"The Groom of Fowlerstein…"
Summary: A shameless Halloween ripoff not only of "Bride of you know who" but of my Buffyy story "Groom of Rosenberg"…But hey, something for Sheldon's Halloween.
Disclaimer: What's Chuck's is Chuck's…No infringement intended…
Amy has resurrected her bestie the hard way...The really hard way...
Part I...
The fire in the old mill continues to burn...Bystanders cheer as parts crumble down into the stream below...A group of local townies and Castle Fowlerstein family servants clustered about the dead?...Dr. Amy Farrah Fowlerstein, scientist and heir to the Fowlerstein fortune, where she lies, thrown by her embittered creation in their final battle.
"Hey...What are you cryin' for?." Dr. Fowlerstein's faithful if outspoken lady's maid Bernadette nudges her husband, the Fowlerstein chauffeur and senior footperson, Howard Wolowitz...Who weeps openly watching the burning mill…
"It's horrible...Horrible..." Howard shakes his head.
My poor Penny...
"I know it's horrible..."Bernadette pats him, but turns grim.
"But after she drowned that little girl, nearly strangled and blinded her own beloved Dr. Hofstadter when he tried to kill the hideous thing Amy had made her, almost killed us...And what with poor Amy about to be taken home to die…"
It can't be our Penny in there...she shakes her head.
"I'm glad to see this thing...Her evil side no doubt...Roasted to death."
"It was evil, Howard…Believe me in my line of service as well as my grad school work with budding mad microbiologists I've become able to tell an evil nature."
"Now kiss me and go get the car...I'll see to poor Dr. Amy." she kisses and hugs him.
He wanders off to the car, forlornly…
"Ah..."Bernadette sighs...Parting the group about Amy.
"Poor Amy...She was to be married in tomorrow...To that poor Stuart..."
(Stuart, weeping… "Sorry it's just…The one time I get a break." Bernadette guiltily patting him.
"Sheldon?" Amy stared as he glared…
"You tole me the little girl just floated away on a briefcase…" he noted. "And that Leonard 'nearly' was blinded.")
The group eye each other...Junior footmen Rajesh and Kripke among them...
"Damn, Rwajesh…" Kripke notes. "Looks like there'll be no more lucrwative trwade in stwolen body parwts for us, now the good if mad doctwor is kaput."
"Will you keep it down, Barry?" Raj, anxiously. "They arrest grave robbers. And no one here in this lynch mob is likely to respect our excuse that it was all in the Cause of Science."
"All in the cwause of my wallet, perwsonally." Kripke notes. "But, yourw rwight. Still, therwe is another…"
"Anotherw…I mean another? Another who?"
"The nutcase I told you about…Lwoonier than our forwmer employwer."
"C'mon...Geesh..." Bernadette stares at the crowd hesitantly regarding the body of their former leading citizen, third-largest local employer...
Mad defiler of the dead…
"Unclean…" one fellow hisses… "She created that thing, I hear."
"Uh…Nonsense…" Bernadette, rising to the defense of her employer and friend… "She was just doing her bit to help defend the community. Who says she had anything to do with this lady thing going mad."
"Everyone knows that thing came from her place…" another pointed out…The crowd looking a bit on the edge of again becoming blindly enraged. Some angrily shaking fists at Amy's prone form.
"An old friend, yes… Heck, some of you knew her when she worked in town as a waitress and an actress. But…Uh…She had drug problems…You know what it's like for struggling actors. Amy was letting her stay at a cottage and the poor thing just went totally downhill."
"She was seven feet tall! And looked like something out of a horror film!" shout…
"Eight feet, I heard!" another…
"Come on…" Bernadette eyed the group… "You see the rumors flying?! Lets not lose our heads…And kill the Fowlerstein goose that's kept so many of us employed during the recession?"
Point taken…The crowd collectively notes. Calming…
"Now we all know how sweet and kind Dr. Amy is? Who could believe she'd unleash something hideous upon us, except by a kindly misjudgment of the condition of a tragically changed friend? Haven't most of us watched 'Breaking Bad'?"
"She's good…" Kripke notes to Raj who sighs, nodding…
"Ah…" Kripke smirks as Raj looks pained, watching Bernadette winning over the crowd to grief for their leading citizen… "Still got the hwots for Ms. Berwnie, I see. You know, Rwaj…Accidents can happen to people in this twown. I've arrwanged a few."
"Kripke…" Raj shakes head. "Don't even think about it. If anything happens to Howard I'll turn you in myself, even if I must go to the gallows with you…And even if I didn't know you'd murdered that last organ donor."
"Murwder is such a harwsh word…Say involunarwy dwonor…"
"All our donors are involuntary, Barry."
"Well, he was a bit more than some. Hey, just trwying to help you out hwere."
Howard returns...Got the car, he notes to Bernadette. "Though I wonder if we can really fit her in there easily." He eyes the prone Amy.
We gotta a van...Raj notes...Eyeing Kripke...
"We'll bring her home to the Fowlerstein estate." he offers...
Ok...Bernadette turns to Howard...
"You better drive to Castle Fowlerstein...And tell Baroness Fowlerstein and poor Stuart we're bringing..." she pauses sadly...Eyeing the dead?...Wish we had a doctor here...Amy...
"...Amy home..."
("Stuart…Please stop crying…" Bernadette, sighing… "She's actually not dead."
"Really?" he blinks.
"What do you mean, I should prepare myself a little?" Sheldon eyes Amy… "Why? What's going to happen?" She leans to whisper…
"You're going to marry Who?!" shriek…Furious glare at Stuart…
Oh, I don't know about you guys but I am lovin' this one…Amy hisses to Penny.)
The old mill, shrouded in darkness...now abandoned by all but two...Determined to see the last of the Creature...
At least...One is...
"Toby...?" the female addresses him.
"Why do you stay...? The Monster must be burned up by now...And burned up or no...Nothing will bring our little Maria back to us?"
"Why do you stay here...?" she shakes him.
"I want to see..." Toby grumbles.
"If I can see her blackened bones with my own eyes...I can sleep at night."
He shakes his mate off and begins climbing into the rubble of the mill.
"Hans...!" the woman cries... "You will be burned yourself...Come back..."
He falls through the charred remains of the floor to the cellar and stream below...
Hans!...the female collapses in a faint...
In the cellar of the mill...The former location of the mill's water wheel...Hans struggles to find something to grab onto...But...from a darkened corner...
A hideously deformed and scarred...Now badly burned as well...And extremely pissed...though still blonde...And one benefit of Amy's work, rather tall...Penny is seen emerging slowly...
With a loud growl...Meant actually to be her trademark "What's the word, nerd?..." but the best she can currently manage given the lightening-induced damage to her brain.
Thanks, Amy...
She rushes over to the now terrified Toby…One of those bastards firing up the mill...Knocking pistol from his hand as he tries to draw…Click from water-logged gun…And thrusts his head under the water...
He cries out, struggling to no avail...
("Ok, Toby…Great…" Penny notes to the groaning Toby, who'd been invited at Bernadette's request to Howard for help with the reading, he being a university research tech with some hankering for an acting career.)
Toby continues to struggle...
("Terrific performance…Now…Die already…" Penny glares.
Uh…)
So much for poor Toby...She climbs to beams and the remains of an old stairway...Slowly moving to the surface...
God...Look at dress...she thinks, looking at her torn and burned dress...And was bad choice by Amy to begin with...
Grrr...Re-Life suck...she thinks...
"Toby...?" the woman, now revived...Calls...
"I hear you, Toby...Let me help you..."
Penny puts up a burned hand...The female lifts her out, not realizing...
Until too late...
("Oh, tell me when this is over!" Sheldon burying head in Amy's lap.,,
"Our mad scientist's even madder partner…" Leonard eyes Penny, who shrugs.
"Just saying…I coulda played a mad scientist…I'd be good…I've years of pent up rage ready to break out…"
Note my willingness to accept derogatory commentary in the interests of literary truth, reader…However Sheldon Cooper forgets nothing. I can't, eidetic memory.
God, is this night working out for me…Amy beams, stroking Sheldon's head…I think Halloween is now my favorite holiday.)
And Penny is in no mood to make allowances for the female's help as the lady lets out an annoying scream...And whacks at her with a charred piece of the mill's wooden frame.
Like all others she's encountered since Amy resurrected her...For crying out loud, what gives with these people? OW!...Hey!...She dodges a hard blow.
Enraged, she tosses the female down the old mill stairs...And heads off...
All have left...
Except Bernadette who found she must walk...No more room in Raj's van he had apologetically noted...She lags behind the tail end of the group making for Castle Fowlerstein...And pauses to look back...Hearing...
Penny lumbers over...Scarred, burned...Greenish skinned...Tall...Very tall...Penny looks at her old friend a mo...Rather exhausted after this long day...
Bernadette's jaw drops...Pe...Pe..Pen…
"AHHHHH!" she runs off, racing after the others...
Penny stares after her...
Was Bernadette?...she thinks...
"Bye-bye..." she waves...A little downcast...And still rather pissed, now that she thinks about it...
Where go now?...she wonders...Looking around at the woods around the crumbled old mill...
No go home...Hurt people before...Remember...she remembers...
Just playing but...Caught kid by stream... Didn't mean to hurt...Thought she'd float like flowers...
Only one day old then...
And Amy...she frowns...
Bad...Lock her in cellar...No see friends...
Leave Kripke watching her...Bastard...Wave fire at her...Hit her with whip...
Even Leonard want hurt her...Woke up on table...Leonard? Yes…Leonard about to...
Cut her up...?!
"Painlessly dissecting subject...This is for you, my sweet Penny…" she remembers him speaking into his pocket recorder.
Painlessly?...Geesh...
Well...Don't think he dead after she grab by throat...
But they all mad at her after...Geesh...
Chase her...Shoot her...Hit her...Run away from her...
And me...Good ole luvable Penny...she notes...I think, anyway...Remembering hard.
Oh...she sobs...
No ask for this...Geesh...
Amy...Very bad...
She wanders off into the woods...
…..
The rather nice castle of the Fowlerstein estate...Massive with the usual ramparts and turrets, an import from Europe…Amy's stricken mother, the Baroness lying near death, the servants attempting to keep the shock of recent events from her…Amy's fiancé Stuart watches the road from a large bay window in a room of the one of the towers...
Howard's car pulls up...And they can see a procession of local Pasadeners following Raj and Kripke's van at a distance up the road...
"Howard...?" Stuart calls to him from the open window as he emerges from his car...
He waves a bit...
Ummn...
"Amy…Penny...How'd things go…My search team didn't find any trace?" Stuart calls...
Ummn...Well...Howard calls back...
"Things didn't go so well between Amy and the mon...er Penny..." he notes...
See...They wound up at that old sawmill, the museum site? And had a little...Fight...And...
The van pulls up...Raj, Kripke, and several others lift Amy's body out...Carrying it to the castle door on a stretcher...
"Oh, Heaven...What is this?..." Stuart cries...Turning and running from the room, downstairs to the great hall of the castle where Amy's body is being brought in...Weeping servants and townspeople following...
He rushes to Amy, lying prone on a large table...
Howard silently embraces him... "Sorry, old pal…"
(Sheldon…Fuming…Oh, and was I…
"Sheldon, you should be getting ready for your big entrance…" Amy urges.
"When you steal me from Stuart…?" she notes, sidelong glance. "By the power of your intellect, the lure of your mad dream, and of course your incredible and undeniable physical attractiveness."
"You're right." Considered nod. "Prepare to be dazzled…" As you should be.)
Bernadette comes running from the road to the front door...
"AHHH!" she yelps still...
"What the hwell's with you...?" Kripke beside Raj at the door eyes her...
"The monster...Penny...She's alive...She wasn't burned up at all...She lived right through the fire...Ohhh..." Bernadette trembles...
"You still want this lwoon...?" Kripke hisses to Raj...
Yeah...he nods... "But no murders, Barry."
Eh...Dames…They're all crwazy...Kripke notes...
"Hey wacko...We don't bwelieve in ghosts herwe..." he sneers at Bernadette...
Yeah, right...Raj thinks...Just...Comic book superheroes, mad scientists, resurrected people…and Monsters,...
Come on Raj...Kripke calls...They leave her...
"Nobody'll believe me?...All right...I wash my hands of it...Let them all be murdered in their beds...For all of me." Bernadette shakes her head...
HOWARD!...she cries...Hearing another noise and running in…
By the table on which Amy rests, the others mournfully stand by...
"Amy...?" Stuart calls to her... "Speak to me?"
"Oh...Stuart..." Bernadette sighs, shaking her head... "She'll never speak again."
Stuart looks at her...
And turns back to Amy...Sighing...
"I was foretold of this...I was told...Beware my wedding night."
Wouldn't that be tomorrow night...? Bernadette hisses to Howard.
Heck everwybody gets that advice...Man of the world Kripke hisses to his friend Raj...
My wife Lwesley was told to rwun like Hwell from our wedding bed...he notes...
"And I still can't figure how you managed to land Lwesley…Er, Lesley Winkle." Raj shook his head.
"My incrwedible swexual prwowess…And…Drwugs, of courwse…" Kripke shrugged. "Everwy time she gets to arwuging or exprwessing hwer opinions, I just slwip hwer another mickey."
"I was wondering why she wasn't showing up for her classes at the University."
"Forwtunately, she can still do piecework at hwome. So she's still puttin' in hwer owar for the family bwudget. But I may need to trwade up soon…She's stwarting to devwelop rwesistance."
Say...? Stuart eyes Bernadette...
"You have had a doctor to see her?..." He eyes Howard as well...
Ummn...Well...Things were kinda busy back at the burning mill...Howard notes...
"Fetch a doctor..." Stuart calls to a servant...
(You know, kinda nice to have servants at the ole beck and call...He notes to Amy... No chance your family really does have that kind of...? "Actually...Before my dad ran off and spent it all..." Amy eyes him.)
As they back away to await the doctor, Bernadette is left by Amy...And suddenly sees her hand drop...
"Oh...My lady Amy!...Stuart!..." Bernadette cries...
"Look! She's alive...Alive!"
Hmmn...That's just the way Amy said it when Penny came back to life in that horror of a body...Stuart notes to herself...Rushing over...
"Stuart..." Amy gasps...Touching his face gently.
"Amy...Oh, Amy..." Stuart sobs... ("OW! Sheldon!" he jumps at the sudden chop.
"Sheldon!" Penny glares...
Forgive the descent into my animalistic side...But Love, like Science, has her little surprises...)
You know...Fowlerstein is kinda the cwause of all this...Kripke notes quietly to Raj...
"Well you and your "low cost" organs for transplant didn't help much..." Raj hisses back.
God, taking them out of the folks you were supposed to be burying...he shakes his head.
"Hey...I'm just a swupplier..." Kripke replies... "Amy wanted anything I could get hwer...And I gave no guarwantees the pwarts would work for something like this."
Lucky poor Penny didn't wind up with a case of HIV on top of everything else...Raj harshly whispers back.
Hey...Everything Amy got from me worked...Right?...Kripke notes.
Well..Raj reluctantly has to concede the point...
Not my fault if crazy Fowlerstein's surgical technique is lousy...Kripke concludes.