Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Chapter 11

Daniel Kurtz seemed no different than any other kid who grew up in the city. He liked playing baseball in the park and hockey in the streets. He listened to his mom and dad and washed behind his ears. But Daniel was sick- sick in the head. When he was ten years old, another boy from his school caught Daniel cutting open a dead stray cat in alley. The boy told his parents, who told Daniel’s parents. His parents were worried, but figured Daniel was just curious. He swore to never do it again, and that was enough for them.
Months later, Daniel’s father caught him hiding something in his closet. It was another cat, but this was one was still alive. Daniel had cut it open and sewed it back up- but that wasn’t all. When asked why he’d do such a thing, Daniel confessed to removing the cat’s heart and replacing it with the heart he’d taken from a dead dog. Daniel’s parents had the cat mercifully put to sleep and tore their son’s room apart, finding the limbs and organs of dogs and cats hidden in his chests and drawers, as well as several rusted knives and emptied bottles of chloroform.
Daniel’s parents were horrified, and immediately sent Daniel away to a specialist. Daniel’s "problem" was diagnosed and he was heavily medicated. When Daniel returned to neighborhood the following year, he seemed very calm much of the time, almost as if he were bored with everything.
For the rest of his school years, Daniel seemed to have grown out of his disturbed behavior. He graduated from highschool and went on to medical college, eventually earning his doctorate. His family assured themselves that Daniel’s earlier actions were simply a misplaced interest in medicine. In time, Daniel went on to open a public practice in his old neighborhood. He became well known in the city for offering free medical services to the homeless and derelict who happened upon his office.
Shortly after his parents passed on, rumors began to spread about the now Dr Kurtz’s practice. Several of the homeless people who had gone to office weren’t seen leaving it until days later. Worse yet, several of them were beginning to turn up inexplicably dead. When the autopsies were completed, the coroners and forensic scientists were horrified to find several of the person’s organs had been removed- removed, and replaced with animals organs.
The police stormed into Kurtz’s office with intent to arrest him, but the doctor was gone, apparently having the foresight his actions would be found out. But as the story goes, Kurtz did not go far. He remained in the city, living on the same streets as his victims. Every few months or so, the police would find another of Kurtz’s victims, a corpse with human parts removed and replaced animals organs- and over time, even animals limbs.
But more disturbing yet, reports began to come in of a twisted form of a man skulking about in the alleys and sewers of the city. It walked like a man, but upon feet of hooves, with the scaley arms of an alligator, the horns of a goat, the arching back of a bear, and the tail of a snake trailing behind. So people began to believe that Kurtz had created the human and animal beast he’d been trying to create all his life- or, more horribly yet, that Kurtz had made himself into this grissly Chimera.

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