Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 27

Exclusive for Steemit - serialisation of Cruel and Unusual – my second novel

Episodes:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Writing this novel took longer than I estimated partly because of the vast amounts of research I undertook. In this next excerpt, there are references to a few actual events, some more gruesome than others. If you're interested, at some point later on, I'll divulge which events are factual.

When he at last heard Lizzie, he got up, dressed in his day clothes and washed and shaved. Then he went off to work as usual with only a perfunctory greeting to Lizzie in passing.

That evening, he returned home and continued his work on the werewolves. He discovered that they had a different number of teeth to humans and that their glands were a little larger. Density made the bones heavier, muscles were also denser and joints were more flexible. The heart was a little larger but for his claimed age, Marcellus did not have any ravages which age usually visited upon a body. All organs were healthy and free from disease. Fatty deposits were non-existent anywhere on the body. And the eyes were clear and free from any trace of cataract or impending blindness.

All in all, Jack admired the body for its health and apparent vitality - right up until the point of death, which would most certainly not have occurred for a great number of years if not for his intervention.

Jack found just one tiny imperfection – a scar on Marcellus’ abdomen. On close inspection, it looked like a burn. Jack was puzzled and then cursed himself that he had not thought to ask if anything could harm a born werewolf.

Of course a werewolf that had been made could have scars on the body, due to a human’s inability to heal with the efficiency of a werewolf - but a born werewolf should have no scars. Jack thought; still, that was one question to ask if the opportunity ever arose again. Jack could only assume that the scar had been caused by contact with silver but because he had not acquired the fact of it, he decided not to note it in his documents.

Jack took the same care and attention to detail with the body of Almyra. Again, the body was shaved. He was surprised to note that she was not as hirsute as he had expected her to be, but she was very young in appearance, smooth skinned and devoid of blemishes, including moles.

After the blood was drained, collected and labelled, Jack got down to the task of disposing of the body. He had decided not to do a full autopsy on her remains but almost on a whim, he removed her uterus and placed it in a jar of formaldehyde.

First Jack dismembered the body, leaving the torso. Then he immersed the parts in a weak solution of arsenic so as to preserve them and prevent noxious odours.

Once the parts had had time to be suffused with the arsenic solution, he then wrapped the parts in some of the cloth that he had taken from the body and tied the ‘parcels’ with string. The arms and legs were dismembered further at the elbow and knee joints and also wrapped in cloth and tied with string.

The head was put into a large bell jar containing a solution of formaldehyde. It looked nothing like a woman’s head without the hair. He labelled this ‘Text book case: 8 yr old boy. Source: Russia’ and he put it to the back of his other specimens.

For the body of Marcellus, he dug a pit close to the incinerator and part filled it with lime. He placed the body on top and then shovelled lime onto it to fill the hole.

As the weeks passed, the hole would be filled and tamped down as the lime did its job of decomposing the body and the ground level dropped.

The trunks were placed in the far corner of the cellar to await travel arrangements.

Now that everything was tidied away, completed and all evidence disposed of, Jack wrote down all the new details that he had discovered – including the accidental discovery that Aconite prevented the werewolves changing to Wolf. Therefore, he surmised, it would also have a similar effect and prevent a werewolf in wolf form changing to human.

Now all that was left for Jack to do was to finish his potions and ointments for the culmination of his work.

In August, Jack decided to repeat the experiment that he had described to Almyra and he took to the streets with exactly two weeks to go until the full moon. He deemed it necessary for the Wolf to be at its weakest to prevent any harm coming to his own self.

Jack went out in his shabby clothes once more. He located a male Werewolf first and did nothing to attract its attention but made certain of its location before going off to find another willing companion.

He followed a woman and her three companions to George Yard buildings in Whitechapel and became disappointed when he thought that he had missed his chance at the experiment. Only as he was leaving did he hear one of the couples move off, leaving the other couple a semblance of privacy to perform a quick and sordid sexual act.

The woman was making adjustments to her attire and the young man – in uniform, Jack noticed – left her without looking back, his obvious and base needs fulfilled. Jack made certain that his test subject was still in the area and was delighted to find that he was some kind of voyeur; he had been watching the couple as they had swift and business-like sex.

Jack approached the woman from behind and made a pantomime of embracing her and caressing her, pretending that he was her erstwhile lover who had remained to escort her back. Whilst the unsuspecting young man watched, Jack proceeded to first pierce the woman’s heart and when the wolf neither reacted nor retreated, became angry to almost a frenzied pitch and he at last dropped the woman’s body when he became exhausted by his exertions.

The wolf watched for a few seconds more, seeming curious as to Jack’s motive but he retreated before Jack could ask any question of him.

Jack had decided to leave the body of the woman where it had fallen but he heard a muted conversation from the other end of the covered alley and he realised that the soldier had not left his companion alone, he had merely moved away to allow her to rearrange her clothing and to Jack’s dismay, seemed to be talking with a policeman.

Thinking quickly, Jack gathered up the woman’s body and cast around for a suitable hiding place. He found a door leading off the yard, unlocked, and he thanked his lucky stars that it led onto a stairwell rather than into someone’s living quarters.

He dropped the body on the lower stairs and arranged it so that she was, to all casual glances, sleeping. The he left the same way the Werewolf had gone, he hoped that his luck would hold and that he would not catch up with the Werewolf, for he did not like the idea of having to answer awkward questions about his activities.