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Acolyte, v. 1, issue 1, Fall 1942
Page 8
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His face reddened. "Well, that's a secret, just yet, Chris ; but you'll be in on it -- I hope. You see, we need someone we can trust -- someone with a thorough medical knowledge, who will submit to a new type of brain anasthetic Vincent has devised. He wants you to take a small does and give him your reactions." "Certainly," I said, knowing that my whole future with Elsa depended on it. I felt that I could trust the famous doctor. "Good!" Kirkland boomed, heaving his fat body out of the chair. "Vincent wants to start tomorrow, about nine. Later, after it's well under way, we'll let you know all about the new experiment. Very extra-special, and all that." The following morning, November 6, 1940, I walked straight from the dressing rooms into Dr. Vincent's surgery... WHEN I awoke -- if that horror could be called back into unconsciousness. IT seemed that ages had whirled past me down the vortex of dark eons. I felt ancient and estranged as if I were but a phantom hovering near infinity. Physical self, awareness of animal feeling and sensation were gone. I was afloat in a void of pain and shameless fear. Two months I existed in that hell of loneliness; seeing, thinking -- thinking and seeing...going insane by slow degrees. However, a plan had been forming in my agonized thoughts -- a desperate, daring plan; my only hope for vengeance. I was kept in a curtained alcove in Vincent's main laboratory, and was permitted to look out only at certain times. A calendar on the opposite wall told me the days were slipping away, while I thought madly of sweet Elsa and wondered what had happened to her. The agony increased when I realized that I was already dead, legally and physically -- my body rotting in its grave as surely as I was rotting in that strange, unique hell, the victim of a mad surgeon's twisted mind. The fiend even tortured me by revealing my own obituary notice in the newspapers. And I swore I would have revenge if I had to live that bath of chemicals a lifetime. That was their scheme -- keeping me alive as long as possible, perhaps for decades. Vincent was preparing a paper about me for submission to medical journals. I, an unidentified brain and eyes, would be the living monument to his evil genius. How I hated those beasts as they watched and gloated over me! Sometimes they looked frightened when they came in direct line with my staring eyes... I was waiting -- waiting my chance. And one day in January it came, so suddenly and unexpectedly I was nearly taken unawares. About closing time that day I had seen Vincent answer the 'phone and leave in a hurry, forgetting to pull the curtain over my alcove. A few moments later Norton walked through the door! -9-
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His face reddened. "Well, that's a secret, just yet, Chris ; but you'll be in on it -- I hope. You see, we need someone we can trust -- someone with a thorough medical knowledge, who will submit to a new type of brain anasthetic Vincent has devised. He wants you to take a small does and give him your reactions." "Certainly," I said, knowing that my whole future with Elsa depended on it. I felt that I could trust the famous doctor. "Good!" Kirkland boomed, heaving his fat body out of the chair. "Vincent wants to start tomorrow, about nine. Later, after it's well under way, we'll let you know all about the new experiment. Very extra-special, and all that." The following morning, November 6, 1940, I walked straight from the dressing rooms into Dr. Vincent's surgery... WHEN I awoke -- if that horror could be called back into unconsciousness. IT seemed that ages had whirled past me down the vortex of dark eons. I felt ancient and estranged as if I were but a phantom hovering near infinity. Physical self, awareness of animal feeling and sensation were gone. I was afloat in a void of pain and shameless fear. Two months I existed in that hell of loneliness; seeing, thinking -- thinking and seeing...going insane by slow degrees. However, a plan had been forming in my agonized thoughts -- a desperate, daring plan; my only hope for vengeance. I was kept in a curtained alcove in Vincent's main laboratory, and was permitted to look out only at certain times. A calendar on the opposite wall told me the days were slipping away, while I thought madly of sweet Elsa and wondered what had happened to her. The agony increased when I realized that I was already dead, legally and physically -- my body rotting in its grave as surely as I was rotting in that strange, unique hell, the victim of a mad surgeon's twisted mind. The fiend even tortured me by revealing my own obituary notice in the newspapers. And I swore I would have revenge if I had to live that bath of chemicals a lifetime. That was their scheme -- keeping me alive as long as possible, perhaps for decades. Vincent was preparing a paper about me for submission to medical journals. I, an unidentified brain and eyes, would be the living monument to his evil genius. How I hated those beasts as they watched and gloated over me! Sometimes they looked frightened when they came in direct line with my staring eyes... I was waiting -- waiting my chance. And one day in January it came, so suddenly and unexpectedly I was nearly taken unawares. About closing time that day I had seen Vincent answer the 'phone and leave in a hurry, forgetting to pull the curtain over my alcove. A few moments later Norton walked through the door! -9-
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