Flower-stein’s Monster (short story)

 

Flower-stein’s Monster

(Random 2-word prompt- toss, specimen)

 

                Thunder boomed.  Lightning crackled across the gloomy clouds, and lit up his small, dingy room.  The sounds of the storm were short and sudden respites from the torrent of rain that hammered against the walls and roof of the castle, and a distraction from the howling winds that roared through the forest and found their way into all the cracks and cavities of the large stone building.

                “Gwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

                The manic laughter filled the lonely and empty halls.  It echoed against decrepit paintings, rotted furniture, and neglected rooms.  Candles flickered at its touch… or maybe that was the wind.  It was the call of a crazed and genius mind.

                It continued.

                Flower thought that the Doctor didn’t know when to stop; the laugh always lasted longer than it had any right to.  He stood up and closed the book he’d been squinting through; it was too cold and too dark to read, and he’d persisted as long as he could, struggled through the anticipation of tonight’s coming events.  And now was the moment he’d been waiting for… almost.  The Doctor would be calling for him any second now.

                The laugh continued, and then a breathless voice called out: “F…F… Flower!  Flower!  I’ve done it!  Ha hahaha!  The time is now!”  He heard the Doctor break into a coughing fit as he headed out and up the steps to the tower.  “Come hither and help me change the very definition of life itself!  Gwhahaha!”

                “Doctor Smithenstein.”  Flower bowed his head to the tall and skinny man as he entered the lab.  The Doctor was hunched and bald, only a few scraggly white hairs poked from his scalp; his body bore decades of wear and tear from late nights in the lab where he’d focused on a singular purpose, his life squandered away like the fortunes he’d inherited.  He was as decayed as this old castle.  It remained to be seen if it was all worth it.

                “Ah Flower,” he said with a dramatic flourish of his rubber-gloved hand.  His white coat, a little too small on his bony frame, strained against the movement.  “Ready the switches, open the circuits, and release the chemical mix!”  He laughed his maniacal laugh.  “The storm is nearing its apex!  We must be ready!”

                “Yes sir.”  Flower hurried to the large haphazard machine pressed up against the left wall; it’d been put together from all sorts of things, found things and reclaimed things, and the recycled LEDs and bicycle lights blinked and flickered, an old ship wheel turned and pulled ropes attached to several car wheels, churning a spectrum of coloured liquids in vials and containers of various sources and sizes.  Flower flicked a row of switches, each different, and mechanisms whirred into life behind the recycled metal chassis.

                “Gwhahahaha!”  The Doctor ducked beneath the cloth covered table, the table where the small specimen had been lain, and adjusted the wires and pipes.

                Flower opened the circuits, pulling the big lever on the side of the device, ducking from the sparks, and moved to the other side ready to release the chemicals.

                The storm raged above, and the clouds, visible through the skylight, thundered and roared.  Rain beat against the glass in sheets.  Lightning flashed, and for a second the dim lab was lit by more than just candles and flickering lights.

                Flower opened the valve on the first pipe and a glass milk bottle emptied its thick red liquid.  He opened a second.  Yellow liquid drained from an Erlenmeyer flask.  And a third.  Green from an upturned vodka bottle.  Fourth, purple from a glass orb.  Fifth, sixth, seventh, and so on, all colours all from different containers.  Liquids poured and mixed into a vat near the Doctor and his specimen, and a huge metal arm stirred and blended the concoction.

                Doctor Smithenstein laughed as he stood.  “Gwahahahaha!”  Did he ever stop laughing? “The time is at hand!” he exclaimed.  “Flower, raise the lightning rod!”

                Flower shuffled across the room, and he watched as the Doctor filled a large syringe with the chemical mixture from the vat.  He placed his hands on the crank and began to wind it as the scientist worked under the sheet on the small creature; blood would be replaced by the chemicals, electrodes connected to its neck.  Flower wound the handle.  It was hard work.  The long metal pole rose higher and higher as he sweat and strained, the skylight opening on cue, as rain drenched him and the stone floor around him.  The storm was getting worse, as expected.  Thunder quickened, lightning arced.  The rod locked into place and Flower stood back.

                “And now, we wait,” grinned the Doctor.  He stared up at the night sky, eager anticipation upon his brow.

                Nothing happened.  Flower watched as Doctor Smithenstein became more and more anxious as the minutes ticked by and more nothing happened; the scientist wrung his hands in the candlelight, struggled to hold his grin, cast regular furtive glances at the dead specimen hidden under the cloth on the table.  The weather was as angry as ever; it had to happen soon!

                And it did!

                Lightning struck the rod with a loud zap, the room flashed with a bright light… and everything went dark, candles blown out by the storm.

The room smelt of blood, or was it just the aroma of electricity?  Thunder rocked overhead, and the only other sounds he could hear were the thrash of the rain and the thrum of his heart.  He held his breath; he didn’t know what to expect.

And then the maniacal laugh broke what remained of the silence.

                “Gwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”  The Doctor’s face was lit by a small flame, a match.  “I’ve done it!  Life!  I’ve created new life!”

                Flower moved around the room, relighting the candles as the laugh continued, bringing dim light back to the damp lab.  The scientist’s arms remained raised in triumph as the assistant approached the table, ready to see the results of the Doctor’s experiment.

                “Flower,” said Doctor Smithenstein, eyes charged with lightning.  “Remove the sheet, and let us see what magnificence my brilliant mind has wrought.”

                Flower did as he was ordered, whipping away the fabric with the theatrical embellishment expected of him.

                “Oh.”  The Doctor’s shoulders dropped, his hunch hunched lower, and a frown fell down his face.

                On the lab’s table lay the specimen.  Dead.  It had been dead to begin with.  Roadkill.  Flower had felt sorry for it, and that’s why he’d brought its corpse to the Doctor, for a new life, but somehow the baby deer looked even deader than it had been before, with metal bolts in its neck, and stiches on its head and limbs.  It had been enhanced by science and technology, and had been failed by it too.

                The poor creature remained dead.

                Doctor Smithenstein cried out, hand to his forehead like a betrayed lover, and he fell to his knees and sobbed.  “F… Flower… I’m useless.”

                “No sir.”  Flower couldn’t stop looking at the corpse on the table.  Poor thing.

                “Toss the specimen,” bawled the Doctor.  “And take the rest of the night off; I… I… need to be alone.”  He placed his head in his rubber-gloved hands and broke down in further tears.

                Flower knew better than to stay, especially when his boss was in this sort of mood.  He quickly scooped up the dead specimen in his arms, holding the cold baby deer close to his chest, and headed out of the lab and down the tower steps.

                He could hear the Doctor’s manic crying, no longer a laugh, echo through the lonely and empty halls and amongst the sounds of the storm, as he descended further and further down the stone steps.  He felt a little guilty for bringing the deer to the Doctor.  And though it had been dead already, he’d allowed its corpse to be desecrated and mutilated in the hopes that science could resurrect a young creature whose life had been cut short.

                Flower would bury it in the forest; he couldn’t just toss it away like Doctor Smithenstein had suggested.  It deserved better.

                He held the specimen… the baby deer…  tight against himself as he unlatched the door and crept out into the squally night.

                The rain and wind hit him hard, soaking him through as he fought his way into the cover of the trees.  He was cold, freezing.  His boots squelched through the mud, and he struggled to see a clear path.

                Flower tripped in the dark, catching his foot against a stray branch, and the deer fell from his arms.  Its small limp body rolled across the ground before coming to a halt.

                “Noooo!”  He stretched out his arm to the body, but it was just out of reach.  He crawled along the muck toward it.  The little thing deserved more than being left in the rain alone.

                The baby deer twitched.

                Flower stopped in his tracks, rain pouring down his face; he wiped water from his eyes.  Had he imagined it?

                The baby deer’s legs kicked against the forest floor.

                Flower’s jaw dropped.  He could taste the mud, the rain, the electricity in the air.  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing; the Doctor’s experiment had been a success.

                It lived.

                The specimen, the formerly dead creature, clambered unsteadily to its feet.  It appeared to tower over Flower’s prone body, despite its diminutive size.  The baby deer stood proud.  Alive.  Thunder and lightning careened overheard, and for a moment, the bolts and metal stitches glinted in the sudden illumination.

                “You’re alive!”  Flower laughed, fighting the urge to mimic the Doctor’s manic cackles.  “You’re alive!  You’re really alive!”

                At moments like this, he knew what he was expected to do, what he’d been employed to do; he’d need to recapture the specimen and return it to the lab.  But his heart won out.  He couldn’t do what was expected; he had to do what was right.

                “Go,” he said.  He gestured at the baby deer to move.  “Run, run away from here.  Go.  Now!”

                The creature stared at him with a deep intelligence.

                “Go!  Just go!”

                The deer ran.  It stopped several metres away and looked back at Flower.

                Thunder.  Lightning lit up the sky.

                It stood there, and he felt a sudden unease.

                The specimen’s eyes glowed red and it shrieked a blood-curdling cry against the storm.  It disappeared into the night, and Flower’s empathy transformed to terrified regret.

The End.

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