The Annekenstein Monster

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

And this is chapter 5

‘Amalga-Girl,
Hello’

             “An
orphan?!”

            That is what
Doctor Dewar said when she first saw the child. 
“You brought me an orphan?”

            Yune was
amazed.  He hadn’t said a word about the
girl.  “How did you know she is an
orphan?”

            “Look at
her!” shouted the doctor.  “Dark rings
under her eyes, sallow complexion, a smile that so obviously hides the pain and
turmoil of being all alone in the world. 
I see that smile every day in the mirror, Yune.  Of course she’s an orphan.”

 

            At first,
Lucille was dead set against using an unknown waif’s brain as such a crucial
part of her experiment.  The brain, the
most intricate piece of the puzzle, the piece that would ultimately meld all
the other limbs and organs together, had to be a brain of a girl from a stable
background, of that she had been adamant. 
An orphan’s brain had too many untold influences thrust upon it, of that
she was certain.

            “Send her
back,” said the doctor.

            “Well, now,”
replied Yune, “why do not you get to know her. 
Maybe she will be okay.  After
all, there really are no other brains available.  Maybe her brain is a good brain.  She did tell me she was smart.  And on the way back from the train station
she was asking me all kinds of curious questions.”

            Doctor
Lucille Dewar was in a tough situation. 
She knew when she began the planning for her experiment that she would
have to make sacrifices and this might very well have to be one of them. “I’ll
give her a day.  If her brain doesn’t
seem acceptable, she’s out.  And I’ll use
your brain instead of hers!”

 

            All the next
day, Doctor Lucille Dewar spent time with the orphan girl, to find out all she
could about the girl, her history, her intelligence.  All but the final, last moment tasks of the
experiment had been taken care of. 
Doctor Lucille thought it might actually be advantageous to be diverted
from the experiment for a while, to rest before its culmination so she would be
fresh and alert.

She had to admit, the girl was a sprite.  This girl reminded her of a young
herself.  The girl had much in common
with Lucille, in fact.  While both were
orphans, and lived with many foster parents, they both excelled in
education.  They both were fiercely
independent thinkers.  They both had low
self esteem, although both imagined themselves in the future as great
successes.

Lucille had made a full 180 degree turn in her
decision to use the girl’s brain for her experiment.  Now, deciding that it must truly be Fate’s
hand that delivered such an identical being to her, such a kindred spirit, she
exclaimed (to herself, so as to not upset the child) that no other girl’s brain
would do.  It must be this girl’s brain
that was used in the experiment.  “This
girl’s brain will make the experiment,” she told Yune, who was just happy that
his brain wouldn’t have to be used.  The
doctor so loved the look of the girl’s fiery red hair, that she decided to use
it, instead of Pristle’s black, curly hair that she was planning to use.

At the end of their day of bonding, Lucille looked at
the girl, who was getting ready for bed and thought, “This girl, through her
brain and red hair, will live forever, and will become the most famous person
of all time.” Lucille kissed the girl goodnight, the first kiss she’d given
anyone since before her parents’  deaths
all those years ago.  As she closed the
door to the guest bedroom, Lucille said to herself, “Correction.  She’ll become the second most famous person
of all time.  Second, after her creator,
Doctor Lucille Dewar, that is.”

            On the next
morning, the morning of the night of the experiment, while the girl was still
sleeping, Lucille and Yune crept into her room and slit the girls’ wrists,
carefully draining the blood into sterile milk bottles.  They then carried the bloodless body, and the
bottles of blood up to the laboratory and put it all into the large
refrigeration unit which she had bought from Yune when he sold off his kitchen
supplies from the restaurant.  Doctor
Lucille Dewar then shushed Yune Mune out of the laboratory and told him not to
come back until eight o’clock
that night.  For the rest of the day, she
remained, locked up, in the dome, performing the crucial final stages of what
would soon become her greatest triumph. 
Yune spent the rest of the day polishing the tarnished dome and shutters
on the outside of the house.  He wanted
to finish before the rains started, as clouds were moving in from the North.

 

            It was a
dark and stormy night, that night, and at eight
o’clock, Yune knocked tentatively on the door of the laboratory.

            “Enter,
Yune!” yelled the doctor from inside the room.

            Yune opened
the door.  The first thing he saw that
was different about the room was the placement of the autopsy table, which had
previously been stored in a corner.  It
now had total prominence in the centre of the room.  All kinds of wires, tubes, and such were
coming from it, leading to various other medical looking machines which
surrounded the table.  On the table was
some obviously large mass, covered over by a white silk parachute cloth.  Areas of the cloth looked like they were
stained with blood.  The next thing he
noticed was that it was raining in the room.  That was because, he discovered when he looked
up, a large section of the domed roof had been retracted, and a large metal
pole, connected to the table, now emerged from the room, through the hole, and up
into the night sky.  Flashes of lightning
could be seen cracking through the hole. 
He didn’t like lightning.

            “Here,” said
Doctor Lucille Dewar, handing Yune a notepad and pencil.  “I want you to document everything you are
about to see and hear.”

            Yune noticed
how calm the Doctor seemed, on this, her night of nights.  Yune himself was nervous, yet excited.  He began to write in the pad, describing the
room.

            Doctor Dewar
walked over to one of the medical machines, turned a switch, and a low humming
sound permeated the room.  She then
trotted to the autopsy table, grabbed a corner of the silky cloth, and said,
“Behold!  Science is about to leap
forward one hundred years this night. 
For I, Doctor Lucille Dewar, present the world with a creation of my own
device.  A creation that will no longer
need the externalised love of parent, the affection of friend, the kindness of
stranger to survive.  For it will find
the love, the companionship, the camaraderie that all people need, within
herself.  It will never experience the
pain of losing a loved one, for all her loved ones shall be contained within
herself.  She will never be without a
chum with which to play, as she can play with herself.  Nevermore will she be teased by her
classmates, for she is her own school.”

Lucille grabbed tighter the sheet.  “I present to the world, Amalga-Girl!”  Lucille pulled the sheet from off the table,
and for the first time ever, another human being gazed upon the result of
Doctor Lucille Dewar’s life work.  Yune
Mune was mightily impressed.

Amalga-Girl, Yune Mune figured, was about five feet
seven inches in height.  She was wearing
a very plain, khaki green frock, which covered her torso, down to her
knees.  Her arms and legs had scars over
them, some healed over, some fresh. 
Areas of the skin on her arms and legs had different pigments of colour,
indicating that they were taken from different girls.  One foot seemed bigger than the other.  Her face was bruised and slightly swollen,
scarred, but strangely pretty.  Her hair,
of course, was fire red, having been taken, along with the brain, from the
orphan girl.  Yune Mune liked red
hair.  The woman who ultimately cost him
his restaurant had red hair, but was not, Yune reminisced, a natural redhead. 

Over the top of her head was a metal helmet, and
attached to the helmet were all kinds of wires which went to all kinds of
machines of all sorts.  Yune Mune had to
admit that, while he oftentimes doubted his employer’s ability to pull it off,
it seemed that she had created something truly marvellous.

            “I must
applaud your genius, Doctor,” said Yune.

            “There’s no
time for congratulation,” said the Doctor, making last minute checks and
changes to the instrumentation of some of the machines.  “For the moment is at hand.  The tide is high and the time is nigh.”

            Doctor Dewar
ran up to the machine that housed the base of the metal lightning rod that went
through the hole in the roof.  She
flicked a switch, ran to the middle of the room, beside the autopsy table that
held her lifeless Amalga-Girl, and looked up to the sky, through the missing piece
of dome, and waited.

            She stood
motionless for about ten seconds.  Yune
Mune was looking up into the rainy, stormy sky as well.  He jumped when the Doctor screamed, “Now!”
and a second later a magnificent, deafening crack of lightning raced overhead.  Lucille clapped her hands together and
laughed.

            “How did you
know it would lightning, Doctor,” asked Yune.

            “Because,”
said Doctor Dewar, “I am not only creating life tonight, but also lightning.”

            “You’re
causing the lightning?”

            “Yes.  Lightning will recur in five minutes and
twelve second intervals.  And we must be
ready when the sheet of lightning that will hit that lightning rod gives me the
juice to jump start my experiment.”

            “How can you
guarantee that any lightning will hit the rod at all?” asked Yune.

            “Well,”
replied the Doctor, “if you did a good job of cleaning the tarnish off, and
polishing all the copper I asked you to, then the lightning will be drawn to it
like flies to honey.”

            “Ah,” was
all that Yune could say.  Inside he was
hoping that he did a good enough job. 
The Doctor would kill him if the experiment failed because of his poor
workmanship.

            “Now,” said
Doctor Dewar, flipping the switch on a machine, “I turn on the Energy
Containment Receptacle which will store the energy from the lightning.  The potent energy will then travel down these
wires,” said Lucille, following the course of thick wires, which led to
another, smaller, machine, “and be received by the Energy Conversion Unit,
which will convert the energy from its raw, deadly form.”   She flipped a switch on the Energy
Conversion Unit and the machine began to hum. 
“Once converted, the energy then make its way to the helmet, and from
there, it will enter Amalga-Girl’s brain, and course through her body,
regenerating and rejuvenating all the various organs, tissues, fluids,
etceteras.”  Lucille had moved to the top
of the autopsy table and was stroking Amalga-Girl’s cheek.  “Then, once the energy dissipates, Amalga-Girl
will be left to her own devices.  She
will be alive and free thinking, never to rely on the love of others!”

            Yune Mune
applauded the Doctor.  He was truly in
awe of her genius and forward thinking.

            Doctor Dewar
looked at the clock on the wall.  “Come,
Yune,” she said, grabbing him by the arm, “Our work is finished here.  All there is to do is wait.  We will watch from the corner.”

            Doctor
Lucille Dewar and Yune Mune ran to the corner and crouched down behind a
desk.  From this vantage point, they
could see the whole room.

            They waited
a few moments, then the Doctor shouted, “Now!” as she had done before.  Right on cue, a flash of lightning and crack
of thunder roared over the open roof.  It
had missed the lightning rod, however, and all that was heard was the rain
falling, outside and inside the dome. 
They waited through two more blasts of lightning, both missing.  Yune Mune was starting to doubt his copper
polishing.

            The next
crack of lightning smashed into the rod, causing the whole room to light up,
blue and white, as if it were midday
in a snowy field. “It has begun!” shouted the Doctor, although no one, not even
herself heard her, due to the incredible noise of the lightning.  The lightning, the electricity could be seen
travelling down the lightning rod, humming and buzzing blue as it went, into
the Energy Containment Receptacle. 
Finally after ten seconds of electrical buzzing, the last of the power
from the lightning made its way into the Receptacle.

            Once again,
all was quiet, except for the rain.

            “Why has it
stopped?” asked Yune.

            “The energy
is travelling through the wires to the Conversion Unit. It will begin to whine
as it begins to convert the raw electrical energy into tiny but powerful
electrical impulses”

            As if on
cue, the machine started making a high pitched whine.  With every passing moment, the whine got
louder and higher pitched, until Yune was forced to cover his ears.  Then the whine levelled out and the wires
going from the Unit to the helmet on the Amalga-Girl’s head started to jump in
regular intervals.  What’s going on,  Yune was about to ask.

            “It’s the
electrical impulses travelling to the helmet, and throughout Amalga-Girl’s
body,” said the Doctor, anticipating Yune’s question.

            After a
minute of once-a-second impulses, they began to occur more rapidly, until
finally, the wires were jumping all the time, all over the place.  Then, all at once, they stopped.

            Doctor Dewar
stood up from behind the desk.  Yune did
the same.  He noticed that he now did not
hear the rain, as he expected in this quiet. 
He looked up through the hole in the dome and saw that the rain had
stopped.  When he looked back down, he
saw the Doctor carefully approaching the autopsy table.  The creature on the table had not moved a
muscle.  Yune Mune decided to stay where
he was, behind the desk.

            Doctor Dewar
made her way to the table where her creation lay still.  She glanced at the hospital equipment around
the table, the heart monitor was silent, none were showing any signs of
life.  The power must have knocked them
out, she decided.  She leaned over the
table and surveyed the body, the feet, legs, torso, the head.  Everything was in the exact same position it
was in before the impulses coursed through its body.  The body had not moved an inch.  “Maybe I failed,” Lucille heard herself
think.

            Yune saw the
twitch of the sewn-up leg, and saw that the Doctor had missed it because she
was looking at the creature’s head. 
Before he could yell to her, however, the creature sprang to life,
jumping off the table, wildly flailing its arms around, knocking into the
medical equipment.  It was as if she were
trying to move in six different directions all at once.

            “It’s
alive!” yelled the Doctor.  ‘Amalga-Girl
is -“

            The creature
turned towards the Doctor’s voice, and before Doctor Dewar could scream her
second “Alive!” the creature grabbed the doctor’s throat.  It was strangling the doctor.  The creature punched the Doctor in the head,
knocking her unconscious.

            Yune Mune
threw a book that was on the desk toward the creature.  “Amalga-Girl stop!” he yelled.

            The creature
turned to look at him, not letting go, nor loosening her breath-restrictive
grip on the Doctor.

            “Let go of
her,” yelled Yune.  “That is your mother,
Amalga-Girl, let her go!”

            Amalga-Girl
looked at the woman.  Doctor Lucille
Dewar was not moving, she simply stood limp in her creation’s grip.

            “Let go of
her you stupid creature,” yelled Yune, feeling totally helpless.

            Amalga-Girl
let go of the doctor, her ‘Mother’. 
Doctor Dewar fell to the floor in a heap.  She didn’t move.  The creature turned to look at Yune Mune, and
began walking towards him.  She looked
angry.

            Yune Mune
began to panic.  His heart was pounding
very fast.  He was short of breath. He
tried to back up but quickly found the wall impeding his retreat. The creature
was getting closer and closer.  As she
reached out to grab him, Yune screamed and grabbed at his chest.  He didn’t know it, but he was having a heart
attack.

            The creature
didn’t know it either, and if she’d known, she wouldn’t have cared.  She reached out, grabbed Yune Mune by the neck,
and twisted his head from his body.

————————–

Next time, Chapter 6, “The Lake Of Shimmering Waters”

Here’s Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3
And this is Chapter 4

4

‘5:15 To
The Mainland’

             To get to
the Mount Stewart Train Station, Yune had to drive along Route 2.  On his way, to ease the tension, he reflected
on some of the nice times he and Doctor Dewar had had driving all along that
very route.  He enjoyed those drives
because he could enjoy the beautiful countryside, and she, because she claimed
the effects the motion of the car had on her brain enhanced her thought
power.  She had even devised an experiment
which proved such, but Yune did not understand fully how she reached her
conclusion.

            Route 2 was
the doctor’s favourite route in all of Prince Edward Island; better than the
much ballyhooed Trans Canada Highway, known as Route 1, because the Trans
Canada Highway merely crossed the Island from boat to boat, ignoring most of
Prince County and all of King’s County, starting or ending at Borden, depending
on your direction of travel, and ending or starting at Wood Islands, focusing
almost entirely on the central county called Queen’s.  And while there were some lovely sights in
Queen’s County along the Trans Canada, they were certainly not the only beauty
the Island had to offer.  Route 2, on the other hand crossed the Island
from point to point, from Tignish in Western Prince
County, to Souris,
in Eastern King’s.  Doctor Dewar felt it
was truly the Island’s Route, and Yune Mune
had to agree.

            The fast, short
drive to the train station, and Yune’s reflection on past drives, gave little
time for him to think on what he was about to do.  And for that he was glad.  Dismembering that last one, the Schprengel
girl, really made his stomach turn.  It
was so messy that he threw up.  He felt
dizzy the whole time he was carving her heart out.  On the whole, he did a sloppy job of cutting
her up.  And he didn’t take the usual
care in hiding the remains of the body that he did with the other three
girls.  It must have been an easy trail
for Constable Maubery to follow down to Fullerton’s
Marsh.  It wouldn’t have been that easy
for him to identify what little remained of the remains.  He’d have been able to tell Pristle’s body
because of the freshness of it.  The
others would’ve been all putrefied.

            Now, as he
was walking up the path that led to the station’s platform, he wondered if,
subconsciously his messiness was really a cry for help.  Maybe he wanted to get caught and end all the
killing.  But that didn’t make any sense,
because he was so sure of Doctor Dewar’s experiment being a success, and, as
she claimed, advancing the course of science one hundred years in one giant
step.  And he was confident, he told
himself, as he turned the corner around the station house, that the taking of
four girls’ lives was worth a hundred year advancement in science.

            Yune stopped
when he saw the girl on the platform. 
Make that the taking of five girls’ lives, thought Yune.  He started to approach the girl.

            “Yune Mune,”
shouted a voice, “what in the heck of Hades are you doing down here?”           Yune turned around to where the voice
had come from. It was Constable Maubery. 
My God, thought Yune, I’m caught. 
“Thank God,” he barely heard himself say.

            “Constable,
hello,” said Yune, offering his hand. 
The Constable shook it.

            “What are
you doing down here, Yune?”

            Yune found
himself wanting to tell the constable everything.  Despite the certainty of what he was doing
was right, he couldn’t ignore the heavy feeling of guilt that was weighing him
down. I’ve come to murder another girl, screamed Yune’s brain.

            “Me?  Oh, nothing,” said Yune, not able to look the
Constable in the eye.  “I mean, I am
doing something here, at the station. Yes.”

            The
Constable looked at Yune suspiciously. 
“And what would that be, Mr. Mune?”

            “I am here
for a reason,” said Yune, stalling, trying to think of a reason to be
here.  A legal reason to be here.  “I am looking for some ginsing,” he blurted
quickly.

            “What?”

            “Ginsing,”
repeated Yune.  “Sarah’s, I mean, Mrs.
Dunsford’s cousin is coming in tonight from Toronto and she may have some ginsing for
me.”

            “What’s
ginsing,” asked the Constable.

            “It’s
liquor, far as I can tell,” said Guy Maddox, coming out of the station house,
buttoning up his fly.

            “No, it is a
medicinal root,” said Yune.

            “Like a
beet?” asked Constable Maubery.

            “More or
less,” replied Yune.

            Guy Maddox
walked over to the other two men.  “You stupid
Chinaman, Yoooon.  Weren’t you listening
to Mrs. Dunsford this morning?  Her
cousin’s coming in two nights’ time.”

            “Two nights’
time?  My, yes, you are correct, Mr.
Maddox. I must have got mixed up in my nights, that is all.  I guess the horrible news about those girls’
murders has taken a toll on me.”

            “It’s taken
its toll on all of us,” said the Constable. 
“That marsh crime scene was the most horrific thing I ever seen.  The girls, all torn up, mixed together like a
human tossed salad.”

            “I’m just
glad my Josie got away, safe and sound,” said Guy.

            “Your Josie
has got away, Mr. Maddox?” asked Yune.

            Guy Maddox
nodded his head as he pulled a package of chewing tobacco out of his overall
bib pocket and proceeded to fill his cheek.

“Yes, the train pulled out ‘bout five minutes ago,”
said Constable Maubery.  “I came down to
make sure she got outta here safe and sound,” said Constable Maubery.  “I don’t want anymore girls dying around
here.”

            “It was
lucky we got here early enough,” added Guy Maddox.  “The train came in early, and was about to
leave early.  That idiot Mavor Glick
couldn’t conduct himself to his own funeral, let alone conduct the trains on
time.”

            Yune was
surprised that he breathed such a huge sigh of relief.  He realised just how heavily the murders were
weighing on him, and how glad he was that the girl was gone.  He wouldn’t have to kill her.  He tried not to, but couldn’t help thinking
about how upset Doctor Dewar would be with his change of heart.  Her experiment may well be ruined, and he
would undoubtedly be fired.  She had
worked so hard and so long on the experiment. 
Was he being selfish?

            “Not only
does he screw up the timetable regularly, but he also drops people off at the
wrong stations.  That girl,” said
Constable Maubery, pointing behind Yune, “that girl was supposed to be dropped
in Cavendish, up on the North
Shore.  Poor thing, she’s an orphan from Halifax, going to a new
home, and here she winds up in the heart of murderville.  I phoned up to Angus Ferguson to come down and
pick her up in his truck and drive her all the way up to the Shore.  Told him I’d give him some money and two
bottles of whiskey for his effort.”

            That
girl?  What girl? wondered Yune.  And then he remembered the girl he saw on the
platform before the Constable diverted his attention.  Yune turned around and looked at the
girl.  She had flaming red hair and was
sitting patiently prim and proper, on her little suitcase.  That girl. 
A girl.  Again, Yune surprised
himself with another big sigh of relief. 
Over the last few moments, all he could think about was the immense
disappointment that Doctor Dewar would have at having to call the experiment
off.  It made him realise again just how
important the experiment would be to the world. 
He couldn’t let her down, he decided. 
He must get that girl.

            “Well, let’s
get going, Constable,” said Guy Maddox. 
“We should drop up by Art’s place and see how they’re all doing.  Bring him some comfortin’ booze to make him
forget.”

            “No,” said
the Constable, “I should wait here for Angus and make sure the girl gets away
okay.”

            Yune turned
back to the two men.  “I will wait here,
if you would like to go see Art, Constable,” he said.  “I’m sure Art would be comforted by your
presence.  I will wait here for Angus to
drive the girl to her new family.” 

            The
Constable looked Yune in the eyes, and shaking his hand said,  “Thanks, Yune.  You’re a good man.  That rich lady done you a disservice giving
you your reputation like she did.”

            “You could
be waiting a while for that Angus, though,” laughed Guy.  “He’s probably driven his truck into a ditch,
drunk out of this world, the dumb Irishman.”

            “Come on,
Guy,” said the Constable, “let’s get up to Art’s.”

And with that, the two men were gone.

            Yune turned
back to the girl.  She looked over at him
and smiled.  Yune smiled back.

            “Are you
smart?” Yune asked the girl.

            “Oh, yes, I
should say so,” said the red haired girl.

            Yune walked
over to where she was sitting.  “How do
you do,” he said.  “I’m here to take you
to meet your new sisters.  And if you’re
as smart as you say,  I dare say you’ll
become the brains of the family.”

Yune shook the girl’s hand.  She’s an orphan, thought Yune. Killing an
orphan isn’t so bad.

———————–
Next up…. Chapter 5 – “Amalga-Girl, Hello”

This is comedy group Tripod performing a song at a comedy festival.  It’s pretty funny.

20 years ago, after I graduated from high school, I was seriously considering going to Concordia University in Montreal, to study psychology.  I decided to stay on PEI and attend UPEI, where I did major in psychology for my first two years.  There, I met Dave Moses, who pestered me to be in a play.  I had never really considered my “artistic” before then, but I succumbed (this is a word, by the way, that I have found myself using at least four times in the last three days) to Dave’s requests and thus continued down the path that leads me to this exact moment.
I sometimes wonder what I would have become had I gone to Concordia.  I’m pretty sure I would have never discovered my theatrical talents, and would be leading a very different life than the one I now lead.
Fortunately, for the curious, I have been working on a little side project that has enabled me to Google alternate universes.  I just stumbled upon a blog written by my Concordia University Graduate self.  Yes, I am blogging in that universe too.  Only they, from what I can gather, call it Diaristing.  I never thought I’d be thankful for the term ‘blogger’ but it beats the hell out of ‘diarist’.
Anyway, I thought I’d post the very first entry that I found through Google from that universe.

The title of my alternate universe blog, by the way, is “Tapped Cerebellum”.  (I hate it!)

Aug.15, 2005
Mrs. Fister called me into the lab again today.  Lordy, I do despise her nervous ticking eye!  Yet, I can’t look away from it.  Once again, she had a calamity that “only Robert could solve”.  Seeing that it was totally a frontal lobe situation, it only took me about two minutes to solve.  As a matter of corporate security, I am not at liberty to divulge the nature of her experiment.  But I can say that the monkey smells wonderful.
So, yeah, it was a pretty typical day.  Got home and watched CPAC while we ate.  God, I hope Manning doesn’t win another majority government.  Montreal used to be a fun town, before the Reformatarians took control.  I can’t believe I’m posting this, but I hope the Ben Mulroney Liberals beat the hell out of them.  I’m certainly ready to get some of my freedoms back.
Rundell said something pretty funny at Evening Meal.  I was explaining my deductive reasoning for applying a liberal amount of ranch dressing to the salad, when he bursts out with “I don’t like ranches.  I live in a city, not a ranch!”  LOL My god, we all laughed so!  Can you believe he and Bonnie Jovi are already 12!! 
American Idol was pretty good tonight.  Goodness, they’re all talented singers.  They all deserve to win.  I can’t decide which one I like better.  I know for certain, though, that my wife, Marguerite, is hoping for Bo Bice.
Anyway, must tuck myself into bed.  Work comes early for the workers.

Here’s Chapter 1 and Chapter 2
And this is Chapter 3…

3

‘A Dwindled
List’

             “What do you
mean, ‘too dangerous’?  Over.”

            Doctor
Lucille Dewar was in her laboratory, in the dome above the third floor of her
home.  She was in the middle of
concocting a polish that would quickly and easily remove the tarnish off the
abundant copper accoutrements that adorned the house.  This was one of the many last minute tasks
that had to get done and she didn’t have time for any foolish claims of danger.

            The intercom
buzzed and squawked as Yune’s voice filled the dome.  “It is getting very dangerous.  Constable Maubery has just found all the —“

            Lucille
pressed the talk button before Yune had finished speaking, and a high pitched
whine intermingled with the rest of the noise. 
It took Yune a moment to realise what the noise meant, that the doctor
did not want to hear his news.  He
stopped speaking and released the talk button on the intercom in the first
floor bathroom.  The doctor’s voice
immediately replaced the high tone.  “—
is what I think of your Constable Maubery. 
Now, hurry yourself up here.  And
bring a wire brush.”  The intercom
squawked to silence.  Then it buzzed alive,
said  “Over,” and again squawked to
silence.

 

            After a test
scrubbing of a copper bowl, it was found that the copper tarnish remover
concoction wasn’t working nearly as well as Doctor Dewar has originally
planned, or as Yune Mune had hoped. 
While Lucille quickly got over the partial failure and moved on to the
next task on her To Do list, Yune was left with a bucket of the sludge, a wire
brush, a house exterior covered with greened copper, and only one day to finish
the job.  When he told the doctor that it
would be impossible for him to clean all the copper in one day, and asked if he
could hire some helpers, she snapped at him. 
“Don’t you dare bring outsiders into this house of renaissance.  If it’s impossible to clean the whole of the
copper, as you claim, then could you at least manage to do the dome, and the
shutters on the north face of the house where the lightning rod is
attached?  We can leave the gables green,
I suppose.”

            Yune Mune
bowed and said that could be managed, and that he would get underway
immediately.

            “No,” yelled
Doctor Dewar.  “Before you begin that, we
must make preparations for the final stage of the experiment.  The moon will be at its fullest, two nights
hence, and I am prognosticating inclemency in the meteorological sphere at that
time.  We must be ready.”

            “What else
needs to be done,” asked Yune, looking around the room where the experiment
would take place, “other than rubbing the tarnish and shit off the roof?”

            The doctor
slammed her notation book down onto the hard, wooden floor of the dome.  “Language!” she screamed.  “Watch the language!”

            Yune ran
over and picked up the book.  “I
apologise,” he said, handing her the book. 
“I must be getting caught up in the excitement of the impending
experiment, and have misplaced my manners.”

            “Apology
accepted,” said the doctor.  “And, I,
too, must apologise to you for losing my temper.  There are many factors involved in the
success of this experiment, some which I will have no control over.  I hope you will forgive me if I seem a little
on edge when the culmination of all my years of work and experimentation is so
close at hand, and there are so many things that could go wrong.”

            “Nothing
will go wrong,” said Yune, reassuringly. He bowed deeply to his employer.  “What is it you need of me?”

            Doctor Dewar
looked at Yune.  “I need you to get me
another girl.”

            Yune could
not keep the sigh from coming out.  It
was exactly the order he was fearing most. 
He knew, as the doctor had explained over and over to him, that,
morally, murder in a circumstance such as this was justifiable because of the
greater good which would come as a result. 
However, he wasn’t so sure that others would see their point of view on
the matter.  And now that the crimes had
become officially designated as murder, although for months most people in the
area already believed the girls were murdered but never dared to say so, the
people in the community would be out for blood and justice, and in that order.

Constable Maubery had already questioned him when the
first two girls went missing; not because the Constable thought Yune had
anything to do with them, but because the community demanded it.  Speculation around Afton Road was that if a person was
capable of raping a rich woman, as Yune was once suspected of nearly doing,
then kidnapping teenage girls was also within his realm of capabilities.  Yune Mune, of course, had an airtight alibi
in that he was in Doctor Dewar’s company during the periods of time when the
girls went missing.

            “We really
need another girl?” asked Yune.  “I was
under the impression that the Schprengel girl would have the sufficient
components to enable you to complete your work?”

            “That last
one was a fine specimen, physically.  I
replaced her breasts, which were perfect, for the ones I had planned to use
from girl number two. I also took her thighs, one of her hands, her lips, nose
and her left eye.  Of course, I planned
to, and will, use her heart, as well as some other lesser internal organs which
I won’t bore you with.  I had planned to
use her brain as well, but upon examining it, I discovered that the areas which
control the animal urges such as hunger and sex had been damaged.  Therefore her brain was less than perfect and
as such, unusable. So, I’ll need another girl so I can use her brain.  Try to find someone smart, if you can.”

            “I am afraid
the number of young women from which to choose has dwindled to a jejune few,”
said Yune.  “There is the cross-eyed Shaw
girl, thirteen-“

            “Too young,”
declared the doctor, dismissing her as a choice by a wave of her hand.  “Too immature.”

            “Stacey
Johnson is the right age,” said Yune, “but she is retarded.”

            “Don’t waste
my time.”

            “Emily
Fitzpatrick is available, but she is not pretty,” said Yune.

“Emily Fitzpatrick,” said the doctor, “is far worse
off than merely ‘not pretty’.  She looks
like she was hit by a train.”

The train.  Yune
suddenly remembered Josie Maddox, and quickly glanced at his watch.  “Drat! 
If only I had known your desire for another girl earlier,” said Yune.

            “Why?”

            “Because Josie
Maddox fits your requirements,” stated Yune, ”but her father had her leave
Afton Road for the safety of the mainland. 
She just left today at 5:15
from Mount Stewart.”

            Doctor
Lucille Dewar looked at her pocket watch. 
“It is now only five o’clock.  She will still be there.  You can grab her if you’re quick.”

Yune looked at his own watch and cursed himself for
again forgetting to wind it.  “If we can
get her it will be perfect,” said Yune, “because no one will know she is
missing until after your experiment is complete.  Then, when they see the wonderful being you
will have created, no one will mind another missing, dead teenager.”

            “Go and get
that girl,” said Lucille, as Yune trundled down the steps from the
Observatory.  “And her brain!” she
screamed after him.

——————————-

Next time – Chapter 4 – “5:15 to the Mainland”