Endurance - Jack Kilborn [82]
And yet, she’d done it without even hesitating.
Because they have my family.
It put things into perspective. In a big way.
If I’m ready to throw out my ideals and morals for the people I love, why did I spend so much of my life helping strangers?
For the first time ever, she understood why Letti was so mad at her for missing her husband’s funeral. The realization was like a splash of ice water in the face.
I blew it. I’m so sorry, Letti. I’ll make it up to you. I swear I will.
Exiting the Grover Cleveland room, she crept quietly down the hallway and moved one door over to Lyndon B. Johnson.
Never did care for LBJ. Let’s see if anyone is home.
She put her hand on the knob, and found it to be unlocked. Moments ago she’d double-checked the Sheriff’s Colt revolver, and made sure there were two bullets left, one under the hammer. Florence held it at her side and went into the room fast, putting both hands on the gun so it couldn’t be knocked away.
There wasn’t a bed. No desk or dresser, either. The room had an eerie, pink glow to it, coming from three china cabinets along the rear wall.
Florence had seen some things in her day. Some terrible things.
This was one of the worst.
Back when she was a child, a travelling carnival came to town. Her father paid a nickel extra so they could get into the freakshow tent. Florence cringed at the sight of deformed people, some of them real, some fake. A human torso. A woman with bird feathers. An ape man. A fellow who stuck skewers through his cheek and tongue. A woman who ate glass. But the thing that stood out the most in her juvenile brain—the thing that scared her more than anything else—was a jar.
“It’s a pickled punk,” her father had said.
Florence later learned that was a carny term for a baby with birth defects, preserved in formaldehyde. That particular child had four legs and a harelip.
Florence now faced an entire wall of deformed babies in jars, lit from behind. Traces of blood in the preservation fluid made the jars give off a soft, red glow.
My God. There are dozens of them.
Babies with multiple limbs. Babies with no limbs. Some had organs on the outside. Some had feet where the arms should be. Some had flippers like seals. Some were completely covered in fine hair. Some were tiny, their umbilical cords still attached, no more than embryos. Others filled their jars completely, their malformed little bodies crammed inside.
There were misshapen heads, distended bellies, twisted spines, shrunken limbs. Every way the human genome could be perverted was on display.
There were even a few that looked perfectly healthy.
Before Florence tore her eyes away, she noticed a commonality among them all. The overwhelming majority were females. Each jar had a handwritten label, listing names and birthdays.
They’re all named after First Ladies.
You poor, poor things.
Florence wondered how many of them died naturally and how many were killed on purpose. She brushed a tear from her eye, then left the room quietly, as if she might disturb them.
After taking a moment to compose herself, Florence pressed onward. The Warren G. Harding bedroom was next. Again, the door was open. Florence went in fast, entering a dark room. She paused, listening.
Snoring. Loud snoring.
Florence felt for the light switch along the wall, flipping it on.
“Ma?”
The man on the bed was massive. His head—double normal size—looked eerily similar to the Elephant Man’s from that black and white movie, his forehead bulging out in large bumps, his cheekbones uneven and making his mouth crooked. His torso and legs were also malformed, twisted and lumpy, as round as tree trunks.
Proteus Syndrome, Florence knew. She’d seen it in South Africa. His body won’t stop growing.
But unlike gigantism, where a person grew in relative proportion, Proteus meant that different parts grew at different speeds. The overall effect was like making a figure out of clay, then squeezing some parts and adding