“What should we do with the body?”
The body in question looked like a bald chimpanzee, lying on the floor, his arms and legs splayed out, dark brown blood pouring from the gaping head wound, his brown eyes lifeless, his mouth agape, bearing fangs. The blood-stained salt lamp that had ended his life laid a few inches from his head.
The person asking the question was girl in her early twenties, huddled on the floor a few feet away, her long blonde hair limp but wild, she was dressed in cutoff jeans and a loose pink sweeter that was now covered in dark brownish red, the same shiny, wet brownish-red that stained her hands. Even as she spoke, she couldn’t help staring at the body in appalled shock. Had she really done that?
Victor walked over to her. “I’ll call Henry,” He said, reaching down and pulling her up off the ground, “He’ll know what to do. But first we need to get you out of these clothes…”
“No, no, we can’t just leave him!” The bloody girl protested, shaking her head, and pulling away, “We have to, we have to—”
“Lizzie, Lizzie, listen to me!” Victor urged, “I will handle it, I promise! Just let me take care of you, first.”
Lizzie shook her head. “I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t…”
“I know, Lizzie, I know.” Victor soothed, managing to take Lizzie by the hands and finally leading her out of the room. He walked her up the stairs, still gently coaxing, “There we go, that’s it.”
The bathroom was the first room on the second floor, done up in 1970s art deco, jade green tiles covering the walls, the tub. Even the toilet seat Victor slowly lowered his little sister onto was jade colored. “Okay, Lizzie, can you take these clothes off?”
Lizzie just stared at him blankly, tears in the corner of her eyes.
Victor shook his head. She too in shock to be of any help. He was going to have to do this on his own.
#
It took ten minutes to thoroughly wash Lizzie and himself of the blood. Despite her still being very much in shock, Victor managed to get his little sister into some clean clothes before leaving her in the bedroom and hitting Henry’s speed dial. “Hank it’s me, we have a problem. Ollie’s dead. I need you to help me get rid of the body.”
“What?!” Henry exclaimed through the other end of the phone, “How? We just examined him and he—”
“It wasn’t natural.” Victor hissed through clinched teeth, “Something set him off during his feeding time. He broke out of his cage, attacked me, chased me downstairs. He would’ve killed me to if Lizzie hadn’t hit him over the head with that stupid salt lamp. That’s what killed him.” For a long moment there was nothing but silence over the phone. “Henry are you still there. Henry?!”
“Yeah, I’m here.” Henry answered finally, “I just…” He sighed wearily. “How’s Lizzie now? He didn’t—he didn’t hurt her, did he?”
“No, she’s just—she’s just in shock.” Victor answered, shaking his head, “I never should have gotten her involved in this.”
“Yeah, Victor,” Henry replied sarcastically, “That’s what you did wrong. You know what, never mind. Just find a tarp or blanket you’re not too attached to and wrap the body up. I’ll be ‘round with the truck in fifteen minutes, we’ll take it down to the science lab and burn it. Oh, and Victor?”
“Yeah?’ Victor responded.
“Next time you want to play God without a license, don’t.” Henry said before hanging up the phone.
#
Victor did as Henry instructed, finding the blue plastic tarp in the basement, wrapping Ollie’s corpse up in it. As he worked, he began to wonder, maybe he shouldn’t get rid of the body right away. Maybe there was more Ollie could still teach him. Teach them.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. “Victor it’s me. Henry.”
Panicked by the loudness, Victor rushed to the door, opening it, revealing Henry standing in his long brown coat. “Wake up the whole neighborhood, why don’t you?”
Henry didn’t respond to the comment, barging in and demanding, “Where is it? Ollie’s body?”
“Over there.” Victor said, pointing to the living room.
That was when Henry also got a good look at Victor. His face had a line of scratches that were perilously close to one eye, his arms were covered in scrapes, too, deep ones and were those bite marks? Not to mention, as Victor walked closer Henry could see he was limping.
“Ollie did this?” Henry gapped gesturing to Victor, “I thought you said he wasn’t violent.”
“He wasn’t,” Victor said, “At least not until tonight. I don’t know what set him off, I was just sitting a bowel in his cage, and then…” His voice trailed off, then he pointed to the living room again, “Like I said, the body’s that way.”
Henry began to walk that way but stopped in shock at the scene he saw in front of him. Even with the body neatly wrapped, it was still obvious something had happened. The coffee table and chair were turned over, and there was a dark brown pool of blood on the floor, next to a bloodied, cracked salt lamp.
Henry took God’s name very seriously, but he was unable to stop himself from saying in a hushed whisper, “Good Lord. And Lizzie did that?” The Lizabeth Stevenson he knew was not a large girl by any means; he could not imagine her having the muscle mass to make the crack currently in thick chuck of Himalayan salt, let alone bashed in a head with it.
“Fear, panic, adrenaline…” Victor reasoned.
Henry’s mind was still spinning with questions: what had set Ollie off, how he had got out of the lab, however, Victor’s next words broke through all that.
“Listen, I’ve been thinking, maybe we don’t need to get rid of the body right away. I mean, there are still things we can take from this. Autopsy, samples…”
“Absolutely not!” Henry cut him off, whirling to face him, “Look, you tried, you committed a half dozen felonies, you failed. Now’s the time to try to minimize the damage and move on.”
“But I didn’t fail!” Victor insisted, pointing over to the body, “That is the body of a humanzee that made it to adulthood. If this hadn’t happened, he would’ve lived many years. The least we should do is dissect—”
“No!”
They turned around to see Lizzie standing there, looking like she could burst into tears at any moment.
“Lizzie—” Victor began.
“You can’t cut him up.” Lizzie said, shaking her head, the tears finally starting to fall, “You can’t, I won’t let you. I won’t—”
Henry walked up to her, taking her hands. “Lizzie, Lizzie, listen to me. We’re not going to cut Ollie up. I won’t let him.” He threw a poisoned glance back at Victor.
That seemed to calm Lizzie a bit, but she still took heavy, gapping breathes. “Bury him somewhere pretty, okay? Somewhere nice?”
Henry gave a firm nod. “Of course.”
#
After giving Lizzie a sedative and putting her to bed, they managed to get the body out to the truck. They drove silently, the radio off, until they drove right past the university. “Hank, you missed the turn. “Victor spoke up, “Hank—”
We’re not going to the lab.” Henry cut him off, “I told Lizzie we would bury him somewhere nice; my grandparent’s old farm is just outside of the city. No one’s been there since Gram passed. We’ll do it there.”
After a two-hour drive, another hour to dig the hole and bury the body, and two hours back, the boys showed up at the house they were both exhausted, stressed, dirty, Henry was angry, Victor was probably going to get an infection from the muck in the starches on his face. But they still had work to do.
As they gathered the evidence off the floor, Henry asked, “Where’s your research? We need to burn too.”
Not looking up from where he was scrubbing at the bloodstain, Victor said simply, “No.”
“Victor, it’s over.” Henry insisted, “If anyone finds that stuff, you’re going to jail, and Lizzie could go with you for her part in this experiment…”
“It’s not over, Henry.” Victor said, not looking up, “I still have the rest of the eggs in cryostorage, that orderly still works at the fertility clinic, and will still do just about anything for a couple hundred bucks. I can do it again. I’ll find a different surrogate, it’s a collage campus, there’s bound to be some woman desperate enough to rent her womb–
Henry scoffed bitterly, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. You still—you still haven’t learned your lesson. You messed with forces beyond your control just because you could, did experiments that should have never been done, and now Lizzie’s traumatized from killing your monstrosity! Why on earth would you ever want to do this again?!”
“Think of the potential, Henry!” Victor shouted, almost in state of mania, “It’s still there…it’s still there.”
Henry stepped a few inches back, suddenly afraid of the boy he had known since they were kids. All this time, working on his project in secret. He was a man obsessed. If he was going to get rid of that research, he was going to have to do it without Victor’s help. Before he could do anymore harm. “Alright, but just…wait a little bit, okay? Make sure there’s no blowback from Ollie, give Lizzie time to grieve. You know how she felt about him. Ollie was pratically her kid. She literally gave birth to him. No wonder she was hysterical.”
“Alright, you got a point there.” Victor agreed, “I’ll wait. Just to be sure. “
Henry let out a sigh of relief. He had bought himself time. “Thank you.”
“And this time I’m not letting Lizzie anywhere near the damn thing.” Victor declared, scrubbing at the stain.
#
In hindsight, Victor’s sudden obsession with Ilyva Ivanov’s infamous experiments should have been a red flag.
A Russian biologist specializing in use for acritical insemination to produce animal hybrids, Ivanov went down in history as the man obsessed with making a humanzee, a chimpanzee-human hybrid. An obsession that Victor suddenly shared a few months into his internship at a local theoretical genetics think tank. It was all Victor could talk about new scientific advancements that could make it possible, the military and medical protentional. Believing this was all theoretical, Henry tried to bring up ethics, only to be brushed off.
It wasn’t long after this obsession started that Victor became aloof, keeping Henry and his family at arm’s length. He would fall asleep in class, sometimes he would even miss class which wasn’t like Victor at all. He started to lose weight and became increasingly disheveled.
When Lizzie moved in with Victor to start her freshmen year, Henry hoped that things could change for the better.
They changed, all right. Not nerssacarily for the better.
#
When Lizzie woke up from her sedative-educed slumber, she found herself lying on top of her bed, a throw blanket haphazardly thrown over her. Wrapping it around herself, she looked around, wondering what happened. Then she remembered. Ollie chasing Victor throughout the house, scratching, and clawing at him, even biting. Ollie getting Victor to the ground, about to go for the death blow. Her grabbing the first thing she could get her hands on, just knowing she had to keep the creature from killing her brother…
“No.” Lizzie said in flat whisper, shaking her head, “No.” That couldn’t have happened. Ollie couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t have killed him.
Before she even realized what she was doing, she lept from the bed, throwing off the throw and bounding down the stairs, stopping at as she got to the living room. It was clean, pristine, even, with no evidence of what happened the night before. For a minute she felt a thrill of hope. That it had been a horrid dream.
She bounded across the room, bursting to the spare room, the one Victor had converted to a laboratory without anyone’s knowledge ages before she moved in, stopping, expecting to see Ollie waiting for his breakfast, jumping, and shrieking in anticipation. Instead, she found a silent room, with a large metal cage, the door open, half ripped apart.
Victor hadn’t got a wink of sleep that night, but somehow managed to fall into some half state between awake and asleep around the morning. That state was suddenly broken by a scream that turned his blood cold.
When he found her, Lizzie was on the floor screaming. “Not my baby! I-I killed my baby.”
Once again, Victor found himself pulling his little sister off the ground. “Come on Lizzie, you don’t need to be in here right now.”
“My baby…” Lizzie kept screaming, struggling in his hold, “My baby…”
#
The next week passed with the air tense with trauma and guilt and grief. No one would talk about what happened, acknowledge it had happened. Lizzie didn’t speak at all. She would just sit in one place for hours on end, staring off into space. She wouldn’t sleep. Wouldn’t eat.
On the first week anniversary of the fiasco, Lizzie was staring off at the small table in the kitchen, when Victor slammed a yellow spongeware bowl full of something steaming in front of her. “Lizabeth, you need to eat.”
Lizzie just stared at the bowel.
“Look, I get it, you’re grieving, you loved him, but not eating is not a normal part of grief.” Victor insisted. When he got no response, he scooped a spoonful of plain white rice from the bowel, then forced that spook into her hand, going, “Here.”
“I don’t want it!” Lizzie shouted, slamming the bowl off the table against the side of the bowel, shattering it against the wall with a crash, falling in a messy heap of shattered ceramic and white rice. “I don’t want it.” She repeated, her voice barely over a whisper.
#
After a week of not talking to each other, Henry walked into the campus coffeehouse, and after scanning the room, found Victor sitting at the table, his intern lab coat on, with two steaming paper cups in front of him.
Henry walked over, Victor pushing one of the cups across the table. “Thanks for meeting me. Irish roast, right?”
Henry didn’t respond, sitting down. “What do you want, Victor?” He asked,” You said in your text it was about Lizzie?” If Henry was being honest, Lizzie was the only reason he was here. Even after all these years of friendship, he was just about done with Victor. He had tried to warn him not to do this, to just put the eggs back before anyone knew they were gone, but did he listen? Did Victor ever listen?
But Lizzie, Lizzie he should have done more to protect her from her brother’s insanity. He should have insisted she tell him what was going on when he caught her crying in the hallway. Should have talked her into getting her own place, offer to let her stay with him. Maybe if they hadn’t been rooming together, it would have made a difference.
He should have realized what was going on before Lizzie started to show.
He knew that Victor had been gathering materials, but as long as he had no way to actually gestate the baby, it would all be academic. He never dreamed he would convince his own sister to be the surrogate for his mad experiment, much less that Lizzie would agree to it. There was a lot of yelling after that, accusations flying, Lizzie breaking down in tears again, but what’s done had been done. There was no going back after that.
“She’s…tail-spinning Hank.” Victor admitted finally, “She’s not going to classes, she won’t eat, she just…sits around on the house, not talking. I want to help but…I don’t know how. And it’s not like she can just see a therapist about this.”
Henry knew Victor was right. Best case sanario, they would think she was insane and lock her away in some sanitarium. Worst case sanario someone would believe her and even though Ollie wasn’t human, not entirely anyway, and the killing had been in defense of a third party, they would all be looking at jail time for a litany of other charges. “Well, first off, it’s probably not good for her being in the house where ….it happened. Call your parents, talk to your boss, arrange a few days off, go home for a few days. I’ll even come with you.”
That’s actually not a bad idea. Victor thought, nodding before saying, “Okay. Alright, that’s a good plan.”
“You’re not going to like the next part of it, thought.” Henry admitted.
#
That Friday, the three of them in Henry’s truck, Henry driving, pulled up to a large patch of dirt under the shade the three. Putting the truck in park, he got and went to the back, helping Lizzie get out. “He’s here. He told her soberly, leading her to the spot.
“Thank you for putting him somewhere nice.” Lizzie said, clutching the daisies in her hand.
“I said I would, didn’t I?” Henry responded, continuing to guide her.
Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she crouched down. “Hey, there,” She began, “You like these, right?” She sat the daisies down on the grave. All was quiet for a moment, then she said in a hushed, lamenting voice. “I miss you.” Tears began to well in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so, sorry…” Suddenly she threw herself on the grave, heaving sobs.
#
Their parents knew something was wrong the moment the trio walked in the door.
“Oh, Victor, what happened to your face?!” Their mother exclaimed upon seeing him, running up as if to get a better look.
“It’s a long story,” Victor said, pulling back, “An animal got out at the lab. It’s not nearly as bad as it looks.”
“I didn’t know you were working with the animals.” Their mother continued, still fussing over her firstborn child, “Or even that they were using animals, I thought all the science was theoretical.”
“Yeah, Victor.” Henry said, unable to help himself, giving his ex-friend a knowing, contemptuous look.
“Well, sometimes…” Victor began.
As Victor tumbled for an explanation, Mr. Stevenson went in for a hug from Lizzie, only for the girl to go stiff in his arms. “You alright there, baby girl?” He asked, pulling back, concerned.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Lizzie covered quickly, “Just…bit tired.”
#
“What happened to Lizzie?”
His parents ambushed him in the living room while Lizzie was asleep in her girlhood bedroom, the two of them huddled together with concerned looks.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Victor managed to cover unconvincingly.
“Victor, she’s barely said a word, she just stayed curled up in her room,” Mrs. Stevenson said, “And she won’t talk to either of us, Victor, we can’t help if we don’t know what’s going on.”
Victor rubbed his face. “The truth is we got a…a pet a couple of years ago, after Lizzie moved in.”
“A pet?” Mr. Stevenson repeated, “You’ve never mentioned this before.”
“Didn’t come up.” Victor shrugged, “Anyway, it…died last week, Lizzie bonded with it, she’s taking it pretty hard.”
“She’s acting this way over a pet?” Mrs. Stevenson scrunched her face in confusion, “I mean, I get attached to pets, too, but…”
“You know how sensitive she can be.” Victor tried, “I was a hopping a few days at home might do her some good. “Suddenly he got an idea, “Hey, Mom, maybe you could take her down to the lake, just the two of you? She used to love that when she was a kid.”
“You know, that’s not a bad idea.” Mrs. Stevenson agreed.
#
Hours later, while Lizzie and their mother were at the lake, Victor made his move. Taking the tuck, he went back into to town to the local bank, walking up to the front desk. “Victor Stevenson.” He told the clerk, “I’d like to look at my safety deposit box.”
“Certainly,” The clerk, professionally dressed in blue, said, walking around.
She led him to a back room, lined with boxes. “I’ll be outside if you need anything.”
“Thanks.” Victor said, as he walked out, going for his box. He had acquired it the year after Ollie was born, realizing he needed a place to store his research and recordings. No one would think to look here.
He opened it, revealing several red and black leather- bound journals, pictures, video cartridges. All his research. All the documentation of Ollie’s growth, of the experiments it took to make him. Pictures, sonograms, tapes. Years’ worth of data.
Everything but the eggs.
#
The day after they got back from the Stevensons’, Henry started coming back around, if only to check on Lizzie. That was how he walked in Victor, watching a video of Ollie, about maybe ten months old, toddling around the laboratory.
“The subject seems to age at the same rate as a Chimpanzee.” Victor’s voice could be heard saying, “We’ve began teaching him ASL…”
Just then baby Ollie fell over, beginning to squall as he hit the ground like any other baby would. Suddenly, Lizzie, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, fell into the frame, picking him up and tending to him. “Oh now, let me see, yes, I know, I know…”
Victor paused the video as he realized he was being watched.
“I can’t believe you.” Henry said, walking into the room, “I really can’t believe you. You never quit, do you?”
Victor began to stand up. “I was so close Henry. So close. Just think of the protentional, the medical application, the military…”
Henry cut him off, in anger, “That’s what you’re going with? Seriously? “
“It’s not just some crackpot theory anymore.” Victor insisted, “Ollie was proof of that.”
“Ollie went berserk and nearly killed you!” Henry exclaimed, “Don’t you think that says something?”
“Ollie aligned too closely with a Chimpanzee.” Victor reasoned, “If I can just get the next one more human—”
“You have no control over that!” Henry shouted, “That’s the whole danger of hybrids, you don’t know what combination of traits you’re going to get. Next time it could be even worse. Contrary to what you think, Victor, you’re not God.”
“I never said I thought I was.” Victor said.
Henry had to take a minute, less he lose it, too. “Well, you could’ve fooled me.” In that moment, Henry knew; there was no reasoning with Victor. He was mad. If Henry was going to stop him, he would have to find some other way.
What he didn’t know was that Lizzie was listening from the stairway. And she had heard everything.
And she wasn’t about to let it happen again either.
#
The day Victor went to get the eggs, Lizzie walked into the lab, the first time since she ran in to find Ollie gone, a woman on a mission. She began picking up material, flinging them. “Come on, Victor.” She seethed through gritted teeth, tossing a petri dish to the floor, “Where did you put it?” This couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen again.
She flung a set of beakers to the ground when she saw it. A large, plain, wooden box. She crouched down, the flipped open the latch, revealing the journals, the videos all of it. Lizzie grinned, picking up the box and running from the room.
#
When Victor got back from where he stored the eggs, Henry’s truck was blocking his driveway. Letting out a breath of frustration, he got out of the car just as Henry was getting out of his truck. “What do you think you’re doing—” Suddenly Henry lunged at him, balling up the fabric of his shirt.
“Where are the eggs?!” Henry shouted, “Where are they?!”
Before Victor could reply, they saw it: A plume of thick gray smoke billowing from the back yard. They looked at each other and they knew. “Lizzie.’ Victor whispered, as Henry uncliched his fist.
Lizzie was standing over a burn barrel in the backyard, staring intently at the flames. She read the sound of feet running but didn’t turn her head. Nor did she turn her head when she heard Victor shout, “Lizzie, what did you do?!”
Finally, Lizzie turned around slowly, glaring at him. Pushing past the boys, she marched up to the street, the boys following behind.
“Lizzie!” Victor shouted as they ran after her, “Lizzie!”
Victor had been so shocked by Henry showing up, he didn’t lock the car door. Lizzie thrusted it open, pulling out a metal canister. A canister she knew contained chimpanzee eggs, stripped of their DNA to make them more compatible with human sperm.
The boys froze when they saw her. “Lizzie, whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t. “Victor pleaded, “Please.” He held out his hand, “Just…give them to me, okay?”
Instead, Lizzie ran past them, running again for the backyard, Victor running after her before Henry, realizing he and Lizzie wanted the same thing, grabbed him. “Hank, let me go! Let me go! “
Making it to backyard, Lizzie unscrewed the lid of the canister. “This is for you, Ollie!” She shouted, throwing it into the burn barrel.
Victor made it to the backyard in time to see what she had done. “No!” He cried, falling to his knees.
Lizzie on the other hand, just laughed manically as she watched it all go up in smoke.