Page 7 of Clutching Cthulhu’s Pearls (Time for Monsters)

My head pounds. I keep my eyes closed to gather sensory information and to shut out the blooming migraine. What’s that taste in my mouth? It’s like I’ve eaten a bucket of sand. Memories flood back of Phin, his eggs, hormonal goop, and Leopold—becoming one of diabolical Leopold’s experiments. Why does it stink in here? The chemicals burn my nose and intensify the burn in my throat.

“I know you’re awake, so you can stop playing possum, Harriett.”

Would it have been asking too much to wake to Phin’s voice and not Leopold’s? I’d rather be thrown in a pit with Phineas than in the lap of luxury next to Leopold. Light singes my brain when I open my eyes. He’s got a million oil lanterns in this tiny space, all pointed at me! I groan in annoyance and throw my arms over my face.

“What stinks?”

“Carbolic acid spray,” Leopold murmurs as he pulls a long thread from within my vagina. Is he sewing? “Lister, an innovative man, says that spraying the birthing area, instruments, and patients with this stuff lessens occurrences of sepsis. We can’t risk losing you, right?”

I roll my eyes. If he didn’t kill every egg he tried to incubate without a mother, he’d be performing my autopsy. Good, that’s good. Focusing on what I learned while cleaning his lab will help me plot my escape. I’d give anything to know where he hid Phin, but if I ask Leopold, it may detonate his temper. However, he can’t hurt me without risking the eggs.

No matter how much we disagree, neither of us wants to risk the hatchlings’ wellbeing.

“I’ve unbuckled your arms so your shoulders don’t lock. But I won’t hesitate to restrain you again if you struggle,” Leopold says from between my knees. “Of course, you probably don’t want to bump me while I’m stitching the tears inside you. He did a number on your cervix. We can’t have you dropping those eggs, can we? Unless you care to fry them for me.”

His chuckle grates on my nerves. My ankles are still tied, or I’d kick him in his smug face…stitches or no stitches.

“Oh, lighten up, Harriett,” he says, returning to his work inside me. “I remember our friends saying you were the fun one.”

I don’t answer him. Instead, I return to collecting data like he would if our roles were switched. Every twitch of my waist reminds me of the double-bent spoon Leopold holds inside my stretched-open birth canal. Someone, hopefully Phin and not Mr. Breyers, bathed me. Leopold wouldn’t lift a finger to clean his other pets, so I doubt I would be treated differently. He did draw guidelines and measurement markings all over my body with charcoal. If the eggs grow or shift, he’ll want to know. It’s sad that if I manage to escape, he will miss the scientific opportunity more than me.

“He roughed you up,” Leopold says after the silence makes the air between us too thick to breathe. “But, my observations, you’ll heal in no time.”

“I’m proud to wear his marks,” I mumble as I trace the sucker prints on my upper arm. My thighs have red polka dots and pink slashes from Phin’s amorous tentacles. Two large handprints bruise my hips from Phin lifting me against the straps. The abrasions around my wrists are probably nothing compared to what lies beneath my ankle restraints. “It’s as if he wrote his name on my skin to claim me as his own.”

“Phineas doesn’t have the brain capacity for such foolishness—”

“Oh, he does, I can assure you. He thinks with his heart, which has more capacity for love than a man, so if you doubt his brain power, don’t underestimate his heart,” I say wistfully. I cross my arms over my breasts to hug myself. Please let Phin be okay…

“We can’t be talking about the same Phineas. I’ve tested his IQ over the years. He’s dumber than a box of rocks, but then again, so are you. Why am I surprised you found one another?”

“You didn’t always find me stupid, you chose to marry me—”

“As a favor to your father,” he sneers as he cuts his sewing line with massive scissors. He drops the instruments on the metal table he’s wheeled to my bedside…err…table side. “You should look upset if you’re pretending you didn’t know, or at least suspect, that we had a deal.”

“Why? I’m stupid, remember? Just like your other wives,” I huff. I play at jealousy to get him to spill Phin’s backstory. Phin calls him Papa, but is he really Phin’s father or just the scientist who created him? His life had to come from some womb, one large enough to incubate a human…or was he an egg? I run my hand over my lumpy belly. It’s warm to the to uch despite the chill in the room.

“Maybe I underestimated you,” Leopold’s gasp of surprise gives me more satisfaction than it should. “You are my fourth wife and, by far, the ugliest of the bunch. Ever wonder how I could live without marital relations?”

“I thought it was a case of impotence, like limp dick or something.”

“Such a vulgar mouth to match your hideous features,” he says between tsks. He wipes his hands on a bloodstained towel. Ha! Who will wash that while I’m strapped to the table? “Have you seen yourself lately?”

He retrieves a blood-splattered mirror from the table on wheels. He flashes me in the eyes before correcting the angle so I can see myself. My left eye is red around my brown iris, where I popped a blood vessel seeking orgasms. My lips are bruised with chapped edges, the corners cracked. I knew I was dehydrated. The pointy features staring back at me are the same I see every day. I stick out my tongue and smile at the indentations left by Phin’s suckers.

“Beastly woman,” he mutters as he takes the mirror back.

“Made for a beastly male.” I purposely say male instead of man to punctuate my preference for Phin over Leopold. Human or not.

“Phin’s mother, Maria, was a beauty who never failed to stir my passions. She birthed all sorts of magnificent specimens. How many have you fucked, dear? Don’t blush when you spoke plainly first.”

“Specimens?” I squeak with horror.

“Phin’s brothers and sisters fill the swamp. Didn’t you know? You decided to skinny dip with your stepchildren. Did they pleasure you as well as Phin?”

“What Phin and I have is special—”

“After how many days? My poor Harriett! The poor, ugly wife, so desperate for a man’s attention that she projected her feelings onto a monster. Look where that got you. Legs held open for anyone who may enter the room, but don’t shiver, dearest, no man will touch a slut full of eggs.”

“Don’t make what we have into something as foul and corrupt as you,” I say in a shaky voice. “You pinned me down. You won’t let me retire to my chambers. You are the monster who tortures these poor creatures in the name of science! Do you want to know what I think?”

“Not really, but I can’t stop you from telling me without strangling you…” He wheels his table of instruments to the sink by the door with clangs and tinkles. The water blasts at full strength, drowning out any words I’d say.

“I think you use science as a cover for your real perversions—”

“I am a brilliant scientist! Take that back!” He shuts off the water and turns to shake his fist at me.

Finally, I’ve burrowed under his thick skin. Rational talking isn’t revealing where he’s stashed Phin, so maybe knocking him off balance will trick him. “You’re a pervert and a deviant. Nothing more!”

“I’m the most brilliant mind of our time! I’ve created life! Life! Life the world has never seen before!”

“Then you’re a woman,” I say with a hysterical laugh. “Women bring lives into the world every day. We have since the first creatures inhaled the first breath of life. How do you think we got here?”

“I don’t duplicate creatures like a vapid woman. I create new! I am a god!”

“A god still isn’t a scientist,” I say in a frosty voice. “You’ve forgotten what good, ethical science is. Isolated out here, there’s no one to question the limits of your depravity. You are in your natural state…like Satan himself.”

He picks up the tray of instruments from the table on wheels. Is he about to chuck it at me? A crash at the sink makes me jump as he slams the tray down. The instruments clatter at the bottom of the sink as they settle.

“No control,” I murmur with no inflection. “No ethics. No checks and balances. That’s not science. What you say is law only because nobody’s in your lab with you. ”

“Control? Control? How can you prattle on about control when you’re tied to a table with your legs in the air? You gave away agency to your body because you were delirious with lust. Your hunger for cock clouded your judgment, or did it uncover who you are inside?”

The wisps of hair he has left stand on end like stalks of wheat in a barren field. His red-ringed eyes carry black bags of exhaustion. While I slept, he didn’t. He’s used to marathon sessions in his lab, but probably not the physical exertion of stalking us in the swamp, returning to the lab, the perversion of watching us breed, the cleanup, and whatever transpired to remove Phin from this room. His weariness is his weakness.

He must sleep sometime.

“I’d say you’re in a better position to see what I’ve got inside than me. This is the most interest you’ve shown in my cunt in our marriage. Is it because you want what Phin had? Is it because you secretly wish you carried eggs? If you aren’t curious about how I stack up compared to Maria, then why are my legs still splayed apart for you?” I goad him in the hopes he slackens some more straps. My toes wiggle, shooting electric pain down my legs as the blood resumes circulation.

“You don’t hold a candle to Maria,” he mutters. His wild visage scares me to my core. He stalks to my side and rips the leather from the buckles on my ankles. With a fiendish grin, he drops my foot so it swings to the floor instead of resting on the stirrup.

The pain fills my head with stars. A coyote howl echoes in the small room. It must be mine. Tears flood my ears and neck as he frees the opposite ankle with the same violence. I sob openly at the agony. I’ve never wanted my heart to stop pumping so badly. Each drop of blood brings a thousand needles to my poor, abused feet. I curl my legs to my chest to ease the onslaught. My body trembles as Leopold approaches the side of the table.

He kisses my tear-soaked cheek as he releases the middle strap under the table.

I’m disgusted but free.

Without a second look, he returns to the sink to clean his instruments. Pity if they rusted. The care he administers to each piece of metal renews the tears falling down my cheeks. What if he could value those around him as much as those tools?

Showing little care—even his animals wouldn’t be so spiteful. I’m forgotten, like his other caged hybrids…and the ones in the swamp. How many other sentient creatures live on the grounds? Are they happy? Resentful? How do they eat, survive the Kentucky winters, or evade discovery by our recluse neighbor, Lovecraft? Surely he’s seen creatures pr owling on his property… It’s not like there’s a wall.

“What happened to Maria?” I ask once I find my bearings. Might as well go for broke, seeing as I’m a heartbeat from him beating me.

“Died delivering eggs,” he says sadly. Compassion bubbles into my bosom. “She never delivered more than one or two at a time, but I got greedy and wanted three. Even after multiple litters, her body couldn’t handle three. How many did you beg Phin to give you yesterday?”

“Six,” I mumble with a gulp of fear.

“Ah well, let’s hope you know your body best.”

He rinses the straps and lays them to dry with his instruments. The mundane chores at a leisurely pace do more to unnerve me than his warning. Someone kept this room neat as a pin while I struggled to maintain order in his other messy lab. How can he torture multiple people without his rotten conscience eating his insides? He’s reduced me to an incubator without an ounce of remorse…like his previous wife, who he seemed to like more than me. Is this the man I must rely on to keep me alive as I deliver these eggs?

“Will I have a midwife—to help at the delivery?”

He shoots me a frown that says it all.

We can’t risk anyone else knowing about his research . As if any decent soul would attempt this abomination! On second thought, I don’t want to bring another female into this madhouse. She could be forced into my position after I expire. No, I must focus on escaping… Eggs are easier to carry than six squirming hatchlings…

My eyes wander around the room as I roll my ankles and wrists to equilibrate my blood flow. There’s a stand of rubber tubes I could use to climb out if there was a window in this dungeon. Am I upstairs, downstairs, or in a basement? I thought I knew every inch of this house. The cabinet of instruments could arm me, but do I have it in me to kill whoever walks through the door? What if it’s Phin, and I attack him? Nausea rolls through my belly… I can’t hurt a person…even an evil bastard like Leopold.

Escape, escape, escape. I must sneak around until I find where he’s hidden Phin.

There are two doors out of here…or is one a closet?

“Try not to trash the lab. I know animal impulses and all that, but at one point, Boston’s high society considered you a lady. Act accordingly, and I’ll allow Breyers to return you to your room, maybe even dress you. Lord knows we don’t want to look at your grotesque, misshapen body any more than experimentally necessary.” He shivers with revulsion .

I’m delighted. The fewer hands and eyes on me, the better.

“I’ll be good,” I say sweetly because my mouth doesn’t know when to quit.

He starts to say something but thinks better of it. The fervor in his eyes has dulled to his usual calculating glare. He dries his hands on the same bloody rag but takes it when he leaves. I guess I no longer have the status to deserve a goodbye. My cage is bigger, but I’m an animal in his thoughts.

Well, he will be my past soon enough.

I can’t put weight on my feet without crying. My back aches from lying on the metal table for hours. I roll from the table to the floor, biting my fingers to keep from crying out. My forehead rests on the cool floor as I regulate my breathing to normal. My wrists burn, so I use my elbows to propel me across the room with the help of irregular pushes from my knees. I was a more coordinated toddler at crawling…

Gross, I left a streak of clear fluid in my wake. Let’s hope it’s water from my bath…the one I wasn’t awake for…shiver.

Blasted, the door Leopold exited is locked. Wait! The other door’s handle turns easily. I hold the knob with two hands—please don’t creak open—and gently pull it towards my swaying body. Plush yellow rugs capture my attention first. The breeze swirls dust in plumes and propels the rocking horse. A chair glides on its rockers further in. Books of all shapes and sizes litter the floor. Some are open as if waiting for a child to finish their stories. Dolls and stuffed animals stare at me as if I’ve intruded on their private meeting.

This was Phin’s childhood cage…I just know it.

I vomit bile until my tender heart forces me to black out.