Sacrifices - Chapter 6
Rating: PG for carping, frippery, and general cattiness
Summary: Clarendon smugs up the place, plans are undone, and we finally see what Dan has in his little bag.(hint:not a wrench)
Herbert peeled a tarp off a series of gurneys. “These are preserved subjects.”
Dan could think of many situations where Herbert’s utter lack of social awareness had been an embarrassment. He could name more when it had been a downright threat to their continued existence.
“This is the subject I’ve been working with for the past few days. Note the heavy subcutaneous bleeding around the eyes.”
But he couldn’t remember an incident he found so funny.
“Here’s the pineal fluid I extracted only just this morning. Note the discoloration.”
Dan bit back hysterical laughter. He’s had his hand on the gun in his pocket for the past few minutes, but he’d doubt he’d be able to hit the broad side of a barn right now. Dalton looked increasingly horrified, Dan had turned away from his co-conspirator because every glance brought fresh giggles. He was terrified. They were in the belly of the beast, in the lab where Clarendon did...things with the black fever, and Herbert was giving them the school tour. It was so surreal, so bloodily ordinary in a storm of horror, so...West.
“-taken several different scrapings, Dan what do you think?”
“Yeah,” Dan sputtered out, “looks fine.” He pressed his lips to confine his giggles.
Herbert looked at him oddly, sifting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “You seem flushed, Dan, are you sure you should be out of bed yet?”
Dan was red from exertion. He’d had prostate exams that were less stressful. “Sure,” he creaked, “healthy as a horse.”
The second Herbert turned his back again Dan bent double, cramming his fist into his mouth. Dalton threw an arm around his shoulders, thinking Dan was choking. Dan waved him away. God, he’d welcome a zombie or two right now. His warbag clinked with promise. He might get one.
“...And that brings us up to speed,” Herbert finished, dropping an eyeball back into a jar. “Any questions, Dan?”
Dan’s mind cleared. The laughter abated. “Just one. Where’s Clarendon?”
Herbert’s face fell microscopically. No one else would have noticed it, but Dan did. “I was hoping to work with you for a while before...well, introducing you.”
Dan smiled humorlessly. “Scared to show me to him?”
Herbert tried to bluff, and it was almost cute how badly he failed at it. “Well...the last time you two spoke you weren’t very polite, Daniel.”
“-and Clarendon’s someone you want to be polite to, isn’t he?”
Herbert started, wheeling around to peer at Dalton. He’d been silent throughout introductions, the tour through the house that fever built, even Dan’s hysteria. Now he seemed to grow out of the woodwork, standing taller than the both of them.
“Alfie makes sure you’re polite to him, or he won’t play nice. That’s how he sees it. Playing nice,” Dalton spat. “Man doesn’t have a professional bone in his body.”
The other two exchanged glances.
“Alfie?”
“They knew each other when they were kids.”
Dalton clenched his fist. “Then one of us grew up. You have to be told, Herbert, you have to know the risk here. This is a dangerous thing you’re working with, and any second it could explode into chaos.”
Herbert blinked. “I know.”
That threw Dalton aback. He looked to Dan for support. Dan shrugged.
“Well...it’s more than that. Clarendon’s not working to cure the disease. He never was. Why would he try to cure something he-”
The lights flicked on, and Dan realized how much his eyes had adjusted to the dark as spots danced in his eyes.
“I what, James? Please, continue to spew more conspiratory blather, it makes you look so intelligent.”
The voice was as fine and cultured as the caress of silk glove. Clarendon stood in a dressing gown, smiling a tight, beatific smile that called to Dan’s fist with a siren song.
“Oh dear, dear, dear,” he murmured, “have I interrupted something?”
Herbert adjusted his glasses. “I was merely showing my research partner around the lab, Alfred, I had no idea his...guest knew you.”
Dalton gazed up at Clarendon, pure hate etching his features. “Hi Alfie,” he hissed, and Dan noticed how Clarendon’s eye twitched at the name, “where’s Georgie?”
Clarendon’s smile regained its original brightness. “Dead, my dear James. Didn’t you get my message? Or were you too busy trying to assault her only living relat-”
“I know she’s dead, you smug little shit,” Dalton snapped, “and don’t pretend for one second that you loved her. I want to know what you did with her body after you were done tinkering with her.”
“Why, she’s in the family crypt, as she should be. I can’t say I condone an encounter between the two of you now, but if you’re so distraught...” Clarendon let the sentence hang, voice soft and insinuating. Dan could practically see Dalton’s blood pressure boiling over and rushed to grab his arms.
“It’s not worth it,” he hissed into the struggling man’s ear, “he’s goading you. Don’t go near him, it’s what he wants.”
Herbert, meanwhile, had begun walking towards Clarendon as if nothing at all was going on around him.
“All *ahem* familial matters aside,” he said, “I do have questions about their rambling. Mostly concerning whether or not they’re true.”
Clarendon didn’t even spare him a glance. “The idiot thinks I killed my sister, Howard, besides that I can’t decipher his hysterical rambling.”
Dalton shook free of Dan’s grasp. “You ARE responsible, you bastard, you’re responsible for everything!” he turned to Dan and Herbert, pointing at Clarendon. “Where do you think that fever came from, hmm? It didn’t just miraculously show up one day at the penitentiary, he brought it with him, he and that old warlock brought it back from Tibet-”
There was a loud pop and a tinkle of broken glass. Clarendon produced a pistol like a magic trick. He motioned with the barrel.
“That’s enough of your wailings, James, you’re getting as bad as your father. Over there, please. Both of my unwanted guests, if you don’t mind.”
Herbert’s protested. “I don’t see what lumping Daniel in with this man will do, Clarendon. He’s of no threat to you.”
Clarendon still had his eyes trained on the two of them, he wasn’t watching Herbert. Always a mistake.
“He will be. Like that nurse. You’ll thank me for getting him off your hands, Dr. Phillips, types like him never stop pressing.”
Herbert took a step forward, eyes suddenly hidden in reflected light. “Please, Alfred. He’s been indispensible to my work. He may take some coaxing, but he’s quite dedicated.”
Clarendon shook his head fast and loose like an angry toddler. Actually, it hadn’t occurred to Dan how much Clarendon looked like a little boy playing dress-up in daddy’s clothes. It might’ve been funny if he didn’t have a revolver leveled at his midsection.
“Herbert, human attachments are beneath men such as we,” he chided, “trust me, they claim to help, but ultimately people are of no more use than the sum of their consummate parts.”
Dalton’s eyes were wet. “She was your sister, goddammit. She loved you. She encouraged your experiments when your father wouldn’t even look at you. How could you do that to her?”
Dan was watching the human drama unfold, waiting for a chance. He met Herbert’s eyes and felt a jolt of surprise. They both disliked this man. Dan was so shocked and pleased to find this out that it took him a moment to realize the gun had been fired again. Dalton thudded onto his knees, wailing through gritted teeth, holding his arm.
“I thought I told you,” Clarendon said, light making an angel halo out of his blond hair, “to shut up, Jimmy.”
Dan fell into paramedic mode, applying direct pressure with a discarded lab coat. Dalton began to hyperventilate. Dan took his other hand off plan B to rub his back.
Clarendon smiled that punchable smile again, chuckling, and Herbert sighed. It wasn’t his mock-long-suffering sigh that he used when Dan pointed out his foibles, or even the drawn-out sigh that came at the end of a failed experiment. This was the sigh of a babysitter tired of dealing with their charge, the sigh of patience finally having run out.
“Shut up, you troglodyte.”
Clarendon did shut up, actually. Out of pure shock, his laugh choked off and his gun arm drooped.
“Look at you. A monkey playing at science. You bang rocks together and completely ignore the world around you and think it just comes ready-furnished for your infantile fumbling. You sit on the shore while the vast ocean of truth lays undiscovered before you, poking a dead gull with a stick. I’ve been propping up this partnership for so long because I thought you might have something to offer, some insight, because even a stopped clock can be right twice a day. But I’ve gained nothing from this, and I’m tired of holding your hand.”
Clarendon’s face fell completely, the utter devastation was fascinating. For a brief second it was like looking at a small child, and Dan could almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
“You-you-you-”
“Yes, me, me, me. I’m the one who’s gotten everything done these past weeks, did you notice?” Herbert’s voice had risen in pitch and tone. “Do you notice anyone around you? I do. I notice everyone. I observe and I theorize and most of all I care. I care about science. And I didn’t get to where I am today because no one ever told me no. I got here because everyone told me no, and I never accepted it. I strive and push and struggle every day against apathy, and you, you child, you’ve stumbled into greatness and you can’t even be bothered to study it properly!” Herbert took a deep breath, and now bitterness crept into his tone. “I would have killed to have someone support me as a fledgling scientist. You have been the best I have ever seen at squandering gifts, but that is the end of your talent.”
“I funded you!” Clarendon bellowed, “I funded you and brought you test subjects -”
“And I cooperated, Clarendon. For a time. Because I chose to. But now I’m done.”
Something twisted in the blond man’s face. “I see. I know how people like you operate. I let you get close to me, see my research, and now you’ve decided to be done with me? So I can see yet another introspective published in a magazine with my black fever, so you can plagiarize my years of research?”
Dan said, “Uh-oh.”Herbert’s face went dangerously serene.
“What did you just say?” he asked politely.
There was a mean little gleam of triumph in Clarendon’s eye. “I called you a plagiarist, you hack, you glorified research assistant! Who the hell do you think you are?”
A small smile spread across Herbert’s face, a quiet, sweet smile. “West. Herbert West.”
Clarendon’s brow furrowed in confusion. Dan doubted he would make the connection, and didn’t care. Herbert was doing a marvelous job of drawing attention to himself, like he always did. Dan was busy elsewhere.
Clarendon shook his head. “What does it matter, what your name is? It isn’t like you’ll have a tombstone after I’m done with you, or any of those niceties. I might not even use anesthetic when I work on you.”
“No tombstone?” Herbert clapped his hands to his cheeks in mock-horror, “Oh heavens, what will I do?”
Dalton mumbled, near-unconscious on the floor. Clarendon studied West with growing shock. Today was full of short, unpleasant lessons for the good doctor, and if Dan had his way, there would be more.
“No,” Clarendon said finally, “no I think that’s too good for you. I’ll hand you over to Surama, he’ll deal with you. He’s always been a loyal and efficient helper, unlike some.”
Herbert laughed a short, sharp bark. “He isn’t the ‘help,’ you idiot, he’s been pulling your strings this entire time. Don’t you think it’s a little convenient to come down with a legendary disease the moment you start asking questions about it?”
Clarendon gestured with the pistol. “It’s only legendary because no one’s studied it, I’ll be the first-”
Herbert smirked. “Sweetheart, you aren’t even the last.”
“Don’t give me that, Surama has-”
“Abandoned you, Alfred,” West said coolly, “he’s jumped ship with the rats. He was only with you because he found you useful, and probably amusing, from what I gather. He’s not on your side, he’s not on anyone’s side but his own. You’re too blinded by pride to notice when you’re being used.”
The gun had started to shake. Dan wasn’t sure what Herbert’s plan was, if he even questioned the wisdom of angering the man with a gun, but it didn’t matter. So close, so close...
“I’m going to kill you,” Clarendon said, “but slowly. I’m going to infect you with the b-strain and watch the pustules bubble up on your face and watch you contort in agony just like that orderly-”
A mottled hand clapped his shoulder.
“His name,” Dan said,” is John.”
~`~`~
A/N: AND THEN JOHN WAS A ZOMBIE!
Really, I had fun with this chapter, making those two go toe-to-toe like that. Clarendon in the original story was very West-ish but with one difference: mercy. It was a typical 30’s horror story after that, mad scientist self-terminates, guy gets the girl, blah blah blah, very UnLovecraftian ending. I tried to write him here like a dark mirror, like West but without his (admittedly underdeveloped) need for human attachment and personal drive. I really like the idea of West’s drive being born of personal tragedy, and him responding to it in his own way. Some people cry, West kicks death in the balls.