Disclaimer: I don't own the characters involved; Marvel does. No profit is being made from their usage.

Author's Note: I have the feeling that I'm going to earn a reputation as the author who re-animates Rosie every Halloween… Maybe it should become a tradition! Vampires, werewolves, witches… and now, undead Rosies. Actually, this was one of my original ideas for Moonlight Becomes You, and I liked it too much to just forget about it. It's short; no more than three chapters, hopefully, so it shouldn't be too much of a strain for me to write. I need to work on more short stories! Anyway… Happy Halloween…

Warning: Some graphic violence in this chapter. I don't think it's R-rated, but if you think so, let me know.

Thorns of the Dark Rose

One – Bones of the Earth

The crescent moon was the only illumination along the old, well-used country road. The gravel edges were lined with trees that had long shed their leaves, leaving a decaying, pungent carpet that muffled sound. Only the dry rattle of branches swaying in a cool evening breeze could be heard. It was a picture perfect country setting; one would almost expect to run in to a farmer and his horse-drawn cart when traversing the narrow, curving passage. Which all made what lay at the end of the road all the more jarring: one of the state's most technologically advanced research centers lay hidden in the forests of upstate New York, away from protestors who found their work amoral. The reclusive nature of the scientists made the site ideal; there was little complaint about their location as long as they were kept supplied with the basic amenities. They thrived on their research.

The downside to this isolation was that they had little more than a skeleton crew of security guards to protect their valuable research, and the nearest police station was ten miles away – their response time would be too slow in a dire emergency. But very few outside the corporations that funded their work even knew of the lab's existence, giving it protection of a different sort.

Still, Dr. Simon Colton shivered as a tree branch scraped the window; the dry rasping sounded unnaturally loud in the silent lab. Goosebumps prickled his skin, and he tried to ignore the crawling sensation at the nape of his neck. It's just the wind, he told himself crossly, turning away from the window and its partially obstructed view of the lonely country road. He could still see the shadows of the branches on the walls, like long, skeletal fingers reaching towards him. He hated these night shifts; the normally bustling labs became vast, empty places, the lights were kept to a minimum to conserve power, and even the ever-present hum of the computer he was working on seemed to contain an ominous note. He'd always had a fear of the dark, one of those inexplicable phobias that was atavistic in nature and difficult to overcome. It wouldn't have been so bad if Dr. Julia Rogan had been here with him, but she'd gone off for a cup of coffee and hadn't returned yet.

Dr. Colton yawned and rubbed at his stubbled jaw, wondering if he dared turn on some music to lighten the oppressive atmosphere. Dr. Rogan didn't like to work to music, but as long as she wasn't here, he didn't see the harm. He got up from the uncomfortable chair, stretching, and crossed the lab to where the small portable radio had been set up atop the freezer. He flipped it on, sighing with relief as the mellow strains of the oldies station filled the lab. Taking his seat, he went back to work with renewed vigor. He hummed slightly as he sorted through the day's new data, gathered from the newest batch of cloned stem cells. "Fantastic," he murmured. It may have been a controversial science, but the benefits to mankind outweighed the moral issues; Dr. Colton wished the protestors would just understand that…

Something echoed through the lab, and Dr. Colton's head jerked up. He glanced around, seeking the source, but saw nothing. "Dr. Rogan?" he called, keeping his voice calm. He pursed his lips and pushed away from the computer. If something had fallen, it needed to be tended to right away. He circled the lab, his eyes slowly adjusting to the shadows. He stopped by the mouse cages, thinking that perhaps one of them had made the noise, but they were all curled in tight little balls, fast asleep. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary, so, he spent a few moments admiring their sleek-furred forms, the fruits of their labor. The mice didn't just look identical, they were identical, down to their genes. They were the first living being cloned by the lab, and they were thriving. He pulled his attention away from them and, with a shrug, he sat back down.

The sound came again. Louder, this time, and Dr. Colton was able to pinpoint the source: outside the window. Dr. Colton frowned; it hadn't sounded like the tree, it had sounded more like… an impact. Again he arose, this time heading towards the window. There was a knot in his stomach as he approached; all his earlier fears were coming back to haunt him. We're three floors up, he admonished himself. It's nothing. Still, he felt a chill of fear as he neared the pane of glass, shrinking back from it as if expecting some hideous monstrosity to slam against the glass. He pressed his forehead against the glass and looked downward. Nothing.

"Simon?" the soft female voice behind him made him jump, and he whirled to face Dr. Rogan, heart hammering in his chest. "Is everything all right?" She came toward him, offering a steaming cup of coffee, which Dr. Colton accepted gratefully.

"I just thought I heard something," he said weakly. "Must be the wind."

Dr. Rogan took a sip from her coffee as she went over to the radio, turning it off. Now that she was back, though, Dr. Colton no longer needed its noise to drive back the feeling of forboding that had assaulted him all evening. "Hmm," she said noncommittally. "How does the data look?" she asked, standing over the computer screen and surveying the day's work.

"Excellent," he said with youthful exuberance. He pointed out what he'd been working on, grinning. "Check this out – sample number two showed some unusual developments," he began. "Dr. Frye thinks –" The words caught in his throat as the shadows on the wall shifted, detaching from the main mass. One of them became the coils of a great snake, jaws agape as it lunged forward… and then the window behind them shattered. Glass shards sailed through the air, with one long, jagged piece lodging in Dr. Rogan's shoulder. Dr. Colton whirled, feeling the blood drain from his face as something pulled itself through the broken window, composed of long, sinuous appendages whipping about a central bulk. A dry hiss cut the air as one of those serpentine shapes shot forward, claws closing around Dr. Colton's throat and yanking him close, choking off his scream. Up close, Dr. Colton could see that their intruder was a man, and from the way the light glinted off the coils of the serpents around him, he knew they were machines. But he'd never seen their like… The man pulled him closer, and Dr. Colton gasped for breath as the grip on his throat tightened. "The cloning data. Where is it?" the man asked in a flat, emotionless voice. Dr. Colton clawed at his throat, and the grip loosened enough for him to take a shuddering breath.

"Where is it?" the man asked again. His face was partially hidden by the dark glasses and the shadows playing over his gaunt face, but Dr. Colton could see the man's cold expression. He wouldn't hesitate to kill me!

Dr. Colton glanced downwards, towards where Dr. Rogan was trying to crawl away, one hand putting pressure on her bleeding shoulder. The man followed his gaze, and another of those sleek, impossible machines darted out, its three-clawed pincer closing around her foot. She screamed as he dangled her upside-down, and flailed helplessly in his grip. Dr. Colton wanted to do the noble thing and tell this man-machine not to hurt her, to take him instead, but he couldn't speak around the lump in his throat. "Where. Is. It." One of the machines hovered in the air beside the man's head; its pincers parted, and, with a rasp of metal, a spiked blade slipped from its throat. "Don't make me ask again," the man said icily.

Dr. Colton pointed with shaking fingers. "There… it's all there…" The computer screen glowed balefully in the darkness. "All files… electronically stored."

The man sniffed. "Copy them to a disk," he said, releasing Dr. Colton's throat. "And if you try anything, I'll slit her throat." The sinuous machine held the serrated blade against Dr. Rogan's jugular for emphasis. With numb fingers, Dr. Colton did as the intruder asked, finding a free CD in the drawer and dumping as much information he could onto it before switching to another disk. All the while, he could feel the monstrous invader looming over him, but the only sound he could hear was Dr. Rogan's strangled sobs, and the clink of the metal segments against each other.

It took five disks all in all, and Dr. Colton handed them over. The man snatched them away, and they vanished into the depths of his pockets. "Anything else?" Dr. Colton asked timidly. Please, just go away, he pleaded.

The man shook his head. "That's it." Then he grinned, an expression that was more a baring of teeth than anything else. "Except for a couple of loose ends, that is." He didn't even twitch as the machine holding Dr. Rogan flung her to the side, sending her crashing into the wall with a sickening crunch. Dr. Colton staggered to his feet, but he couldn't escape that foot-long serrated blade, which plunged into his abdomen, scraping through his ribs to puncture a lung and graze his heart. The blade retracted, and Dr. Colton slumped to the floor. He tasted blood, and he couldn't seem to draw a breath. The man turned away, not even glancing back as the machines assisted him through the window, taking care not to brush him against the glass. And then, as quickly as he'd come, he was gone.

Dr. Colton fought for breath, but the blood filled his trachea and he couldn't seem to force air past it; he could feel blood dribbling from his mouth, but there was nothing he could do about it. A glance over at Dr. Rogan showed she was worse off; a dark smear marked where she'd slid down from the wall, and her skull was caved in. She's dead, Dr. Colton realized dully, and I… I'm dying… There was a phone in the lab, but it was so far away… he'd never get there in time… and he was cold, so cold, and he couldn't feel his limbs and he couldn't move… and then a darkness closed in that was deeper than any he'd ever known, but Dr. Colton was too far gone to be frightened of it.

XXX

A light mist, silvered by moonlight, hid the weathered gravestones from sight, but Otto navigated the cemetery by memory, not sight. Near-photographic recall led him unerringly to a white marble stone and the stretch of slightly concave earth before it. He stopped beside it, lovingly caressing the smooth arch of stone that the elements had not yet had time to wear away. He traced it downward, deft fingers finding the name carved into its face: ROSALIE OCTAVIUS. A wave of sadness crashed over him, and he fell to his knees before the stone. His awareness seemed to open downwards, and he could sense the bones rotting beneath him, all that remained of the vibrant woman who had brought sunlight into his life, driving away the darkness that had taken root in him during his childhood. She'd kept him sane, made him a man who cared, who loved, something he'd never thought possible.

Her absence in his life had revealed she hadn't completely banished that darkness, and it had again begun infesting his mind, this time in the guise of the voices of his 'children.' She'd left an open, festering wound inside of him, one that was slowly spreading within him. He was becoming less human every day, and he feared what would be left once all his humanity was gone (feared – and welcomed this end to his pain.)

Not for much longer. Fingers closed reflexively, tearing great furrows in the spongy earth beneath. "Soon," he whispered hoarsely. He pushed himself off the ground, dropping the clump of soil still clutched in his fingers. He backed to the lip of the concavity, and at his whispered command, the actuators attacked the ground with the small spades clutched in their pincers. He watched impassively through his dark glasses as they ripped through the soil, opening a yawning black chasm at his feet. Metal scraped against splintering wood, and Otto's heart pounded in anticipation mixed with dread. The actuators cleared the black soil from the lid of the elegant coffin, then pulled away to latch onto the sides of the open grave. They lowered Otto onto the lid, and he dropped to his knees to feel around the coffin's edge for the latches. His fingers found the hinge for the coffin lid's upper half, caked with soil, and he fumbled for a better grip. He hesitated for a brief moment, unsure how he'd react to his wife's corpse and its state of decay. But this had to be done… He grasped the latch and heaved, and the upper half of the coffin swung open as quickly as the grit-encrusted hinges would permit.

Otto surveyed the contents before him with clinical detachment. He felt… nothing as he stared down at all that remained of his beloved. Dry, lackluster hair, sunken eyes and maggot-ridden flesh were shaped into a parody of human, like some sort of rag doll sculpted from discarded rotten meat into a bad likeness of his wife. It should horrify him, he knew, haunt him, but he felt nothing.

Something within him was dying, and he needed her to help preserve what was left. If there was anything left worth saving…

He pulled a scalpel and a stoppered test tube in a padded container from his pocket and leaned forward. Carefully, he sliced off a piece of decayed cheek and dropped it into the tube, then wrapped the tube and replaced it in its container. It went back into his pocket, and Otto prepared to leave. But he hesitated, reaching with one gloved hand to stroke Rosie's decaying cheek, then ran his fingers through a strand of hair, accidentally yanking a clump free, along with a chunk of scalp. He shook it free, letting it fall back on the padded peach satin before running his fingers along the damaged tissue of the throat, stitched up and carefully concealed for the viewing, but pulling apart now that the body was decaying. "We'll be together again soon," he murmured, then took his hand away and slammed the lid shut.

And still, Otto felt nothing.

XXX

The flames had died down to embers in the fireplace, and the den was gently slipping into darkness as each brilliant spark of light guttered out. A chill began to settle into his bones as the last of the heat was wafted away, and Otto stirred from his position of repose on the comfortable couch. He opened his eyes, puzzled by the unexpected coolness, and turned his head to the empty space on the couch next to him. The cushion was cooling under his palm; she had left him some time ago. He smiled; how like her not to disturb him. He'd been getting so little sleep lately… Otto pushed the knitted afghan off his legs and stood, glancing around for signs of his wife. Her presence still lingered, but it was fading fast.

A wind whistled through the door, ruffling his hair and momentarily bringing the embers to life. The cloying scent of roses filled his nostrils, and he gently breathed in the fragrance. There was something else mixed in with the scent, something that made his nose wrinkle and his eyes water – the faint scent of rot. Otto turned into the wind, ignoring the gusts that tore at the tattered edges of his long coat as if to pull him back, away from whatever lay beyond the door. He pushed his way through and made it to the stairs; the railings were twisted, broken – as if something had attempted to yank the metal railing free. Vines of ivy and other unidentifiable climbing plants were threaded through the broken railings, and blood-red flowers concealed jagged edges of metal sharp enough to slice through flesh. Otto's hand encountered one serrated edge, and blood blossomed on his palm to drip down his fingers and splatter on the floor, with an endless drip, drip that was the only sound.

Cautiously, Otto made his way down the crumbling stairs, his laceration bleeding steadily, but not even causing him the slightest discomfort. As he descended, a soft sound carried to him, a shifting, rustling noise, like the rasp of leaves battered by the wind. Curious, he picked up his pace, making it safely to the bottom. The rustling grew louder, this time seemingly originating from behind, and Otto whirled around.

The stairs were no longer passable. The thick vines had woven together, forming an unbreakable latticework to stop a possible retreat. The scarlet flowers seemed an even more brilliant scarlet, and their velvety petals dripped blood. With a chill, he realized they'd sopped up the droplets of blood that had fallen from his hand, using it to grow and gain strength. And now they seemed to watch him hungrily, daring him to return the way he'd come so they could slake their thirst with his blood. He turned his back on them, squaring his shoulders and striding forward.

The vegetation grew thicker amongst the cold stone archways, coating every shattered machine with a layer of foliage so deep that it was impossible to recognize what had once been state-of-the-art machinery and what had once just been a table or chair. The only recognizable object was a curving crescent in the center of the largest open space, its shape warped into a peculiar twist, its pitted black surface partially exposed, as if something about the scarred metal discouraged growth. Curiously, Otto took a step towards it, wondering what had made it so resistant. He reached with a hand painted scarlet with blood, completely oblivious to everything but this curiosity. His only warning of danger was the soft his of something parting the air, and then he staggered as something slammed into the small of his back. There was a moment of pain so intense he thought he'd die, and then it faded to nothing. Otto opened his eyes in time to see one of the vines draw back, its melon-sized seed pod lined with bloody thorns pulling back into the thicket of vegetation and vanishing. Otto's hand explored his back, probing the holes the attack had torn in his coat and the broken skin underneath. There were strange knots in the flesh under his fingers, but other than that, the wounds seemed to be superficial. Without a mirror, he wouldn't be able to examine them further, so Otto continued onward, since there was no going back. Already, the plants were weaving together, leaving him no choice but to head towards the massive half-circle window.

There was glass everywhere, their edges splattered with dried blood, crunching underfoot as he approached the window. Jagged shards of glass still hung suspended in the frame; his footsteps shook two loose, and they fell and shattered at his feet. Powdery fragments clung to his coat, twinkling in the dim light. Otto stepped through the broken window just as the wall of vegetation closed behind him.

The expected stretch of streets with the buildings he knew as well as the back of his hand was gone. Or rather, the buildings had been reduced to rubble beneath a layer of plants, and plants had forced their way through the cracked pavement of the street, creating what resembled a hedge maze. A winding path littered with grayish-white stone winding through this peculiar garden beckoned him forward, and he took the first step. The stone crunched underfoot, and he glanced downward for a better look. It wasn't stone; the garden path was lined with shards of bone. Blood-red roses, their thorns dripping gore, reached for him, and Otto shied away from their grasp. His pulse quickened, and he increased his speed, desperate to escape the sinister floral arrangement before it closed in on him.

He knew his destination the moment he stumbled into the strangely familiar cleared area. The plants kept a respectful distance from the circular expanse carpeted in springy moss, with four arcing monoliths arrange in the center, around a perfectly circular pool of water. Something about the monoliths pricked at his memory, and he stepped forward, feet sending ripples through the water. It was similar to the solitary crescent he'd left behind him, but bigger. Three more identical monoliths rose up around it, arranged in a circular pattern. He reached his hand to touch one…

And then he doubled over as pain shot through him, originating in the center of his back. He twisted his arm around to fell the wounds the vine had given him, and felt the skin pushing up beneath, as if something was trying to break free… then he howled as the skin split, and a long, twisting vine pushed its way outwards, followed by three others.

He curled in on himself, teeth gritted in phantom pain as the four long thorn-lined vines writhed in the air above him, flicking his blood from their stems. One massive bud curved around to 'look' at him, its three petals blossoming open to reveal yet more thorns, set in a circle around a quivering protuberance that looked like a lidless, pupil-less eye. Otto tried to scrabble away, but the things were attached to him, growing from the seeds that had been inserted within his flesh.

And then Otto forgot them as he realized their gaze was fixed on the ground beneath his blood-coated fingers. The springy earth had absorbed the fallen blood, and was now tossing and heaving, as if a small, localized earthquake was occurring. No… as if something sought its way free of the earth… A brown root forced its way through, rapidly growing to a height of over five feet. Branchings split off from the main trunk, each ending in a delicate pentadactyl arrangement, making it resemble a literal stick-figure. Arboreal flesh and hair with the velvety consistency of petals crept over the root-skeleton, and a delicate skein of leaves adorned the decidedly feminine body. They eyes opened, eyes as emerald as the skin, and the being stared down at Otto. He stared wordlessly up at this golem with the familiar features, trying to utter her name and failing, instead acknowledging her by reaching towards her. Rosie…

She took his bloodied hand in hers, examining the wound. She smiled, then, and her teeth were like thorns…

Otto woke with a start, blinking rapidly to dispel the dream's final images before rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with grubby hands. He hadn't intended to fall asleep, but he'd spent the past seventy-two hours working without sleep, without food. It had apparently had an adverse effect on his mind; it had been quite some time since he'd had a dream so vivid… even the haunting visions of Rosie's death had faded away, leaving his sleep peculiarly empty.

Another indication that something is wrong with me. He stood, a little unsteadily, his short nap doing little to alleviate the bone-deep weariness. It would be worth it in the end… he could sleep later, once he could pillow himself in her arms…

Otto's painstakingly constructed laboratory was a technological marvel buried deep beneath New York's heart. Built in a subway line that had been abandoned and sealed off some fifty years previously, the dark, echoing chamber hadn't had any visitors larger than a rat in all that time. He'd located it using old blueprints stolen from the city hall, and had immediately seen its potential. Thanks to the construction of newer subway tunnels, this particular line had been severed from the rest of the subway network, and it was no longer accessible, except by someone with spelunking equipment – or tentacles. Re-establishing power had been a simple matter of hacking into the city's power grid and siphoning off some of the excess electricity for his own use.

In the months following his 'death,' Otto had accumulated the equipment that lined the dusty tunnel, stealing from laboratories outside the city – and, in case, from a lab in Florida – and eliminating all witnesses to prevent rumors of survival from spreading. He wanted nothing to stop him from this, what would be his greatest work.

The sample of Rosie's flesh had been the final component, the last thing he needed for his plan to come to fruition. He'd spent hours – weeks, in truth – poring over the cloning data, memorizing it, storing it in the databanks of the actuators lest he forget. Cloning wasn't his scientific field; however, he'd been able to dump an enormous amount of data into the memory of the actuators, and through them, he could use the information, manipulate it. His mind had become like a computer, in a way, thanks to their symbiotic relationship. He hadn't slept in days, feverishly working to ensure that the procedure would be perfect. There was no room for error in this; it had to be done successfully. He was going to do what no one had dared attempt before: he was going to clone a human being. He was going to clone his Rosie.

It wouldn't be an exact clone; that would be impossible. A human clone would age normally; by the time she was old enough to be of use to him, he'd be well into his seventies. He wanted her, needed her, now. He'd needed to find a way to accelerate her growth, without having her age too quickly after reaching maturity. In that case, giving her progeria, the condition that made a person age at four times their normal rate, was out. He didn't want her to die of old age before him. He'd spent many sleepless nights worrying over that final obstacle, considering and discarding the blending of her DNA with that of various mammals – the most quickly-maturing creatures tended to have short life spans.

And then it had come to him one night, on the way back from a robbery that had secured a centrifuge for his use. He'd been pursued by police and had ducked into a hothouse filled to bursting with exotic fauna giving off a heady perfume that had brought to mind Rosie's own unique fragrance. He'd dismissed the memories that the scents had brought to the surface, refusing to be distracted. But the cloying odor had persisted, permeating his senses, affecting his thoughts… and then he knew. He wouldn't meld Rosie's DNA with some animal's, but with that of a plant. Quick to grow, and in some cases, very long lived if well taken care of, there was something fitting about having his beautiful Rosie share genes with her namesake.

The blending of human and plant DNA was unprecedented, and he'd had his work cut out for him. There were times he'd wanted to just give up... But as more blood stained his hands, more people died at his hands, all without him feeling the slightest twinge of his conscience, he knew he had to do this, or risk losing himself completely. Even in his darkest hours, he'd driven himself onward.

He crossed the room, stepping over the bundle of cables that led to the centerpiece of his lab – a six-foot fluid-filled tube surrounded by a bank of monitors. He checked the screens, noting that everything was still normal. Otto closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against the tube, attempting to get as close to the contents within. An embryo floated peacefully in the fluid, still smaller than his hand and barely recognizable as a life form. But soon… Soon, he would have his Rosie back again…

To Be Continued…

I know… the human/plant hybrid concept isn't exactly possible (hence my total lack of information on the process), but this is a Halloween fic, and anything is possible on Halloween! In my twisted little reality, anyway. And I know; Otto's not a geneticist, but in the comics, he seems to dabble in several sciences. Sorry for the prolonged dream sequence; I know, I do a lot of them, but sometimes, I have some really cool dreams that I want to share, but they wouldn't make good fics on their own so I have to find another way to work them in. The Plant Otto dream was one I had not long before I began Musique de la Nuit, though it was nowhere near as well-developed as this. It was vivid, however, and I was dying to find some way to use it.