Reanimators by Pete Rawlik

Author:Pete Rawlik
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Reanimators
ISBN: 9781597804790
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Published: 2013-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17.

THE PLAGUE ANGEL

In the spring of 1918, forty-two months after I had left, I returned to Arkham, weary of war and of my pursuits of perfecting the process of reanimation. My home was like an old and trusted friend, warm and inviting. Wilson had maintained our practice, and I was pleased to discover that he had even expanded it, taking on an association with Dr. David Schiff of Kingsport, who needed some relief from his workload as he entered his seventieth year. Schiff’s practice was smaller than ours in Arkham, proportional to the differences in the size of the towns, though Schiff was the only professional in that sleepy seaside village. There was something about the pace in Kingsport that was appealing, and when in April Dr. Schiff announced that he would prefer not to return from his next winter trip to Deland, Florida, Wilson and I agreed to take on his practice full time.

The arrangement was rather elegant; Wilson purchased Schiff’s home and office, a four-bedroom affair that sat behind the attached street front offices. His wife Mary moved into this home, and Wilson became the primary physician in Kingsport, while I would visit weekly and assist on more difficult cases. I hired Miss Soames, a woman who could function as both a receptionist and a housekeeper to help me in Arkham. Her son had been Dr. Halsey’s houseboy all those years ago. Though we resisted it, we also hired a young man fresh out of his residency, Dr. Randolph White, to help both of us, with the full understanding that he would travel to either location depending on the needs of the day.

As for my studies and the secret lab beneath my house, I resigned myself to the fact that I would never again pursue such things. I made sure that my notes and samples were secure, and changed the sheets that covered the equipment. The war and my experiences in it had taught me that there were worse things than death. Who was I to play God and decide who should live and who should die? As for the motivating force behind my research, the vengeance I sought on West and Cain, I left that behind as well. The war it seemed had changed me forever, and I was content never to unlock that door again.

No sooner had we settled into a routine, one that I must say was quite enjoyable, than our tiny little practice was made aware of a growing medical threat. One June evening, Wilson, White and I were summoned to one of the lecture halls at the University. The subject was not revealed, but the urgency of the matter was made plain. As we arrived, the situation became most curious, for it seemed as if every medical professional in the area had been summoned. Moreover, campus security was furiously checking to make sure that everyone who was attending was actually invited. I had not seen such a mobilization of the medical community since those dark days during the typhoid plague of 1905.

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