The Bloodstained Rabbit by Sean Kennedy First Printing Published by RantMedia, May 2005 Web Release by RantMedia, April 2009 Copyright 2005 by Sean Kennedy This book is covered under the Creative Commons Deed: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Written By: Sean Kennedy Illustrations By: Sean Kennedy Edited By: Michael Elliot Produced By: James O'Brien Sean Kennedy: http://www.darkatlas.com/ RantMedia: http://www.rantmedia.ca/ Published in Canada Web Release For my Father. A great man who knew he knew nothing, except that he lost his youth in the potholes of a road that led to nowhere. Grave breaches to which the preceding articles shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the convention: Willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. -Geneva Convention, Chapter VIII; Article 51 Chapter 1 June 1, 1944 Personal Journal …It is despairing for me to think of how much money has been wasted in the training of inferior men, while right now we have the capability to breed the ultimate weapon. We must learn to control the Malcuthrad. - Dr. Hans Verruckt Doctor Verruckt inspected the final details of the experiment. His lab notes formed a chaotic collage that must have been displeasing to the painted mural of the Fuehrer looking down into the room. The guard dogs barked outside, their echoes crawled through the cracks in the walls, bringing the stench of the camp with them. Nothing could stop the lingering taint of the camp. One could grow accustomed to the screams of human filth, but never to that odor. The perfume of blood, burnt flesh, and shit clung to everyone and everything. No scrubbing could remove it, no perfume could mask it. It was always there, lurking like a playground rapist. There was a sharp knock at the door. Bundling his papers, Doctor Verruckt opened the porthole and walked though to the laboratory beyond. The room was often washed by screams. Several pain stained tables stood full of glass equipment and cages that held various vermin. Still more tables were stacked high with bizarre texts and charts taken from the shelves that lined the walls. One table was bolted down in the center of the room, isolated from the others like a diseased orphan. A young woman laid there, belly swollen with child, naked and crucified with leather straps. A nurse with a scorched spirit had prepared the young mother for the procedure. Her cold eyes had taken the usual vital signs already, deaf to the subject’s cries for mercy. She turned as the doctor approached. “All is ready, Doctor,” the nurse said as he began inspecting the piece of meat that he saw before him. The young mother had given up the struggle against her binds. The pleas for her unborn child had been traded for the whispered prayers that now escaped her lips. Verruckt checked that the numbers inked on the page matched those tattooed on the woman’s arm. The experiment had failed in the last five attempts, but a subject in the sixth month of pregnancy could be the answer. He knew the others would fail, but these tests had to be completed to ensure accuracy. Still silent, Verruckt moved to another table and examined the dull gray apparatus that lay there. It resembled an inverted punch bowl made of dull metal. Rubber coated wires churned like mad serpents about its surface, completing circuits and connecting each piece to the other with telltale crimson patches amongst them. A small reel-to-reel tape recorder was fastened like eyes to the exterior of the device. Two speakers were positioned at opposite sides, pointing to within the bowls hollow. Verruckt motioned to the nurse, and together they moved the channeling device onto the mother’s abdomen and strapped it down over her unborn child. The young mother paused her prayers anticipating pain as she felt the weird thing on her. She looked down only to see the lifeless eyes of the tape reels, and then resumed her prayers with a heightened fervor. The nurse stood watching like an eager student over the doctor’s shoulder as he triple checked his apparatus. Then, with a sterile nod, it began. The young mother stopped praying, fear widening her eyes to the ceiling. Only now would she know which gods had been listening to her prayers. She dared not breathe. She waited for the pain to wash over her, but none came. Through the electrical hum, the click of the reel-to-reel tape could be heard. A muffled chanting came from the speakers, recorded only for the ears of her unborn child. The young mother waited for what was to come. The pain began. The room exploded in a shrill wail. Every rat, rabbit, and guinea pig in the lab joined in a screaming choir. It was an unnatural howl, the sound of raw terror. The mother began screaming with the beasts. Her eyes thrashed, searching the ceiling to find any god to help, but none had listened to her prayers. The air was rotting with forbidden power; the essence of fear now flowed through the room. One of the frenzied lab creatures threw itself against its bars, knocking the wire cage to the floor with a crash. Yet through all of this, Doctor Verruckt stood firm. He observed the experiment, as oblivious to the noise 1 around him as he was to the wails of the young mother. She was mad with agony, smashing her head against the table. On the fourth blow her head split open, spilling blood across the table and onto the floor. On the fifth blow she vomited blood and flesh across her breasts. It splashed onto her swollen and now pulsing abdomen, carrying a small chunk of meat that had once been her tongue. Doctor Verruckt moved to her side to observe more closely, it would not be long now. A spitting scream spattered blood across the front of his lab coat; a few drops struck his face unnoticed. The young mother’s eyes rolled back as she thrashed in the madness of agony. A putrid geyser exploded from her crotch, splattering the wall and all things between with a runny slime of blood and flesh. The tissue between her navel and anus now hung in seething ribbons, clinging like spider silk to the wall, tables, and chanting device. From under the device, within the twisted flesh of her womb, a small underdeveloped face emerged. Its fetal black eyes were wide and tiny lips curled back as it savagely tried to free itself from the mother’s tangling intestines. Turning its face, it caught sight of the doctor standing over it. A vicious smile of stolen flesh gawked in pleasure. The mother moved her jaw as both the fetus and mother spoke in one voice; the voice of Thesmulcar. The doctor had heard it before, it was the true voice of all things within this world and without. Lost to man at the tower of Babel, it now erupted from the two speaking as one while the animals’ choir of terror continued around them. “Malcuthrad come! The masters have returned!” Doctor Verruckt drew his pistol and fired three shots into the tiny face before him. Not before all movement had stopped, did he calmly turn back to his clipboard and report the experiment's failure. Tucking his clipboard under his arm, he spoke for the fist time since entering the room. “Prepare for the next attempt. Confirm the subject is in the seventh month,” he said, and without another word, returned to his office. 2 Chapter 2 “You don’t know, what you don’t know, and it never bothers you.” -The Truth Deep in space, a mammoth fiery eye explodes around itself in nuclear chaos. The heat and light birthed from this sail through the void and eight minutes later falls upon earth. Weaving its way down through the atmosphere, its rays become the morning sunbeams for the small municipality of Port Kells, British Columbia. Steve Naylor felt the heat of those same sunbeams on his face, bringing with them the knowledge of a new day. He toyed with the idea of getting out of bed, but the blankets were heavy. It is best not to rush into these things, he thought, but a sudden weight upon his chest meant the decision was no longer his. A large white Persian cat delivered a loud resounding purr and a warm wet nose into his master's ear. Steve turned to avoid the foreign feline probe. “Good morning Sebastian,” he said. The persistent Persian ignored his thick sarcasm. Another nudge, then another, and finally Steve gave up the fight. Grabbing the cat as he sat up, he looked out on a fuzzy world. He found his glasses on the night table and slid them on to face the morning. His was a basement suite. A matching couch and loveseat with worn plaid upholstery were cluttered by clothing and books. Bookshelves had sprouted everywhere around the room while existing wall spaces between them were artistically plastered with a collage of posters and magazine articles hiding tan wallpaper. A woman’s voice came from upstairs. “Steve! Breakfast.” “I'll be right there!” he yelled back, startling the cat. Dropping Sebastian from his lap, Steve worked his way to the edge of his futon to find yesterday’s black jeans and T-shirt.