Finally, I give you "Bleeding Rose", my latest retelling of the Re-Animator movie. Only this time, Daniel Cain does not exist PERIOD. As the story goes, Herbert West is at the top of his class at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham. He is highly intelligent...but a little strange, even to Megan Halsey, the beautiful daughter of the dean and a fellow medical student, who is also engaged to the prominent Dr. Carl Hill, Herbert's most hated rival. So when the mysterious Herbert West arrives on campus, she finds herself fascinated by his brilliance, bristled by his arrogance...and allured by his charms. But then she becomes involved in his freakish experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue. The consequences threaten everything, but Meg can't deny the ice-cold, intellectual man inflames her soul. Herbert does not have time for women and longs to avoid any form of physical and emotional attachment at all costs, yet her relentless temper and beauty entices him. The classic tale of horror is retold with intense passion.
Disclaimer: I own absolutely NONE of Re-Animator, just making this newest retelling of mine for fun. :) And the chapters are named after songs by Evanescence, and their content inspired by parts of the same songs.
Prologue
My Last Breath
Since last night, Herbert West had been working on this latest amalgamation of the re-agent he and Dr. Gruber had been at work on all this time, for months at most. And Dr. Gruber, the man who had been the one main figure in his life since he abandoned his old life in Arkham, Massachusetts, had allowed him to live with him in the last few years of his education, even allowing him to use the basement lab of his own house for their "great work", far away from perusing eyes. This was the secret to re-animation, to bring back to life dead tissue. This had been founded nine months ago with what Hans had already done before him on a dead canine found, and the results were anticipated but unwanted, and Herbert had taken matters into his own hands to synthesize and extend.
Tonight his professor would be giving his lecture at the seminar for newcomers to the University of Zurich. The only thing Herbert looked forward to was Gruber's speech about the theory of conquering death. The world was not ready for a demonstration of the still-unknown re-agent until the subject was docile as it should be. Violence was intolerable. Herbert wanted nothing more than to listen to Gruber's presentation and then leave with him right away so they could continue working, but his nurse colleague had insisted they stay for the reception party afterwards. He sneered at the idea of attending wasteful events like that as much as he hated women like her with immense passion, another good reason he planned to never be with any woman, put his career above everything else, and despite his teacher's attempts to get him to go out and find a girlfriend. Women just were despicable; they were good at playing men off to get what they wanted. Dr. Hans Gruber was the best teacher he ever had and only friend while he was at the University of Zurich, one of the most prestigious institutes of medicine in Europe. He was better than nobody at all, but then again, Crawford had been better than nobody at all when they were children. Even at school, both back in Arkham and here in Switzerland, he would always get the same things said about him, and they weren't nice either.
They were running short of time. They had been working on the notes and discussing further developments when they both realized they'd lost track of time and hurried off to the school. And as a consequence, the woman he didn't want to see greeted them both at the door. "Dr. Gruber!" she exclaimed, running over to him and throwing her arms around him in the most unprofessional manner. It disgusted Herbert because they were about to enter the auditorium. "Was is passiert?" She'd asked him what happened in German, limited as Herbert's was even though he was learning.
"Please, Marg," Gruber said with a laugh, "my student is still learning, so please, English around him. We just got hung up on some personal business that we lost track of the time." Marg Wyss raised and eyebrow at him though she was still smiling before her attention shifted to Herbert.
"Hooking him up, I pray?"
Herbert's nerves rattled when she assumed Gruber was trying to set him up with a girl. He glared at her, which she returned eventually. "Excuse me, but why would he take the time to introduce me to a female I have no interest in? I thought you knew him better than that, Nurse Wyss," he said coldly.
She huffed and drew back from Dr. Gruber. "Well, Hans, what were you thinking taking on this arrogant thing as your apprentice?" she said angrily, hands on her hips, her pie face red with humiliation. But Gruber only laughed and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Marg, he just doesn't find the opposite sex fascinating as he does with the boundaries of life and death," he said heartily, abandoning her side then and rejoining Herbert. "Now, if you don't mind, dear, I'm going to take my boy in so we can begin." Saved by the bells. Herbert breathed a sigh of relief and walked in with everyone else to begin. He took his seat in the front row so he could see his teacher better and so Hans could see him giving all the support he needed. And when he did, Herbert found himself beside a few empty chairs which gave him a splash of relief that he would be sitting alone – until the one directly beside him was soon occupied.
The man looked somewhere between late forties to early fifties, slightly larger in frame than Herbert's shorter, slimmer body. His jaw was angular and almost sharp, his features and air overall insisted he was given respect and attention when it was clear he didn't actually deserve it. Herbert sensed this man was trouble the moment he laid his eyes on him. He felt the stranger's eyes linger on him vehemently – unnerving as it was, as though the man knew who he was – but Herbert kept his own on the podium as applause roared up when the respected and renowned Dr. Hans Gruber came to stand and smile.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for coming tonight and giving me the opportunity to speak with the upcoming bright young minds from both America and Europe alike. Before we begin, I would love to ask you all one thing, as irrational as it may sound to all of you: would you love nothing more than to vanquish death once and for all?"
His question stirred the audience. Herbert smiled softly to himself that he had their attention for what he had to say, and relished the moment for it. But then it was ruined when the man beside him muttered to himself, "Hans, you fool. You really think so?" Herbert unwillingly turned his attention from his idol and mentor to the older "gentleman" beside him.
"I beg to differ, sir, but he's correct. Dr. Gruber believes anything is possible. Who are you to doubt his words of wisdom?" He tried his best to keep his voice as low as possible so no one heard the conversation, also trying his best to listen to Hans' words.
"– irreversible, after the four minute limit, but it might be possible to extend the time...or perhaps overcome indefinitely –"
"The name is Dr. Carl Hill, young man," the older man said, his face bearing a smirk not meant to be polite by any means, bordering on hypnotic to the point of intimidation. He wanted nothing more than to crawl away from him, but that would mean getting kicked out for interruption. "Leading brain surgeon of New England, and an old friend and colleague of your teacher up there." He nodded to Dr. Gruber in the front, whom Herbert found it in him to turn his attention back to. "Perhaps introductions are best for later," the mysterious, arrogant Dr. Hill suggested when he noticed Herbert was no longer willing to speak to him, and he wasn't very pleased at being disrespected. Why should Herbert care about how he felt, even if he was an "acquaintance" of Gruber's?
"Perhaps," was all Herbert answered for the rest of the evening.
By the end of the seminar, Dr. Gruber was applauded, but to Herbert himself, it was he who offered the most support for his teacher – beside him, Carl Hill clapped, too, but let's call his manner apathy – although when the lights turned on and showed all who praised him, Gruber's eyes landed on the front where he saw Herbert, his best pupil and assistant in the classroom, and smiled at him with the upmost pride...until his attention switched to WHO was beside him. His wizened face fell just like that.
Now Herbert had the feeling the rest of tonight was going to be interesting.
"Carl," Hans said curtly as he stood before them just as everyone was standing and leaving for the reception. "I was beginning to think that you decided to play ungracious and not attend."
Hill's smile faded. "Well, I'm here. And as much as I hate to put the jovial mood of tonight down, I saw your...theories have not improved by the slightest. Still chasing the foolish idea of the brain surviving unlimited after death –"
"If you're here to mock me some more," Gruber interrupted angrily, "I suggest you could have picked a better time during your stay here after tonight." He looked to Herbert. "Herbert, my boy, I see you've met Dr. Carl Hill." He tried his best to remain polite and failed. How did he and Hill know each other anyways?
Herbert regarded the other doctor like a rat who wasn't welcome into his house. "We have." The look Hill gave him held uncontrollable fire in his eyes, meeting their match at once.
"Herbert is like the son I lost so long ago," Gruber said, putting both his hands on both of Herbert's shoulders and drawing him closer. The act and feel made Herbert somewhat uncomfortable in front of this loathsome man. "He's exceeded far better than any other student I've taught, and I have great confidence in him, Carl, unlike I do with you with your theories."
Hill had folded his arms over his chest. "The matter of the brain surviving six to twelve minutes, which I have yet to further myself as you have yet to prove your own, Hans?" he sneered. "Your foolish thesis about overcoming the barrier of brain death, which is hardly feasible."
"First of all," Herbert fumed, finally standing up for his mentor, "his theories aren't foolish. And secondly, we can PROVE that there is still brain activity even after death."
Hans and Hill both looked down at him, the latter in shock mixed with rage at being talked at from a younger man, and Gruber burst into a series of loud guffaws that literally shook the walls. "Ah ha, that's my boy!" He slapped Herbert's back for encouragement. "See, Carl? I'm not the only one who believes in my 'foolish theories' as you so put it."
"Hmph, another child who doesn't know any better. I'd have thought by now you'd stop surrounding yourself with children, Hans."
"Child?!" Herbert burst and pulled free from his teacher's hold. "How can you have the nerve to come here and insult his ideas and call me nothing more than an adolescent?! Dr. Gruber –" He looked up at his professor. "– you should never have asked this pompous fool to come along if he's just going to get away with insulting you this way. Now, Dr. Hill, if you would excuse us," he said hotly to the now tomato-faced man, "we have a party to celebrate." As much as he made it loud and clear that he hated those things, he had to get his pallid-faced mentor out of here fast.
"My boy, you defended my honor," Hans praised him with another slap to the back. "You do me proud."
Herbert scoffed. "You should have been careful being colleagues and 'old friends'," he said sarcastically, "with an intrusive, uncivil swain like Dr. Hill. And how in the world did you ever know him in another life?"
Hans sighed and ran a hand over his balding head. "Carl and I were, shall we say...old friends back when we were young men. Some days friends, some days enemies. We bounced back and forth in between them. But let's say that Carl was always jealous of me because I was the better one than him, not that I would call myself that," he added with a little laugh, making Herbert manage the slightest one for the first time tonight.
~o~
The formula was completed, and now all the serum needed was a test. Herbert looked at the needle with the utmost pride in himself. Gruber would be proud of him, but they needed a subject. The ones on various small animals killed brought on the needed vital signs of life, but they were violent, and that was not what they needed. Herbert smiled lovingly down at the syringe in his hand – the dosage twenty-five CC's – as the subject had to be human. As a student, he had no access to the morgue, but Dr. Gruber was authorized to enter as being a faculty member. They would have to do it in secrecy, though, given many of the people in this country and around the world would not approve of "blasphemous acts", as it was put.
He jerked around when he heard the sound of his mentor's screams and wails...out of despair and grief. What had happened? Herbert would soon find out, as he, needle still in hand, exited the lab and found his teacher leaning over the island, head in hands, and sobbing as though he were a child again instead of the brilliant, kind, older man who had taken Herbert under his wing, acting like the father Herbert had deserved instead of the one back home in Arkham who never recognized his potential, same with the mother who hated him for being born unplanned. "Dr. Gruber?"
"He – He did it, my boy," Gruber choked out, raising his head only slightly, but Herbert still did not see his face all the way. "He took the papers, and he passed them off as his own. I'm finished, Herbert."
He had the slightest idea who he was talking about. "Hill."
"Yes, and what's worse: I might not be able to be the one to present the serum as our greatest achievement in the history of medicine." He looked up at last, and Herbert felt his stomach and heart drop at the same time. "I trusted him; I trusted him, and he deceived me! He stole the records and showed them when they weren't ready, including what I did long before you came, my boy." He reached up to rub his temples in a fury. "By God..."
"Dr. Gruber!" Herbert rushed over when his mentor collapsed with a cry and onto his knees. His hold on the needle was secure, but the well-being of Gruber was more important. "Dr. Gruber, not all is lost. I've finished the serum, and all it needs is a test..."
Gruber looked up at him with a small smile. "Then, Herbert, it is time then."
Herbert frowned. "Time?"
"My heart is giving away now, so now you can see if it works."
"No..." The horrible truth dawned on him that he was going to lose the man he had grown to love as a father, who had taught him everything he needed to know, when they were so close to conquering brain death now. All because of Hill, that lecherous son of a bitch. If he ever saw him again, Herbert would literally kill him with his bare hands. "No, Hans, you can't go now..."
"My time is up. You're the one left to preserve my legacy and finish what we started." Gruber was now on his back, gasping for air now. He was never going to survive the heart attack, not even from a stimulant, which he would have refused anyway. "Promise me, Herbert," he groaned, grabbing his wrist with the glowing neon green needle that would soon perform what their shared goal involved. "Promise me that...you will...finish what we started. You can't turn back now."
The light in his eyes was leaving him. Herbert nodded furiously as he yanked off the cap of the needle with his teeth just as Dr. Hans Gruber breathed his last breath. There was no time for tears now; Herbert had a mission to accomplish. If this worked on his beloved mentor and teacher, then all of the lives that he could save to follow...
Awww, yeah I always knew the hatred between Herbert and Hill always ran deeper than that, and how Hill might have taken the credit for research that wasn't his. :( And Herbert holding his mentor in his arms as he died was so poignant in my imagination, so to bring it to life did the prologue scene in the movie justice, I think. :)
The stories which inspired me for the meeting of Dr. Carl Hill and Herbert, and the fact Hill and Gruber knew each other in school days and the whatnot, were "Hotel Room" by Tendo Rei and "A Stitch in Time and Memory" by TheOtherMaddHatter. :) And thanks to my friend and fellow Re-Animator author, JTHMManson4, for your help in making this an epic flashback.
