Note: This is a continuation of It's Not Forever, so I strongly suggest you read that first (just skip to chapter 5 already, sheesh), because there are definitely spoilers. This story is a lot darker, too, consider that fair warning. This one is for Anonymous-Dragon :)


"Lionel?" she sniffled again. "What is St. James?"
He worked his jaw, angrily. "A ghoul city," he said. "People went there when they still thought there was a cure for it."
"St. James is not a nice place," Lilian said, drowsily. "I don't think you should go there at all, Celia."

- It's Not Forever, Chapter 9


16 SEPTEMBER 2176

MORNING


"Goooooood morning St. James! How are we, today? Are you putrescent even in the coolness of these autumn nights? Well, why not come out into the sun and look at that beautiful red sunrise out there, ladies and gents! What a marvelous, simply maaaarrrrvelous day to be alive and kicking on our enchanting little island! Today's forecast is sunny skies, no clouds at all, and a wonderful happy birthday to everyone's favorite good doctor, Mona Donald!"

A low moan came from the corner of the small utility room. Shelving rattled as the "good doctor" stirred on the simple mattress. Mona sat up in her lonely bedroom, looking around blearily, and threw a shoe at the radio. It clattered to the floor, followed by a dusty size 7 pump. She hacked up a wad of phlegm and spat it across the room, then got out of bed and began her morning routine.

Check body for loose skin. Change clothes. Spit. Brush what teeth you have left. Drink coffee. Eat instamash, imagine that it is something else, oh, let's say, polenta. Spit. Flatten down remaining hair, check scalp for loose skin. Take mentats. Retrieve shoe, put on shoes. Put radio back together. Go down to the lobby.

"Good morning, Dr. Donald," Alexy Ilyin greeted her.

Mona glared at her employee, squinting. "Mains oo ee seen," she grumbled.

"Oh, and happy birthday!" he added, grinning. His mouth contorted into a truly nasty caricature of a jack-o-lantern. Mona had become used to the ghoul with the Glasgow smile, but today she wasn't in any mood to put up with his ghastly face, or his buoyant attitude.

"Ger off," she mumbled.

Ilyin nodded and wandered off through the double doors that led to the production floor. Mona looked around and assessed the agenda.

0800, initiate Pinch Protocol, if necessary. Work begins. Produce at least forty units of jet, ten units of jammer. Dispose of trash. Feed the test subjects.

1000, remove employees from work floor to Lab. Begin production of hotwater.

1200, cancel production of hotwater for lunch. Eat instamash, let's make it strawberry crepes today.

1300, begin production of Nuka-Blu. Receive shipment of datura, other base ingredients.

1500, clear work floors, boil and distill datura and other ingredients.

1700, release employees from work.

She nodded to herself. The day began, as usual, with Ilyin and Sorola arguing over who could drink the most Nuka-Blu in a ten-minute time frame. Mona refused to touch the grainy-tasting soda; she hated blueberries, anyway.

She watched them from her desk, making occasional notes, adjusting her microscope, staining slides. She'd collected a few creatures after yesterday's work concluded. The insects were dead and were examined immediately, but there was a new species that she was quite interested in. She re-examined the cells she'd prepared from the night before.

"Anything new with the critters?" Ilyin asked her.

She shrugged. "Nor mush."

"We still have to cut the hotwater with something less acid than those blueberries," Sorola added. "Any luck with that?"

Mona laid down a slide with a click and put her hands on the side of the desk, looking up at her employees. "Ler me oo my joh."

"Alright, alright," Sorola said. They went back to work. She pinched the skin that remained above her nasal cavity and took the samples below the facility to the testing area.

My pretties, she thought, smiling at the congregation of creatures that she'd assembled from the wastes. Here were ants, there was a swarm of bloatflies. Her babies, the small rat-squirrel creatures she used in the majority of testing. Two radscorpions she'd been unsuccessful in breeding. She fed them all, petting the babies. She moved past their cages and down a ramp to the lower level, careful not to drop the samples.

Growling met her ears as she grew closer to the ferals, surreptitiously collected from the island wastes, former inhabitants of St. James. She peered into the cages, listened to the rattling of the metal, checking each one for further signs of change. Nothing yet. She made a note on the console in the corner and moved the samples to the chemistry set.

She'd almost forgotten to check on the smoothskin in the last cage. Mona moved down the hallway and looked around the corner, pulling the tarp off the last cage, and eyed the figure huddled against the mesh. She didn't look any different than before, but the stink rising from her flesh was quite foul. That had been a lucky find, a smoothskin about to undergo the change.

A small patch of skin flaked off as Mona watched, drifting down to the floor. The smoothskin's abdomen was cut open and the tubing inserted into her stomach was raw-looking. The tubing ran from it to an I.V. bag outside of the cage, and Mona changed this, switching it out for another bag. The dim light caught the bag and she saw the letters standing out against the pale liquid within. FEV-3-fluoro... Mona set her mouth to the side and attached the tubing.

She sighed to herself. She'd not enjoyed having to bind the woman's hands, but the catheter was extremely important, and couldn't be removed. With all luck, her experiments would be helpful in eliminating some of the more disgusting physical changes. And if she were successful, she could evidence some change in the residents of St. James. Mona trudged back up to the chemistry set and went to work.

Ilyin called down to remind her of the time after she'd prepared some of the samples with additional chemicals and put others into various solutions for further research. "Hey, and Dr. Donald?" he yelled. "Joey's here."

Mona's hands shook as she put away the samples for later. Joey.

She walked up the ramp, her legs wobbling and head fuzzy. Joey.

She opened the door to the work floor and smiled in her own way. "O-ey," she cried, and the smoothskin girl flung herself at the ghoul woman, hugging her and laughing.

"Mona mama, I missed you!" Joey said.

"O-ey, I am nor mama," she chided.

"Close enough," the teenager said. "Mine's gone off the deep end." She smiled that brilliant smile of hers, and Mona's heart melted.

1200, bring Joey to town, buy her lunch. Eat instamash, why not try shark fin soup today?


"Helloooooo ladies and gents! It's Mr. Strange here, with your daily dose of what's weird and wild in the wasteland! Hey, have you ever heard of a critter called Chimera?"

Foster swore, sat upright, and banged his head off the frame of the engine he was underneath. He fell back onto the floor, grimacing, and rubbed his forehead with the back of a hand. After a moment, he slid out and sat up.

"The Chimera was a fearsome beast, or so I hear told. The head of a lion, tail of a snake, with a goat in the middle..."

He ignored the ghoul deejay and examined his hands. Dammit! Blood slipped down through the webbing of his thumb, across his palm, and dripping to the floor in a steady stream. Quickly, Foster moved across the garage floor and bandaged his hand carefully. He muttered silently to himself, then sat down to examine his hands.

He must have the nicest hands of all the ghouls on St. James. Still had all his skin, all his fingertips. Fingernails had gone, but nonetheless, his hands were damn nice. He sat on the small couch in the garage and ran his digits across the rough fabric of the couch and laughed at himself for being weird.

The garage door was open, and a woman walked by, eyeing him with what he was sure was a critical look, but he only saw Norma's drooping flesh crunch into a mess of tangled skin and blood vessels. Whatever, let the bitch glare. She was jealous, that was it. Foster growled to himself and clutched his hands to his chest, protecting them from the woman's animosity.

He leaned back on the couch, put his legs out on a metal box, and fought the urge to poke at the cut. His mind slipped away from him and he sat, listlessly, eyes hazed.

"I hear a rumor, and don't you get me wrong, I don't listen to rumors, but this one is a fine rumor to hear!" Mr. Strange's voice cut through his mind, bringing him back to the room. He sat up, stood, and looked at the time. Must have had an absence seizure. Damn, what if he had one of those while he was working on the engine? He felt his hands clench, and forced himself to relax.

"I hear a rumor that our great doctor patron, that minx Dr. Mona Donald, has been making herself her very own chimera. Doesn't that beat all? Mona baby, you simply have to come see me and explain this one!"

Foster focused on the radio and crinkled the skin above his eyes. What a story. He rubbed his thumb absently and returned to the engine, careful not to let his bandage slip.


Pssssssss! the hissing sound echoed through the room.

Norma dropped the inhaler and let her hand trail down to the floor, her mind filled with the spinning colors and wobbling images that came from a hit of jammer. She breathed in deeply, and her breath became a merry-go-round in her chest, whirling around through her lungs.

Another hiss, and Ralph fell to the couch beside her, his raspy voice cutting through her head as carousel music, accompanying the horses and elephants and seals and unicorns that galloped through her chest in that moment.

"I hear everyone's favorite smoothskin has been spotted on the island, again. Why not say 'Hi!' to Joey for me? I can't leave the station, you know..." the radio came on, flickering in the darkened house, and Ralph's head snapped around to look at it, drool flying from his chin.

"Fuck off, Strange," Ralph growled, and held his head. He stood, grabbed the radio, and hurled it to the floor, smashing it with a boot. "Fuck you! Fuck you!"

Norma watched and she felt angry, but the anger flew out of her head in circles just like the carousel, and she uttered a guttural laugh. Ralph snarled at her, and his fingers were around her throat in an instant. She bucked up into him, throwing him off, slapping him across the face and putting her own hands on his throat. They rolled around for another few minutes before the jammer fried their brains so thoroughly that neither one could move.

Colors and shapes, floating through her vision, and Norma felt a thought tugging at the edge of her mind like a small child with a question. She gave to it, and listened carefully.

"You like the smoothy bitch, don't you, Ralph?" she asked, and her voice was full of scorn.

"Some boy fleshy wandered around you, you'd like him too," Ralph growled. Then he groaned, "Oh! God, those fucking legs!"

Norma felt the anger rise in her chest. "Fuck you, Ralph," she muttered, and pushed herself off the floor, riding the crazy high of the jammer as she stumbled through the house and into the kitchen. She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise to the ceiling, blues and green and purples pulsing from the trail. Goddamn, she loved jammer.

It was the first hit of the chem that either one of them had had in over six months. That doctor bitch had raised the price and was producing less. Norma thought the doctor bitch needed to understand that her drugs weren't worth what she wanted for them. Fuck her, anyway. And fuck the little smoothy bitch too, running around with her legs kicking up in the air. Bitch needed to go home to mama or Norma might take her switchblade to her face, carve up those black eyes like a crow plucking at carrion.

She twitched her hands. And fuck Foster, too, with his pretty little fingers that he thought were so good and nice that he had to rub it into her face. He did it all on purpose, tempting her with fingers that weren't mangled. She looked down, saw her torn-up hands playing with her knife. She laughed, stabbed it into the tabletop, and scrounged around the kitchen for something to eat.

Ralph was laying face down in the doorway, his eyes wide open. She pushed his head aside with a foot and stepped around him, looking for the tin can she used to store her caps. Where the fuck did it go? She was so fucking hungry, she could eat Ralph. She booted his leg and chortled as he started thrashing about on the ground. Black and blue echoes followed his movements, flying off into her vision like sharp knives.

She screamed at him, laughing hysterically. Goddamn! She fucking loved jammer!


Alexy stacked up supply boxes in the storeroom and looked out into the Lab, his cheeks twitching. Joey sat on the desk beside Dr. Donald, babbling something about a cousin of hers. She was wearing a green dress, and her legs looked fantastic in it. Her feet kicked out, playfully. She extended her calf muscles, and for a moment Alexy could see chocolate skin all the way up to the middle of her thigh.

He looked away and let the feeling wash over him. Oh, yes. He wanted that. He wanted that so badly he would do damn near anything to have it. He laid a hand on top of the box in front of him and leaned his head into the wall, closing his eyes.

"Ginny is such a stupid bitch," Joey was saying. "She thinks she owns everything, you can't talk her out of it. I had this little doll thing, and it was mine, Uncle Avery gave it to me, and she fucking tries to steal it by saying it was hers!"

Dr. Donald looked up at the girl with a strange face, and Joey shook her head. "Nu-uh, Mona mama," she said. "I had a right to be mad."

Alexy removed himself from the storeroom and closed the door. He put his hands in his pockets and walked over to the desk, smiling as best he could at Joey. Joey looked up at him, grinned widely, and made a "pow-pow" gesture at him. Dutifully, he grasped his chest and collapsed to the floor.

Dr. Donald looked over at the ghoul on the floor, pretending to be in his death throes. She grumbled and shook her head. Alexy laid there for a moment, then sprang up and swept Joey into a dance across the Lab. Joey laughed, disentangled herself, and spun away from him.

"You're in a good mood, Alexy," she chuckled.

He saw the flushed cheeks, the eyes alight with happiness. He wished he could have that every day, come home to that, to her in an apron at his stove, dancing around while she cooked dinner. He'd never want to leave the house, no, sir. His face grew more serious. He'd never want to go to the Samson and drink himself half to death until he collapsed on the grimy floor and the bouncer Marcelo hauled him outside to sleep it off.

He had an idea... a bad one, but something to grab onto. "Hey," he said, spinning her back to him with a strong hand. "You wanna hit up the bar with me, later?"

A song ended and the radio crackled. "There's something on my mind, ladies and gents," Mr. Strange started up. "I just can't get my head around this―why has the price of jammer gone up so much? All those drugs you folks inject, huff, ingest, or smoke, they've all gotten three times as expensive. What's going on with that, Mona?"

Joey was distracted by the radio broadcast. "What?"

Out of the corner of his eyes, Alexy saw Dr. Donald stand and remove her work from the desk, ambling off to another corner with a shake of her head. He pulled Joey up close, stuck his carved mouth near her ear and sighed. "Just come out with me, have a drink. Be something new to try."

Joey laughed, and pushed him away, removing his hands from her firm body. He would have gritted his teeth, but it gave away the game to show her how he felt. Instead, he thrust a hand into his pocket, put his weight on one leg and turned his head to look at her with a terrible smile. His fingers nervously worked over a cap in his pocket.

"Sure," she said, her shoulder relaxed, and a faint smile on her face. "We've gone before."

Which was true, but wasn't what he'd asked. When she'd gone with him before, he'd ended up miserable afterwards, less drunk than he wanted to be, and nothing to show for dragging a pretty smoothskin to a ghoul bar not particularly known for having a stellar reputation. His fingers twitched and the cap's edges dug into his flesh.

"What, you scared?" he asked, grinning now. "Can't handle a little whiskey?"

Oh, that was the ticket. She shot him such a look! He couldn't help but grin. Her face was a picture of irritation, and she rose to the challenge so perfectly he almost choked on his tongue in excitement.

"I'm not scared," she declared, her black eyes flashing at him. "I'll take whatever you got, Alexy."

The cap sliced into his finger and he could feel the blood seeping into his pocket. "I'll see you after work, then," was all he said, smiling gruesomely, and he wandered off, back to his duties.

Perfect. Just... perfect. He could feel the excitement catching up to him, and had to duck into the bathroom to still the feeling, and to patch himself up. It would be a damn good night. A damn good one.