Detective Eric Finch’s Key Excerpts Taken from
Doctor Delia Anne Surridge’s Diary

Alan Moore

Quick-Jump

Page numbers appear in blue: 80, 81, 82, 83, 84

[80] 30 April 1993

I arrived at Larkhill this morning.  My driver was a man named Gosling.  He didn’t say a word to me all the way from Andover.

God, this place is miserable.

I met Commander Prothero, who I’m afraid I find rather vulgar and unpleasant.  He promised to show me my research stock once I’d settled in, and did so this afternoon.

They’re a poor bunch.  Prothero tells me that their habits are filthy.  None of them will be any use to me if I don’t get to work on them soon.

23 May 1993

Prothero has picked the subjects…four dozen of them.  And I’ve got to inspect them this afternoon.  They’re so weak and pathetic you find yourself hating them.

They don’t fight or struggle against death.  They just stare at you with weak eyes.  They make me want to be sick, physically.  They’re hardly human.

5 June 1993

Well, we did it.  All four dozen of them got a shot of Batch 5, which is the pituarin/pinearin mixture.  It’s too early for any results yet, really.

That creepy Padre, Tony Lilliman, insisted on being there while it was done to lend spiritual support.  He rubs his hands together and stares at my chest.  I hate him.

9 June 1993

Of the original four dozen, over seventy-five percent are now dead.  Out of the ten that are now left, I doubt that three will survive the night.

One of the blacks, Donald Crane, is in particularly bad condition.  He is delirious all the time, and imagines he is in Trenchtown, Jamaica.  He has started to develop four extra nipples, and his generative organs have atrophied.

Strangely, there are no clear patterns emerging as to which group succumbs quickest.  If anything, the women are slightly more resistant than the men.  Especially the black women.

Rita Boyd, the lesbian, died at tea-time.  During the autopsy we found four tiny vestigial fingers forming within the calf of her leg.

[81] 18 June 1993

Only five left now.  Two men and three women, which tends to contradict my entry of the 9th of June.  We’ve housed them in individual cubicles at the medical block.

The man in room 5 is a really fascinating case.  Physically, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with him.  No cellular anomalies, nothing.  But he’s quite insane.  Batch 5 seems to have brought on some kind of psychotic breakdown.

Strangely, he’s developed one of those curious side effects which seem to afflict certain categories of schizophrenic: his personality has become magnetic.  He says very little…but there’s something about the way he looks at you.

He looked at me today as if I were some sort of insect.  He looked at me as if he felt sorry for me.

His face is very ugly.  I’ve been thinking about it all evening.

I think his behaviour patterns are what interest me.  They’re utterly irrational, but they seem to have a certain deranged logic underscoring them.

I’m worried that someone in the party might try a closure order on the project before I have a chance to see how it develops.  Prothero said as much this morning.  We’ll see.

12 July 1993

Patel, the Asain in cubicle three, died today.  His liver had ceased functioning.  Haven’t had a chance to open him up and find out why.  I’ve been spending a lot of time studying room 5 again, I’m afraid.

I’m glad we let him have a go at the gardening project.  Prothero was reluctant at first.  I suppose its because with the food shortage, these places have to be self-supporting.  He’s delighted now, the fat toad.  Room five’s turned out to be a genius at gardening.  He’s sorted out the whitefly and it looks like being a good yield.

7 August 1993

The crop production has almost doubled.  Prother’s letting room five order some garden supplies and he’s even given him a patch to grow flowers on.  He grows roses.  Beautiful roses.

The woman in room one died this morning.  The skin on her face and neck was like polythene.

16 September 1993

Garden doesn’t require much work this time of year.  Room five wants to help with the decorating in the staff quarters.

Prothero will take some persuading.  He’s still a little disturbed by what five did with the ammonia-based fertiliser that he ordered.  [82] It’s arranged in piles around his cell.  It makes a kind of geometric shape.  He sits motionless for hours in the centre of it.  The ammonia stench is terrible.

29 September 1993

Prothero on my back about five’s grease solvent.  He orders fourteen gallons of it and then swipes half to decorate his cell.  Prothero picks his nose.

The patterns of solvent and fertiliser on the floor of five’s cubicle are becoming so intricate.  I’ve got to follow this obsession to the end.  It might be a new syndrome.

5 November 1993

His cubicle is covered with so much junk.  The ammonia smells terrible and there’s a sort of swimming pool smell too.  Lord knows where that comes from.

I’m sure that in his mind all this makes perfect sense.  I’m sure of it.

24 December 1993

He looked at  No, can’t write about it yet.  Can’t hold

Date unknown

I was in the mess.  It was about half past ten when we heard the first explosion.  We ran to the door to see.  Luckily, I was right at the back.  The ones at the front ran straight into the gas.  It was horrible.

A few of us went out through the rear door to avoid the gas.  You could hear people screaming everywhere.  Men screaming.  I hate that.  I hate the sound of men screaming.

[83] In the centre of the camp, everything was on fire.  While we were trying to work out what was going on, the ovens exploded.  I ran, but everyone was running, and all in different directions.  It was horrible.

It was the man in room five, who had got out, who had got away, he blew it up, he killed…

I couldn’t have known…the ammonia.  The grease solvent and all the other stuff.  He’d been making things with them.  Mustard gas and napalm.

And in the yard, I saw him.  He had the flames behind him.  He was naked…

He looked at me.  As if I were an insect.  Oh, God.  As if I were something mounted on a slide.  He looked at me.

[84] He’s gone.  The camp is being closed.  Nobody is talking about it.  Nobody knows where he’s gone.

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