Brown’s pulpy action story, Get Doc Quick, has done more to strengthen my belief in the historicity of the Lost DMB Files than any of his other tales save The Austin Job. Certainly I connect at a gut level with the feisty doctor on the run from sinister forces threatening his life as well as that of his young daughter (a little too close to home for comfort).
More significantly, the letters Brown refers to (and quotes from) in this story still exist and have been authenticated by three separate experts. Beyond these letters, Doctor Quincy Quick has disappeared from history. Other than a few obscure references to a veterinarian coping with the tragic loss of his wife, the man never seemed to exist. Yet the dating and handwriting analysis of his letters compels me to believe Quick was and is an historic figure.
The only reasonable explanation for the utter erasure of such a person in such a short passing of time is intentional censure. It seems Doc Quick was targeted for removal from recorded history. But why?
The only satisfying answer is that his testimony demanded such extreme discrediting that the very man himself had to become a figment. Said testimony, preserved in Quick’s letters, also serves to strengthen the historicity of Hell’s Womb, which offers the same explanation for what (if be true) would be the origination of the worst plague to ever curse the human race—the Twitch.
On a final note, I feel it my editorial duty to inform you, dear reader, that Get Doc Quick exists as both a self-contained story and a thread woven into a larger tapestry. Thus Doc’s thrill ride connects closely with the happenings of Hell’s Womb, McCutchen’s Bones as well as Twitch and Die!.
While Hell’s Womb was never published, the other other three stories were. Interestingly, only Get Doc Quick refers to all characters and places without pseudonym (with the exception of J.T. McCutchen). This could explain why Get Doc Quick did so poorly in sales compared to Brown’s other writings, and disappeared from print after two short years.
It’s my personal belief (on a final, final note) Brown crossed a line by publishing the story you have before you, and was thus forced to be more cautious during the next decade before his own mysterious disappearance. But now I’ve gone beyond the realm of academic speculation into personal theorizing. For that I sincerely beg your pardon!
Earnestly,
Professor Jim “Buck” Buckner
Department of Geology; University of Texicas, Austin
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Get Doc Quick
Action"When everything's come out sideways, there ain't nothing but to take what's left and get clear. But when a man ain't got nothing left, what then?" Doctor Quincy Quick is helpless to stop a raging plague from consuming the Company town of Thurber...
