“Hold it,” I yelp, jerking my head aside. “Dr. Oystein said we couldn’t wear contact lenses, that they’d scratch our dry eyes and damage our sight.”
“Normal contact lenses would,” Kinslow agrees. “But these are special. Your friend Owl Man invented them. They have a sensitive coating that allows your lot to endure them. You can leave them in all day and night. Each pair will last around a month.”
“You’re sure they won’t scratch my eyeballs?” I ask, letting Mr. Dowling widen my eyelids and slip the first one in.
“Well,” Kinslow smiles, “about sixty percent sure…”
Finally Mr. Dowling examines my mouth and attaches steel heads to the teeth that were filed down. Then he screws in fake fangs, filling the gaps where other teeth were extracted. They hurt like a bitch going into my gums. I’d have bitten through his fingers, except he inserted a clamp before he went to work.
“The teeth are more complicated than your fingers and toes,” Kinslow says as Mr. Dowling removes the clamp. “Your natural fangs will grow again over time. The caps will stunt their growth and sting every day until they’re removed, but there’s no way round that if you want a fully functioning set of gnashers right now. We’ll keep a close eye on the implants and detach them as soon as we can.”
“You’re too kind,” I snarl, running my tongue round my new teeth. They feel smoother than the others.
Kinslow returns to the vat, soaks the sponge again and squeezes it over my face, chest, stomach, arms and legs. He does that a few more times, coating me in the icky substance. The robe is as red and sticky as the rest of me now. I probably would have been better off without it, though I’m not going to admit as much to Kinslow.
“Can’t you just let me crawl back into the vat?” I ask.
“A dip a day is enough,” Kinslow says. “Besides, we’re not done with you yet. There’s one more thing we need to tend to before we let you go.”
“What?” I frown, doing a quick inventory of my body parts, wondering what they might have missed.
“Did you ever read Frankenstein?” Kinslow asks.
“No.”
“But you must have seen some of the movies?”
“Of course, numbnuts. I didn’t live in a cave.”
“Good. Then you’ll know what was needed to bring the monster to life.” As I stare at him uncertainly, he picks up a cable from the floor, waves it in front of my nose and sings with wicked relish, “E-lec-tric-i-teeeeee!”
SEVEN
“Hold on a minute!” I yelp as Kinslow plugs the cable into a socket. There’s a long metallic wand attached to the other end. “What are you doing?”
“This is going to hurt a lot,” Kinslow says, examining the tip of the wand, then pressing a switch in the handle. It makes a weird buzzing noise. Kinslow grunts and turns it off, then hands the wand to Mr. Dowling.
“So you brought me here to torture me,” I snarl. “You’re the same as Dan-Dan.”
“Not at all,” Kinslow protests. “This is something everyone who is close to Mr. Dowling has had to endure. I’ve been where you are. I’ve felt your pain. Literally.”
“I don’t understand!” I shout as Mr. Dowling flicks the switch.
“You will soon,” Kinslow whispers.
Then Mr. Dowling touches the wand to my forehead and the world crackles madly around me. My back arches. My mouth and eyes shoot wide-open. I spasm out of control. Vision and hearing fade. Everything goes white. The buzzing noise fills my head. It’s like I’m falling into a pit of vibrating nothingness. I lose all sense of spatial awareness.
After a timeless time, somebody finds me in the middle of the void and gently murmurs my name. “Becky.” A pause. “I love you, Becky.”
At first I think it’s the babies. But although this voice is similar, it’s not the same. It’s deeper, without the hollow ring that the babies have when they speak.
“Who are you?” I ask, though I’m not sure if I ask it out loud or inside my head. “Where am I?”
“In my arms, where you always should have been. You know me, my dove. I do not have to name myself.”
“Mr. Dowling?” I say hesitantly.
“Who else?”
An image of the clown materializes in front of me. But he’s not naked or in his costume. Instead he’s clad in a white suit. He has normal hair and eyes, and his skin doesn’t ripple.
“This isn’t real,” I moan.
“Of course it is,” he says. “I mean, it’s only happening inside our heads, but that doesn’t make it any less real.”
He reaches out and I sense him caressing my cheek, even though I can’t see my own body in this realm.
“I wish I could speak to you like this all the time, but my body is not entirely mine anymore, and hasn’t been for a long time. I can’t complain. It suits my purposes to wear the form of a madman in the physical world. It makes my difficult task so much easier than it would otherwise be. But it does get in the way of communication, there’s no denying that.”
“Is this what you used to look like?” I ask, studying the man in front of me, his white suit almost invisible against the white background.
“I don’t know,” he smiles. “I can’t remember. But you can find out if you wish.”
“What do you mean?”
For a few seconds nothing happens. Then I get a flood of images, memories from Mr. Dowling’s past, of him studying his reflection in a variety of mirrors. There are other memories too, idyllic recollections of a woman who might have been his wife and sweet-mannered children who look like they were his. But they’re quickly followed by atrocious scenes of him killing people, filling his mouth with insects, carving the v-shaped channels in his face.
“Stop,” I moan. “I don’t want to see inside your head.”
“But you must,” he says softly. “Just as I must see inside yours. Ours needs to be a complete union. Bodies, minds, souls.”
“What are you ranting about now?” I huff, trying to push myself away from him, failing because that’s hard to do when you don’t have an actual body.
“The reason I have brought you here,” he says. “The reason I kept tabs on you since you were a baby. The reason I helped you whenever I could since you became a revitalized.”
“And?” I ask when he pauses.
There’s silence for a while. Then he sighs. “You have only seen me at my worst. I don’t blame you for being wary of me. I have given you little in which you can trust. But know this, Becky Smith, and believe it—I love you.”
I gape at him, astonished. I can’t think of anything to say in the face of such a ridiculous proclamation.
“I want you to pledge yourself to me,” he continues. “It will be a beautiful ceremony, the wedding of the century. Afterwards you will be mine and I will be yours. Mr. and Mrs. Dowling. The happy couple I always hoped we would be.”
I laugh in his face, finding my voice again. “You always were a loopy son of a bitch,” I jeer, “but now you’ve lost your marbles entirely. What the hell makes you think I’d want anything to do with a crazy, murderous creep like you?”
“It’s your destiny,” he smiles, not offended by my outburst.
“Bullshit,” I reply. “I’ll make my own destiny, thanks very much, and there’s no room for you in it, not unless I’m slitting your throat and ripping out your heart.”
Mr. Dowling shakes his head and chuckles. “So fiery. I adore that about you. I need people with your spirit. Our children will prosper under your firm influence when our minds are fully joined.”
“Children?” I splutter. “You seem to be forgetting something, wacko. I’m one of the walking dead, so I’m all dried up inside. I can’t have kids.”
Mr. Dowling shrugs. “You have a point. We might one day find a way around that obstacle, but even if we don’t, we can always adopt.”
“Not interested,” I sniff. Then I scowl. “What do you mean, when our minds are fully joined? Aren’t they joined now???
?
“This is only the first connection of many,” Mr. Dowling says. “My brain operates on a variety of levels. This is the most basic. I grant access to this level to all of those who carry out my bidding, since it allows us to communicate directly. Others, such as Kinslow, enjoy access to higher levels, allowing them insights into my more personal mental spheres. Only you will be granted full, all-areas access, once you have seen the light and freely offered yourself to me.”
“I’m honored,” I drawl sarcastically.
“You will be,” he says seriously.
Then the white haze starts to fade. The real world rematerializes. Mr. Dowling is slumped beside me, limbs twitching, as are mine. He must have pressed the wand to his own head after zapping me. As the pair of us whimper and slowly start to recover the use of our bodies, he pushes himself away. I spot Kinslow nearby, clothed. He’s fetched clothes for us too, a circus outfit for the clown, normal gear for me.
Mr. Dowling opens his eyes–they’re rolling wildly again–and smiles. He puts a couple of shaky fingers inside his mouth, roots around and produces a small key, which he unlocks the handcuffs with. Then he loosens the ropes around my legs. Leaving me to free myself, he starts to dress.
“I’m glad that psycho’s out of my head,” I mutter to Kinslow as he passes me jeans, a T-shirt and a pair of sneakers.
“But I’m not,” Mr. Dowling whispers inside my skull. With a yelp, I drop the clothes and glare at the clown. “Why are you surprised? I told you this is how I communicate. Once we have joined, the link cannot be broken. I will always be able to speak to you from this day forward.”
“I preferred it when you were mute,” I mutter.
“That is unfortunate,” he says sweetly without turning to look at me. “Because I will never be mute for you again.”
“Can you hear that too?” I ask Kinslow as I get rid of the robe and pull on the clothes, trying to ignore the fact that I’m still caked with blood and tiny scraps of brain from the vat.
“No,” he says. “Mr. Dowling can address a group if he chooses, but most of the time he operates on a one-to-one basis.”
“You’ll never guess what the lunatic said to me,” I snort. “He wants me to be his wife and rear his children.”
“Well,” Kinslow says, “that is why we went to all the trouble of rescuing you.”
My smile fades. “You’re serious? That monster really does want to marry me? I thought he was just messing with my mind.”
“Don’t think of him as a monster,” Kinslow says, making a disapproving expression. “Think of him more as a… groom.”
As Kinslow cackles, Mr. Dowling pulls on his oversized shoes and clicks his heels together. “Come,” he says inside my head. “Let me take you on a short tour.”
“Where?” I ask.
“My den,” he says, choosing the word deliberately.
“Why?” I press.
“To explain why, of all the women in the world, my heart can belong only to you.”
“You know, if you keep saying stuff like that, I’m gonna start thinking you’re reading from a cheesy movie script,” I tell him.
“I read only the lines that you have written in the fabric of my soul,” he says in response, then laughs when I make a gagging gesture. “Enough of our games, Becky. I know that you crave answers, and it’s time I supplied you with some. Will you take my arm?”
“No,” I say gruffly as he extends his right hand towards me.
“As you wish.” He looks sad for a moment, but then he beams brightly. “But I’ll bet any amount you care to wager that, by the end of your stay here, you’ll take my arm gladly.”
“In your dreams, weirdo,” I huff.
“Yes,” he nods. “This is a world of dreams.”
He sets off ahead of me. Kinslow pokes me in my newly installed ribs when I don’t instantly follow. I might be the mutant’s mistress-in-waiting, but for the time being it looks like I’m to be treated to no more freedom than a slave. Fair enough. I’m used to that. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Let them think they have me exactly where they want me. Others have thought that way before, until I’ve taught them not to mess with the B.
Groaning, I shake my arms to loosen them up–I can still feel the electric current buzzing through me–then limp after the marching clown… the insane killer… my self-proclaimed husband-to-be.
EIGHT
There’s a spiral staircase hidden away in one corner of the room, leading up to the hub of the underground den.
“Why didn’t we come this way instead of splashing down into the vat of blood?” I ask.
“It’s more fun entering via the hearse,” Kinslow grins. “We’re all about the entertainment factor here.”
Mr. Dowling leads me on a tour of the complex. He bounds along with the excitement and energy of a puppy going for a walk. He stops frequently to mingle with his mutants, pat their heads, clap their backs, join in if they’re playing games. At one point he even pauses by a large, fat man who is taking a crap, waits until he’s finished, then–and this is an image I hope to banish from my memory banks as swiftly as I can–wipes the giggling mutant’s bum with one of the human tongues that they use for such functions!
“That’s going way above and beyond the call of duty,” I moan to Kinslow.
“A touch on the extreme side perhaps,” Kinslow snickers. “Then again, the world might have been a better place if the leaders of the past had made a point of wiping a few of their voters’ backsides every now and then. It brings the mighty and the meek together.”
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your arses,” Mr. Dowling trills telepathically, and I have to laugh.
Images from the clown’s brain keep flicking through my head. It’s like catching glimpses of a photo album or a reality TV show through blinds that keep opening and closing without warning. Most of it’s mundane, flashes of him swimming, playing with his children, cavorting with his mutants, prancing through the streets of London. But at one stage I get a picture of him leaning over a test tube, studying a milky-white liquid. I can’t be sure, but I think this is Schlesinger-10, the virus that could wipe out the whole of humanity if released.
The image vanishes as swiftly as it formed. I can’t bring it back, but I pay more attention from that point on. It would be a major coup if I could find out where Mr. Dowling is storing his stolen sample of Schlesinger-10 and somehow get word back to Dr. Oystein.
Most of the rooms are familiar from when the babies were escorting me to Mr. Dowling’s personal chambers. But one place I haven’t seen before is a massive laboratory, tucked away behind a system of sealed doors. There are dozens of scientists and nurses at work. Some toil at lab equipment and computers, but others are experimenting on humans and mutants.
“This is where we were born,” Kinslow says, smiling nostalgically. “The first few generations of mutants were created elsewhere, in labs around the world, but Mr. Dowling has based himself in London for the last twenty years. Virtually all of us with him now started off our new lives here.”
“Are they volunteers or slaves?” I ask, nodding at the subjects. Some seem happy enough, but others are shuddering and screaming into gags.
“A mix,” he says. “Most of the mutants are here voluntarily. Mr. Dowling and his team are finding ways to fine-tune our forms all the time, but they need guinea pigs to work on. The majority of his loyal followers are willing to step forward when asked. A few have been dragged here against their wishes, if the scientists need a specific type of person to run a test on and nobody matching their requirements raises a hand. But the bulk have come because they want to.”
“And the humans?”
Kinslow shrugs. “Many are specimens we’ve captured, but others chose to take part. They want to join our ranks and they accept this as the price they must pay.”
“Specimens,” I sneer. “That’s how the soldiers and scientists referred to zombies in the complex where I was held when I firs
t recovered consciousness.”
Kinslow shrugs. “What can I say? It’s a big, bad world. At least we don’t pretend to be the good guys. What you see is what you get with us.”
“How come he isn’t telling me all this?” I ask, nodding at Mr. Dowling as he trots off to check on one of his more unwilling subjects. “He’s hardly said a word since we left his digs.”
Kinslow sighs. “Our leader is a man of few words. It’s not easy for him, focusing his thoughts. His brain is immense, with many things running through it at the same time. You’ll realize that when he grants you access to the higher levels. At any one moment he might be agonizing over a dozen complex formulas, while analyzing data from experiments that took place years ago, and considering various chess moves.”
“Chess?” I frown.
“He’s a big fan. He’s studied games by all the grand masters. He replays them and looks for moves that the masters missed. Refinement is second nature to him. He’s always looking to improve.
“It’s chaos in that wild, wonderful head of his,” Kinslow continues sadly. “Any ordinary person would be mentally crushed beneath the weight of what he deals with every day. You or I would be a vegetable if we had to process even a fraction of what he does in any given hour.
“It’s taken its toll. The madness isn’t an act, but he can overcome it to a limited extent when he needs to. Externally he’s a mess–he lost control over his body years ago–but internally he can drag himself down to our level, or close enough so that he can address us in a way that we can comprehend.”
“You’re trying to paint him as a tragic figure?” I snort.
Kinslow glares at me. “There’s nothing tragic about Mr. Dowling. He sacrificed his sanity gladly. He’s the greatest genius this world has ever seen. You should be proud that he considers you worthy of his attention and time.”
“I’d rather he just ignored me,” I sniff.
“That’s why you’re an uncouth young lady,” Kinslow snarls. Then he smiles. “But Mr. Dowling will educate you and raise you up in the world. He won’t dismiss you as a lost cause, even though anyone else in his position would.”