“Tell me what happened,” he said.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I hadn’t known he was going to do it until it was too late. He had already worked out how to employ certain metamorphosing qualities of caterpillars—using human analogues of imaginal discs would be necessary for the incredibly rapid cell division required for the transformation he wanted. Once he’d acquired the DNA of Zephraim Blakeney, who obviously demonstrated morphological changes under the influence of the full moon, he combined it with his research on imaginal discs. Then he resequenced this into a formula that could be administered to a human. Just as Zephraim returned to his normal self after moonfall, he assumed that he would, as well. But as a safeguard, he built a kind of ‘memory’ into the imaginal discs—a protein that would denature after a certain number of hours—to ensure that the transformation was temporary. He ran an exhaustive battery of tests and simulations. And then he—he injected himself with it.”
She took another breath. “It was only then that he summoned me to watch his triumph. And his theory proved correct…only too correct. It was the second night of a full moon. And as we sat there—the others had gone to bed—he began to change. Except it was not what he’d expected. He anticipated minor morphological developments: skin discoloration, hair growth, various systemic changes. And sure enough, once the moonlight hit him, they began. But he hadn’t counted on the side effects.”
“What were they?” Logan urged.
“Difficult to describe. We’re still trying to reverse them, even now. As best we can tell, the metamorphosing ‘boost’ of the DNA resequencing made the effect far more pronounced in him than it was in Zephraim Blakeney. It was…it was frightening.” She looked up suddenly at Logan. “Can you believe that I, his daughter, could say such a thing? But it’s true, and there’s no other way to describe it: the transformation was fearful. And worst of all, the resequencing had—as you just speculated—made him susceptible to the lunar effect. It made him aggressive, even violent—like the shrews you saw in the demonstration a few weeks ago. He dashed out of the laboratory…and into the night.”
She lapsed into silence. Logan glanced at his watch: four thirty. He waited for her to begin again.
“He encountered the old backpacker I told you about. The man’s reaction to his appearance, the startled cries, enraged my father. He threw him off the cliff. Somehow, the sudden, unexpected violence of that response seemed to bring him around. He came back to the lab, told me what he’d done.”
She was still looking directly at Logan. “So you see, my father did have to die—just not for the reason I told you. We had to hide him away, work someplace on our own until we could find a way to reverse the effects of his serum. Because the safeguard he’d introduced—the ‘memory’ of the imaginal discs—did not function as expected. The transformative ability remained active—and the next night, it happened again. This time, we locked him away in the building that would later become our secret lab. The next morning, I hiked out to the backpacker’s body. Just as I described to you, I swapped his possessions for my father’s. Then I installed my father in the lab, ordered the equipment we would need. I waited a day before reporting him missing. I almost hoped that Mark would discover the body on one of his hikes. But he didn’t—and so I went to the police.”
She sighed. “And ever since, we’ve been looking for an antidote, so to speak—a way to reverse the process he initiated. We had some immediate success: we were able to roll back the influence of the lunar effect so that he no longer felt any violent tendencies. But the…physical transformations continue to occur with every full moon. My father works on the problem every day, in our outpost in the woods. And at night, I’ve gone to help, too—except on the nights of the full moon. On those nights, he always retreats to his private lab, the one behind the door in the far wall. He is too ashamed…he won’t let me look at him. I think he saw the horror in my face the first times he changed—and it’s too painful for him to see that again.”
“So he locks himself in his private lab,” Logan said. “A lab within a lab, which you can never enter.”
“Yes. It has only a single window, covered with tar paper. It doesn’t compensate for the effects of the full moon—not completely—but it helps. I…I never go near the lab on those nights. I stay away, let him keep his dignity.”
“And you’re sure he remains in that private lab as long as the full moon is out?”
“Of course. He can’t bear for anyone to see him when he’s in that—that state. Besides, we can’t take the chance he might encounter that vicious beast out roaming the forest.”
“You mean the rogue bear,” Logan said. “Or rogue wolf.”
All at once, she caught the insinuation. “Oh, you’re wrong—you’re wrong! He hates what’s happened to him, what he’s done to himself—all he wants to do is lock himself away until it passes. Besides, I told you, we managed to cancel out the violent manifestations, such as they were—and in any case they were never anything, anything like what happened to those four poor men. It was a sudden spasm of anger, never to be repeated and always to be regretted.”
She lapsed into silence. It was several minutes before Logan spoke again.
“Laura…” he began. “I don’t know what to say. This is all so shocking. What you’ve described happening to your father is…remarkable. Also unfortunate, to say the least—in that it did not work as planned. And I appreciate the fact you’ve been working day and night to try to reverse it. But it was bad enough when you substituted your father’s identity for that lone hiker’s. This is far worse. You’re hiding—harboring—a killer.”
“He didn’t mean to do it, Jeremy…” Laura said, almost pleading. “He wasn’t himself, it was a terrible mistake. The father I know would never want to hurt anybody. Don’t you see that?”
“Yes, I do see that. But it doesn’t change what he did. When the authorities learn of the circumstances, they’ll—”
“They’ll put him in a lab and examine him. Like a zoo animal. Or a freak. And that will be the death of him…or maybe, worse than death.”
“No. I won’t let that happen—I promise. But he has to be taken to a facility where he can be helped.”
She merely hung her head, saying nothing.
“Laura—let me talk to him.”
At this, she looked up. “No! Moonrise is too near. He’ll have locked himself in his private lab by now.”
“Then I’ll talk to him through the door.”
“You can’t, he won’t—”
“Laura, please. You’ve worked on the problem for six months now, without success. This is the best chance that I—that we—have to help him.”
She sat motionless for several minutes. And then—without looking at him—she rose and led the way out of the primary lab and into the woods.
36