The Specimen Rack

Marvel - Critter

Record Documentation by Dr. Warren, Q. Pittleford, Collector's Gallery

Journal Book 15, Entry who gives a toss, Dr. Warren Q. Pittleford, Ph.D

Day 229, date March 23, 1976.

"Blast this Siberian snow hell, blast the damn dare, and blast this bloody mountain with it's impossible paths. May Arthur eat his heart out, that money will be mine. I've been out here for well over a year and still have gathered broken pieces of information, myths, possible sightings and rumors. Nothing solid, no proof of existence, simply hearsay. It's maddening beyond belief, a least one good thing to report is my Russian has improved greatly. I've been able to understand the stories told to me, my notes have no longer become sparce. I've found myself thinking, in my solitude now that once again another travel aid needs to be replaced, about what began this dare, this fruitless adventure as time clicks by on this horrendously "insolated" train, the last one to the next destination. Maybe I'll get lucky this time, mm, I always say that don't I? Might as well write everything down, again.

Sitting by the fire with Arthur and Janice, drinking scotch and joking around, we thought it best to begin a game. Well, it was more Janice's suggestion and in our inebriated state we agreed. Always a horrible idea with Janice, her mind is cruel and the dares she thinks of can be absolutely barbaric. We were visiting Arthur's brother-in-law Rodion Vinogradov in his home in Moscow. Arthur's wife Ksenia was heavily pregnant with their third baby, and for some reason the idiots thought it they could travel from The States to Russia and her not to go into labor. What do you expect with an over eighth month pregnant woman? Sometimes I wonder how I've managed to create friendships with such fools. She gave birth the same day, and Arthur insisted we drink in celebration, I argued he should've stayed with his better half but of course in typical Arthur fashion, the stubborn bastard disagreed. A shame I'm still not surprised he'd pick a drink over his own lover and child. Our friendship started out built on pity and now, nothing has changed. I'm fond of him, yes, but not of his demons. I mentioned as such when we were a few rounds into the game of sharing scary stories and the possibility of having to tell truths or dares, my two companions stared at me and simply laughed as if I'd said the funniest thing they'd ever heard. It was Janice that spoke up first, insisting that I take another shot to prepare for what she was going to suggest, I could feel my eyes physically rotating in my skull with her dramatic antics, but I wouldn't say no to another shot of Janice's stash.

"You want to talk about demons, you should hear what the people whisper about in the mountains in Siberia. Arthur was telling me about it the other day, a creature with sentient hair and the most beastly of attitudes. It looks like a wild woman, raised in the very woods and mountains it stalks. It moves like a spider, crawling about and hunting, a predator that hunts in the shadows and when it wants to feed, anything is fair game. Isn't that how some of it goes, Arthur?" Janice was fond of her tall tales, enjoying the good gossip, especially about stories she can use to scare her nieces when they misbehave. It sounded so silly, a wild woman that moves like a spider and hunts in the shadows? Most likely some poor fool with a sickness in the head and has been left to their own devices, I have to remind myself that people love making stories out of nothing just for entertainment. Arthur just grinned when she spoke, confirming my thoughts when he shrugged and said the story started when a woman had been pulled out from a pack of wolfs attacking her. Now that sounded believable, I decided I would humor this tale with my attention, hopefully by the end of Arthur's explanation Janice will have forgotten about whatever suggestion she was brewing in that mind of hers.

"You're not far off, but your 'it' is a 'she'. No one ever knew her name, she was a young woman who was heard screaming while a pack of hunters were coming back from hunting deer and heard her cries. They ran to help her and saw a pack of wolfs just tearing into her while she tried to fight them off. Immediately the hunters started firing and scared off the wolfs, one of the men ran to the woman and saw she was incredibly torn up and bleeding profusely. Her clothes looked like ribbons and her skin was shredded, bone was showing in some areas. They tried to take her back to wherever they set up camp as gently as they could after patching her up to the best of their abilities. She had passed out, from blood loss one would assume, or shock would be a good guess as well. They arrived home to a village that was so small, no one knew the name of it, or perhaps they didn't bother to remember. Taking her to the closest healer's (or whatever was close enough), they tried to save her by prayer, wrapping her wounds, stitching and binding with fishing thread. With how damaged her body was, she wouldn't wake up for several days. To many folks' surprises, she began healing rather quickly. Her frail, ailing body that was fighting to heal itself covered in deep, large wounds that at times looked as if they were refusing to even attempt to get better until suddenly, her body began to fill with muscle, bulking in both height and mass, broken bones mending, contusions alleviating from horrid gashes to small scars, her thin, dark brown hair began to thicken on her head, eyebrows, and eyelashes, her hair growing longer at a rapid rate, her canines forming into sharp fangs, along with her nails. All things completely absurd, but what the kicker was the strange blue tone that filled amongst her gums in her mouth and cheeks, filling in the roots and pooling in the ends of her teeth, nails, underneath her eyelids, covering her entire tongue, and the under part of her hair that was against her back. When her eyelids were opened, her once soft, green eyes had turned into a bright blue, her pupils had a white ring around them, and the inside was black. The healer thought it was the sign of a curse, a curse if left in the village would bring nothing but suffering. It was chosen that her life would be spared but she'd be left somewhere to heal on her own, somewhere far away from them. The hunters that had once saved her, returned to the very woods in the mountains in which they had rescued her, they searched until they found a secluded cave that was deep enough to protect from the harsh snow that Siberia is notorious for and left her on the ground with some nonperishable rations before going on their way.