The Wells of Hell Read Online Free PDF

never see
anything like it again.’
    He turned the mouse over on to its
back, and it lay there squeaking with its feet waving in the air.
    Its abdomen was even worse than its
back. Below its ribcage, its body went into insect-like folds, like a pale
caterpillar or a wood-louse. Its hind claws had saw-tooth edges, and moved with
a repulsive jerking motion.
    ‘Well,’ said Dan, ‘what the hell do
we make of you, little fellow?’
    The mouse squeaked again, and
twisted its head from side to side.
    ‘Would you go get me that wire cage
over by the window-ledge?’ asked Dan. ‘I’ll keep an eye on our friend here and
make sure he doesn’t make a run for it.’
    ‘He’s no friend of mine,’ I said,
crossing the laboratory.
    It was only when I was on my way
back with the cage that 1 glanced at the culture dish in which Dan had left a
sizeable sample of the Bodines’ water. There were a couple of mouse droppings
beside it, and it was almost empty.
    I handed Dan the cage. I didn’t know
what to say. But when he’d carefully lifted the mouse in through the wire door,
balanced almost lifeless on the end of the plastic ruler, I cleared my throat
and said: ‘Dan?’

Two
    I dialled the Bodines’ house four
times, but the phone rang and rang and there was no reply. I checked the clock
on the wall. It was way after nine now, and there should have been somebody
there. After all, it was Oliver’s bedtime, and even if Jimmy and Alison weren’t
at home, they would have had to bring in a babysitter. I waited and waited, but
at last I had to put down the phone and shake my head.
    ‘They’re not in, or they’re not
answering.’
    Dan was still inspecting the scaley
mouse in the wire cage, watching it intently as it tried to pull itself from
one side of its prison to the other. It was so grotesque that I had to look
away, but I could still hear its scales and its insect-like claws scraping on
the wire.
    ‘In that case,’ said Dan, ‘I guess
we’d better get out there and warn them in person. I can’t tell for certain if
the water’s done this, not until I’ve made some tests. Maybe it has nothing to
do with it at all. But we don’t want to take the slightest risk. Not where
people’s lives are concerned.
    ‘I’ll drive you,’ I told him.
    We took a last queasy look at the
mouse and then we locked the laboratory and went downstairs.
    We crossed the mall at a fast walk,
breaking into a trot as we neared the station wagon. It was so cold now that
the windshield was iced over with white stars and fingers of frost, and the
hood shone a dull misted green in the light from the streetlamps. I unlocked
the doors and we climbed in. Shelley, looking very haughty and put out, climbed
over on to the back seat.
    ‘It smells like cats and putty in
here,’ said Dan, as I started up the engine. ‘I don’t know how you can stand
it.’
    ‘At least they’re honest smells,’ I
told him, backing up and then pulling out into the main street.
    ‘What’s a dishonest smell?’ asked
Dan.
    I drove up to the top of the mall,
turned right, and then joined Route 202 at the sloping corner by the cemetery.
The gravestones looked whiter and colder than ever as I took a left and headed
north. Dan took a notepad out of his coat pocket and started to jot down
incomprehensible hieroglyphs with a blunt chewed pencil.
    ‘Supposing it mas the water?’ I
asked him.
    He looked at me, his face patterned
with shadows. ‘Supposing it was?’
    ‘Well – if it does that to a mouse –
what’s it going to do to a human being?’
    ‘I don’t have any idea. Sometimes
small creatures like mice and rats are affected by chemicals or organisms when
humans aren’t. Look at the whole saccharin affair. Saccharin was found to cause
cancer when given to laboratory rats in fairly heavy doses, but that’s not
indisputable proof that it has the same effect on humans. The same goes for
many micro-organisms, which can maim or kill rodents, but don’t harm