Rot

by Dorian Yosef Weber

Luke watched Charles’s massive hands flex around the paper bags he was holding and wondered how long it would be before they were cutting him open. 

“My friend,” Charles said in place of a greeting when Luke opened his front door, “you look ill.”

Luke scrubbed at his eyes with the back of one hand. It had been a late night in the lab, and he forgot that Charles would be bringing his groceries by today.

“And a morning to you as well,” Luke grumbled.

Charles blinked, unimpressed.

Luke sighed. “Apologies. Work has been keeping me up.” 

Charles’s lips split into a wide smile, unable to keep his stern facade up for long. Luke knew Charles thought that all he did was make medicine for patients. He almost felt guilty not correcting him.

“Come,” Luke said, ushering Charles inside. “Sit.”

Charles left the groceries on the table and pocketed the paper. Luke had written a list of supplies he would need by the next fortnight and laid out the money the supplies would cost, plus extra for his friend’s time.

Luke folded his slender legs underneath him in the smaller chair in his cramped sitting room as Charles flopped into the wider sofa with a tired huff, knees and arms flung wide.

“Did you know,” Luke murmured, leaning in conspiratorially, “that Mr. Wilkerson came to me again with complaints about his head?”

Charles chuckled and cracked his eyes open, ever thirsty for gossip. “Is he still ignoring your advice?”

Luke huffed out a breath, immediately regretting bringing up the topic in the first place. “I don’t know why he keeps coming to me for medicine. He clearly doesn’t trust me. I told him that it would take a few days for what I gave him to take effect, but he came in calling me a quack and saying that I charge as little as I do because I’m selling fake cures.” 

In reality, Luke saw patients for what he did because that was the only way to get people through his door. He had been a top surgical student before he was forced to leave the institution. His sickly disposition meant that a common illness quickly grew too severe for Luke to stop the doctors from undressing him and discovering his female anatomy. Word had spread quickly, and he was disgraced.  Now Luke only left his flat under the cover of night to complete his true work.

When Luke went to make tea, Charles turned the conversation toward lighter topics and stayed, idly chatting until the sun set. Luke watched him disappear down the street, counted to one hundred, and then hefted the burlap sack that contained that day’s stolen cadaver to be thrown into the Thames. Someday, he would have to show Charles what he was working on in his lab so late into the night. He wanted Charles, the one out of the two of them who had actually completed surgical school, to perform the operation on him. If he was going to get rid of the parts of his body that he craved to take a scalpel to, then Charles was the only one he trusted to do it. 

Later, Luke told himself as he watched the weighed-down sack slip into the dark of the river. He would tell Charles about his crimes later.

✵✵✵

The next night, Luke laid the man whose body he had stolen out on the table of his side-room lab and cut beneath the label with a slow, jagged cut. He held the scalpel in his fist like a child on the off chance that some poor fisherman discovered one of his dumped bodies. A sloppy cut would look like the work of another Ripper, keeping attention from the disgraced physician. Luke had his journal spread out beside him, ready to continue his study of reproduction anatomy with a transplant in mind. He quietly thanked the man for his contribution to science as he began working.

The dissection was going well until Luke, traveling upward to study the full context of the anatomy, reached the man’s kidneys. There was something odd about one of them. Luke frowned as he dug it out.

The coloration was wrong. Luke adjusted his glasses and held the cold organ closer to his face, squinting at the yellow discoloration hugging the curve of the organ. He realized that he wasn’t looking at jaundiced tissue but rather a film crusted over the smooth surface, branching in sallow fingers like lichen.

With tremoring hands, Luke set the kidney back into the man’s abdomen. He knew he was being ridiculous, but he couldn’t help the panic that clawed its way up his throat. The beauty of the human body lay in its predictability, the complex precision of its systems. Luke had never seen something like this. The man’s lungs had clearly killed him, so the lichen seemed to be benign, at least in this case. Luke wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse.

Once he got his breathing under control, he carefully excised the tissue that the mysterious substance seemed to be growing out of. He put it into one of his many sample jars and placed it on the shelf with his collection of curiosities and oddities.

✵✵✵

It took a couple days for the mold to appear again. This time, it grew as a film across a woman’s stomach. There was more of it than Luke had found on the kidney, but rather than eating away at the tissue, it seemed to have just taken root in its visceral wetness. 

Luke’s heart pounded as he rummaged through the contents of the torso beneath him, following the yellow trail a ways up the esophagus. A smudge had crept down over the intestines. Luke frantically began scribbling down everything he could find, initial research goals forgotten.

The cause of death wasn’t clear, but the lichen wasn’t blocking any of her airways and didn’t seem to be interfering with her digestive system. If the cases were able to progress to this point and not interfere with the body’s functions at all…

In a horrible flash, Luke was arrested by a vision of a body whose organs were entirely encased by the yellow lichen. What would that feel like? Would it feel like anything? And what of its effect on the brain? What would happen if the lichen took root in its vulnerable folds?

✵✵✵

Luke frantically took note of everything that he could find inside the next corpse, his previous mission for knowledge of reproductive anatomy a hazy afterthought. He had taken a woman this time. He wasn’t sure how she had died; it wasn’t clear from the organs. But she hadn’t choked to death on lichen closing off her throat, and nothing seemed amiss in her digestion.

Luke wiped his forehead and dimly felt blood smear in the wake of his hand. He felt much too small, too alone for the task before him that he couldn’t even define. He hadn’t seen Charles since he had made this discovery, but he would be coming by in a day or two. Luke had to assume that there was no wider health crisis outside of his walls, otherwise Charles would have burst in, ready to shield Luke from formless evil with his own back. He always had been ever since he had come pounding on Luke’s door after overhearing drunks down the street jokingly propose leaving a bullet in the brain of the town’s “demon doctor.” Luke had embraced the title at first, laughing, but Charles had seemed so uncharacteristically shaken that Luke had dropped it immediately.

Looking at the entrails in front of him, covered with their creeping vegetation, Luke was tempted to go to Charles. He wouldn’t, he knew that the moment that the thought came to him. He wanted to, but Luke leaving his apartment would upset the natural order. Charles would come to him. Charles always came to him.

✵✵✵

The day Charles was due to come by with his groceries, Luke spent the entire morning pacing, the carpet like sandpaper underneath his bare feet. He hugged his middle and wondered if there was something growing in his guts. If the lichen was entirely undetectable by people, the way Luke assumed it was, he would have no idea. For the thousandth time, he wished he had been able to become a surgeon.

His gaze caught on the letters, written in his scratchy handwriting and sealed with wax, laid out on the table in the middle of the room. If the lichen could spread between organs, as Luke suspected, then the same could be true between human beings. 

He had trapped a few flakes of the lichen in an empty dish, others in a dish of his spit, and the last couple in a dish of his blood, shed from a small incision that Luke had made in the meat of his forearm. This would tell him for sure where the lichen thrived. But until he knew the contagious nature of the growths, if Luke was ill, he wanted to seal away this infection and leave the outside world to its demons. If he was well, he wished to keep it that way.

Luke only hesitated for a moment when Charles knocked on his door. But he did not fear Charles, not the way he did others. He never had. Ever since they had met as surgical students, they had been a single unit in Luke’s mind. That would not change.

Charles smiled when Luke opened the door. “I brought some fresh pound cake,” he said, holding the parchment-wrapped bundle aloft with one hand. “I know how much you love sweets.” 

Luke smiled despite himself. “You are too kind,” he said, and let Charles in. 

The pound cake was still warm when Luke unwrapped it. Charles must have come straight from the bakery. As Luke broke the loaf in half, the sweet yellow color sent a sickening jolt of familiarity through him. He inspected the torn edges as subtly as he could, not expecting to find anything but relieved to see that it looked normal.

When Luke passed Charles the larger half of the cake, he squinted and scanned up and down the man’s body. Charles had his ankle propped on his knee, rotating his foot lazily. His hands were steady and sure, his eyes keen and bright. The only oddity was the mottled blush creeping up the thick column of Charles’s neck, so subtle that he would not have noticed had he not been searching for strange symptoms.

“My friend,” Luke said, interrupting Charles mid-sentence, “you seem flushed. Are you well?”

Charles blinked, once, twice, stunned. Then his mouth contorted into a smile, and his lungs spasmed in a tight laugh. 

“I am very well,” Charles said. “I must have exerted myself on the journey here more than I thought.” Luke nodded, slowly, keeping his face carefully blank.

When Charles began to speak again, his movements were jerky in the way of a man who was exceedingly aware of his body. His smiles were tight, the lighthearted rumble of his voice exaggerated and forced. Luke responded casually where appropriate, but he worried at his fingers the entire time.

When Charles was about to leave, Luke gestured to the letters on the table. “Will you give these to the postmaster when you can?”

Charles frowned and rifled through them. “What is this? You never have been a letter-writing fellow.”

“I’m making a few changes to my practice,” Luke answered. “I am writing to my patients to inform them.” The letters, addressed to every one of Luke’s patients, read that he would only send medications or answer questions through mail for the foreseeable future.

Charles nodded, squinting at Luke as he made his way to the door.

“My friend,” he said as he hovered on the threshold, “I beg for your candor, just this once. Are you truly well?”

Tell me, Luke wanted to say. Tell me it isn’t already inside of you.

“Of course,” he lied. “Thank you for the groceries.”

“Farewell,” Charles whispered, and he left.

When the door closed behind him, Luke pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and tried not to cry

✵✵✵

For weeks, Luke kept finding the lichen growing in the entrails of London’s dead. It clung to meat and bone alike, fusing organs together. It seemed to have gone completely unnoticed until the innards were revealed in their gory entirety. The stuff had grown when exposed to both Luke’s saliva and blood. The realization had made him vomit. His solitude seemed to make his stress even worse. 

The only other human faces he saw were those of cadavers of London’s paupers, young and old. Their insides, jaundiced and rough, were becoming more and more unrecognizable as humans despite apparently functioning as normal. The images haunted Luke’s fitful sleep. He wondered how many of the people walking through the street were infected, whether the growth could flourish in living bodies at all, and if there was anything to be done about it. Even if there was a remedy, he knew for certain that he would not be the one to discover it. For all his research, he was nothing but an outcast half-surgeon who had made no progress on his one project after months of work. The development of his novel surgery had consisted of nothing but pages and pages of notes that went nowhere even before he had found that first kidney.

He was lying in his unmade bed that reeked of sweat, drifting in a dazed half-sleep, when there was a familiar rapping at the door. Luke stumbled out of bed, fighting to untangle his legs from his sheets.

“Luke?” Charles’s muffled voice seeped through the door. “I’m sorry I’m a few days later than normal, I got buried in work again.” Luke hadn’t noticed. He had no idea what day it was.

His breathing sped up as Charles knocked again, and he felt a knot tie in his throat. He tried and failed to swallow it down, thinking about Charles being sick, diseased, unaware. Even worse, Charles might be uninfected while Luke was a host, and opening the door would be dooming him to a mysterious, horrible fate. He reached the door and rested his forehead against the wood.

“Luke?” Charles called.

Instead of an answer, a strangled keen tore out of Luke’s chest.

“Are you hurt?” Charles continued, alarm creeping into his voice. “Are you sick again? I will keep you out of the hospital this time, don’t be afraid.”

“Don’t come in,” Luke whimpered. His eyes were wet. He hated to cry, but he was just so damned tired. Charles had held him the last time he had wept, back on that terrible day when he had woken up in the hospital without the fabric he normally wrapped around his chest and felt deep in his gut that something had happened that could never be undone. Charles was so close, inches away. Luke selfishly wanted to be embraced again, and if Charles didn’t leave now, he didn’t know how long it would be before his animal instincts led him to cave in and open the door.

“Please, Charles, leave me.”

“I will do no such thing,” Charles snapped, and a sob tore out of Luke’s throat. “If you don’t open this door, I will kick it down. Whatever is happening, I just want to help you.”

“You’re lying,” Luke gasped as paranoia wrapped its fingers around his throat. His hands were shaking so badly that his nails rasped quietly over the wood of the door. “It has infiltrated your thoughts. I’m not sure how, but you are not yourself.” Luke wasn’t sure whether or not he really believed that, but it was easiest to think that if he was going to send his only friend away.

“Nonsense,” Charles said. “I swear to you that I am in my right mind. Now, get back from the door. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“No!” Luke shrieked. There was a thud behind the door, and he stumbled back, tripping and landing on his knees. Another crash, then another, and the door splintered open. Charles loomed outside, a strong and terrible silhouette. But then he crouched down in front of Luke and all there was were his gentle brown eyes. 

“My dear Luke,” he murmured, “whatever is the matter?

Tears had begun to streak down Luke’s face. It was hard for him to breathe. “I don’t know,” he sobbed. “I don’t know. It’s not safe.”

“For whom?” Charles asked. He cupped Luke’s face in his hands. They were meaty and rough, more a farmer’s hands than a surgeon’s. 

“Both of us,” Luke answered. “Neither of us. I’m not sure. But please, Charles, please tell me that it has not infected you already. I would not be able to bear it.”

Charles frowned in confusion but didn’t question what must have seemed to him like utter nonsense. Instead, he only leaned in and pressed his forehead against Luke’s, looking deep into his eyes. The smooth smattering of his freckles was lovely, Luke noticed hysterically.

“I am fine, I assure you. But you, Luke, are not. Please, look at me. We’re both safe here.”

“But we’re not!” Luke shouted. “We’re not; there is no possibility that it has not found at least one of us already. I am selfish, and I want to remain myself if I can, but Charles, the only thing in the world that matters is for you to be safe. I would not be able to forgive myself if I ruined that.”

“My dear,” Charles said again, as soft as a breath, and his hooded eyes darted down to Luke’s thin, chapped lips. Luke’s hands rose to clutch at Charles with all the desperation of a drowning man. He looked up to meet Luke’s eyes, then back down to his mouth. In one quick, darting movement, Charles lurched forward and kissed him.

Luke cried a lamenting howl into Charle’s mouth, but at the same time leaned into the touch and kissed him back. He could taste Charles’s spit seeping into his mouth and down his throat. If Charles was sick, then Luke was now as well. The reverse, though unthinkable, was also true. Luke would have to confess his many sins to Charles eventually and explain himself. But for now, the two of them were a mess of tangled limbs and blood and bone on the sitting room floor, languishing in the heady heat of each other as Luke wept.