I stared at the thing that could not die, the immortal cancer. Misshapen, necrotic, still, it bled and writhed. The psychics could not stand its screams, and even those of us without such gifts could feel its pain. It would be mercy to kill this thing, but no one knew how; no one could stop it from growing either. Even the blackened dead cells weren’t really dead. Though the stench of decay wafted from that bloated mass, the flesh that all science would call dead still moved and, what’s worse, managed to duplicate and replicate and spread, despite the impossibility. We had starved it, burnt it, pressed it, cut it, ground it up, but it only grew, mindless but for the never-ending psychic wail that drove even those most insensible to such phenomena into eventual panic.
The thing shifted and belched, or farted. There was no head nor tail to it, no plan or order to the spreading body, and so such expulsions are hard to name. The hole that had opened to relieve the gas oozed with a white puss that the constant flow of blood was slowly washing off its skinless flesh. I watched this little island roll down its side and eventually splat onto the concrete floor.
The monitor finally showed green. We were ready. I pressed the intercom.
“Commence operation Digestion.”
A quiet came over the room as we all stood by our stations. I switched it on.
A sickly, yellow sludge flooded the basin. Growing darker, greenish, as it pooled, the acid filled the tank and covered the abomination. Fire erupted as the flesh was eaten away by the rising tide. Smoke billowed up in huge jets from the bubbling brew. The smell was terrible.
I looked at the monitor; we were holding steady. Fresh acid poured in as the sludge was strained out. At this rate, we could go for days, maybe weeks if the supply chain held out. Charles, the one psychic brave enough to come, had turned deadly white while beads of sweat ran down his face.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Maybe,” he groaned. “She’s dying.” He took in a long breath. “Scared.” He closed his eyes and trembled. “But the pain, you are taking away the pain.”
We had started early that morning, 5:00. It wasn’t until morning again, I remember, 12:12 the next day, when the tank was clear, and whatever the cancer had been was so much fine powder, freeze-dried and sealed away in one giant metal cylinder. Charles said the screaming stopped around the previous noon. That’s what we put as the time of death.
It wasn’t until 3:00 that everyone had gone home. I stayed behind, a sort of wake for the monster. Unfulfillment haunted me, and I was waiting. Failure had dogged me over the past year as I tried to stop this thing from spreading, and silver-screen logic would insert some nod to a sequel, a dreadful rehashing cheaply done and void of any artistic merit. If this were a movie, I would not be allowed to win. I paced around what I suppose was the thing’s coffin. The curved face of the stainless steel mirrored myself back at me with a strange, misshapen malevolence.
“Dust thou art,” I said.
Turning away, I left the lab and wandered off into the cool morning where my car waited alone in an empty parking lot. The stars were fading, and a warm light was just a sliver on the horizon. I needed a drink.
Tale Told 