Re-Agent
I had
always known that he was passionate, maybe even a little obsessive, about his
work. I just never knew how far he was
willing to go, or who he would sacrifice along the way. In retrospect I knew this day would come, the
day that his mission would superseded our partnership. As a doctor I should have paid more
attention to the signs of his encroaching madness. I just didn’t want to believe it.
What can
I say? I was blinded by ambition, as
was he. I was skeptical at first, but
after all I’ve seen I started to believe his work, and eventually in him. I have always been wary of his unorthodox,
and occasional illegal methods, but they did give results. Thinking about it now, after the fact, I can
see everything so clearly. This should
not have come as any great surprise.
Although I have to admit that the betrayal still hurts.
God, it
feels like my heart has been ripped out!
Maybe it has, I can’t even find the will to move to find out. If it has I hope it can be found or at least
one to replace it. On the other hand
maybe I’m better off without it. Had I
known how painful this would be I would have never followed him for so long. For some reason I still can’t believe that
he turned on me. After all we’ve been
though together I figured that I would be safe from his devices. I even went so far as to believe that we
were friends.
I guess
this is really my fault, I deserve this fate for putting so much trust and
faith in a madman. His goal has always
meant more to him than anything or anyone else. A man like him has no need for friends, only tools to get what he
needs. I played that role so perfectly. I did everything he ever asked of me, even
when it went against my better judgment.
I hate to think of the endless hours of researching bizarre topics,
countless autopsies, and other gory procedures I’ve participated in. Not to mention all the lying and covering up
to the authorities that I’ve done for him.
It’s a wonder that we haven’t both been arrested and had our licenses
revoked.
The
endless search for life’s secrets has finally consumed any reason that may have
once resided in that brilliant mind of his.
I just got in his way and became no longer a useful tool. Or maybe he had plans for me the whole
time. It doesn’t really matter
now. I hope that the pain drives me
insane so I don’t have to live with it, and my thoughts, forever.
“What do
you think, Scully?”
“What do
you want me to think of it, Mulder? It
was definitely a heart attack, it happens every day. The only question is why you wanted me to autopsy him. There’s nothing unusual here that would
warrant our interest.”
“What if
I told you that he’s been in this condition for over a week without any kind of
tissue decomposition?”
“Please
don’t tell me that you’re suggesting that he’s not quite dead.”
“Well...”
“Mulder,
see that red tissue over on that scale.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s
his heart, if he wasn’t dead when he came in here he is now.”
“So that
twitching is normal.”
“It
happens, just a chemical reaction between the last dying synapses causing a
muscle contraction. Scientists have
been making dead frog legs twitch for centuries. It does not mean that they have been bringing them back from the
dead. There’s nothing here. Dead is dead, Mulder. And I can assure you that this man is
dead. What was his name again?”
“Dr.
Daniel Cain.”
**********
Herbert
West slinked into the autopsy bay at Quantico.
Gaining access to the Federal medical center had not been difficult. After seeing how well hypnotic suggestion
worked for the late Dr. Hill he had taken steps to pick up the technique. The feeble minded grave yard shift workers
had even happily hand over the surveillance tapes. He confidently walked over to the morgue lockers knowing that he
would not be disturbed this late at night.
Finding the refrigerated drawer that he was after he slid it open.
“Oh
Daniel, what have they done to you?”
West asked the still twitching corpse.
When he
didn’t get an answer West started to get to work. Taking a pair of surgical pliers he unceremoniously plucked out
the thick metal staples that held the famed ‘Y’ incision closed. He had to make sure that all of Cain’s
internal organs were intact before re-animating him, again. When West had Cain’s chest open he found
that he had a longer night’s work ahead of him than he thought.
The woman
that had performed Cain’s autopsy had done a hack job as far as West was
concerned. There was no art involved,
just a standard exam. She hadn’t even
put everything back in its proper place.
West started rearranging the vital organs and reattaching the veins and
arteries.
“Damn
Federal bitch.” West muttered when he
found Cain’s heart cut up beyond repair.
She had
obviously been looking for a reason behind Cain’s apparent heart failure. In doing so she had destroyed the organ for
further use. It had been an
inconvenience enough when her partner had Cain taken from Miskatonic Hospital
in the first place. West wasn’t sure
how the Agent had heard about the mysterious circumstances behind Cain’s death
or why he cared.
Killing
Cain the first time had been an accident.
It had been dark and West had thought he was a prowler. How could he have known that Cain would have
left Franchesca and come crawling back, eight years later, late one night?
In any
case, Cain had been successfully re-animated.
The body had been fresh and almost undamaged. West had thrown a vile of chemicals into front room that Cain had
invited himself into. The white cloud
that ensued had done the rest. When the
air in the room cleared West had found the body of his ex-partner in scientific
crimes on the floor. West had made some
improvements to his reagent so the re-animation had been a complete success. That is until Cain had collapsed at his job
at the hospital three months after his official death.
That had
been a disaster. Unfortunately West had
not been present when the accident had occurred. As for the morons on staff at the time they were barely qualified
enough to prescribe aspirin, let alone deal with Dr. Cain’s condition. In the end they pronounced him dead, despite
the twitching.
West
would have stolen Cain’s body back.
However, since a slew of body parts had ended up ‘missing’ lately the
security on the morgue had been tripled.
No one was allowed access to the bodies without at least one other
doctor present. Usually West just used
Cain as his witness, but of course that wouldn’t have worked in this case.
Agent
Mulder had been attracted to the scene like a shark to a bleeding swimmer. What Dr. West’s medical degree couldn’t get
him the Agent’s badge could: full access to the morgue. After viewing the ‘deceased’ Dr. Cain Agent
Mulder declared that he wanted the body sent to Quantico so his partner could
perform the autopsy. The autopsy had
been delayed at West’s insistence. West
had tried to stop the transaction by arguing that Federal Agents did not have
the authority to perform medical autopsies.
Agent Mulder had informed Dr. West that his partner was a doctor herself
and perfectly capable.
“Ha!” West exclaimed to himself at the
thought. “A perfectly capable quack.”
Fortunately
for poor Dr. Cain his friend had been ready for the eventuality of finding him
heartless. He pulled a plastic bag out
of his deep lab coat pocket. Unwrapping
a slimy heart from the bag he placed it carefully into Cain’s open chest.
“Well,
Daniel, this is what you’ve always wanted.
You and Megan are going to be together again.” West chuckled as he connected the well worn heart to the dead
man. “Together heart and soul.”
**********
“He’s
gone.” Mulder announced.
“Who?” Scully inquired half heartedly.
“Dr.
Cain.”
“Who?” She asked again.
“The man
you autopsied yesterday. He was stolen
last night from the morgue, or he walked out.
Either way he’s gone.”
Scully
sighed. She leaned back in her chair
and closed her eyes. “Mulder, please
don’t tell me we’re going to pursue this.
The man wasn’t even murdered.
Are you sure the body wasn’t just misplaced? It has been known to happen from time to time.”
“I doubt
that they would misplace a dead man and leave his heart behind. Not only that but it looked like some one
had been using the equipment last night.
You have to admit that’s a little strange, Scully.”
“Yes,
Mulder, it’s strange, but I still fail to see what this has to do with us. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Dead on
your feet?” Mulder quipped.
“Very
funny.”
“Will you
at least grace me with your presence down at Quantico?”
“I guess
it would be better than real work.”
“That’s
the sprit, Scully.”
*********
“How are
you doing Dan?” West asked with
clinical concern as he sped down the deserted highway back towards Arkham.
“I... I’m
‘oing to k... k.kill youu.” Cain
slurred as thick trail of blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth.
“Here.” West handed him a handkerchief. He ignored the threat. “When I get you back to the lab I can fix
that.”
“Why
di..di...did...?”
“Why did
I bring you back? Why wouldn’t I? All of our work has been to cheat
death. Why would I back away now? Dan, we’ve done it, you are a complete success
story! Well, except for that one little
incident.” He added under his
breath. “You just pushed yourself too
hard.”
“A
sucksess?” Cain repeated
incredulously. He started to laugh, but
his sarcastical merriment quickly degraded into screaming as the agony of his
patched up insides racked through his system.
He tried to glare at West but his eyes just rolled uncontrollably back
into his head.
“Don’t
worry about that, we’ll get some morphine in your system when we get
back.” West paused for a second. “Think about it Dan, Megan’s heart is
beating again... in your very own chest!”
“Meg?” Cain asked tenderly as he placed his hand
over his heart. When his hand came in
contact with the half opened ‘Y’ incision he cried out in pain again.
“That’s
right. As for the pain you’re in you
can thank the Federal Government for that.
But don’t worry, I doubt they’ll bother us again. And if they do...”
“’erbert,
no.”
“Don’t
worry about it, Dan. I’ll take care of
everything.”
***********
Scully
looked around the small autopsy bay with mild interest. The scene down at Quantico was just as
Mulder described it. The only thing
remaining of Dr. Cain was his heart, or what was left of it since it had been
the focus of her autopsy. The bed of
the metal locker that the corpse had been left on was a sticky, bloody
mess. Upon closer examination Scully
found numerous surgical staples strewn about in the thick congealing puddles of
gore.
It made
sense that someone had removed the staples to reopen the chest cavity. The question was why? Body snatchers rarely take the effort to
leave parts behind. Then again snatchers
were rarely brave, or stupid enough to break into the Federal morgue. Scully pulled the metal locker further out
of the wall. The foot of the locker had
an unusual greenish glow to it. At
first she thought it was just a trick of the light. However, the glow seemed to be coming from a liquid on the table.
Snapping
on a pair of latex gloves she swiped her fingers through the off coloured
puddle. Out in the light it gave off
almost the same brilliant glow that it had inside the locker. It was definitely not something that had
come out of Dr. Cain or if it had it hadn’t been natural.
“Mulder,
did you see this?” Scully held up her
stained hand. Mulder gave her a blank
stare. “Oh, sorry I forgot.” It had slipped her mind that Mulder was
red-green colour blind. He wouldn’t see
the liquid as anything different than blood or any other number of fluids. She walked over to the light switch and
flicked it off.
“It’s
glowing?” Mulder asked suddenly able to
see at least the glowing cast if not the colour of the substance.
“And it’s
green.” Scully added as she restored
the lights.
“What do
you think it is?”
“It could
just be some sort of phosphorescence, many fungi produce their own light.”
“But how
did it get in there?”
“I don’t
know. Maybe it was already on the body
and it just got a chance to grow.”
“Maybe
it’s what let him walk out of here last night.”
“Mulder,
Dr. Cain did not just walk out of here.
Perhaps the thief was using this as an artificial light source.” Scully rubbed the glowing juice off the
gloves with a cotton swab and placed it in a plastic bag. “We’ll see what the lab has to say about it
before we hurt ourselves jumping to any conclusions.”
“Scully,
you take all the fun out of guess-work.
Speaking of which that’s about all we have to go on here. There are no finger prints, other than the
heart nothing was left behind, no one remembers anyone coming in or out, and
the surveillance tapes are missing from last night. He just slipped out into the dead of night.”
Scully
sighed. Mulder could be difficult to
work with at times. Once he got a
theory he held on to it like a Pit Bull with his teeth in a mailman. She tilted her head back to work the kinks
out of her neck. With the new angle
Scully saw something she hadn’t noticed before. “We might have something to go on after all.”
“What cha
got, Scully? Dazzle me.”
Scully
rolled her eyes. She reached up and
ejected the tape out of the recorder that was suspend above the autopsy
table. She rattled the tape. “I left the recorder on last night. There might be something here. If not the sounds of Dr. Cain kicking his
way out of his locker at least those of the thief.” Scully mocked.
“How long
after you left till the tape would run out?”
“The
recorder saves tape by being voice activated.
It stops recording after thirty seconds of silence. There was still enough tape for it to be
taping us just now, I noticed the red recording light.”
“Would
the noise of someone opening the door set it off?”
“Yes.”
“I’m
surprised it’s that sensitive.” When
Mulder saw her sidelong glance he grinned. “Scully?”
“All
right, all right. I have it set to be
highly sensitive because my voice doesn’t activate it on the normal setting...”
“From
down there?” Mulder finished, mocking
her height.
“In any
case, it’s worth listening to.”
“I’m all
ears.”
**********
“Hold
still!” West growled.
Cain’s
tortured scream tore through the basement laboratory. He was stretched out on a metal table with Dr. West operating on
his abdomen. Although the crypt had
collapsed the basement was spared. It
had taken rescue workers three hours to dig West out. They were shocked to find him alive. They had no way of knowing about West’s little ‘addiction’ to his
own serum that had given him a bit of an edge.
Cain
cried out again as West pulled a suture tighter. He was doing what he could to fix up Cain’s broken body. Cain convulsively jerked to the side causing
an artery to snap. A graceful arc of
blood splattered across West’s stiffly starched white shirt.
“What did
I just say?” West snapped as he clamped
a hemostat down on the spurting vessel.
“If you don’t stay still this is going to take forever.”
“P...please
H..h...herbert stop!” Cain pleaded
weakly.
“I’m
almost done, Dan” West lied.
The
morphine hadn’t had the pain blocking affect that West had hoped. He feared knocking Cain out completely
because he wasn’t sure if he’d wake up again.
The new reagent under went a strange chemical reaction with a lot of
anesthetics. So the work had to be done
with Cain more or less awake. Right now
West was just finishing up Cain’s abdominal cavity. The ‘Y’ incision had reopened on the way home and there had been
some superficial damage.
West
pulled the yellowish mesentery membrane back over the multicoloured coils of
Cain’s quivering intestines. He secured
the fleshy apron with a few stitches of cat gut. Cain continued to moan piteously. Picking up a spray bottle of diluted reagent West gave Cain’s
open gut a squirting of the healing liquid.
He was please with how well his reagent was developing. After seeing an ad, for Oil of Olay of all
things, he thought of adding Alpha Hydroxy compounds. As a result the reagent now had a slight regenerating
affect. The mesentery pulled its self a
bit tighter and took on a healthier colour.
Once the
protective membranous sheath was in place West pulled Cain’s taunt muscle back
over his exposed stomach. Luckily the
skin was still attached to the muscle, for the most part. Once the muscle and skin were in place West
was able to start stitching Cain closed.
Cain’s vocal protesting had been reduced to a low whimpering punctuated
by the occasional grunt. West paid him
no heed and used tiny cosmetic sutures to hide the autopsy scar as best he
could.
“Nearly
done, Dan” West reassured his
friend. “Soon you’ll be as good as new,
maybe better.”
*********
“Oh
Daniel, what have they done to you?” The scratchy tape questioned.
“That’s
Dr. West.” Mulder stated recognizing
the voice.
The pair
were sitting in their own version of a basement laboratory listening to the
autopsy tape. The tiny basement office
could easily be declared a Federal Disaster Area. There were files, books, binders, pictures, a few articles of
discarded clothing, and sun flower seeds covering almost every available
surface. The only island of order in
the sea of chaos was Scully’s desk which was immaculate in comparison.
“Well,
that was easier than I though it would be.”
Scully confessed. “Things are so
rarely cut and dry around here. Just
call up the Arkham police and have them pick Dr. West.”
“Damn
Federal bitch.” The voice on the tape
muttered.
Scully
gave the tape player a quick murderous glare.
“In fact I’ll call.”
“I can
see you two will make great friends.”
Mulder chuckled.
“Friends? If I have anything to say about it we’ll
never meet.”
“I don’t
think we should be so hasty to make an arrest.”
“Why
not?” Scully instantly regretted the
question. She braced herself for his
other worldly response.
“Because
I have a feeling that Dr. West is up to more than mere body snatching. Mysterious death seems to surround the good
doctor. Back in ‘85 when I was just
starting out on the X-files there was a massacre in Arkham that I briefly looked
into.”
“The
Miskatonic massacre.”
“That’s
right, how...”
“I was in
medical school at the time. It’s a
small circle believe it or not. The
Miskatonic massacre quickly became a kind of urban legend. People would tell the story to the new students
before they went down to the morgue alone for the first time.”
“What do
you know of the events?”
“I’m sure
the facts were embellished several times before they reached my ears. But basically three psychopaths hid down in
the Miskatonic morgue, disguised as corpses, and when the medical staff went
down there they attacked, killing three and mutilating the rest of their morgue
mates to the point where the resulting scene was a tangle of half decomposed
body parts.” Scully told the tale with
little enthusiasm. It was clear that
even back in medical school she hadn’t believed in the scare tactic story.
“That’s
part of the story. However the three
held responsible all had death certificates in their names that were dated
several days before the massacre, one even had a autopsy report filled out.”
“Paper
work gets messed up at hospitals all the time.” Scully retorted. “Down in
Jacksonville, Florida one man had the wrong foot amputated because his charts
were mixed up with another patients.
It’s not unreasonable that some doctor mixed up the morgue tags...”
“Ha! A perfectly capable quack.” The tape interrupted.
“Turn
that thing off.” Scully snapped. When Mulder didn’t move to stop the tape she
did it herself.
“There’s
more.” Mulder continued trying not to
laugh at Scully’s indignant expression.
“The three suspects were never taken to trial due to the fact that they
were incapacitatingly insane.”
“Imagine
that.” Scully muttered.
“The only
rational survivors were Daniel Cain and Herbert West who were medical students
at the time. Among the dead was the
Dean of Students, Halsey, the head professor, Dr. Hill, and the Dean’s
daughter, Megan Halsey. The Dean and
Dr. Hill were found in shreds on the floor along with the remains of about
twenty corpses that were supposedly dead before the massacre and after which
were no more than a gory puddle on the floor.
Megan died violently in the arms of Mr. Cain in the ER about ten minutes
after the events in the morgue. The
autopsy reports concluded that she died of extreme shock augmented by substance
abuse.”
“Substance
abuse?”
“There
was a high level of some sort of stimulant in her blood at the time of
death.” Mulder clarified. “But the actual chemical she was abusing was
never identified.”
“That
makes sense, some what. It’s rare that
people die of fear, but if she was already going into over dose the trauma
could have easily pushed her heart over the edge. It was a terrible tragedy, Mulder, but I still don’t see what is
overly mysterious about it or how it proves that Dr. West is up to more than
body snatching.”
“I’m
getting to that.” Mulder assured her
with a bit of melodramatic flare.
“Anyway, by the time I got through the red tape and got to Arkham the
case had been closed and the local police were uninterested in having a rookie
Agent reopening it. I never got to meet
West or Cain, but I did get a look at the suspects. The instant I saw them I doubted that this was a premeditated
attack. One was an elderly woman who
looked more suited to knitting than participating in a murder spree. Another had a large incision running down
his front starting at either shoulder and meeting at the chest that had been
closed with staples.”
“That
sounds like the ‘Y’ incision.” Scully
interrupted.
“Right,
and if I’m not mistaken it’s only used in autopsies. I always wanted to know more about the massacre, but I was hauled
back to Washington for some mundane assignment. Frustrated that I had to give up one of my first X-files I
continued to look into the two survivor’s pasts. There was nothing much to be said about Mr. Cain. However, Mr. West was kicked out of a
medical school in Switzerland after the unusual death of his professor, Dr.
Guber. Dr. Guber was doing research on
death at the time. Herbert West had to
be torn away from the professor’s twitching body. Police records in Switzerland are sketchy at best, but they state
that West had been performing experiments on the dead body when the police
arrived. No legal action was taken
against West, but he did relocate to Miskatonic Medical School. The massacre happened just a few weeks after
his arrival.”
“How did
you come to hear of Dr. Cain recent death?”
Scully was hoping if she could steer the conversation towards the events
in the recent past that Mulder might get to the point of his story, before she
reached retirement.
“Before I
left I was able to make friends with one of the women in the local police
force.”
“Friends?” Scully raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“In any
case, Tina promised to notify me if anything else unusual happened at
Miskatonic Hospital.”
“I take
it Tina made it a point to call you.”
“About
four years later she rang my office, the day after the massacre suspects
escaped.”
“Escaped?”
“They
violently broke through the observation glass and slew the late night ward
staff. They then proceeded to the
cemetery where Dr. West and Dr. Cain had taken up residence in the abandoned
caretaker’s house. Apparently they had
a bone to pick with the doctors. There
a fight ensued in the crypt, which collapsed.
Dr. Cain made it out with his girlfriend Franchesca, West was dug out
three hours later. Only a few
identifiable pieces of the three suspects were found. The rest of them was mixed up in the foot deep layer of human goo
that the rescue workers claimed covered every available surface. Several workers even swear that the gory
sludge quivered with almost a life of its own.
I was dying to get back out to Arkham, but at the moment I was stuck on
a surveillance assignment. Considering
that I’d just chased off my sixth partner in five years, it was important that
I stay on everybody’s good side.”
“You
didn’t do a very good job of that. If
I’m not mistaken I’m your eighth partner.”
Scully commented when she thought that his monologue was finally over.
“You
can’t say I haven’t tried my hardest to get rid of you.”
“True. Still, I don’t see what this has to do with
bringing the dead back to life.”
“For just
over a decade the Miskatonic Hospital has been having an unheard of number of
body parts missing.”
“Missing?”
“Whole
corpses, limbs off bodies in the morgue, and such. I believe that these misplaced parts were what was lining the
stones of the fallen crypt. I think
that Dr. West has been performing experiments on humans in the field of
re-animation and that the suspects were the failed results or the successful
ones depending on how you look at it.
That brings us to Dr. Daniel Cain.
He started to work for Miskatonic Hospital about three months ago. A week ago he collapsed at during his
shift. He appeared in all respects to
be dead, except for the violent twitching.”
“I
thought I already explained that to you.
Where’s the connection, Mulder?”
“Dr. Cain
had lived with Dr. West until the night when the suspects escaped. Afterwards he disappeared for eight
years. Three months ago he moved back
in with Dr. West into the old caretaker’s house and took up working for
Miskatonic Hospital again. At that
point the number of missing corpses skyrocketed to the point where they
heightened their security around the morgue.
A week ago he mysteriously collapses dead at work, twitching.”
“You
mention that already.” Scully was
getting tired of his way of meandering to the point. This had already taken up more of her mortality than she felt was
warranted.
“There
was a Lieutenant, Chapman, who worked on the original case. He made several reports on the twitching of
all the corpuses at the massacre exhibited.
He also noted the fact that all the bodies from that night showed no
signs of decay, even months after the fact.
Just like Cain’s body. Tina said
that Chapman kept working on the case long after it was closed due to the fact
that his dead wife was one of the suspects. Parts of his body were also found in the dilapidated crypt.”
“So you
think Dr. West murdered Chapman because he got to close to his unauthorized
experiments?”
“Not only
that, but I think he succeed in bringing a number of people back from the
dead. Including his friend Dr. Cain.”
“I get
the feeling from this long story that I’m going to find myself on a plane to
Arkham at any moment.” Scully sighed.
“I’ve
already got the authorization.” Mulder
agreed flashing her a boyish grin.
**********
“Think I
see the problem.” West muttered more to
himself than to Cain. “The re-animation
process wasn’t complete in the skeletal structure. As a result the body is not properly replacing the red blood
cells. That’s what’s causing the
bruising and embolisms.”
Cain
hissed in pain as West pressed one of the bruises to get a better look at
it. They were using a diluted form of
the reagent injected directly under the skin to heal the dark marks. The embolisms were a little harder to deal
with. Basically Cain had to tell him
where they were and then West physically removed them. Luckily they weren’t too numerous. However, it was a losing battle. Cain would wake up the next morning with
just as many sore spots and mysterious aches.
Dr. West
stood back for a moment. He furrowed
his brow in concentration. Moving over
to the computer that was set in the far corner of the basement he connected to
the Internet. The eerie blue tint of
the screen reflected off his heavy rimmed glasses. After dialing up three times to get a connection and spitting a
few choice words at AOL he finally got access to the vast information that the
web had to offer.
“W’at are
‘ou looking fo’?” Cain slurred. His vocal cords had been severely damaged
during his last re-animation. West had
told him not to scream so much, but Cain had been in no condition to listen at
the time.
“I’ve got
an idea.” West replied vaguely.
Most of
West’s concentration was centered on the multi coloured drawing he’d brought up
on the screen. From where Cain was it
just looked like a big blob. He wasn’t
as bright as he used to be. As a doctor
he should have immediately identified it as a protein complex. The program West was working with allowed
him to rotate the three dimensional glob that dominated the monitor. He moved the object around and studied it
from every possible angle.
“Wha’ dat?” Cain was getting extremely frustrated with
his new accent. He briefly wondered if
he’d have to learn sign language to avoid embarrassment.
“It’s a
graphic of Hemoglobin. This area in red
is the prosthetic Heme group that allows the erythrocytes, red blood cells, to
pick up oxygen and deliver it to the myoglobin receptors in the cells.” West explained as if he’d made everything
perfectly clear. He punched up a few more
buttons and changed the picture to a colourful flat representation of just the
Heme group. “Beautiful isn’t it? A delicate lattice work of carbon, nitrogen,
iron, and amino acids. It’s one of the
bodies most simplistic yet hardest working chemical reactions.”
“Annd?” Cain asked not quite seeing what his friend
did.
“If I can
get this Heme group onto the molecular structure of the re-animation reagent,
with a few other minor adjustments, I can make an artificial blood. The reagent blood would be far superior to
the systems natural blood cells. Since
the reagent already has a regenerating affect the blood would also have this
property. It could fix injuries as it
flowed through the system.” West spoke
quickly. He was starting to flush with
the exhilaration of scientific discovery.
There was no way this could fail.
“Can ‘ou
‘ealy doo dat?” That wasn’t exactly
what Cain had wanted to say, but that’s what his questions boiled down to.
“It’s so
simple that I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. I bet that it could be accomplished in a few
hours. All I need is an excess of the
Heme group proteins. Producing it from
human blood would be a little risky right now.
However, I’m guessing that bovine erythrocytes would be just as
efficient and no one would ask question.”
“’ovine?”
“Bovine.” West corrected. “Cow blood.”
“Sounds
‘isky.” Cain hesitated.
“Science
is always risky Dan. But all risk can
be avoided granted that you do the proper testing.”
“’esting?” Cain did not like the sound of that.
“Experimentation
is the only path to finding the truth.”
West replied poetically. “All we
need is someone to test it on. I’d hate
to risk using it on you first.” West
lied. He thought to himself that Dan’s
twice re-animated body might tamper with his results.
As if on
cue the upstairs door bell buzzed. For
the first time West wasn’t irritated by the distraction. Instructing Cain to stay put he went up
stairs to see who the fates had delivered to him. Opening the door a Cheshire Cat grin spread uncontrollably across
his face.
“Good
Afternoon,” West greeted “Agent Mulder, and...”
“Agent
Scully.” The woman provided
curtly. “We have a few questions we’d
like to ask you Dr. West.”
“By all
means. Please, come in.”
*********
Mulder’s
attention wandered around the ancient living room. Everything reeked of age, decay, and rubbing alcohol. Scully was asking Dr. West the standard run
of questions. For now they were
avoiding accusing Dr. West directly.
Mulder listened half heartedly to the interigation. He knew on sight that they would never get a
vocal confession out of the scientist.
Dr. West’s black eyes glittered with all the shrewdness of a weasel. Mulder had the feeling that Dr. West was
going to learn more about them then they would of him by the time this
preliminary interview was over.
More than
anything Mulder wanted to get a look around the house. He hesitated to get a warrant to search the
house though. West obviously had strong
ties with the local police. There was no
way that he could constantly get out investigation without knowing
someone. Even after the Lieutenant’s
body had been found in the crypt there had been no serious questions asked. If Mulder went ahead with the warrant it
would take a few days to process. He
was willing to bet that West would hear about it and make sure he did a little
spring cleaning for the authorities.
So he
contented himself with watching the doctor.
There was very little that Mulder could learn about West by looking at
him. As a professional psychological
profiler he could usually glean a lot about a person’s character by simply
observing them. However, West had a
certain professional detachment that made it hard to see what he was actually
thinking. Dr. West answered Scully’s
questions in a cool, calm manour. He
made certain not to say a word more than necessary and he always worked around
the questions he didn’t want to answer with the poetic grace of a politician. If he was lying, and Mulder was positive
that he was, then he was extremely good at it.
Something
caught Mulder’s eye as West continued talking.
West made it a point to keep direct eye contact with Scully. However, when she broke contact West’s eyes
would quickly scan her figure. Mulder
was used to the men, and a few of the women, checking out his partner, some a
little more lustfully than others.
West’s gaze wasn’t like that. He
didn’t seem to be taking in her aesthetic qualities. It looked like he was taking measurements, ascertaining health,
making calculations, etc.. Mulder could
almost see the medical thoughts flicking across the man’s intelligent black
eyes behind his thick glasses.
“...as
Agent Mulder here already knows.” West
concluded.
Mulder
snapped to attention. He’d only heard
the last part of the conversation and he’d briefly noted that it had included
him. Now he’d have to do some fast
thinking to make up for the fact that he didn’t have any idea what the two
doctors were taking about. Since no one
had asked him a direct question he decided that the best tactic was to keep
silent. Suddenly Mulder found himself
under the same scrutiny that West had just directed towards Scully. Now there was no doubt in Mulder’s mind that
there was a world of scheming going on behind the doctor’s glassy orbs. West’s analytical stare flashed to an
expectant look.
“Is that
true Mulder?” Scully prompted.
“Uh,
yeah, sure.” Mulder improvised.
Scully
closed her eyes so that Dr. West wouldn’t see her frustration. She realized now that her partner hadn’t
been paying attention. She scolded
herself for not knowing sooner. From
experience Scully knew that Mulder was only quiet when he wasn’t interested in
what was going on. Sometimes having
Mulder around was like having a child: just when she thought he had himself
under control he would do something to prove to her that he didn’t. This was his case and he was already letting
her do all the actual work.
“Thank
you for your time, Dr. West.” Scully
stated signifying that as far as she was concerned the interview was over. “We’ll get in touch with you if we need
anything else. Here’s my card, if you
think of anything else relating to the disappearance of Dr. Cain’s body just
call.”
“Of
course.” West replied politely taking
the white business card. “It seems
everyone is having difficulty taking care of their dead these days.”
“I’m sure
some of us are better at it than others.”
Mulder tried baiting West into slipping, but the secretive man just
smiled and showed the two Agents to the door.
“Have a
pleasant stay in Arkham.” Dr. West
called to the retreating pair.
“We
didn’t say we were staying.” Mulder
countered. At least he hoped Scully
hadn’t said they were.
“I
assumed that if I was get in touch with Agent Scully that you two would be
staying in the area, at least for a few days.
You know, just in case someone pops up.” West hated this polite banter, but he wanted to make sure to
pique Agent Mulder’s curiosity enough to bring him and his partner back.
“We’ll be
in town for only a day or two.” Scully
answered to keep Mulder and West from bantering as she got into the passenger
side of the rental car.
It was
clear to West that the female Agent did not want to be here in the first
place. However he was willing to bet
that she’d follow her partner anywhere.
Whether she did it out of loyalty or love West really didn’t care. He just wanted to make sure that he’d be
able to use them both. They would make
perfect test subjects for his new serum.
The fact that they were direct opposite, at least in the physical sense,
would give him a wide range of results.
Being Federal Agents they would both have to posses a strong will to
live or else they would have lost heart in their dangerous careers long
ago. It was important that his test
subjects have a strong will, things worked out better that way.
It was
risky killing off two Feds. Considering
that touching them was practically a Federal offense. However, if everything went according to theory no one would ever
know. From what he’d seen it wouldn’t
be hard to get them back into the house.
If he played his cards right he might even be able to get them to break
in giving him just cause to attack.
West could see that Agent Mulder was the type to break the rules. Even as the Agent had been sitting there
West could feel his desire to investigate the house. He’d have to keep a close eye on the police station in case a
warrant was issued. West knew that Tina
would keep him informed. Even though he
hadn’t ‘talked’ to her for a while he knew she’d be more than happy to help.
“Slut.” West muttered distastefully.
**********
It had
been late when Mulder and Scully had left so they’d decided to find a
hotel. Scully knew there was no way she
was getting Mulder out of here this evening.
At least by calling it a night she had a chance at getting some sleep. Mulder had no intention of resting. He was planning to spend most of the evening
going over the old case files looking for anything that he might have missed
before.
Meanwhile
Dr. West was mimicking Mulder’s idea of working all night. However he wasn’t bothering with old
material. He had a new creation to work
on. The local abattoir had been more
than happy to sell him fifty gallons of fresh sheep’s blood, which he decided
would be better than a cow blood derivative.
He didn’t know very much about farm animals, but considering the fact
that right now sheep are used to make human insulin he assumed that they must
have a closer blood type. Just as West
had predicted the butcher hadn’t asked any questions. For all he cared the doctor was going to use it in a Satanic
ritual, all the slaughter house cared about was the money.
Armed
with the necessary means to attaining the precious Heme group West went to
work. While he toiled over the
microscope and chemicals Cain paced back and forth behind him. His pacing was made all the more irritating
by the fact that he didn’t walk very well these days. His foot steps shuffled noisily across the stone floor. Finally he voiced his thoughts about what
West was doing. Cain had always been
against the murdering portion of their work.
West assured him that this wasn’t going to be murder. If anything it would be its opposite. With this new serum anyone he used it on
would have the capacity to live forever.
Cain
still protested the senseless suffering of the two Agents. West reminded him who was responsible for
the agony he was in. It had been the female
Agent that had sliced and diced him with such mutilating efficiency. West had been surprised when Cain actually
got angry. He’d always been such a
pacifist in life, it was gratifying to see that he’d gotten some spine in
death. When Cain’s rambling had turned
towards the topic of revenge West had to smile. Turning back to his work he was no longer disturbed by Cain’s
clumsy pacing.
Just
before dawn in the darkest point of the night Dr. West completed his artificial
blood. The new liquid shone crimson
with the same mysterious inner light that the original serum radiated. Its red colour was due to the iron in the
Heme group that gave it its oxygen carrying powers. He was going to alert Cain of the success, but the re-animated
man had long since curled up on the floor to sleep like a loyal dog. Since everything was ready for the first
test West decided to go ahead with it.
Like all great experiments the first subject would be animal.
Picking
up a white lab rat West euthanized it with his heart attack inducing
compound. Once the animal was dead he
careful removed its blood. Hooking up a
tiny IV to the rat he pumped its circulatory system full of his new serum. For a few minutes nothing happened. After ten minutes West got impatient with the
retched creature. Then he realized that
the blood couldn’t work if the heart wasn’t circulating it. Once a shot of the original green reagent
was injected into the creatures heart it started to thrash about and then leapt
up off the desk and scurried off into the decaying walls.
Unlike
most of his other re-animated subjects the rat didn’t show nearly the level of
violent behaviour that they had displayed.
This was due to some of the other changes he’d made over the past eight
years. Still when he re-animated humans
the transition from death to life tended to involve an awful lot of convulsing
and struggling. He briefly made note to
think about how to fix that. Right now,
however, his mind was reeling with the possibilities of his new reagent.
“Or
should I say Re-Agent?” West allowed
himself to chuckle briefly.
**********
Scully
got up early the next morning no more rested than when she’d gone to bed. All night there had been a kind of scuttling
noise coming from inside the walls. It
was almost as if they were alive with mice or rats. However the idea that that quantity of rats could be in the wall
was ridiculous. Still the seemingly
source less noise had done an excellent job at keeping her awake.
When she
met Mulder she guessed that he hadn’t slept well either. However, that was nothing new. Scully couldn’t remember a time when she’d
seen him well rested. When she asked
him if the noise had kept him awake he’d had no idea what she was talking
about. She decided against explaining.
Arkham
was a dark little place. Everything
seemed to be coated in a layer of gray.
It would seem that colour was illegal.
Even the people who lived here seemed to be infused with a dull
quality. They walked around like they
were weary from the oppression of suffering a bad economy for too long. It wasn’t as if there was a booming tourist
trade here.
It was
clear to Scully that merriment was also strictly forbidden here. Even the children, of which there were very
few of, sulked around in the shadows.
Even though she was wearing her usual black and white and Mulder a
charcoal suite they still stuck out as obvious strangers. It was like walking through a black and
white movie from the thirties and being the only actors from the Technicolor
age.
Their
first stop was the house of Dr. Graves, former head of the Miskatonic Hospital
pathology lab. He had been in charge of
the massacre remains for several years.
However upon meeting Dr. Graves they found him barely coherent. He just kept rambling about how ‘the head’
had heard his lecture in Zurich. Mulder
was intrigued that the doctor was talking about the very city in Switzerland
that West had been evicted from.
However, that was all they could get out of the insane man. His wife politely asked them to leave when
the doctor started obsessing about the living head.
The
police were not much more help. West
had already gotten to Tina. She was
more than willing to help both men.
Until she met Scully that is.
Once Tina found herself in competition for Fox’s attention she had
quickly decided to side with Herbert.
Besides there was a better chance that Herbert would stick around.
By mid
afternoon Scully was all for hopping on the next plane back to Washington. She was sure that paper work was piling up
on her desk while she was sight seeing in some Godforsaken town that had
dripped right off the pages of some cheesy horror novel. Mulder wasn’t about to be so easily
discouraged, but he knew that he couldn’t keep Scully here forever or even
forty-eight more hours. However, to his
advantage the next flight wasn’t until the next morning.
Lying
awake late that night Scully listened to the ‘rats’ scurrying behind the thin
hotel walls. Her blood flashed to ice
when the night air was pierced by the sound of a car engine starting. “He wouldn’t...” Scully muttered to herself.
Getting up out of bed she got to the window just in time to see Mulder
pulling out of the small parking lot.
“He would.” She sighed. “Damn it, Mulder.”
Scully
did not think that Dr. Herbert West was bringing things back from the dead, but
she did believe that he was perfectly capable of killing something or in this
case someone. She knew that Mulder was
perfectly capable of taking care of himself, most of the time. However she still felt that he was going to
get them both in trouble, for trespassing if nothing else. The last thing she wanted was to sit through
another one of Skinner’s lectures about professional conduct.
While she
was waiting for a taxi Scully decided it would be wise to change out of her
pajamas. Pulling on a pair of black
slacks, a white blouse, and a black jacket she felt ready to get back to the
job that had become her whole life.
Without even debating on whether or not to bring her gun she snapped it
into its holster at her hip and grabbed a flashlight for good measure. Finally the taxi arrived despite the late
hour. She had been fearful at first that
this run down town wouldn’t have any taxies available.
“Arkham
Cemetery.” Scully instructed as she got
into the back seat of the dingy cab.
“Now
what’s a pretty young thing like you want with the Cemetery this late at
night? Huh? It’s dangerous out there, lots of predator and believe me when I
say that. After all this is Arkham:
Ground Zero for weird stuff.” The taxi
driver rambled condescendingly.
Scully
did not have time for the male chauvinist.
She reached into her jacket and after briefly considering going for her
gun she went for her ID instead. She
opened the thin black wallet and flashed her badge at the driver.
“Arkham
Cemetery, now.”
“Yes
Ma’am.”
*********
Mulder
left the car just outside the cemetery gates and proceeded the rest of the way
on foot. Armed with a weapon and a
flashlight as well he made his way quickly through the crumbling remains of the
cemetery’s tombstones. The caretaker’s
house was pitch black except for the single light that blazed in the tiny
basement window. Looking in through the
window he found a vast laboratory. He
had no way of knowing that this was the first time that the shades had been
drawn. Ignorant to any danger Mulder
fell for the bait.
Finding a
way into the basement was another matter.
His shoulders were far to broad to fit through the tiny widow even if it
hadn’t been protected with a layer of glass.
Walking around to collapsed crypt he found a possible point of
entrance. The basement wasn’t fully
underground anymore because the crypt had created a pit that had never been
filled in. The basement wall that was
now exposed to the air was constructed of crumbling brick. Furthermore there was an obvious place in
the wall where the bricks had been removed and replaced to serve as a secret
entrance to the crypt when it was still standing.
It didn’t
take Mulder long to create a hole in the wall big enough to allow him to pass
through. The only obstacle was a large
metal filing cabinet, but it was easily pushed aside. Once inside Mulder replaced the filing cabinet so that if he was
forced to hide the intrusion wouldn’t be instantaneously spotted.
“Charming.” Mulder commented as he looked around at the
medical equipment.
In the
middle of the dank room was a metal examination table that had been fitted with
leather straps for wrists and ankles.
Just to the side of the table was a meat hook that was suspended from
the ceiling by a chain. The hook’s
height could easily be adjusted by an automatic winch that it was attached
to. Mulder decided that ‘kinky’ was a
better word than ‘charming’ to describe the doctor’s set up.
A thick
silver coloured door that dominated one wall caught Mulder’s attention. He carefully opened it trying not to make
any noise. However, the door had some
sort of seal on it that made a crackling sound when he pried it open. Mulder stared in horror at the contents
hidden behind the metal freezer door.
He unconsciously retrieved his weapon and unclicked the safety. Hanging from hooks set in the cold metal
ceiling were six frozen cadavers. Their
eyes had been frosted over so they started at him through pure white orbs. The distorted faces of the dead men and women
were more than enough evidence for Mulder.
It also gave him good reason to leave, as quickly as possible. He was sure that at least a few of these
people hadn’t simply been snatched from morgue lockers.
Backing
up slowly Mulder almost jumped out of his skin when he bumped into a cat. The cat protested vocally to the harsh
treatment. Mulder swung his gun around
and aimed it at the tiny animal. He
relaxed a bit upon seeing the innocent creature. However after taking a slightly closer look he discovered that
the animal was a vast collection of feline parts. Each section had its own fur colour and length. Even its hideous tail was from several
diffrent animals, with the fur of a long haired cat on the tip that gave it a
lion like appearance.
Inspecting
the feline monstrosity Mulder didn’t even notice Dr. West emerging from the
shadows of the far corner. West pulled
a vile of white liquid out of his pocket along with a handkerchief. Without informing the Agent of his presents
West shattered the glass vile at Mulder’s feet. A white cloud quickly diffused up from the broken pieces.
Mulder
spun around and aimed vaguely in West’s direction. West remained where he was standing, calmly protecting his lungs
from the vapour with the handkerchief.
When the harsh smelling chemical reached Mulder’s face he reared back.
“Scully!” Mulder cried out instinctively. “Scul...”
An icy
hand seized Mulder’s heart cutting his cry for help short. The sharp pain that lanced down his left arm
quickly brought him to his knees on the slimly floor. He could feel the cold that originated in his heart spreading
through his system as it was shut down.
Mulder’s labouring lungs finally gave up their vain struggle to provide
his body with air. There was no sense
supplying oxygen to the blood if it was no longer circulating.
*********
When
Scully saw the rental car parked outside the cemetery gates she had the driver
let her out. After learning she was a
Federal Agent he’d kept his mouth pretty much shut. He did give her one last word of warning about the crazy doctor
that lived there. When he asked if she
wanted him to wait for her for a ride home she declined. If everything went according to plan Mulder
would be driving her home, straight to Washington if she had it her way.
Making
her way to the darkened caretaker’s house she watched her step on the broken
headstone. Scully stopped short when a
giant spider got in her path. When it
didn’t move she risked shining the flashlight on the horrid insect. Scully would have dropped the flashlight in
surprise if she hadn’t gripped it in fear first. The monstrosity that was held captive in the halo of light stared
back at her with its three goggle eyes.
Each eye had a different colour: blue, brown, and green. They looked like human eyes that had been
stripped from their sockets. Its eight
legs were like that of a spider’s except for their pinkish flesh colour.
Slack
jawed Scully and the monster continued to stare at each other in a
stalemate. It was hard to tell who was
more frightened by the chance encounter.
Finally Scully shook her head to make sure she wasn’t
hallucinating. When she looked again
the unholy animal had disappeared.
Scully was able to convince herself that the creature had in all
actuality just been an insect.
Still
shaken a bit from the nocturnal meeting Scully stepped up to the house. The lighted window that Mulder had looked
through had its shades drawn once again.
As far as Scully could see the whole house was either asleep or
deserted.
“Mulder?” She hissed quietly.
She
repeated the call a few times. When she
didn’t get a response she drew her weapon and stepped right up to the front
door. She was not about to waste her
time sneaking about. She knew Mulder
was here somewhere and she planed to retrieve him and leave. Scully felt very secure in her ability to
deal with the resident doctor. She
unlocked the gun’s safety and tested the door.
The front
door had been left unlocked. Scully
didn’t think it unusual, often times in the smaller towns people leave their
doors unlocked all the time. Scully
invited herself into the poorly lit living room. She didn’t dare call for Mulder inside until she knew exactly
what the situation was. The noise of a
cat being stepped on rang out from down stairs. Scully mentally reined in her breathing to get herself under
control. She was usually pretty calm
during any situation and she’d certainly been in worse positions. However, something about the still air in
the dilapidated house unsettled her.
Keeping
the flashlight in one hand and her gun in the other out in front of her Scully
cautiously made her way down the rickety stairs. At the bottom of the stair well was a heavy set green wooden door
that looked like it had taken more than one beating. She was about to open the door when she heard a tiny stone hit
the floor behind her.
Whirling
around she aimed the gun and the glare of the flashlight directly into Dr.
Daniel Cain’s startled face. Scully
recognized the man instantaneously and back a little further away. She rationalized that the doctor could have
a twin brother. Still she cocked her
gun and kept it trained on his heart.
“Who are
you?” Scully demanded. “Where’s Mulder?”
“H...help
mee.” Cain stammered.
Scully
relaxed half a fraction. There was no
way of knowing that this man wasn’t another of Dr. West’s innocent
victims. He took a step closer but he
stopped when he saw Scully tense back up.
When Scully heard the glass shatter on the far side of the door she
almost shot Cain out of a simple nervous reaction.
“Scully!” Mulder’s cry came though the door. “Scul...”
Mulder’s
cut off call for help momentarily distracted Scully. She turned to face the door.
It was all the opening Cain needed.
He rushed up behind her and forcibly thrust Scully into the closed
door. A gun shot rang out in the tiny
stair well room and the door splintered where the hot lead embedded its self
into the wood. The re-animated Cain was
a bit stronger than he remembered being in life. As a result Scully had been easily knocked senseless by the
blow. Cain looked down remorsefully at
the unconscious woman. It was too late
to turn back now. A cut at her temple
slowly bled its accusation of him assaulting her.
“We’re an
awful lot a like you and I.” Cain
remarked even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. “We could have been normal.
Neither one of us would be here today if it weren’t for the madmen in
our lives.”
*********
Scully
slowly surfaced to the conscious world from the black haze that had enveloped
her. She still wasn’t quite sure what
had happened. The last thing she
remembered was seeing Dr. Cain, but that didn’t make much sense to her
now. She knew he was dead. After experimentally opening her eyes she
welded them shut against the wave of nausea that the action induced. Once she got her stomach back under control
Scully concentrated on her other senses before trying out her sight again.
The
sensation that consumed most of her attention was the intense throbbing in her
wrists that were positioned above her head.
Trying to move them was impossible and only served to sharpen the
pain. Yanking against the binding
despite the discomfort brought about a shocking revelation concerning her
orientation. Scully had assumed that
she was lying on her back. The gentle
swaying that her struggling produced informed her that she was actually
suspended. Testing her footing she
could just make contact with the cold, wet floor with the balls of her bare
feet. She kept contact with the floor
in a desperate attempt to releive some of the pressure off her wrists.
For the
first time she noticed the sounds of someone else roaming about the room
clanking glass ware as they worked.
Jolted into full awareness by the sudden realization of her dire
situation Scully gasped a lung full of dank basement air. The other person took notice of her and came
closer. Scully snapped open her eyes in
spite of the danger of nausea.
“West!” She hissed.
“Good
morning Dr. Scully.” West’s saccharine
voice mocked.
“Let me
go!” Scully demanded. “You can’t do
this, I’m a Federal Agent!”
“Not for
long.” West retorted nonchalantly.
Producing
a pen light from his immaculately starched shirt West shone the thin beam
across Scully’s terrified aqua eyes.
“Well, you don’t have a concussion.
I was worried about tissue damage from the blow, but it all seems to be
superficial.” He half heartedly tried
to stop the sluggish hemorrhaging at her temple.
“Mulder!” Scully cried desperately.
“He’s
dead,” West replied calmly “for the time being.”
“What?!” Scully asked incredulously. “Mulder!
Help!”
“I told
you,” West moved out of her line of vision “Agent Mulder is dead.”
Scully
stared with disbelief at her partner who was lying on a metal table a few feet
away. Mulder had been striped to the
waist, stretched out on his back, and secured to the table by his wrists and
ankles. He didn’t have any signs of
external injury or abuse. However, his
jaw was slack with a thin line of pink foam running from the corner of his mouth. Scully confirmed the unthinkable by the
glazed look that veiled Mulder’s once bright green eyes.
“Mulder...” Scully whispered.
“Don’t
worry Agent Scully, I plan to restore your partner to you.” West assured his captive.
“Please,
just let me go.” Scully pleaded in a
defeated tone. Her eyes turned bright
with unshed tears that her professional side was trying to restrain. “You can’t do this to us, you’re not going
to get away with it. Don’t make things
any worse, let me down.”
“All in
good time, Miss. Scully.”
West
walked around to the other side of the metal table that Mulder’s inert body was
laying on. He stooped down and picked
up a pail off the floor. Struggling
against its weight West dragged the bucket over to the large sink. The tears that Scully had been successfully
keeping at bay spilt down her cheeks as she watched the deranged doctor
unceremoniously dump Mulder’s congealing blood down the drain. A few delicate tendrils of steam rose from
the sink basin signifying to Scully that her partner hadn’t been dead very
long.
“You
can’t do this to me.” Scully insisted
through her tears. She’d long lost the
feeling in her hands that had been tingling when she first woken up. However, her bound wrists were burning with
the pain of having to supporting her weight.
“At least let me down.”
Dr. West
ignored her request. He rolled an IV
stand over to Mulder’s corpse. On the
metal stand swung a large IV bag filled with his new glowing red reagent. He stuck a thick needle into a vein in
Mulder’s cyanic blue arm. Setting the
drip to the appropriate speed he made note of all the measurements and
reactions in a small black notebook with a pencil. After the artificial blood was in the dead man’s system West
planed to fully re-animate him with a dose of original reagent to the
heart.
“Leave
him alone!” Scully snarled.
Looking
over at the suspended woman West found her condition worsening. Her exertion and fear were causing her skin
to glisten with sweat and the crying was making her breath ragged. West was waiting for her body to start
quivering with adrenaline. He wanted to
remove as much of the corticoids and adrenaline from her system as possible
before re-animating. Torturing her was
just a test to see if the re-animation process could be made a less violent by
the removal of the steroids. West
figured that if he drained her tissues of their energy reserves now then the
re-animated body would be too tired to fight.
West
wished that Cain would come downstairs and help him. However, Cain had too much compassion in his newly replaced feminine
heart to stomach the necessary experiments.
However, he still planed to benefit from testing that he left West to
perform.
These two
were proving to be the perfect lab rats.
It was like receiving a Government grant, and Dr. West intended to take
full advantage of this opportunity. As
far as West was concerned there was no room for mercy in science. Suddenly Mulder’s body went into a fit of
premature convulsions.
“Oh God,
Mulder.” Scully whimpered.
She bowed
her head to block out the scene of her dead partner spasmodically arching his
back. Shielding her eyes didn’t save
her ears from the animalistic shriek that tore through the room and
reverberated off the crumbling basement walls.
Triggered by the traumatic noise her already nervous stomach was pitched
into a fit of dry heaves. The sharp
sting of bile at the back of her throat was almost a welcome distraction. She knew that the muscle contractions and
the vocalization were just the result of a chemical reaction that Dr. West was
inducing, and not a sign of life.
Even so
the cry of agony had seemed so genuine.
Scully shuddered to think that Mulder might still be alive and aware of
whatever tortures West was subjecting him to.
Suddenly remembering the pail she actually took comfort in the fact that
West had drained out her partner’s blood.
Knowing Mulder was dead and believing she was about to share his fate
Scully finally gave in. She just wanted
the experience over with as quickly, and painlessly as possible. Mulder cried out again informing her of the
long road ahead.
West
adjusted the speed of the glowing IV drip and the body settled down. When he looked back over to the woman he
smiled. She had gone completely limp,
no longer even trying to support her weight on her feet. Her frame shook in trembling waves from a
combination of adrenaline and hysterical sobbing. With a clinical detachment West walked over to the plaintively
moaning female with the bloody bucket.
He was going to try a new method of euthanasia to see how it affected
re-animation. Instead of inducing a
heat attack and then removing the blood he was simply going to drain the life
directly out of the unlucky Agent.
Bending down he placed the pail at her dangling feet.
Risking
further injury to her wrists Scully used her last reserve of strength to bring
her knees up into West’s spectacled face.
West yelped in pain and reeled back.
After composing himself he calmly picked up a large gauge needle and
fixed a thin rubber tube to the end of it.
He didn’t fear walking back up to Scully. She no longer shook from tears, only from the agony her attack
had renewed. Blood oozed from her
abraded wrists and down her arms staining the lapel of her white blouse.
West
almost pitied her for a moment. He had
to admit that she’d acted uncommonly brave.
At no point had she started screaming earnestly. West was pleased that he hadn’t had to use
his contingency plan if she had reacted vocally to her situation. He didn’t want to damage the delicate skin
around her mouth with the harshly sticky duct tape. Luckily enough he felt he wouldn’t have to. He also had a feeling that she would have an
extremely strong will to survive. It
seemed strange, but a person’s will to live had a great affect on their
reaction to the reagent.
West
tangled his hand into Scully’s bright red hair and used the purchase to pull
her head back. He briefly checked her
pulse with the tips of his fingers through the latex gloves he wore. Under the skin her pulse fluttered like a
butterfly’s wing. Scully swallowed
convulsively as he sunk the needle into the ivory plane of her exposed
throat. The liquid that flowed through
the tube put the tint of her hair to shame with its crimson hue. Scully moaned piteously as her natural life
slipped out of her throat and dripped noisily into the metallic pail.
“P...please,
don’t do t..t.this to me.”
***********
“This is
your report Agents?” Assistant Director
Skinner questioned.
“Yes
Sir.” Scully replied.
“And so
this Arkham lead was...”
“...a
dead end.” Mulder finished.
Scully
sighed, she still had trouble believing that she was sitting here in Skinner
office. She had an even harder time
believing that Mulder was right next to her.
He had been dead, she was sure of it.
Looking over to confirm his presence she studied him for a second while
he continued to try and explain the events in Arkham. Whatever Dr. West had done it had apparently brought him, and
herself back from the dead.
Mulder
was a little worse for the wear. His
joints ached constantly and his reflexes were a bit slow. Mulder would smile bravely when she asked
him how he was holding up, but she could see that the unrelenting pain was
quickly dispiriting her partner. Dr.
West promised that Mulder would feel better than new after a ‘blood’
transfusion or two.
He also
promised that both of them would suffer excruciating deaths if they didn’t come
back once a month to get their artificial blood replaced. If that was true then in affect Herbert West
now owned them -if they wanted to stay alive that is. He had already made it clear that he was going to start using
their badges as a means to get fresh subjects and chemicals from Quantico and
any other facilities they might have access to.
Scully
had been surrounded by death for most of her life. She’d even made a career out of it. Even so it had always remained her greatest fear. Over the years she’d learn not to think
about the inevitable. Secretly she wanted
to avoid it, but as a scientist she knew it came to all creatures. Now that West was threatening her with
immortality she realized she should have watched her step at the wishing well.
When
Scully had woken up she’d thought she’d suffered nothing more than a bad
dream. Mulder was standing over her
gently smoothing down her ruffled hair.
At first she had been glad to see him living and breathing. When an ironically sad smile spread across
his face she had quickly become apprehensive.
Scully could read more in his expression than she wanted too. For some reason she had suddenly known that
it hadn’t been her subconscious imagination that had tortured her the previous
night.
The first
sensation she’d noticed was the hard, cold metal table she was laying on. Then she became aware of the stiffness that
seemed to permeate her every cell.
Scully’s re-animation had been the most successful of Dr. West’s
endeavors to date. After a few hours of
moving around she’d regained her flexibility.
In fact the morning after she felt better than she ever had in
life. Even the bruises that she felt
should encircle her wrists were gone along with the mark at her temple. Of course that wasn’t the point, she was
still dead and now subject to the whims of a mad scientist.
Scully
had run Mulder’s and her own blood through the crime lab numerous times as an
unidentifiable substance found at a random crime scene. Even though ever test came back
inconclusive, and she could see the red fluid that came from her veins glow,
she still couldn’t believe they had come back from the dead. However, all the evidence she had pointed
towards exactly that. Now they were the
X-file, and God help them if anyone found out.
Scully would never forget the first words Mulder had said after she’d
regained consciousness:
“Welcome
back to life, Scully.”
***********