Do Doctor Haversham's Cures Kill?

     Officer Flatwood continues the story. "The guy was well dressed and having trouble breathing. I didn't think he was anything like a convenience store robber, so I told Dunn to stash his gun away.

     "Anyway, as we got closer he looked up at us. I swear to God the guy was sweating like he just ran a marathon. His face was all pale and drawn. He didn't answer my question right away, so I asked again if he was going to be okay, and did he need our help? He nodded, and then some black, tar-like stuff shot out of his nose and splattered down the front of his suit. That's when Officer Dunn made the call for an ambulance."

     The man on his knees, later identified as banker Philip Mills, coughed up a pool of the black substance and slowly got to his feet. His eyes were glazed and the black stuff began dribbling out of his ears.

     "Then he started acting really weird," continues Flatwood. He staggered about a little and repeated a strange chant. It was kind of like, 'Eebithikon the worm! Rot from the heavens! The time for death is near!' It was just that, over and over. We still haven't been able to figure out what he was talking about."

     "I went for my gun again," interjects Dunn. "He finally stood still again and just wailed. All the while this black stuff comes seeping out every orifice, and little jets of it burst out of the skin on his face and hands. That's when we heard the ambulance siren, but by then it was too late."

     "All of a sudden," recalls Flatwood. "he opened his mouth like he had some more gibberish to spout, but nothing but black goo came out. And then---" Flatwood pauses nervously, "then his chest just sort of burst open. Made a horrible cracking sound as it split right up the middle. He fell flat on his back, stone dead."

     Ambulance paramedics confirmed the officers' alert diagnosis. Mills was, indeed, dead. After seeing three similar deaths within a one-year period, Nanson Coroner Bert Williams has had enough.

     "No one is getting any closer to solving this mystery," he says. "All we know is that in each of these cases the interior organs have rapidly mutated into this black gooey substance which then solidifies as a chitinous shell. That's all I can tell you. I think the answer to this problem can't necessarily be solved in a laboratory. We need to find out how this thing starts."

     Through extensive research, the Nanson Police Department has discovered that all three victims, Michael Alt, Arlene Connors and Philip Mills, had seen Dr. Danforth Haversham for cures for various ailments.

     "That's the only explanation," says Officer Flatwood. "Look at your victims. You've got a banker, an elderly woman and a kid. The only connection among the three is that they all paid a visit to Haversham. We were prepared stick a search warrant on him. But when we asked the guy about the deaths, he just looked at us like we were nuts. He let us search the whole place without a warrant. I tell you, the closest thing to actual medicine that we could find was aspirin. Everything else was herbs and minerals and stuff. I still think he must have something to do with it, though."

     Regardless, a list of Haversham's cupboard contents was sent to Georg von Podebrad Medical Center for analysis. But, as expected, its expert staff could find no way that those items could have resulted in the weird deaths.

     I went to speak with Dr. Haversham last week about the police department's allegations. The man's tiny eyes flashed behind his spectacles.

     "I am deeply hurt by their words," he says of the police. "They are harming my business, of course, but that will recover. Why would a doctor kill his own patients? That makes no sense. People fear what they do not understand. They find it easy to point fingers."

     Easy, indeed. Many of the residents of Nanson share the suspicion that Haversham is behind the deaths, and have stopped taking the medications that he has concocted for them. Meanwhile, the police continue their investigation. And whether or not Dr. Haversham is the cornerstone of these hideous deaths, his brand of non-traditional medicine is taking a beating.