Nothing to say, other than enjoy.

Chapter Five

The Beastly Outbreak

I awoke one Tuesday morning in the beginning of August with a pounding headache. My body was aching, too, and I could barely move. Herbert was knocking on my door, calling my name, but I barely heard him. "H-Herbert..." I croaked out, my throat hoarse and sore. I felt parched, needing some water. I knew what was wrong with me then; I had the typhoid!

The door flew open. Herbert was mostly dressed, missing his tie, though, and his face was tight. "I'll call the hospital right away and get you in." The numbers of the ailing were lessening more and more everyday, always striking without warning like it did to me. I didn't want to die when I barely started living my life.

"Herbert...don't let me die," I whispered, angry at being weak. He shook his head as he walked over and put his hand on mine.

"I won't," he promised.

I was confined to bed rest then, Herbert mustering all his energy to handle both me and the other patients, and Dean Halsey the same. Herbert grew all the more haggard as the days passed by, his skin getting whiter from energy drained, and Dr. Halsey worse than him mostly because of his old age. He couldn't seem to stop himself from collapsing with physical fatigue and exhaustion; the plague was getting to him, too, but not the way it got to me. Years and years of risking his health and life for others was finally wearing him to the bones.

The sickness reached its end by the middle of August, on the fourteenth. I would have died, but Fate spared me. Herbert was by my side when it broke, smiling and holding my hand then. "I told you you'd make it," he said smugly. Beneath the smug, there was the actual feeling that he was happy and relieved I was still alive. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."

I smiled and squeezed his hand back. "Do you really mean that?"

"More than anything," he answered, leaning over and kissing my forehead. His lips were soft, his kiss cool but informing me that I was here, that this was all real and not a dream.

But it also reminded me of the other, older man who had been his rival but also should have been our friend and understanding superior. "Dr. Halsey?" I asked, even though I suspected it.

Herbert's answer was grim. "Dead. This morning. Collapsed in his own office, when the nurses and I found him." He sighed and lowered his eyes. "No surprise, but he could have honored us had he put down those age-old blinders of his. Look where ignorance got him now. A place amongst the dead." I looked up at the ceiling. It was hard to believe that Dean Alan Halsey was dead now, but he was an old man, and his physical strength's limits were bound to run out. Now he was gone, and that meant Herbert lost a rival who tried to block his way.

The funeral took place on the fifteenth, the students of Miskatonic bringing a wreath of serene white flowers, bold red roses, and proud blue hydrangeas; it was a bold tribute distinguished by dedication and honor. But there were more lavish ones sent by wealthy Arkham citizens and lesser ones, even the middle class. Halsey had been a beloved benefactor to them all for as long as they'd been around. I went to the funeral with Herbert, the weight in my heart there but not as much as it had been when I went to the one for my mother less than a few weeks before. I respected Alan Halsey, but I don't think that meant I loved him like a father.

The services ended before one in the afternoon, and Herbert and I joined several of our old classmates and new colleagues at the bar downtown because I wanted to. I just needed to get away from the stench and tension of death in the air, be near some living contact. Herbert didn't seem to mind for once. We both ordered marinated shrimp for two and lemons, not having much of an appetite but enjoying it together. We kept to each other and a short distance from everyone else and talking in whispers.

"Still in shock?" I asked.

He snorted and smirked at the same time. "Very little shocks me, but the loss of our respected adversary, yes. But that might change...tonight," he said softly. "As soon as the sun falls, how about we sneak to the cemetery and bring our old friend back to the house so we can...make a night of it?"

I almost choked on my white wine. "H-Herbert, are you serious? When the caretaker or someone could very much spot us?!" I almost raised my voice before he grasped my hand roughly to keep me quiet.

"Keep your voice down," he hissed. "And yes, I'm serious. We need another test, and think of this as an act of kindness to Halsey. Think of it, Barbara: do you want a great opportunity to go to waste?"

Honestly? No. But still, I had the very bad feeling. Dean Halsey might have been kind and generous but intolerant, and I couldn't help but remember the silly material in certain movies and stories I grew up with as a child in which the person who had been sweet and gentle in life became murderous and aggressive in the next life after death. Too true would they be when Herbert and I would follow through and bring the dean's corpse back to our house later that night.

~o~

This latest "success" was far worse than any of the others. Yes, the man awoke and cried - in both pain and rage - but did not hesitate to attack both Herbert and me, injuring us both in the process before breaking out the window and jumping onto the lawn so it could go off doing what it wanted. Which would go on for two nights in a row before being caught and brought to the local institution for the next many years.

Someone had phoned the police about the disturbance, and they came in through the window to find me and Herbert almost clawed out of our flesh and bleeding to death. We were so weak we were taken to the hospital right away and given blood transfusions, bandaged and confined to bed. We were in the same room together the whole time, watching the news on the TV together and keeping in touch with what was going on. Not long after they left us alone for awhile, Herbert suggested we come up with the story we would give the police.

"We'll just say that he was a rather nice strange man," he instructed, "whom we met at the local bar and decided to bring home with us for more pleasant time. It got too crazy, and he went into a drunken rage and attacked us both." He frowned when I didn't speak; I didn't have it in me because I wasn't a very skilled liar all the time. "Come on, Barbara, you can do this."

"This is going to be very suspicious to the police," I told him groggily. "They'll ask how come we were so stupid to not ask his name firsthand. Common sense, Herbert," I reminded him.

He let out a frustrated exhale of breath. "You honestly think I don't know that?" he snapped. "Of course I do know. Could you at least do me this favor and go along for both our sakes and for our friend out there, whom we don't want to have hunted down?"

I sighed and nodded in resignation. "Yet another failure of ours," I said, happy and not too happy that I was right once again.

Herbert nodded. "Once again: it wasn't fresh enough."

I had the terrible tremor return to me as, given the re-animated dean's violent altercation upon us, he would not hesitate to stop and think before he did the same to any other poor soul out there, and he sure did. Right after the police interrogated us and accepted the story, it was all over the news later that night. This was what I remembered the most of this summer besides the influenza, the second Arkham horror which most would also recall years from now.

Christchurch Cemetery had a grisly killing, the watchman clawed to death in a manner not only too hideous for description, but it raised questions as to whether or not a human being could actually do such a deed. No wild animals were known around the town, either. The only source of evidence led the police to a false trail which was the body in a gigantic pomegranate-colored pool with a thick trail lessening as the length went on, ending to where the woods lay. It stopped there, because the police searched far and wide with dogs and guns, but no sign of the killer.

This continued into the next night, because the wind howled madly with rain and the unseen sadistic monster roaming free in the town. People were talking in fear that Satan had decided to take the place of his minions and do more work himself, that he would have his fun with innocent souls now and leave the Red Death trails behind his every steps. They called it more accursed than the epidemic, and I couldn't agree more. I wept each hour that passed, in fear mostly. Herbert would shush me gently and say soft nothings from where he was to my left, but it wasn't the same as me being in his arms. His comforts could do nothing to erase my memories of learning of eight homes broken into and seventeen bodies found mutilated and consumed. The thing was hungry half the time, sickening me to the point where I wanted to throw up the food brought to Herbert and me during the day.

By the third night, the fiend was finally caught. The catch was organized by the police and volunteers; it was ensnared by a great net and struggled with inhuman roars and snarls, silenced by a bullet to the side, stunning it but not killing it. It was taken first to the hospital, and I saw it pass by on a stretcher, strapped down. The monster didn't see me or sense me there, but I once again was nauseated by the gore-covered, snarling face of the "late" Dr. Alan Halsey, dean of the Miskatonic Medical School. Herbert saw, too, but said nothing other than what would be the main issue in our work for a long time.

"Damn him for not being fresh enough. None of them ever were. How will we EVER get a fresh human body anytime in the future?"

~o~

Present Day

I jolted awake from the dream - actually memory - of Herbert and I in the hospital for recovery from the mauling by the undead dean who had been taken to the Sefton ward, where it gnawed and clawed at the bars as well as beat its head against the padded walls of its cell for the last sixteen years...until the incident last year, not long before Herbert West disappeared that same night.

I had decided to fall asleep on the old-floral printed loveseat in this warm, inviting, English-themed sitting room, just because it had been a long, tiring meeting with that Jensen hag. It was a good thing I'd brought some of my things with me, still out in the backseat of the car for the night. I was still in my suit, which needed a change into something lighter and more casual now. It was nearing four already, so not much of anything else to do for the rest of the day. I'd packed a few sets of clothes lightly, as well as my numerous feminine hygiene products, bringing them all into the house and into the sitting room again, picking out the dress of choice. It was matronly and sexy at the same time, with slits in the sleeves to bare some skin, natural-waisted, and going in shades of blue from soft ocean to deep midnight. The colors themselves reminded me of one certain night I remembered all too well after Herbert and I left Arkham for Bolton, the neighbor town, involving six shots by moonlight and monstrosity.

Doing Lovecraft's original story instead of the movies for once has been quite the journey so far, but more challenges to come. :)