Haggopian and Other Stories

“I could have little to do with her, do you see? If we had led any sort of normal life then she must surely have seen the marks on my body. That would have required an explanation, one I was not willing—indeed, unable—to give! Oh, but I waxed cunning in my addiction, and no one guessed the truth behind the strange disease which was slowly killing me, draining me of my life’s blood.

“A little over a year later, in 1958, when I knew I was on death’s very doorstep, I allowed myself to be talked into undertaking another voyage. My wife loved me deeply still and believed a prolonged trip might do me good. I think that Costas had begun to suspect the truth by then; I even caught him one day in the forbidden room staring curiously at the cyclostome in its tank. His suspicion became even more aroused when I told him that the creature was to go with us. He was against the idea from the start. I argued however that my studies were incomplete; that I was not finished with the hag and that eventually I intended to release the fish at sea. I intended no such thing. In fact, I did not believe I would last the voyage out. From sixteen stone in weight I was down to nine!

“We were anchored off the Great Barrier Reef the night my wife found me with the hagfish. The others were asleep after a birthday party aboard. I had insisted that they all drink and make merry so that I could be sure I would not be disturbed, but my wife had taken very little to drink and I had not noticed. The first thing I knew of it was when I saw her standing at the side of the tank, looking down at me and the…thing! I will always remember her face, the horror and awful knowledge written upon it, and her scream, the way it split the night!

“By the time I got out of the tank she was gone. She had fallen or thrown herself overboard. Her scream had roused the crew and Costas was the first to be up and about. He saw me before I could cover myself. I took three of the men and went out in a little boat to look for my wife. When we got back Costas had finished off the hagfish. He had taken a great hook and gaffed the thing to death. Its head was little more than a bloody pulp, but even in death its suctorial mouth continued to rasp away—at nothing!

“After that, for a whole month, I would have Costas nowhere near me. I do not think he wanted to be near me—I believe he knew that my grief was not solely for my wife!

“Well, that was the end of the first phase, Mr. Belton. I rapidly regained my weight and health, the years fell off my face and body, until I was almost the same man I had been. I say ‘almost’, for of course I could not be exactly the same. For one thing I had lost all my hair—as I have said, the creature had depleted me so thoroughly that I had been on death’s very doorstep—and also, to remind me of the horror, there were the scars on my body and the greater scar on my mind which hurt me still whenever I thought of the look on my wife’s face when last I had seen her.

“During the next year I finished my book, but mentioned nothing of my discoveries during the course of my ‘Manatee Survey’, and nothing of my experiences with the awful fish. I dedicated the book, as you no doubt know, to the memory of my poor wife; but yet another year was to pass before I could get the episode with the hagfish completely out of my system. From then on I could not bear to think back on my terrible obsession.

“It was shortly after I married for the second time that phase two began…

“For some time I had been experiencing a strange pain in my abdomen, between my navel and the bottom of my rib-cage, but had not troubled myself to report it to a doctor. I have an abhorrence of doctors. Within six months of the wedding the pain had disappeared—to be replaced by something far worse!

“Knowing my terror of medical men, my new wife kept my secret, and though we neither of us knew it, that was the worst thing we could have done. Perhaps if I had seen about the thing sooner—

“You see, Mr. Belton, I had developed—yes, an organ! An appendage, a snout-like thing had grown out of my stomach, with a tiny hole at its end like a second navel! Eventually, of course, I was obliged to see a doctor, and after he examined me and told me the worst I swore him—or rather, I paid him—to secrecy. The organ could not be removed, he said, it was part of me. It had its own blood vessels, a major artery and connections with my lungs and stomach. It was not malignant in the sense of a morbid tumour. Other than this he was unable to explain the snout-like thing away. After an exhaustive series of tests, though, he was further able to say that my blood, too, had undergone a change. There seemed to be far too much salt in my system. The doctor told me then that by all rights I ought not to be alive!

Nor did it stop there, Mr. Belton, for soon other changes started to take place—this time in the snout-like organ itself when that tiny navel at its tip began to open up!