Nothing to say, again. Enjoy! :)

Chapter Five

The NPE

The re-agent was done, but there was no yet known date for a test because that was up to Herbert to decide. She'd been on the job for a little over a week, and yesterday she'd gotten a call from Dan and Francesca to come and visit them in Boston on Saturday. By the Warden to inform me, of all people, she thought with disgust as she listened with the man in the room with her as her two best friends asked her to come and take the day off Saturday to visit them since they hadn't seen each other in a while.

"I don't take days off, and you know that I'm on my new job." She'd tried to get herself out before Brando stepped in and assured her nothing would happen, and he was sure that "Mr." West would take care of the infirmary for her. She'd tried her hardest to keep her irritation hidden with her back turned as well as when she turned to thank him and left the area to return to work.

Herbert had asked her what the deal was, and upon her telling him without giving away who her friends were, and where they were now – though from the look in his eyes, which started to scare her – he didn't take it too well, telling her that they had work to do, even more when she mentioned the Warden insisting, and he just nearly lost his temper then that he settled on taking an empty, unused beaker from one of the shelves and threw it into the wall. Seeing him that way had shocked her, because she took him so composed and incapable of throwing childish tantrums. If there was a way I can ask Dan.

That would have to wait until after she handled this latest patient of hers: a rough-looking older guy barely into his fourth decade, almost as old as Herbert was, wearing glasses but with long messy hair he wore in a braid, bald at the top...and a major drug addict who got busted and sent in here. "It hurts so much I can't even spit," he told her, making slight gagging noises she knew he was faking just to get some meds into his system.

Heather frowned at him as she wrote down the symptoms onto the clipboard. "I really don't see anything wrong." It's no wonder he's called Speedball; it's a mixture of cocaine and heroin, which causes heart attacks, diarrhea, and gastroenteritis. She saw his past medical records that his old doctor would give him prescriptions and combinations that were more than likely to cause said problems, as well as what he was trying to plead her to get.

"Come on, Dr. Honey. Once they gave me little red pills, Vicodin; made me feel better right away." She shook her head and walked away, leaving Nurse Vanessa to handle him. Heather really hated not pleasing everybody, but people-pleasing could be bad for the mental health, and Speedball was not someone to please because she was his doctor and knew what was best for his health.

She had just gone outside to meet with the newest at the same time Herbert was walking out through the front infirmary doors only to be cornered by Speedball and a younger gangster guy with a muscle shirt and tattoos, Cabrera, whom she knew was still attacking Herbert over his missing rat roaming somewhere around the prison. She had no idea what they were saying to him, but with their fists slapping into their palms and Herbert's calm response simply by snapping his removed latex gloves and walking in her direction, his face now reverted to that of secret enthusiasm.

"Today's the day," he whispered to her. "It worked."

Today's the day. We get to test the formula... She stopped right there. Damn, that means I have to reschedule. She turned to Vanessa. "Reschedule the afternoon appointments." Vanessa looked like she was about to question why, but Heather had gone back inside and followed Herbert to the infirmary, through the back door and down into the basement where the glowing green formula she'd first picked up after him all those years ago was waiting for them in the beaker, an empty hypodermic needle resting beside and patiently awaiting a fill. And once it was, Herbert held it in his left hand and gazed at it proudly, though he also looked like he was ready to murder an innocent animal, making her cringe slightly.

"Now...to test it," he said in a hushed, hypnotic tone.

"On who?" Heather asked slowly, getting that "oh, well" look from him again. By now, she knew that was never a good sign. He set the syringe down and walked over to the refrigerator, opening it and pulling out a bundle of silver foil, throwing it down without much care because the contents inside were no meaning to him, just as a specimen.

It was a dead rat.

~o~

"Dr. Cain, report to the ER. Dr. Cain, the ER."

"Oh, God, another one," he hissed to himself as he suited up as fast as he could. So far, the day hadn't been hectic: nothing but prescriptions and sutures over little wounds from sawing accidents and medicines for snake bites, but now there was a more serious situation, and these were what his high stress levels could not handle one bit. Running into the ER with the nurses and a few of his colleagues also called in, he saw a victim of a high collision resulting in critical condition.

He was a young boy of about six or seven, not much older than Adrian, but the amount of gore he was covered in, as well as the severe and almost irreparable damage to his body – his stomach cut open from a broken metal that jabbed deep in, and his right leg removed in the mess – it made him all the more determined to save the child's life. If this were his own...

"Nurse, get the IV!" he shouted. "Charge the paddles!"

"We're going to have to fix his stomach, Dan," Leslie Coburn, a fellow MD, announced, snapping her mask over her mouth and handing him his, "but his other abdominal organs are too damaged from the impact."

"We'll just do it," he said. "Did he have any family, anybody?"

One of the nurses answered. "His parents are dead, so nobody can claim him; that's all we know for now."

They had to hurry; the boy was losing too much blood, and the organs were pierced enough that he was going to die soon, but NO! Thinking of his young son made him apply as much CPR as possible while Leslie charged the paddles and Dr. Eric Moreland, who was also Leslie's ex-husband, had applied anesthesia – which would take a bit to settle in, but no more than a minute, and a minute's time wasn't on their side – before working to open the stomach more and begin his "miracles" which wouldn't succeed this time. Moreland was a renowned surgeon who once studied at Miskatonic with Dan and Herbert West before transferring to Boston, so he was one of Dan's oldest friends and associates but also harbored a nearly unhealthy fascination with the re-animation theory.

Suddenly, the sounds of the flat lines were heard. "Damn it!" Moreland shouted, even though he continued, and the more Dan looked at him, the more he was seeing a near Herbert West twin, if not the same in appearance. "Any change yet?" he asked sometime later.

Leslie and the nurse both shook their heads. "Still flat, Doctor," they both said.

"Goddamn it all," Eric swore before removing his hands. "I'm calling it then."

Dan heard himself screaming "NOOO!" as he fell down to the floor only to be caught by Coburn and the nurse, but he was too heavy for their whole support and collapsed to his knees beside the hospital bed, the child lost for good. He would have been orphaned anyways, both parents dead and maybe no other relatives. But still...he was too young. If Adrian was in his place and I lost him... He stared at the floor for a long period of time, droplets of red blood splattering before his eyes as a shadow loomed over him, Dr. Moreland's hands red as West's hands had been all those countless times.

His voice was barely hollow, but Dan still heard him. "Daniel...maybe you should take some time away from here, be alone for awhile. Leslie, Nurse, I got this."

Sometimes Dan wondered why he entered the medical field to begin with; he tended to be too attached to the patients because their lives would be lost, like this one, whose body was now covered with a white sheet to be taken to the morgue. Being a doctor was a sinful desire, if that was the correct way to put it. It had been my dream as a child, but look where it got me. I lose patients every day if not all the time, I lost a woman I loved before the one I have now...and I turned in a man who committed countless atrocities against mankind and nature.

But... His mind had now taken a new direction altogether. ...even though he doodled with body parts, he was still trying to prolong life. I was trying to help him, and he didn't listen to me. Now that he's been locked up all this time, he's worse than ever, and I know it. If only he were here; he could have saved this child's life.

But it's too late now.

Now he knew that, as much as it sickened and frightened him, Dan Cain truly REGRETTED turning Herbert West in.

~o~

"A rat," was all Heather said as she stared at Ratty's outwardly perfect carcass, though internally was another story. Herbert saw no trace of fear, though the uncertainty was still there. Every human being feared the unknown, but not him.

"Exactly. We need an animal subject to test before we think about moving onto a human one," Herbert explained. "However...did you know that the human body loses three to four grams of weight at the moment of death?" The theory was based off of a Dr. MacDougal here in Massachusetts whose experiments were criticized over the attempt to weigh the human soul, his amount being twenty-one grams, but not with Herbert West's. None of his works were scientific studies like Dr. West's.

"I think I did hear something about that, yeah," Heather answered. "But there was none in his dog tests..."

"Because dogs were believed to have no soul, yes," Herbert answered dully, the mere talk of the non-existing soul rattling his nerves. Back on topic. "Of course, a rodent loses much less than a human being, but the ratio remains the same." Ratty lay on his side, but his back faced Herbert's direction; this gave Herbert his correct line of view of where he pointed out the main key point for insertion of the NPE. "The cerebral cortex," he explained to Heather, "is the site of an extraordinary neuro-electric phenomenon. Hold him." He picked up the needle of re-agent as she did as he asked. "Tightly. Ratty isn't going to be very happy when he wakes up."

Once he injected the serum into the brain, Heather's hold as vice-like as she could manage, Herbert continued as he set the empty syringe down. "This phenomenon is what I call the Nano-Plasmic Energy; NPE for short. But it is not just in the brain," he added with one finger lifted to her. "I have found minute traces of NPE throughout the central nervous system, which means that it must be present in every cell of the body."

And then a monstrous squeal tore from the now-jerking rodent in both of Heather's gloved hands; she was flinching as she struggled to keep him in both her hands as he convulsed violently. "Classic post-re-animation behavior," Herbert recited, "confused, violent – just like all my other subjects to date." But no more, he thought with triumph. "This..." He held up the hypodermic needle. "...brought him back from the dead, but this..." He held up the flickering bulb in his other hand. "...will give him true life, and restore him to full reason."

Heather stared at the bulb as he placed it in the capsule and then picked up the tines. "What is that?"

"The nanoplasm from a living donor rat," Herbert answered, placing two fingers at the back of Ratty's head and forcing it down but not too hard so he could stick the three metal pieces into the top of his spine. "This, my dear Doctor, is the catalyst. This is the force that tells the cells...how to grow." And with that, he threw the switch.

The bulb flashed yellow as it came on and began to travel through the electrical cord and into the undead rat's system. Some seconds passed by before Ratty ceased his uncontrollable struggles in Heather's hands, and his head twitched around, showing normal black eyes instead of the red ones seen before. He squeaked, and Herbert set down the control, looking straight into Heather's amazed eyes. "It works."

"I-I don't believe it," she whispered, raising Ratty to her eyes and smiling, her soft laughter on the verge of choking it up. "You...found it. You restored rational behavior."

He allowed a slight smile to show, proud that she was finally seeing that he was working for a cause. "I certainly did. Now all we have to do now, with whatever time we have..." He looked down at the living rat, still squeaking healthily, in her hands. "...is give him back to his owner."

He told her to keep Ratty hidden in her coat so no one saw him, but along the way out to the courtyard – where Cabrera and his fellow punks would be waiting for him, but he had the cards dealt and his enemy's weakness up his sleeve – when none other than the meddlesome blonde reporter herself was escorted by Moncho in the opposite direction to where the hole was. "Laura!" Heather exclaimed, getting her attention. Herbert watched and heard it all from the short distance he was.

"Oh, Dr. Phillips," Miss Olney said, startled and happy to see her at the same time, but he knew better. She was using her friendship with Heather to get what she wanted, and he knew exactly what it was. "How are you?" Damn foolish card played wrong...to me.

"What are you doing here?" Heather asked, keeping her smile up, but Herbert read underneath that she was on her guard as he was.

Olney looked at her for a second and then in Herbert's direction; her face was uneasy politeness at its finest, almost breaking at the hostile glare he knew he was giving her. People around him were known to cower away from him, save for a few who knew him too well.

"Just...going for it," was all she said before she turned and hurried away to Moncho's side, continuing on in that direction.

Heather was still looking after her, her lovely face contorted into baffle and anxiety. She didn't look at him when he came to her side, his fury ebbing. "That's the way to the hole...where Moses is."

"It certainly is." How could she do this, be friends with a woman here to build up her ambitions and making herself famous? She used Heather to get information out of her. Never mind, she'll be dealt with soon enough, for both our sakes.

"She's going to see Moses," Heather was whispering by the time they stepped out into the courtyard where the other inmates were. "Why else would she be there?"

"You're such a little fool," Herbert hissed to her, stopping finally and turning to face her, his back to Cabrera and his friends, all who stayed there waiting for him to come to them. "I warned you she'd be trouble. Precisely why I never allowed myself to be near a woman, and why my old assistant let himself be with a woman who saw my work vile, lacking self-esteem in himself all for her. You, on the other hand..."

He stopped himself right there when he looked deeper into her eyes, seeing hurt there, and instantly he regretted it. He'd hurt her feelings. He ought to leave it there, because if he called her something that he would regret as much as it was a mild bruise to his pride, he wouldn't forgive himself. "Give him to me, quick," he said instead, turning back to the small group in the distance, his hand behind his back and feeling the soft, furry weight; closing his fingers around Ratty, he calmly and deliberately headed in the direction where his loving master unknowingly waited for his beloved pet's return.

~o~

Laura Olney knew that there was something wrong with the old man, Moses, the moment she laid her eyes on him again in the holding cell when she stood by Sergeant Moncho. He was in a straightjacket, back facing her as she was peeking through the window in the door. Bribing the guard hadn't been easy, but it was a matter of time before he returned to get her, and she had to talk to the old man now.

Her research on Dr. Herbert West and the Miskatonic Massacre – as well as his re-animation experiments covered up as a hoax – led her to believe maybe it wasn't a fable after all. Her previous story on how the state prison functioned wasn't working at all, so this proved far better and more interesting. And maybe be my breakthrough story. Perhaps it could prove to the world that...re-animation of "dead tissue" isn't fiction as they say it is. Her friendship with Heather had caused the doctor to open up to her, feeling like keeping this a secret wasn't right which was a weakness she'd been taught early on; trusting the wrong person got you into trouble every time. But Laura was a journalist, and she had a job to do and an apartment to keep.

She hesitantly stepped closer to the old man; he might be in a straightjacket, but he still scared her. "Hi," she said nervously, getting out her tape recorder. "I'm Laura Olney, and I'm a journalist. I want to talk to you about what happened last week, okay? Do you..." She took one more step forward and stopped. "...remember what Dr. West did to you?"

The next one made her really unsure if this was a good idea after all, but risks had to be taken, like Heather taught her. "Did you really die from that heart attack?" Her hand was shaking when she reached out to touch his shoulder and slowly turn him around to face her, catching a long, deep red gash at the top left of his skull. "Can I...check your pulse?" Pulses must always be checked; if he doesn't have one, then he must be dead, after all. Or then again, it could be erratically racing.

Her heart leaped in her chest when his face turned around to show a dark red broil above his left eye, and a maniacal gleam in said eye. And hunger. Laura backed away then. His voice was pitched and low at the same time. "Mother of God..." he croaked, "forgive me."

Laura gulped. "What happened to you?"

He really scared her then with his roar and his lunge forward. "HUNGRY!" was his answer, followed by animalistic snarling that she knew she was in trouble.

"Sergeant Moncho!" she yelled, no longer caring that the rules were not to call out and risking the Warden or anyone else coming in. Then she heard the door open behind her, and relief washed over her. "Thank God you're here." However, when she turned around, the sergeant wasn't who came to her "rescue".

It was Warden Brando. And he wasn't happy. Murder gleamed in his eyes, and now she knew she'd gone too far.

The information about the mentioned Dr. MacDougal's "dog soul" theory is real, if anyone wants to check that out further. And the bit about the name "Speedball" was from the "Making of" featurette of the movie, said from the actor who plays him, whose name I can't remember OR pronounce. XD In addition, the phrase "oh well" look as it is called was used by a couple other authors, including BlueMilagro's "The Scavenger Bride". It's what I always called it, too. :) Makes sense, too.

One more thing: Leslie Coburn is the main character borrowed from an episode from "The Twilight Zone", called "The Placebo Effect". Jeffrey Combs guest-starred there, and his character's doctor is the one and the same Dr. Coburn. Dr. Eric Moreland is also the original Dr. Hill character in Lovecraft's story.