Romance of the Re-Animator
A Herbert West: Re-Animator Tale
This story takes place after Herbert West's daring escape from prison, and began his experiments anew in a town far there. MY town. This is also a story of how he came to trust and care for a woman, and a child. That woman was me. This is his story, and mine, too.
Herbert was always a lonely man, doomed (or so he thought) to work on his experiments forever in solitude. He'd always had to work in secret or concealment due to the nature of his work, with no or few people knowing about it. Herbert was the re-animator: he brought living flesh back from death. He used a formula that he and his mentor, Dr. Hans Gruber, had developed many, many years ago. He'd used it to bring back Dr. Gruber after a heart attack. This was how he discovered that the dead must be fresh, with no heart failure or trauma to the nervous system. He got deported from Switzerland and sent back stateside, where he tried to continue his experiments, only to meet defeat after defeat. His last defeat came at the hands of a corrupt prison warden and a lot of circumstances he couldn't control. It was not really a defeat, however, for during the ensuing prison riot he was able to escape back into the real world. With his bag of reagent in hand, of course.
Herbert hadn't been free in about thirteen years and the world had gone on growing while he had been imprisoned. He didn't want to join into a large city population. He knew he couldn't handle that. So he went to a small town in North Carolina, my town. He found an old abandoned laboratory, which was near one of our older cemeteries. It was a perfect set up for him. Using the name he'd stolen from his last assistant, Howard Phillips, he set up a rental plan on the laboratory and went about the business of moving in.
That was the first time I ever laid eyes on him, while I shopping in our local department store. I'd never seen anyone like him before. He looked so paranoid, so jumpy and almost scared, yet he was so handsome. I dismissed him out of hand, though; I could tell he was out of my league. He was buying a mini-fridge, and having an argument with a stock-boy about it. I was going to move on to the next department when I noticed my three- year old daughter running straight for him, and the fridge slipping off the stock-boy's cart.
"Elenor! Stop!" I screamed, sure she wouldn't hear me. The fridge started to fall for real, and 'Howard' (as I was first told to call him) looked down and grabbed her just as the fridge fell right on the spot that El had been standing. He turned and looked at me with her in his arms. He looked deadly serious when he spoke to me.
"Is this your sister? She almost got smashed by my fridge." I was stunned by the fact that El was not struggling in his arms. She normally hated strangers, but she was staring intently into his face.
"That's my little girl. Thank you for grabbing her when you did! Come here, El." He put her down on the floor, and she looked up at him, then she did something she'd never done before... she hugged him, a complete stranger!
"Thank you, sir." She came back to me and stood next to me. I looked down at her and winked to let her know I wasn't too mad at her.
"I'm Dana Rafferty. Nice to meet you." I felt almost shy, and that was quite unusual- I loved meeting new people!
"I'm Howard, Howard Phillips. You might want to try to keep your little girl beside you in the stores. You don't want to be squished by a falling fridge, do you, El?" He bent down and looked her in the face. She shook her head. He patted her on the shoulder and stood up.
"Nice to meet you, too, Dana. I must get back to my fridge now. You there, stock-boy! Apologize to these nice people. You almost killed the girl, you idiot!" The stock-boy muttered an apology and put the fridge back on the cart.
"We'll see you around?" I called after him. I didn't want to let him go without saying something else other than goodbye.
"Possibly. Nothing is impossible." He walked out of the store, the stock- boy following him. I watched him leave. It's not too often that people move into our town anyway, and there was something interesting about Howard. I couldn't pinpoint it. I decided we'd follow him.
El and I slowly followed him out into the parking lot of the store, where the stock-boy was loading the fridge into a beat-up station wagon. I loaded El into her car-seat and got into the car. I followed him to his lab and watched him unload his fridge himself, along with various yard tools- shovels and rakes. His mannerisms were precise, and he moved jerkily at times. He kept looking around as if he expected someone to jump him or attack him from behind. I watched him for half an hour, then Elenor started to whine in the backseat. She wanted to go home. So we did.
I didn't see 'Howard' again for days, and I hardly thought about anything else. I was beginning to think that maybe he was a recluse and that I should give up on him and go back to real life, when Elenor and I saw him at the grocery store while I was shopping. I deliberately ran my cart into his while he was turned away looking at a shelf.
"Why don't you watch..." he started to yell before he turned around. He paused when he saw it was me. "Oh, Dana. Hello. Hi, Elenor." He blushed. El waved at him wildly.
"Hello, Mr. Phillips. How are you today?"
"I'm good. Strange how we keep meeting this way. And don't call me Mr. Phillips, call me Howard."
"It is strange, isn't it? Are you enjoying our town, Howard?"
"It's a small town. Just what I was looking for when I left my last town. No one bothers me in my home, and I'm able to continue my...work in peace." He looked uncomfortable talking about his work to me, so I quickly looked for a way to change the subject.
"Have you met anyone in town other than me and El?"
"Not yet. I tend to be a loner. Now, I've got to get back to my shopping. Nice seeing you again." He turned back to the shelf.
"Howard?"
"Yes, Dana?" His voice was impatient, but his face told me a different story.
"Do you want to come over to my house for supper tonight? You could, you know." What possessed me to say that I'll never know. Maybe if I hadn't said it I'd be a much happier person today. Or maybe I'd be sadder. Who knows? I could see him weighing the possibilities, and then he smiled. That smile transformed his whole face; it lit him up from chin to his glasses-covered eyes.
"Sure. I'll gladly come over. Where do you live?" I gave him directions and we said our goodbyes. He told me he'd be at my house around six.
The next three hours flew by as I cooked and prepared and got El ready for our visitor. Howard rang my doorbell at five till six and I let El let him in. She seemed to genuinely like him, dragging him inside and to our living room. He looked distinctly uncomfortable as she dragged him to each of her toys in turn. I watched from the doorway, laughing to myself. Elenor had never taken to any of my boyfriends. This was a new experience, from the look of it, all three of us.
"Hello, Howard." He jumped up from the floor, with an embarrassed look on his face. He was wearing a jacket, tie, and slacks. I was wearing a t- shirt and cut-off jeans. We looked at each other for a few seconds and then fell into a giggle fit. Laughter broke the ice between us and I invited him into our dining room. We weren't having a fancy meal, just some spaghetti and veggies that I'd cooked. I'm no spectacular cook, but Howard ate like he'd not had a home-cooked meal in forever. He didn't speak while he ate. It wasn't uncomfortable silence, though. He seemed completely at his ease in my home. After he was done, he sat back, fixed his intent and probing gaze on me. I tensed up, unable to look him in the eye.
"Why did you invite me here, Dana? Are you the town's welcome wagon? Or what? And why did you follow me to my house the other day?" His gaze hardened as he looked at me.
I didn't know what to say. Luckily, my daughter did.
"Mommy wanted to thank you!" Elenor piped up, and I smiled. Howard relaxed a little and looked at my daughter, a slight smile playing on his lips.
"Your mother thanked me in the store. That would have been enough." He looked at me and smiled. "I think your mother wanted to get to know me, make me her friend. Am I right?" He was so calm, as if losing his cool was impossible, and I found myself relaxing again. He didn't seem to be mad. Then he looked at his watch. "Well, now, it's seven o' clock. What time do you usually go to bed, Elenor?"
"Seven-thirty." She smiled at him. "Would you read me a bedtime story?" He glanced at me, and I nodded to let him know it'd be all right. Why did I trust him with my only child so much? We'd barely said more than a hello and a goodbye.
"Sure, Elenor. Can you show me your room? I'll take care of her, Dana. Don't worry." He let El lead him down the hall to her room, her tiny hand in his much larger one. I took the opportunity to walk to my room and change my shirt to something a little nicer. I felt like looking good for him. Don't ask me why. After I changed, I snuck down to Elenor's room and watched as he finished reading her the story she'd picked out (we'd been on the last chapter of Mrs.Frisby and the Rats of NIMH) and tucked her into bed. He turned to me, and pushed his glasses up on his nose.
"She fell asleep just a few minutes ago. She's a sweet girl. Nice." He stood up and we walked back into the living room. I sat down on the couch and he joined me. "So what was the REAL reason you followed me home that day?"
"Well. How do I start? I saw you at the store, you save my little girl from getting smashed by a rogue refrigerator. You were right; I wanted to get to know you. You seem to be a real nice guy. A little troubled, but nice." He laughed.
"You don't know me, kiddo. I'm a bad guy, really. Not nice at all." He fixed his gaze on a spot on the wall behind me. "What's your story, Dana? How do you come to be here, at this spot in this time with a little girl and no man to be seen?" He leveled his gaze back on me.
"Well, Howard. It goes like this... I had Elenor three years ago, obviously. I had her and her father abandoned me. I had to get a job and quit medical school. I got a house and moved in here. That's my story. No sobbing, no crying, that's just the way it is. What's yours?" I stared at him. His eyes were brown. Almost unconsciously, I'd slid a little closer to him on the couch, and he'd put his arm around my shoulder.
"You don't want to know my story. Really you don't." His eyes clouded over with a distant pain. He really didn't want to tell me. I would have to push a little to get to know him better.
"I told you! Not fair." I pouted. He frowned a little, deep grooves forming in the corners of his mouth.
"Are you sure? You're not gonna like what you hear. I'm not a nice guy, and you won't like what I tell you, I'm dead serious. First off, my name's not Howard, its Herbert. I'm on the run from the law, or I would be if they knew I was me. I'm a doctor. Or I was."
I didn't wig out. I took it in my stide. "Why are you on the run? What did you do?"
"Learned to cure death." He was serious. "I learned to cure death, and I used my gift, except I hadn't perfected it yet. Many of my patients turned to well, zombies. I was arrested, put in jail. My assistant turned state's evidence against me after we were apprehended. I was sentenced to life in prison. When my last experiment before prison went crazy, he killed a girl, while her brother watched. I'd dropped a syringe of my cure on the ground as the police were man-handling me into their vehicle. I was in jail for 15 years, three of those in solitary. The boy grew up and found me there, and brought me my cure back. Together we started my experiments again. Except this time, I'd figured out how to make them live again- really live. However, those experiments got out of hand too, and in the ensuing madness, I switched identities with the boy, a doctor named Howard Phillips, and made my escape. Then, I found my way here, and met up with you and your lovely Elenor. Now, you're probably gonna call the cops. Go ahead." And he pushed himself away from me on the couch.
"I'm not gonna call the cops. Why would I do that? You haven't offered to hurt me or my child. My daughter likes you, and she's never liked anyone before. That's a big positive for you in my book. You're kind and you're obviously smart, and if you, as you say, have actually found a way to cure death, that makes you better than anyone I've ever met before." I moved over next to him on the couch, and took his hand in mine. "I'll keep your secret, and even help you if you want. I know this town and its people. I know ways around things and I know how to get places. Let me help you, Herbert. Let me be your partner now." He looked at me, and stood.
"I have a bad track history with partners. You can just be my friend for now, and if you want to help me I won't stop you. It's been a long time since I could trust someone, and I don't really know why I trust you. It's getting late. I need to go home; I have a lot of cleaning to do. I'll see you tomorrow?" I started walking him toward the door.
"Tomorrow. I'll bring El to your place and we can help you clean."
"That'd be great. What time can I expect you?"
"Is nine okay?" By now we were at the door. I opened it to let him out.
"Nine is fine." He walked out the door and towards his car. "You're my first date ever." He got into the car and peeled away. I went back inside, and collapsed on my bed. His first date ever? Wow. I felt special. I fell asleep with his name on my lips and his smell on my shirt.
I woke up like a shot the next morning at seven o clock. I went and woke El up and got her dressed. I've never been so happy to be awake and alive, not even when I had been dating El's father. I got her in the car and we got over to Herbert's laboratory apartment in record time. It was eight- thirty when I got there. He was waiting at the door. He came and lifted El out of her car-seat and led me inside.
"It's still messy. This place has been abandoned for a long time. Nothing dangerous to Elenor now, I cleaned all that up. I don't have a lot of furniture or anything right now. Money's tight, you know." I looked around and saw how messy the place still was. He put El down and stood next to me. He seemed shy, almost meek; as if he was afraid I was judging the place.
"It's a nice place, Herbert, but do you really think you should be living here? Isn't it a little expensive, and a little too big? Herbert, cancel your rent, come live with me and Elenor. I know I'm moving a little too fast and I probably am, but we have a spare bedroom and a large, spacious basement where you can work on your experiments if you want. And I can make sure you stay fed. You're probably malnourished from all that prison food. I saw how you ate last night. You were stuffing. You were starved. Think about it." He was thinking about it. I could see it in his eyes. He was thinking hard about it. "You don't have to decide today, Herbert. Just think about it, and promise me this... you'll never ever do anything to hurt my little girl." He led me to the couch and we sat down.
"That I can promise, Dana. She's a special little girl, reminds me of me when I was young. As a matter of fact, this whole situation reminds me of my childhood. My dad was gone and my mom tried raised me. She died when I was about five. I swore that one day I'd find a way to solve what happened to her, and I did. I fought my way through school, got a scholarship to Switzerland to attend a prestigious college. There I met Dr. Hans Gruber, who had done spectacular work on death. I studied under him, and we came up with a re-agent, unfortunately he died just as we were finishing it. He had a heart attack, and I brought him back from death. I gave him life! However, the stupid assistant he had interfered, and got me deported back stateside. I wish I could have stayed in Switzerland sometimes. I know I would have cracked it by now!" I saw tears of frustration forming in his eyes and pulled him to me.
"I think you'll do just fine now, Herbert. Just fine." And I kissed him. It wasn't deep or long, but it was a kiss nonetheless. After I pulled away, I heard El come up behind me.
"Mommy, is Mr. Phillips coming home with us?"
"Maybe. You might want to ask him, honey." Herbert turned around and picked her up, and looked her in the face.
"Do you want me to come home with you, Elenor?"
"Will you read me stories? Every night?" She smiled and she looked happy, happier than I'd ever seen her.
"Well see about that. I'll come live with you guys. Just to see how it works out for now. I need human companionship, or I'll forget why I do what I do." He circled my waist with his free arm. "We'll be a happy little unit, the three of us, and I can get back to work on my experiments, and you won't have to work as hard... I still have money coming in from a few investments Howard made...they belong to me now."
"Do you want to move today, Herbert? We can, you know. You don't have all that much to take with you." He pulled me close and agreed to start moving that day.
Once we got started, it didn't take us long to get done. Three hours after Herbert agreed to move, he was finishing setting up his makeshift lab in the basement. After he finished, I called down to him.
"Herbert? You need anything else?"
"No, I don't think so. I'm coming back up now." He plodded up the stairs and plopped down into one of the kitchen barstools, his face red from exertion. "You know, I must be getting old. I can remember when work like that didn't affect me at all." He did look winded. "You have to promise me something, Dana, and it's something very important for both you and El. When I'm working, no matter what, neither of you go down there. I can't risk you, either of you. I...I feel comfortable here and I don't want to cause you any pain. I would feel terrible if anything befell you or El. Especially if it's my fault. I... really like you both. I wouldn't have come here if I didn't. I guess we were supposed to meet like this. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go try and straighten up my room." Herbert got up from the stool and went to his room, just as El was coming into the kitchen. She hopped up onto her chair. She looked troubled.
"What is it, El?" I sat down next to her, took her hands in mine.
"Is Mr. Phillips my daddy? Is that why he came to live with us?" I knew that the daddy situation had always bothered her, but I'd never realized how much. I should have realized how fast Herbert and I had moved would have confused her. I pulled her in my lap and smoothed her hair back.
"Honey, Mr. Phillips isn't your daddy. You daddy left us a long time ago. Mr. Phillips is a nice man who's going to live with us for a while. But, honey-"
I was interrupted by Herbert, who must have been standing in the doorway while El talked to me. "El, I might be willing to apply for the job one day, but for now, let's just be friends, okay?" She looked up into his face, eyes shining with joy. "You'll be my friend? Okay, Mr. Phillips."
"El, call me Uncle Howard. It's easier for you."
"Okay, Uncle Howard." She hopped off my lap and left the room, calling behind her, "I'm going to go play in my room, Mom!"
"Okay, baby." I stood up and looked at Herbert. "You didn't have to say that, Herbert. She's just confused right now. We've been alone all her life, and now suddenly there's a new man in her life." Herbert thought about it for a minute.
"Hopefully, I'll be the only man in her life for a long, long time." We walked into the living room and sat down.
"Herbert, tell me about the way you bring the dead back to life. How do you do it?" I was genuinely curious, because I'd been on a pre-med track before I had to leave college and start raising El.
"It's really Dr. Gruber's serum and not mine. I've refined it and made it better since Switzerland, but it's always been Dr. Gruber's to me. As to how it works, do you want to see? Do you have anything like a mouse around here?"
"We're mouse free, Herbert."
"Then I'll go to the pet store and buy one. I'll be back. Can I take El with me?" I shook my head.
"Not yet, Herbert. That'd raise too many questions in this town, and maybe even get you approached by the town police. We don't want that, do we?" I knew we'd have to be seen around town together first before anyone would trust him. That's why the stock-boy at the store gave him such a hard time. He didn't know him, and not being known in small town North Carolina may as well be a crime in itself. I couldn't risk sending him out there, to get noticed with El, not yet.
"All right then. I'll be back soon." He put on his jacket and headed out the door. He wasn't gone too long, though, and he came back with not only a mouse, but a solid black, yellow-eyed kitten as well. We'd never had pets before, and El had always wanted a kitten. I wondered how he knew.
"I hope you don't mind, Dana. I saw it there and it reminded me of something I did a long time ago, and I had to get him. They would have put him down if I didn't. I didn't want that. I really hope its okay. If not, I'll let it go." He sat the kitten down on the floor.
"Its okay, Herbert. It's fine! El's wanted a kitten for a long time. She'll be ecstatic! You really are becoming like a father to her, you know. It's strange, and a bit fast."
"I guess, deep down, all I ever really wanted was a family. Let me tell her about the kitten." He seemed to glow with the joy of belonging here with us, and picked the kitten up off the floor. He turned and called El into the living room. She came running.
"Yes, Uncle Howard?" She looked up at him intently, and I could actually see similarities between the two of them. They had the same slope to their forehead and their eyes were set the same in their faces. It was... uncanny.
"Have you been a good girl for your mom? Ever been bad?" He caught my eye and smiled.
"Yes, sir! I've been good! I promise I have! Why?" She started to try and peek around his back.
"Because I bought something for us two to take care of together. You want to see?" He bent down and sat the kitten on the floor. "His name is Rufus. We'll get him some water, and some food. I'll be right back, Dana, and we'll go down into the basement." He and El went into the kitchen together, and in a few minutes I could hear Rufus eating and drinking happily, and Herbert walked back into the living room, where he'd set the mouse down in it's little critter carrier. "Come on with me to the basement. I'm going to have to kill him to bring him back, and I'm only going to show you the first step of the re-animation process since I'm only partially set up down there. Come on." We headed down into the basement, and I saw where he'd set up his test tubes and beakers and his mini-fridge. "Please don't touch anything. I'm very precise when it comes to my instruments." He crossed over to the mini-fridge and pulled out his black doctor's bag, removing a syringe filled with glowing green liquid. "This is my reagent. This is what does it. Hand me the mouse's carrier, please." I handed it to him and he opened it and grabbed the mouse. "Please don't freak out. I have to kill this mouse for you to see what Dr. Gruber's serum can do." I assured him that I wouldn't, and he snapped the poor little mouse's neck. I heard it crunch. He sat the dead mouse onto the picnic table he'd modified for his equipment, and motioned me closer. "Don't expect much from it, I snapped its spine." He took his needle and buried it deep in the neck of the creature. We waited. In a few seconds, the mouse started moving around on the table. He was right, it couldn't move far but it could move. It was obviously alive. When he thought I'd seen enough, he took the x-acto knife and cut the poor things head off.
"Why did you do that?"
"Because I didn't want anyone seeing it. My experiments are still somewhat outside the line of the law. I don't want to leave any evidence lying around for El to find." He threw the mouse's body in the trash can he had put next to the table.
"You've had a bad time with the experiments before, haven't you?" I could sense it from the way he talked.
"Well, let's just say more than one's gotten out of hand before." We went back up to the main part of the house.
Life went well for many months, no surprises, and no reanimations. Herbert grew closer to the both of us. We, in turn, grew closer to him. It was like he'd always been a part of our little family. He moved out of his room and into mine. We made our little union official six months to the day of his arrival into our lives. Of course, our married name was Phillips instead of West, but there was nothing to help that. Herbert adopted little El, too, and that made her very happy. She fell right into the habit of calling him Daddy.
Herbert took a job as a caretaker at one of the older cemeteries in town, and together we were able to make it a local tourist attraction within a year. We got a lot of coverage in the local newspaper for that. He didn't like getting his picture taken, though. We were intensely private people, and the town respected us for that. El started school a year early thanks to his tutelage. She was quite happy about that. You'd never guess that we were not your typical family just by appearances.
Six more months passed and I began to become sick in the mornings. Herbert became worried and bought me a pregnancy test. It came out positive. We were going to be parents again! I'd never seen him so happy, not even at our civil ceremony. My parents were informed, and the gifts started coming in. One day, three months into my pregnancy and while Herbert was at work and El was at school, I got a very unwanted visitor.
I answered the doorbell, not bothering to look out of the window first.
"Hello, Dana. Where's my daughter?" I gasped. It was Daniel Cain, El's biological father, at the door.
"Daniel? What are you doing here? You can't be here, Daniel. You're not welcome." I tried to shut the door, but he pushed into the house anyway.
"She's at school, Dana? I haven't ever seen her; I don't know what my own daughter looks like, Dana. You know what that feels like, Dana?"
"You gave up your rights to her a long time ago, Daniel. You've never seen her because you never wanted to. You aren't welcome here, Daniel."
He pushed his way into the house and looked around; he seemed to be looking for pictures. "You must have shacked up with someone. There's no way you could afford this place without help. You're pregnant again too. Who's the lucky guy, Dana? Some creep from the grocery store? Some poor sap you duped into it?"
"No, Daniel. He's a wonderful man, better than you ever were. El loves him, and you aren't welcome here. Now leave. Howard takes care of us well and you aren't needed." I forced him out of the house and locked the door.
"I'll come back, Dana! I'll come back and you'll be sorry! I want to see my daughter, Dana!" He pounded on our door until he cracked the glass and then he left. I sat down in the living room and started shaking. I hadn't seen Daniel in three years, since just before El was born. I was still shaking when Herbert brought El home from school. He saw me and immediately sent El to her room to play.
"What happened, Dana? Are you hurting? You're pale as snow and cold as a cadaver... and trust me I know how cold those are." He was trying to make me smile, in his own way. I just looked at him. He sat on the couch next to me, took my hands in his. "You can tell me, Dana. Whatever it is, you can tell me." I turned and looked at him.
"Elenor's real father came by today. He forced himself into the house and threatened me. Oh, Herbert, I'm so scared! Daniel is insane; he thinks he's needed her. I told him that we were fine here, and we had you and we didn't need him."
He took me in his arms. "Its okay, Dana, what can he do? Nothing at all. We're fine. What's his name, Dana? His whole name. I'm going to take care of it myself."
"His name is Daniel Cain." Herbert sat straight up on the couch and pushed me away. He started to shake a little, almost imperceptibly.
"Did you say Daniel Cain? Dan Cain? You're joking me, Dana, really you must be."
"Why, Herbert, I'm not. That's Elenor's father's name. He was a teacher at the college, four years ago. He was a medical teacher, in the mortuary arts..."
Herbert interrupted me. "He was tall and dashing, and had beautiful black hair and sparkling green eyes."
"Yes. Herbert, how did you know?" I couldn't believe that he knew.
"Dana, he was my first assistant. HE turned state's evidence on ME! After all I'd done for him! I'm raising his child! Dana, don't you see? All this time, I never knew. I know you couldn't have known. I don't blame you. You can't be at fault, but if he comes here again, I'll have to take care of him. I don't want him around my daughter. She's my daughter now. No one will harm her, or you! I won't let him. He tried to put me away for my entire life. He tried to steal my serum; he tried to make sure he would never have to see me again. He won't touch you, Dana. I'll make sure of it." He stood up. He was angry, pacing back and forth in the living room. I'd never seen him angry before. It was almost scary. "It's not only that, Dana. What if he finds out that I'm me, Herbert West, the Re-Animator? He'll turn us all in. He'll get custody of El, and probably our baby, too. Oh, Dana, why, why him? Any man but him!"
"I didn't know, Herbert. I swear." I was starting to cry. He sat back down next to me, and pulled me to him. I cried and cried into his shoulder until I couldn't cry anymore. Then he pushed me back up and told me we would be okay. We'd move if we needed to, he assured me. Then he excused himself and went down into the basement to brood for a while. I went to the bathroom and cleaned up so I wouldn't alarm El.
Later that evening, after we had eaten and El had gone to bed, Hebert and I were sitting together on the couch, enjoying each other's company when he turned to me and asked, "Did you love Dan, Dana?"
I looked at him, and carefully weighed my answer. I couldn't bear to hurt him, I was carrying his child, and I loved him too much to hurt him. "I used to love him, or at least I thought I did. I was young and he was older and was paying attention to me. I don't regret what I did, if I did, I'd never have given birth to El, and El is something I would never ever give up." I could see the relief form behind his glasses.
"Good. I was afraid..." We fell asleep together on the couch like that...when I woke up it was past midnight. I shook Herbert awake and we went to bed.
I woke the next morning violently sick again, and Herbert decided to stay home with me. Even though he was a trained medical professional, he got paranoid every time I got sick. He couldn't bear the thought of me losing the baby- he thought it was his only chance to become a father for real. At around two o'clock the sickness started to subside and I was able to get up and move around. He attributed my sickness to stress and took on more responsibility around the house and with El. He didn't want me to work at all. I finally had to put my foot down and start doing work for myself again.
My pregnancy advanced into its final stages just fine, and Herbert became more and more the worried father figure. When my water finally broke, he had me and El in the car and at the hospital in less than ten minutes. We'd made arrangements with my mother to come get El from the hospital, and 'Howard' would call them with news. The birth was short and easy compared to Elenor's. When it was over, we were rewarded with a ten pound three ounce baby boy that we named Herbert West Phillips. We would call him Wes. I was able to take him home in a couple of days. El didn't know what to make of him. She was afraid to touch him at first. She quickly got used to him. It was Herbert that was the timid one. He was afraid he was going to drop the baby or hurt him in some way. It took some doing to get him comfortable with Wes. Soon, he was feeding him and changing him like a pro... all except the occasional time when Wes would pee in his face.
After Wes was born, Herbert got his ambition for his work back. He shared his work with me a lot, and I was surprised to realize that I understood a lot of it. We began to spend more and more time trying to perfect his formula and his neutral energy theory. Together we discovered that the Nanoplasmic Energy, the driving force of the body, was not neutral as he had originally thought. It was person-specific, and the only way to collect it was (as he had originally conjectured) through electrocution. If a person were to have a strong current passed through them in the moments before death, their NPE could be gathered and re-injected into them after re-animation, and they would be themselves again. We tried it on rats and cats and mice, and every time we were successful. He got the habit of writing on the kitchen table cloth, and on any scrap of paper he could get his hands on. He was getting great momentum going again. He was always careful to make sure El never saw his work. I was becoming a real partner to him, not just a bystander watching him work.
A year passed and we made progress in a lot of things, our lives, our work (he insisted on calling it our work now), our children's lives, and our revitalization of the local cemeteries, and we hadn't been bothered by Dan Cain since. Rufus the kitten grew into Fat Rufus the walking carpet. We were happy and free to enjoy ourselves... until that fateful day when our world crashed to a screeching halt.
It was nearing Elenor's birthday. She was really excited, she was going to be five years old, and she was barely able to contain herself. With almost a week until it, it was all she was able to talk about. I sent her off to school with Herbert one day and sat down for a few minutes before I knew Wes was due to wake up. I let Rufus outside and then began to go about the day's housework. The day went fine until I heard a banging at the door. I put Wes in the playpen in the living room, and looked out the window. Not seeing anything or anyone outside, I opened the door, and found an envelope addressed to Howard taped to it. I looked around and still didn't see anything. I went back inside, and opened the envelope absentmindedly. Inside it was a note that said, "Cat dead—details later...Herbert." I dropped it to the floor. It was in Dan's writing. I grabbed Wes and the phone, and ran outside calling for Rufus. When he didn't come after five minutes, I called Herbert at work.
"Howard Phillips, Eternal Sanctuary Caretaker, how may I help you?" His voice was comforting even over the phone, but I was too scared to care at the moment. I told him everything. When I told him what the note said I could hear his jaw hit the floor.
"It said what?!"
"Cat dead- details later...Herbert. That's all. It's in his handwriting, Howard, his writing!" I was becoming hysterical. Later, after everything was over with, the phone showed pressure-marks from my fingers.
"Dana, I'm coming home right now...go into the house and lock the door. Don't open it for anyone. Do it now, Dana, so I can hear you do it." I did. "Hang up now, Dana. Don't answer it unless it's me or your mother. I'll be home as soon as possible. See you then, baby." He hung up, and I put the phone down. I put Wes back in the playpen and sat down, trying to stop shaking.
It didn't take long for Herbert to get home. He must have sped the whole way home, and the way he busted into the house told me he was worried, too. He crossed the living room in three steps and was in front of me. "Where's the note, Dana?" I pointed to where I'd dropped it on the floor and he went to pick it up. He gave it a cursory glance and then sank next to me on the couch, shaking his head. "It's entirely my fault. I never should have let myself get attached to a family. He could have hunted me down and left you guys alone. He wants me to hurt. I know it." He put his head in his hands.
"We could move, Herbert. Take El and Wes and go somewhere far, far away. Why was the note worded like that? Why would he put it so coldly?"
"He was telling me that he knew that I was me. When we first met, we were sharing a house together on Miskatonic University's campus. He had a cat, one just like our fat Rufus, except thinner. The cat got its head caught in a jar, fell and broke its neck. I put it in the fridge in my room to tell him about it when he got home. His sniveling nosy bubble-head of a girlfriend at the time saw the glow from my serum and decided to investigate. I came upon her just as she opened the door to the fridge and saw the cat dead. She accused me of killing it, and I asked him if he'd wanted me to leave a note for him on the fridge...just like that one. He did it to get my attention. Rufus is probably dead. We can't move away, Dana, he'd find us. We just have to take care of things here. I'm going to take a leave of absence from the cemetery. I'll stay here with you, in case he comes back. He will not torment this family. He knows what I'm capable of. He can't be so stupid as to have forgotten." He stood up and began to pace the floor. "I'll stay home, watch after you and the baby. El will spend a week or two with your parents. We'll all go there together. You and Wes are not to be left alone anymore. Dan's playing games with us now. If he weren't he'd have called the authorities already. He's trying to get under our skin. We won't let him do it." He gathered Wes up out of the playpen, grabbed his diaper bag and bottles and grabbed his car keys. "We're going to go get El. Right now, Dana." We bundled into Herbert's Pontiac Zephyr, and went to El's school. We walked into the school together and went to the office to get our little girl. Ms. Lewiston was the office assistant that day.
"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips! How can I help you today?" She had a silly smile on her face. I knew something was wrong. I could sense it. Herbert stepped up to the counter and asked for our daughter.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Phillips, but your brother just picked her up. He had a note, it checked out. Wasn't he given permission?" She looked confused. Herbert stood up straighter than ever and I could see him trying to hold back his anger.
"Madam, I don't have a brother. What did this man look like?! You sent my daughter off with a total stranger." The lady started shuffling through her papers. She took too long in answering Herbert, and he slammed his fist down on the table. "WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?"
"He was taller than you and he had green eyes, and black hair. He looked a lot like El. That's why I let her go with him. She looked like she could have been his daughter. Who was it? He had a note!"
Hebert grabbed her, and pulled her towards him. "Someone who wasn't approved to take MY daughter away from this school! What's the matter with you? My daughter's been kidnapped, and you're just standing there!" Mr. Johnson, El's principal, stepped out of his office, trying to see what the commotion was.
"Please take your hands off of my secretary, Mr. Phillips. What seems to be the problem here, sir?" Herbert put the useless bitch down and turned to the principal, both of us about to lose our cool. I was crying softly, tears of anguish pouring down my cheeks.
"Our daughter was taken from this school without our permission, that's what wrong. If I don't find her within three hours, I'm going to break your neck." He grabbed me and we ran back to the car, strapping Wes in hurriedly.
"Where did he take her, Herbert? Where could he have gone?" I was past hysteria now. I was almost in shock.
"I don't know. We're going to take Wes to your parents, and we're going to make arrangements for him to stay there until we find El. We're not going to tell them that El is missing. The only ones who need to know that right now are you, me, and those two dupes at the school. We're going to find her, Dana. Don't worry. Just stay with me. I can't have you out of whack right now. You've got to cover for your mom for me. I can't do it alone, honey." Herbert called my mother to make sure she was home and told her we were coming over.
We got to my parent's house soon enough and my mom was waiting at the door, ready to take Wes from us. "What's going on, Dana? Something's wrong."
"We can't talk about it now, Mrs. Rafferty. Please keep Wes for us until we get back. He got fresh diapers and you've got clothes and bottles here. Please understand that we wouldn't ask this unless it was a dire emergency. We don't have time to talk right now. We'll be back for him soon. Thank you for taking him on such short notice.
"Thanks, mom. Really. We'll be back soon." I got back in the car and we sped away, leaving my mother with a confused look on her face and our baby in her arms. After we pulled out of the drive, I turned to Herbert and asked him, "Where are we going, Herbert?"
"We're going back to the house. He left one note, and I'll bet you anything that they're another one on our door. Dan never was very original."
"Why does he hate you, Herbert?" "In his mind, I caused Megan Halsey's death. She was the bubble-headed co- ed I told you about. She got caught up in our first experiment at Miskatonic. Our professor, Dr. Carl Hill, tried to take the serum from me. I killed him. I cut off his head. I re-animated it and his body to see if I could. I didn't realize that he would be able to control his own body. He knocked me out and stole the serum, then he took Megan and tried to seduce her... can you imagine that, Dana, a talking head seducing a girl? It's funny now. Anyway, Dan and I got to the school's morgue and found Dr. Hill there. We killed him, and all the corpses that he had brought back using my serum... wastefully... and found poor Megan dead. He always blamed me for that."
We pulled into our driveway, and just like Herbert had said, there was a note taped to the door.
"Stay here, I'm going to get that note." He sprinted up the walk to the door and grabbed the letter. He didn't open it until her got back to the car. He ripped the letter out of the envelope.
"Meet me at the laboratory you were renting. I have MY daughter with me. She is safe for now. Bring OUR serum. Bring your woman with you; I want her to be here." Herbert looked at me and I nodded. He walked inside, his shoulders sagging, and returned in a few minutes with his familiar beaten black bag in his hand.
"Shall we go now?" I nodded numbly. He started the car and we headed to the laboratory where I'd followed him that day so long ago. It was a long drive, or at least it felt like it. We pulled up and saw a black van with the windows painted out parked beside it. "Dana, I'm not going to let anything happen to our little girl. She's as much mine as she is yours now, and if he makes a move to touch her I'll kill him and leave him dead." We got out of the car and clasped hands. Together we walked to the door and opened it.
"MOMMY! DADDY!" El was tied to a chair, and Daniel was standing behind her, scratching his head with a knife.
"That's far enough, both of you. Don't you come a step closer, Herbert! I can kill her in a swipe of this blade, and you couldn't re-animate her in time. You care for her, man. You care about someone other than yourself and your damned experimentation! Look at you, Herbert, you're pathetic. You're droll. You're sad, and you're just wrong. What happened to that risk-taking daring young scientist that invaded my life twenty years ago? What happened to you, Herbert? Did you get scared and give up? Did you get regretful and stop? You became attached to them! You found my family and took them away from me. This is MY daughter, Herbert, mine. That is MY woman whose hand you're clasping like a schoolboy. It would have been my son, too, Herbert. You've taken everything from me, Herbert. You took Meg-" At that, Herbert interrupted him angrily. Rage poured from him like a tidal wave.
"That's what this is about, isn't it, Dan? Your bubble-headed bimbo of a dead girlfriend from twenty years ago! It's not about me, or my family, it's not even about my daughter. She is MY daughter, Dan, she has been since the day I walked into her life. She may have your genes, but El belongs to me. You used Dana just like you were using Meg back then. You know I did you a favor when I walked into your life all those years ago. Otherwise, you'd have NEVER done anything worthwhile." Daniel's eyes burned with hatred. He stopped scratching his head with the knife and brought it down level with El's throat, nicked her along the collarbone. A line of blood formed.
"Remember who has the knife here, Herbert. You know I'm capable. You're shaking, Herbert. What is wrong?" Herbert let go of my hand, started to sprint forward. "Ah, ah, ah, West. I wouldn't do that if I were you. There's a lot of blood in a little one." Herbert stopped.
"What do you want, Cain?" Herbert looked down into his hand, and remembered the bag with the serum and the Nanoplasmic Energy collection device that we'd engineered together. "It's this, isn't it? You want my work. Well, you can have it!" Without warning, Herbert grabbed one of the syringes from his bag, dropped the bag, and threw the syringe up into the air, distracting Daniel. He ran forward, and he wrestled Dan away from Elenor. The two of them fell to the floor and rolled away from the chair. Seeing an opportunity, I ran for El and untied her quickly.
"Run, El, run for the door! I've got to help your daddy!" I pushed her away from me and she did as I said. I turned and saw Dan and Herbert fighting for the knife. With no rational thought left, I hurled myself towards them, and bowled Dan off of Herbert just as he was about to strike. I felt a searing pain as the knife went through my sternum and into my chest. Then all went black.
So now, you're asking yourself, if she died, how is she writing this? It's not possible! Remember what I told you about the NPE and electrocution. Remember how I told Herbert that I had ways of getting things for him. How did this happen, you ask? I'll tell you.
When Herbert saw the knife sink into my chest, he went insane with rage and grief. As I lay dying, he launched a new attack on Cain. The syringe had landed close to where I was, and he grabbed it, and depressed the plunger, spilling all of the reagent onto the ground. He filled it back up with air. Sitting atop Cain's chest, he reared back and plunged it deep into his heart, sending an air bubble directly into it and stopping it. Herbert rolled off of Cain and ran to me.
"Don't die! Don't die on me! NOT YET!" Herbert ran for the table in the middle of the room, where we had left one of two defibrillators. He grabbed it and set it to two thousand volts and attached the NPE collector to the back of my neck. He shocked me, enough to gather my NPE and collect it. I died then. Working feverishly, he took another syringe of reagent and plunged the needle into me. I came back to life. I could see, barely. I could not hear well or understand what was being said to me, but I still knew enough to know that Herbert was trying to help me, so I didn't fight as he re-attached the NPE collector. He turned the switch and released my own NPE back into my body. My vision cleared, my understanding returned to me. I was whole again. When I looked at Herbert and called his name, he burst into tears. "It works, Herbert. You did it."
"No, Dana, we did it. We did it together. Are you feeling any side effects? Are you yourself?" Always the scientist. I assured him that I was fine, and after he bound my wound, we walked out of the laboratory together, hand in hand. Our daughter ran to us.
"Mommy, you're hurt! Who was that man, Mommy? He said he was my daddy!" She held her arms up to Herbert, and he picked her up. He turned to her and smiled.
"That man... was a bad memory."
THE END.
A Herbert West: Re-Animator Tale
This story takes place after Herbert West's daring escape from prison, and began his experiments anew in a town far there. MY town. This is also a story of how he came to trust and care for a woman, and a child. That woman was me. This is his story, and mine, too.
Herbert was always a lonely man, doomed (or so he thought) to work on his experiments forever in solitude. He'd always had to work in secret or concealment due to the nature of his work, with no or few people knowing about it. Herbert was the re-animator: he brought living flesh back from death. He used a formula that he and his mentor, Dr. Hans Gruber, had developed many, many years ago. He'd used it to bring back Dr. Gruber after a heart attack. This was how he discovered that the dead must be fresh, with no heart failure or trauma to the nervous system. He got deported from Switzerland and sent back stateside, where he tried to continue his experiments, only to meet defeat after defeat. His last defeat came at the hands of a corrupt prison warden and a lot of circumstances he couldn't control. It was not really a defeat, however, for during the ensuing prison riot he was able to escape back into the real world. With his bag of reagent in hand, of course.
Herbert hadn't been free in about thirteen years and the world had gone on growing while he had been imprisoned. He didn't want to join into a large city population. He knew he couldn't handle that. So he went to a small town in North Carolina, my town. He found an old abandoned laboratory, which was near one of our older cemeteries. It was a perfect set up for him. Using the name he'd stolen from his last assistant, Howard Phillips, he set up a rental plan on the laboratory and went about the business of moving in.
That was the first time I ever laid eyes on him, while I shopping in our local department store. I'd never seen anyone like him before. He looked so paranoid, so jumpy and almost scared, yet he was so handsome. I dismissed him out of hand, though; I could tell he was out of my league. He was buying a mini-fridge, and having an argument with a stock-boy about it. I was going to move on to the next department when I noticed my three- year old daughter running straight for him, and the fridge slipping off the stock-boy's cart.
"Elenor! Stop!" I screamed, sure she wouldn't hear me. The fridge started to fall for real, and 'Howard' (as I was first told to call him) looked down and grabbed her just as the fridge fell right on the spot that El had been standing. He turned and looked at me with her in his arms. He looked deadly serious when he spoke to me.
"Is this your sister? She almost got smashed by my fridge." I was stunned by the fact that El was not struggling in his arms. She normally hated strangers, but she was staring intently into his face.
"That's my little girl. Thank you for grabbing her when you did! Come here, El." He put her down on the floor, and she looked up at him, then she did something she'd never done before... she hugged him, a complete stranger!
"Thank you, sir." She came back to me and stood next to me. I looked down at her and winked to let her know I wasn't too mad at her.
"I'm Dana Rafferty. Nice to meet you." I felt almost shy, and that was quite unusual- I loved meeting new people!
"I'm Howard, Howard Phillips. You might want to try to keep your little girl beside you in the stores. You don't want to be squished by a falling fridge, do you, El?" He bent down and looked her in the face. She shook her head. He patted her on the shoulder and stood up.
"Nice to meet you, too, Dana. I must get back to my fridge now. You there, stock-boy! Apologize to these nice people. You almost killed the girl, you idiot!" The stock-boy muttered an apology and put the fridge back on the cart.
"We'll see you around?" I called after him. I didn't want to let him go without saying something else other than goodbye.
"Possibly. Nothing is impossible." He walked out of the store, the stock- boy following him. I watched him leave. It's not too often that people move into our town anyway, and there was something interesting about Howard. I couldn't pinpoint it. I decided we'd follow him.
El and I slowly followed him out into the parking lot of the store, where the stock-boy was loading the fridge into a beat-up station wagon. I loaded El into her car-seat and got into the car. I followed him to his lab and watched him unload his fridge himself, along with various yard tools- shovels and rakes. His mannerisms were precise, and he moved jerkily at times. He kept looking around as if he expected someone to jump him or attack him from behind. I watched him for half an hour, then Elenor started to whine in the backseat. She wanted to go home. So we did.
I didn't see 'Howard' again for days, and I hardly thought about anything else. I was beginning to think that maybe he was a recluse and that I should give up on him and go back to real life, when Elenor and I saw him at the grocery store while I was shopping. I deliberately ran my cart into his while he was turned away looking at a shelf.
"Why don't you watch..." he started to yell before he turned around. He paused when he saw it was me. "Oh, Dana. Hello. Hi, Elenor." He blushed. El waved at him wildly.
"Hello, Mr. Phillips. How are you today?"
"I'm good. Strange how we keep meeting this way. And don't call me Mr. Phillips, call me Howard."
"It is strange, isn't it? Are you enjoying our town, Howard?"
"It's a small town. Just what I was looking for when I left my last town. No one bothers me in my home, and I'm able to continue my...work in peace." He looked uncomfortable talking about his work to me, so I quickly looked for a way to change the subject.
"Have you met anyone in town other than me and El?"
"Not yet. I tend to be a loner. Now, I've got to get back to my shopping. Nice seeing you again." He turned back to the shelf.
"Howard?"
"Yes, Dana?" His voice was impatient, but his face told me a different story.
"Do you want to come over to my house for supper tonight? You could, you know." What possessed me to say that I'll never know. Maybe if I hadn't said it I'd be a much happier person today. Or maybe I'd be sadder. Who knows? I could see him weighing the possibilities, and then he smiled. That smile transformed his whole face; it lit him up from chin to his glasses-covered eyes.
"Sure. I'll gladly come over. Where do you live?" I gave him directions and we said our goodbyes. He told me he'd be at my house around six.
The next three hours flew by as I cooked and prepared and got El ready for our visitor. Howard rang my doorbell at five till six and I let El let him in. She seemed to genuinely like him, dragging him inside and to our living room. He looked distinctly uncomfortable as she dragged him to each of her toys in turn. I watched from the doorway, laughing to myself. Elenor had never taken to any of my boyfriends. This was a new experience, from the look of it, all three of us.
"Hello, Howard." He jumped up from the floor, with an embarrassed look on his face. He was wearing a jacket, tie, and slacks. I was wearing a t- shirt and cut-off jeans. We looked at each other for a few seconds and then fell into a giggle fit. Laughter broke the ice between us and I invited him into our dining room. We weren't having a fancy meal, just some spaghetti and veggies that I'd cooked. I'm no spectacular cook, but Howard ate like he'd not had a home-cooked meal in forever. He didn't speak while he ate. It wasn't uncomfortable silence, though. He seemed completely at his ease in my home. After he was done, he sat back, fixed his intent and probing gaze on me. I tensed up, unable to look him in the eye.
"Why did you invite me here, Dana? Are you the town's welcome wagon? Or what? And why did you follow me to my house the other day?" His gaze hardened as he looked at me.
I didn't know what to say. Luckily, my daughter did.
"Mommy wanted to thank you!" Elenor piped up, and I smiled. Howard relaxed a little and looked at my daughter, a slight smile playing on his lips.
"Your mother thanked me in the store. That would have been enough." He looked at me and smiled. "I think your mother wanted to get to know me, make me her friend. Am I right?" He was so calm, as if losing his cool was impossible, and I found myself relaxing again. He didn't seem to be mad. Then he looked at his watch. "Well, now, it's seven o' clock. What time do you usually go to bed, Elenor?"
"Seven-thirty." She smiled at him. "Would you read me a bedtime story?" He glanced at me, and I nodded to let him know it'd be all right. Why did I trust him with my only child so much? We'd barely said more than a hello and a goodbye.
"Sure, Elenor. Can you show me your room? I'll take care of her, Dana. Don't worry." He let El lead him down the hall to her room, her tiny hand in his much larger one. I took the opportunity to walk to my room and change my shirt to something a little nicer. I felt like looking good for him. Don't ask me why. After I changed, I snuck down to Elenor's room and watched as he finished reading her the story she'd picked out (we'd been on the last chapter of Mrs.Frisby and the Rats of NIMH) and tucked her into bed. He turned to me, and pushed his glasses up on his nose.
"She fell asleep just a few minutes ago. She's a sweet girl. Nice." He stood up and we walked back into the living room. I sat down on the couch and he joined me. "So what was the REAL reason you followed me home that day?"
"Well. How do I start? I saw you at the store, you save my little girl from getting smashed by a rogue refrigerator. You were right; I wanted to get to know you. You seem to be a real nice guy. A little troubled, but nice." He laughed.
"You don't know me, kiddo. I'm a bad guy, really. Not nice at all." He fixed his gaze on a spot on the wall behind me. "What's your story, Dana? How do you come to be here, at this spot in this time with a little girl and no man to be seen?" He leveled his gaze back on me.
"Well, Howard. It goes like this... I had Elenor three years ago, obviously. I had her and her father abandoned me. I had to get a job and quit medical school. I got a house and moved in here. That's my story. No sobbing, no crying, that's just the way it is. What's yours?" I stared at him. His eyes were brown. Almost unconsciously, I'd slid a little closer to him on the couch, and he'd put his arm around my shoulder.
"You don't want to know my story. Really you don't." His eyes clouded over with a distant pain. He really didn't want to tell me. I would have to push a little to get to know him better.
"I told you! Not fair." I pouted. He frowned a little, deep grooves forming in the corners of his mouth.
"Are you sure? You're not gonna like what you hear. I'm not a nice guy, and you won't like what I tell you, I'm dead serious. First off, my name's not Howard, its Herbert. I'm on the run from the law, or I would be if they knew I was me. I'm a doctor. Or I was."
I didn't wig out. I took it in my stide. "Why are you on the run? What did you do?"
"Learned to cure death." He was serious. "I learned to cure death, and I used my gift, except I hadn't perfected it yet. Many of my patients turned to well, zombies. I was arrested, put in jail. My assistant turned state's evidence against me after we were apprehended. I was sentenced to life in prison. When my last experiment before prison went crazy, he killed a girl, while her brother watched. I'd dropped a syringe of my cure on the ground as the police were man-handling me into their vehicle. I was in jail for 15 years, three of those in solitary. The boy grew up and found me there, and brought me my cure back. Together we started my experiments again. Except this time, I'd figured out how to make them live again- really live. However, those experiments got out of hand too, and in the ensuing madness, I switched identities with the boy, a doctor named Howard Phillips, and made my escape. Then, I found my way here, and met up with you and your lovely Elenor. Now, you're probably gonna call the cops. Go ahead." And he pushed himself away from me on the couch.
"I'm not gonna call the cops. Why would I do that? You haven't offered to hurt me or my child. My daughter likes you, and she's never liked anyone before. That's a big positive for you in my book. You're kind and you're obviously smart, and if you, as you say, have actually found a way to cure death, that makes you better than anyone I've ever met before." I moved over next to him on the couch, and took his hand in mine. "I'll keep your secret, and even help you if you want. I know this town and its people. I know ways around things and I know how to get places. Let me help you, Herbert. Let me be your partner now." He looked at me, and stood.
"I have a bad track history with partners. You can just be my friend for now, and if you want to help me I won't stop you. It's been a long time since I could trust someone, and I don't really know why I trust you. It's getting late. I need to go home; I have a lot of cleaning to do. I'll see you tomorrow?" I started walking him toward the door.
"Tomorrow. I'll bring El to your place and we can help you clean."
"That'd be great. What time can I expect you?"
"Is nine okay?" By now we were at the door. I opened it to let him out.
"Nine is fine." He walked out the door and towards his car. "You're my first date ever." He got into the car and peeled away. I went back inside, and collapsed on my bed. His first date ever? Wow. I felt special. I fell asleep with his name on my lips and his smell on my shirt.
I woke up like a shot the next morning at seven o clock. I went and woke El up and got her dressed. I've never been so happy to be awake and alive, not even when I had been dating El's father. I got her in the car and we got over to Herbert's laboratory apartment in record time. It was eight- thirty when I got there. He was waiting at the door. He came and lifted El out of her car-seat and led me inside.
"It's still messy. This place has been abandoned for a long time. Nothing dangerous to Elenor now, I cleaned all that up. I don't have a lot of furniture or anything right now. Money's tight, you know." I looked around and saw how messy the place still was. He put El down and stood next to me. He seemed shy, almost meek; as if he was afraid I was judging the place.
"It's a nice place, Herbert, but do you really think you should be living here? Isn't it a little expensive, and a little too big? Herbert, cancel your rent, come live with me and Elenor. I know I'm moving a little too fast and I probably am, but we have a spare bedroom and a large, spacious basement where you can work on your experiments if you want. And I can make sure you stay fed. You're probably malnourished from all that prison food. I saw how you ate last night. You were stuffing. You were starved. Think about it." He was thinking about it. I could see it in his eyes. He was thinking hard about it. "You don't have to decide today, Herbert. Just think about it, and promise me this... you'll never ever do anything to hurt my little girl." He led me to the couch and we sat down.
"That I can promise, Dana. She's a special little girl, reminds me of me when I was young. As a matter of fact, this whole situation reminds me of my childhood. My dad was gone and my mom tried raised me. She died when I was about five. I swore that one day I'd find a way to solve what happened to her, and I did. I fought my way through school, got a scholarship to Switzerland to attend a prestigious college. There I met Dr. Hans Gruber, who had done spectacular work on death. I studied under him, and we came up with a re-agent, unfortunately he died just as we were finishing it. He had a heart attack, and I brought him back from death. I gave him life! However, the stupid assistant he had interfered, and got me deported back stateside. I wish I could have stayed in Switzerland sometimes. I know I would have cracked it by now!" I saw tears of frustration forming in his eyes and pulled him to me.
"I think you'll do just fine now, Herbert. Just fine." And I kissed him. It wasn't deep or long, but it was a kiss nonetheless. After I pulled away, I heard El come up behind me.
"Mommy, is Mr. Phillips coming home with us?"
"Maybe. You might want to ask him, honey." Herbert turned around and picked her up, and looked her in the face.
"Do you want me to come home with you, Elenor?"
"Will you read me stories? Every night?" She smiled and she looked happy, happier than I'd ever seen her.
"Well see about that. I'll come live with you guys. Just to see how it works out for now. I need human companionship, or I'll forget why I do what I do." He circled my waist with his free arm. "We'll be a happy little unit, the three of us, and I can get back to work on my experiments, and you won't have to work as hard... I still have money coming in from a few investments Howard made...they belong to me now."
"Do you want to move today, Herbert? We can, you know. You don't have all that much to take with you." He pulled me close and agreed to start moving that day.
Once we got started, it didn't take us long to get done. Three hours after Herbert agreed to move, he was finishing setting up his makeshift lab in the basement. After he finished, I called down to him.
"Herbert? You need anything else?"
"No, I don't think so. I'm coming back up now." He plodded up the stairs and plopped down into one of the kitchen barstools, his face red from exertion. "You know, I must be getting old. I can remember when work like that didn't affect me at all." He did look winded. "You have to promise me something, Dana, and it's something very important for both you and El. When I'm working, no matter what, neither of you go down there. I can't risk you, either of you. I...I feel comfortable here and I don't want to cause you any pain. I would feel terrible if anything befell you or El. Especially if it's my fault. I... really like you both. I wouldn't have come here if I didn't. I guess we were supposed to meet like this. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go try and straighten up my room." Herbert got up from the stool and went to his room, just as El was coming into the kitchen. She hopped up onto her chair. She looked troubled.
"What is it, El?" I sat down next to her, took her hands in mine.
"Is Mr. Phillips my daddy? Is that why he came to live with us?" I knew that the daddy situation had always bothered her, but I'd never realized how much. I should have realized how fast Herbert and I had moved would have confused her. I pulled her in my lap and smoothed her hair back.
"Honey, Mr. Phillips isn't your daddy. You daddy left us a long time ago. Mr. Phillips is a nice man who's going to live with us for a while. But, honey-"
I was interrupted by Herbert, who must have been standing in the doorway while El talked to me. "El, I might be willing to apply for the job one day, but for now, let's just be friends, okay?" She looked up into his face, eyes shining with joy. "You'll be my friend? Okay, Mr. Phillips."
"El, call me Uncle Howard. It's easier for you."
"Okay, Uncle Howard." She hopped off my lap and left the room, calling behind her, "I'm going to go play in my room, Mom!"
"Okay, baby." I stood up and looked at Herbert. "You didn't have to say that, Herbert. She's just confused right now. We've been alone all her life, and now suddenly there's a new man in her life." Herbert thought about it for a minute.
"Hopefully, I'll be the only man in her life for a long, long time." We walked into the living room and sat down.
"Herbert, tell me about the way you bring the dead back to life. How do you do it?" I was genuinely curious, because I'd been on a pre-med track before I had to leave college and start raising El.
"It's really Dr. Gruber's serum and not mine. I've refined it and made it better since Switzerland, but it's always been Dr. Gruber's to me. As to how it works, do you want to see? Do you have anything like a mouse around here?"
"We're mouse free, Herbert."
"Then I'll go to the pet store and buy one. I'll be back. Can I take El with me?" I shook my head.
"Not yet, Herbert. That'd raise too many questions in this town, and maybe even get you approached by the town police. We don't want that, do we?" I knew we'd have to be seen around town together first before anyone would trust him. That's why the stock-boy at the store gave him such a hard time. He didn't know him, and not being known in small town North Carolina may as well be a crime in itself. I couldn't risk sending him out there, to get noticed with El, not yet.
"All right then. I'll be back soon." He put on his jacket and headed out the door. He wasn't gone too long, though, and he came back with not only a mouse, but a solid black, yellow-eyed kitten as well. We'd never had pets before, and El had always wanted a kitten. I wondered how he knew.
"I hope you don't mind, Dana. I saw it there and it reminded me of something I did a long time ago, and I had to get him. They would have put him down if I didn't. I didn't want that. I really hope its okay. If not, I'll let it go." He sat the kitten down on the floor.
"Its okay, Herbert. It's fine! El's wanted a kitten for a long time. She'll be ecstatic! You really are becoming like a father to her, you know. It's strange, and a bit fast."
"I guess, deep down, all I ever really wanted was a family. Let me tell her about the kitten." He seemed to glow with the joy of belonging here with us, and picked the kitten up off the floor. He turned and called El into the living room. She came running.
"Yes, Uncle Howard?" She looked up at him intently, and I could actually see similarities between the two of them. They had the same slope to their forehead and their eyes were set the same in their faces. It was... uncanny.
"Have you been a good girl for your mom? Ever been bad?" He caught my eye and smiled.
"Yes, sir! I've been good! I promise I have! Why?" She started to try and peek around his back.
"Because I bought something for us two to take care of together. You want to see?" He bent down and sat the kitten on the floor. "His name is Rufus. We'll get him some water, and some food. I'll be right back, Dana, and we'll go down into the basement." He and El went into the kitchen together, and in a few minutes I could hear Rufus eating and drinking happily, and Herbert walked back into the living room, where he'd set the mouse down in it's little critter carrier. "Come on with me to the basement. I'm going to have to kill him to bring him back, and I'm only going to show you the first step of the re-animation process since I'm only partially set up down there. Come on." We headed down into the basement, and I saw where he'd set up his test tubes and beakers and his mini-fridge. "Please don't touch anything. I'm very precise when it comes to my instruments." He crossed over to the mini-fridge and pulled out his black doctor's bag, removing a syringe filled with glowing green liquid. "This is my reagent. This is what does it. Hand me the mouse's carrier, please." I handed it to him and he opened it and grabbed the mouse. "Please don't freak out. I have to kill this mouse for you to see what Dr. Gruber's serum can do." I assured him that I wouldn't, and he snapped the poor little mouse's neck. I heard it crunch. He sat the dead mouse onto the picnic table he'd modified for his equipment, and motioned me closer. "Don't expect much from it, I snapped its spine." He took his needle and buried it deep in the neck of the creature. We waited. In a few seconds, the mouse started moving around on the table. He was right, it couldn't move far but it could move. It was obviously alive. When he thought I'd seen enough, he took the x-acto knife and cut the poor things head off.
"Why did you do that?"
"Because I didn't want anyone seeing it. My experiments are still somewhat outside the line of the law. I don't want to leave any evidence lying around for El to find." He threw the mouse's body in the trash can he had put next to the table.
"You've had a bad time with the experiments before, haven't you?" I could sense it from the way he talked.
"Well, let's just say more than one's gotten out of hand before." We went back up to the main part of the house.
Life went well for many months, no surprises, and no reanimations. Herbert grew closer to the both of us. We, in turn, grew closer to him. It was like he'd always been a part of our little family. He moved out of his room and into mine. We made our little union official six months to the day of his arrival into our lives. Of course, our married name was Phillips instead of West, but there was nothing to help that. Herbert adopted little El, too, and that made her very happy. She fell right into the habit of calling him Daddy.
Herbert took a job as a caretaker at one of the older cemeteries in town, and together we were able to make it a local tourist attraction within a year. We got a lot of coverage in the local newspaper for that. He didn't like getting his picture taken, though. We were intensely private people, and the town respected us for that. El started school a year early thanks to his tutelage. She was quite happy about that. You'd never guess that we were not your typical family just by appearances.
Six more months passed and I began to become sick in the mornings. Herbert became worried and bought me a pregnancy test. It came out positive. We were going to be parents again! I'd never seen him so happy, not even at our civil ceremony. My parents were informed, and the gifts started coming in. One day, three months into my pregnancy and while Herbert was at work and El was at school, I got a very unwanted visitor.
I answered the doorbell, not bothering to look out of the window first.
"Hello, Dana. Where's my daughter?" I gasped. It was Daniel Cain, El's biological father, at the door.
"Daniel? What are you doing here? You can't be here, Daniel. You're not welcome." I tried to shut the door, but he pushed into the house anyway.
"She's at school, Dana? I haven't ever seen her; I don't know what my own daughter looks like, Dana. You know what that feels like, Dana?"
"You gave up your rights to her a long time ago, Daniel. You've never seen her because you never wanted to. You aren't welcome here, Daniel."
He pushed his way into the house and looked around; he seemed to be looking for pictures. "You must have shacked up with someone. There's no way you could afford this place without help. You're pregnant again too. Who's the lucky guy, Dana? Some creep from the grocery store? Some poor sap you duped into it?"
"No, Daniel. He's a wonderful man, better than you ever were. El loves him, and you aren't welcome here. Now leave. Howard takes care of us well and you aren't needed." I forced him out of the house and locked the door.
"I'll come back, Dana! I'll come back and you'll be sorry! I want to see my daughter, Dana!" He pounded on our door until he cracked the glass and then he left. I sat down in the living room and started shaking. I hadn't seen Daniel in three years, since just before El was born. I was still shaking when Herbert brought El home from school. He saw me and immediately sent El to her room to play.
"What happened, Dana? Are you hurting? You're pale as snow and cold as a cadaver... and trust me I know how cold those are." He was trying to make me smile, in his own way. I just looked at him. He sat on the couch next to me, took my hands in his. "You can tell me, Dana. Whatever it is, you can tell me." I turned and looked at him.
"Elenor's real father came by today. He forced himself into the house and threatened me. Oh, Herbert, I'm so scared! Daniel is insane; he thinks he's needed her. I told him that we were fine here, and we had you and we didn't need him."
He took me in his arms. "Its okay, Dana, what can he do? Nothing at all. We're fine. What's his name, Dana? His whole name. I'm going to take care of it myself."
"His name is Daniel Cain." Herbert sat straight up on the couch and pushed me away. He started to shake a little, almost imperceptibly.
"Did you say Daniel Cain? Dan Cain? You're joking me, Dana, really you must be."
"Why, Herbert, I'm not. That's Elenor's father's name. He was a teacher at the college, four years ago. He was a medical teacher, in the mortuary arts..."
Herbert interrupted me. "He was tall and dashing, and had beautiful black hair and sparkling green eyes."
"Yes. Herbert, how did you know?" I couldn't believe that he knew.
"Dana, he was my first assistant. HE turned state's evidence on ME! After all I'd done for him! I'm raising his child! Dana, don't you see? All this time, I never knew. I know you couldn't have known. I don't blame you. You can't be at fault, but if he comes here again, I'll have to take care of him. I don't want him around my daughter. She's my daughter now. No one will harm her, or you! I won't let him. He tried to put me away for my entire life. He tried to steal my serum; he tried to make sure he would never have to see me again. He won't touch you, Dana. I'll make sure of it." He stood up. He was angry, pacing back and forth in the living room. I'd never seen him angry before. It was almost scary. "It's not only that, Dana. What if he finds out that I'm me, Herbert West, the Re-Animator? He'll turn us all in. He'll get custody of El, and probably our baby, too. Oh, Dana, why, why him? Any man but him!"
"I didn't know, Herbert. I swear." I was starting to cry. He sat back down next to me, and pulled me to him. I cried and cried into his shoulder until I couldn't cry anymore. Then he pushed me back up and told me we would be okay. We'd move if we needed to, he assured me. Then he excused himself and went down into the basement to brood for a while. I went to the bathroom and cleaned up so I wouldn't alarm El.
Later that evening, after we had eaten and El had gone to bed, Hebert and I were sitting together on the couch, enjoying each other's company when he turned to me and asked, "Did you love Dan, Dana?"
I looked at him, and carefully weighed my answer. I couldn't bear to hurt him, I was carrying his child, and I loved him too much to hurt him. "I used to love him, or at least I thought I did. I was young and he was older and was paying attention to me. I don't regret what I did, if I did, I'd never have given birth to El, and El is something I would never ever give up." I could see the relief form behind his glasses.
"Good. I was afraid..." We fell asleep together on the couch like that...when I woke up it was past midnight. I shook Herbert awake and we went to bed.
I woke the next morning violently sick again, and Herbert decided to stay home with me. Even though he was a trained medical professional, he got paranoid every time I got sick. He couldn't bear the thought of me losing the baby- he thought it was his only chance to become a father for real. At around two o'clock the sickness started to subside and I was able to get up and move around. He attributed my sickness to stress and took on more responsibility around the house and with El. He didn't want me to work at all. I finally had to put my foot down and start doing work for myself again.
My pregnancy advanced into its final stages just fine, and Herbert became more and more the worried father figure. When my water finally broke, he had me and El in the car and at the hospital in less than ten minutes. We'd made arrangements with my mother to come get El from the hospital, and 'Howard' would call them with news. The birth was short and easy compared to Elenor's. When it was over, we were rewarded with a ten pound three ounce baby boy that we named Herbert West Phillips. We would call him Wes. I was able to take him home in a couple of days. El didn't know what to make of him. She was afraid to touch him at first. She quickly got used to him. It was Herbert that was the timid one. He was afraid he was going to drop the baby or hurt him in some way. It took some doing to get him comfortable with Wes. Soon, he was feeding him and changing him like a pro... all except the occasional time when Wes would pee in his face.
After Wes was born, Herbert got his ambition for his work back. He shared his work with me a lot, and I was surprised to realize that I understood a lot of it. We began to spend more and more time trying to perfect his formula and his neutral energy theory. Together we discovered that the Nanoplasmic Energy, the driving force of the body, was not neutral as he had originally thought. It was person-specific, and the only way to collect it was (as he had originally conjectured) through electrocution. If a person were to have a strong current passed through them in the moments before death, their NPE could be gathered and re-injected into them after re-animation, and they would be themselves again. We tried it on rats and cats and mice, and every time we were successful. He got the habit of writing on the kitchen table cloth, and on any scrap of paper he could get his hands on. He was getting great momentum going again. He was always careful to make sure El never saw his work. I was becoming a real partner to him, not just a bystander watching him work.
A year passed and we made progress in a lot of things, our lives, our work (he insisted on calling it our work now), our children's lives, and our revitalization of the local cemeteries, and we hadn't been bothered by Dan Cain since. Rufus the kitten grew into Fat Rufus the walking carpet. We were happy and free to enjoy ourselves... until that fateful day when our world crashed to a screeching halt.
It was nearing Elenor's birthday. She was really excited, she was going to be five years old, and she was barely able to contain herself. With almost a week until it, it was all she was able to talk about. I sent her off to school with Herbert one day and sat down for a few minutes before I knew Wes was due to wake up. I let Rufus outside and then began to go about the day's housework. The day went fine until I heard a banging at the door. I put Wes in the playpen in the living room, and looked out the window. Not seeing anything or anyone outside, I opened the door, and found an envelope addressed to Howard taped to it. I looked around and still didn't see anything. I went back inside, and opened the envelope absentmindedly. Inside it was a note that said, "Cat dead—details later...Herbert." I dropped it to the floor. It was in Dan's writing. I grabbed Wes and the phone, and ran outside calling for Rufus. When he didn't come after five minutes, I called Herbert at work.
"Howard Phillips, Eternal Sanctuary Caretaker, how may I help you?" His voice was comforting even over the phone, but I was too scared to care at the moment. I told him everything. When I told him what the note said I could hear his jaw hit the floor.
"It said what?!"
"Cat dead- details later...Herbert. That's all. It's in his handwriting, Howard, his writing!" I was becoming hysterical. Later, after everything was over with, the phone showed pressure-marks from my fingers.
"Dana, I'm coming home right now...go into the house and lock the door. Don't open it for anyone. Do it now, Dana, so I can hear you do it." I did. "Hang up now, Dana. Don't answer it unless it's me or your mother. I'll be home as soon as possible. See you then, baby." He hung up, and I put the phone down. I put Wes back in the playpen and sat down, trying to stop shaking.
It didn't take long for Herbert to get home. He must have sped the whole way home, and the way he busted into the house told me he was worried, too. He crossed the living room in three steps and was in front of me. "Where's the note, Dana?" I pointed to where I'd dropped it on the floor and he went to pick it up. He gave it a cursory glance and then sank next to me on the couch, shaking his head. "It's entirely my fault. I never should have let myself get attached to a family. He could have hunted me down and left you guys alone. He wants me to hurt. I know it." He put his head in his hands.
"We could move, Herbert. Take El and Wes and go somewhere far, far away. Why was the note worded like that? Why would he put it so coldly?"
"He was telling me that he knew that I was me. When we first met, we were sharing a house together on Miskatonic University's campus. He had a cat, one just like our fat Rufus, except thinner. The cat got its head caught in a jar, fell and broke its neck. I put it in the fridge in my room to tell him about it when he got home. His sniveling nosy bubble-head of a girlfriend at the time saw the glow from my serum and decided to investigate. I came upon her just as she opened the door to the fridge and saw the cat dead. She accused me of killing it, and I asked him if he'd wanted me to leave a note for him on the fridge...just like that one. He did it to get my attention. Rufus is probably dead. We can't move away, Dana, he'd find us. We just have to take care of things here. I'm going to take a leave of absence from the cemetery. I'll stay here with you, in case he comes back. He will not torment this family. He knows what I'm capable of. He can't be so stupid as to have forgotten." He stood up and began to pace the floor. "I'll stay home, watch after you and the baby. El will spend a week or two with your parents. We'll all go there together. You and Wes are not to be left alone anymore. Dan's playing games with us now. If he weren't he'd have called the authorities already. He's trying to get under our skin. We won't let him do it." He gathered Wes up out of the playpen, grabbed his diaper bag and bottles and grabbed his car keys. "We're going to go get El. Right now, Dana." We bundled into Herbert's Pontiac Zephyr, and went to El's school. We walked into the school together and went to the office to get our little girl. Ms. Lewiston was the office assistant that day.
"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips! How can I help you today?" She had a silly smile on her face. I knew something was wrong. I could sense it. Herbert stepped up to the counter and asked for our daughter.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Phillips, but your brother just picked her up. He had a note, it checked out. Wasn't he given permission?" She looked confused. Herbert stood up straighter than ever and I could see him trying to hold back his anger.
"Madam, I don't have a brother. What did this man look like?! You sent my daughter off with a total stranger." The lady started shuffling through her papers. She took too long in answering Herbert, and he slammed his fist down on the table. "WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?"
"He was taller than you and he had green eyes, and black hair. He looked a lot like El. That's why I let her go with him. She looked like she could have been his daughter. Who was it? He had a note!"
Hebert grabbed her, and pulled her towards him. "Someone who wasn't approved to take MY daughter away from this school! What's the matter with you? My daughter's been kidnapped, and you're just standing there!" Mr. Johnson, El's principal, stepped out of his office, trying to see what the commotion was.
"Please take your hands off of my secretary, Mr. Phillips. What seems to be the problem here, sir?" Herbert put the useless bitch down and turned to the principal, both of us about to lose our cool. I was crying softly, tears of anguish pouring down my cheeks.
"Our daughter was taken from this school without our permission, that's what wrong. If I don't find her within three hours, I'm going to break your neck." He grabbed me and we ran back to the car, strapping Wes in hurriedly.
"Where did he take her, Herbert? Where could he have gone?" I was past hysteria now. I was almost in shock.
"I don't know. We're going to take Wes to your parents, and we're going to make arrangements for him to stay there until we find El. We're not going to tell them that El is missing. The only ones who need to know that right now are you, me, and those two dupes at the school. We're going to find her, Dana. Don't worry. Just stay with me. I can't have you out of whack right now. You've got to cover for your mom for me. I can't do it alone, honey." Herbert called my mother to make sure she was home and told her we were coming over.
We got to my parent's house soon enough and my mom was waiting at the door, ready to take Wes from us. "What's going on, Dana? Something's wrong."
"We can't talk about it now, Mrs. Rafferty. Please keep Wes for us until we get back. He got fresh diapers and you've got clothes and bottles here. Please understand that we wouldn't ask this unless it was a dire emergency. We don't have time to talk right now. We'll be back for him soon. Thank you for taking him on such short notice.
"Thanks, mom. Really. We'll be back soon." I got back in the car and we sped away, leaving my mother with a confused look on her face and our baby in her arms. After we pulled out of the drive, I turned to Herbert and asked him, "Where are we going, Herbert?"
"We're going back to the house. He left one note, and I'll bet you anything that they're another one on our door. Dan never was very original."
"Why does he hate you, Herbert?" "In his mind, I caused Megan Halsey's death. She was the bubble-headed co- ed I told you about. She got caught up in our first experiment at Miskatonic. Our professor, Dr. Carl Hill, tried to take the serum from me. I killed him. I cut off his head. I re-animated it and his body to see if I could. I didn't realize that he would be able to control his own body. He knocked me out and stole the serum, then he took Megan and tried to seduce her... can you imagine that, Dana, a talking head seducing a girl? It's funny now. Anyway, Dan and I got to the school's morgue and found Dr. Hill there. We killed him, and all the corpses that he had brought back using my serum... wastefully... and found poor Megan dead. He always blamed me for that."
We pulled into our driveway, and just like Herbert had said, there was a note taped to the door.
"Stay here, I'm going to get that note." He sprinted up the walk to the door and grabbed the letter. He didn't open it until her got back to the car. He ripped the letter out of the envelope.
"Meet me at the laboratory you were renting. I have MY daughter with me. She is safe for now. Bring OUR serum. Bring your woman with you; I want her to be here." Herbert looked at me and I nodded. He walked inside, his shoulders sagging, and returned in a few minutes with his familiar beaten black bag in his hand.
"Shall we go now?" I nodded numbly. He started the car and we headed to the laboratory where I'd followed him that day so long ago. It was a long drive, or at least it felt like it. We pulled up and saw a black van with the windows painted out parked beside it. "Dana, I'm not going to let anything happen to our little girl. She's as much mine as she is yours now, and if he makes a move to touch her I'll kill him and leave him dead." We got out of the car and clasped hands. Together we walked to the door and opened it.
"MOMMY! DADDY!" El was tied to a chair, and Daniel was standing behind her, scratching his head with a knife.
"That's far enough, both of you. Don't you come a step closer, Herbert! I can kill her in a swipe of this blade, and you couldn't re-animate her in time. You care for her, man. You care about someone other than yourself and your damned experimentation! Look at you, Herbert, you're pathetic. You're droll. You're sad, and you're just wrong. What happened to that risk-taking daring young scientist that invaded my life twenty years ago? What happened to you, Herbert? Did you get scared and give up? Did you get regretful and stop? You became attached to them! You found my family and took them away from me. This is MY daughter, Herbert, mine. That is MY woman whose hand you're clasping like a schoolboy. It would have been my son, too, Herbert. You've taken everything from me, Herbert. You took Meg-" At that, Herbert interrupted him angrily. Rage poured from him like a tidal wave.
"That's what this is about, isn't it, Dan? Your bubble-headed bimbo of a dead girlfriend from twenty years ago! It's not about me, or my family, it's not even about my daughter. She is MY daughter, Dan, she has been since the day I walked into her life. She may have your genes, but El belongs to me. You used Dana just like you were using Meg back then. You know I did you a favor when I walked into your life all those years ago. Otherwise, you'd have NEVER done anything worthwhile." Daniel's eyes burned with hatred. He stopped scratching his head with the knife and brought it down level with El's throat, nicked her along the collarbone. A line of blood formed.
"Remember who has the knife here, Herbert. You know I'm capable. You're shaking, Herbert. What is wrong?" Herbert let go of my hand, started to sprint forward. "Ah, ah, ah, West. I wouldn't do that if I were you. There's a lot of blood in a little one." Herbert stopped.
"What do you want, Cain?" Herbert looked down into his hand, and remembered the bag with the serum and the Nanoplasmic Energy collection device that we'd engineered together. "It's this, isn't it? You want my work. Well, you can have it!" Without warning, Herbert grabbed one of the syringes from his bag, dropped the bag, and threw the syringe up into the air, distracting Daniel. He ran forward, and he wrestled Dan away from Elenor. The two of them fell to the floor and rolled away from the chair. Seeing an opportunity, I ran for El and untied her quickly.
"Run, El, run for the door! I've got to help your daddy!" I pushed her away from me and she did as I said. I turned and saw Dan and Herbert fighting for the knife. With no rational thought left, I hurled myself towards them, and bowled Dan off of Herbert just as he was about to strike. I felt a searing pain as the knife went through my sternum and into my chest. Then all went black.
So now, you're asking yourself, if she died, how is she writing this? It's not possible! Remember what I told you about the NPE and electrocution. Remember how I told Herbert that I had ways of getting things for him. How did this happen, you ask? I'll tell you.
When Herbert saw the knife sink into my chest, he went insane with rage and grief. As I lay dying, he launched a new attack on Cain. The syringe had landed close to where I was, and he grabbed it, and depressed the plunger, spilling all of the reagent onto the ground. He filled it back up with air. Sitting atop Cain's chest, he reared back and plunged it deep into his heart, sending an air bubble directly into it and stopping it. Herbert rolled off of Cain and ran to me.
"Don't die! Don't die on me! NOT YET!" Herbert ran for the table in the middle of the room, where we had left one of two defibrillators. He grabbed it and set it to two thousand volts and attached the NPE collector to the back of my neck. He shocked me, enough to gather my NPE and collect it. I died then. Working feverishly, he took another syringe of reagent and plunged the needle into me. I came back to life. I could see, barely. I could not hear well or understand what was being said to me, but I still knew enough to know that Herbert was trying to help me, so I didn't fight as he re-attached the NPE collector. He turned the switch and released my own NPE back into my body. My vision cleared, my understanding returned to me. I was whole again. When I looked at Herbert and called his name, he burst into tears. "It works, Herbert. You did it."
"No, Dana, we did it. We did it together. Are you feeling any side effects? Are you yourself?" Always the scientist. I assured him that I was fine, and after he bound my wound, we walked out of the laboratory together, hand in hand. Our daughter ran to us.
"Mommy, you're hurt! Who was that man, Mommy? He said he was my daddy!" She held her arms up to Herbert, and he picked her up. He turned to her and smiled.
"That man... was a bad memory."
THE END.