Midnight Grinding (9 page)

DEAD SKIN

When I was three years old, I was playing recklessly—as most children do at that age—and pulled on an electrical cord that was draped across the kitchen doorway. One end of that cord was attached to one of those big ol’ silver coffee percolators that were a common fixture in the ’60s. Its contents missed my head by mere inches, but my left arm was scalded. I don’t recall much about what followed, but I do remember my time in the emergency room. I remember that the walls were puke-green in color and that there was a 7-Up machine in the corner. I also remember screaming my head off while a kindly, old doctor gently trimmed the blistered flesh from my tiny arm.

I sometimes wonder what happened to that dead skin. Did they discard it…or did someone keep it?

Let me go! Let me go!!

It was strange how those words came to mind as Brandon Doyle held the squirming bundle of newborn life in his latexed hands. As the harsh squalling of the newly-liberated infant rang throughout the delivery room, the disturbing cry that had echoed within his mind’s ear seemed to grow more focused. It seemed to be the whining, frantic voice of a toddler, perhaps three or four years of age. A youngster who was frightened-half out of his wits.

Let me go!

The doctor handed the infant to an assisting nurse. He tried to chase the bogus cries from his mind, but they seemed to linger, nagging at the dusty, cobwebbed corners of his subconscious.

After mother and child had been separated for the time being, Brandon washed up and headed downstairs, still dressed in his jade green scrubs. He caught the elevator just as Nurse McKeon did, which suited him fine. He and the nurse—Janet, as he knew her after professional hours—had become quite an item since he had started his residency at the Atlanta hospital nearly six months before.

“How did it go with Mrs. Powell tonight?” Janet asked him.

“I had to perform a Caesarian, but other than that, things went smoothly,” he replied. “She had a nine-pound baby boy. A real screamer, too. The kind that will clean the wax out of your ears.”

Let me go!

“Are we still on for Friday night?”

Brandon seemed distracted for a moment. “Oh yes, of course. Seven o’clock sharp at your place, right?”

Janet nodded. “You’re in for the best home-cooked meal of your life, Dr. Doyle. I’ll have you know I make the best chicken and dumplings south of the Mason-Dixon. I’ll have it cooking by the time you get there.”

You stay away from that stove, young man! Stay away or I’ll tan your hide!

Brandon smiled at her and thought about stealing a kiss, but decided to leave the affection for after hours. “I’ll be looking forward to it, Nurse McKeon.”

Janet got off at the ICU on the third floor, while Brandon rode on down to the lobby level. It was well after ten o’clock. That day’s visitors and most of the staff had already left. Jasper Ryan, the custodian, shampooed the carpeting in the main waiting room.

Brandon strolled down empty halls, past the cafeteria, and through doors that were posted STAFF ONLY. Soon he had reached his destination: the doctors’ lounge. Just a quick cup of coffee and then home for a good night’s sleep. At least, that was his intention.

He wasn’t at all surprised to see Robert Cressler sitting at the corner table with his feet propped in a neighboring chair. Rob was one of the hospital’s top anesthesiologists and was almost constantly on call. Beside him sat an overweight fellow with curly hair and John Lennon glasses.

“You look beat, my friend,” Brandon said. He took a Styrofoam cup from a dispenser and filled it from the steaming glass pot. As he returned it to the coffee maker’s warming plate, he felt the heat of it prickle the fine hairs of his forearm.

Oh, God! He’s burnt…

Rob yawned and stretched to reinforce his colleague’s observation. “You better believe it. One of my busiest days yet. Gall bladder surgery, a thyroid biopsy, and to top it off, a triple bypass.” As Brandon took a seat at the table and began to doctor his java with sugar and cream, Rob introduced the mysterious civilian. “Oh, this is my brother-in-law, Arthur Quinn.”

Brandon knew the name instantly. “The writer?” He shook the visitor’s hand. “I’ve read your work, Arthur. I really enjoyed that piece you did on the fallacy of cryogenics for
American Science
.”

Arthur seemed embarrassed, so much in fact, that he nearly knocked his coffee cup off the edge of the table. It teetered for a precarious moment, then jarred back into stability, sending a miniscule splatter of black coffee onto the linoleum floor.

It fell off the eye…Oh dear Lord, it just fell plumb off!

The writer smiled sheepishly. “Thanks. I get on certain kicks. Sometimes it’s robotics, sometimes global warming, sometimes hardcore science fiction. I’ve been working on a book lately…about closet genetics.”

Closet genetics.
Brandon was familiar with the term. It referred to the increasingly common practice of performing genetic experiments on the sly, sometimes out of desperation, due to lack of grant money. Sometimes it was done unethically, behind the backs of hospital administrators who frowned on such research in their midst. It was a subject that bothered Brandon a bit; the very thought of young geniuses working feverishly behind closed doors, unsupervised and challenged with the unknown factors of human life. And, in the process, creating only God knew what.

“I’ve done most of my main research,” continued Arthur. “All I need now is a good kick-off. An introduction that will knock their socks off.”

“That’s why I invited him down,” said Rob. “I thought I’d show him Delcambre’s old laboratory.”

Brandon sipped his coffee and frowned to himself. “Delcambre. Now where have I heard that name before?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard him mentioned around the hospital from time to time. If not, I’ll fill you in, since you’re the new kid on the block. George Delcambre was a respected and brilliant surgeon here during the ’60s and early ’70s. But there was a dark side to the old boy. He was also the resident mad scientist. He had an unhealthy curiosity about things that most of his colleagues had put out of their minds after leaving med school. He was interested in experimenting with DNA, dominant and recessive chromosomes, and the cause and effect of cellular mutation. Of course, now it’s called genetic research. Back in those days it was considered screwing with nature.”

Arthur already had his tape recorder going. “Well? Don’t hold anything back, Rob. Tell it all.”

His brother-in-law laughed and punched the Stop button on the mini-recorder. “Not so fast. I’ll leave all the gruesome details for our visit to Delcambre’s lab.”

“Where is this laboratory?” asked Brandon, suddenly interested.

“Down in the basement, across the hall from the morgue. The place is locked up. No one’s been inside for twenty-five years.”

“So how are
we
going to get in?” Arthur wanted to know. His journalistic zeal was barely contained.

“I’ve made arrangements,” said Rob. He drained the last of his coffee and chucked the cup at the wastebasket, but missed. “Old Jasper has every key to every door in this old building. We’ll meet him down there around eleven.”

“Great!” Arthur seemed more than pleased with the prospect of exploring some genetic pioneer’s forgotten legacy. “How about you, Brandon? Are you going to take the grand tour with us?”

“I don’t know, guys. I’ve just gotten out of surgery. I’m bushed.”

“Come on, doctor. Where’s your sense of professional curiosity? Don’t you want to see what your elders were up to while you were running around in short pants and bruised knees?”

Brandon sat there for a long, bone-weary moment, regarding the two men’s exuberant faces. They were like kids, anxious to go and see what Santa had left them.

The lounge was silent, except for the coffee maker. It sizzled and sputtered as it strained out a fresh pot.

He’s burnt! Oh God, he’s burnt real bad!

With a groan, he complied. “All right. But this better be good.”

***

Old Jasper’s key ring rattled as he searched for the right one. He found a brass one, tarnished green from age. The others slid down the ring, clinking, metal against metal.

Snip, snip, snip…

“Ain’t nothing here but a bunch of sick specimens in mason jars,” Jasper complained. “Things a man shouldn’t ever have to lay eyes on, let alone
want
to see.”

“We can handle it, Jasper,” Rob told him.

The janitor smiled thinly around the stem of his pipe. “Well, if you say so, Dr. Cressler. I’ll let you be the judge of that.”

After jiggling the key in the old lock for a moment, a brittle snap signaled the disengaging of the tumblers. Jasper pushed the door open with a scraping of warped wood and a squeal of hinges. He reached in and fumbled for the light switch. The overhead lights—common sixty-watt bulbs, not modern fluorescents—drove away the shadows. The walls were painted pea-soup green, like some of the older operating and examining rooms upstairs.

Just hold still, young man. Everything is going to be just fine.

“Have fun, gentlemen,” said Jasper, turning to leave. “I’ll be back down later to lock up.”

Rob thanked the old man, then turned to his two companions. “Well, my friends, I give you the laboratory of Dr. George T. Delcambre.”

Tentatively, they stepped inside.

The laboratory indeed looked as if it hadn’t been used in twenty or thirty years. Cobwebs hung abandoned from the ceiling and laced the contents of the shelves. The furnishings were unremarkable: a roll top desk, filing cabinet, a couple of hospital gurneys. The air reeked of mildew and age…as well as the faint, sweet-sour scent of formaldehyde.

Arthur went immediately to the roll top desk. He slid back the sectioned covering with some effort. The pigeonholes were all empty, as were the drawers. All that occupied the moldy desk blotter was a wooden rack holding two briar pipes and a framed picture of a man and a woman, both in their late sixties. The black and white photo had nearly faded out; Brandon’s eyes centered on the man. He was tall and gaunt, with snow-white hair and spectacles with lenses as thick as the bottoms of soda bottles.

Oh, Doctor, please help him! You’ve got to help my baby!

The writer was about to dig into the filing cabinet, when Rob pulled him aside. “Plenty of time for that, Arthur. Come on over here and let’s check out what the old gentleman left behind.”

The three walked further into the cramped room. As they began to study the things that floated within dusty jars and beakers, it crossed their minds that perhaps Jasper had been right. Maybe Delcambre had left behind treasures best left buried and forgotten.

“Delcambre was a particularly curious individual,” Rob began, imparting the information he had gathered over sixteen years of working at the Atlanta hospital. “His thirst for knowledge began during his medical education. Dissecting cadavers and examining the workings of the internal organs was only his first taste of hands-on research. Once he began practicing and had established a respected position on the staff here, he set up shop…in the basement.”

Startled, Arthur stepped back a few paces. He had scrubbed away the coating of dust and spiderwebs from a five-gallon jar and found himself staring face-to-face with a severed human head.

“I’m not saying old Delcambre was a grave-robber,” continued Rob. “No, he had plenty of opportunities to collect his specimens right here in the hospital. Of course, they were taken quietly and with discretion. No one on the staff really knew what he was up to. I’m sure that the administrators of this institution would have been shocked if they’d known precisely what was taking place down here.”

Brandon passed a shelf of baby food jars. Each held paper thin slices of pale, bloodless tissue.

No need to worry. A third-degree burn, but not very serious at all.

“They said the old man did all types of weird experiments in this laboratory—gene-splicing, genetic mutation, tampering with growth and sexual glands in test animals, which created horrid monstrosities that Delcambre had to destroy immediately. There were even stories of him trying a little cloning. But it never quite worked out.”

Goosebumps prickled Brandon’s flesh. Everywhere he turned there were tiny, unfocused eyes peering at him from cloudy jars and vials. It was like looking past the thick spectacles of the man in the photograph and finding cold, dead fish eyes staring back at you. Not the warm, compassionate eyes of a man of healing, but the hard, expressionless orbs of an unbalanced fiend, brilliant in one way, but long past the bounds of madness in another.