Chapter 127: Stop [3]
“Did you say Harry the Butcher?”
That bastard bolted the moment we called for him. He did not ask a thing and did not look back. Apparently, medical school taught more than just anatomy. Why the hell was he so fast? What was he, a track athlete?
“Haah… haaah…”
Even when I was completely out of breath, I kept running. Surprisingly, I was the fastest in this group. Which made no sense. Me, of all people? I had never been athletic, not even in my past life. Why was everyone else so slow?
“Huff… huff…”
Honestly, this whole group was kind of terrifying. But they were doctors, so maybe this was not too surprising. Still… Robert Liston? Shouldn’t he be faster than this?
“What are you looking at?”
“No, nothing.”
I mean, was he just too heavy to run fast? Fine, let’s say that was the case. But what about the rest of them?
“Huff… Help me! I’m dying!”
Just as I was pondering that, a scream rang out. But it was not Harry’s. Turns out the reason he had been sprinting so hard was not natural speed. It was fear. He probably thought we were going to kill him. And to be fair, we had not even shown our faces yet. What kind of life must he have lived to run for his life just because someone yelled, “Come out!”
“Pyeong!”
“Huh?”
No matter how you looked at it, this guy had clearly lived a shady life. First off, what kind of doctor ended up with a nickname like the Butcher? And today? He was apparently about to slice off someone’s testicles. How did I know? I swore I saw someone with a very red lower body through the broken window earlier…
“MOVE!”
I heard a shout from behind. Turning around, I saw our great hope, Robert Liston, picking up a rock from the side of the road. And not just a rock, but a huge one. One of those stones that made you wonder how it even ended up there. Was it handmade? Regardless, strength and accuracy did not always go together, but I knew one thing for sure. If that thing hit me, I was done for. I immediately dove to the side… and stepped straight into a pile of dung.
Splat.
I did not even care.
Thud!
Yup. The rock flew. Nailed him. Robert Liston, are you sure you did not miss your calling as a baseball pitcher?
“Urrgh…”
Still, even after getting nailed square in the back, Harry the Butcher kept crawling. He must have truly believed he would die if he was caught. But come on, man. We were here to stop you from taking off someone’s balls, not to end your life.
“Wow. Look at him go.”
The rest of us finally caught up and circled around Harry, who was now flailing in the dirt like a dying fish. Naturally, Liston was at the front.
“You…”
Harry lifted his head slowly, as if the voice were familiar. Then he looked at Liston, really looked at him, and started making strange choking noises.
“Hrrgh… ughh…”
“Did I hit him too hard?”
Even to someone without medical training, the guy looked out of it. But Liston, being a doctor and all, just grabbed Harry by the hair and started shaking his head violently. Not helpful, obviously.
“You, you bastard! You should have said your name! I, I thought—”
“If you had lived like a proper doctor, maybe you wouldn’t have run like this.”
“You… you—!”
And then Harry just… fainted. I had a feeling I knew what he wanted to say. Probably something like, “I thought I was going to die!”
And to be fair, this was Robert Liston we were talking about. No one in London had killed more people on the operating table than him. Sure, he had saved a lot of lives too… but this was a man whose surgeries had a near fifty percent mortality rate. Russian roulette had better odds.
“Did he faint just from seeing your face?”
Liston looked down at Harry, now completely unconscious, then called out to the coachman, who was finally catching up.
“Let’s load him up.”
“Uh, yes, Professor. To the dissection room, then?”
“No, no! Don’t say something like that out loud! People will misunderstand!”
Liston actually looked flustered for once. Frankly, though, I would not have been surprised if he had taken bodies from the street. He did not exactly scream “law-abiding citizen.” The fact that he had not been hanged yet was a miracle.
“Then where to?”
“That hospital over there. We’ve run a good distance already.”
So, we shoved Harry into the carriage and walked alongside it. The neighborhood was not exactly bustling with traffic. Onlookers kept their distance, mostly because Liston had the air of someone who could kill with a glance. The coachman was not much better: quiet, stoic, and armed. He had even shown off his pistol. Which should have gotten him arrested, but somehow did not. I figured there was some deal behind the scenes. Liston had connections with the police, after all.
Even though we had run a good stretch, we were still in the same general area. Before long, we arrived at Harry’s so-called “treatment center.”
“Ugh…”
“What is this place?”
“Smells like wet dog…”
You would think after living in the nineteenth century for a while, I would be immune to smells. And sure, I had toughened up a bit. Spending time in anatomy labs did that. But this? This was next level. Even the locals looked nauseated. The walls were lined with weird herbs and what looked like animal guts.
This guy’s not a doctor. He’s a damn witch.
Seriously, it made you understand why the Middle Ages had witch hunts. Just walking into this place made you expect demons. Maybe Harry was not just a quack. Maybe he was an actual Satanist.
“Put him down over there.”
“Y-yes.”
Even with the stink in the air, Liston hauled Harry in by himself and dumped him onto what passed for a hospital bed.
A board. With some cloth. Stuffed with what? Sand? Rags? Probably both. It looked like it would give even a healthy person bedsores.
And then there was the color. It was stained with yellow, red, and other unidentifiable fluids. I had seen worse, but every time I did, it still triggered that primal urge to gag.
“Hey.”
Of course, while I was lost in thought, Liston calmly raised his massive hand and slapped Harry awake. If he had added just a bit more force, the guy would have died then and there.
“Ugh…”
“You. Did you castrate that patient over there?”
Liston snarled, pointing with his chin at another man lying on a nearby cot, his lower half drenched in red.
“Castration! It’s a treatment for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia! Oh, wait, don’t hit me! Please! I’m just following Dr. Ron’s… Ron! Where is he? My soulmate!”
“Ron’s dead.”
“…What?”
At Liston’s words, a wave of fear passed over Harry’s face. Understandable. Liston’s tone made it sound like he had killed Ron. Even I, who knew Ron had died of illness, was spooked.
“Please, please spare me.”
“What? He died at home.”
“Still… please…”
“He was just old.”
“But he wasn’t even fifty!”
“How many people live past fifty, huh?”
“…Good point.”
Harry nodded, pale and trembling. Liston turned to the patient he had pointed to earlier.
“So yeah. Had his balls removed. Don’t look at me like that. History will prove me right. Soon, every old man in London will be lining up to lose their testicles.”
“You’re turning them all into eunuchs?!”
“Maybe! But I’m convinced. Dr. Ron cracked the code. He freed mankind from the grip of an enlarged prostate. Think about it. Guys with testicular injuries don’t have urinary issues.”
“…Hmm.”
Liston turned toward me, eyes gleaming. Like he had just been convinced by his own twisted logic.
This… this could not be happening.
If Liston started chopping off testicles with the same enthusiasm he applied to limbs… London would be a eunuch empire by the end of the year.
“Professor, no, Brother. Let me develop a new surgical method. Just… please stop this madness.”