It was hard to believe that it had been less than a day since Dr. Warthrop and I had gone up to the home of the late Stinnett family to investigate the carnage that lay there as result of miscalculations. The blood was on my hands just as much as it was on the monstrumologist's, just as much as the only surviving Stinnett, Malachi, thought it on his own as well. Malachi had said to me, before we embarked on our journey to eradicate the Anthropophagi pod that was living underneath the cemetery, that he felt dead inside; that he'd died along with his family. The Lord was his shepherd, and in the end, Malachi had been led to his death. It came as a shock to me as I felt it should have. In reality, however, the man's fate was sealed as the runes were cast, and six skulls lay face up, staring back at us as we gazed down upon them. The doctor had told me, after all, that six skulls meant death. Even if he didn't believe it himself, fate believed it for him.
The monstrumologist had told me to remain there with Malachi, and that he wanted me to be there – alive if possible – when he returned. His final warning to me, that something felt off to him, was still playing in my head as Malachi and I sat there in a morbid and apprehensive silence; however, my mind wandered different places. Sitting on the cold ground in the labyrinthine tunnels underneath New Jerusalem, the pain in my arm suddenly changed from a dull throb to a stabbing pain once more. My mind left the prayers in hopes that Dr. Warthrop would return to me – which I had formerly been chanting like a spell to protect me from harm – and flashed back to the memory of my wound. The wounded Anthropophagi youth... Its small cries of anguish as it tried to sleep, or maybe it was a pain induced state of unconsciousness, as the infection of the missing right arm seeped through its blood. The acrid taste of the puss when it filled my mouth still haunted me. My stomach turned again, flipping like pancakes that I had made the doctor one morning, and I had to fight the urge to heave just thinking about it. My pang of empathy still went for the creature; abandoned by its matriarch because it would only inhibit the survival of the other young. Killing it had been a mercy act, but as Dr. Kearns would say, "There is no morality, but the morality of the moment."
Humans, however, were not the only one with the morality of the moment. Dr. Warthrop had said to me once that the matriarch of a pod would fight to protect her young with a ferocity that only a mother could have. "How strong is the maternal instinct, Will Henry," the monstrumologist had said to me before we embarked on our mission. Well, it turns out it was a lot stronger than any of us, including the two doctors with all their intelligence, could ever imagine. Malachi had just broken the silence that settled between us when a scream tore from his lips. Oh, the matriarch was protecting her young alright. We underestimated her, if that was possible, and we were about to pay for our negligence. Right where Malachi was standing, the ground shifted and a clawed hand shot up from the ground, followed shortly after by the rest of her huge frame. She truly was the alpha female, the matriarch, the one who had survived the shipwreck those years ago. One beady black eye stared at us as we had our last moments to think. Though she was simply watching us, there was no time to react.
Poor Malachi was meeting the same after as Eramus Grey and his family before him. The boy's leg disappeared into the maw of the Anthropophagi as the sickening crunch of bone echoed throughout the mouth of the tunnel they had been staked out in front of. I recall Dr. Warthrop said that their biting force was over two thousand pounds and the other thousands of teeth in their mouth were only for tearing and grinding; they did not eat their food but swallowed it whole. My name was the last thing that left Malachi's lips as his torso, arms, then neck and head was being devoured. The teeth of the matriarch had pierced through the bone at the base of the medulla and spinal cord; they loved eating our brains. I had been frozen with fear as the teeth shredded through meat and muscle and bone. She was truly the predator, and I was the prey just waiting to be devoured. As the body became no longer recognizable as a body, I hopped to my feet and tried to grab at Malachi's bag only to discover that I was out of time. The only thing left of the meal of the Anthropophagi was a disembodied arm which lie across the opposite side of the tunnel and an eye, so unafraid and accepting of death, that stared up at me with its almost reassuring gaze. "Go on... Death isn't so bad. My family is here. Your parents are waiting for you here too."
I heard Malachi's voice in my head as I looked at the eye, reassuring me that death wouldn't be as scary as the doctor had once told me. He had told me once that if I were in Eramus Grey's position, being tugged down into the underworld of the Earth to become a feast for the true predator, that I would wish for the same fate as Grey had been given. I looked down at Dr. Warthrop's pistol and knew that there was only one bullet left. The question – should I administer the same fate to myself – circled my mind. A quick, clean bullet to the brain seemed like the only way to die with no pain. I couldn't help but feel, however, that I would be letting the doctor down if I took that way out instead of fighting. I grabbed the pistol from the waistband of my pants and ran out of the mouth of the tunnel, plunging myself into the pit holding the corpses of her young.
With the largest Achilles tendon ever created, the Anthropophagi leaped towards me and closed whatever ground I had created between us. I had only one shot. Dr. Kearns had said not to fire until you see your reflection in its eyes, and Dr. Warthrop said once that their brains were below their mouths in their torsos and in their groins. My odds of success were nearly impossible, but I knew I had to try. I neglected to think, though, of the time it had taken me to formulate my plan. The delay was just enough for the creature to strike.
A blinding sensation of pain overwhelmed my entire being as my already injured arm slipped into the powerful grip of the terrifying creature. I must have blacked out for only a few seconds, as I don't remember being flung across the pit and slammed back into a wall, arm gone. A fountain of the dark life essence erupted from the place where my arm should have been, though I was oblivious to it. Only when I went to reach for my gun and realized that there was nothing reaching did I truly understand what had happened. The blood pouring from the place where my arm used to be meant nothing to me as I managed to scramble to my feet. The back of my neck was warm and itchy as I pushed away from the wall, and I knew then that I was bleeding from my head as well. I picked up the weapon from the ground with my other hand. Well, my only hand, and pulled back the hammer. I would make my stand, and I would make the choice based on the morality of the moment.
My legs were trembling from the weight of my own fear as the creature, the face of death itself, ran towards me. The jaws in its chest were ready and poised for the kill. I was all but pulling the trigger when a thought flitted through my mind, one that would cost me my life: What if your aim is off because of your hand? Was my sacrifice going to be in vain? As the gruesome jaws encompassed my waist, I was down to my last opportunity. And I had to take it while being shaken about, legs shredded with bits of my own flesh flying into my hair.
"Focus, Will Henry. Snap to!" I heard the doctor's voice again and used that as my guide as I lowered my weapon and pressed it hard into the groin of the creature, right below the mouth. I slid further into the maw of the creature and cried out in pain, a shrill noise that surprised even myself, and pulled the trigger. The near instantaneous reaction was remarkable. The jaws clamped down tighter, trapping me within its dying grasp as it fell to the ground. The seven-foot frame of the matriarch collapsed onto the ground, and I threw the gun away with what little strength I had left. I knew that rigor mortis would set in soon and there would be no way to get my body out of there. I wasn't even sure I had a body to save anymore.
Only too late did the two doctors return. The doctor who had pushed me down to my fate within the pit was grinning and shouted, "Bravo, Will Henry! Well done! You are an excellent assistant apprentice monstrumologist." However, the doctor, my doctor, was not smiling.
"What did I tell you, Will Henry?" he asked, nearly frantic as he quickly approached my remains. "I told you to stay right there and to stay alive." He tried to pry open the jaws of the creature, but as we looked at each other we both knew it was in vain. Two thousand pounds of force would not yield to a malnourished doctor. Staring at him, I felt like I had failed him.
"I'm sorry, doctor," I muttered, eyes glued to the ground in shame.
The doctor stayed true to the promise that he made me on the night of Eramus Grey's death. Should I be in the same predicament, he would give me the only release that he could. He took the gun from the ground and pressed the barrel to my head and pulled the trigger. The last thing I heard before everything went black was, "No, I am sorry, Will Henry. You were indispensable to me..."
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Dr. Warthrop stared at the bloody remains of his assistant for what seemed like an eternity. He did not move, not even to chastise Kearns for taking the moment lightly, seeming happy about how everything turned out. The other doctor was overjoyed by their victory and took no account for the loss which had been suffered. Pellinore Warthrop was now completely alone once more. In reality, it was not he who had saved William James Henry, but he who had been saved. The life of the monstrumologist was a solitary one; a self-given solitary confinement. It was better to keep to oneself instead of exposing yourself to the ignorance of the world. In the end, it was Will Henry who had saved Warthrop. He was the one who'd fed the man, made sure he'd slept, sat at his bedside whenever he struggled with his bouts with melancholy.
Once more, Warthrop tried to pull the carcass, as it could hardly qualify as a corpse, from the maw of the Anthropophagi. He had the blood of all three members of the Henry family on his hands now. It was true, Will Henry's services had been indispensable to him, but more than that Will Henry's person had been what Pellinore truly relied on. Just as his own legacy would never be remembered, nobody would remember the little orphaned boy who had been forced to grow up much too early, been forced to live through and see things that people couldn't create even in their most terrifying nightmares. However, Warthrop did not feel guilty, no. After a brief thought, Warthrop gently closed the boy's eyes and gave what was left of the shoulder a fatherly pat. "Good bye, Will Henry."
He stood up and walked straight by the laughing Dr. Kearns who had bemused himself over something while Warthrop was lost in a reverie. Warthrop had promised Will Henry to end his life mercifully, and that's what he did. He had made the right choice in the morality of the moment.