The Doctor and the Slime Girl

* The second in what is now the series I named Adventures of Henrick and Theresa.

The idea for this one and their third adventure came right after I finished the draft of the first story, Henrick and the Ghost Maid.

*

01 - Prey and Hunters

Henrick rolled a rubbery ball made from a tropical plant's sap in his fingers, one of several substances he found mentioned in the rare occult texts talking about making ghosts visible to the naked eye. Since the day he was reunited with his beloved ghost maid Theresa he used all his knowledge as an occult researcher to find a way to make her less of a ghost and lead a more normal life as a couple with her.

Cool fingers running through his hair pulled him out of his deep thoughts and he looked up at Theresa standing next to him, or better said at her sexy black and white uniform. She moved a fresh cup of tea closer to him on his desk.

He knew she smiled at him and smiled gently at her. He didn't need to see her face to know her expressions, he just knew what they were. The one time he did see her real and cute face, it was engraved forever in his memory. He took her hands in his and caressed her black fingerless gloves with his thumbs. 'My love.' he whispered. She pulled at one hand and gestured with a sway of her black and white laced maid cap for him to turn his seat towards her. He turned his chair and she straddled him, leaned closer, and kissed him with her cool and invisible but soft and full lips.

He slipped his hands from hers and caressed her thighs while she pressed her body against his. Her short skirt crawled up on her hips and he moved his hands along the length of her thighs and her firm bare behind. She embraced him, slipped her tongue into his mouth, and kissed him with the same passion as in their first night together while grinding her mound against his hips and the growing part of his body inside his trousers. 'I love you so much, Theresa..' he whispered in her mouth and danced his tongue around hers.

Theresa shivered at the touch of his fingers stroking against her sensitive parts between her firm buttocks. Even if she no longer had a warm and real human body, it still reacted in all the same ways and Henrick's fingertips became slick quickly.

The urgent ringing from the doorbell startled the both of them.

'By Jove!' said Henrick and took a deep breath to calm his pounding heart. The doorbell rang again. 'Who on Earth dares to disturb this fortunate time right now?'

Theresa chuckled and stood up, pulled his handkerchief out of his breast pocket, and wiped his fingers. He sighed as he stood up and kissed her quickly. 'It had better be important to interrupt our precious moment together.' he said and she nodded. The bell rang impatiently again while he went down the stairs. 'Yes, yes! I'm coming!'

He opened the door briskly and gazed out into nothing before noticing the young boy standing in front of the door. The boy held up an envelope. 'What's this?'

'A letter from doctor Russell.' the boy said. 'He said it's urgent.'

Henrick read the name on the back of the envelope. 'Louis Russell? What could he want from me?' he said and looked at the boy again, but he'd already left and hurried down the street. 'What's all this about?' he muttered as he went back up the stairs to his study, ripping open the envelope and pulling out the letter.

Theresa waited patiently for him to finish reading and he laughed out loud once when he did. He gave her the letter. 'This is from the biggest non-believer of occult science I know, Louis Russell.' he said and sat down. 'He's a doctor, and I have to admit a very good one, and he's also busy with research in the medical field. I've met him several times at the university during presentations and he constantly dismissed my findings and that of my fellow researchers.' He leaned back in his chair. 'And now he seeks my help because whatever plagues his house has sent his housekeeper and a couple of pest exterminators running. They mentioned me by name as maybe the only one who can catch whatever is there.'

Theresa put the letter on his desk while he shook his head and chuckled, took his hand, and pulled gently on it. He looked up at her. 'You want me to go and take a look?' She nodded. 'Help the one who's been mocking my field of science all this time and now all of a sudden calls for me?' She nodded again and placed her fingers on the letter, then on her chest. He sighed. 'Yeah, I understand from his writing he's pretty desperate right now.' She squeezed his hand once. 'All right, I'll visit him and see if there really is something or not.' He stood up and she kissed and hugged him. He smiled at her and stroked her behind underneath her skirt. 'I'll return as soon as I can, we have something to finish.'

Her cap shook lightly as she giggled and she poked his nose.

***

'Doctor Russell.'

'Doctor van Schwaffle.' greeted the tall and tired looking man at the door in return. He stepped back and gestured inside. 'Please come in.'

Henrick hesitated for a moment as he realised he hadn't seen Louis looking this ragged and unshaven ever before, then stepped inside the front hall of the large house he knew had belonged to the Russell family for generations. The house had remained mostly the same since it was built and most of the land around it still belonged to Louis, although a lot of it had been used to build and rent out houses while the city grew. Louis guided him to a study at the back of the house and offered him tea.

'I can imagine you're wondering why you would be asked to come here by me of all people.' Louis said as he sat down.

Henrick sipped the hot tea while he observed how much older Louis looked since last time they exchanged words at a presentation of the rituals and medicine used by tribes in the far East. His once full black hair looked thin and flat with grey mixed in. His face had also lost its liveliness and was pale and thin. 'It must be something quite extraordinary.'

Louis nodded, lifted his own cup, and put it down again. Despite his looks his eyes still exhibited his defiant strength. 'I still don't believe any of that ghosts and curses mumbo-jumbo but my housekeeper refused to work for me unless I called in a pest exterminator, and now exterminators refuse to come unless I get you to have a look first.'

Henrick nodded. All the times he was called to investigate a possible haunting and found the cause of it had been critters or insects had given him a respectable reputation among those professionals. Not the reputation he aimed for though. He sighed on the inside. 'Well, tell me what happened from the beginning.'

The chair creaked lightly as Louis shifted in it. 'It began a while ago when Sarah, my housekeeper, noticed food went missing. Thinking it was mice she set up a few traps but strangely enough the bait was gone the next morning while no mice were trapped. Sometimes the trap hadn't even sprung. More food began to disappear and Sarah saw something scurry around not just the kitchen and pantry but all over the house on occasion. We set more and different traps but the result was the same.' Louis leaned forward. 'Or actually worse. Some traps had been sprung by an object placed in them like a smoking pipe or a spoon.' Henrick raised his eyebrows and Louis sat back. 'That's when I called in the first exterminator. He set traps again and searched around for the vermin and nests. He found a couple of nests behind loose wall panels and in a corner of the attic, but no mice or rats. Just the macabre remains of a cat's tail.' Louis made a disgusted face, then spread his arms in a gesture of bafflement. 'Yet still something took the bait!' He leaned forward again. 'Then during one of his searches in the attic he was supposedly attacked by something vicious. He claimed it came out of nowhere and punched him all over his body and he said it must have been a ghost. He didn't dare to continue his job and left, so I called in another exterminator. He said he wasn't scared of ghosts but when he was attacked and something slimy tried to strangle him he gave up. He told me no other man would come into my house if I didn't ask you to catch or chase whatever haunts this place first.' Louis sighed. 'I still wouldn't have asked you were it not for something appearing in my experiments chamber and destroying some of my important equipment.'

Henrick sipped his tea as he watched the haggard doctor slump back in his chair and went over the possible apparitions that this thing could be in his mind. 'At first thought it sounds like a poltergeist.'

'Poltergeist?'

'A malicious ghost, even capable of torture and death.'

Louis sighed. 'Doesn't matter what you want to call it as long as you can get rid of it. I can't work like this and I can't move my work to another place just like that.'

'I understand.' Henrick said and pulled the large tool case he had brought closer. From it he produced his spectral goggles and an intricate copper gauge with a dial and coloured fluids in thin glass pipes. 'Can you show me the attic? We'll start from there.'

***

'I don't think even a ghost would want to be found dead here.' Louis said as he opened the low door into the back of the dark attic. The flickering light of the candles Henrick and he held brought many shadows to life between the various smaller and larger chests, old chairs, a table, a knight's incomplete armour, old family paintings, and stacks of books. 'I never realised how much unused junk was up here until the exterminator came. When things are back to normal I'll ask Sarah to get rid of it.' He coughed. 'The dust in the air is enough to suffocate a man.'

Henrick examined the footsteps in the dust on the floor to determine where the exterminators had been and where not. Two places had a very disturbed pattern and he guessed those were where each attack had occurred. He covered his eyes with his elaborate copper goggles and gazed around while switching lenses. 'No current or residual signs of an entity.' He moved up and down the length of the attic while pointing a three pronged short antenna in every direction and reading his gauge. 'Nothing here right now, we'll have to look further.'

They went down floor by floor, inspecting room by room where Louis told Henrick of anything that might have changed since the sightings.

'Doesn't look as terrible from the usual accounts of poltergeists.' Henrick said while they walked down the hallway of the first floor. 'If only a few things have moved that weren't even heavy, it seems a very benign or weak geist. But then there's the strangling attempt that you mentioned.' He halted at a sound coming from behind a door with a bathtub sign on it at the end of the hallway, then quickly checked the gauge and tried the different lenses on his goggles. 'The reading is too faint to be sure but be ready.' he said and approached the door carefully.

Sounds of small bottles falling over and rolling around continued, assuring Henrick that what caused the noises hadn't noticed their presence. He turned the door handle slowly and pulled open the door far enough to see inside through a tiny crack.

An empty clear glass bottle rolled across the floor. Henrick couldn't see where it came from in the little amount of light coming in through the closed blinds of a small window. He widened the crack of the door to get a clearer view. A splash and glass shattering startled him and the door hit him in the face.

He stumbled back while receiving another blow against his chest and a dark shape rushed past him. Louis evaded it barely and cursed as he smashed backwards into a table. 'What was that!?'

Henrick rubbed his aching forehead. 'I couldn't see but it seems we're not talking about a poltergeist here. I need my other equipment.'

Louis gave him a hand and helped him stand up. 'Bring whatever you need as long as you catch what's causing this mess.'

***

'Thank you, my good man.' said Henrick later in the evening when the coach driver unloaded the last of the heavy cases from the buggy, and gave him an extra shilling. 'We'll take care of the rest.'

The driver tipped his hat. 'Much obliged, m'lord.' he said and nodded at the hooded lady in a long dark blue cloak who was part of the fare. She returned a nod but he couldn't make out her face in the shadow of her hood. He climbed up on his seat and glanced at the couple while the gentleman offered his hand to his companion before walking up the steps to the front door. The cloak slid back on her arm and for a moment the driver thought he saw only a fingerless glove moving through the air. The couple climbed the steps and he shook his head. 'I should stop listening to the missus and her gossip of a ghost living in this town.' he muttered and drove off.

Louis let the couple in and Henrick gestured at his cloaked companion. 'Louis, meet Theresa, a special lady I met a while ago on an interesting adventure, and who will convince you that my occult research is valid.'

Louis laughed once. 'She must be very special then if she can convince me of believing in stories made to scare children.' he said and bowed slightly towards her. 'But I'm pleased to meet you at the very least.' Theresa pulled back her hood and Louis froze while he stared at the maid cap floating in mid air.

He looked at Henrick. 'A joke?'

One corner of Henrick's mouth went up. 'No joke.' he said and removed Theresa's cloak. 'She was a maid cursed by a lord out in the country years ago and I met her when I investigated the lord's abandoned mansion.' He smiled softly at her. 'After lifting the curse I was very fortunate to have her return by my side.'

Louis's eyes bulged as he stared at the maid outfit moving closer to Henrick and the gloves holding his arm. 'This is a trick.'

Henrick chuckled and shook his head. 'I assure you she's as real as a ghost can be. You could almost say she's the living proof.'

Louis stared at her uniform. 'Impossible! You're doing this with hidden wires or a frame or something.' he said and pulled up Theresa's short skirt.

***

'All right, I admit that it's hard to refute your claims now.' Louis said while they sat in the front room, and rubbed his painful cheek. 'I wouldn't even have believed the slap of a ghost could be so loud.' He sighed and looked at Theresa. 'My deepest apologies, milady. I did something unforgivable in my ignorance.'

She nodded and Henrick chuckled. 'I'm afraid we both haven't been the best examples of gentlemen when it comes to meeting her for the first time.' he said and told Louis briefly about his exciting investigation at the haunted manor and how he met her, the other cursed inhabitants, and how they lifted the terrible curse together, while skipping the intimate details of the nights Theresa and he shared.

Louis hummed after Henrick finished. 'That's quite extraordinary and fantastical. Why haven't you introduced her yet at a presentation at the university?'

Henrick looked at Theresa. 'I'm afraid it'll cause too much trouble in daily life. Presenting second hand evidence is one thing, an actual ghost within grasp would be a shock as you witnessed yourself. My occult colleagues would overwhelm me day and night with questions and requests to study her, not to mention other researches, and worst of all, charlatans.' Theresa put her hand on his and he smiled gently at her.

Louis stood up, picked up a decanter with Scotch and gestured with it in offer at his guests. 'I can imagine how it'll be, yes.' he said, pouring glasses for Henrick and himself. 'I can even imagine it would make the ridicule against you much worse. Many still won't believe it even in the presence of such evidence as the young lady is, and oppose you with all they have.'

Henrick took the glass from Louis and nodded. 'That's why I've been looking for some way to turn her back into a human being or make her look more like one. No luck so far.'

Louis sat back in his chair. 'I wish I could help you, but I'm afraid it is I who needs your help now.'

Henrick raised his glass. 'To catching the intruder.'

Louis raised his. 'To the hunt.' he said and they drank.

***

'What's the plan?' asked Louis while he watched Henrick unpack his cases and assemble an array of instruments with antennas, coils, glass tubes with different coloured liquids, gauges, and parts with appearances he wouldn't guess in a lifetime what they were meant to do.

Henrick screwed a silver, oblong shaped part onto a copper cylinder with round gauges on either side. 'First, I'll start with measuring any possible extra-dimensional waves and spectral anomalies. That might give a clue on what we're dealing with and how strong it might be. With luck it might even give us the direction in which to look.'

Louis raised an eyebrow. 'Do any of those things really work?'

Henrick grinned a little. 'I'm not actually sure about some of them, but with Theresa's help I tuned a couple of them to react to her presence.' He picked up a square meter with three coils spread out slightly on top and turned it towards her.

Louis watched the needle swing into her direction. 'Well I'll be..'

'Because I can only verify the workings with Theresa I can only rely on the various theories for detecting other occult presences until I find them.'

'I understand. Much like our medical research, same principle, different bugs.' Theresa tilted her head and Louis cleared his throat. 'Present company excluded of course!'

***

Henrick wanted to examine the bathroom where they encountered the apparition first and searched for any remaining evidence. He stared into the partially clogged drain of the bathtub with his goggles and probed it with a rod attached to a slow ticking device. 'Nothing here. I wonder what it was doing in here in the first place anyway.'

Louis returned the scattered items on the floor and in the tub to their rightful place. 'Probably wanted to wash up after all that dust in the attic.'

The rest of the floor didn't reveal any more clues and the three went up to the attic to begin the search anew. Henrick moved towards the other side of the attic while Theresa and Louis waited at the door holding his instruments. He barely reached the end when a blurry large shape knocked over a table and chair as it shot out from underneath them.

With a shout he backed off and evaded it as it rushed past him. The small lantern he'd held swung violently from the cord attached to his wrist and obstructed his sight until he held it still. 'Where'd it go!?'

Theresa and Louis stood at alert and Louis pointed at several cases piled together. 'I think it's hiding back there!'

Henrick moved cautiously closer while Louis approached from the other side. 'Do you get any readings?'

Louis took a look at the various gauges without making sense of them. 'Nothing seems to have changed on these.'

Henrick hummed. 'It doesn't seem to be dangerous then. It fled instead of attacking me.' he said and moved up close to the pile. It shifted in the shadows and one case scraped a little to the side. 'Don't be afraid, little visitor, we're friendly.' Other items shifted as something pushed against them and Henrick tried to shine more light towards the pile.

A hit against his feet tumbled him forwards in between the cases and a cold and slippery object wrapped around his throat and covered his face.

He struggled and clutched at his face to pull the layer of goo away before it could suffocate him but it only released him when Louis and Theresa pulled him out of the pile. Items close to them were thrown aside and the attacker rushed through the attic doorway and rumbled down the stairs. Henrick coughed and wheezed trying to breath normal again when more noise on the other side of the attic sounded. Another dark shape rushed through the stored items, knocked over the armour with a loud crash, and disappeared through the doorway as well.