5. Morlock Night
On Wednesday, they hunted Morlocks.
At midnight on the dot, Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, Inspector Abberline, and Burton’s friend and fellow Cannibal Club member Richard Monckton Milnes met outside a sluice gate in Shoreditch. Milnes’ lantern bobbed up and down before the gate, which was covered by a rusted iron casting. Dark, foul-smelling water trickled from the gate onto the ground between their feet.
“I was able to get the flow redirected,” said Abberline. “But there’s nothin’ I can do about the smell. Sorry, gents.”
“This had better be good, Dick,” Milnes grumbled. “You and I should be firmly in our cups by now at the Cannibal Club, instead of traipsing through sewage.”
Burton gave his friend a bemused grin, a wasted gesture in the dark. “Did I not promise you an adventure? This should be of great interest for you, given your penchant for the strange.”
“It must be strange indeed,” said Milnes, “to wander about in the sewers after midnight. Very well. Let’s get this business done.”
Abberline was fiddling with the padlock that held the casting secure. “My watch commander assured me this was the correct key,” he said. “If you could hold the lantern steady, please.”
Milnes stopped his lantern from swaying so much, and eventually Abberline had the hasp on the lock open. He pushed the casting open with a steady screech of rusted, wet hinges. “My study of the city’s sewer system confirms this is the quickest route to that underground laboratory we found.”
“Perfect,” said Burton. “The less time we spend down here, the better.”
Milnes handed the lantern to Abberline, who drew his pistol as he stepped up into the opening, followed closely by Burton and then Milnes. Burton was also armed, but he refrained from drawing his weapon as of yet.
They walked through smelly darkness for several minutes.
“Are we almost there?” Milnes whispered, his voice muffled by the silk handkerchief he held tightly over his nose and mouth.
“Not much farther, gents,” Abberline said. Their voices echoed strangely up the large clay pipe, the lantern casting furtive shadows as it swung back and forth in Abberline’s shaky left hand.
Soon, the pipe ended, and the three men found themselves in a high, open chasm. The rumble of rushing water surged somewhere off to their right.
“That should be the underground river we found last time,” said Abberline. “And over here…”
He directed the lantern directly ahead. As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, Burton gasped. The police had collected almost everything into evidence, but the great iron cages still remained, as did the stainless-steel table someone had been using as part of a portable laboratory setup. They were back in the underground lair of the Morlocks.
“Cripes!” said Monckton Milnes. “Is this the place you were telling me about?”
“The same,” said Burton as he looked around. “There’s the laboratory. There’s a pile of tattered garments from the poor retches the Morlocks kept prisoner.”
“And what the bloody hell is that?” said Monckton Milnes, pointing toward the far corner.
Burton and Abberline looked in the direction Monckton Milnes indicated. There, crouching behind a crate, blinded by lantern light, was a Morlock. Its skin was pale white, like a mushroom, and it had long white hair that spilled onto its bare shoulders. Its only clothing was a tattered loincloth, and its beady eyes seemed to glow with their own yellowish green light. It shielded its eyes from the light, but Burton caught a glimpse of a huge mouth filled with crooked teeth. It gave them a wordless grunt, but remained where it was.
“They’re real,” said Burton. “I only caught a glimpse of them before, but this confirms it.”
“But what is it?” said Abberline. “And where did the pitiful creature come from?”
“Yes,” said Monckton Milnes. “What are they?”
“In the simplest terms,” said Burton, “they are us.”
A voice boomed from somewhere, echoing human laughter, and every head turned to look for its source. With the lantern light pointed elsewhere, the Morlock grunted and slunk quickly up a side tunnel and vanished.
“Who’s there?’ said Abberline, raising his pistol. “Show yourself.”
“Do you want to know who I am?” said the voice. “Or do you want to shoot me? You can’t have both.”
“Who is that?” said Burton, scowling into the gloom. “Show yourself!”
“In due time, Captain. In due time. I see you’ve been admiring my Morlocks.”
“Your Morlocks?” said Monckton Milnes. “You created them?”
The voice chuckled. “No. You hold that high honor. I merely brought them home.”
A chill flew up Burton’s spine. “You’re a Time Traveler.”
“Very good, Captain. Keep going.”
“You brought them back here from the future. The year eight hundred and two thousand something.”
“802,701,” the voice corrected. “How much did Herbert tell you about them?”
“Only that he encountered them, and that he believes they are descended from our working classes.”
“Precisely,” said the voice. “That was my assessment as well. They are very clever. While sensitive to sunlight and thoroughly repulsive, they are highly intelligent and adept with machinery. The tunnels you stand in now will be their home roughly eight-hundred thousand years from now.”
“Why did you bring them here to this time?” said Burton. “They don’t belong here.”
“To give them a head start, I suppose. But more than that, think of me as returning their favor. They were of great assistance to me, you see.”
Off to their right, they heard steady, padding footsteps and saw more than a dozen pairs of glowing eyes loom up out of the darkness.
“Your little raid hurt my new friends, but they are patient,” said the voice. “They can wait down here in the dark a veritable eternity.”
“You’re destroying their future,” said Burton as he backed away from the slowly encroaching Morlocks. “This is not their proper time!”
“The fragility of the timestream is no concern of mine, Burton,” said the voice.
“Then how can you possibly control it?”
The voice laughed. “I don’t want to control Time! I know that every moment I change will simply create a new stream, the course of which cannot be charted ahead of time. No, I seek to upend it, to unravel its many threads one by one.”
“Bismillah! But why, man?”
“Because I can! So long, Captain Burton. Enjoy your last few minutes of existence. I’m afraid there will be no laboratory study for you and your colleagues. My Morlocks are quite hungry after you denied them their previous meal.” There was another laugh and hurried footfalls as the mysterious figure left through some hidden exit.
“Damnation!” said Monckton Milnes. “What do we do now?”
“We run,” said Burton.
“They’ve cut off our exit,” said Abberline.
“Then we go the long way round. Hurry!”
The three moved away from the enclosing semicircle of Morlocks and headed toward a familiar tunnel on the other side of the wide-open space, the one they had used days before when they raided the tunnel with the police. But as they reached it, they found more glowing eyes staring at them.
“It’s a bloody invasion!” Abberline said as he swung his lantern around defensively. It did little good; the Morlocks only flinched momentarily before continuing their steady march toward the three men. Abberline aimed his gun at them, his hand shaking.
“That will do us no good, Frederick,” said Burton. “We don’t have enough shots in both our revolvers to take care of this lot. They have us outnumbered.”