The Curse of the Nightcoma

By the time I stepped outside the leaves were on fire, glowing like red embers in the twilight of the sinking sun. A chill breeze caught my collar and whipped it up around my chin, and I pulled my coat closer to keep out the bite of the wind. A carriage rumbled past me and splashed a muddy puddle of water up the front of my trousers. I brushed it off with my hand and then crossed over the dirty road and made my way to the cemetery. The wrought iron gates stood slightly open. As dusk crept down the dark places within began to look lonely and forbidding. I shivered slightly. There was not a soul in sight. Even so, I glanced over my shoulder before entering.

I must have looked a ghoulish figure in my long black coat and top hat, merging into the shadows. I had a rendezvous with a young botanist called Miles St James whom I had happened to meet after a lecture on poisonous plants at the Institute of Tropical Diseases. We had gotten talking about the effects of Nightcoma, a very rare plant which is found only on the Arabian Peninsula. It can induce in a patient a state of paralysis in which they can feel everything but react to nothing. I had also heard it had the potential to rapidly speed up the reproduction of human cells, whilst the patient was in said paralysis.

I was intrigued by the plant but had no idea where to acquire a specimen, apart from by travelling many miles which I could ill afford at this point in my career. Miles told me that he had been to the Holy Land recently and managed to purchase several flower heads which he planned to  experiment with as soon as he had willing patient. He had complained that no one had come forward to take part in an experiment with the plant, even though he had offered 6 guineas for a willing body.

I had offered him, right there and then, a handsome price for one flower, explaining that I had a patient already in mind. As importing foreign plants was forbidden by law, we agreed to meet in secret under the cover of darkness.

I sat on the bench behind a giant beech whose nearly naked branches reached out for the darkening sky like a tortured hand. The discarded leaves which carpeted the edges of the path blew about my feet. A figure soon emerged from the undergrowth and I recognized the young man's stooping gait approaching me. He stood in front of me and removed his hat.

"Good evening Dr Russel"

"Well hello again my young friend" I extended my hand and we shook a hearty greeting.

"I trust you told no one of our meeting " Miles queried, looking around and behind himself to check that we were alone. He did seem very nervous, poor fellow. I patted the bench next to me and bid him sit himself down.

"Have you the plant?" I asked, deciding to skip formalities and get straight to business. He drew a hand into his pocket and produced a tiny leather-bound purse.

"Have you the money?" he asked, suddenly seeming suspicious. I took three crisp pound notes from coat and placed then into his waiting hand, and only then did he deposit the purse into my possession. I opened it cautiously and peered inside. I was careful, for any contact with even the pollen from the flower could send a man into a form of shock. I took tweezers from my pocket and pulled the flower head out, inspecting closely. I sucked my breath to see the delicate purple flower, flattened and dried out, right here before me, only having seen a drawing of it in a very specialized botanical volume I had in my study.

I knew I had to move quickly.

Miles smiled slyly.

"Have you found a willing victim, I mean patient yet?" He laughed to himself. I nodded, and then plunged towards him with such exhilarating speed that a look of panic flashed across his face. Before he could rise from the bench I had thrust the flower into his open mouth. I jumped upon him, putting my hand under his jaw so that he could not spit the it out, despite his desperate thrashing around beneath me. He struggled for a few seconds and then his writhing body went limp in my arms.

I removed the three pound notes from his grasping hand and undertook the difficult task of dragging his body, feet first, through the cemetery to the far end. It was, by now, pitch black and I heard no sounds save that of an occasionally hooting owl.

I heaved the body to end of the path, from which towered the imposing stone vaults that house the deceased bodies of the Patrick-Ludden family. There were four vaults, one of which had a stone doorway that was open enough for a man to crawl in and hide for the night. Miles groaned slightly as I dragged him closer to the tombs, and as his eyes were wide open I was quite sure that he could see and predict my every move. Before I stuffed his body through the gap I rubbed my eye with my index finger and wiped a wet film of my cells onto his neck.

Then I left him to endure what a man must endure in a tomb of the dead over night.

The next day I returned, early in the morning before the sun was fully risen and the night still lingered in the frosty air. I saw at once the figure of a man, stumbling, holding on to the outside of the far tombs to steady himself. I walked at such a pace that pebbles kicked out in the wake of my heavy boots until I reached Miles. He looked at me with the greatest fear in his eyes, and as I came closer he stepped back, shaking his hands and mouthing gibberish words at me. He stumbled over a stone and fell back into a pile of flaming leaves, kicking and waving his hands at me still.

I bent down, easily avoiding his hapless blows to my torso. I grabbed his head and turned it to the side and gasped. There, upon his neck was an eye, blinking with a perfectly formed lid and glistening in the half light of the morning sun. I took a scalpel from my surgery bag and sliced the eye clean out of his neck. Blood spurted from his main artery with such force that it hit the grey stone of the tomb and painted it with scarlet hieroglyphics. I was sure the poor fellow would die from the blood loss, but being as our meeting the night before was a conspiratorial secret I was sure no one would suspect a doctor such as myself of having committed a cold blooded murder. So I left the body to the crows, which were already circling in the sullen branches of the Scottish pines above.

I placed the eye into a pitri dish from my case and slipped it into my pocket. I hoped to keep it moist until I got back to my lab where I could inspect it further. I smiled despite myself, realizing that I might have just discovered a way to breed human organs for transplant. What a medical hero I would be, surely my research would be written into every text book in the land.

As I strode purposefully down the road Mrs. Collier was venturing out of her front door with a basket of freshly baked bread to sell. I tipped my hat to her and remarked what a gloriously Autumnal morning it was.