Stay Dead
Dr. Horrible slumps down heavily on the wooden chair, fumbling to push his goggles up onto his forehead. For a moment he stares, speechless, into the tiny black lens of his webcam. It's been a while since he's done this.
"Opening with an evil laugh doesn't seem appropriate at a time like this," he says wryly, then risks a nervous glance over his shoulder. Moist is slumped in the outsized armchair, silently bent over in pain. The guy's skin is an unhealthy grey pallor and the sweat is practically dripping off his nose.
There's a steady banging on the apartment door. It's a kind of irregular thumping that's hard enough to jar the wood in its frame. Dr. Horrible has dragged a heavy cabinet in front of the door, just in case the lock fails. The attack seems half-hearted right now, but the noise could potentially bring more of them.
"So, you might be happy to know that we're trapped in here," Dr. Horrible announces to the camera, sitting a little straighter on his seat. "You might think this is some kind of poetic justice. But since I'm an evil genius, I've prepared for this kind of eventuality. We have plenty of food, water, and there are the weapons, of course." The longer he talks, the more natural it feels. He always used this blog as a smokescreen, grandstanding to make his real life seem a little less boring, a little less scary. Even when he joined the Evil League of Evil, he still tried to keep up that facade.
He finds himself chuckling, maybe just to release the tension. Or maybe this is the creeping edge of insanity? "Oh yes, my weapons," he continues. "You know all about them, don't you? Those of you who haven't fled from this city, you know. When I built my resurrection ray, I could never conceive that it would work beyond the limits of even my wildest dreams!"
From a certain point of view, this is a triumph. He has devastated LA (albeit inadvertently), destroyed civilisation as we know it and wrecked all semblance of authoritarian control. The masses truly did rise up and take back the streets. It's just that the masses also got out of their own graves to do so.
The idea seemed so simple. Step one: Build the resurrection ray. Step two: Bring Penny back to life. Step three: Live happily ever after. Only, due to a tiny miscalculation in the power-to-focus ratio, it wasn't just Penny that was reanimated - it was everyone in a 500 mile radius. Every corpse woke up, given back self-determination, and they all seemed pretty pissed about it.
Somehow, some way, Penny has managed to followe him back here. Penny is finally walking around again, not as rotted and disgusting as some of the creatures he has created, but still grey and groaning and horrifying.
Still… still he loves her.
"The attacks have been apocalyptic," Dr. Horrible says with a grimace. "Because those that have died, well, they just rise up again. The energy field created by the resurrection ray seemed to be rebounding through every living creature and the effect is getting stronger, not weaker." He pauses and then smiles apologetically. "My bad."
There's a groan behind him from where Moist is twitching, convulsing in the last paroxysms of death.
"You know the funny thing?" Horrible rubs his eyes, taking another quick look over at the chair behind him. "You know the kicker? I could stop all this. Any time, I could make it end. The process for reversing the field wavelength is relatively simple. It's just… that would kill her too."
It doesn't matter if he admits it now. Let everyone know that he did this for her. For Penny. The members of the Evil League have either fled or are ravening monsters. Even Dead Bowie, who gave him the idea for the resurrection ray in the first place.
Moist's body is still now. Horrible leaves the webcam running as he gets to his feet. "So I guess this is goodbye," he announces. While he is scared of dying, at least the rest of the world knows how he feels about Penny now. He's been dying a little every day since he murdered her, because nobody ever really understood. His Penny. His beautiful, lovely, kind Penny. She'd bled to death in his arms, shrapnel impaled deep in her soft flesh.
Shakily, and with some difficulty, Horrible struggles to pull the cabinet away from the door, then he rips the goggles from his head and he snaps the lock back. Almost immediately, he's pushed backwards as a groaning, shambling body lurches through the doorway.
He sees no recognition in her eyes. There's only blind, animal hatred – a hunger for revenge; for a justified payback. There's a hunk of jagged metal in her hand, cutting into her palm from where she's been slamming it into his door again and again.
Swallowing, Horrible holds out his arms in a perverse parody of welcome. Behind him, he can hear more shuffling, more groaning, and a crash as his computer is smashed on to the floor.
Moist has reawakened.
But all Horrible can think about is Penny. Penny, whose beautiful red hair hangs limply around her face. Penny, whose eyes are wide and red and rabid against her pale, bloodless skin. Penny, who bares her teeth in a snarl as she brings down the lump of metal, stabbing it into him.
He's not even sorry, as the pain hits him, suddenly, agonisingly. This is where he belongs – with her – even after death, even if she'll never speak his name again. Maybe it's better like this because he'll never have to apologise to her, or have to explain.
He's happy for the whole world to die with him, if he can just be with her.