I'd read the original story of "From Beyond", so here comes what I'm known to do. :) And Crawford in that version originally a twisted man? I sometimes wonder why it was decided to make him so sweet and innocent but goes through so much in the movie. :( And it broke my heart that he didn't get the girl.
Chapter Three
Where Will You Go
Horrible beyond conception was how it was for Crawford Tillinghast when he was under the tutelage of Dr. Edward Pretorius. Though at first, it wasn't so difficult when his brilliant record at Miskatonic University landed him as the active and enthralled assistant of the renowned physicist. He'd been assisting Pretorius for a year until IT happened, and the shattering experience of the mind for him. Well, shattering for Pretorius and nearly so for his own and Katherine's, and the authorities present. Leading to Edward taking his own life in the name of failure.
Crawford remembered, as much as he didn't want to, how they shut themselves mostly in the attic laboratory of the ancient, lone house on Benevolent Street, ironically numbered 666 – the number of the beast befitting what transpired in the house – with that accursed machine. Crawford had always wanted to study science and philosophy ever since he was a child; mistakes were bound to happen, and this being with tragic results. Science and philosophy offered horrible alternatives to the man involved: despair if he failed, and unimaginable terror if he succeeded. Truer words had never been spoken with the latter.
But Crawford had turned them off in favor of his mentor, whose excitement at pushing the theory of the pineal gland being a sixth sense into his own wave of elation. Pretorius said and he quoted, "With five feeble senses, we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, but it will no longer be enough. It will be too much to resist once the pineal gland is stimulated for access to a parallel universe of pleasure never before seen by man."
Temptation was easy to fall, so it had been that when Crawford completed the final programming, and then it happened the night hell broke loose for them: the detestable electrical machine – the Resonator – glowing with a sickly, sinister ultra-violet light, connected with a powerful chemical battery. The current was in no way electrical in any sense the average person would understand, not even when it vibrated into action, hurting worse than the vibrations of an airplane engine, a howling force of wind coming from nowhere seen, not even the windows which were closed, and ruffling the paperwork on the desk. The switch had been thrown on below the crowning cluster of glass bulbs and forked antennae. If anyone looked at those glass bulbs, they would see the faint design making them resemble Earth in many shapes and forms.
The waves woke a thousand senses in Crawford's brain, followed by an enormous headache as he felt the pineal gland GROW; the greatest sense-organ of organs was actually stimulated. The sensation that soon followed was faint and delicately torturing his body. Edward Pretorius was a genius.
He'd looked about the immense attic room; the whole place was shadowed and being lit by rays not seen by everyday life, and would no doubt bring attention to the nosy neighbor herself across the street, where she would call the cops for "disturbance" on them.
And then he saw it: an eel-like apparition floating about the air, circling one of the forks. Unsure if he was dreaming, but dazed and feeling like he was on cloud nine, he slowly approached the creature, one of the things that Edward had spoken floated through everyday life, unseen by living man until now, the creatures what man called "pure air and the blue sky".
However, he should have heeded Pretorius' advice on "if you move, they will see you as we see them."
The thing had spotted him right away and swooped down, taking a bite out of the tender flesh of his left cheek. Crawford fought it off the best he could when he made way for the switch and turned it on, and everything had returned to normal in time for him to notice the bite left over on his face, and ran to Pretorius' room to bring him upstairs to show him the new programming. A mistake he regretted from then on.
But then he never would have met Katherine. The only good thing that ever came from this mess.
But to know that she'd returned with his cousin from Switzerland with bad news was more than he could tolerate, as much as he loved Herbert. Hans Gruber was dead, heart attack in his own classroom, but the information not revealed to the public was the fact that Herbert "did things to the body" just moments after the professor died, being committed to the institution for the two months that followed. He'd been living with them for the past month since getting out of the country and had just been accepted into Miskatonic where Crawford had gone, and where Katherine had gone before. Dean Alan Halsey had been extremely cautious, but nevertheless accepted him given his brilliant record under Dr. Gruber. And now that Herbert had begun, he was ready to move out and in with someone else close to the school. None other than Dr. Halsey and his daughter, one of the best and brightest.
"You really don't have to do this." Crawford tried talking his cousin out of it. "I mean, we live near as it is. Why do you have to –"
"Because I need to continue my research."
"Your research that Dr. Gruber made you promise," Crawford stated. He still wasn't so sure about this after what happened in Zurich, if Herbert wasn't so careful. "If the dean ever finds out about unauthorized uses of medical equipment –"
"I won't," Herbert interrupted as he put the last of his books into the box. He hadn't brought much with him, just his various textbooks and guides, his clothing mostly consisting of the same white shirt, ties and black slacks like a uniform that drove Crawford insane, but then again his own happened to mostly be the old Miskatonic shirts and sweatshirts he kept, his current sweater over a collared shirt being among, so he couldn't judge. "But that doesn't mean I don't intend to prove it to Dr. Halsey and eventually be more famous than that lowdown Dr. Hill."
Katherine's silver bell laughter was heard as she came in, hair down but in a ponytail and jeans with her blouse, and helped Herbert pick up a box to carry to the van. "Oh, Dr. Hill, yes. Hardly even a genius and it's a pity no one else caught on." She scoffed. "Especially Dean Halsey. He puts up with him because he offers giant grants to the school."
Crawford laughed with her. "You still loathe him, do you?" It was rumored that Alan Halsey had an affair with a woman that produced twin daughters, separated so that he could take one given his wife couldn't have children of her own, but no one uttered a word to his daughter, Megan Halsey, who had been declared his only child to the world. When Katherine McMichaels, the other one, got into the medical school, she had been kept in separate classes from her twin whom she never met. Katherine harbored a resentment for the dean for the way he treated her and her mother, who currently lived in the retirement home. And she especially hated him for not allowing her to meet her twin, who remained oblivious about her other family.
"Him and Hill together," she corrected. "And Herbert..." She sighed, wiping her brow and leaning on one hand on the trunk, after closing it. "...I'm still not sure myself about moving in with the dean. I mean, he could easily find out about whatever it is you plan to do."
"But once I show him –"
"And he could call the police on you," Crawford interjected. "He'll have you apprehended for illegal research, kick you out, and it will ruin your chances of ever finishing school and continuing your career." He took Herbert by the forearms and shook him. "I won't have what happened to Pretorius happen to you. Take your mind and shatter it in the name of science." Edward Pretorius lost his mind when succeeding in opening the portal through the pineal gland, and there was no way he would let his own flesh and blood go down that path of insanity. He could smell it miles away.
Herbert's jaw was slackened, but he quickly clamped it shut and wrenched himself free from Crawford's hands. "I won't sink to that level your dear Dr. Pretorius did. Dr. Gruber never did; he died believing his work was done because it was taken by a man he blindly trusted. He died begging me to finish what we started together. I. Will. Honor. That." He paused and punctured every word with his tongue behind his teeth.
Katherine interrupted them. "So, now that that's out of the way, how about I drive, boys?"
"I'll drive instead." Crawford couldn't chance her encountering her twin; who knew what would happen if she did. But he knew that it would happen someday, eventually. Keeping things covered up never helped anyone. "I'd love to have more fun chatting with you before we lose you for good," he said sarcastically, earning a roll of the eyes from Katherine. "You should at least try to get out and socialize more, too," he said, starting the engine.
Herbert sighed heavily and leaned back into the seat. "Please, not you, too."
"Well, you said it yourself: Hans tried getting you to interact with girls more, and he was right."
"My work is more important than any women. Too many distractions."
Crawford paused in the middle of getting the van started, shifted his body around full-front and faced him, studying how rigid his body was, always had been and always will be. "Katherine never distracts me. She makes me feel I can actually accomplish anything. Matter of fact, she helped me get through with what happened to Edward, and that is why I love her so much and marry her next month. She cares and helps people, wouldn't even be a psychiatrist if she didn't. That's what love is, willing to give and to recieve in return." He shook his head. "But I don't suppose you know what love is. Your own mother never gave it to you, and it's no wonder you don't look at women as a result. You'll end up dying alone if you keep this up."
He knew his words hurt Herbert's feelings, and if they did, he wouldn't show it. Crawford actually felt horrible; he loved his cousin, and he'd been his only rock growing up, treating him with immense kindness that his own parents didn't. He wanted to apologize to Herbert, but was unsure how. Herbert would just shut it off either way.
And for that, Crawford wished he had the power to reverse the whole situation.
~o~
Finally, the day was over, ending better than earlier though not erasing the memory of the loss of the diabetic. The next one after was the victim of a hit-and-run, but the young woman survived. Meg found it in her to distance herself from Joan Harrod the rest of the day when she returned to her afternoon classes. Showering in the ladies' locker room, she dried off her short blonde hair as much as she could, then dressed up in an airy white blouse with a pretty floral detail down the front and jeans, spritzing herself with one of her few perfumes she had, grabbing the clear crystal bottle and releasing a spray of cool tropical flowers and musk onto her skin to get rid of the last of salty sweat and stinking dead flesh.
She kept her jewelry to a minimum, including pearl studs in her ears and the ring she always wore on the third finger of her right hand; diamonds in varying sizes were set in warm yellow gold, on three sides to make it sparkle from every angle. A birthday present from her father when she turned twelve years old, and it was a miracle it still fit after all these years.
Next, if you liked jewelry served rare, say hello to the engagement ring from Carl, combining two of Nature's rarest and most beautiful treasures in one exquisite piece of jewelry: a dark, lustrous Tahitian pearl surrounded with a ring of blue tanzanite stones. Tahitian pearls from French Polynesia and blue tanzanite from Mount Kilimanjaro. Megan laughed it off; so she was told. If she didn't know any better, it sounded like Carl recited it from the local jewelers by memory.
And finally, the necklace from her mother just before she died. It was bittersweet, each time she clasped it around her neck, the floral-inspired yellow gold Victorian charm boasting two exquisite garnets – her birthstone – elegantly enhanced by delicate seed pearl accents. It had been her mother's, then her mother before her – a family heirloom, really. But how could she have taken her life so soon just before her daughter turned fifteen years old? Megan had never been able to find the answer, not even her father would tell her why she did it, other than the fact that Marianne simply "struggled with life, as we all do, and in the end, she lost."
Megan actually was never close with her mother, so that was why she had mixed emotions about wearing her grandmother's pendant, whom she remembered being fond of as a child. Marianne had the habit of constantly yelling at her over the littlest of things, or simply not speak to her, much less acknowledge her existence. And Alan as well as Carl saved her every time.
Meg never got any answers to the questions of why her mother killed herself, other than the fact that she thought herself a burden in her life. She had the feeling that her father was trying to cover something up. To what? To protect her? It had been six years, and she was old enough to deserve to know. She planned to find out someday eventually. Even if she did, then it would destroy her relationship with her father.
She went home to prepare dinner, wait for her father to come home, and while she did, she deliberated on the grant meeting Thursday. She never usually saw Carl unless her father planned a big dinner regarding a grant meeting for the college, and he'd been there for her when she got into the university, her whole future planned for her and a bright career ahead of her. Hell, both Carl and her father supported her becoming a doctor, even encouraged her to get on full scholarship.
But then, as she found out too late, it meant paying a certain price for her "bright future". Leaning over the stove to get a whiff of the red sauce, just savoring the Italian spice to try to clear her mind of the ways of Puritan marriage still upheld despite the workings of modern medicine and science.
The Puritans first came to America with a simpler form of religious worship as well as stricter laws. Marriage was seen as a legal arrangement, often marrying young and remarrying quickly after the death of a spouse; not one of them married outside their own religion, either. Divorce was not an option unless the couple had fertility issues. Pre-marital pregnancy was also common if not approved of; adultery received worse punishment than that. Meg felt like she was living in an isolated world parallel to the one she actually lived in, but only she was screaming at the top of her lungs and nobody looked up. People at school admired her but didn't accept her among their crowds, others sneered and jeered at her for being the daughter of the dean and getting married to the neurosurgeon who taught their class. It was like she was left to face the world alone.
And for that, she was sick of the mundane life she was living, no matter how hard she tried to mentally reject those around her who scorned her behind her back.
A screech snapped her back to life when she turned the sauce and noodles all on low, and a black buzz jumped into her arms. Laughing, she took it into a full hold and kissed the wet black nose. "Aww, Rufus, did you miss me?" She remembered in somewhere in the early weeks of her freshman year in high school when she picked him up from the alley, stray and alone, and begging her father to keep him until he finally gave in. Rufus was an energetic little black feline with vivid green eyes that were always wide, the pupils dilated as though high on drugs, which always made her and her father laugh at the use of comparison. Setting the cat down, Megan went back to preparing dinner.
She had been in the middle of setting up the dining room table when the doorbell rang. She jumped and screamed. It couldn't have been Daddy; he didn't come home till around seven, so it couldn't be him ringing the door. Dashing for it, Meg quickly turned the knob of one of the double doors and flew it open...
...only to show the face of one particular strange young man she'd met only this afternoon, who she hoped she didn't want to see again.
Nonetheless, she put a crooked smile on her face. "Oh...hi, may I help you?"
He looked her over, putting on a smile himself. A first for her since she never saw him smile besides the briefly forced one, but this time it didn't seem forced. "Your father has allowed me to move in with the two of you for the time being, Miss...Halsey," he answered, that voice doing things to her nerves again. God, what was wrong with her? She was engaged, for God's sake. "If this is a bad time..."
"Oh, not at all." Inwardly, she questioned why Daddy would allow the new guy to move in with them when he didn't even know him. Didn't he have someplace else to go? "I'm sorry, Daddy never told me you were coming, Mr., uh..." She hadn't meant for it to come out that way, not the way Carl had.
He didn't seem to take it as an offense. "West. Herbert West. And he notified me soon after the grand tour. I'd have assumed he told you by now."
Or maybe he was too busy to call the house and tell her, or simply forgot to. Either way, Meg wondered why she was knowing this now at the last minute. Shit, where were her manners? "Oh, well, you want to come in?" She stepped aside for him. "If you want some dinner when Daddy comes home."
"Thank you." He nodded politely, stepping into the house with one step over the entranceway, then lingering with a couple slow motions as he took a look at the elegant but not overtly lavish suburban Halsey home, his face schooled into an expressionless mask. Meg watched him as she closed the door behind him; his aura literally screamed bizarre, yet so...
Hearing the door close, he turned his calculating gaze onto her, and she sucked in a breath. Even when he gave a small smile again, knowing what he said next. "I startled you."
"Yes, you did," Meg answered, cracking another nervous grin, shrinking under his watchful green gaze. The way he looked at her was as though he thought he'd seen her somewhere before today.
"Hmmm." Damn it, now she had butterflies in her stomach. She lowered her eyes to the floor, forgetting who and where she was and only dwelling on the fact this man whom her father had let into his medical school – the same medical school SHE went to – who would be in Carl's class now, was now moving into their house. His voice snapped her back to the present. "Penny for your thoughts, Miss Halsey?"
She jerked her head up. "Uh, please, Megan. Or Meg."
"Oh, well, then, Herbert." He turned his face from her then, looking around the house once more. "Would it be a trouble to show me around the house?"
He was so straightforward, wanting to get right to the point and not waste any time with the important matters at hand. Watching him walk about the house, Meg assumed, given her decision that he didn't seem to like anyone, he wasn't the social type of man. Yes, he was polite firsthand, but for how long until drama broke out? She decided to continue with the small talk; spotting Rufus coming her way, she scooped him up and carried him. "So, you've, uh, just come from Europe, right?"
"Switzerland," he answered with a quick smile her way, before turning away. Meg noticed that he looked very...smooth and professional now that he wore a long black coat, matching his hair. Nothing wrong with that sort of comment, but she wouldn't ever tell him something like that.
"What was Dr. Gruber like?" Rufus squirmed in her arms, meowing at the stranger in their house, but she held him tight without crushing him. "He was pretty famous."
"Yes, pretty famous." West sounded like he didn't want to talk about it anymore; it was suspicious, but she dropped the subject, as well as Rufus, who yowled when he couldn't take anymore of the mystery man and ran off to hide elsewhere. That was the way he was whenever strangers were in the house, but not like this. It was as though he sensed something was wrong with Herbert West.
"Does this building...have a basement?"
"What?" Megan stared at him, baffled altogether. Why was he asking about the basement? "Oh, uh, yeah we do. Follow me." The basement was located just beneath the stairs, and though she and her father hardly went down there, it was still kept clean and spotless, save for layers of dust on the table and sink counter. The unused shelves were covered with plastic to prevent any sort of air bacteria, too. Meg followed Herbert down, right behind him, faltering her steps only when he paused briefly to take in the sight of what he asked for. Even the sound of his tone of voice made her feel uncomfortable.
"Ohhh, yesss." It reminded her of the voice after an orgasm – she blushed furiously. Where did that come from, and why did she think that of all things? He stepped off the bottom step and walked further into the area. "Yes. I think this will be just fine." He paused next to the table and looked up at her; she remained right by the stairs, and he didn't seem fazed by the look she was giving him. "I have my things outside. Shall I move in now?"
She wanted to say that he ought to wait until her father came home, but at the same time she didn't want to be rude. Meg couldn't think of a better explanation without making him feel unwelcome, so she settled on, "Uh, well, I was going to say that you and Daddy still have a lot to discuss before you decide anything –"
"Oh, I've decided, and he doesn't mind." West reached into the inner pocket of the right side of his coat, pulling out what looked like his payment. "You'll never even know that I'm here, and I won't even be a trouble, either."
Experience taught her that paying in cash can mean many things: that you had something to hide that you didn't want to pay with a credit card, even when it came to renting a place for the time being. "Before I take that, you didn't say why you left Switzerland." She was well aware that Dr. Gruber died, but why didn't his prized pupil stay behind to continue his studies? Meg studied his face closely, waiting for his answer as the seconds droned on. He had the look that gave way that he hadn't expected the question, mingled with wondering how to answer.
"Uh...there was no more I could learn there. The man who took over Dr. Gruber's class was hardly up to his level of brilliance, resorting to teaching only the basics instead of going beyond the boundaries, like Gruber did."
Okay, that would make sense, if it wasn't for the hesitation in his tone. There was more than what he was telling her, and she knew it. He held the wad of bills out to her. "Do we...have a deal?"
Meg's brain was still abuzz with the screams of "No, wait for Daddy to come home and talk this over", but a small part actually proved more dominant. She really had no choice in the matter, it seemed. And why did the mere presence of him have such a diabolical power over her? Only partially unaware of what she was doing, Meg reached out and took the money, shoving it into her pocket until her father came home. "Done." She barely heard her own voice.
West was smiling at her, triumphant that he got what he came here for, and it made her nerves rattle worse than they already were. "Done."
Meg's engagement ring is a real one in existence, the gemstones believed to be from those islands. :) And ooooh, it looks like Meg's body likes the new man very much. But what about the man himself over the dean's lovely daughter? ;D