The Last Adventure of Dr. Yngve Hogalum Read online

  I loaded my baggage and climbed aboard the wagon, the horse team whinnying in anticipation, and set off at an immoderate canter. The time had come to save Dr. Hogalum from an eternity of oblivion.

  Chapter 5 ~ Magnetron Crosses the Rubicon

  “… I realized I was effectively imprisoned within the confines of my own excavation, but worse, my hired rapscallions were nowhere to be seen.”

  How I detest horse drawn vehicles! To burden such graceful creatures in exchange for such an entirely unsatisfactory method of transportation is unforgivably barbaric in my view. I dared not take a train, however, as my unusual baggage would most assuredly have attracted attention. If only I had secured the support of the Hogalum Society in this endeavor! I might have piloted our electrified Luftigel airship to and from Richmond and completed the entire mission in hours rather than days!

  I expedited my journey as much as was practicable, napping for brief intervals only and stopping but once to dine in loutish and disagreeable haste at an Alexandria restaurant. By the time I arrived at the Richmond cemetery where Dr. Hogalum was buried, it was as dark as if I were buried there myself.

  As previously arranged, I was met by two raggedy young ne’er-do-wells provided by the gracious gesture of General Southwick, a shadowy but discreet acquaintance of mine. General Southwick had been a captain in the Confederate Army and was now the leader of The Remarkable Myrmidons, a rebellious faction which refused to acknowledge the South’s defeat in our nation’s bloody civil war. How he had subsequently advanced to the rank of General was a matter I steadfastly avoided as I deemed it potentially awkward.

  The General found slavery a revolting exploitation, and shared my conviction that machinery would soon render it obsolete. Nevertheless, he maintained that the South had developed a culture of chivalry and decorum that could not coexist with the “oppressive regime” in Washington.

  Southwick was a brilliant tactician with whom I had played several exceedingly challenging games of chess by post. He revealed in one of his letters that he was also a member of the nefarious League of Miscreants, a fact which was already known to me. He was in actuality a distant relative of Eldridge Compost, the founder of the tenebrous League. I thought it unwise to disclose my own relationship with Mr. Compost, preferring simply to maintain a cordial correspondence.

  Southwick said of me that I was a gentleman and quite well educated “for a Northerner.” Suffice it to say the General was accommodating, if occasionally bombastic and provincial, and graciously consented to provide the mercenary youths in discreet service to me. Thankfully, they were prepared with lanterns to aid in my crepuscular caper.

  I cannot say for what reason, but I attempted to converse with the two young rebels as they unloaded the wagon. I remarked that the epitaph carved into Dr. Hogalum’s headstone, “One World at a Time,” was in fact a Henry David Thoreau citation. An acquaintance had once asked Thoreau if he believed in an afterlife, and he had reputedly quipped, “Oh, one world at a time!” I opined on the sad irony of Thoreau’s death occurring so shortly thereafter. The young men eyed me with a kind of dispassionate bewilderment and the lesson was abruptly halted.

  We worked diligently assembling the components of my Precision Dig Engine, and once assembled, the Engine made noisy but quick work of the job at hand, spouting jets of the rich soil into a series of tidy mounds. I leapt into the resulting void with a small spade and a large knife to perform the final procedures of the hasty exhumation. Upon completion, I realized I was effectively imprisoned within the confines of my own excavation, but worse, my hired rapscallions were nowhere to be seen.

  I scraped and scrabbled at the crumbling walls of my earthen prison to no avail, but I dared not cry out lest I be discovered. Suddenly, the perplexed and apprehensive faces of the cemetery’s caretaker and night watchman appeared over my limited horizon, thus rendering my earlier reticence pointless. Upon observing my wretched predicament, the caretaker adopted a cloying bravura, tipping his hat and directing his musically accusatory drawl downward at my perspiration-drenched figure. “Well now,” he began with a smirk. “What do we have hee-ah?”

  Chapter 6 ~ Magnetron Averts Ruination

  “I concocted a story, which seemed plausible enough at the time, that I was in fact a victim of treachery by the two young dastards who were now making their escape.”

  Peering up from the bottom of the grave, I sensed at once that these two gentlemen clearly intended to derive as much merriment as possible from my inauspicious circumstance. It seemed most likely that their mirth would culminate in my arrest—a potentiality I could not permit. More so than the indignity of my own incarceration, I desired to avoid any hindrance in the completion of my mission.

  I arrived at the conclusion that any encounter with law enforcement would rapidly deteriorate upon the discovery that I now carried Dr. Hogalum’s head in a burlap sack which hung from my belt. No, police involvement had to be avoided at all costs.

  I attempted to misdirect the men by exhorting them to chase down the two young rascals who had scampered away. “After them!” I cried, pointing in a random direction. The caretaker calmly inquired whom it was I intended they should follow. I concocted a story, which seemed plausible enough at the time, that I was in fact a victim of treachery by the two young dastards who were now making their escape. The caretaker informed me that he saw no one else and that I seemed to be the only individual present worthy of his attention. The night watchman, however, withdrew his gaze from me and squinted vigilantly at the trees bounding the cemetery’s perimeter.

  My mind swirled with a variety of dubious courses of action. I decided that all avenues of escape began with deliverance from the abysmal hole which I occupied. I attempted a direct approach (continuing in my farcical role as victim) and pleaded to be lifted from the cold, damp grave. Much to my astonishment and consolation the men complied, each of them presenting me with one of their hands in a miraculous display of decency and abject foolishness.

  I thanked them lavishly and began to explain my peculiar situation. I commenced my prevarication by appearing to struggle with the quantity of time which had elapsed since I had been discourteously thrust by rustic scoundrels into Dr. Hogalum’s grave. I reached into my vest as if to consult my pocket watch, but instead extracted my soon-to-be-patented Hypno-chronometer, a device I had constructed with the unwitting assistance of Valkusian. I held up the device and appealed for their attention to it. Once transfixed by the curious patterns of gyrating faceted gemstones mounted within, they were little more than moon-faced somnambulists, quite agreeable in disposition and credulous as toddlers.

  I continued weaving my fabricated tale into the mental fibers of their now-receptive psyches. I will confess here (though Valkusian would skin and bleed me were he ever to know) that I bamboozled the stupefied pair into assisting with the loading of my wagon. What choice did I have?

  After I roused them with a snap of my fingers, the men were transformed. The caretaker’s former swagger was replaced with a deferential manner I found quite pleasant. The night watchman’s respectful empathy for my imaginary ordeal began to grate on me, though, so I bade them good-night.

  I had grown weary of Richmond, and I still had a long return journey to Pennsylvania. My entire laboratory was idled there, stocked and prepared, lacking only the one final ingredient.

  Chapter 7 ~ Magnetron Waxes Irresolute

  “And yet, if I were wrong, if I did not succeed in my intricate and demanding plan, then I would have succeeded only in desecrating Dr. Hogalum’s remains.”

  When I finally returned to my Contrivance Conservatory, it was late the evening of September 23rd. The house was dark and the shades drawn. Pung had evidently made good on his promise to return to his gardening duties; the hardy japonica hedges had recently survived another hacking butchery under his razor-sharp trimmers. The mutilated plants cast eerie moon-shadows as I made my way up the walk.

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sp; Petión had not yet arrived, I deduced. His presence was always marked by a booming laughter that was as much felt as heard, but there was not a sound emanating from my home. I entered quietly, changed my clothing, and set to work immediately. As I was transferring Dr. Hogalum’s head into a large beaker of a briny preservative I had prepared earlier, Mrs. Mackenzie startled me by entering the Masterstroke Mill unannounced. The poor woman fainted dead away at the sight of the good doctor’s disembodied head, first letting out a shriek that nearly caused me to drop it on the tiled laboratory floor.

  I dragged Mrs. Mackenzie to her room and returned to my Masterstroke Mill. Sitting for many unproductive hours, I ruminated feeble-mindedly about the enormous project ahead and the abomination I had committed in its pursuance. I surmised that Mrs. Mackenzie, once she had regained consciousness, would fire at me a fresh cannonade of disparaging remarks and pointed questions. How could I make her understand that I had already subjected myself to far more intense scrutiny and arrived at a single inarguable conclusion? Justification was pointless, and yet…

  And yet, if I were wrong, if I did not succeed in my intricate and demanding plan, then I would have succeeded only in desecrating Dr. Hogalum’s remains. I had violated the laws of Man and Nature. Would it be for naught? There was no precedent upon which my conviction might repose with any measure of certainty. I had only a profound confidence in my own tenacity. But what if that were to prove inadequate?

  Lao Tse, one of Pung’s ubiquitous cats, jumped up on the table at which I sat and purred loudly. Soon he became infatuated with Dr. Hogalum’s head, which bobbed torpidly in its beaker, and I was obliged to remove the inquisitive creature from the laboratory. I began for the first time to consider reversing course and putting my scheme to rest.

  When I opened the laboratory door, I heard what sounded like knocking from down a series of corridors leading from my front door. I confirmed the egregious hour by my pocket watch and cursed the cheeky oaf who intruded now on my contemplation. I made my way down the halls with my hands balled up into fists. “Who is calling?” I shouted through the closed door.

  Chapter 8 ~ Magnetron Summons the Spirit

  “Several hours later, Mrs. Mackenzie woke to hear a cacophony of drums and boisterous singing emanating from my Masterstroke Mill.”

  I stood at the entrance, peering through the crystal windows and gauzy curtains, and was startled by a rich, resonant voice responding from the outside. “Phinny! It is I, Petión! Let me in, you crazy boy, before I am frozen stiff!”

  A wave of good spirits flowed over me then, and I was again innervated with fresh confidence. It was Amaud Petión, my oldest and dearest friend. I swung open the door and we exchanged ebullient pleasantries as all my dubieties of moments before wafted away on the warm breeze of Petión’s good company.

  When I had returned to my home after the War Between the States had drawn to a close, my mind was blank of everything that had gone before my injury. There were few individuals who had made an impression deep enough on my psyche that I could recall anything of them, and fewer still I remembered in any detail. One of these was my mother, who had raised me with her memorably fiery spirit. The other was Petión, a Haitian household servant who had lavished me with his peculiar brand of fatherliness after my own father was flogged to death by a mob of angry investors.

  Petión seemed frail now, but in good health, and his tolerance for liquor remained as outsized relative to his diminutive frame as was his great booming voice. It was late, but we had much catching up to do and a well-stocked liquor cabinet to drain. We were both quite intoxicated, I on bourbon whiskey, and Petión on his rum, when I broached the ticklish subject which had prompted my invitation in the first place. I blurted my entire plan in abstraction, offering some detail as to his role in the undertaking.

  “I b’lieve you have taken leave of your senses, young man,” he replied with a sober expression on his face. “This is not a plan, but a badly crafted horror tale. I know enough only to tell you it cannot work!”

  “But are you not skilled in the vodoun arts?” I pressed.

  “Yes, I am a houngan, it is true, but I am no bokor, and I have never performed a reanimation ceremony. Besides, even a zombi needs a body, my boy. A zombi is a mindless thing, undead, without volition, you see? Now tell me, Phinny: Of what use is a mindless head?”

  I continued my argument until within hours of daybreak, beseeching, imploring, pleading. Petión was steadfast in his refusal, but I began to repeat a plaintive refrain until he could no longer resist. “Please, Petión! Will you not even make the attempt?”

  Several hours later, Mrs. Mackenzie woke to hear a cacophony of drums and boisterous singing emanating from my Masterstroke Mill. Undoubtedly, she was red-faced with anger as she flew down hallways under a full head of Scotch-Irish steam. However, when she entered the laboratory the color drained from her countenance, which thereupon took on an ashen quality. Before she could complete a proper genuflection, the poor woman was again rendered unconscious by what she saw.

  “Oh dear,” said Dr. Hogalum’s head. “She appears to have fainted!”

  Chapter 9 ~ Magnetron Ponders the Unthinkable

  “I made the observation that his head was his most significant appendage, whereupon he replied dejectedly that he had become rather fond of all of his appendages.”

  Later that morning, I reluctantly bade Petión good-bye. I begged him to stay, but he would not be deterred. He was returning home—not to his hometown in Kenner, Louisiana, but to his birthplace in Haiti. “It is a sad place these days,” he said wistfully, “but it is my home.” It was a heart-rending departure, all the sadder as we had spent not nearly enough time getting reacquainted.

  He confessed to me his utter amazement that the reanimation ceremony had been successful and offered a most extraordinary theory. I questioned him exhaustively on the point, but the obscure conduit by which he had gained this unusual knowledge was sufficiently nebulous that he was unable to provide more specificity beyond his supernatural cognizance that Dr. Hogalum had not died of natural causes, as had been reported. In fact, Petión felt that Dr. Hogalum’s lwa, or spirit, had been infused with an exceptional resilience due to a profound displeasure at its corporeal vessel having been murdered!

  As Petión’s wagon made its way down Mugglesworth Hill into town, a brisk wind came up from the east, filling the air with autumn leaves and dust. “Good-bye, old friend!” I called out with as much warmth as I could muster, but my mind was then a frigid whirlwind of horror and bewilderment.

  When I returned to my Masterstroke Mill, Dr. Hogalum’s head—now ensconced upon a platform which I had constructed for this purpose—was convulsed with fury. Several of Pung’s cats had sneaked into the laboratory by their maddeningly undiscoverable route and had made great sport of the doctor’s ears, nose, and facial hair. He was undamaged, but demanded to know what had become of his body, and expressed a strong desire for clothing, though he was unable to account for the logic of this request.

  I shooed away the cats and retrieved a top hat from my dressing room, placing it at a rakish angle on the doctor’s crown. I deliberated aloud as to the efficacy of a bow tie, but Dr. Hogalum cut me short with a volley of thorny questions.

  “What has happened to me, Magnetron? Where is my body?”

  I gingerly addressed his recent expiration, and explained that his body had suffered a corresponding fate, buried headless as it was. I commented in abstract on his subsequent reanimation and the stimulating venture I had planned for his revivified head. I made every attempt to mollify him to the extent I might broach the topic of his murder without appearing insensitive to his current predicament, but he continued to pepper me with questions.

  “I do not wish to appear ungrateful after having been raised from the dead,” he said in a beleaguered tone, “but I must ask why you did not see fit to include my body in this enterprise!” I made the ob
servation that his head was his most significant appendage, whereupon he replied dejectedly that he had become rather fond of all of his appendages.

  I did not wish to explain that an arithmetical miscalculation on my part regarding the mass of his body vis-à-vis certain physical laws had necessitated the admittedly gruesome measure, and I anticipated he would not be satisfied with my explanation anyway. Therefore, I side-stepped the matter by responding simply that it was an unavoidable bit of hard cheese which was also quite irreversible. He fell silent long enough for me to interject, “Petión has said you were murdered. Is this true?”

  “Murdered?” Hogalum was aghast at the mere suggestion, despite the fact that he was already dead. “Certainly not, Magnetron! I killed myself.”

  Chapter 10 ~ Magnetron Uncovers a Secret

  “I want you to explain in detail how it has come to pass that my severed head is now displayed in your laboratory, and I want you to do so now!”

  Suicide? The concept was too alien, and insufficiently buffered to gain entrance to my consciousness. I stammered like a dithering cretin for several interminable seconds until I was able to stammer a superfluous response: “K-k-k-illed yourself?”

  “Yes, yes, killed myself. It was an accident, of course.” Dr. Hogalum offered a brief and dispassionate account of his death occurring after ingesting a powerful medication of his own formulation. I absorbed little of the detail, so relieved was I to hear he had not purposely taken his own life.

  But what of Petión’s contention, that his spirit was profuse with the fervor of retribution?