Since there is no "Meg's heart" involved, Herbert is basically blatantly putting parts together like a madman.

Chapter Three

The Creation of Life

"Hello, beautiful," Herbert crooned, unlocking the door to the basement and peeking his head inside, scanning the vast space which showed the mess he always left and that Daniel hated. His own friend left such a depression on his mind that he wanted to be down here just to not want to see his roommate IF he came home.

Elizabeth Chapham had been another success, in a way, but she'd been violent as the others before her...unlike this one which stepped out of the shadows and made way for him to the bottom of the staircase which he was now walking down. She was a magnificent creature, her splendid figure seen through the sheer, gauzy material serving as a dress since the day he injected life into her heart; that theory of re-animating all the limbs at the same time would have been impossible if they separated, unless the re-agent was directly injected into the heart, the circulatory system distributing the re-agent concurrently to all the limbs. Herbert met her at the bottom of the steps, but it was she who towered over him, standing six feet approx. "Did you miss me today?" he asked tenderly, taking both her hands into his.

She stared at him with that same look of uncertainty in her beautiful face...Gloria's face. Her mane of dirty blonde hair was bushy as a lion's mane, not bothered to be treated because Herbert thought it was only natural. Her torso was amazingly at the topmost of hourglass shapes, the hips a perfect width for childbearing as she was made to do, the breasts barely filling in a D-cup which was perfect for a man to grasp if he wanted to...the last of which made him sick, remembering the woman whose womb was now this one's. Anyways, lower, where her legs were made for walking and heightening her to be Dan's height, standing on feet graceful for dancing, running, and walking. Her hands, still held in his, were slender and delicate, once belonging to a seamstress, attached to arms of a waitress who was killed in a freak fire accident at one of the downtown diners.

She was...perfect. An angel of his own creation. There was no God in existence to make such a beautiful thing like this which rivaled Meg and any other woman like her.

Speaking of Meg, Dan just had to run off to her because he was angry with Herbert for exposing his cousin to this. Well, it hadn't been his plan and was not his fault. He just...didn't think Lily would be back so soon. But then again, women had bad timings. Not like this one here. Herbert smiled up at her and guided her to the middle of the room, the floor mopped up before of blood so nobody slipped. He always knew Dan would snap eventually, but how could he turn back when they came this far? All over his precious little cousin.

Herbert couldn't help but wonder, as he slowly waltzed with his creation, how Lily would be around her husband as soon as she got home. And how would she be able to explain to him? If she gave everything away, then it was over, all that he worked so hard for.

On second thought, she had no idea the whole story, and if she did know, nobody would believe her. Herbert smirked to himself at that, as well as a new thought that crossed his mind:

If Dan really backed out, maybe his cousin would be a suitable replacement.

~o~

Megan was just getting ready for bed when suddenly, the doors to her house were busted onto. She panicked and ran from her bedroom with her handgun loaded and in hand; after that night and everything Dan and West had been up to, you could never be too careful. She clicked off the safety and went to the door, slowly opening it and quickly stepping back to raise the pistol to the door itself as it opened by the hand on the other side -

"Oh, God, Dan!" She gasped sharply and dropped the gun, firing a shot somewhere into the wall by accident - not hitting either of them or anything else but a blank space - but she didn't care. Meg threw her arms around the neck of the man she loved and held him tight. "I could have killed you!"

"Not like West almost did." His words were muffled as he buried his face into the nape of her neck, but she heard him right.

"Why, what did he do this time?" Meg pulled back to look him hard. "What did you both do?"

He sighed. "No, I had nothing to do with it. He did it all by himself. He had the nerve to bring an abused wife back to life in the hospital..." He'd had his eyes lowered and now raised them to meet hers. "...with Lily in the picture."

Meg gasped sharply, angrily, stepping back as though she'd been electrocuted. Damn that man! He brought a woman back to life with Lily around? How the hell could he do this?! "I wasn't even there," Dan spoke. "Security took her to the ward, and I heard them talking about it and who was there."

"Oh, the nerve." Meg reached up to rub both her eyes. "Is she going to tell now?"

Dan shook his head. "I don't think anyone would really believe her. But I had to get away from him. I needed to be here with you."

She looked up at him and smiled. Glad to know she'd knocked some sense into him; however, there was still Lily. She was in trouble now, and Dan had gotten himself into it. They had to keep Lily away from him now, it seemed.

~o~

Lily drove to Dan's house in a sense of betrayal and heartbreak. She just needed to get away from Jake. She'd come home after a long, hard day in which she'd seen a dead woman arise and attack Dr. West and almost her...what had just happened? Had she imagined it all?

She tried to think about that more than what she'd come home to: Jake pounding into his secretary at the animal clinic, which made her fly into a rage and leave the house. He'd - Jake, he - cheated on her! Jake CHEATED on her! They were married, he promised he'd be faithful to her until the day one of them died, and he betrayed her!

Lily's eyes stung with tears as she kept to the limit, but it was too hard given her torrent of heartbreaking emotions; the baby stirred inside her as it sensed her distress. That was why he did it: because he wasn't ready to be a father, that he had to escape and seek favors to avoid the burden of fatherhood. What kind of man did that? A cowardly one, at that.

She had to get away and stay the night at her cousin's since he was the only family she had here, and the others were in Boston. However, as soon as she brought the car into the driveway, Dan's sedan wasn't anywhere around. Lily frowned; he must have gone to Meg's, since where other place could he be outside work? West had to be here; she just needed someone, anyone, to take her emotions out on.

Herbert West didn't seem like he'd care about anything or anyone else. However, he seemed to tell whether she was upset over how things were with her and Jake, and he was there to console her when Dan wasn't around. People around them called him a strange fellow, but what if there was more than what they saw? What happened earlier was living proof of that. What did he do to Mrs. Chapham's body?

The more she thought about it as she remained inside her car for a little while longer, simply staring at the house with the porch lights on, the more interested and eager to find out she became. There was no such thing as bringing the dead back to life, so she had to have gone crazy. Blinking, Lily shook her head. Wait a minute; she couldn't be crazy. Never in her life had she been known to suffer hallucinations. And staring at the house her cousin shared with that odd, bespectacled man didn't give her any answers. Lily shut off the engine and pulled her keys out - among them being to this house given to her by Dan - before she started up the paveway.

A chill crept up her spine as she stood before the door, pulling her pink cardigan over her blouse tighter, an ominous feeling of dread washing over her. What was wrong with her? She'd come to escape her unfaithful husband, to stay with Daniel, and she was acting like a scared little girl. There were no such things as ghosts or creatures of the night. She stuck the key into the lock and turned it. The lock itself clicked, and the door creaked open loud enough to make her jump and step back as it opened the other way just for her.

"Dan?" she called quietly.

No answer. She slipped around and quickly but quietly closed the door behind her, her heart thumping loud enough to be heard in her chest as she examined the darkness of the house illuminated by only a few lights in the streets. The goosebumps on her skin were rising, the chills stronger, and her heartbeats quickening with every step she took, slow and deliberate. Was it because that her cousin wasn't home and his creepy roommate was? "Dan?" she called again, a little louder this time, calming herself only slightly before it was ruined and returned with a vengeance when a voice responded, though not the one she expected.

"He's not home."

"West!" He sat there, suddenly switching on a light and startling her out of her wits. "Where's Dan?"

"Out with his empty-headed girlfriend, of course," he stated, staring her hard, lips pursed. "What are you doing here?"

Great, now how would she get this out now? "My husband," was all she could get out at the moment. He raised an eyebrow. "He was with another woman on our couch," she clarified, just talking about it suddenly no better than she thought it would be.

"Hmm."

That single word made her snap. "Really, is that all you have to say?"

Herbert laughed then, shaking his head. He didn't mean for it to be funny, but it still set her off. "My apologies. You're honestly talking to someone who hardly understands marital affairs save for a few key elements."

The way he spoke about Jake's unfaithfulness as though it were a mere scientific experiment instead of two people who used to love each other so much...! Lily had no idea how Dan could put up with this man. However, what did he know about marriage? "Just tell me what you know best about these things."

West looked off to the side briefly as he spoke; he didn't want to look at her for some reason. "Because the man thinks he's so superior just because his private parts hang." Wow, she never took him as one to crack a joke, and it made her laugh. He turned back to her then and shared it with her briefly before getting serious. Lily almost lost track of what he said next because of how she thought his smile was so...human, for lack of a better term. "He and the woman should be on the same page if they are so meant to be together as one. They are supposed to create life together. Not one of them is above the other."

"A Life's Work" is apparently the only other fic in existence I know of by The Smiling Shadow in which Herbert created the Bride that didn't involve Meg's heart; it also mentions how the Bride tried to kill Meg at some point.