Herbert's backstory is expanded along with Barbara's in this chapter, which is also sort of named after the horror classic starring Dee Wallace-Stone, a costar of Jeff Combs in "The Frighteners", one of my favorites of his, and certainly one of his best performances. :) Herbert's reasons for pursuing the path he is on now is inspired by the six-part comic series "The Chronicles of Dr. Herbert West," which also has the unnamed narrator as his lover and girlfriend in college years, ironically named Megan. :D Through her we learn a terrible tragedy when he was a boy, and we do now through Barbara.

Once more, I own nothing but Barbara. Enjoy!

Chapter Two

The Howling

I had a scholarship up and on the way by my third year, at the time I first met Herbert West. I had very few friends myself but never a boyfriend; I was never interested in going out to parties or dating, because I had dreams of becoming a doctor and saving lives; I even did part-time work in the ER. Going for the goal required absolute dedication, which was exactly what I shared with him. I thought about saving love and marriage for afterwards when the goal was achieved, but I didn't know about West's view on that at the time. I was too focused on hearing his theories about the re-animation of the dead to even realize that until later.

"As I've said before," he said one day over lunch, some weeks after our first meeting, "all life is physical and chemical, leaving God out of this. We began via evolution and will continue to do so, but the issue is that humanity is too dependent on it." He shook his head and poked at the mashed potatoes - which I always thought was among one of my favorite parts of the food - out of zoning habit. "But biological development is beside the point. No doctor before our time has gone beyond the boundaries of simply finding new methods to preserve life. Electricity in the charging of paddles to get the heart going again, the brain remaining alive for a period of time via machine before the plug is pulled, or it being too late in the emergency room before the man or woman could be saved...it's all overwhelming. Wouldn't you want to bypass that?" His blue eyes drilled into mine expectantly, and I thought I'd melt under them, turn into a puddle from the heat that burned my cheeks.

Wait, wait - what? Am I getting a crush on him now or something? "Nothing more," I answered. "I lost my father when I was eight. He had a tumor in his kidneys that the doctor said it was impossible to get a donor in time. He passed away four months later, and it was just me and her after that." I felt like I was going to cry when I remembered how Mom broke down in devastation in the hospital next to Dad's bedside, and me with her, my father telling us both it would be all right when we knew it wouldn't. Now I would never have him walk me down the aisle if I ever decide to get married.

West's face was expressionless. "My condolences." He didn't sound so sympathetic, but his eyes were soft now.

"What about you?" I asked without thinking, taking him by surprise before he became serious again.

"My background is my own business," he said firmly, "but I suppose I owe you for your side, which should tell you enough as to why I don't believe in God as you and everyone else does." I reached up to finger the cross around my neck again at the profane speech, making him chuckle. "I was a boy when my mother and younger sister were hit by a bus after we left mass one Sunday. We were a devout religious family, but it ended for me the day they died. My sister was six, only two years younger than I then, and she was more than ready to leave for home when she ran ahead of us, and my mother went to retrieve her only for them both to wind up in the middle of the street...for the city bus to come out of nowhere and paint the road red." His eyes twinkled without any humor, no trace of emotion in his voice. Just composed and speaking it as it was. No tears either.

My heart was cracking as I tried not to cry any harder than I was. He'd lost his mother and sister at the same age I was when I lost my dad. That I understood which supported his views on overcoming death's barriers, but the idea of a God not existing? He must have decided that there was no God in existence after that, because on Sunday of all days, how could He be so cruel to take two of the most important people in his life from him? "I'm so sorry," I croaked, grabbing the napkin and dabbing my eyes. "That...makes us both. Losing our family at age eight," I said, trying to smile before I found it too hard. He managed one, though it wasn't warm as I wanted it to be.

"It certainly does. It serves our purposes. I believe it's the start of a possible friendship between us."

I almost choked on my juice. "F-friends?"

"Of course. We are friends now, aren't we, Barbara?" That smile broadened by the slightest, and it was starting to creep my nerves out. "You're the first I ever spoke to in years, the first who takes me seriously. You don't belong in a crowd yourself, yet you chose to talk to me, listen to me. That's what friends and eventual partners do, don't they?"

I chewed my lip and nodded, though I wondered if this whole friendship thing wasn't being hurried into. But it had taken three years to finally talk to this man and for the last few weeks being around him nonstop, getting looks from everyone around me, lately discussing his death theories and finally confessing our early losses. "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

"Does this mean I should ask if you're ready for the first...testing phase?"

I had no idea what he meant by "testing phase" before he clarified, leaning in and whispering into my ear, his hot breath sending shivers through my nerves: "The first human body for my re-agent."

~o~

Present

"Your husband didn't believe in God, did he, Doctor?"

I was interrupted from my memories by the older woman who turned to my side to give a crooked smile. "Not as much as I. A true doctor never believes in this, though I sometimes wonder if there really is a God around," I admitted. She was a devout Christian herself, so I anticipated her response, letting loose my cherished cross and following her into the kitchen. The opulent mahogany surroundings reminded me of the old English era, updated with marble countertops and a durable steel refrigerator/freezer. It was all the same as I remembered it, nothing changed. I would always be the one to take care of the house whenever he didn't need me, but it wasn't so glamorous when the wife took care of the house and the husband worked so much.

"I suppose you're right, given the common factor is that we're all going to die anyways," Mrs. Jensen agreed, though I detected she wholeheartedly and secretly disagreed. "Would you care for a drink and we discuss the papers?" she asked, walking over to the china cabinet where the oldest fine Scotch was in its crystal decanter. I could really use a drink right now, but I didn't want to end up so lightheaded I could pass out right now. But most of all, I didn't want to wind up spilling the truth about what happened here and long before then. I nodded, and she filled two little brandy glasses, handing one to me.

"It really is a shame," Mrs. Jensen said, changing the topic on me, which annoyed me to no end, "that a couple with no children could ever live here, but I suppose it fitted two retired physicians after the war was over." She narrowed her beady little eyes at me. "You teach classes at the medical school now, don't you?"

I nodded. I'd been retired for two years now, accepting a position at Miskatonic in the emergency room and helping interns with bright futures as I had been so long ago, but every time blood was spilled and the heart stopping, I would feel mine doing the same, reminding me of that horrible night as well as the one that started it all. Beginning with the secret experiment in the wee hours of the night and the terror in the dark.

~o~

17 years ago

For the next month - by now it was mid-November of 1998 - Herbert showed me various tests of his re-animating solution created from ingredients he stowed away secretly from the university, and it was on a number of rabbits, cats, dogs and guinea pigs. He'd killed them himself, which horrified me to an extent. I always thought killing wrong on so many levels, and I loved animals enough to never want to harm them. I thought animal testing unethical on so many levels, not counting being told over and over by Dean Halsey, my mother, and every other teacher I had in life.

West, however, snorted and brushed it off. "Animals are perfect for a test," he'd stated casually the first time, which was a dead stray beagle he'd found in the streets that afternoon. "Biologically, they are like us humans, yet their lives are lesser than ours, which is why they are perfect for testing before moving onto an actual human being. It would be fallacious to expose a human being to the effects without proper testing on an inhuman creature firsthand."

I'd been living with my mother the whole time I was in school, granted we lived near the campus, and so did West. I told her out of the blue that I'd decided to get out on my own now, and it shocked her that it was to be with a classmate she never knew about before, so yeah, she was a little hesitant and suspicious, but we were always so close and understanding that she accepted I had to grow up. She made me promise to keep in touch with her, and I did. So now, I was sharing a house with West which had a basement, for him to practice his experiments. He'd originally done it in front of Dr. Halsey and the other professors, but they were so sickening that the dean banned him from performing these ungodly studies, threatening expulsion if he ever did this again.

"They didn't understand at all, years of wisdom blinding what's really in front of them," Herbert had spat when he finally decided to confide in me. "But I know once I perfect this solution and the subject makes it through, they'll come crawling on their knees begging for forgiveness." His smile was chilling and reaching his eyes. Now, suddenly, despite the cold feeling I was having, I felt like I wanted to kiss him for his determination and bravery. I blinked; where did that come from?

"Now, for the implant of the re-agent," he murmured; we sat at the long wooden table under the sun lamp, the dead canine on its side for him to pick up the needle filled with his re-agent - I had never seen anything like that before, because it was glowing neon green, nothing like any medicine you would see every day in life. I couldn't help but stare at it, goggle-eyed like a child seeing stars, in spite of myself. He didn't seem to pay attention though, instead focusing on putting the needle into the back of the neck, where the spinal cord was. The spinal cord was attached to the brain and served as the transmitter of nerves throughout the body. I moved closer to him, grabbing his arm and holding on tight, anxious and excited at the same time.

I received a lunge at as soon as the animal came to life, getting a vicious claw to my right cheek, but West pulled it off and threw it off and away from us. The pain of the tender flesh of my cheek ripped and bleeding gooey red was immense, but no more than the undead canine attacking us now; thankfully, Herbert was prepared and grabbed a shovel, whacking it stunned and bringing it down on the poor creature until it was a furry red mess and unrecognizable. I felt like crying because of that, ignoring the sticky heat that was my bleeding cheek. I slowly stood and grabbed onto Herbert, holding onto him because I really needed to. He dropped the shovel and wrapped his arms around me in return.

"Aw, come now," he crooned gently, rocking me back and forth. "The worse and far greater is to come."

~o~

Since Dean Halsey debarred him from public experiments - as well as the lack of access to corpses in the morgue; I couldn't get Herbert in without us being discovered despite my own access of bringing bodies in after failed operations. Herbert and I had no choice but to decide on the potter's field, intact since the 1870s but used for those who either wronged or were of less meaning, sometimes having no families to claim. That was the purpose whenever the college morgue became too full for storage. I'd made the suggestion of the potter's field because where else could it be? Beyond it lay the old deserted Chapman farmhouse, which hadn't been inhabited for years, and seemed fit for us to set up our secret laboratory instead of his house now. Herbert was over the moon at my "genius suggestion" and decided we begin work soon after midnight.

It was the next night after the incident with the vicious re-animated beagle. I was wearing a gray sweatshirt, black leggings and sneakers, my hair in a ponytail again, when I accompanied him with our flashlights and shovels to the potter's field when we learned of the perfect case of our first human specimen. A young construction worker had drowned on the job; the construction of a pond side home was in the making when building the deck ended in a freak accident, the pieces collapsing on top of him and killing him underwater despite the best attempts at rescue by his coworkers. He'd been buried at expense without delay and embalming for organ donation. Herbert thought it ironic because it was like Fate set them up. The school's laboratory was no place for us to begin what he knew we were destined for, beyond the everyday life of ordinary doctors, because of the single-minded old men who were in charge because of credentials.

The night was cold, but there was no wind. Herbert and I took my car to the deserted field which actually held more than meets the eye. My heart was thundering with anticipation because this was the first time I would disturb the grave of an eternally resting person. Mom said grave robbing was a sin against heaven, disturbing the person who suffered enough pain. But Herbert didn't see it that way. "Science requires pushing limits," he explained while we shoveled aside earth and grass, the pressure getting to my arms, but I didn't complain. "This is our first chance, and who knows when the next would come along."

He'd said this when finally there was the sound of iron striking against wood; we'd finally reached the coffin after what felt like hours of digging. Finishing the job off, we dusted off the last of the earth before together opening the lid of the coffin and bestowing the face of the first human body I'd seen outside school. He was brawny, brown-haired, young and fit if only the accident hadn't taken him so soon. I helped Herbert haul the big guy out since his slighter body build couldn't do it alone; the body was still too heavy for the both of us, but we managed to get him out. My car was a few feet away from us, and we hauled the corpse into the backseat since the trunk wasn't large enough. I started the engine just as Herbert spoke softly as he turned behind him to gaze once again at our prize.

"Just think that if this works, we'll be hailed, and we'll be on the cover of the Nobel Prize of science."

It was a dream too good to be true, but I had to concentrate on driving us to the old farmhouse beyond. It was like one of those haunted houses you would find in Halloween photographs, dark and desolate, giving off that indescribable feeling of paranoia and doom, never knowing what was truly inside until you found out for yourself, and by then it was too late. The windows had all the curtains closed tight, the glass themselves sealed and preventing anyone from breaking in. The lab table of test tubes and glassware were set up, and another for the young man's corpse which we lay down. Herbert withdrew the needle of the serum he'd made already; if this didn't work, then it was a good thing we came prepared for the making of a new elixir and a change in the formula.

He injected the solution into the brain once again, the dose being twenty CCs, but sadly after a few minutes of waiting, he sighed in disappointment with me when the body gave no sign of life. The eyelids didn't open, the lips didn't twitch, the chest didn't heave any breaths, the limbs didn't stir...nothing. "Inadequate," Herbert said without any breath. "I don't know if it is the formula or if this fellow isn't fresh enough."

I thought maybe the latter was the case, because he'd made it loud and clear that it had to be exceedingly crisp, but I said instead, "Or maybe the formula might be it. I think chances are we might bring him back tonight if we try a change."

He looked up to me and smiled. "Smart thinking. Better now than later, let the tissues degenerate more than they are."

We left the body on the table as it was and began at work on the new mixing. The only source of light we had in our lab were the fire of the Bunsen burner as well as our flashlights, given the electricity hadn't been turned on for years. Things were quiet for now, between us and not one sound from the thing on the table - until the whole room was aroused with an unexpected cycle of frantic howls that made me scream and drop the beaker of mixing that sizzled on the floor. Herbert grabbed my arm and pulled me with him when we both turned around and saw the man who had been dead on the table, now flailing about the room and not even noticing us, but the crazed cries it let out warned us we had to get out of here now and soon.

"Barbara, the window!" Herbert shouted as we leaped away from the lab table and for one of the windows nearby, hastily unbolting the glass and throwing it open; he tossed me outside first and followed, our flashlights in hand, and I frantically searched my sweatshirt pockets for my keys and found them, getting us into my car just in time and driving away from the site of our secret laboratory and our first success of a revived corpse.

We were back at the house in a matter of time. "We have to make sure it didn't see us," Herbert said suddenly as I pulled us into the driveway.

I frowned at him. "I don't think it noticed us enough to follow us here." I'd watched the rear mirror sometime to know that; the monster didn't trail us anywhere, much less find any conscious thought of its own to get out through a window. My prediction was that the old Chapman place would burn to the ground in a matter of time because of the flammable chemicals the creature would knock over. I wouldn't call it a man anymore because no living human would ever behave the way it did.

Herbert scowled and shrugged off his coat. "Perhaps not, but I wouldn't be too sure of it." Then his face changed with the speed of a whiplash into a broad smile. "But we did it! We brought him back! We've gone off to a good start." I half-agreed with him, but because of the scare we got out of ourselves tonight, I wasn't in any hurry to do this again anytime soon. My heart was racing too much, I felt like I was going to pass out from shock, and I wanted nothing more than to sleep the rest of the day off, disregard class completely. Herbert frowned at my suggestion before he nodded wordlessly. So it was decided to put off any experiments for awhile, take the day off so we could rest the day away.

However, by the afternoon, there was the brief paragraph in the paper detailing the old deserted Chapman farm burning mysteriously during the night into a large heap of ashes, as I predicted. There was also an attempt to disturb a grave in the potter's field, but it was not by a shovel.

The earth bore the most depraved of clawing marks by bare hands. But how could a human being do such a deed?

"I doubt a human would do this," Herbert said, shaking his head and tossing the paper down on the kitchen table. I watched him pace back and forth, but it seemed he was trying to keep himself from flipping out instead of simply calmly trying to come up with an explanation. I said nothing to him as I picked up the paper and moved to prepare lunch for us both.

Little did I know this was the way he would be for the next seventeen years afterwards, and he would always look over his shoulder and complain that an unseen pair of footsteps were following us everywhere we would go.