Reanimators by Peter Rawlik

upper and lower portions of the trunk met, there were no hinges and no lock that I could locate.
    Stepping back to obtain a new perspective on the object that lay before me, I became aware of a strange whirring sound emanating from the crate, which had not been present before. The noise grew louder, reaching a crescendo that culminated in what was clearly a set of bolts being thrown back. As this sound reverberated through the room it was joined by a hissing noise, and I watched as the upper half of the crate rose slightly and then jerked sideways. As it did so a thick soupy fog, not unlike that given off by dry ice, began to roil out, accumulating around the base of the crate before creeping across the floor. Startled, I stepped back as the fog flowed toward me, but any trepidation on my part was overcome by an intense curiosity as to the contents of the now fully opened crate.
    As I cautiously moved forward, the fog that now engulfed the entire floor cut at my ankles with claws made of ice, and each step toward the crate was noticeably colder. By the time I reached the trunk I had tucked my hands underneath my arms, and was noticeably shivering as the fog swirled around me. My forward progression reversed itself as I leaped back, startled as something familiar but wholly unexpected rose up out of the trunk and gripped the side. It was a man’s hand, clad in a fine black leather glove, and as I watched, the hand was joined by its partner, and up out of the fog-laden sepulcher climbed the unmistakable form of a man.
    He was of less than average height, and well built, with neatly kept iron-grey hair and matching beard. His eyes were dark, and his skin had that rustic olive complexion so common amongst those of Celtiberian origin, though in places it held a paler color and I thought immediately that he must be in the early stages of vitiligo. His aquiline nose hinted at a touch of Moorish ancestry, and held a pair of antique pince-nez glasses. He was well dressed, wearing a suit of grey silk with a white shirt and highly polished leather shoes. If I had met him on the street I would have thought him the most respectable of gentlemen. But as he made his way out of the coffin, for now I could see that it could be nothing else, I could not see the gentleman, but only a figure of undying horror pulled from my more salacious readings, Lord Ruthven from Polidori’s The Vampyre. How ironic that I should draw such a connection in that moment of stress, and how tragic that in that moment I did not act, but instead, like Polidori’s oath-bound protagonist, I kept my word, though it damned me, and welcomed this creature into my home.
    It spoke English with a genteel and soft-spoken manner that betrayed a kind of aristocratic education. “You must be Dr. Hartwell. I was told by Peaslee that I would be your guest. That you and I shared a mutual interest. In life and perhaps—ummm—in death as well. Like yourself, I am a physician, trained in the finest academies of Madrid and Valencia, and most recently a resident of Barcelona. My name is Dr. Rafael Carlos Garcia Muñoz.”
    Unbidden, he reached out and took my hand, grasping it with his own, while at the same time pulling me forward and clasping the other arm around me in a typical European type of greeting. Later, apologizing, I would say that it was the sudden shock of his appearance, that I was unprepared for such a dramatic entrance. That the theatrics of the moment combined with the overwhelming odors of camphor, sandalwood and other exotic aromatics were the preferable explanation for my negative reaction to the embrace of Dr. Muñoz. It would not do for me to tell the truth, to let him know that I, a trained physician, one who has dabbled in the forbidden science of reanimation, was so horrified, no, terrified, by his grip that I almost immediately fell into unconsciousness. But that was the truth. It was not the drama of the moment nor the weird aromas that drove me to the