By Emelyn
There was not complication in Ambrose’s mind as he ran. Everything that could keep up with his furied pace- those thoughts that could run as surely did he: fear, hope… anger- did not provide complications. They are generic emotions- considered primitive by most. They are the foundation for the feelings that encompass the minutiae of everyday life, words to explain away the psyches of the modern generation: antagonized, harangued, ‘misplaced’, misled… unsettled- the ‘designer emotions’. In their lives, it’s often the case that people find the need to over explain what they feel, maybe because they consider their feelings to be especially important, almost sacred- and thus, in need of a greater worship than the black and white cover words that have been used forever. They disdain the use of the stark word fear or anger while in a therapy session. “Tell me what you really feel. …Break it down a little more, explain exactly what was going through your head.” And at the side of every writer is a thesaurus, waiting to find the perfect designer emotion to explain how their heroine truly felt going off to meet her sweetheart. Fear doesn’t sell to the overindulgent, over-analytical masses. Trepidation does- pseudo anxiety mixed with apprehension does.
But Ambrose… all he felt was fear, and its close cousins- anger… and confusion. He was not marketing his emotions, not attempting to understand or catalogue them- just using them the best way he knew how: as the incentive to propel him to action. Ambrose was a …designer make, himself, of sorts- the sort of combination that is born only of horror stories and children’s nightmares. He had been born a human, but in the dawn of coming into his own independence had been genetically altered to fit the mold of a madman’s perfection. The day Ambrose Maurlias would die, only a fraction of a man would be buried: the rest of his humanity would have been killed off long before that day.
Perhaps it was the animal in him- the wolf that comprised so much of his DNA and his understanding of the world around him- that gave him the ability to see things so clearly. Are humans truly the most blessed of all animals, that they complicate what can be a basic need and struggle to understand themselves when they could have already acted upon their feelings? Shakespeare would have been lost to write a legend of Hamlet, were his hero given the gift of animal reason. Hesitation does not befit survival, and musing on ones fear rather than acting upon it makes for the ultimate mistake in the world of the wild: death. …Or perhaps it was not this unique mingling of the animal instinct and human intuition that spurned him onward. Perhaps it was the words still ringing in his ears that sent him hurtling towards the lab, his paws a cavalcading army kicking up soil…
“They’ve taken her.”
* * *
When Ambrose arrived at the lab gate, his feet were bloody. The red stains were not from his furious run- the village was only several minutes from the labs- but remnants from the hunt. He’d been in the woods for the past hour- just the one hour, he reminded himself, now that he was at the gates and realized that he could go no further than this locked fortress, and now that his conscience gnawed at him. He had not truly eaten in days- what little satisfaction he could garner from the cafeteria aside- and he’d left her for a mere hour. Surely, he thought, if they had planned to take her away from me, they could have done it whether I was there or not.
For all his attempts at reasoning, his feelings were as simple as ever: confusion, fear, and anger- aimed in a thousand different directions. He was angry at himself for leaving her, for not having protected her- angry at them, these monsters, for what they had done to her… and angry even at Angelina, for letting him go…
But then his guilt rose again, bubbling to the surface to burst in a foul-smelling taint of self-loathing. He didn’t blame Angelina- not at all. She was the victim in this, and the instant of thinking otherwise was his own fear, his own helplessness.
The gate loomed high above him- wolves were not climbers and even still, he did not fancy himself a hearty shock if he were to dare to attempt a shimmy-up, anyway. The cameras were not simply for show. Even so, Ambrose couldn’t help but stand at the fortress of a gate and look up, lupine features pointed to the sun- a picture of hope when there was none to be had. As he stood, silently beseeching whatever god had parted those clouds to shower him with that sun to make everything right again… he couldn’t help but feel a wave of helplessness block out any warmth the sun attempted. Greer’s words were still fresh on his mind, set on constant replay: a soundtrack for hopelessness.
He’d come back from hunting, licking his lips and front paws once more before reaching the steps of his duplex- even though he’d made sure to wash the blood away in the river on his way back. Although Ambrose had long since given up trying to deny certain lupine needs- he would have rather tucked his tail between his legs and run into the woods in shame before showing up on their doorstep with a bloody maw. So after a hunt, Ambrose always took extra care to wash himself clean and present himself back to his wife: if not as the man she’d met, then at least as the wolfman she’d married- restrained, loving, and not so animalistic that he would flaunt the ‘kill of the day’.
That day, Ambrose had made the mistake of forgetting to wash his lower paws- it wasn’t a habit, since he rarely brought down anything large enough to spread a sizable amount of blood on the jungle floor. Usually a rabbit or a capybara would quench his thirst for the kill- but on that day, a boar had luckily chanced upon the wolf’s hunting path. …Luckily for Ambrose, that is. Not so lucky for the boar. …He’d made quick work of it, bringing it down near the river and gorging himself on the gamy flesh- not even noticing as he leaned over the round-bellied beast that blood had spilled from the wound and puddled around his grayish paws. Afterwards, his mind was occupied not only with cleaning that which he knew had been stained, but also in resisting the urge to bring back meat for Angelina. The wolf in him knew that Angelina was his mate, and wanted to provide for her- instincts that Ambrose had never tried to squelch, as he felt similar to his canine half. There was something fitting to him- even comforting- that no matter what part of him was in control, the beast or the man, that Angie would be protected, cared for. There was nothing in the wolf that had the desire to harm her. If anything, it wished to provide more steadily for its mate than did the reasoning, human aspect of Ambrose- who knew that, were he ever to attempt a full-on fawning over his wife, she’d ‘pardon her French’… and kick his ass. Figuratively or not, it was enough for Ambrose to realize that his wife would not take kindly to his showing up on their doorstop with a slab of bloodied meat and calling it a ‘present’. So he returned empty and clean- handed, not realizing that his cleaning job had not been as thorough as he might have hoped.
But Angelina would not be home to realize that her husband’s paws were stained with what was left of the boar- nor would she be ready with an understanding smile and pretend she didn’t notice. She would not be waiting at the door, a loving look on her genet-featured face and welcoming words. Instead, the door was wide open- and there was no one inside. The duplex would be that way for the rest of the day- empty- for not even Ambrose would step within once he saw the way the door hung on its hinges- tilting in the breeze and betraying the inside of their home as being unoccupied. He froze as soon as he saw it, paws locked to the earthen street that connected the village to the labs- and let no thought enter his mind… until he heard the words.
“They’ve taken her.”
Greer was above him. Ambrose recognized the voice immediately. There were but a handful of islanders that had been transformed into birds- and Greer, the passionate entomologist and his friend, had been the first. Over the years, she’d managed to manipulate the sounds that were forced up through her vocal chords sound as human as possible- not an easy task with a hawk-like tongue and an unforgiving, unmovable beak. With such a cruel ‘canvas’ upon which to create their speech, the bird-like islanders had found their voices warped, twisted into half- screeching, half chopped syllables that had earned them the names “The Parrots”- a more-or-less affectionate term that the other islanders still waited until the aviators were out of earshot to use.
“When?” He didn’t ask where ‘there’ was- or who Greer meant. He knew. How could he not, after all these years? Ambrose’s eyes pleaded with Greer’s much colder ones over the long distance… her voice had sounded nearby, but in fact she was high above him in a tree on the outskirts of the jungle.
“About twenty minutes ago. I would have come to look for you. But they were in and out so quickly. …There was nothing any of us could do.” With all her practiced effort- came the price of a heartless monotone. Ambrose did not let himself believe that she did not feel his pain- and yet, even so- her words seem to sink down to him, tied down with weighted gloom- and the thought of what had happened settled around him like morbid rain.
“Thank you. …I have to be there.”
“…I know. Good luck.” With that, the hawk spread her wings and cast off- a monstrous bird of prey erupting into the daytime sky, up towards a current that would take her away from these island intrigues and politics. …If only for a while.
Ambrose did not let himself stop to watch her flight- else he would have seen the storm clouds rolling in from the distance. Instead, he wasted no time in letting his animalistic emotions take the wheel- and he ran to the labs… bloody paws and all.
* * *
Ambrose’s paws were not built for
the sort of delicate manipulation that the intercom panel required. On a normal day, the
“Yes?”
“You have to let me inside.”
“Who is this?”
Ambrose let out a growl that was wholly inhuman. “Damn it, you know exactly who I am. Let me inside. Now!”
There was a pause, and for a while, Ambrose wondered if they’d shut off the intercom system. But finally, the voice came through once more.
“Please return to your duplex. You will be notified if you are needed.”
“The hell I will,” Ambrose said- a low rumbling growl- but the hum of the system went dead- and all further attempts to reactivate it failed. Ambrose knew they’d disabled it. What he didn’t know was what he was going to do. There was no protocol for this sort of situation- no set of instructions he could follow that would lead him to his wife. Even if he got past the gate he would be no closer to reaching her- the labs were a fortress, impenetrable and forbidding. But he knew that he had to get to her, had to be with her- and so he met himself at the impasse of his need to be with her and the impossibility of that fact. It triggered the animal in him, and Ambrose let it loose. Too long had he hosted this wolf to not trust it- it had been a part of him for many years now, and in times of distress, sometimes the only recourse was to let it consume him, give his humanity a chance to drift in the background.
The fur on the back of his neck bristled, as did the stripe of it along his spine hackle out into a silvery gold comb. Ambrose found himself sinking to his fours, the wolf more comfortable the closer he got to the ground. His wolf lips parted, taut over rows of sharp teeth, and quivered with a growl that seemed to come from the deepest part of the wolf’s belly. Canine eyes flashed, and his ears flattened against his blonde hair- the last cling of his humanity. The wolf paced, and in the back of its mind, Ambrose wept- for something had gone very wrong this day. There were some things that should never be taken away from a man- things beyond humanity, beyond ones physical form. Those things, Ambrose knew- were fickle, intangible. Who knew if Moreau had truly taken away his humanity, or just the outward appearance of it? Ambrose still felt joy, anger, fear… boredom. He still remembered his life as a human, and still felt that, in his heart, he was a man- in all the ways it mattered. He was a good husband, a loving friend and surrogate ‘brother’… he felt pain and fear and loathing, at times- and held grudges and forgave and felt nostalgic. For all his body had changed, and even parts of his mind- his heart was the same, his soul unharmed. …Ambrose had never been a religious sort- though his family had taken him to church in his youth as part of the status that came with being a Maurlias. Within that almost royal household, there was not so much a need for true virtue than a show of it. The veneer of perfection and righteousness was exalted- so much so that the son who was truly moral and goodhearted was overlooked for the son whose false picture gave off the most light. Ambrose did not know if he believed in God- but during his years on the island, he’d come to realize that he had developed a manner of faith, a trust that there was more to him than flesh and bones and fur- that there was something that Moreau could not hope to touch, or mar. That true transformation would only occur if he allowed it to taint who he was, his sense of right and wrong that had flourished despite his family’s priorities. This unnamed faith had kept Ambrose whole, and given him what many islanders had struggled- and failed- to find. …Peace.
So, as the wolf paced before the gate, growling at the monstrous foe, the human in Ambrose knew that although there were some things that could never be taken away from him, Moreau had gone to the heart this time. Let him take my hands, sharpen my teeth, point my ears, spin my bones into new shapes and corrupt my senses with animal forms- take it all, for it means nothing to me. But when the one thing in my life that I truly love: my soulmate, my future and my legacy has been taken away- then you’ve gone to the quick. The sentiments rolled in and out of the human mind and into its wolfen counterpart, changed from words into unwavering instinct: that is my mate, that is my other half you’ve taken away- I know she has gone, and her scent lingers here. That is mine, and I will fight to get to her.
Ambrose paced. Then, as the hours rolled by, he ran- speeding back and forth along the length of the fence, not touching its bars but coming close as the wolf acted out its terrible fear and anger. He ran, too, along the small strip of fence that connected to the lab fence about fifty feet away from the gate- the new addition that had been installed only two years before to create a new enclosure for the more dangerous islanders. The wolf sped along what length it provided to run out its frustration- but Ambrose had been the one to steer it there, finding it poignantly apt to race along what was sure evidence that this island took away what was the most important thing to each person. To some- like Chubbs and Jamal, who had been living in the ‘Feral Enclosure’, as the labs had deemed it- it was their freedom. To a choice few, like Angharrad, it was their sanity. The labs made a large show of saying that some of the islanders had given themselves over to their serums, had lost themselves to the power of the stronger, animalistic will. But everyone knew that the quick-acting serum had corrupted their human DNA, collapsed it before it ever had a chance to co-exist with its animal counterpart. For a while, it had seemed to work, and their progression had sped along with a pace unknown to the other islanders. But in the end, even past their final injection, both Angharrad and Fiona had continued to change- morphing more and more into the animal they were never meant to fully become. In the end, there were no scraps left of their humanity- except perhaps their larger-than-usual size. Fiona, deemed harmless, had been moved into the jungle- a large, cream colored rabbit that Ambrose and the others tried to avoid, not wanting to risk that there was still some human in her that might be destroyed, were she to stumble upon a predator on the hunt. But Angharrad had been moved to the Feral Enclosure years before, almost days after its creation. Apparently- there was no place on the island for a female wolf… that did not remember being human.
Ambrose ran along the Feral Enclosure fence and back down the one that extended around the length of the labs- hoping, perhaps, to catch a glimpse of the wolf that had once been a friend- a human… but was now no more aware than the dog Vasile still touted with him about the island. Ambrose knew, however, that there would be one islander he couldn’t hope to see- even in the enclosure. For although Moreau had taken away the freedom of many, a few their sanity… to one, he had done the ultimate disservice. Were he in the right mind to do so, Ambrose might have stopped then, to calculate how long it had been- and realize that it had almost a year and a half had passed… since Zach had been killed. All Ambrose could hope to do, however, with the state of his mind the way it was- was to run.
It wasn’t much longer before the howls came,
echoing deep from within Ambrose and sounding out all over the island. In the
village, they would recognize the sound of true pain and, for an instant, fall
into a state of mourning not only for their wolf friend and his misfortunes,
but for all the loss they too had experienced on this
The village must not have been the only place on the island that heard Ambrose’s furious cries- for it wasn’t long before a form came from the labs. As soon as the doors began to open, Ambrose perked up- and his humanity was jolted from the shield of its wolf mind. He returned to his hind legs, ears straight up and eyes keen to the figure that emerged- hopeful, and ready.
But it was only a guard, decked to the hilt in protective gear, a Feral Labs logo on his vest pocket and a rifle resting on his shoulder. More weaponry waited in his holster, and as he came nearer to the gate, Ambrose could see that the hilt of a short knife protruded from his boot. He doubted it had been lab issue- his arsenal of what was surely stun guns and tranquilizers was more than sufficient to bring down even the heartiest of islanders. But Ambrose also knew that there was a long-standing fear and prejudice towards the ‘beasties’- an unaffectionate nickname for the islanders by the lower lab staff and guards- and that, given the possibility of a run-in with one, many of the beastie-haters had supplied themselves with more than the non-violent arsenal that had been issued to them. Given the chance, some would go for blood. The man who came out to the gate- with his worn face and tired features, yet cold, calculating eyes- was one of these, Ambrose knew. He recognized the look of hate and fear residing behind those eyes- and how he made no show of hiding it. He would stand at his post and keep this ‘beastie’ from being violent, as he had been ordered… but the warning in his eyes was clear: stay away from me, you monstrous thing, or I will kill you.
The meaning of the guard’s stare was not lost on Ambrose, but he didn’t care. Besides being separated from the man by the gate, he had no desire to attack- only to be reunited with his wife. The thought that they had sent someone out to pacify him merely angered the wolf, and the howls returned in full force- this time, with Ambrose still on his hind legs, his head tilted back to the sky with an animalistic abandon. He could not see the horror in the guard’s eyes, nor the way he gripped his tranquilizer gun tighter. Ambrose felt only the release of tension and anger as his mournful ‘aooooooooooooo’ echoed out over the mountain.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” The voice was clear and succinct, yet fogged over with a mechanical whir that spoke to its origins: the intercom. Ambrose cut his cry short and ran to the box, breathless with hope.
“No, I don’t. Give me back my wife. Please, let me in.”
But the speaker’s response was not aimed at him- and the voice- one he had heard many times before, sighed, and repeated its message.
“Hodgkins, don’t you have anything better to do than stand outside?”
The guard blinked, surprised to have been addressed. He didn’t move from his post, eyeing Ambrose with a wary gaze where the wolfman stood near the intercom.
“Ma’am? I was instructed to this post.”
“Aubrey, please, listen to me,” Ambrose pleaded into the box. But once again, the tired voice that came through the other end was not ready to answer him.
“That wasn’t actually a question, Hodgkins, but an order. You’re to return to the labs.”
“But the doctor told me…”
“Are you hard of hearing, Hodgkins? Your orders have just been rescinded. Return to your previous post at once.”
Hodgkins’eyes narrowed in irritation, but only a tepid ‘Yes ma’am’ escaped his lips before he turned on his heels and returned to the building. His last look of contempt for the wolfman was lost upon Ambrose, who was intent upon the intercom.
“Aubrey please, you have to listen to me. I went to the village and they told me that you have Angelina. Please just let me see her. Let me see my…”
Before he had a chance to finish, the intercom went dead with an unceremonious click- and Ambrose was left alone once more. The silent intercom enraged him, and in a flash of fury, Ambrose’s claws leapt to the panel, tearing the covers off the buttons with an ear-wrenching sound: that of nail-hard claws upon the metallic surface. His paw returned for a second vicious slash, tearing apart the mechanism with a spark of electricity- he had felt the jolt of it, but did not care about the pain- it could not compare to what he felt inside. The panel had been rendered useless- but Ambrose did not care for that, either- and would have slashed at it again, were it not for a soft voice behind him.
“Oh, Ambrose… please…”
The wolfman spun on his heels, interrupting the plea with his surprise. Not twenty feet behind him stood a creature that was scaled from head to clawed toes in a green, almost iridescent pattern that enveloped a reptilian body. Only the words- spoken in a soft, feminine tone- and the shapeless black dress it wore- gave evidence to its sex. Her words had come from a lizard-like muzzle, and a pleading look was in her inhuman eyes. Ambrose felt himself collapse inward as if his balloon of rage had burst and all that remained was the sour, sad liquid inside.
“Amaya. …What are you doing here?”
“We heard you howling. Cassidy wanted to come as well but- well.” Amaya gave a soft, apologetic shrug, and Ambrose nodded. He knew that his snake-like friend had been holed up in her duplex for the past few days trying to shed her skin. It was a process they were all familiar with, and realized the necessity of- but still understood her desire to keep it private. Ambrose likened it to his need to wash his paws and muzzle of blood after hunting: he did not presume to think that he was ‘fooling’ the others, and that they did not know exactly where he’d been- but rather, it was a sort of unspoken, common decency to continue with the basic charade of normalcy. Of humanity.
“You didn’t have to come.”
“I know. But at least I came in time.”
Ambrose cocked his head to one side- the only way he could portray puzzlement with his wolf features. Amaya gave a small smile- another oddity with such a lizard-like face- and pointed a long, clawed hand at the intercom. Ambrose turned to see that it was still sparking, realizing that, had he clawed at it again, he would have likely been given a nasty shock.
He sighed. “Maybe if I’d passed out, they’d take me into the labs. At least then I’d be closer to her.”
“They’d keep you knocked out. And probably restrained. At least now you’re not bound. …And Angie can probably hear you. You wouldn’t do any good to her unconscious.” The iguana-woman spoke gently, introducing Angie’s name only after a soft pause. Even with its kindly insertion, however, the mention of her sent a wave of pain through Ambrose’s system, and he allowed himself to sink to the earth. His legs were weak- but his heart was heavier, and such a weight will cause one to drop anchor quicker than any physical injury.
“I’m not doing any good for her now.”
Amaya came forward, silent, and sat on the earth near the wolfman. Even then she did not speak- not willing to entertain his self-deprecation when they both knew it had been spoken merely out of frustration. She put a comforting hand upon his leg- a show of solidarity and understanding. There was no human connection there- not between such an alien hand and furred leg- but instead, something that went deeper than mere humanity. They had been together on the island for years- almost from the very beginning- and had been more to each other than mere comrades on this island of terror. Amaya was part of his ‘pack’- his little sister, adopted before he ever truly melded with the wolf. She, too, considered him to be the only family she’d ever known: an older brother, a caring friend, and the one who had given her the strength to realize that she was no longer alone- and that although she’d found her home in an unlikely and even cruel place- it was still her home.
“I just… I just keep imagining what must be happening behind those walls.” His words were carried on the underbelly of a ragged breath. Amaya shook her head softly, her eyes sad.
“Don’t let yourself think about it. You’re doing all you can. Focus on thinking for the best. Angie wouldn’t want you to give up hope.”
“I should have stayed with her; I never should have gone out. Not when I knew what the lab might do.”
“You couldn’t have prevented this.” Amaya’s voice was gentle but also resolute. “You know that they’ll always have their way.”
Her words had an ominous tint to them- a slight coloring of realization to Ambrose that, truly, this story might not have a happy ending. Fear gripped him- and if Amaya’s hand hadn’t still been on his leg, her voice coaxing him to remain calm and human- he would have given himself over to his canine instinct again and allowed his fears to be relayed through sheer physical exhaustion.
“I just don’t know what I’d do without her, Amaya. She’s my everything.”
“Don’t think about it- don’t let them get the best of you before you even know what’s happened.”
“But how can I not think about it?” Ambrose said, wrapping his furred arms around his torso as if to hold himself down. “I’ve seen too many people suffer here; I’ve seen it happen too many times. I always thought I was immune, at least somewhat… that… no matter what terrible thing happened, I’d always have her by my side. I should have known that Moreau would see it- that she was what kept me whole, here. He can’t abide by happiness. He won’t stand for it. He’s taken her away from me.” Ambrose knew he was rambling, but there was no stopping it- he had vomited his emotions to the earth in a violent spill… and, not unlike bile- they just kept on coming. Only Amaya’s soothing voice calmed him.
“Ambrose… she’s your match. Your families couldn’t keep you apart… your backgrounds didn’t separate you- even when Moreau pulled you across the ocean, she still found you. No matter what they’ve done, you’ve always found your way back to her. Do you think that has something to do with chance? Or fate?”
He looked up into her eyes, and saw a sort of calm wisdom there, but said nothing, lost in her words.
“…Stop to realize, Ambrose, that something is keeping you together. And that as long as you feel the way you do about her, you’ll never really lose her. …Don’t you love her with everything?”
Ambrose nodded his head in wonder- but his words did not answer her question. They both knew its answer. “Amaya… when did you get so wise?”
She croaked a single laugh- a strange sound to come from the long lips of an iguana. “I grew up. Not in small part due to a certain, wolfy big brother.”
Ambrose smiled despite himself. “You know- I’ve not had much of a chance to say it these days- but I hope you know how proud I am of you.”
The iguana-woman gave a languishing smile- the sort of happiness you see on all lazy lizards with their face to the sun- but with just a little more… humanity to it. “We’re all here for you, Ambrose. Don’t think you have to go through this alone. You and Angie both mean so much to us. Why don’t you come back to the village and let us help you? Maybe we can think of something together.”
The smile on his face dissipated, replaced by the consuming worry he’d only let dwindle for their tender moment. “No. I just… don’t want to be far away from her- not right now.”
Then it was Amaya’s turn to look worried, and she sighed, sitting up to stretch her muscles under the lingering sunlight as she did. “We’re worried about you. You’ve been howling for hours. How much longer are you going to be down here?”
A heavy, snarling growl answered.
“As long a’zit takes ‘till he knows there’s no hope left.”
Their eyes shot to the Feral Enclosure gate- though they recognized Jamal’s voice as soon as its piercing snarl hit the air. The white tiger-man was standing on his hind legs, his claws hooked into the fence and his ominous blue eyes focused outwards. The fence was a good forty feet away, but even without Ambrose’s keen hearing, that roar would have been impossible to ignore.
“Jamal…” Ambrose breathed, getting to his feet. “Are you alright? I’ve not seen you in…” he didn’t finish. They both knew how long it had been- nearly a year. Some of the others claimed to have seen him stalking along the edge of the enclosure at night, a deer or other bit of hapless prey clamped in his jaws- but none had spoken to him since he’d been seriously injured trying to escape the year before. As with the other ‘Feral Islanders’, his humanity came in lapses. More often than not, he was lost to his anger and instinct- an animal made only more dangerous by the underpinning of injustice that had been done to him.
“I’m alive, if ‘at’s what you mean. Could be better. Could be free. Could have my jaws around ‘at bastard’s fucking neck. …I heard you howlin’.”
“They took Angelina.”
“No shit.”
Ambrose felt a form against his back, a voice in his ear. “Ambrose… come on. Let’s just go.”
He turned to answer Amaya, but the voice at the fence drew him back like a magnet.
“He’ll nevah let her go, y’know. You can howl and howl an’ it aint nevah gonna do you any good. She’s gone. We’re all gone.”
“Ambrose, don’t listen to him.”
“All you got left is the animal,” the growl grew louder until Jamal’s voice reached a feverish crescendo, “All you got left is yo’self. Moreau don’t give a damn about us, just tryin’ to see how long it take us to kill each other.”
Ambrose was stunned, locked into place between hope- and doom. One at his back, the other to his front- it seemed eerily appropriate that what faced him… was the darker half. He didn’t know which to turn to- whether to give himself over to the pain, to the doom, and become an animal once more, running and fighting and focusing his mind on everything he’d tried to deny about his inherently animal nature- or to fold it all away, go with Amaya and try to not let his hope die. His mind tugged at him as surely as did the two islanders he was sandwiched between.
“Don’t let him turn you into an animal, Ambrose. You’re more than that,” Amaya whispered, putting her hands on his shoulders and trying to coax him backwards. But there was no hiding words from Jamal’s tiger ears.
“Bullshit. Look at yo’self. Look at her. Shit, look at me. Bullshit, we ‘aint animals’. We are what he made us. We are what we can use to fight back. None of that pansy ass shit. Come on, man. Fight back. Fight back!”
Then he began to roar, opening his monstrous jaws and illuminating a frightening row of feline teeth, and rattled the fence with all his weight. Ambrose watched in a stunned awe as the true power of nature retaliated- almost expecting to see the mighty fence go down with Jamal’s colossal efforts. But just as he wondered if Jamal might really do it, a charge was sent through the fence, sending off sparks and propelling the jungle cat backwards.
“Jamal!” Ambrose cried out in fear, wondering if his long-ago friend would become the second plot in the island cemetery. But the white-tiger leapt to his feet after being shot backwards… and ran off into the jungle. Ambrose wondered if he would ever see Jamal again- or if the events of this night would turn so tragic… that he himself would become maddened… and a permanent member of the Feral Enclosure.
* * *
Hours later, the storms came. It was long after Amaya had given up on convincing the man that he should wait out the lab’s decision in the village- and after the point where the air became too cold for her to wait with him any longer. Ambrose had been alone for hours- with not even a member of the Feral Enclosure happening by the fence. They, at least, had the common sense- the animal instinct- to find shelter from the rain.
The hours Ambrose spent alone in the rain that night were not peaceful ones, consumed in the thoughts of well-wishes and hope that Amaya had imparted to him. But neither were they the raging fury of the animal he had given himself over to earlier- the howls that Jamal had heard, those furious cries which had drawn his friend from his animal life to come to the fence- had been silenced. Instead, Ambrose found himself caught in between the two- a sandwich of himself, an agonizing combination of everything he had once been and then become. It seems that was always the way it was with Ambrose. His greatest fights … had always been with himself. Although he’d grown up in a family that didn’t always accept him or understand him- he’d never truly believed that they were in the wrong until his freshman year of college, when he rebelled against their plans for his future, and decided to try his own path in life. Before that time, he’d harbored a sort of self-resentment deep within himself, thinking that he could make his family proud if only he was better, more obedient, less willful. For the longest time in his life, he looked to his older brother’s example, thinking he could find the same favor in his parents eyes. He would have been their favorite, a younger Ambrose had mused, were he less … imperfect.
Even after
his rebellion and subsequent journey to the island to find the means to pay for
his own schooling- he’d found himself entrenched in an argument in which he was
both the defendant and the prosecutor.
Ambrose could not forgive himself for leaving Angelina behind, for
letting himself be fooled into this lifetime prison. Even when Angelina found her way to the
The hours in the storm were not kind to Ambrose- the fierce rain assailed his skin and added pounds of weight to his fur, and the cracks of lightning and thunder that beamed across the night sky frightened the wolf within him, cowering his instincts until he was a wet, huddled form against the gate. The broken intercom sparked a time or two- and once, Ambrose could have sworn he heard a half-garbled voice coming from the box- but there was no way to try and respond- the panel had been mangled, and it had more likely been just the sound of the rain.
As the hours passed on, Ambrose kept his eyes focused on the lights that he could see- those lighted squares upon the surface of the lab that were shaded to prevent any from seeing the forms within- but which still glowed. In one of those windows, Ambrose knew- Angelina was waiting- and a part of him felt that as long as he kept his eyes trained to those glowing beacons through the rain and the darkness- he was still with her.
“Aubrey!” He cried out sometimes, screaming into the whistling wind that whipped about him and hastened along the rain. “Aubrey, I know you’re in there! Please, if you have a heart, let me see her!! Angelina! Aubrey! …ANGELINAAAAA!” Her name turned into a howl, erupting through the storm in the same instant as a thunderbolt. More than likely, the sound of nature drowned out his hapless cries- but to him, every time a thunderbolt interrupted his screams, he felt it fitting: as if nature itself was calling out with him, railing against Moreau’s tyrannies. Once, during one of these joint howls, Ambrose was overcome with the force of it all, and his hands came up to rip at his shirt, tearing its soaked form from his furred chest and casting it in shreds down to the earth. He was bare to nature, then, and yet- still human, still conscious, his eyes keen upon the window where his love may or may not be. Ambrose’s chest heaved with the exertion of his fury and love- this was no monster of nature, but rather- a piece of wonderment- man and beast, howling together, piercing the night sky and calling for justice. In that moment, without knowing it, Ambrose was the ideal picture of Moreau’s intentions: not an abomination of nature, but rather, the perfect combination of instinct and knowledge, of love and of hate- a fur-covered beast, standing on the legs of a man, eyes ripe with human intelligence… and a heart consumed with the passion of the wolf.
In a crack of lightning that speared across the stormy skies, the labs were illuminated in a brief picture of clarity. Ambrose saw a figure revealed in that burst of radiance- and then, even as the lightning died and they were plunged into darkness, Ambrose could see with wolf eyes that the figure in the doorway- was Aubrey.
“Aubrey!” He cried, clasping the bars of the gate with his paws and pressing his muzzle in between them. “Aubrey, please let me in. Please tell me what’s going on.”
The woman came forward into the rain and walked through its torrent as if she could not feel its sting, not even quickening her pace as she approached the gate. Ambrose could not make out her expression through the livid rain, but heard a tiredness in her voice.
“It’s a little difficult to talk to you, you know, when you’ve destroyed the intercom.”
“Where’s Angelina? Please, tell me something.”
It’s all over.”
Ambrose felt a lump of shock form in his throat. “Is she…?”
“She’s fine. Just fine. You can see her now.” With that, she pushed on the panel that was on her side of the gate, muttering a little to herself that an override procedure had to be punched out- likely due to Ambrose’s earlier foray into tampering. But in a moment, the gate responded to her commands, and with a metallic click, whirred open inwards. Ambrose didn’t wait for it to follow through its hinges, but rather, wormed his body through as soon as it had cleared a foot or so. He followed Aubrey, though his instincts urged him to run ahead, get to Angelina sooner- to bound through the doors and up the stairs and scream her name until he’d found her. But he knew that he’d never be able to get through the doors without Aubrey- and that a wayward subject loose in the Feral Lab halls would gain him nothing more than a ‘subject sleep’ command for his efforts. Still, it was all he could do to contain himself until they were standing in the antechamber.
When they were inside, face to face- both noticed something about the other. Aubrey cocked an eyebrow in question at his half-naked form and ripped pants- and Ambrose couldn’t help but see that the face of a woman who had once been so tireless, energetic and spunky- seemed wan and waxen- as if her skin were a canvas for her emotions. One was silent about their perceptions- the other… was not.
“…Are you alright, Aubrey? You look… like you don’t feel well.” Even during such a time as this, Ambrose was tentative to tell any woman that their appearance was less than savory- but he hoped she’ d take it in the right context.
Aubrey’s hand went up to her forehead- an automatic gesture as her fingers combed slightly back into her mass of auburn hair. She pressed the rest of her palm against her left temple, and Ambrose could see the gold ring on her finger- thinking to himself that, for it being only several years old… it seemed… worn, almost battered.
“I’m fine. It’s just been a long night. …I think you gave me a headache, all that howling.”
Although he would have been justified to be angry at that remark, all the wolfman had left in his heart was a sort of watered down pity for a woman who- had the circumstances been different- he would have considered a dear friend. “Aubrey,” he said, his voice gentle, “Why didn’t you let me see her? You would have known I wouldn’t have just sat in the duplex quietly, waiting to see what happened. I love her- I couldn’t leave her behind.”
Her hand dropped back to her side, and as she tucked them into the deep pockest of her labcoat, the ring on her left finger was hidden from sight. “Yes, I know. And that’s mostly why you couldn’t be here. If there had been any… problems… we didn’t want you to be distraught, or doing something rash. It was for your own protection, and for the protection of the project.”
“You mean he didn’t want me here.”
Aubrey’s eyes shone with something then, for a moment- a glimmer of anger, perhaps- or maybe understanding. But whatever it was, it had only been a momentary lapse, and then her face returned to its tired, almost defeatist expression, and she shook her head slowly.
“Ambrose, you should know better than that by now. He’s my husband.”
“And Moreau’s not good enough for you.” It was an old argument between them. It hadn’t been lost upon him that she’d used his first name. For the past few years, it had been difficult to keep the boundary of doctor/subject between them. Even with what she’d done to him tonight, there was still a wealth of good that Aubrey had provided for them, and he wouldn’t soon discount her as an ally.
“I’ll not hear any more of it, Ambrose. Really. Now, do you want to see them or not?”
“Of course I do, thank you, Aubrey.”
She nodded, satisfied that his argument had quelled, and took him up the two flights in the elevator to the exam rooms. There, when they stepped out onto the floor, she pointed at the doors and counted them off for him.
“One, two, three, four. Fourth one on the right.” Before she’d finished her count, he was off, bounding into the fourth room and into a sight that simultaneously quenched his thirst for Angelina… and filled him with a joy that was unparalleled in his life.
There, sitting upright in the hospital bed was his wife- covered from the waist down by a sheet. She seemed half an angel, there, with that billowy skirt of white… and in her arms- a cherub. Angelina saw Ambrose in the doorway, and a great, happy smile spread across her genet features.
“Come in, Mr. Maurlias. …You have to meet your daughter.”
It took no more invitation than that. In an instant, Ambrose was on the bed with her, sitting on the edge and looking down at the tiny creature in Angelina’s arms. Her miniscule eyes were shut, framed by a wealth of dark marks that matched her mother’s- and, though it was too soon to tell, the little jutting of her nose seemed to match more the shape of her father’s wolf-snout. But the blondish grey coloring on her face- that was most certainly from her father, as well as were the tiny, folded over wolfen ears. Her hair was dark- nearly as dark as Angelina’s… and the rest of her was hidden by her swaddling. But surely, just by the features on her tiny face- she was a true daughter of both her parents.
“Isn’t she the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life?” Angelina breathed in response to Ambrose’s stunned silence.
“Ohh…” it was an exclamation of joy, more than a word, “I’m afraid to look away from her- in case she disappears. She’s… she’s… so perfect.” He did look up from her, then, however- a startled look of realization to Angelina. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry- I tried to be here, I really did. I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you for this.”
Angelina shook her head and laughed. “Don’t you think I know? I think everyone on the island heard you howling. Don’t worry. I understand. I’m just so glad you’re here, now. And that everything went well.”
“But if I hadn’t left you, you never would have been alone. I should have stayed with you- I shouldn’t have gone out to hunt.”
“Shhhh,” Angie soothed, shaking her head again. “Please don’t worry about it. What matters is that I knew from the moment they came to take me to the labs that you’d follow- and that you’d be here when it was all over. …She’s alive, Ambrose. She’s alive and I’m okay, and we’re parents, now. It’s all over.”
The words meant more to the pair than anyone else could possibly understand. They knew the horrors that had been going on behind these lab walls for the past year- the experiments that had been authorized with their DNA, coming up with monstrous creatures that had been put to death… the treatments that they’d subjected Angelina to, so as to prime her body not to reject the foreign, genetically engineered fetus-not to mention the days of pain and fertility treatments and the inhumanity of it all- had taken a toll on the pair. But what else was there to do when Moreau demanded something of them- but to try to suffer it out, and hope that at the end, a rainbow would come through the rain? This, however, was more than they could have ever hoped: a thing more beautiful and perfect than any other- and they were all okay.
“What should we call her?” Ambrose beamed, and his tail switched from side to side. After that terrible day, it was such a blessing to him that he was able to ask such a wonderful question that he could not contain his glee.
Angelina shifted upwards in the bed, wincing as she did, but careful not to jostle the baby too much as she moved. Ambrose saw now for the first time that the fur on her forehead and the hair she had kept throughout her transformations was slick with sweat, and a bit of blood had dried on her bottom lip- likely where she’d bit down with the exertion of labor. Ambrose could only imagine what she must have gone through- and marveled at the strength of the woman he’d married- not only to undertaken such an ordeal alone- but also to come out on the other side smiling and happy as if it had never happened. Her aches and pains were the furthest thing from her mind- and Ambrose wondered, surely, how she and other women managed it- how they could push themselves from their concerns of themselves to focus on this new, beautiful little life they had created. It was a glow he almost envied, a sort of altruistic perfection that he doubted a man could ever truly possess. In that moment, he loved Angelina more than he’d ever thought was possible.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Angelina said, once she’d adjusted, “and I hope you’re not angry, but I think I’ve already named her.”
“Oh?” Ambrose’s ears perked up.
“Well, I
didn’t think you wanted her named after either of our mothers… and it just came
to me that she looks like an
“Liz?” He said it more to test the word on the air than anything else, but Angelina took it as a sort of gentle protest and laughed.
“Well what did you think we were going to name her, Fifi?”
Ambrose
smiled and shrugged, his tail thumping beneath him. “No, I like
Now it was
Angelina’s turn to shrug- and she adjusted the newly-named babe in her arms as
she did so. “Well, we were…preoccupied
with other things,” she explained. Ambrose could hear in her voice how she
tried to sound nonchalant, and also noticed that even with her shrug and
dismissal, she hugged
With her statement- and surely, even how her eyes struggled to avoid his, Ambrose knew that the fear still existed in his wife’s mind. It was present in his, as well- and so, despite how hard Angelina tried to avoid the thought, Ambrose brought it to the surface.
“Has… Aubrey told you? Can we take her… home?”
“I don’t see why not. She’s the healthiest baby I’ve ever seen.”
The voice
from the doorway got both of their attention- and even baby
“…Thank you, Aubrey. It means so much to us.”
The woman only nodded, accepting the thanks with the same lackluster that she’d used to tell Ambrose that her head ached. She turned to leave, but Ambrose called after her before she could disappear around the corner.
“This must mean good news for you and Moreau. …I’m happy for you, Aubrey. You can’t imagine how wonderful this feels.”
For the longest time, it was as if Aubrey hadn’t heard Ambrose. She hung, teetering on the edge of the doorway, her hands still deep within her labcoat pockets and her eyes on the ground several feet ahead of her. To any onlookers, she seemed just like any doctor who had been too long on a shift and become lost in thought during a lull. Ambrose could not guess what was going on behind those eyes, or why they seemed to search the ground as if to find something they’d lost. In her ‘search’, she connected with his eyes only for a moment- just long enough to give a small sigh- and then, she turned her head away.
“Well,
we’ll see . …Goodnight, you two. …Three.” Then, without another word, Aubrey
was gone- and Ambrose was left with his budding family, torn between
indescribable joy… and puzzlement. He
had no time to muse, however, on the woman’s words- and why she wasn’t happier
about the results of what would be a very personal project- for
“Oh,” Angelina breathed, ecstatic, “she’s a daddy’s girl.” She passed her newborn daughter over to Ambrose, giving him care to support the head. Ambrose had only to look down into those blue eyes- those tiny, innocent blue eyes- that he began to cry.
“Hello, little one. My little soul.”
And then, Ambrose felt his life connect- as if every moment up until this had been but a puzzle piece waiting to be put together, eager for the perfect picture of this child. And in that moment Ambrose felt the presence of perfection and wholeness that he’d never known. And it was right.