind of joke – the man in the shop had sold me a
box of garbage and reagents that would produce a fizz, like a homemade soda
volcano, but that was hardly what I’d had in mind when I went out in search of
a new hobby.
I decided I would clean up the mess in the morning, and I
put myself immediately to bed without even removing my waistcoat or shoes. The
sleep-inducing effect of whiskey had me unconscious even as I mounted the
stairs to my upper room, and I am certain that I must have sleep-walked the
last twenty feet before collapsing.
But as my physiology would have it, once the soporific had
spent its power, I awakened prematurely and was unable to return to sleep. The
clock read 4:30 in the morning and I laid there frustrated for quite a while
before rising in the still predawn darkness. I returned bleary-eyed to my
little project thinking it would be suitable for nothing except the trash, and
found it had evolved a little from the state in which I’d left it. It clearly
had gained some organization and the tufts of fur had gathered into a proper
array like a regular animal’s coat. Nor is that all. Once again it was jittering
around in the metal bowl in agitation as I had seen it before, and it emitted
an utterly foreign sound that I can only describe as resembling a baritone
quack from a metallic duck.
The calming trick had worked before, so I tried it again.
Taking the basting brush and the vial of salt tears, I brushed it with a good
application, running along the grain of its fur. As predicted, the object
became dormant.
Thus began my relationship with the creature I have lately
started to call Malefic. But in those early days, I maintained a posture of
cool ambiguity toward it. I decided to leave it a while and not throw it away.
When it became jittery, I bathed it with the brush as before. I found its fur
to be exceedingly soft and pleasurable to the touch and it occurred to me that
a child might find it a nice toy when then chemical reactions ceased.
But to my astonishment, after ten days it had developed
rudimentary limbs, and had started crawling on all-fours. In eight weeks it had
eyes and a strangely formed snout. It’s fur had completely filled out, and it
had perfected ambulatory function. And eventually, like a house cat it would
rub up against my legs as I sat in my study, distracting me as I tried to work
out some astro-chemical derivative or geometrical abstraction as I sometimes
did to pass the time. Truthfully, in the months of its growth into full
maturity, I came to value it as something of an awkward pet, a stray that had
made itself at home. I cannot deny that my heart significantly warmed to it when
an old friend from the academy came to visit me. Seeing the little beast, and
hearing my explanation of its origin, he proceeded to hail my ascendancy among
the titans of science. My pride was stroked and I thanked the creature
afterward for the favor it had brought me.
Part V
Parents always identify the most exceptional aptitudes in
their own children. Perhaps then I can be forgiven for what I have to say next.
My little creature began to manifest remarkable talents and cleverness beyond
those of other pets, and it would perform unbidden for my entertainment. I say
it was remarkable. Rather trifles, I suppose, though to my eyes they were quite
charming. It began with music. As I played a favorite musical recording in the
evenings it would twitch its little tail or bounce a foot in rhythm – a
proclivity unheard of in all the animal kingdom.
How I remember with fondness those months of our amiable
companionship. It exchanged its previous unpleasant odor for a smooth, musky
perfume, a smell which filled my study with a scent that would plunge my mind
into endless unresolved problems relating to the human heart and its conflict
with itself. You can further imagine my astonishment when it began to mimic my
words, parroting phrases in that nasal metallic quacking voice it had, like the
voice of an automaton. This was truly a unique thing and I rejoiced at the
fortune that had brought the creature to my home.
Secretly I increasingly suspected that my creation might
be of some monetary value, that this project might not have been merely a hobby
after all, even though at the time I was growing so fond of it that the thought
of it reaching the age and maturity of leaving my nest weighed upon me as a sad
prospect.
How things can change in a matter of just a few weeks.
It continued to fall subject to spells of agitation, like
an epileptic, and no soothing words or food would help, nor would my caresses
or any other medicines or any of the elements that had gone into its chemical
composition, save one. If the remedy were not applied soon, it would become
intolerable with its annoying cry and worried pacing, tapping its nails on the
wood floor and finally soiling the carpet. When I could take it no longer, I
removed the vial of salt tears and applied it with the brush as I had done
since its infancy. But as you can imagine, it didn't take long for the bottle
to be emptied.
Something of a threshold was crossed the first day it fell
into one of its fits after the bottle was empty. And when no other salve was
found and the minutes had passed as I tried to restore it to calm, it instead
became so wound up that it seemed it would burst. It climbed my pants legs, up
to my chest and grabbed me by the lapels, and screamed its grating panic into
my face. And I knew what I had to do, and I did it. The creature helped me of
course with its manic perturbations setting my nerves on edge. I worked up a
supply of my own tears and let them fall on it until it began to calm. Not
satisfied with just a drop or two, it required a fair volume to do the trick
and I was utterly exhausted afterward. But at least it was returned to its
placid, amiable nature within just a few minutes.
Thus did our familial accord change in a single day, from
the Creator-Creature model into a sinister reversal. When it fell subject to
its fits of mania, it became a dominating nuisance that would not settle until
it had driven me to tears of my own agitated rage, fiercely looking into my
eyes waiting for the precious liquid to flow, sucking not just a few tears but
the full heart of my upturned emotions, until we fell down gasping in the
exchange. Each time it dragged me against my will along with it to the edge of
the precipice, hung me over the edge and then released me only after the
unnerving and embarrassing catharsis.
Fortunately, these episodes occurred not more frequently
than once or twice a week.
Nor was that the only disruption the little brute caused.
Perhaps I let slip my remunerative intentions in my sleep.
Or did it detect my thoughts in some curl of my mouth as I looked on paternally
at its capering during the happy periods. I do not know. For all I know it
could have spawned an endowment for telepathic congress with me, its maker, so
precocious was the little beast. Whatever the cause, the creature ceased to be
the playful toy and began to slink around the house with a new, melancholy
aspect.
It seemed to be entering adolescence, and it was scarcely
even a year old. The transformation occurred within only a week or two, and
soon it rarely showed its face at all. I would only hear galloping thumps
across the floor of a distant upstairs room. I would catch a glimpse of its
tail disappearing underneath the sofa. I would hear its metallic quacking,
murmuring its complaint to itself, and I was unable to determine from which
direction it came. It ceased giving off any odor whatsoever, and I concluded it
had reached the equivalent of its young adulthood. Any facet of its appearance
that previously would have struck one as charming or playful began to dull and
its expression came to resemble the cynical cock-eyed, wry-mouthed
configuration of a spent and embittered octogenarian philanderer.
The tear applications ceased. No longer did it need them.
It was full grown. When I would happen upon it as I searched through a dark
coat closet, or descending into the basement late at night with my lantern to
check the furnace, or near the attic access, it would cast me a look of
anguish, a look of the injured adult-child, and then would spring away into a
dark recess.
Some nights as I tried to sleep in the cold, empty house,
I would startle awake and find it peering into my face intently, as if to
supplicate its maker for the answer to the greatest question. Why was it here?
Why was it created? Was it merely to lie pent up in the old mansion, to spend
its days in a the dark recesses? Surely there must be more, its eyes said. I
read the question in its face, but I could give no answer, for I did not know
the answer. Could I have communicated with it, I would have explained my similar
inquiry, the first and greatest of questions, as all the race of mankind has
inquired since the dawn of sentience. I had created it, but could I tell it
why? Could I say that it was just a plaything, a hobby, a way to pass the cold
winter nights? And what if the same answer had come back to me in response to
my inquiry, in the language of mankind, rather than pregnant, scintillating
silence?
That is the way things stand. Even now, throughout the
telling of my tale, its claws tap and scrape along the attic floor two stories
up, around and around. I will see it occasionally and it will bristle in my
gaze, and look at me briefly in the corner of its eye before dashing away. I
must find a new home for it before we both go mad.
Jeffrey Mays is a textbook publisher by day and writer of quirky psychological fiction by night. His first novel THE FORMER HERO was recently completed and is now seeking a publisher to feed and care for it.
