# Macabre/Number 5/Occurrence on Kelvin's Bluff

Occurrence on Kelvin's Bluff
by
Gene Tipton
Kelvin's Bluff reared its massive bulk against the red afterglow, looking out over the sea like a stern and immovable sentinel. The narrow road which my auto followed began a sudden ascent. With the rise in elevation, the winding strip gradually became shrouded in mist.
A short distance up the fog-enveloped slope, I noted that the road's guard railing was shattered at one spot. Obviously, this was the site of the disasterous auto mishap I had read about less than a month before. The vehicle, in plunging onto the desolate strip of seacoast below, had brought death to its driver. A second occupant was believed to have also perished, although the latter's body had never been recovered. The missing victim had presumably been swept out to sea by the tide. I recalled that my friend, Dr. David Garth, who lived atop Kelvin's Bluff, had reported the accident, having been first to arrive on the scene.
It was David Garth's residence, in fact, toward which I was now headed. The pressure of work had prevented my calling on Garth for a period of several months. Noted as a brilliant neurosurgeon and physiologist, Garth devoted his spare time to research work in the latter field. On the occasion of our last meeting, he had spoken of experiments he was conducting toward the preservation of animal tissue in a special nutritive serum he allegedly had perfected. I remembered that an article of his had recently appeared in a medical journal dealing with his attempts to keep alive in this fluid the disembodied organs of animals.
I abruptly swerved the auto to the left as a human form walking along the road caught my eye. Here was a road little frequented by motor vehicles, and to see someone traversing it on foot was an even rarer phenomenon -- especially with night coming on. So far as I could tell, the figure trudging up the that of a man, although the wayfarer was largely an indistinct blur in the swirling fog and thickening shadows. I was impressed ​in a forcible, almost undue manner by the sudden, unexpected appearance of the traveler on foot. Moreover, the hazy view I had obtained of the man -- serving to endow him with the qualities of a phantom -- only heightened the impact which he had upon me.
The crest of Kelvin's Bluff was soon attained, and David Garth's weather-lashed residence loomed into sight. The house, embraced by fingers of mist, was silhouetted darkly against the still-crimson sky. I perhaps would never understand Garth's reasons for choosing to live alone at this forlorn region by the sea, although a desire for privacy in which to carry on his research work was undoubtedly a motivating factor.
Parking my car in the drive, I proceeded toward the house. While the mist and gloom combined to obscure my view of the churning sea, its proximity was nonetheless vividly felt. The surf crashing against the rock-bound coastline below filled the keen air with a great elemental tune.
At length the front door receded in response to my ring, and I was confronted by the tall, willowy figure of Dr. David Garth. Upon seeing me, surprise registered on his lean, keenly-contoured face -- which may have been only natural, since I had not informed him beforehand of my coming. His lips broke into a wan smile. "Good to see you, Ray."
I noted at once that my friend's greeting lacked its customary warmth. Indeed, his behavior struck me as a bit odd. I fancied that my presence had made Garth slightly ill-at-ease. I found him strangely reserved.
For a time little was spoken as we sat in Garth's study, enjoying cigars. The sigh of the ocean was faintly audible to our ears. Sitting there, I began to experience a curious sensation. Upon my arrival, I had divined a peculiar, somehow different property about the atmosphere of Garth's home. Difficult to define though it was, the anomaly was now being felt more strongly. It was as if someone else were in the room -- not a visible and tangible presence, but a force mental rather than physical in nature. I became cognizant of strange thoughts which seemed to be generated by a mind other than my own. An inexplicable energy pulsed through the air, distracting my thoughts and fostering a vague mental discomfort.
​I was on the verge of telling Garth about the queer feeling, but decided it was merely a product of my imagination. Hoping to draw the doctor out of his shell, I instead broached the subject dwelt upon in his recent article.
Always before, he had been wont to freely discuss with me his research projects, but tonight he manifested unusual reticence. However, the natural enthusiasm which Garth always accorded his work at last came to the fore, and his reserve was in some measure broken.
"As a matter of fact, Ray, since you were last here I've made gratifying progress in work to which I have given years. The French scientist, Alexis Carrel, proved that cells can survive indefinitely outside the body. In 1912 he experimentally placed a portion of a chicken's heart in a special tissue culture. Connective tissue cells and muscle fibers continued to grow. They were still reproducing themselves 34 years later, at the time of Carrel's death. As long as the "broth" containing the tissue was supplied with the necessary nutrients, and as long as waste products were eliminated, the fragment of heart flourished.
"The stuff of which we are made is potentially immortal, Ray!" Garth spoke with uncommon vehemence. "I hope to surpass Carrel in maintaining life outside its natural environment."
My interest was greatly stirred, and I urged the doctor to continue. But hesitancy entered his manner, indicating uncertainty as to whether or not he should further confide in me. There followed attempts on his part to divert our talk to other matters.
After a short period, during which our rather strained conversation had dwelt upon trivialities, my friend excused himself. "I should like to check on an experiment I have been conducting in my laboratory. I hope you don't mind. I'll be back shortly."
Alone in the room, I found myself curious as to the nature of the experiment he had mentioned. Very faintly, the sound of Garth's footsteps in his work chamber on the floor above me could be heard. Frequently, I had been invited into his laboratory to observe for myself the results of his studies and experiments, but tonight no such invitation was extended. I was puzzled by his unwontedly restrained, secretive manner.
​Through the windows of the study I could see that night had draped its ebon cloak about the outside world. Writhing masses of fog pressed against the window panes like silent invaders gathering for a massive assault upon the dwelling. I still had the curious impression of a foreign presence in the room. I could sense an oppressive agency that charged the air like an electric current. Extraneous mental energy seemed to be bombarding my head. It was as if I were being permitted to probe into the intimate recesses of another's mind. It was a bizarre, disquieting sensory experience, and I began to shift uncomfortably in my chair.
Giving expression to my unrest, I found myself ascending the staircase to the second floor. Besides harboring an almost morbid curiosity as to what was transpiring in earth's laboratory, I had developed a sudden dislike of being left alone. Garth had never objected to my entering the laboratory on prior occasions, and I presumed he would not now disapprove of my presence.
On the upper floor, I proceeded along a short hallway, at the end of which was a door. The door, leading into Garth's laboratory, stood slightly ajar. A humming sound, as of an electronic machine in motion, became audible. That singular thought force which pervaded the air was now being felt more strongly than ever.
I was about to tap on the slightly opened portal, but hesitated. On an impulse, I stealthily pushed the door inward a bit further, widening my view of the interior.
My eyes were drawn to a circular glass vessel holding a pinkish liquid which rested on the doctor's work table. Immersed in the fluid was a greyish, convoluted mass of tissue which I recognized as a human brain!
The liquid flowed into the receptacle through a slender glass tube, fitted with valves, which led from a large, metal-plated tank. The circulating serum found egress through a similar tube extending from the container's opposite side and terminating in another tank. Affixed to the bodiless organ were fine wires, appearing to be electrodes, which ran through an aperture in the vessel's stopper to an intricate-looking apparatus equipped with eight ink-writing instruments. The oscillographs were depicting ​faint, irregular markings on a moving strip of paper. Garth was bending over the machine, intently studying the traceries made by the host of pens.
I stood there spellbound for a moment, staring at the glass bowl and its grisly contents. I was vividly conscious of alien thoughts that were as a pressure against my head. Garth must have then sensed my presence, for he turned and saw me standing in the doorway.
A startled expression crossed his features. "Ray! What are you doing up here?"
"What on earth, Dave -- " I pointed in wonder at the extraordinary display atop his work table.
Garth, turning off the electronic device, quickly ushered me out into the hallway. There was a furtive, evasive tone about his actions, and I fancied he was not altogether pleased by my intrusion into the laboratory.
"Some of the greatest mysteries of the universe are wrapped up in the seat of man's intelligence," he said, accompanying me downstairs. "The amazing capacity of the human brain becomes even more apparent when one considers that the averse person utilizes only a small fraction of his innate mental ability. There remains a vast reserve of latent mental power that is seldom tapped. Isolated from the body, unhampered by distracting sensory demands which the body imposes upon it, conditions would be favorable for a fuller manifestation of the human inherent powers."
No more than that would he say concerning his dismaying project. A thousand questions were welling up within me, insspired by what I h^-d witnessed. How had he obtained the brain? Had it been donated by some patient of Garth's who wished to contribute toward the progress of medical science? The realization that the thing in the glass vessel pulsed with life, emitting uncannily potent thought energy, was awesome to contemplate. A queasiness began to stir in my stomach.
When we were again in the doctor's study, I went for my hat. The unnerving discovery upstairs, plus that singular awareness of someone else's thoughts, had left me acutely ill-at-ease. Mine was a growing desire to depart from that fog-bathed house by the ​sea and the grotesque and abnormal conditions that prevailed therein.
I then grew alert to a sound apart from the distant lugubrious murmur of the sea. Garth's study opened onto the front veranda, and the disturbance seemed to come from that direction. To my ears, it resembled someone walking in a rather clumsy and laborious fashion across the veranda.
Garth, too, heard the noise, for he turned with a start toward the front door.
"Are you expecting anyone?" I asked. For some reason, my thoughts went to the solitary traveler whom I had passed while driving up to the doctor's home earlier.
"Who the devil is that out there?" Garth demanded in in irritation, appearing not to have heard my question.
I saw that the door knob had begun to revolve -- slowly, hesitantly, as if being gripped by the unsteady hand of a child. I also perceived a small puddle of water on the floor at the entrance. The water, trickling in beneath the door, expanded into a larger pool before our transfixed eyes.
Garth strode to the door and flung it open. He recoiled as if shot. Getting one glimpse of what stood in the entrance, I thought I would faint.
I was dimly aware that Garth raced across the room to a desk. Producing a revolver from a drawer, he levelled the weapon at the thing which had begun to shuffle toward us. There followed a succession of deafening blasts as I turned and ran from the room, to flee from that accursed house through a rear door. Driving madly down fog-swathed Kelvin's Bluff, with the roar of the sea in my ears, a frightful vision was dominant in my mind -- destined to haunt me to my dying day.
Never would I forget the sight of that dripping, half-decomposed human body that had shambled into David Garth's study. It had leered at us through vacant eye sockets, and where the upper part of its head should have been, there was only a large, gaping hole that looked into the black pit of any empty skull. ********