Chapter Ten

Bleed, I Must Be Dreaming

Megan glared up at him with more fire than he'd seen in her. She was his match, and he loved nothing more than a good challenge. But she said nothing more, instead closing her mouth tight and turning to kneel down and gather her dead cat into her arms, standing again and striding past him without another glance. Herbert smiled as he followed her to the door, staring after her – and accidentally, her firm backside – as she stalked down the stairs. He knew where she was going to put Rufus now, and he shook his head.

"Garbage to garbage," he muttered before closing the door, alone once more. He was still fuming; how dare she come into his room after he warned her not to? Just because she was the dean's daughter did not give her the right to invade someone else's private space. But she was looking for her cat, his other self reminded him, and this was the final place she'd have looked anyway. But still, she ought to show some respect as he showed her. He wouldn't go around intruding someone else's sanctuary for his reasons.

He did feel sympathy for her; he knew how much she loved that cat, and he actually would never admit the truth that he did indeed kill Rufus, but the damn creature invaded his privacy for the last time. Animals were nuisances. Though he tried reminding himself not everyone was like him this way; Meg adored the feline, so another part of him was guilty enough to make the decision which was the byproduct of the bottle of his creation, still safe and warm in his hand. Which Meg had the nerve to question him.

Perhaps now was the time, he decided, the smile tightening. She found his re-agent, saw Rufus in his fridge – but most of all, since she knew about what happened in Switzerland with his poor mentor, and that her sister was in on saving him from the institution – and she deserved to know about this. Herbert knew how devastated she was about losing a life as well as he when he lost Gruber, so why not? And Katherine always wanted to see it really happen, so perhaps she deserved to see it, too.

And Crawford...Herbert had the feeling he wouldn't like what he saw, especially after what happened to his own superior.

~o~

So soft, so warm...but so cold now that she was drawn from her slumber. Something cold and hard was aganst her back. She frowned as she tried to move but found she couldn't. It was like she was dead and now in what would be seen as the "living death"; she was still alive, but paralyzed for life and perceived as literally dead to the world. In time they would have forgotten her and left her alone forever, buried alive in the ground. She was on the verge of screaming as much as it would be useless...

...until she felt something extremely slim, to the point of not being there at all, brought down to the middle of her chest – her heart – and then something cold coursing through her streams with the speed and intensity of subzero waters let loose from a broken glacier, soon turning to torrid and tropical when she felt her body buzz to life, to a point where she felt her limbs' nerves charge with new life.

Testing her eyelids, she saw that she could finally open them, and when she did, she glimpsed a blue sky mirroring her eyes, as well as streaks of white clouds if not the puffy ones on the first day of spring. The most exquisite smells of tea reached her nostrils, and looking around, she saw that she was surrounded by an endless sea of red roses, their velvety petals tinted silver at the tips and waving softly in the winds. That wasn't all she saw, though. Looking down, she saw that she lay completely naked on a table she knew too well: a gurney. Frowning now and slowly raising her arms to stretch, bending at the elbows, she wondered why she was here and on a gurney of all things. And what had just happened to her?

At the same time, she felt happy and alive. There was nobody else out here but her – and an indefinable awareness that felt so good and so wrong at the same time traveling through her rejuvenated body like a drug, namely a love drug also known as an aphrodisiac. Was THAT what it was? She didn't remember ever feeling like this before, and it certainly was beyond her control. Looking up again, she saw who had brought forth this impeccable response in her anatomy.

He was clad in a white lab coat which hid every curve, every part of his body, smiling roguishly as he held up the empty hypodermic needle in his left hand. There was the slightest trace of remnants of that green stuff which she had no idea was...and then it dawned on her how "dead" she felt that she now felt alive again. "Welcome back, Miss Halsey," he crooned, his luminous eyes behind the wide spectacles reflecting the faint glow of green in his hand, which he slipped back into his coat pocket and leaned over. "And how are we feeling now?"

Her voice came out softer than she wanted it to be, but she managed past her esophagus just fine. "Fine...I guess..." Another look down at her body and his hands were moving now, starting at the ends which were her toes, tickling them as well as her feet, making her giggle. "West, what are you doing?!"

"A physical examination is in order, I believe," he told her. "We can't be certain you are physically well enough for the next step."

"Next step?" she repeated, baffled, shuddering when his hands, warm, soft and slender, now massaged and smoothed over her legs, the slim fingers gripping the firm flesh of her thighs, now getting close to a certain part which was bothering her but felt so superb that she wanted his hands there – and her mind was also warning her that she belonged to another man. Another man arranged for her with her father whom she wasn't sure if she loved anymore after all her life of secrets and lies. This man above her whom she thought deranged and brilliant at the same time...he was invigorating her whole body in a way she never felt before in two decades of life.

"Herbert..." Finally, to say his name just did the trick.

"Yes?" He lifted a delicate eyebrow at her.

"Touch me higher," she whispered, shifting her hips in his hands. By higher, she actually meant between her legs, and he knew it, looking down there briefly before shaking his head.

"Soon." He traveled higher than that, ghosting over her stomach and his thumb teasing her navel enough to make her giggle again; it wasn't funny, but it felt good enough to make her laugh and tell him she liked his version of "physical examination". Then further north to where her breasts were, the tips dark pink and erect for his hungry eyes. Giggling like a madman, West's fingers cupped her breasts underneath and then over, fondling them for a few moments and making her moan, the wet heat between her thighs getting stronger and to the pulsing point which needed help before she lost her mind.

She did it then when Herbert leaned in close enough to briefly peck his lips against hers. They were soft like the petals of the roses around them, thinner than hers but so perfect. She never took him interested in coupling, now that they were getting beyond this point. Meg whimpered and bucked her body upwards against his, still covered by the lab coat. "Damn it, Herbert, will you just take me now?" she growled, grabbing him by the lapels of his coat, making him chuckle deeply and shake his head.

"Hungry for more, eh? Just as it should be. All right then, the doctor won't let his patient suffer any longer." With that, he stood back up and reached to draw open his coat then and let it drop, be carried away elsewhere and him alone with her. She gasped and raised her arms to either side of her head. Herbert was just as naked as she was, and so slender and angelic, not the brawny type other girls dreamed of, but he wasn't attractive in that manner. He knew which key points in the body to get going, and he did it to her. Now he was covering her body with his once more, leaning down to capture her lips with his again, one hand on the right side of her face and cupping her cheek as he deepened the kiss. His other hand trailed down her body, briefly smoothing over her breast and then her stomach, finally reaching the source of her hunger. She squeaked when his meticulous fingers probed through the curls and found her dripping arousal. "That's it there, Meg; you're such a good patient. Now the doctor will treat you." With that said, he slowly slid down her body and lowered his mouth to her need.

She cried then, out of joy as pure as the sky above them, his teeth and tongue eating and drinking at her like a dog. She writhed beneath him, closing her eyes, moaning and gasping; she had never been with a man in her life, and she had professed to being scared of this one, but he was also so wonderful at making her feel so alive and energized...so living and refreshed like these roses...

...but then it all ended when she gently closed her legs around his head, not to crush but simply because the nerves were responsible. She felt something hot and glutinous beneath her legs, and while she felt his head and –

No body.

She screamed when she finally opened her eyes, legs jerking wide open the same time she jolted upright. Herbert's head lay there between her legs, the whole face still alive and moving, still taking his snack out of her. His body, however, was nowhere to be found. Blood spread beneath them both, and was beginning to pour and spray from the roses all around them, the sky changing from pure, crystal blue to an exuberant lavender and eventual blend of purple and pomegranate...finally to a maddening crimson. Meg screamed more then, the garden of blissful Eden forgotten and replaced by Satan's realm of pain.

And the head of her lover was speaking to her.

"We all live," he rasped, blood dribbling down his chin and grinning like a skull, "but never will we ever die..."

~o~

Screaming, Meg bolted upright and saw that she was surrounded by darkness and covered safe and sound. She was home, with the man of her "desire" nowhere in sight, nowhere near her. She was in her own bed, wearing her black and white satin nightgown with lace above the bust, sweating slightly from both heat and fear from the sweet dream/nightmare – what had brought that dream on?

She supposed her cat in the garbage for now as well as that mysterious green liquid in West's fridge were to blame, but why would this all be so...risqué? So arousing only for it to turn bad in the end? Looking over at her clock, it was two in the morning. She was going to have a bad day tomorrow if she didn't get any sleep. There were few times she woke sweating and unable to sleep unless she relieved herself. This time, however, was different. Meg felt an aching below her stomach that wasn't just simple post-wet-death dream. She laughed at the pun of a term, but it was no laughing matter when she thought of the man involved.

Meg had awoken early in the morning from an unexpected racy dream in which she had kinky, sort of medical sex with the man who killed her cat and stowed his carcass in his bedroom fridge, locked away previously in the nuthouse for doing something to his professor's body, and living with her and her father, the dean. Not to mention being Dr. Carl Hill's main protestor against his theories. For some reason, she was beginning to think that maybe Herbert was right about him, because how would Carl be linked to Hans Gruber then? He was up to something, and somehow, in her dream, it involved bringing something to life...somehow...

She would have to worry about that another time, before Daddy and Carl returned home. Right now, her main problem was her bothersome stimulation. Turning and rolling onto her stomach, she slid her right hand down and found her exposed area right away; she did not sleep with underwear on because it aired out to prevent the normal bacteria. She tugged on her pubic hair and then scratched the skin beneath because it was first things first, then moved further in to find her moist opening and hitching her breath when her fingers found her clit, the sensitive skin shooting to life with pleasure and picking up with every stroke and scratch without making herself bleed.

When it was over, the wave of orgasm relaxed her body at once, but before she could find it in her to fall back asleep, there was the most horribly, inhuman noise she had ever heard in her life, and her whole body burst back to life when she jumped out of bed and grabbed her matching robe at the foot of her bed. She then reached into her nightstand to her right and opened the top right drawer which held her small pistol. Daddy allowed her to have one for self-defense reasons only. She filled every chamber she could before stepping out into the hallway with her weapon in hand for the unseen "uninvited guest".

She was going to have a very bad day then if she didn't end this and went back to sleep. Nobody and nothing upstairs. Meg found herself looking in the direction of Herbert's room, wondering if he was doing something in there, since what else? Knocking a few times, she called, "Herbert? Did you hear that?" No answer, so she knocked again. "West!" Damn it, and then she heard the noise again, and a new assumption: the basement.

The door was locked as expected, but the noise DID come from there. What the hell was Herbert doing down there, and what was making that God-awful noise? Angrily, she shoved her body against the door a few times – and she fell down the flight of stairs in a painfully fast rhythm which left her body in numbing pain, her skirt riding up to show her business, but she forced herself to move to cover herself up in time when Herbert suddenly came out from the darkness that the swinging overhead light casted.

"MEG!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, over the beastly cries she heard once more, screeching worse than bats – and when Herbert turned around, she saw the unmistakable figure of a black cat on his back, viciously tearing his shirt apart so it could get to his tender skin. She began to panic; at least she knew what the commotion was, but what could she do? She couldn't shoot at it without accidentally shooting Herbert –

"Get out of here!" His voice forced her to act fast right after he knocked over the set up of glassware and test tubes on the table, collapsing to the floor in the struggle. "Get it off of me!" he howled, finally tearing the thing off him and throwing it away from them. There was a crash before scurrying was heard. Meg tried to search with him where it went, finger on the trigger.

She looked back over to Herbert, who had grabbed a shovel and used it as his own weapon of choice. Where the hell was this thing she thought was a cat? There was no way it could be a cat in any shape or form; cats attacked, but like this? She'd never encountered one like this in her life. She and Herbert crouched together like a pair of ninjas, a tense silence save for the creaks of the overhead light, and she felt her heart pound harder and faster than it had ever done before, worse than those days in the emergency room trying to get the heart of another person going again.

Meg shrieked as she saw the black mess too late, and she was thrown backwards into a pile of untouched boxes, losing her hold on her handgun. Sharp claws got her wrist as she tried to shove it off before she managed to grab a hold of it and turned to throw it into the air. A horrible splat was heard, and the yowling was heard no more.

She lay there for a few moments, staring at the blood on the wall before letting her gaze fall to the thing on the floor. Standing up, she moved closer to investigate...and gasped sharply when she immediately recognized Rufus. "Oh, God," she choked, finding it in her to slowly turn around to face West, who still had the shovel in his hands, his face showing no emotion before it transformed quickly into sheer panic, and he pointed past her.

"Look out!" She whipped her body around again to where the cat lay, but it was still dead as it was.

She had to still be asleep and dreaming then, because she remembered very clearly that Rufus was dead only earlier; she didn't remember getting a pulse or breath out of him, even though she wasn't a vet. His joints and everything were stiff; live things were never that stiff. But if he was dead, then why was he alive moments ago and attacking both her and Herbert?

Who by the way was laughing behind her at this very moment. Meg slowly turned back and glared at him. Why was he laughing like a crazy man? Oh, wait, maybe he was truly crazy enough that Katherine should have left him in the nuthouse...

She paused right there. Katherine was a compassionate soul as she was, and she would never allow a crazy person roam free like that. She'd brought Herbert back to the states for a reason that Meg had yet to put two and two together. Looking at him more closely, with him still laughing over what he thought was a good way to lighten it up when it actually hadn't, Meg realized he wasn't crazy. Just excited. Giddy. But WHY?

"Why is this so funny to you?" she demanded, standing over him as he collapsed to the floor, sitting on his behind.

He tried stifling his laughter when he answered her. "Because it is," he answered simply.

She scoffed. "Seriously, I was awoken early in the morning only to find Rufus alive and attacking us in the basement. I think you owe me an explanation now."

Herbert's laughter ceased altogether. His eyes matched his returning scowl behind his glasses. "Oh, I believe tonight was the whole point." He stood up and dropped the shovel; the tool hit the floor with a clanging noise. Herbert dusted himself off and walked over to pick up Rufus and carry him over to the table where his notes and some equipment were. Meg recognized them all from the school, and her fury was back on fire. So she was right; he was doing illegal experimentation! She could definitely get Daddy on him as soon as he returned home, but then her body moved of its own volition as she joined him at the table. "You wanted to know what this was all about," Herbert stated, putting his notebook in front of them both. "This is all what I started with Dr. Gruber before he died, all of which was Hill's fault, the reason I am here."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Okay, what does Carl have to really do with this?"

"He and Hans were schoolmates and colleagues eventually, but let's just say for short that Hill's genius IQ was no better in exceeding Gruber's, who did actual work on his own and made it into the world, but Hill was the lesser one despite being respected himself, but his ideas are so few new, such as his laser drill which as you know is already known in many countries. But that's beside the point. He stole Gruber's work and passed it off as his own. Gruber's weak heart couldn't stand it that he died in my arms, not long before making me promise him to take Hill down and reclaim what was ours."

Staring into his eyes – those soft green orbs which bore manic but also honesty and the ability to pierce through your being – she saw that he wasn't lying. Or was it out of her own inability to love Carl Hill more than just the uncle he served as since her childhood? She remembered all those times Carl was unable to teach the class anything new, so there was no disagreement there, but there were so many teachers in the world who did that. It had been that way all her life, but that was, as West said, beside the point. She started to officially think that maybe Herbert wasn't that insane after all; he knew exactly what he was doing, and he didn't kill his Swiss professor. "What was the purpose of your research with him?" she asked, tearing her eyes away to look down at the table, avoiding Rufus' body at all costs.

"Well, it's really quite simple," he answered proudly, taking on a new dimension of passion. "All life is a physical and chemical process. A true scientist should never believe in an unseen God and afterlife. So, therefore, it stands to reason that if one could find extremely fresh specimens and recharge that chemical process –" He slapped his palm flat on the table for emphasis with the next word. "– bang. We have re-animation then."

Re-animation...a dead thing brought back to life...it was too good to be true, but it was in no way different than what he was just telling her about her fiancée minutes ago. "The theory isn't new, West. Ernest Haeckel believed along with Darwin that the world started as an evolutionary process."

He sighed in exasperation. "Your sister said the same thing. No, the theory isn't new, but my re-agent is," he insisted. "That's what the green serum is. Now read before I go on." He pushed his notes in front of her that she stared down at dumbfounded for a moment. Meg still didn't believe that any of this was real, that she was just having another bad dream she wanted nothing more than to wake up from...

"'With various animating solutions,'" she started finally, "'I have killed and brought to animated life another of rabbits, guinea pigs, cats and dogs.'" She sucked in a breath and paused. This was enough to tell her that he didn't like animals, but why? Megan looked up when he spoke again.

"I've broken the six to twelve minute barrier that your fiancée," he spat, "worships. I've bypassed the irreversible conclusion of brain death. I've conquered it."

Brain death had been researched into for years, new answers coming in every day, but Carl Hill's six to twelve minute limit was the latest that he made clear was the evident end to it, but now with this...Meg looked down and finished. "'With the increase strength of each solution, the reaction has become more violent, and therefore my research has become more difficult.'"Why was it that she found it hard to believe that Rufus was never dead all this time? It was possible that – she stopped there when she realized why Herbert West was here all along. "You need me to help you in this."

"That most certainly is the reason I'm here," he answered vigorously. "You are the perfect person to assist me. You're the dean's daughter, hardworking and bright, and you have access to certain...authorities." She knew he was talking about the corpses in the morgue, and her stomach churned. More so when she looked back into his eyes, which were flaring with the fire of the brightest star. "Think of it, Meg." His hand reached to grasp hers in his; her heart thumped again as the nerves jolted. "We can defeat death. Achieve every doctor's dream, be famous...and live LIFETIMES."

Oh, God, the dream she longed for. Every day when she saw people dying, losing any one of them when they were brought in for the purpose of care and renewal, only for half of them to die from extensive injuries like fatal vehicle crashes and so on...none of that was right in any way. It was a wonderful dream, yes, but with these violent reactions and him failing to save Dr. Gruber...she pulled her hand from his. "You tried to save Gruber." He nodded, face still alight with wanting to know if she was in or not. "But you haven't done this on another person since then."

He shook his head and looked away, around their surroundings which was her basement. "I've done all I can here. I'll need new lab space." He looked back at her expectantly. "You will help me, will you?"

"No." Why did she say that? She saw what happened here, but it was night and she wasn't having a good one, either. And she couldn't say he was mad either because of this. But another would.

"Why?" he mocked. "Because it's mad? That I'm mad as the doctors in Zurich said I was?"

Meg faced him square. "No, because as much as I want to believe you, I don't. In fact, I don't think Rufus was ever dead to begin with. For all I know, you drugged him and reduced his vital signs, lowered his body temperature. He couldn't have been dead." But how could he have done all those things? Drugged him was possible, yes, but lowering his body temperature and vital signs?

He picked up Rufus in both hands. "Well, then, would you agree that he's dead now?" He dropped him back onto the table; she couldn't answer, but she did now. "Do you agree he's dead now?" Herbert repeated with more force.

"Yes, I do," she snapped finally. "So what's your plan now that you have me involved now?" In response, he stood up and crossed over to the fridge, grabbing yet another vial of the vivid green re-agent and another syringe. She moaned. "Oh, no, you're bringing him back again."

He nodded. "I'll show you once more, and then you'll help me. This is precisely why I brought your infernal beast back to life in the first place." He checked the amount one more time – Meg couldn't tell if the dosage was four or five, but it seemed an animal didn't take that much – before leaning over the dead cat and stuck the needle into the back of its neck. Knowing the anatomy very well, she guessed at the top of the spinal cord which began with –

"In the brain."

Herbert smirked. "Of course. You're catching up well, Halsey. Daddy will surely be proud of you now, once he sees that you've begun to find a better cause." He finished the injection before plucking it from the neck and moved over to stand close to her, his body nearly touching hers. Heat splashed through her again; how could he do this to her when Carl didn't? She knew the answer long before now and had said it to herself so many times:

Because she did not love Carl that way.

Meg frowned then. Wait, why love? She didn't love Herbert West, or did she? She knew for sure she was now attracted to him in a kind of sexual way, but how would she know when she was still a virgin, relying only on masturbation and fantasies that never really happened? Never been with a man in her life? "Don't expect it to tango," he spoke, interrupting her thoughts. "It has a broken back."

To her horror – and astonishment – as the one thing she never thought was indeed possible in real life, seen only in the stories and media, happened before her own two eyes. The jaw was still opened enough for the uncanny yowling began to return to life as the body began to twitch and snap, the back broken as he'd said. It was the most horrific sight she'd ever seen. "God," she gagged, "why does it make that noise?"

"Birth is always painful," he answered with a smile gracing his features.

She wasn't sure how much longer she could take this any longer; this was so incredible! He'd actually brought a dead animal – her cat – back to life! Now she was thinking about just how many people they could save. "It was DEAD!" she exclaimed, finally looking back at his face, seeing that it had not changed in the course of Rufus' second re-animation.

"Twice." A dark intensity enflamed his eyes, stronger than she'd ever seen before. It was frightening, dangerous...but also exciting. She was craving for more of that, the screeching of the undead cat still echoing in front of them. For a long time, she had never known anything like this, and it had scared her to even dare slip past barriers that should never be crossed. They said the forbidden stuff was always the best, and she could feel it in her body as she burned under those intense eyes. She craved for more of it; her nipples felt like they were getting hard again, the sensitivity shooting to her stomach.

She'd just taken her first step into a much larger, darker world than the one she'd been living in.

I suppose no words needed to describe how Meg is feeling for Herbert now. :) Nothing better can describe this kind of dark passion.