The idea of being forced to marry the evil doctor was too much fun for me. XD And a complete change between him and Meg (the idea will also be used in my fourth story, "Bleeding Red Rose", which is after the one upcoming after this one). I've also enjoyed her transition from the helpless girl in the morgue to a total badass. :D This chapter will include one of my favorite parts in the movie, which is none other than Herbert's "blasphemy" speech.
Chapter Nineteen
Army of Freaks
"Oh, Meg." The way he looked her up and down wasn't anywhere close to that nauseous leer that he gave her upon her awakening and groping in the morgue, resembling close enough to the longing gaze she did not miss that one Thursday night – the night she and Dan had their study date, and the finding of Rufus in Herbert's fridge – and Meg had the urge to turn and run back up the stairs like a frightened little girl. But her mixed-sex "escort" forced her forward so that she nearly fell off the stairs and straight into HIS arms. Arms she did not want to hold her.
The sooner she landed into Hill's embrace, she found herself looking over his shoulder to the window behind them...and saw Herbert's face, as well as DAN'S. They were here. They came for her; her prayers had been answered. Oh, thank God...but where is Francesca?
Hill burst out to his servant, snapping her back to his attention. "How dare you push the bride?" he snapped. "Get out of here or I'll tear you limb from limb." The thing gave off a rattle of mixed phrases in protest but spun away and into the doorway leading into what looked like the sitting area. He looked down at her, smiling down at her. "Don't mind him – or her," he added with a chuckle. "These re-animated can be out of hand, but I don't need to remind you."
Meg squirmed. "You can let me go now so we can get this over...husband-to-be." The word was forced out, but she was happy that her voice didn't quiver with the resistance that lay under the surface of her charade. Her smile matched it, she hoped. She didn't want him to catch Herbert.
He looked surprised, letting her go and obeying her wishes for once. "What brought on this...change of heart?"
"I was just playing hard to get," Meg answered, keeping her smile plastered in place, dropping her voice to the version a stripper would use to get her newest client to bed her. The comparison was fitting enough. Fitting to make me thank Mama once again. He's falling for it. "So, what if I was doing the same in the morgue?" Do it, girl. Get yourself out of this mess.
His face split into a manic grin. "Does this mean...more passion once we've taken our vows?"
"Yes, my love. Pick up where we left off...but I don't need to tell you what to do now, at a time like this," Meg answered, wincing mentally at the fiery flash in his eyes at whatever thoughts he was having at the possibilities of what he could do to her. Repeat what he performed in the morgue, or maybe go in a more "proper", "romantic" and "gentlemanly" way and make it all about her...
A commotion was heard out front, and Hill's head whipped around to the front door. "What the devil is going on?" He started for the door, but Meg stopped him by grabbing his hands and pulling him back to her. She couldn't let him go out there yet and find the two men she cherished most outside fighting the guards.
"Just ignore them, Carl, my love. You know how boys will be boys when they have a disagreement. I'm sure it is nothing. You said it yourself, they can be out of hand." Meg laughed weakly at her own joke; to her relief, Hill laughed with her.
"Fair enough. Now, where were we?" He paused, looking briefly up at the ceiling before breaking out into yet another sardonic smile. "Ah, yes." He gathered both her hands into his. They were cold and calloused, devoid of any shivers of excitement, only the negative nerve-tingles that the scariest of stories would send the most sensitive reader of any age.
This wasn't right. Here they were in his house, just the two of them, though many of those monsters were roaming about elsewhere, whatever how many outside engaging Herbert and Dan over her. She was wearing a dress, complete from head to toe, but there was no minister to bless them, no romantic surroundings – nothing about any of this was romantic – no family or friends as witnesses...no nothing.
And definitely no love from her for her groom.
This was NOT the wedding she dreamed of as a little girl. And not real or valid.
"I, Carl Hill, take you Meg Halsey to be my lawful wedded wife, for better, for worse...for richer for poorer...and as long as we both shall live."
Till death do us part, she corrected in her mind. She sucked in a breath as she quivered with her part: "I, Meg Halsey, take you Carl Hill, to be my lawful wedded husband..."
~o~
"Get off of me, reject!" Herbert shouted, pointing his gun at the double-headed, double-ended snake that had begun to crawl up his leg in the bustle that broke out between him and Dan, and this thing and its fellow crawler. It retaliated by arching its rear companion back and snarling, the same way a junkyard dog or any dog, in general, would when insulted by a stranger. More of these things – these semi-human, fractionally human, and not human at all THINGS – would soon swarm around them in a matter of time.
And it happened at "perfect" timing. Herbert cried out at the impact that hit him like a small boulder and shoved him to the ground, spinning him around and pinning him down on his back and beginning to pull at his hair and shirt. As a result, Herbert lost control of his trigger finger and fired a shot somewhere to his right. He didn't know where until he heard the sound of glass breaking. I shot the window, Herbert thought with some worry. He hoped he didn't shoot Meg...
~o~
The shot apparently from Herbert in the brawl with the undead made the glass of the window behind them shatter. "Damn fools!" Hill roared, spinning around once again. "West! I knew it all along! I knew it was him, and he's in for it now!"
Meg tried to think of another way to keep him from going out there, to keep him from letting Herbert and their man fight off the freakish goons swarming in from all parts of the house's exterior grounds. She knew he would have known Herbert and the others were here sooner or later, but she had to stall him in this one last ditch effort, so there was only one other thing left to do, as much as she hated to: she grabbed him once again and pulled him close to her.
"No. We said our vows. Kiss your bride now." She let it all out in a rush. Not giving him time to answer, she forced her mouth onto his. The taste of him was just as foul, but they say the second time was better.
"Mmm," Hill said, pulling away and smiling down at her. "Someone's impatient to let me get to finish what has to be done."
"You should never keep the bride waiting on her wedding night," Meg scolded, latching her hands on either side of his head, the feel of the coarse gray hair unwelcoming. "This is supposed to be the two of us, remember?" Using this to her advantage for a new, genius idea forming on her mind – Herbert and Dan were close, the sounds of their voices mingled with the inarticulate sounds of the ghoulish beasts outside – she opened her mouth to let his tongue snake in to taste her a little, just to please him more and give him the briefest satisfaction and falsest sense of security...
...and bit down HARD on his tongue.
Hill screamed against her mouth, drawing back at once, sticking it out to show that she had applied enough pressure on his poor tongue with her teeth to cause a minor blood flow. Meg gave him a not-so-innocent smile. "Oops, sorry." That was for Daddy...for Dan...for myself, AND for Herbert.
"You little bitch!" he seethed, raising his hand, fingers stretched apart, and brought it down on her right cheek in a split second. A stinging sensation was left on her face from the impact, much worse than the lash of a whip. At least he didn't punch me in the stomach...put the baby in danger. Meg jerked her head up at him through her hair, which had begun to become loose and tousled over her face in the process, her veil coming off as well. She angrily tore it off and her locks out of their style.
"How dare you touch her!"
"West." Hill whipped his head around and sneered at the sight of his most notorious adversary, along with the large, mostly naked male with the exposed muscles and sinew sections, bolted metal pieces holding certain parts together. There was Maker and Creation together, here to save her. "You stick your little nose into my plans for the last time." He shifted so his whole body faced them, back to Meg now. "You made a foolish error last time coming unarmed but with your precious serum, blew my body to smithereens, but it seems now will end more eventful than it did then."
Dan growled viciously, taking only a step forward, drawing the man's attention. "You just couldn't leave your brute back home, could you, West?"
"This is Dan," Herbert answered, stepping to his side. "And he is a masterpiece, is he not?" he asked with a cocky smirk, making her heart flutter a little.
"And he's alive, heart beating again, but yours will stop for sure tonight." Meg summoned all of her willpower to fly from where she lay and onto Hill's back, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, throwing him off-guard and shoving him onto the ground with her into a short-lived wrestling match. She wanted to rip his head off right here, right now, with both her hands and all her strength so that both pieces were left here to rot. Herbert would get over leaving the pieces not re-animated, for sure, somehow.
Sadly, she did not get her chance to kill him herself, for Carl Hill knocked her off and onto her back, his body covering hers and pinning her down. His face was inches away. "You have gotten stronger, my dear," he praised with a smile, which soon dissolved into a snarl. "But you're a fool to think that you can kill me yourself. It seems that in death do we part after all."
He cried out when two strong hands yanked him back and away from Meg, tossing him far behind and crashing onto the third landing of the stairs. A loud crunch washeard, but Hill didn't seem like he was that much injured, but enough to slow him down. Meg wanted to know why no one would just kill him now and be done with it, but before she could ask, she found herself lifted off the ground and held supported under the knees and shoulders by two well-muscled arms and out the door at Herbert's order, "Get her out of here!"
"Herbert, come on!" Meg yelled over Dan's shoulder while they were still walking out the door. She spotted some but not very many inhuman, mismatched bodies and body parts strewn across the land, due to Dan's own hands or being shot down by Herbert. In the distance, just barely visible in the collection of woods beyond the lawn, was none other than Francesca's convertible.
Crawling with more of Hill's minions. "Dan, put me down; she needs our help!"
Francesca was on the trunk, shooting at every range she could manage. Hearing her voice and spotting them right away, she yelled over the wordless chattering of the critters around them, "Meg, get in so we can get the hell out of here!"
"Herbert's still in there," Meg protested as Dan jumped into the back with her still in his arms; it impressed her, but that did not ease her worries. "What if more of those things tear him apart?"
Francesca had retaken her place behind the wheel and was now looking past her. "I don't think so. He's coming this way right now."
She looked behind her shoulder to see the other man she had begun to care about so deeply, running her way, the sound of gunshots sounding in the air. Hearing the deadly blasts, the creatures looked his way in shock and backed away from the vehicle, and began to retreat into either the darkness between the trees or in the direction of the house. Herbert aimed his gun in every direction they went, just to ensure in case they tried coming at them again, he would give them more than just warning shots. Putting his revolver back to his belt, he jumped into the back, sitting right next to Dan, still holding Meg much to her own embarrassment.
"Where's Dr. Hill?" Francesca demanded as she revved up the engine, ready to get them all the hell out of here.
"He's down, but not for long," Herbert answered. "And we have two more at the house to handle, remember?"
Chapham and his wife... Meg realized. "Why didn't you finish the others off at the house when you still had the chance?" she yelled over the roaring of the engine as they rode away and out of the woods. She leaned against Dan's chest, her cheek pressed to the warm skin – and the heat of blood from the exposed muscle and bone – to listen to his beating heart...his heart I waited so long to hear again...it was a wondrous but surreal sound to hear in the midst of all of this.
"They were too busy fighting each other," Herbert answered, looking in her direction with a fire in his eyes at the sight of her leaning into their creation. She got the feeling that he was getting...jealous? The thought struck her by surprise. Oh, Herbert West, jealous now? That's a first.
"But to the lab is where we must go. It is where it all ends, tonight. We started it there, so it is where we must finish."
~o~
What the hell had she gotten herself into? Francesca wondered this as she drove them away from the woods and back into town. It was a miracle that the direction was not by the hospital itself, where the police would surely be by now. If they ever came to the house and questioned Herbert and Meg about all of this, either they wouldn't believe them about dead people walking around alive – or prison for them both.
She was torn between turning them both in for their crimes against nature, now that she knew that this had to do with workings beyond the secret life of an ordinary physician and bringing the story of Frankenstein and other zombie stories to full life...and torn between not saying anything to the police at all, which would mark her as an accomplice. Meg was still her friend, West was on her maybe side – marking him in the gray area after what he did to Angel – but what about that...other one? What was his name, Dan?
Her thoughts stopped right there. Dan...Megan said it was the Dan she loved before he died that night...but Dan is DEAD. Her hands tightened on the wheel so hard her knuckles turned white. Meg thinks he's not dead anymore. But that's not even him, not from that picture she showed me.
Lightning coursed the sky, like the lightning in the black-and-white horror classics and their successors in color. Minus the parallel to the fictional world, the reality with the dark clouds overhead signaled that a rainstorm was coming. At last, the old mortuary came into view, and the cemetery's gate opened just for them; it had been that way since they left to rescue Meg. It looked abandoned from a distance, except Francesca and the others knew better since Chapham and his wife would still be waiting for them.
Francesca did not fail to notice how Elizabeth Chapham would violently attack her husband when her attention wasn't directed toward the group; now she knew that her husband had been the cause of her...death. Those stitched wounds on her head, the bruises...she should have recognized the signs of domestic abuse. How could she have felt sorry for Leslie Chapham, to begin with? You knew there was something shady about him, to begin with, girl...yes, you did.
She brought the car to park at once, right next to the stone wall below the hill of the graveyard. As soon as everyone piled out and she set the roof over to protect her poor vehicle's seats and all, she demanded, "What now? Do we just blow those other two away and get the hell out of here again? Or do we just hide out there and let them tear us to parts one by one?"
"We won't let them break us apart," West snapped, taking the role of leader and crouching low at the gate's entrance, scouting out for their hidden trouble. "I never go down without a fight."
Francesca found herself right beside the tall man himself. When she did, she scrunched up her nose as she detected what Chapham had called that "stench of decaying flesh". Her eyes wandered to the sections recognized as the muscles and tendons...and cringed. How could Meg stand being so close to this THING? She watched as he carried her bridal fashion, all the way from the car up to here at the entrance, and saw her friend put her hand on her stomach as though trying to figure out if her baby was all right after the bustle.
Shit, the baby... Francesca realized. If she goes to jail, her baby would wind up taken from her, and grow up never knowing both of her parents. This I won't allow.
"You're all under arrest!" Francesca screamed at the sight of the rogue cop himself – and wife-beater who deserved what West and Meg did to him, as guilty as the thought made her feel – bursting out of the blue and menacing them all only with his sudden appearance and grabbing a hold of West by the shirt collar and hauling him up, tossing him into the brick wall, pinning him with his remaining arm while the amputated one lingered jutted out useless having lost the lower half.
West fought back by delivering a blow to below the bastard's waist with his knee. Ha, serves him right, for Angel! Chapham doubled over then, groaning and letting West go for him to shout to her and the others, "Come on, let's go!" He started running through the gateway with Francesca behind and "Dan" still holding Megan as he "wonderfully" strode with great speed after them.
Sadly, there was the shrieking old lady herself, cackling like the Wicked Witch herself in the back doorway. Herbert had to shoot at her, the shot getting deep into her side and making her howl in pain, falling down the stairs until she hit the ground. West bolted through the door into the kitchen, yelling over his shoulder. "Quick, to the lab!"
Being able to pass through the door labeled Embalming Room brought back the memory of Angel with the human hand and made her sick, but this was the only place left to hide, given it had its own security system set up. Francesca helped West gather anything heavy to shove in front of the doorway – including a coffin, which made her shudder at the thought of a dead body still inside – and once they were finished, she turned her attention behind her...to find Meg, still in that God-awful revealing dress from Hill, wandering about the room with that man-thing.
"Dan" had this look on his face of utter wonder, as though being back here was strange to him because he never had the chance to fully take in his surroundings. Following his attention, Francesca noticed the set-up reminiscent of the "mad scientist and his down-below dungeon laboratory", and the massive cauldron of a glowing neon green substance she couldn't identify. Like witches' brew...if anyone saw this, like in the olden days, accusing them of voodoo and other forms of black magic...
Francesca had to admit, guiltily, that this "man" was...breathtaking. Breathtaking and horrible at the same time. He was taller than any other man she ever knew on the planet, well-muscled to realize every girl's dream, and his face one to haunt your dreams. And the half-dazed look Meg was giving him as she remained by his side troubled her. It appeared as though she were drawn to this..."Dan"...
"Meg?" Hearing her voice, both turned their gazes in her direction. Meg looked frustrated at being interrupted at her reunion, but he regarded her with an expression doubled to that. But Francesca didn't care; she had to get the answers to the questions she had, as a good reporter should for any story. "Who is he?"
There was a moment of pause, the look on her face clearly asking her "Didn't you hear me say his name before?" Instead, she got the straight-up answer she'd hoped for, only it wasn't any different from what she'd wanted to hear. "It's Dan." Meg spoke it obviously, still holding his hands with both of hers.
"Meg...Dan is dead." Francesca hoped this would be the last straw to get her clearly now-insane friend to see reason before she lost her mind all the way and perhaps the baby eventually in her early trimester.
But Meg shook her head in denial. "No, he's not dead. Not anymore." She put her hand to that chest, palm flat as the gesture. "Dan's heart is right in here, and it's beating alive and well again. Dan is right here, right beside me."
Francesca couldn't take this anymore. She shoved the tall man aside and took Meg by both forearms and shook her. "Megan, listen to me. Daniel Cain is DEAD. He died over a year ago, remember? You had his dead body right there in front of you, his body was cremated; you told me that yourself, remember? That – that man, that THING, whoever and whatever he really is, is NOT DAN!"
Tears were glazing over Meg's blues, threatening to spill over her soft cheeks as she shook her head and looked away. "No..." Francesca barely heard her; now she knew she'd gone too far and tried to console her before she felt a doubled strength yank her by the arm and back against the table behind them, the impact knocking her head back as though a powerful wind had knocked her off. Looking up, she saw "Dan" glaring down at her menacingly, his lips pulled back in a ferocious snarl.
"Keep away," he growled, clutching Meg and pulling her close as though to protect her from any more offenses.
He's not letting anyone near her, Francesca thought as she watched as Meg allowed herself to be led away from the site of the cauldron of green fluids and her.
"Meg!" West was still at the door, still putting things in front of it as a last effort to keep the Chaphams out...until a banging noise was heard on the other side, and a fragment of the wooden section was penetrated. The unmistakable end of a poker jabbed its way into the air. Herbert stared at it in horror; this was the first time she'd seen him display any true sign of emotion. "My God, they're using tools!" He then turned and ran for the closet on the opposite wall and threw it open, pulling out a black bag and laying it on the table behind him, prepared to stuff it with whatever he'd been using for...anything he'd done when she wasn't looking. Francesca seethed as she stalked over to him.
~o~
"What have you done in here?"
Herbert had been in the middle of gathering his notes and stuffing them into his bag – his life's work had to be saved once again, now that Hill and his army of freaks were still after them and no doubt on their way back here for the finish – when Francesca grabbed him by the arm and forced him to look at her as she spat out her demand. Herbert glared at her as he jerked himself free from her lecherous hold. She demands to know, might as well tell her, his other half spoke defeatedly. With a proud gesture in the direction where Meg and Dan were, he answered in a voice that matched the wave of his hand.
"We created a life."
She stared at him in utter shock, then behind them at the "couple" standing TOO close to each other, looking at each other full of longing...the same way Herbert always found himself looking at Meg. She sputtered. "Wh-what? You mean, you – you made him? Like Frankenstein? Body parts and all?"
"YES!" Herbert said, rounding on her at once. He reached for her wrist and grasped it firmly, holding it up in the air for demonstration. "Dead pieces of this…with MY hands." She jerked back with a scoff of disgust and stepped back. "I created what no man's mind or woman's womb could ever hope to achieve," Herbert sneered, relishing the expression he received from her.
"This is blasphemy!" she burst out in utter disdain, rubbing her wrist even though he didn't grab her that rough.
Herbert laughed and shook his head. Of course, he had expected her to say that. "Blasphemy? Before what? God? A god repulsed by the miserable humanity He created in His own image?" He shifted so that he faced her full front. "I will not be shackled by the failures of your God. The only blasphemy is to wallow in insignificance. I have taken refuses of your God's failures...and I have triumphed!" He flourished both of his hands out past her to the final result of all these weeks' – all these months' – worth of hard work. What Victor Frankenstein had only dared to dream and tried to achieve but failed after only a trial with only one subject.
But no. He, Herbert West, had succeeded where that man failed. He created a being that sparked the beginning of a new race of beings on this planet. "There…there is MY creation!"
However, his pride soon diminished the second he laid his eyes on what transpired next, as he watched HIS creation take the woman, who still wore the wedding dress that the man who sexually assaulted her that fateful night picked out for her, into a semblance of a lovers' dance, looking down at her with the look of a puppy that craved love and affection from its owner. "Meg...you made me..." Herbert heard him say, but it was not that that fueled the fire in his blood.
It was the fact that Dan lifted Meg into both his arms, held her close, and KISSED her full on the lips right then and there.
His inner god screamed at him. West, you FOOL! This is all on you. You should have told her you loved her when you had the chance. You did all of this for her just to help her move past her dead boyfriend, yet you couldn't man up and tell her how you TRULY felt for her. She's the first woman you actually loved since your mother died. He clenched his jaw, kept his fiery gaze on the scene before him, and said nothing. The only thing he was fully conscious of was his heart ultimately falling to pieces. If only his whole body would just do the same and never be whole again.
Francesca's voice interrupted his moment of oblivion. "West...why did you make him?" She sounded like she was beginning to pick up his reaction to Dan kissing MEG, the woman he loved with every fiber of his being. She had taken a small step into seeing through the shell she had always seen of him. Herbert forced himself to look at her then, seeing that her face had softened. Understanding now lingered in her dark eyes.
He took a deep breath to calm his labored breathing. "For her," he answered. "I made him for her. She refused to move on from Dan after all this time, couldn't see how I felt for her after our time together. I couldn't tell her myself, so this was the only way."
Her jaw dropped. "So, you mean...you LOVE her, but you were too chicken shit to tell her yourself?" she asked disbelievingly.
Herbert nodded, looking down at the ground. "Yes. But I know she doesn't love me." Her hand on his chin forced him to look at her again.
"Herbert West, I can see it in her. She does love you, but I don't think she's fully realized it, and you need to make her see it." She dropped her hand and nodded in the direction of the walking construction called a man that HE had made with his own hands. "Start by getting her away from him."
She's right; go get your girl.
Herbert gulped and left them to walk up to the pair. Dan had set her down so that they resumed their "dance"; now Meg looked up at him with that dazed look on her face. Slowly, his heart was beginning to pull back together again, but the process was far from over. He calculated that he wouldn't survive the brawl he knew would break out between him and Dan. The latter bore tripled strength, so it was possible he would win the fight. But it was now or never. "Meg," he said softly, trying to get her attention. She didn't seem to hear him. "Meg, please..."
The second time was the charm. His courage swelled up as he grabbed her and pulled her away from the brute, whirled her around, and kissed her with as much passion as he could gather. Her lips were soft, moist, and indescribably delicious against his, though he tasted remnants of the other male on her; it sickened him, but he didn't care at the present time. Meg uttered a muffled cry of protest against his mouth. "Herbert, what –" she started to say.
Herbert grasped both sides of her face with both hands, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "Megan, snap out of it. You have to listen to me. I love you. Do you hear me? I. Love. You."
YAAAAAAAAAAYYY, Herbert manned up and told her he loved her! :D But we all know what will happen next since he did it in front of his creation and told her in front of "Dan". ;D Have fun with that epic scene, which also happens to be the original catfight between the Bride and Francesca, as well as the climax in the crypt.