The Vorrh

painted white to just above head height, which gave the room a bright concealment. He called it his laboratory. No real experiments were ever conducted there, but he pottered about among its specimens and chemicals, test tubes and retorts, in a delighted pretence of scientific enquiry; it gave him status among the uneducated elders of this prosperous backwater. The most functional thing in the laboratory was its incinerator, which squatted at the far end of the rectilinear space. A lot of uncertainties and embarrassments had vanished in it, along with the usual quota of malign and discarded tissue.
    He entered the conservatory that evening in a daze, immediately turning on the incinerator’s gas supply and igniting its glowing hum. A few straddles of passing storm gave spasmodic bursts of rain, which ran across the glass roof; rivulet shadows knotted and crawled zebra patterns on the stainless steel table below. The bundle sat in the middle of their flow like an isolated island, devoid of life. Hoffman slipped on maroon rubber gloves and brought a wrapped set of surgical tools to the table. It would have been easier to throw the spectre straight into the flames, but he was curious and, at that moment, in the stronghold of his laboratory, his pride beat stronger than his fear.
    He teased the wrapping away from the still body and, with great trepidation, turned it onto its back.
    He put a stethoscope to its chest: nothing. He moved the polished end to its tiny lips: no breath clouded the shining steel. He took a scalpel and nicked a vein: no blood flowed out of the black, static body. His relief compounded into certainty and, with one cupped hand, he lifted the limp thing up and crossed the room, wrenching open the roaring door of the incinerator. He hesitated a moment, readying to advance it towards the flames, when the eyes opened and stared at him with undoubtable sentience. He gasped and dropped the thing to the floor, running to the other end of the room and holding his carrying hand away from the rest of his body, as if it were a separate and contaminated entity.
    He waited an hour, watching the shadows of rain snake, mate and dance on the gleaming metal table, and smelling the singeing heat pour out of the incinerator. He tiptoed slowly towards it, its door still open; the interior fires raging. He looked warily at the curled body on the floor: it had not changed position since it had fallen. The cloth wrapping was still on the table and he picked it up in passing, standing over the body and dropping it, so that it covered the dead thing entirely. He snatched up its hidden contents and tightened the rags, so no part of the head was visible. His skin crawled; he half-expected movement or bony pressure to struggle in his grip. But it remained limp and passive, as if waiting to receive its fate.
    * * *

    Six weeks later, Maclish contacted him and asked him to call by on the pretence of visiting his wife, to check her over and see if she might be fit enough to continue with his plans for a family. After a cursory examination, the doctor joined him for a pipe of tobacco in the garden.
    ‘How are they?’ asked Hoffman.
    ‘Restless and slow,’ answered the keeper.
    ‘Are there any more side effects since last time?’
    ‘No, they are back to their normal cheery selves.’
    Maclish’s attempt at gallows humour eased the tension between them and the doctor smiled.
    ‘I think they need another one,’ said Maclish.
    The doctor stopped in his tracks, unable to believe his ears.
    ‘You want to do it again? After the last time and what you called me?’ As he spoke, the doctor became flushed and agitated.
    ‘I did not mean to insult ye. I was shaken by that horrible thing,’ said Maclish, while fiddling with the bowl of his pipe. ‘It rattled me, man; I did not mean to speak out of turn.’
    The doctor knew that this was the closest thing to an apology that he would ever get from the sullen Scot. They stopped to re-light their pipes, then walked on in silence for a few moments.
    ‘It will all work out fine if we stick to bairns that are naturally born dead.’ Maclish raised his brows at the doctor, who hesitated before slowly nodding his agreement.
    So the ritual began again and the Limboia were once more satisfied. A greater bond grew between the keeper and the doctor; their secret remained hidden and effective; Mrs. Maclish was pregnant again.
    In the spring, an intake of new lost men joined the throng, some