Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 57

Want to catch up? Want to start right from the beginning? Want to read the episodes all over again?

Here are the links:

Episode List From 1 – 52
Then: 53 54 55 56

Images below from Google, Getty Images, and Pixabay

Please read the start of the story using the link above. I promise, it’s well-worth the time to check it all out. At least then, this excerpt will make more sense

The boy had found a dead and decomposing dog. Its guts were exposed, stretched beyond their endurance, and split, spilling out the remains of the animal’s last meal. Rats had begun to remove bits of the fleshier parts of the remains, and in places, bones were also exposed.

Jack was able to draw near to the boy before he became aware of anyone close.

Instead of being afraid, the boy seemed protective of his prize and stood between the carcass and the newcomer as though unwilling to share even the sight of it.

“What do you have there, my boy?” Jack asked.

“It’s a dog, mister. I didn’t kill it, I just found it.”

“That is certainly interesting. Do you see how it died?”

“No mister, I thought it ‘ad just dropped dead. What did it died of then?”

“Well, I think that perhaps it has been beaten or knocked down by a cart or a carriage. Do you see the front leg? It is broken and so are some of the ribs. Do you see? They protrude… I mean, poke through the fur and skin. I think that the dog was old anyway because its fur is grey and its coat is in poor condition. It has mange and most likely fleas, but they will have gone now.”

The boy hung on Jack’s every word, taking the information in and nodding as he did so.

“Would you like to know more? I have some animals at my work place and I would be most happy to show you the differences from this poor mangy animal to the ones I have been studying.”

The boy had probably never been shown any attention of the kinder sort before and after only a fleeting moment of hesitation, he eagerly nodded and said that he would like to come and see Jack’s animals.

Jack lifted his hand to place it upon the boy’s head in a show of affection for the benefit of any that may have noticed a boy walking away with a gentleman and the boy flinched out of his reach, surprising Jack into withdrawing his hand with a jerk.

Once the boy had realised that Jack was not meaning to hit him, he relaxed again and allowed the hand to rest on his head for a moment. Jack cringed at the dirty hair under his palm and it took a great deal of self-control not to jerk back his hand again.

Jack managed to keep the revulsion from his voice as he continued to speak to the boy. Not once did Jack ask for his name and the boy didn’t offer it.

The unlikely looking pair strolled along the dark streets chattering away like old friends and soon they were close to Jack’s hidden work place. He dodged behind a large pile of rubbish, debris, wood and rubble and beckoned the boy to follow him. The lad did not move for a moment or two, weighing up the appearance of the secret entrance but Jack called from the shadows, “Come on lad, it’s this way.”

As the boy caught him up again, Jack explained the need for secret entrances. “My work needs to be kept secret but I also need to be close to the place where I procure…”

Jack saw the puzzled look at the unusual word and altered, he changed his manner to the one he most used in the workhouse infirmaries. “The place where I get my experiments from.”

The boy seemed to accept the explanation and continued walking, following Jack.

They came to the entrance to a darker alley and Jack went on into the gloom without hesitation. The boy followed with caution. He got half-way along the alley before he stopped and pressed his slight body to the brickwork of the wall, trying to make himself part of his surroundings almost. He was aware, all of a sudden, that there may be something not right. Without a word, the boy turned back the way he had come and began to hurry back to safety.

Jack saw and realised his escape attempt and caught hold of him. Jack plucked the boy off his feet and swung him around to catch hold of his head, pressing it to his own body by way of his hand being forced over his lower face, pulling the boy to him. The boy could neither escape nor shout for help.

The urchin was dragged, struggling both for release and for breath, into the darkness that hid the entrance to Jack’s lair.

The boy struggled less as Jack bundled him in to a large box in a dark corner of the room. He was part-suffocated and dazed, beginning to lose consciousness. Jack began to prepare the operation with a thoroughness that bordered on obsession for detail.

The operating table was cleared, the objects that had been placed on it as a convenient and temporary position were put away and the surface was wiped over.

The boy, by now terrified and silent in that terror, was dragged from the box and given a glass of gin. He sipped it and looked up to Jack’s face, and tried to smile at his captor. Jack smiled back but the smile did not seem to give the boy any reassurance.

He continued to sip at the gin and Jack grew impatient. He gestured that the boy should finish the glass and when he had, Jack re-filled it. The boy was already reeling and would have been unconscious in next to no time.

Jack put his arm under the boy’s chin from behind and exerted a slight pressure, pulling the boy’s head back to rest on his hip. After a few moments of the gentle pressure, the boy lost consciousness and Jack felt certain that he would not wake because of the gin in his bloodstream.

He stripped the boy and laid him first on his front. Jack cleaned and examined the boy’s body from a clinical point of view, noticing that he had a slight curvature of the spine and a few broken and healed bones in his arms and legs. The boy had had a hard life, short though it may have been.

Jack noticed bruises and lacerations, both old and new, the boy lived close to abusive people, that was certain and Jack thought to himself that the boy’s pain was now at an end.