"The Afterfire" by AsherAtori serves as inspiration for this chapter, which showed what happened after Dan attempted to re-animate Meg. Now we get to see Dan's attempted re-animation, which we all know the results of. Plus, there is a trigger warning involving Herbert in this chapter. Let's just say that "Evil Dead" - both the original starring Bruce Campbell and the 2013 remake - gave me this idea, but you've been warned.

Chapter Two

The Only Two Left

She withdrew the needle quickly and stepped backward, watching the lifeless body, waiting with each second that passed. She thought about keeping track of the time before deciding it didn't matter; all she could think of was waiting for something to happen. Come on, come on! Every second passing made the fear eating her heart away worse than ever –

The eyes then snapped open, and an inhuman roar tore from the broken throat and past the pale, bloodied lips. The monster burst from the table and fell to the ground in a feral, crouching position, head snapping side to side in search of whoever brought him back. Meg watched in horror, her back against the wall as she surveyed the man who had been cold and dead moments before finally finding her voice. "Dan?"

Hearing his name, Dan turned his head around with the grace and agility of a deadly exotic snake, only when his wild eyes landed on her, his teeth were bared in an animalistic snarl nothing at all like the man she loved. The man who had been her first ever and who she lost her virginity to was gone forever, replaced by a demon like the others in the morgue. The look in his eyes was hungry for her, but not in the way it had been those nights in his bed. He's hungry for my skin and bones. The ironic comparison to what the zombies in fiction craved made her sicker than she was before.

"Dan," she whimpered, lowering herself to the ground, knowing she was trapped and that there was nobody to come to her rescue, "don't you remember me?"

He growled ferociously, blood dribbling down his chin in a vivid red to match the fire truck shade. He doesn't remember me, not like Daddy. He's not human anymore; damn West for this! If he hadn't come into our lives, none of this would have happened! She blamed him definitely, but then again, Dan had gotten him into the morgue, and got Daddy killed; West killed Hill, and look what the man did to her, which she wanted so much to forget.

But he also was there with Dan to save me. He stopped Hill from –

Her thoughts were interrupted by the strong hands of re-animated Dan grabbing her by her hair and throwing her across the room. Meg shrieked as she hit the table and tray of medical instruments, a few leaving bleeding cuts on her bare legs. "Dan" was on her again, grabbing her by the shirt and ripping it further down so it would be difficult to cover more of her chest up than she wanted. He threw her across the floor again, away from the fallen surgical tools, but he wasn't smart anymore to notice the scalpel in her hand. This was life or death, with no in-between if she wanted to save Dan; he was already dead, like Daddy. Meg had no choice but to kill him.

He began to advance on her in a doubled rage. Megan waited where she was, keeping her grip on the weapon, allowing her undead lover to pin her to the ground again before bringing her hand up and placing the scalpel against the front of Dan's neck, slashing it open. Eyes wide, one last choking sound and a splatter of blood from his neck and mouth onto her face, he collapsed on top of her.

All it took was the weight of his corpse on top of her to scream and push him off of her. She just lay there, regarding it one more time; someone would know it was her and come in here soon. She quickly hid the scalpel in the shirt pocket above her breast and was about to run out the door when she stopped. Dan's keys! she realized, knowing she had no other way to get out of here on foot. To walk all the way would take forever. Hurrying back to Dan's corpse, she searched his pockets and found his keys in the left. She almost forgot about the bag of re-agent and grabbed that, too, bolting back up and quickly running out the door. She had to get to the nearest fire exit there was and find Dan's car. The police had to be surrounding the hospital by now, but it was now or never.

~o~

They got away...got away with the work safely...

That was all Herbert West's mind could think of as he fought with the largest intestine of Hill's headless corpse which took a life of its own and wrapped itself around his body, crushing his bones but not shattering them completely. This is exactly what happens when you pump a bit too much into the body. The dry humor was no laughing matter now. Strangely enough, as much as it hurt, it didn't kill him. It would have done so to another person, but not to him. Must be the work of the re-agent; I've conquered death, and I won't ever die. But that didn't mean he had to be here much longer. He knew Dan and Meg would make it out of here with his work saved, but Daniel still lacked the experience Herbert West did, so he needed guidance through it.

Desperately searching around the gaseous room, he searched for something – anything – that had been knocked over by the mindless beings in the mist. He screamed the whole time, trying to get the powerful pale organ off his body. His lungs were losing oxygen; while it didn't suffocate him, it hurt his chest and slowed him down a bit. However, the whole of his body was the least of his worries when he felt it – something long and horrifically huge, if not as huge as the length crushing the air out of him, crawling up his legs and wrapping around them, but at the same time using enough force to slip under his long coat, squeezing through his belted trousers...

...and sliding over the inside of his legs, brushing over his groin and sending a sensation that felt both good and wrong at the same time, invading him then and stretching his rectum painfully wide as it could go. The pain was so immense that Herbert actually howled like a wounded animal in the wilderness, caught in a bear trap and begging for death to come. Tears ran down his face, coupled with his glasses falling off in the struggle, and he whimpered as the tender flesh of the inside of his body was raped by one of the main internal organs of the power-charged, headless body of the man he'd loathed passionately, killed because it was no less than he deserved for trying to steal his hard work, now in the hands of someone he trusted greatly. He could feel the sticky heat of blood; Herbert could safely say that he would rather die from painless blood loss than the physical agony he was feeling.

Herbert heaved as he finally found it in him to search around and FINALLY find the smoke clearing enough to show him a surgical knife with a jagged blade that had been knocked over in the chaos. Reaching for it, Herbert wasted no time in slashing his way free, starting with the top covering his face. Gore splattered onto the floor around him, and inhuman squeals and wails of agony sounded in his eardrums. Once he had his face free, he struggled to breathe through his crushed esophagus, the inner muscles tensing painfully as he fought for precious air despite the poisonous fumes. In spite of it all, Herbert continued to cut his way free from the entrails of Dr. Hill, the body itself falling to pieces in the process.

His glasses were lying behind him. Putting them back on, Herbert could hear voices and recognized them as the police. The police! Luckily, he was near the fire exit and made way for that; pray that they wouldn't hear or see him before he got away intact. Herbert's whole body was still in agony, namely the place the smaller intestines had violated him; he felt filthy and dead like the rest of the walking corpses still there. He nearly stumbled and fell down the stairs as he escaped from the morgue, shoving the door open and finding cold night air, and the blaring of police sirens as well as shouts of orders from officers. How was he going to get away unnoticed?

His attention shifted to movement before his eyes, and he suddenly recognized the barefoot, bare-legged damsel in distress herself, covered in blood and carrying his work bag...and hurrying away by herself. Megan! She's alive! He frowned as he rushed after her, another thought intruding his mind:

Daniel is dead.

~o~

She had gotten no further toward the parking lot when hands grabbed her and pulled her away. She screamed, dropping the bag to the ground as well as Dan's keys, but her cries were silenced by a cold, pale hand slapped over her mouth. She found herself staring into hazel eyes behind large-framed glass that she thought had been dead when she and Daniel left him. "Sshh, don't let them hear you."

"West!" She gasped for breath a couple of times once he dropped his hand back. "H-how? You're alive!" She looked him up and down; he was in no better a state than she was, with the large, purplish bruise covering much of his face and his glasses almost breaking. A part of her wanted to put him in so much more pain, but another insisted there had been enough for a night. Settling a score with him could wait. "How did you get away without anyone finding you?" she asked.

He gave a small smile. "Hill didn't have the guts to finish me off, Meg. He was just another failure."

Meg spat in his face, both literally and in words. "You're sick." She shoved him aside and reached down to pick up the bag now that its owner and maker was back. "It's your fault this happened." The keys were back in her hold; now she was more than ready to leave. "If it weren't for you, Daddy wouldn't have been like those things and in pieces with them. And Dan..." She stopped there and in her steps, keeping her back to West. She just couldn't look at him. Dead, too. Because I failed to save him. Her heart wrenched as she thought of his body still laying as she left it, and people finding it and wondering who did it. But they wouldn't point fingers at her because the "murder" weapon was safely in her breast pocket. If there was any way she could return that without Dr. Harrod finding out...

"Dead. I know." West's answer was somber. "I figured as soon as I saw you walking alone."

Megan spun around. "My boyfriend is dead; he was your partner-in-crime, and that's all you got to say?"

He stood before her in two strides, glare bearing down on her as he had when she found Rufus in his refrigerator. "Of course not. You might not see it, but I very much miss Dan already. His will wasn't strong as I thought it would be. I cared and admired him greatly moreso than you think, Megan. But if you agree with me on this, I say we leave now before anyone sees us."

Well, that's a start. She let him lead her in the direction where Dan's car was parked, near the front, when the police cars and ambulance were nearby, but nobody saw them. Yet. She got in the driver's seat and West beside her. To know he was even next to her tensed her. The smell of blood and rot filled the air, making her nauseous. However, the person sitting beside her was better than nobody at all, and perhaps he could help her get through the interrogation. But that would also mean... "We have no time to lose, you know. This is far from over."

She scoffed and kept her attention on the road. "Don't think that I'm with you on this now, West. I should turn us back around and turn you in, leave you to rot in prison for the rest of your life." But would it really satisfy you and take the pain away? her mind asked. From the corner of her eyes, she saw him fold his arms against his chest and turn his body halfway around to face her.

"It won't bring either of them back, you know," he said as though reading her mind. "What would you do then if I were in jail? You'll have no one now that Daddy and Dan are gone." His smile broadened. "And Hill is no longer a problem, so you can at least thank me for getting him to stop..."

"Shut up!" Meg almost lost control of the car as she brought it to a screeching halt and whipped around to face him. "Don't you ever bring that up again."

His face was near her, doing its best to intimidate her. "You think you scare me, Miss Halsey? I do NOT scare easily, and I never take no for an answer. I won't force you to do anything you didn't want to do but take into consideration that you're alone now as much as I am. This isn't something I do alone."

So this is going to be a complicated pairing. It's been an experience, and one of the struggles with them is to not force anything much less forget certain details which I'm unsure how to truly explain. This is a new pairing for everyone that I know of, so this will be a rise. In addition, it's always hard to keep a badass character like Herbert West without becoming OOC, same for Megan Halsey. Throughout the rest of the story, I hope I didn't mess anything up with this "lovely couple".