Stan woke up with a headache he wouldn't wish on anyone. He looked around the room, it was dark, night but light from street was shining through a small high window. He could smell mildew, damp stone and death… he figured it out, a basement. He felt a chill metal under him. He was laying flat on something. Also he'd been stripped to his boxers. He could see the silhouette of a crane necked lamp above him. He reached up and yanked the lamp down, turning a knob on the back, a light so bright it made him squint against it, came to life. When his eyes adjusted he saw he was laying on a metal table in a curtained alcove of the basement. There was equipment nearby on a rolling tray; cruel tools for opening up a person's body and a large syringe containing a glowing green liquid. He felt weird. 'Okay Stanley don't freak out, no matter what, this freak thinks you're dead…find something to knock him out with.' But on the shelves along the wall he could only see glass jars with body parts in them: hands, feet, ears, dead babies with severe deformities, he shuddered. This guy was a creep. He pulled back the sea foam green shower curtain from the alcove... in the dimness he could make out shuffling silhouettes of men. He turned the light on them. He was met with dead eyes in dead faces, lolling mouths and green skin. One of them was Lenny Franks fresh corpse, ligature marks still fresh on his neck. Nearly all were half dressed or naked, some were chained to the walls, others slumped against the floor… all were dead. He heard footsteps near the basement door and hid in a corner. There was crowbar in the corner... good, he grabbed it and waited. The footsteps passed by the door getting fainter. He could hear the babble of voices. He slowly, gingerly made his way up the stairs opened the door a crack and peeked out. He could see a tan and green living room, decorated with furniture from like the 50s. In his view was the corner of a living room, he could see the end of a dark green couch. Rick was sitting on it nervously examining his feet. What in the hell was Rick doing here? Maybe he'd been in on the whole thing! Stan balled his fist and was about to charge the door. That's when the other man spoke:

"So, can I get you some iced tea?"

"Naw," Rick waved him away. "It's okay, Doug,"

The other man stepped into Stan's narrow view, he was tall and thin, dressed in grey, with thinning silver hair and round gleaming glasses. "Are you sure?"

In that moment Stan knew, that was the man in the bar, the one who drugged him.

"Yeah," Rick said. "Look Doug, over the years you and your wife Betty have r-real- really taken me in ya know, taken care of me."

"Thank you, m'boy," said the other man. "You've been like a son to us."

"You are the most brilliant bio-chemist I know," Rick said.

"Not as good as you," Doug said warmly.

"True," Rick got to his feet. "And that's why this is real fucking hard… I tried to tell myself, it was someone else." He pulled out a small shiny gun. "Re-animating these corpses, it had your fingerprints all over it."

"Please, Rick… you're mistaken, put the gun down. See reason, you know me Rick."

"I thought I did," Rick said and continued to aim the gun at Doug. "I thought I did. But then I wondered why the fuck do you have a second home away from Princeton and Betty."

"I practically raised you, Rick." Doug said. "All those times you came to me and Betty when your mother hurt you."

"I fucking didn't want to buy it, so I looked you up in the public records," Rick said. "Arrests for things they didn't have the guts to put in the local papers and the fact you've been shuffled around from college to college…like a-a… fucking christmas fruitcake."

"Rick, you know I'm not a bad man," Doug pleaded. "Until recently it hasn't been easy for men like me… men who love other men to be ourselves or get sent to a mental institution."

"Yeah I know," Rick said. "And that, I could have excused that, but why the fuck did the tracking device I implanted in my friend's neck, lead me here!"

Stan rubbed his neck, he thought it was a just a weird pimple.

"Please don't do this Rick… think of Betty… think of my reputation. I never laid a finger on you. " Douglas Blevins whined "Just let me live… I won't do it again."

"You're going to die you fucker!" Rick yelled and charged. Stan heard a clang and commotion, the gun fired. Then silence. Stan stepped out of the cellar.

"You did it Rick, you got that perv!" Stan said.

But Rick was on the floor his head bleeding, the other man, Doug Blevins was standing over him with a desperate angry look in his eyes and the shiny gun in his hands. Stan felt his heart drop then the anger came Stan charged wishing he had the crowbar. The shot went wide, Stan thought he had him, but no Doug picked up something off the floor and hit Stan squarely in the head. Stan vaguely wondered how much brain damage this would cause or if it would kill….

He was awake, sitting on the floor in a dark corner of the living room. Stan tried to move his arms, and legs, but he couldn't, he felt ropes chafing against his skin. So that Doug creep tied him up? He could reach around and feel the knots, they weren't very tight. He looked across the darkened living room, Rick was there tied to a dining room chair and hadn't come to yet. But then Blevins walked into the room, Stan drooped his head and pretended he was out of it. Doug Blevins strode across the room towards Rick, he was holding a glass of water, splashing it on Rick's face. Rick sputtered and his eyes snapped open.

"So is this the part where you turn me into one of your undead fuck puppets?" Rick said almost bored.

"Hardly," Doug sniffed. "As I said, I've always thought of you like a son. I'm just going to kill you. That's why I'm so disappointed this happened, but first I should explain myself."

Rick gave frustrated sigh."Well I guess I'm stuck here. Okay first tell me how you got Dr. West's old formula was it from Lebeau? Or Garber?"

Doug shook his head and laughed in patronizing manner. "Neither, Herbert West didn't leave a copy of it to Miskatonic. It was among his personal papers, which I inherited as I happen to be his nephew. As for Julius Lebeau he's an old friend, I've known him since I was an undergrad at Tulane. He owed me a favor since I gave him a glowing reference for his current job."

Stan tried to nod at Rick to get his attention but if Rick saw him, he didn't give any sign. So Stan went back to undoing the knots.

Rick sighed. "Nephew?"

"It was on the Maternal side." Doug said. "You are probably wondering why I did it. Well, that goes back a long time, when I was boy I enjoyed dissecting roadkill and other animals. Somehow when I reached my teens, that urge became wrapped up with the taboo attraction I felt towards men….."

Rick was rolling his eyes as Doug kept talking. Stan almost had the knot undone.

"….My first real lover, was a poor youth, after we spent the night together I felt a Sense of uncontrollable panic well up in me. If I was discovered it could jeopardize everything, so I choked him to death. I was living alone at the time and I found myself deeply enthralled by his corpse, when the downstairs neighbors began to notice the stench, I disposed of him at night, wrapping him in a sheet, weighing him down with rocks, and throwing it in the bay… I was so paranoid, so certain I would be caught and my carefully constructed facade would—"

Rick was still looking up at Doug boredly, but It occurred to Stan that Rick was somehow paying attention to this bullshit. The knotted rope came free in his hand.

"…I thought you'd get it Rick. That evil is just a label the weak use to describe the things that they can't understand, things that scare them, that they'd like to do but don't have the guts to act on…."

Now the other knot tying his ankle was even looser, and came apart quickly. Stan was on his feet, neither Rick or Doug heard him quietly grab a wooden chair from the dining room, and with stealth Stan didn't know he had, snuck up behind Doug and slammed the chair into the bastard's head. Doug went down like a ton of bricks. Stan hit him one more time to make sure.

"… My god! He just didn't shut up did he? Yak yak yak yak!" Stan said.

"Cut the commentary, u—untie me," Rick griped.

Stan did so, Rick got to his feet, looked at Doug and found his small shiny gun. He pointed at Doug's head pulled the trigger, there was burst of red light. Doug's body twitched, Stan saw the smoking hole in Doug's head.

"That's what you get! That's what you get!" Rick shouted. Tears were forming at the corners of Rick's eyes.

"Geez, you just killed him. Are you okay?" Stan asked.,

Rick sniffed and wiped his eyes. "Yeah I'm fine. All those years…why didn't he ever try that shit with me? Why couldn't I see him for what he was…why was he so...so…" Rick's eyes teared up, then Rick went green. "…I gotta throw up." And ran into the kitchen. As his friend retched into the sink, Stan found a garage sitting in the back of the house. Luckily there were no creepy re-animated corpses in there. Just a car and what he needed, gasoline. Stan hummed to himself as he poured it all over the floors of the first floor. Rick was…in the house but Stan couldn't….

"Hey Sanchez! C'mere!" Stan said as he held up his lighter.

Rick stumbled up from the basement.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Me? What are you doing?! Eh, never mind… burnie, burnie goes the house of horrors."

Stan flicked his lighter to the gas soaked floor and it caught instantly in a wave of flame.

Rick wasn't moving, instead he was glaring angrily at Stan in the midst of the fire. "Fucking retard!"

Stan couldn't hear him over the roar of the fire. "C'mon!" He grabbed Rick's hand and dragged him out onto the street. The window exploded as flames shot through them. Stan watched for moment. That's when Rick hit him.

"OW! What the fuck?!"

"Why the fuck d-d-d-did you do that, Pines!?"

"Cuz, there were way too many dead bodies in there, I don't want the cops thinking we were tied up in this."

"Don't you realize Herbert West's formula was in there?! Do you know how much some people would pay for that!?"

"You mean the one that makes the dead walk? You wanted that? What is wrong with you?!"

They heard the sirens and ducked into a nearby alleyway.

"Why do you think I even cared about this —"

"Whoa, wait this whole time guys were getting killed and their fucking corpses were turned into…. into sex toys and you JUST wanted to formula?! I thought—"

"Yeah, and now it's ashes because of you."

"Hey, I worked my tail off on this thing! I got drugged, knocked out three times and almost killed and this is how you repay me?!"

"Repay you? What the fuck you want a receipt for this after running around with that floozy!"

"She ain't a floozy! I'm done with you Sanchez…"

"Good, I don't need some dumb fucking hunk of fucking meat dragging me down!"

Stan walked away feeling the rage bubble inside him, he wanted to beat the shit out of Rick, but that's how this started. So he walked away into the darkness, as the sirens wailed. He found his car parked nearby and drove away. When he got back to the motel he checked number 12, Rick's room, all of Rick's things were gone, the room was cleaned out, set up perfectly like the fucker had never been there. It didn't fucking matter. In the weeks that followed the schemes that Carla and him pulled began to work. He started up a business he called Stan Co. and things got serious with Carla. He didn't even think of Rick… even when he and Carla made love for the first time. Even when Carla and him packed their bags hopped in the Stanleymobile and headed out to swindle the country. Even at night when she wasn't there and he was alone... especially not when he was alone.

END OF PART I