Fiction: Quartet of DOOM
Oct. 31st, 2009 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kethniName: Quartet of DOOM
Pairing: Matt/Mohinder
Rating: 18 for sex and violence. Yummy!
Warnings: Non-con sex (brief), violence, horror. Bad jokes.
Note: Happy Halloween! Thanks everyone who came up with suggestions, especially![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tiptoe39 and dragon6593. Huge, massive, MONSTER thanks to boudecia7 for the beta and handholding. Any mistakes are my own damn fault.
Word count: 8700 approx
Speech key:
Nathan
Bennet
Matt
Mohinder
(That will make sense later, honestly.)
Claire wriggles to adjust the grip of the Lycra bodysuit she’s wearing, straightens her wig, and inspects her troops; Simon Petrelli as Buzz Lightyear, Monty Petrelli as Superman, Molly Walker as a Goth, complete with green eye-shadow and fingerless lace gloves, and toddler Matty Parkman as Yoda.
‘Some people with give good stuff like chocolate and some people will give stuff like toothpaste,’ she explains.
‘Euw,’ Monty complains.
‘You can’t do that,’ Molly says firmly. ‘You have to smile and say thank you, even if it’s toothpaste.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they think they’re doing the right thing,’ Claire explains. ‘Grown-ups are strange.’
‘You’re a grown-up,’ Simon says suspiciously. ‘You’re like... thirty or something.’
‘I am not!’
Someone clears their throat and the assembled group turn around.
‘Claire,’ Bennet asks cautiously. ‘What exactly are you dressed as?’
‘Selene, from Underworld. She’s a kick ass vampire.’
‘She said ‘ass’!’ Monty complains with his hand in the air.
‘She’s allowed to, after all she’s like... thirty or something,’ Bennet says sweetly.
Claire rolls her eyes. ‘Gee, thanks dad. Tell everyone we’ll be back in a couple of hours.’
‘Okay sweetheart,’ he says with a nod.
As they traipse outside Matty turns around to flap a hand at Bennet. ‘Buh-buh!’
‘Bye bye, Matty,’ Bennet says, waving back. He picks up another bottle of whiskey and walks back into the living room. ‘Anyone need a top-up?’
Nathan and Matt hold up their glass but Mohinder shakes his head.
‘So, how’re we going to pass the time?’ Bennet asks, smiling.
Nathan takes a marshmallow from the bag on the table and punctures it with a fork, holding it over the fire. ‘We’re got a fire and it’s Halloween. Let’s have some scary stories.’
Vampire. Possibly from the French vampyre or the German vampir, the word, the concept in its many varied forms exists in all Slavic languages, and proto-vampires can be traced to the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks, and Romans.
Suresh, is this a scary story or an encyclopaedia entry?
Shut the hell up Nathan.
In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is...
‘Ow! Hey, this thing is sharp!’
... the slayer.
‘It’s a stake, Elle,’ Bennet says, raising his eyebrows. ‘You stick the pointy end into the vampire’s chest, remember? It has to be sharp or it won’t penetrate.’
‘Heh, heh,’ Elle sniggers, ‘you said penetrate.’
I don’t believe I met Elle.
Imagine that, a blonde you haven’t met.
Can I please get on?
‘Perhaps a crossbow?’ suggests Mohinder Suresh...
The handsome and brilliant Mohinder Suresh.
... who provides the scientific perspective lacking in Noah Bennet.
‘Ooh, yes please!’ Elle says.
Bennet puts his hands on his hips. ‘She just hurt herself on a foot long piece of wood and you want to give her a ballistic weapon?
Elle unwraps a lollipop and sucks it thoughtfully, her spare hand playing with the ring in her belly button. ‘It was a trick stake. I bet you gave it me on purpose!’
‘It’s a piece of wood with a pointed end,’ Bennet says slowly. ‘And take that thing out of your navel.’
‘I happen to think it looks wicked trendy.’
‘Well I happen to think it looks like something to rip out in hand-to-hand combat,’ Bennet says tartly.
She squeaks and slaps a hand over it. ‘I’ll take it out before we go!’ She runs over to the workbench where Mohinder is, as always, hard at work.
As always?
Shut up Bennet.
‘Can I take a couple of water pistols filled with Holy water?’
Mohinder nods but doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. ‘Of course, Elle, provided that you promise not to use all the water squirting yourself.’
‘It was hot and there was this totally gorgeous guy who was so digging the wet t-shirt look!’
Hold up, what’s she wearing?
Why?
She’s wearing something that shows off her belly button and story-you isn’t looking at her? I call bull.
Story-me isn’t attracted to her!
‘Elle, your time would be much more profitably spent practicing your hand-to-hand skills than in Doctor Suresh’s... bells and whistles,’ Bennet says firmly. ‘Remove that object from your stomach and come and practice.’
Elle waves her hand. ‘Okay, whatever.’ She turns back to Mohinder. ‘Will my favourite dark and brooding human/vampire hybrid be joining us for this one?’
‘Yes, and he much prefers ‘Matt’ as you well know,’ Mohinder says tartly, filling a syringe with clear red liquid.
Wait, Mohinder, I’m confused. Are you doing Buffy or Blade?
I’m drawing on numerous influences.
Suresh, don’t you think I would make a better ‘Angel’ than Parkman?
I think you’d make a better Mayor, actually. After he turned into the big snake.
Elle is repeatedly slamming Bennet’s padded head against the wall when the lights flicker, and the door slams open.
Mohinder stands up straighter as the tall, dark man in the long leather coat appears in front of him.
‘Hello Mohinder,’ he says quietly.
‘Hello Matt,’ Mohinder said, licking his lips.
Suresh, if you’re going to go all Harlequin Romance then I’m going to throw something.
Not if there’s sex. Bad dialogue is allowable if there’s sex.
Will you two shut up? Let me be cool and mysterious some more.
‘Hi Matt,’ Elle called, waving at him. ‘You going to come with to Nathan’s? That bloodsucker is going down!’
You better make me a smart vampire, Suresh, that’s all.
‘Yeah, I’m coming.’ Matt takes off his coat and drapes over the bench. ‘Are you ready for me, Doc?’
Mohinder holds up the syringe. ‘Just roll up your sleeve.’
Matt looks away as Mohinder prepares the injection site. ‘I hate these things.’
‘And you a big, manly monster hunter,’ Mohinder says, heart beating hard in his chest.
‘Sure, and as long as none of them tries to give me a shot I’ll be fine.’
Mohinder winces in sympathy as he injects Matt. ‘There, done now. Don’t forget you’ll need another tomorrow at the latest.’
Matt smiles as he pulls his coat back on. ‘Sometimes I think you already cured me and just keep injecting me for fun.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Mohinder says, leaning forward and touching Matt’s hand. ‘So I could see you more often possibly,’ he says with a wink.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah, well, maybe.’
Elle clops over in her high heels. ‘What’re you boys talking about so secretly?’ She tugs at Matt’s arm. ‘I want to know!’
Matt disentangles his arm and steps back. ‘Don’t do that.’
‘Um, sorry.’
Why does Matt get to be Mr Cool & Mysterious, and I get my head slammed into walls?
Because it’s my story and I can tell it however I want.
Bennet removes the padding and staggers over to him. ‘Matt.’
‘Bennet.’
‘We’re looking to take out Nathan and the rest this evening. We believe there are three other vampires and a couple of humans,’ Bennet explains. ‘Nothing we haven’t dealt with before.’
‘Don’t be so sure. The last slayer who went after Nathan he took out with a Kalashnikov,’ Matt says.
‘He took out a slayer with a gun?’ Mohinder asks.
‘Dear god, are there no standards anymore?’ Bennet asks. ‘What kind of vampire kills with a gun?’
‘A smart and very modern one,’ Matt says with a shrug.
Thank you.
‘Oh phooey,’ Elle says cheerfully. ‘Some Holy Water, a few stakes, it’ll be fine.’
‘Do we have any guns?’ Matt asks in the ringing silence.
‘Not as such,’ Mohinder says quietly. ‘They don’t kill vampires.’
‘No but they hurt like hell.’
The wind blows softly through the trees. It strokes across the wind chimes and their silvery, lonely peals echo dimly in the night. A handful of stars shine in the purple velvet of...
Mohinder, I think we all know what a night sky looks like.
I’m establishing mood.
Consider it established.
... the night, and opposite the van the mansion of Nathan Petrelli sat gleaming, surrounded by a twelve foot fence.
‘It’s very contemporary,’ Bennet says doubtfully. ‘Is this definitely the right place?’
‘Absolutely,’ Elle says doubtfully. ‘It makes sense really, right? Who wants to live in a draughty, cold, damp, and miserable out of the way castle, or abandoned warehouse, asylum, or abattoir, when you can live in a... modern mansion right in the middle of the town. Where you have neighbours. And beautification committees. And annoying children playing ball in the street and they damage the flowers and your dad thinks you did it but...’
‘Shut up, Elle,’ Mohinder suggests. ‘What do think, Matt?’
‘It’s him. He’s hiding in plain sight,’ Matt says firmly, pulling on a bulletproof vest. ‘You think any kind of committee or neighbour made it past that fence and then back out?’
‘Okay, so, we’ll split up!’ Elle says cheerfully. ‘Matt, you come with me and...’
‘I’m going with Mohinder,’ Matt says calmly.
‘But...’
‘If something happens and I flip out he can calm me down,’ Matt says, loading a small pistol grip crossbow into a holster at each shoulder. He looks at Elle and smiles. ‘You don’t want me running around all agitated and confused which side I’m on.’ He pulls a sword out of the scabbard and shines the blade. ‘Do you?’
Elle shakes her head mutely.
‘God damn it,’ Bennet mutters.
Of course in reality she’d had given one of you a mild electrical shock as foreplay by now.
One of us? Why not you?
Elle never appreciated the more... primal side of my nature.
Matt and Mohinder circle around the back of the mansion as Elle and Bennet jimmy open the garage window and shimmy inside.
Matt puts his hands together for Mohinder to stand in.
‘You’d think by now we’d have found a better way to do this by now,’ Mohinder muses; he takes a breath and nods. Matt, using vampiric strength, boosts Mohinder right up into the air and over the fence. Mohinder glances around and backs away a few steps as Matt easily leaps over the fence.
‘Next time carry a stepladder,’ Matt suggests, landing easily.
‘Oh yes, very stealthy,’ Mohinder whispers back, walking along beside him. ‘Perhaps I could hang some wallpaper while I’m at it.’
‘Too fussy, paint is better.’
Matt carefully forces the back door open and creeps inside with Mohinder behind him.
Suresh, step it up, this is really losing steam now.
The humour is appreciated Mohinder but in a vampire story the reader has a reasonable expectation of a thrill.
If you’d stop interrupting I wouldn’t lose my thread!
Matt and Mohinder follow the distant sound of music out the kitchen and along a corridor. Elegant lights are set in sconces on the wall and hunting prints are on the walls.
However when Mohinder looks closely the quarry isn’t stags, foxes, or any other small animal he might otherwise expect...
The corridor opens suddenly into a brightly lit anteroom in which a young African-American woman in layers of leather and wearing an armoured vest is playing Grieg’s piano concerto in A minor.
As Matt slowly draws the sword out of its scabbard, she looks up and gives them a bright, wide smile. ‘Hi guys, I’m Monica.’ She stands up and draws out two handguns. ‘Bye!’
Matt shoves Mohinder aside and dives in the other direction. Monica spins to follow Matt as he rolls forward. He lunges under the piano and she jumps backwards.
Whereupon Mohinder smashes her in the head with the piano stool.
She crashes forward onto the piano with a discordant crash of the chords. Matt looms up from underneath, swings his sword, and cuts off her head with one blow.
Her body explodes into a cloud of dust leaving only the clothing to fall to the ground.
Damn it Suresh, why don’t you ever describe these girls?
I did.
Is she pretty, ugly, fat, thin?
You have a one track mind. Fine, she was very pretty with big brown eyes and a nice smile.
Matt grabs Mohinder’s arm as he reaches for the door.
‘Someone will have heard the noise,’ Mohinder coughs, waving away the dust.
‘Yeah, and they might come looking so let’s take a minute,’ Matt says, weighing his sword in his hand. ‘Elle and Bennet can take care of themselves for a few more minutes.’
Mohinder pumps his super soaker and then checks the stake in his back pocket. ‘Why do you help us? You could get much more done on your own without the distraction.’
‘You just saved my life,’ Matt points out mildly. ‘Not for the first time.’
‘That’s not what I’m asking.’
Matt pulls Mohinder close and kisses his neck. ‘I know,’ he mutters. ‘Just like you know I help you.’
Mohinder grinds against him. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this here.’
‘Nope,’ Matt agrees, pulling back. ‘Let’s go kill some vampires.’
The anteroom opens onto a long corridor.
‘This place is made of corridors,’ Mohinder grumbles.
hiss
Matt looks askance at Mohinder.
hiss
‘Gas!’
It’s pouring out from hoses hidden behind the light fittings; heavier than air it pools on the floor, coiling around their ankles.
Together they shoulder charge the nearest door; slamming against the heavy wood until it splinters and cracks. They fall through the door into a brightly lit room, coughing and choking.
‘Oh aren’t they sweet!’ coos a female voice with a lilting southern accent.
‘I don’t like them,’ sulks a different, heavily accented voice, ‘they’re dirty and nasty.’
Suresh...
The southern accent belongs to a pretty, freckled redhead in her mid twenties. The other woman is attractive in a blurred, uncertain way, olive skinned with dark hair and eyes.
The redhead is wearing a long flowing skirt and a metal corset that is ornate, attractive, and above all metal while the brunette is wearing a babydoll nightdress and a put off expression.
‘Maya,’ the redhead says, ‘you should...’
Matt shoots Maya in the heart with a crossbow bolt as Mohinder peels away and shoots the redhead in the face with a stream of Holy water from the super soaker.
Maya explodes as the redhead screams and bursts in flames.
‘Oh, yuck,’ Mohinder says looking away. ‘That’s horrible.’
The burning woman lunges as Matt, wrapping her arms around him, and engulfing him in flame.
Mohinder leaps for a curtain, dragging it down off the poll, and desperately smothering the flames with it. ‘Matt! Matt are you alright?’
There’s a silken sound and Mohinder reels, clutching his shoulder. On the balcony above, Nathan...
Finally
... tuts and lines up another shot with his rifle.
‘Stop right there!’ Elle orders, struggling through the door and posing dramatically. ‘You leave Momo alone or else!’ She flourishes a cross and a stake at him.
‘Or else what?’ Nathan murmurs, gliding closer. He spreads his arms wide. ‘I’ll give you one shot.’
Elle rams the stake at his chest and gasps when it is stopped by the stylishly tailored armoured vest.
‘Oopsie,’ Nathan grins at her.
‘Eep!’ Elle turns to run and he springs toward her.
Down below, Mohinder slowly and painfully drags Matt under the balcony, out of the range of Nathan’s rifle.
‘Matt? Matt, can you hear me?’
Matt opens pearly grey eyes and blinks placidly. ‘Can smell your blood,’ he says dreamily. ‘I’m so hungry.’
‘It’s the pain from your burns,’ Mohinder mutters. ‘It’s bring out your vampire side and I don’t have any serum.’ He presses his hand to his seeping shoulder wounds and flinches.
As he reaches toward Matt with his bloodied hand, Matt grabs it and licks up the blood, lapping like a cat. He growls when he’s finished and sniffs the air. Mohinder rips off his sleeve and offers his bare arm to Matt.
‘You’re hurt.’
‘Just do it,’ Mohinder says softly.
Bloodplay, really boys?
On the balcony, Elle’s struggles are becoming feebler. Stripped naked, gagged, and hands tied behind her back, she is barely moaning as Nathan licks blood from her breasts and continues to fuck her.
Matt sits up slowly and kisses Mohinder on the throat. Matt slowly kisses and licks his arm; circling slowly closer to the bullet wound. Mohinder flinches and gasps in pain as Matt sucks greedily.
Matt turns away and wipes his mouth.
‘You didn’t finish,’ Mohinder murmurs, swaying.
‘It’s enough.’ Matt soaks a piece of cloth in Holy water, flinching at the fluid burns his skin, and cleans Mohinder’s arm. Clouds of steam raise from everywhere Matt had touched him. ‘This should put any strays off coming after you.’
‘Be careful!’
‘I will.’
Matt stands up and stretches then back up a few steps. He jumps onto the balcony, surprising Nathan who breaks Elle’s neck and stands up with a flourish.
He broke her neck??
He IS the bad guy.
‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’ Nathan asks, drawing a small pistol.
‘You’re supposed to die.’
Nathan fires as Matt dives forward. Matt grabs Nathan’s legs and yanks, pulling the vampire off his feet. They struggle before Nathan ends up on top smiling.
‘How undignified,’ he says.
‘But worth it.’ Matt tugs and the fasteners on Nathan’s vest give way.
‘No!’
‘Yes,’ Matt says, and drives the stake home.
Nathan explodes in a cloud of ash.
Excuse me, but where was I while all this was happening?
We found you locked in the basement, but we saved you. The end.
That wasn’t very scary, Suresh.
Fine, you do better.
I thought it was very scary!
Parkman, you’re only sucking up because Suresh made you the hero.
It was rather too long I thought. Brevity is an art. Allow me.
Knock yourself out.
The mist almost obscured the full moon. The village was quiet and dark. The only man awake was the coachman, Matthew; he waited in the warm stable as the mare, Jess, gave birth.
Hurrah! A sentence more than three words long!
Engrossed in the drama before him he, at first, did not hear the odd rustle by the stable door. As the new foal took its first, unsteady steps, Matthew was oblivious to the monster behind him.
It moved quietly.
Apart from the rustling...
Its fur was soft and glossy black. Even its eyes were black, and glinting in the moonlight. There was something odd about its eyes. They watched the scene with pleasure and anticipation. Not the mindless hunger or fear of an animal.
A werewolf story? Really Bennet?
A little faith, please.
Matthew hesitated as the horses bucked and whinnied.
‘Calm girl, be calm, there’s no problem,’ he promised, patting the mare’s neck.
She kicked out wildly as did the three other horses. The drumming of their hooves mingled with the rising sound of their whinnies and neighs. The foal cringed and cowered in fear beside her mother.
Matthew backed away uncertainly and, turning, sighted the wolf. ‘Oh, you causing this is it?’ He scooped up the afterbirth with a shovel and hurled it out of the stable. ‘Go on, eat that. A’fore one of these gets free and tramples you.’
The wolf stared at him with dark, mocking eyes.
Matthew stared back. ‘Go on,’ he said more gently. ‘Good eating that. Be glad it’s me saw you. Anyone else would shoot you.’
The wolf licked its lips slowly and sauntered out of the stable.
But the horses would not be quieted. It was as if they knew the wolf was outside. Matthew tried to lead Jess into her stall but was bitten and kicked for his trouble. She bolted from the stable into the open air and let out a sound like a scream. Matthew ran out after her but saw only the wolf.
‘Be gone,’ Matthew said firmly. ‘Causing trouble.’
The wolf made a soft, inquisitive sound and licked the blood from its lips. Matthew planted his hands on his hips. ‘I’m not telling you again.’
The wolf leapt, but Matthew jumped back automatically. He turned to run but the wolf was on him instantly. It clawed at his shirt, it ripped at his trousers, it bit at his body. Fight and struggle as he might Matthew was bitten and scratched over and over.
Mmm, I like this story.
Then, with the first glimmer of distant sunlight, it bolted away.
Bloodied but only slightly injured Matthew treated his wounds and went in search of the Jess.
He found her in the orchard but she would not suffer him to lead her back. Instead, she shied from him, seeming fearful and skittish with his presence. Finally, with the sun rising fast, Matthew chased her back to the stable. Leaving the horses to calm in their own time, he returned to his own bed. Where he slept the entire day, a deep, dreamless sleep unlike any other he had known.
What’s with all the biting in these stories?
Suresh, maybe you should show him sometime.
May I continue?
Awaking in the dark Matthew lit a candle: outside the voice of a single wolf rose on the wind.
In almost a dream, he walked through the house. The flame flickered and danced though there was neither breeze nor draught. Reaching the servants entrance, Matthew opened the heavy oak door and looked out into the yard. Clouds covered the moon and the only light was from the stars.
The wolf was sat, waiting and watching patiently. As the clouds passed the moon, its light filled the yard. The wolf howled and Matthew screamed.
And two wolves padded away into the darkness.
That’s IT?
I made my point economically.
That’s not the end of the story! That’s the beginning of the story!
You’re more than welcome to write the rest yourself. In your own time.
Matt, it’s your turn.
Aww, Mohinder, you know I’m not good at this kind of thing.
Suck it up, Parkman. It’s your turn.
Okay, so, I guess, it started when we moved into the new apartment. It was better, you know, not falling down. A real nice old apartment building; with beautiful stone walls and wooden floors, even a park nearby for Molly to play in.
Too good to be true is always a sign of impending disaster.
It was a Sunday morning, no; no, it was a Saturday afternoon when we moved in. The place had that echoing, empty feeling that you get in abandoned building. Everything seemed okay, good actually, you know. Molly’s bedroom was big enough to turn around in and there weren’t any nosy neighbours.
Ahh, so we could have loud noisy sex while Molly was out!
Mohinder, babe, I’m trying to you know, tell a story?
I guess the first clue was the cat. Molly had been after us for a pet for ages but we’d never had, you know, the room. We got her a little ginger tomcat, that she insisted on calling Mr Hairy, sweet little thing. He was happy too, except, that he wouldn’t go in the kitchen no matter what. We figured he was afraid of one of the appliances or something, getting freaked out by the noise, you know? So we put his litter box in the bathroom and his food in the living room and thought that was that. Molly went back to school, Mohinder carried on researching, and I finally made detective. Life was good.
One night Mohinder had been, hitting the tea, uh, kinda hard and he couldn’t sleep.
There’s less caffeine than in coffee!
So he got up, quietly you know so he didn’t wake me or Molly, and went to make himself a milky drink.
What was he wearing, Parkman? Was he naked?
Don't you think about anything else?
He was wearing uh a little pair of drawstring pyjama bottoms. They’re kinda big on him; just resting on his butt so that the blades of his hips are showing. No top though, bare chest, but he’s wearing this little silver chain around his neck, you know? His hair is tousled and kind of crushed on one side from where he’s been lying on it.
Matt, I think that’s enough description of story-me, please!
Oh, so, anyway, padded out to the kitchen in his bare feet, scrunching up his feet on the cold floor. He pulls the cutest little face... um, and that’s when he saw the cat.
Mr Hairy was stood before the kitchen doorway. He was like, side-on? His fur was all sticking out, even his tail, his ears were flat right back against his head, and he was making this strangled, growling side. But it was quiet in the kitchen.
None of the appliances were on. There wasn’t a whisper of sound or even a flicker of movement. The only sounds in the whole apartment were Mohinder’s breathing and the growling of the cat.
Mohinder edged around Mr Hairy and reached for the light switch.
‘RRRROWWWWRRR!’ went Mr Hairy and he leapt into the air like he’d been scalded.
For god’s sake, Parkman! Warn a person before you do that!
Then Mr Hairy shot into the living room and hid under the sofa. Mohinder had almost jumped out of his skin so he was wide-awake and, you know, a bit shaken. The kitchen was cold, colder than the rest of the apartment, and every time he tried to light one of the jets the flame blew out. But the windows were closed and there wasn’t a draft anywhere.
‘This is stupid!’ he said, but in, you know, a more classy and English way. He turned on the light in the corridor and folded his arms. ‘It’s not weird, it’s not creepy. I don’t believe in strange phenomenomena.’
Phenomenon, sweetheart.
Oh, thanks.
So, at that point Matt, uh, me, I wander into the kitchen. Wait, I’m telling the story as me, right?
Just say ‘I did’.
Okay, so, I wander in. I’d woken up because Mohinder wasn’t in bed. Then with cat and all that there was no chance of me sleeping through.
I wish that was the reason I woke up at night.
Prostate?
Curse of my age.
‘You okay, Mohinder?’ I asked, only, you know, more mumbly and making less sense because I was all tired and stuff.
‘Just trying to make some warm milk. Do you want some?’
This time when Mohinder tried to light the stove, the flame nearly took his hand off.
Molly started complaining about the kitchen; too cold, too creepy. She was right about the cold and everyday it seemed to get even colder in there.
The stove started playing up during the day too. It wouldn’t light, and then it lit by itself. Some days it was fine and then some days it was perfect. Then the dishwasher started up; same thing, wouldn’t work or started by itself. All the food in the freezer cooked in the boxes. The tinned food fermented right in the cans. One night there were BANGS from the kitchen, and when I went in all the cat food cans had exploded.
And the room just kept getting colder.
We called in a structural engineer, an electrician, and a surveyor. The structural engineer nearly got frostbite when the temperature dropped through the floor and the door jammed shut, the electrician’s screwdrivers melted in the toolbox, and the surveyor just ran away screaming. Never found out what that was about.
‘You guys,’ Molly said, all serious like little kids can be. ‘The kitchen is possessed, or haunted. Or something! You got to get it fixed!’
‘It’s not a movie, Molls,’ I said. I don’t know where she gets this stuff. ‘That stuff’s not real,’ I promised.
She rolled her eyes at me walked into the kitchen. Her hair floated up around her head like a halo and she was lit by this weird blue light. Mohinder dashed in, grabbed her up, and ran back out.
‘Mohin...der!’ she whined, squirming out his grip and running away.
‘Matthew, we need an exorcist!
He only calls me ‘Matthew’ when he’s seriously annoyed at me, or worse. ‘Matthew’ is like the ultimate, ‘Stop What You’re Doing And Listen’.
Hey!
It’s true, babe.
‘What do you want me to do, look in the yellow pages?’ I asked. ‘It’s not a dybbuk. I don’t know if a rabbi covers that kind of exorcism.’
‘What about a Catholic priest? They have special people.’
‘Uh, neither of us is Catholic?’ I said, confused. ‘Why would they help us? They’d probably make us take sacrament or something.’
Mohinder laughed at that. ‘I don’t think they’d welcome us somehow. There must be someone. You ring your rabbi and I’ll check the yellow pages.’
‘Yeah, ‘exorcism in thirty minutes or less’ or a free pizza?’ I asked.
‘Very amusing,’ he said, but not like he thought it was actually funny. ‘I think we should get Molly out of the apartment.’
So I dropped her off with Peter so they could... braid each other’s hair and stuff. By the time I got back, Mohinder was already tidying up for the exorcist.
‘No free pizza?’
All this talk about pizza, Parkman. It’s making me hungry.
‘No free pizza,’ Mohinder agreed. ‘Don’t worry; he’s not a Catholic priest.’
We stared into the kitchen, which was radiating cold. ‘A rabbi?’
‘A ghost rescue expert,’ Mohinder said.
Ha!
There’s no way I could say that with a straight face.
The man at the door was small and neat, wearing a dark blue suit. He looked more like a bank manager than anything else. I was expecting maybe, uh, a hippie, you know? Long hair and beads. So he gets to the kitchen and just nods. Then he pulls up a chair by the threshold, takes out a pad and a pen, and says, ‘So, let’s talk about your mother.’
Hehehe!
Weak Parkman, very weak.
So he left after a couple of hours, right, saying he was ‘cautiously optimistic’. But ice was starting to creep past the doorway and into the rest of the apartment.
Mohinder slipped his hand into mine and squeezed gently. ‘Come on, this is the point in the movie where the audience are screaming at us to get the hell out.’
‘You’re right, let’s go get a motel somewhere.’
We grabbed our bags and headed for the door, which is when we heard the sobbing.
‘We should go,’ Mohinder said.
‘We should.’
‘Will you please shut up?’ someone asked testily. ‘I’ve just about had it with your whining and complaining. Be a man.’
‘Well I’ve had it with you yelling at me!’
Mohinder and I looked at each other before creeping back toward the kitchen. Inside was a swirling ice cloud but we could see two guys, kinda misty, facing up to each other: an African-American guy and another guy, maybe Spanish, going head to head.
Both of them in like, tight tank tops? Both kinda muscled, the African-American with a shaved head and the maybe-Spanish guy with tousled curly hair.
Our ghosts are hot?
Not as hot at you.
Suck up.
‘Excuse me...’ I began.
‘Oy! Shut up!’ Mohinder snapped. They stopped and looked at him. ‘Are you two responsible for driving us out of our home?’
‘You’re not gone,’ the Spanish guy said sheepishly.
Mohinder lifted up the bag and gestured with it. ‘We’re just going.’
‘That’s your fault,’ the other snaps. ‘Big baby messing with the temperature.’
‘I just wanted some attention,’ he pouts.
‘Well done, you got their attention so much they’re leaving.’
‘Excuse me!’ I said. ‘Look, I’m Matt, he’s Mohinder. Who’re you?’
‘DL,’ the African-American says firmly. ‘And this nonsense in here is nothing to do with me.’
‘Isaac,’ the other man sulks. ‘You don’t know where I can score some H do you?’
DL shakes his head. ‘They have a kid, man, a kid who you scared the crap out of!’
‘Sorry,’ he says sheepishly.
‘Do we need to get the exorcist back?’ Mohinder asks. ‘Some more talking...’
‘No!’ they both said quickly. ‘We’ll be good.’
Mohinder scowled then...
I’m too grumpy in your story. Come here and I’ll show you how nice I can be.
But I haven’t finished!
Let your boyfriend grope you, Parkman. You ran on about a third of the way past the natural end. Nathan, you’re up.
I suppose someone else, someone not as close to him, might have realised sooner. He was my friend though. That he was sometimes over excitable, sometimes too caught up in his experiments, never worried me or our other friends. He was going to change the world or die trying. From being a child, he talked about the day that ‘Mohinder Suresh’ would be known to all children as the benefactor of the age.
Oh I see, this is revenge for the vampire story.
There was always wildness in him that, in conjunction with his natural beauty and fierce intelligence, marked him out in any crowd. He was never short of willing companions, male and female, but he always found something lacking in them. I merely thought him too discriminating in his tastes, I never for one moment dreamt...
He became obsessed with death. Something, I know not what, filled him a total terror of mortality, a disgust of the natural order of birth and death. He began talking of nature not as something sublime and beautiful but corrupt and unclean. My mother told me to distance myself from him; oh, I wish that I had listened!
Nathan, what’s your narrator’s name?
What’s he look like? Come on, we need to know if he’s ‘cute’!
On a dark and stormy night...
Why is the weather always bad in scary stories?
On a dark and stormy night, I went to see Mohinder at his lodgings. Plague was rife in the town and I was worried, as I had not seen him in some days. The man who met me at the door was not my friend of old; his cheeks sunken, his lips pinched, and his eyes as mad and staring, as I had ever known them.
‘Nathan!’ he ejaculated. ‘What are you doing here?’
He WHAT?
It means he exclaimed, Parkman. Look it up.
‘Dear god man!’ I said, and saw him flinch at the mention of ‘god’. ‘What is wrong with you? Let me in at once.’
‘Nathan, you are in grave peril being seen with me,’ he whispered. ‘Truly the wretched creature will see you and punish you for my folly.’
I thought then that the strain had been too much for him and that he imagined things. I was both more accurate and more mistaken than I could have ever dreamt.
‘Let me in Mohinder, and this creature will have less chance of seeing me.’
His lodgings appeared the cell of a mad man! There were clothes, books, and ornaments strewn everywhere. A haunch of beef was rotting on the table, mead and other drinks were turning in the bottles, and in the midst of this confusion a basket of plump unpecked cherries, bloom down cheeked peaches, full and fine pomegranates, rare pears, and succulent plums.
‘Do you see?’ Mohinder demanded, near to crying, as he waved a hand at the basket. ‘Do you see how the demon taunts me?’
With fruit?
‘Mohinder, I beg you, tell me your tale from the beginning.’
‘You will think me mad,’ he said quietly. ‘But I must speak of it to someone. Come and I will show you the worse of it: my workshop of filthy creation.’
He showed into the room he kept as a workshop. My god but the smell! Worse than the stink of chemicals, worse than the stench of rotting food from the main room, there was the terrible, clinging reek of death. There were limbs here, with full flesh; jars in which dark, engorged organs floated in clear fluid; and bottles of blood.
‘Mohinder, my manservant knows I am come here,’ I said, feeling an unfamiliar rush of fear toward my friend. Mohinder was of slight build, could he really have killed so many people? Surely, his passions could not have run so far astray with him.
He laughed in a tired way, as though there were nothing else to do. ‘You are in no danger from me, save by the consequences of my previous actions.’
Oh, very reassuring, mad-scientist me!
‘Where came those unfortunates?’ I demanded.
‘Graveyards and the hangman,’ he said as if it were no matter. ‘They were already dead, Nathan. They felt nothing. I however, am so tormented! My suffering is the worst and most intense in the world! You have no idea what it is to feel the misery that I feel.’
Oh brother.
‘Mohinder, you have desecrated the dead!’
‘It matters not! Oh Nathan! I was to be worshipped as a god by a race superior in all ways to humans and who would acknowledge me as father and creator!’ He threw up his arms as he said these words, and was illuminated by a crash of lightning.
‘If you are caught you will be hanged! Whether you pay the price in this life you will certainly pay it in the next.’
He shook his head and looked at me with a fond sadness. ‘You do not understand. I am paying the price for more than that. I dared to take the fire from the gods, Nathan. I created a living being capable of such things! Stronger, larger, and with more capacity than a human. I selected his features for their beauty, his brain for its potential, I made a creature so perfect, so special, that god himself would envy me. I made a creature so sensitive to others that it could almost see their souls.’ He shook his head. ‘I wrought a monster. A demon. As soon as it opened its eyes and reached a shaking hand toward me, I knew. I knew it was evil.’
Hey, that’s not fair! How can he say that? Poor thing probably just wanted a hug or something.
I don’t think the good doctor is the most reliable judge.
I could not believe it. That such a thing could be done was impossible, that such a thing had been done defied every tenet of faith I held dear.
‘Where is this supposed creature now?’
Mohinder shook his head as he paced the room. ‘I ran, that night. Ran and left it here alone. When I returned the following evening it was gone and I thought myself free of its evil malignity.’
For the love of PETE! What kind of utterly self-absorbed, demented, lunatic bastard do you think I am?
You had me snap a girl’s neck, Suresh. Play fair now.
‘When was this?’
‘Three months ago,’ Mohinder said. ‘I put it from my mind and did not think of it again until my sister’s death.’ He looked at me with narrowed eyes. ‘You have heard, I am sure, that a serving girl was hanged for the crime?’
‘Certainly, they found some stolen jewellery on her.’
‘A trick, a trick of the monster I created. It murdered my sister and blamed the poor innocent child,’ he said shaking his head. ‘Still, she died knowing she was innocent. Her sufferings were over but mine continue.’
‘How could you be sure?’ I asked. ‘How could you know that this... monster was responsible?’
‘I knew!’ he said strongly. ‘In my heart I knew it. The evil I made was striking against my loved ones.’
‘Then you made representation on behalf of the girl? Attempted to prove her innocence?’
He looked surprised at the thought. ‘No. I would not have been believed. I waited for my death to come, instead...’ he walked across to a bureau and removed a sheaf of letters. He selected one from the bottom and handed it to me with a flourish. The penmanship was rough and uncertain, the letters almost childish in their construction, and I was minded to think he had not written them himself.
‘Dearest Master,
Your most devoted and loyal slave begs an audience. Wilt you not provide guidance and society for your creation? I plead you be compassionate to my wretched loneliness and misery. If thou wilt speak with your unworthy creature, please place in your window a flower. I will attend at once.’
This is going to be depressing isn’t it?
Story-me certainly seems to need a good slap, and possibly an antipsychotic...
I did not understand the point he meant to make to me, and said so. In frustration, he gave me the rest of the letters.
Over the next few hours, I read the letters. At first unsure if someone were playing a form of joke on Mohinder, I was gradually won over by the consistency of themes, thoughts, and personality displayed by the writer. The writer of the letters repeatedly begged for an audience, for guidance, and, if love were too much to desire, for compassion. The more I read, the angrier I found myself at Mohinder’s repeated reference to it, to him as a monster, as evil, as a demon, and to his treatment of one to whom he owed care. The creature described being hated and hunted everywhere he went. He had been forced to live on scraps of food and had learnt speech, reading and writing from spying on the village children at their religious lessons. His ‘specialness’, of which Mohinder had been so proud, enraged the simple villagers he met. His peculiar sensitivity to their thoughts and wishes made them feel exposed, vulnerable. Yet he did not blame Mohinder for this, instead referring to him as ‘dearest Master’ and to himself as being ‘devoted’, ‘loyal’ and ‘obedient’. Surely, no-one had such an earnest devotee as Mohinder, and one so unfairly loathed and detested.
‘Mohinder, this last one is dated yesterday. Why have you not given the poor wretch an audience?’
Mohinder stared at me as if I had said that two and two were five. ‘He would kill me!’ He propelled me back into the other room and gestured at the food. ‘See how he attempts to poison me?’
I don’t think I can listen to all of this. It’s too sad.
Suck it up, Parkman. I listened to your bickering ghosts.
‘He thinks you ill,’ I said, finding the relevant letters. ‘He does not think you are eating.’
‘Nonsensical lies!’ Mohinder roared. ‘Why should he think that? Am I not in perfect health?’
‘Truly Mohinder, I think you look very ill indeed,’ I said and he seemed honestly surprised to hear it.
‘How does he know, hmm? He watches me!’
‘He worships you,’ I said as mildly as I could, though my blood was heated. ‘That is what you wanted. That is what you have. That you have been a most negligent creator is not his fault.’
‘It is a thing devoted to evil, and means to kill me,’ Mohinder wailed, and seemed most sadly genuine in this deluded belief.
Huh, not denying being a crappy ‘god’ then.
The man isn’t right, Matt. He’s delusional and paranoid.
‘Have you had any dealings with him that you have not told me of? Have you really only seen him when he awoke?’
‘Yes, not since then.’ Mohinder ran his fingers through his hair. ‘The food and drink he leaves on the step.’
‘He has never forced entry?’ I asked. ‘Never waylaid you on the road or on the step? If he is such a monster, such a menace to you why has he not done these things?’
‘He... I... He sends me food. Why would he do that if he does not mean me harm?’ he asked. He was swaying slightly and perspiration beaded on his brow.
‘For some reason I cannot fathom he is devoted to you and wishes you well again. Mohinder, really, you should eat something for I perceive you are very ill indeed.’
He collapsed down on a chair and looked around the room. ‘I have to work. I thought if I made another one they would keep each other company and leave me alone. But then I thought that would be worse. They should have monstrous children.’ He shook his head. ‘They would be a tribe of creatures spreading evil and destruction and generations not yet born would curse my name.’
‘Naturally, it is all about what people say of you.’
He looked at me in confusion and I knew he was too far gone to understand. I ate a peach from the basket, it was juicy, and sweet, to show him that it was safe.
‘The fruit is without poison so please eat some.’
Mohinder shook his head and tried to stand. ‘You are in league together! You...’ He swooned then into a faint from which I could not wake him.
I did what I could to make him comfortable and then I cleared away the rotting food and drink. Leaving him sleeping uneasily in his bed I went outside and plucked a flower from the small garden. I put it in the window, pulling back the curtain hoping any watcher would see it was I that had done it, and then I waited on the step.
If the creature does turn out to be a bastard I’m going to be SO disappointed.
Too obvious a twist. Why have a twist when everyone could see it coming?
Have a little faith, Parkman.
The rain was driving and the town was only lit by the dim half moon and the occasional flash of lightning but I made out the dim figure. Larger than most men and in dim, shapeless rags he had scavenged for clothing, I expected him to shamble toward me but instead he moved with grace. His form was unusual and his countenance spoke on misery and hardship. He looked about him like a hunted animal watching for the predator and approached me most cautious.
‘Art thou the doctor?’ he asked softly, huge hands twisting together anxiously. ‘Is the Master very ill?’
Why does he talk like that?
Let me guess, the bible the children were taught from was a very old one, right?
Bingo.
‘Mohinder is very ill but I am not the doctor, there is no doctor for a hundred miles. I am a friend of his though.’
‘Wilt thou nurse him to health?’
All remaining doubts fled in the face of his earnest concern for Mohinder; whatever his origin this man had no desire to harm Mohinder.
‘I cannot do it by myself.’
He looked at me and I began to understand what was meant by his ‘peculiar sensitivity’.
‘Thou wouldst have me nurse him though believing he wouldst wish it not.’
‘Mohinder is not, I fear, capable of making sound judgements.’ I stood up and the creature stepped back as if automatically afraid. ‘Come inside out of the rain else you will have more need of a nurse than fill the office of one.’
He hesitated on the doorstep, looking into the room uncertainly. ‘The Master... I wouldst not displease him.’ Before I could speak, he shook his head. ‘That the Master is not pleased with me I know. I am a sinner and do revolt his eyes. I wouldst not add wilful disobedience to the sins of being alive.’
‘Mohinder is unwell. Is aiding him against his inclination a worse... sin than leaving him?’
He looked down at his hands. ‘Thou doest not believe him worthy of my fidelity.’
Would anyone?
‘It matters not what I believe,’ I said.
‘I will assist,’ he said eventually.
I left my huge companion in the main room and see if Mohinder has awoken yet. Instead of recovering he was now soaked with perspiration and thrashing in delirium. In his ravings, he sobbed and cried out, both for revenge and for forgiveness. When he had quieted somewhat I went out and found that the creature had cleaned the main room, scrubbing both walls and floor, and moved to the workshop.
‘Place of my creation,’ he said, looking at me. ‘Unclean and unwholesome as I am.’
‘It matters not where we come from but where we go.’
He smiled and nodded. ‘Thou art wise. Art the Master better?’
‘No, worse. Will you help me bathe him?’
‘I will.’
‘What do you call yourself? I cannot call you ‘creature’ now.’
He finished cleaning the floor and stood up. ‘I have no other name. The Master never gave me one.’
That he said it without anger or frustration only added to my sense of Mohinder’s unworthiness.
He carried Mohinder like a babe, placed him in the tin bath with patient care, and bathed Mohinder with a mix of tenderness and reverence that spoke of far more than respect and veneration.
‘What do you want from him?’ I asked.
‘Happiness,’ he said quietly.
‘That is too much to ask from any one person,’ I said gently. ‘He is only a man.’
The creature stroked Mohinder’s cheek and mouth. ‘Then wouldst I have Him not hate me. Though all other men do, I wouldst have him not.’ He looked at me. ‘Wouldst that be too great a wish?’
‘No. It would not.’
Over the days, Mohinder recovered in both body and mind. That he feared the creature at first and struck out at him often I wish I did not have to say. That this gradually passed into a tearful melancholia was sad but necessary. It seemed as though I could, in good conscience, leave Mohinder in the care of his creature.
Uh oh.
Oh damn, just when I thought it was going to end well.
The plague had worsened and the villagers were in uproar. It only took for one of the villagers to see the creature as he fetched fruit in the night, for a mob to form. We saw them march down from the church, waving torches and pitchforks.
‘You must run, now,’ I told him. ‘Before they arrive.’
He nodded and turned to go, but Mohinder gripped his hand. ‘Take me with you.’
‘My carriage is outside,’ I said. ‘Go on, quickly.’
‘Thank you,’ the creature said to me as he lifted Mohinder up. ‘It shall be remembered.’
They rode through the mob, scattering them hither and thither. They rode for the mountains; where they stopped, I do not know and how they lived, I have no idea. I am sure though, that they did live.
Yay!
Parkman, you’re so sappy.
Shut up, I’m happy.
‘Dad!’ Claire calls. ‘We’re back!’
‘Did you get a good haul?’ Matt asks as she leads her band into the room.
‘Matty got more than everyone,’ Molly confides. ‘But we shared it out.’
‘Good girl,’ Mohinder says, kissing her forehead. ‘We better call the cab.’
‘So did you guys have a good time?’ Claire asks.
‘Eh, it passed the time,’ Bennet says with a shrug.
Pairing: Matt/Mohinder
Rating: 18 for sex and violence. Yummy!
Warnings: Non-con sex (brief), violence, horror. Bad jokes.
Note: Happy Halloween! Thanks everyone who came up with suggestions, especially
tiptoe39 and dragon6593. Huge, massive, MONSTER thanks to boudecia7 for the beta and handholding. Any mistakes are my own damn fault. Word count: 8700 approx
Speech key:
Nathan
Bennet
Matt
Mohinder
(That will make sense later, honestly.)
Claire wriggles to adjust the grip of the Lycra bodysuit she’s wearing, straightens her wig, and inspects her troops; Simon Petrelli as Buzz Lightyear, Monty Petrelli as Superman, Molly Walker as a Goth, complete with green eye-shadow and fingerless lace gloves, and toddler Matty Parkman as Yoda.
‘Some people with give good stuff like chocolate and some people will give stuff like toothpaste,’ she explains.
‘Euw,’ Monty complains.
‘You can’t do that,’ Molly says firmly. ‘You have to smile and say thank you, even if it’s toothpaste.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they think they’re doing the right thing,’ Claire explains. ‘Grown-ups are strange.’
‘You’re a grown-up,’ Simon says suspiciously. ‘You’re like... thirty or something.’
‘I am not!’
Someone clears their throat and the assembled group turn around.
‘Claire,’ Bennet asks cautiously. ‘What exactly are you dressed as?’
‘Selene, from Underworld. She’s a kick ass vampire.’
‘She said ‘ass’!’ Monty complains with his hand in the air.
‘She’s allowed to, after all she’s like... thirty or something,’ Bennet says sweetly.
Claire rolls her eyes. ‘Gee, thanks dad. Tell everyone we’ll be back in a couple of hours.’
‘Okay sweetheart,’ he says with a nod.
As they traipse outside Matty turns around to flap a hand at Bennet. ‘Buh-buh!’
‘Bye bye, Matty,’ Bennet says, waving back. He picks up another bottle of whiskey and walks back into the living room. ‘Anyone need a top-up?’
Nathan and Matt hold up their glass but Mohinder shakes his head.
‘So, how’re we going to pass the time?’ Bennet asks, smiling.
Nathan takes a marshmallow from the bag on the table and punctures it with a fork, holding it over the fire. ‘We’re got a fire and it’s Halloween. Let’s have some scary stories.’
Vampire. Possibly from the French vampyre or the German vampir, the word, the concept in its many varied forms exists in all Slavic languages, and proto-vampires can be traced to the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks, and Romans.
Suresh, is this a scary story or an encyclopaedia entry?
Shut the hell up Nathan.
In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is...
‘Ow! Hey, this thing is sharp!’
... the slayer.
‘It’s a stake, Elle,’ Bennet says, raising his eyebrows. ‘You stick the pointy end into the vampire’s chest, remember? It has to be sharp or it won’t penetrate.’
‘Heh, heh,’ Elle sniggers, ‘you said penetrate.’
I don’t believe I met Elle.
Imagine that, a blonde you haven’t met.
Can I please get on?
‘Perhaps a crossbow?’ suggests Mohinder Suresh...
The handsome and brilliant Mohinder Suresh.
... who provides the scientific perspective lacking in Noah Bennet.
‘Ooh, yes please!’ Elle says.
Bennet puts his hands on his hips. ‘She just hurt herself on a foot long piece of wood and you want to give her a ballistic weapon?
Elle unwraps a lollipop and sucks it thoughtfully, her spare hand playing with the ring in her belly button. ‘It was a trick stake. I bet you gave it me on purpose!’
‘It’s a piece of wood with a pointed end,’ Bennet says slowly. ‘And take that thing out of your navel.’
‘I happen to think it looks wicked trendy.’
‘Well I happen to think it looks like something to rip out in hand-to-hand combat,’ Bennet says tartly.
She squeaks and slaps a hand over it. ‘I’ll take it out before we go!’ She runs over to the workbench where Mohinder is, as always, hard at work.
As always?
Shut up Bennet.
‘Can I take a couple of water pistols filled with Holy water?’
Mohinder nods but doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. ‘Of course, Elle, provided that you promise not to use all the water squirting yourself.’
‘It was hot and there was this totally gorgeous guy who was so digging the wet t-shirt look!’
Hold up, what’s she wearing?
Why?
She’s wearing something that shows off her belly button and story-you isn’t looking at her? I call bull.
Story-me isn’t attracted to her!
‘Elle, your time would be much more profitably spent practicing your hand-to-hand skills than in Doctor Suresh’s... bells and whistles,’ Bennet says firmly. ‘Remove that object from your stomach and come and practice.’
Elle waves her hand. ‘Okay, whatever.’ She turns back to Mohinder. ‘Will my favourite dark and brooding human/vampire hybrid be joining us for this one?’
‘Yes, and he much prefers ‘Matt’ as you well know,’ Mohinder says tartly, filling a syringe with clear red liquid.
Wait, Mohinder, I’m confused. Are you doing Buffy or Blade?
I’m drawing on numerous influences.
Suresh, don’t you think I would make a better ‘Angel’ than Parkman?
I think you’d make a better Mayor, actually. After he turned into the big snake.
Elle is repeatedly slamming Bennet’s padded head against the wall when the lights flicker, and the door slams open.
Mohinder stands up straighter as the tall, dark man in the long leather coat appears in front of him.
‘Hello Mohinder,’ he says quietly.
‘Hello Matt,’ Mohinder said, licking his lips.
Suresh, if you’re going to go all Harlequin Romance then I’m going to throw something.
Not if there’s sex. Bad dialogue is allowable if there’s sex.
Will you two shut up? Let me be cool and mysterious some more.
‘Hi Matt,’ Elle called, waving at him. ‘You going to come with to Nathan’s? That bloodsucker is going down!’
You better make me a smart vampire, Suresh, that’s all.
‘Yeah, I’m coming.’ Matt takes off his coat and drapes over the bench. ‘Are you ready for me, Doc?’
Mohinder holds up the syringe. ‘Just roll up your sleeve.’
Matt looks away as Mohinder prepares the injection site. ‘I hate these things.’
‘And you a big, manly monster hunter,’ Mohinder says, heart beating hard in his chest.
‘Sure, and as long as none of them tries to give me a shot I’ll be fine.’
Mohinder winces in sympathy as he injects Matt. ‘There, done now. Don’t forget you’ll need another tomorrow at the latest.’
Matt smiles as he pulls his coat back on. ‘Sometimes I think you already cured me and just keep injecting me for fun.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Mohinder says, leaning forward and touching Matt’s hand. ‘So I could see you more often possibly,’ he says with a wink.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah, well, maybe.’
Elle clops over in her high heels. ‘What’re you boys talking about so secretly?’ She tugs at Matt’s arm. ‘I want to know!’
Matt disentangles his arm and steps back. ‘Don’t do that.’
‘Um, sorry.’
Why does Matt get to be Mr Cool & Mysterious, and I get my head slammed into walls?
Because it’s my story and I can tell it however I want.
Bennet removes the padding and staggers over to him. ‘Matt.’
‘Bennet.’
‘We’re looking to take out Nathan and the rest this evening. We believe there are three other vampires and a couple of humans,’ Bennet explains. ‘Nothing we haven’t dealt with before.’
‘Don’t be so sure. The last slayer who went after Nathan he took out with a Kalashnikov,’ Matt says.
‘He took out a slayer with a gun?’ Mohinder asks.
‘Dear god, are there no standards anymore?’ Bennet asks. ‘What kind of vampire kills with a gun?’
‘A smart and very modern one,’ Matt says with a shrug.
Thank you.
‘Oh phooey,’ Elle says cheerfully. ‘Some Holy Water, a few stakes, it’ll be fine.’
‘Do we have any guns?’ Matt asks in the ringing silence.
‘Not as such,’ Mohinder says quietly. ‘They don’t kill vampires.’
‘No but they hurt like hell.’
The wind blows softly through the trees. It strokes across the wind chimes and their silvery, lonely peals echo dimly in the night. A handful of stars shine in the purple velvet of...
Mohinder, I think we all know what a night sky looks like.
I’m establishing mood.
Consider it established.
... the night, and opposite the van the mansion of Nathan Petrelli sat gleaming, surrounded by a twelve foot fence.
‘It’s very contemporary,’ Bennet says doubtfully. ‘Is this definitely the right place?’
‘Absolutely,’ Elle says doubtfully. ‘It makes sense really, right? Who wants to live in a draughty, cold, damp, and miserable out of the way castle, or abandoned warehouse, asylum, or abattoir, when you can live in a... modern mansion right in the middle of the town. Where you have neighbours. And beautification committees. And annoying children playing ball in the street and they damage the flowers and your dad thinks you did it but...’
‘Shut up, Elle,’ Mohinder suggests. ‘What do think, Matt?’
‘It’s him. He’s hiding in plain sight,’ Matt says firmly, pulling on a bulletproof vest. ‘You think any kind of committee or neighbour made it past that fence and then back out?’
‘Okay, so, we’ll split up!’ Elle says cheerfully. ‘Matt, you come with me and...’
‘I’m going with Mohinder,’ Matt says calmly.
‘But...’
‘If something happens and I flip out he can calm me down,’ Matt says, loading a small pistol grip crossbow into a holster at each shoulder. He looks at Elle and smiles. ‘You don’t want me running around all agitated and confused which side I’m on.’ He pulls a sword out of the scabbard and shines the blade. ‘Do you?’
Elle shakes her head mutely.
‘God damn it,’ Bennet mutters.
Of course in reality she’d had given one of you a mild electrical shock as foreplay by now.
One of us? Why not you?
Elle never appreciated the more... primal side of my nature.
Matt and Mohinder circle around the back of the mansion as Elle and Bennet jimmy open the garage window and shimmy inside.
Matt puts his hands together for Mohinder to stand in.
‘You’d think by now we’d have found a better way to do this by now,’ Mohinder muses; he takes a breath and nods. Matt, using vampiric strength, boosts Mohinder right up into the air and over the fence. Mohinder glances around and backs away a few steps as Matt easily leaps over the fence.
‘Next time carry a stepladder,’ Matt suggests, landing easily.
‘Oh yes, very stealthy,’ Mohinder whispers back, walking along beside him. ‘Perhaps I could hang some wallpaper while I’m at it.’
‘Too fussy, paint is better.’
Matt carefully forces the back door open and creeps inside with Mohinder behind him.
Suresh, step it up, this is really losing steam now.
The humour is appreciated Mohinder but in a vampire story the reader has a reasonable expectation of a thrill.
If you’d stop interrupting I wouldn’t lose my thread!
Matt and Mohinder follow the distant sound of music out the kitchen and along a corridor. Elegant lights are set in sconces on the wall and hunting prints are on the walls.
However when Mohinder looks closely the quarry isn’t stags, foxes, or any other small animal he might otherwise expect...
The corridor opens suddenly into a brightly lit anteroom in which a young African-American woman in layers of leather and wearing an armoured vest is playing Grieg’s piano concerto in A minor.
As Matt slowly draws the sword out of its scabbard, she looks up and gives them a bright, wide smile. ‘Hi guys, I’m Monica.’ She stands up and draws out two handguns. ‘Bye!’
Matt shoves Mohinder aside and dives in the other direction. Monica spins to follow Matt as he rolls forward. He lunges under the piano and she jumps backwards.
Whereupon Mohinder smashes her in the head with the piano stool.
She crashes forward onto the piano with a discordant crash of the chords. Matt looms up from underneath, swings his sword, and cuts off her head with one blow.
Her body explodes into a cloud of dust leaving only the clothing to fall to the ground.
Damn it Suresh, why don’t you ever describe these girls?
I did.
Is she pretty, ugly, fat, thin?
You have a one track mind. Fine, she was very pretty with big brown eyes and a nice smile.
Matt grabs Mohinder’s arm as he reaches for the door.
‘Someone will have heard the noise,’ Mohinder coughs, waving away the dust.
‘Yeah, and they might come looking so let’s take a minute,’ Matt says, weighing his sword in his hand. ‘Elle and Bennet can take care of themselves for a few more minutes.’
Mohinder pumps his super soaker and then checks the stake in his back pocket. ‘Why do you help us? You could get much more done on your own without the distraction.’
‘You just saved my life,’ Matt points out mildly. ‘Not for the first time.’
‘That’s not what I’m asking.’
Matt pulls Mohinder close and kisses his neck. ‘I know,’ he mutters. ‘Just like you know I help you.’
Mohinder grinds against him. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this here.’
‘Nope,’ Matt agrees, pulling back. ‘Let’s go kill some vampires.’
The anteroom opens onto a long corridor.
‘This place is made of corridors,’ Mohinder grumbles.
hiss
Matt looks askance at Mohinder.
hiss
‘Gas!’
It’s pouring out from hoses hidden behind the light fittings; heavier than air it pools on the floor, coiling around their ankles.
Together they shoulder charge the nearest door; slamming against the heavy wood until it splinters and cracks. They fall through the door into a brightly lit room, coughing and choking.
‘Oh aren’t they sweet!’ coos a female voice with a lilting southern accent.
‘I don’t like them,’ sulks a different, heavily accented voice, ‘they’re dirty and nasty.’
Suresh...
The southern accent belongs to a pretty, freckled redhead in her mid twenties. The other woman is attractive in a blurred, uncertain way, olive skinned with dark hair and eyes.
The redhead is wearing a long flowing skirt and a metal corset that is ornate, attractive, and above all metal while the brunette is wearing a babydoll nightdress and a put off expression.
‘Maya,’ the redhead says, ‘you should...’
Matt shoots Maya in the heart with a crossbow bolt as Mohinder peels away and shoots the redhead in the face with a stream of Holy water from the super soaker.
Maya explodes as the redhead screams and bursts in flames.
‘Oh, yuck,’ Mohinder says looking away. ‘That’s horrible.’
The burning woman lunges as Matt, wrapping her arms around him, and engulfing him in flame.
Mohinder leaps for a curtain, dragging it down off the poll, and desperately smothering the flames with it. ‘Matt! Matt are you alright?’
There’s a silken sound and Mohinder reels, clutching his shoulder. On the balcony above, Nathan...
Finally
... tuts and lines up another shot with his rifle.
‘Stop right there!’ Elle orders, struggling through the door and posing dramatically. ‘You leave Momo alone or else!’ She flourishes a cross and a stake at him.
‘Or else what?’ Nathan murmurs, gliding closer. He spreads his arms wide. ‘I’ll give you one shot.’
Elle rams the stake at his chest and gasps when it is stopped by the stylishly tailored armoured vest.
‘Oopsie,’ Nathan grins at her.
‘Eep!’ Elle turns to run and he springs toward her.
Down below, Mohinder slowly and painfully drags Matt under the balcony, out of the range of Nathan’s rifle.
‘Matt? Matt, can you hear me?’
Matt opens pearly grey eyes and blinks placidly. ‘Can smell your blood,’ he says dreamily. ‘I’m so hungry.’
‘It’s the pain from your burns,’ Mohinder mutters. ‘It’s bring out your vampire side and I don’t have any serum.’ He presses his hand to his seeping shoulder wounds and flinches.
As he reaches toward Matt with his bloodied hand, Matt grabs it and licks up the blood, lapping like a cat. He growls when he’s finished and sniffs the air. Mohinder rips off his sleeve and offers his bare arm to Matt.
‘You’re hurt.’
‘Just do it,’ Mohinder says softly.
Bloodplay, really boys?
On the balcony, Elle’s struggles are becoming feebler. Stripped naked, gagged, and hands tied behind her back, she is barely moaning as Nathan licks blood from her breasts and continues to fuck her.
Matt sits up slowly and kisses Mohinder on the throat. Matt slowly kisses and licks his arm; circling slowly closer to the bullet wound. Mohinder flinches and gasps in pain as Matt sucks greedily.
Matt turns away and wipes his mouth.
‘You didn’t finish,’ Mohinder murmurs, swaying.
‘It’s enough.’ Matt soaks a piece of cloth in Holy water, flinching at the fluid burns his skin, and cleans Mohinder’s arm. Clouds of steam raise from everywhere Matt had touched him. ‘This should put any strays off coming after you.’
‘Be careful!’
‘I will.’
Matt stands up and stretches then back up a few steps. He jumps onto the balcony, surprising Nathan who breaks Elle’s neck and stands up with a flourish.
He broke her neck??
He IS the bad guy.
‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’ Nathan asks, drawing a small pistol.
‘You’re supposed to die.’
Nathan fires as Matt dives forward. Matt grabs Nathan’s legs and yanks, pulling the vampire off his feet. They struggle before Nathan ends up on top smiling.
‘How undignified,’ he says.
‘But worth it.’ Matt tugs and the fasteners on Nathan’s vest give way.
‘No!’
‘Yes,’ Matt says, and drives the stake home.
Nathan explodes in a cloud of ash.
Excuse me, but where was I while all this was happening?
We found you locked in the basement, but we saved you. The end.
That wasn’t very scary, Suresh.
Fine, you do better.
I thought it was very scary!
Parkman, you’re only sucking up because Suresh made you the hero.
It was rather too long I thought. Brevity is an art. Allow me.
Knock yourself out.
The mist almost obscured the full moon. The village was quiet and dark. The only man awake was the coachman, Matthew; he waited in the warm stable as the mare, Jess, gave birth.
Hurrah! A sentence more than three words long!
Engrossed in the drama before him he, at first, did not hear the odd rustle by the stable door. As the new foal took its first, unsteady steps, Matthew was oblivious to the monster behind him.
It moved quietly.
Apart from the rustling...
Its fur was soft and glossy black. Even its eyes were black, and glinting in the moonlight. There was something odd about its eyes. They watched the scene with pleasure and anticipation. Not the mindless hunger or fear of an animal.
A werewolf story? Really Bennet?
A little faith, please.
Matthew hesitated as the horses bucked and whinnied.
‘Calm girl, be calm, there’s no problem,’ he promised, patting the mare’s neck.
She kicked out wildly as did the three other horses. The drumming of their hooves mingled with the rising sound of their whinnies and neighs. The foal cringed and cowered in fear beside her mother.
Matthew backed away uncertainly and, turning, sighted the wolf. ‘Oh, you causing this is it?’ He scooped up the afterbirth with a shovel and hurled it out of the stable. ‘Go on, eat that. A’fore one of these gets free and tramples you.’
The wolf stared at him with dark, mocking eyes.
Matthew stared back. ‘Go on,’ he said more gently. ‘Good eating that. Be glad it’s me saw you. Anyone else would shoot you.’
The wolf licked its lips slowly and sauntered out of the stable.
But the horses would not be quieted. It was as if they knew the wolf was outside. Matthew tried to lead Jess into her stall but was bitten and kicked for his trouble. She bolted from the stable into the open air and let out a sound like a scream. Matthew ran out after her but saw only the wolf.
‘Be gone,’ Matthew said firmly. ‘Causing trouble.’
The wolf made a soft, inquisitive sound and licked the blood from its lips. Matthew planted his hands on his hips. ‘I’m not telling you again.’
The wolf leapt, but Matthew jumped back automatically. He turned to run but the wolf was on him instantly. It clawed at his shirt, it ripped at his trousers, it bit at his body. Fight and struggle as he might Matthew was bitten and scratched over and over.
Mmm, I like this story.
Then, with the first glimmer of distant sunlight, it bolted away.
Bloodied but only slightly injured Matthew treated his wounds and went in search of the Jess.
He found her in the orchard but she would not suffer him to lead her back. Instead, she shied from him, seeming fearful and skittish with his presence. Finally, with the sun rising fast, Matthew chased her back to the stable. Leaving the horses to calm in their own time, he returned to his own bed. Where he slept the entire day, a deep, dreamless sleep unlike any other he had known.
What’s with all the biting in these stories?
Suresh, maybe you should show him sometime.
May I continue?
Awaking in the dark Matthew lit a candle: outside the voice of a single wolf rose on the wind.
In almost a dream, he walked through the house. The flame flickered and danced though there was neither breeze nor draught. Reaching the servants entrance, Matthew opened the heavy oak door and looked out into the yard. Clouds covered the moon and the only light was from the stars.
The wolf was sat, waiting and watching patiently. As the clouds passed the moon, its light filled the yard. The wolf howled and Matthew screamed.
And two wolves padded away into the darkness.
That’s IT?
I made my point economically.
That’s not the end of the story! That’s the beginning of the story!
You’re more than welcome to write the rest yourself. In your own time.
Matt, it’s your turn.
Aww, Mohinder, you know I’m not good at this kind of thing.
Suck it up, Parkman. It’s your turn.
Okay, so, I guess, it started when we moved into the new apartment. It was better, you know, not falling down. A real nice old apartment building; with beautiful stone walls and wooden floors, even a park nearby for Molly to play in.
Too good to be true is always a sign of impending disaster.
It was a Sunday morning, no; no, it was a Saturday afternoon when we moved in. The place had that echoing, empty feeling that you get in abandoned building. Everything seemed okay, good actually, you know. Molly’s bedroom was big enough to turn around in and there weren’t any nosy neighbours.
Ahh, so we could have loud noisy sex while Molly was out!
Mohinder, babe, I’m trying to you know, tell a story?
I guess the first clue was the cat. Molly had been after us for a pet for ages but we’d never had, you know, the room. We got her a little ginger tomcat, that she insisted on calling Mr Hairy, sweet little thing. He was happy too, except, that he wouldn’t go in the kitchen no matter what. We figured he was afraid of one of the appliances or something, getting freaked out by the noise, you know? So we put his litter box in the bathroom and his food in the living room and thought that was that. Molly went back to school, Mohinder carried on researching, and I finally made detective. Life was good.
One night Mohinder had been, hitting the tea, uh, kinda hard and he couldn’t sleep.
There’s less caffeine than in coffee!
So he got up, quietly you know so he didn’t wake me or Molly, and went to make himself a milky drink.
What was he wearing, Parkman? Was he naked?
Don't you think about anything else?
He was wearing uh a little pair of drawstring pyjama bottoms. They’re kinda big on him; just resting on his butt so that the blades of his hips are showing. No top though, bare chest, but he’s wearing this little silver chain around his neck, you know? His hair is tousled and kind of crushed on one side from where he’s been lying on it.
Matt, I think that’s enough description of story-me, please!
Oh, so, anyway, padded out to the kitchen in his bare feet, scrunching up his feet on the cold floor. He pulls the cutest little face... um, and that’s when he saw the cat.
Mr Hairy was stood before the kitchen doorway. He was like, side-on? His fur was all sticking out, even his tail, his ears were flat right back against his head, and he was making this strangled, growling side. But it was quiet in the kitchen.
None of the appliances were on. There wasn’t a whisper of sound or even a flicker of movement. The only sounds in the whole apartment were Mohinder’s breathing and the growling of the cat.
Mohinder edged around Mr Hairy and reached for the light switch.
‘RRRROWWWWRRR!’ went Mr Hairy and he leapt into the air like he’d been scalded.
For god’s sake, Parkman! Warn a person before you do that!
Then Mr Hairy shot into the living room and hid under the sofa. Mohinder had almost jumped out of his skin so he was wide-awake and, you know, a bit shaken. The kitchen was cold, colder than the rest of the apartment, and every time he tried to light one of the jets the flame blew out. But the windows were closed and there wasn’t a draft anywhere.
‘This is stupid!’ he said, but in, you know, a more classy and English way. He turned on the light in the corridor and folded his arms. ‘It’s not weird, it’s not creepy. I don’t believe in strange phenomenomena.’
Phenomenon, sweetheart.
Oh, thanks.
So, at that point Matt, uh, me, I wander into the kitchen. Wait, I’m telling the story as me, right?
Just say ‘I did’.
Okay, so, I wander in. I’d woken up because Mohinder wasn’t in bed. Then with cat and all that there was no chance of me sleeping through.
I wish that was the reason I woke up at night.
Prostate?
Curse of my age.
‘You okay, Mohinder?’ I asked, only, you know, more mumbly and making less sense because I was all tired and stuff.
‘Just trying to make some warm milk. Do you want some?’
This time when Mohinder tried to light the stove, the flame nearly took his hand off.
Molly started complaining about the kitchen; too cold, too creepy. She was right about the cold and everyday it seemed to get even colder in there.
The stove started playing up during the day too. It wouldn’t light, and then it lit by itself. Some days it was fine and then some days it was perfect. Then the dishwasher started up; same thing, wouldn’t work or started by itself. All the food in the freezer cooked in the boxes. The tinned food fermented right in the cans. One night there were BANGS from the kitchen, and when I went in all the cat food cans had exploded.
And the room just kept getting colder.
We called in a structural engineer, an electrician, and a surveyor. The structural engineer nearly got frostbite when the temperature dropped through the floor and the door jammed shut, the electrician’s screwdrivers melted in the toolbox, and the surveyor just ran away screaming. Never found out what that was about.
‘You guys,’ Molly said, all serious like little kids can be. ‘The kitchen is possessed, or haunted. Or something! You got to get it fixed!’
‘It’s not a movie, Molls,’ I said. I don’t know where she gets this stuff. ‘That stuff’s not real,’ I promised.
She rolled her eyes at me walked into the kitchen. Her hair floated up around her head like a halo and she was lit by this weird blue light. Mohinder dashed in, grabbed her up, and ran back out.
‘Mohin...der!’ she whined, squirming out his grip and running away.
‘Matthew, we need an exorcist!
He only calls me ‘Matthew’ when he’s seriously annoyed at me, or worse. ‘Matthew’ is like the ultimate, ‘Stop What You’re Doing And Listen’.
Hey!
It’s true, babe.
‘What do you want me to do, look in the yellow pages?’ I asked. ‘It’s not a dybbuk. I don’t know if a rabbi covers that kind of exorcism.’
‘What about a Catholic priest? They have special people.’
‘Uh, neither of us is Catholic?’ I said, confused. ‘Why would they help us? They’d probably make us take sacrament or something.’
Mohinder laughed at that. ‘I don’t think they’d welcome us somehow. There must be someone. You ring your rabbi and I’ll check the yellow pages.’
‘Yeah, ‘exorcism in thirty minutes or less’ or a free pizza?’ I asked.
‘Very amusing,’ he said, but not like he thought it was actually funny. ‘I think we should get Molly out of the apartment.’
So I dropped her off with Peter so they could... braid each other’s hair and stuff. By the time I got back, Mohinder was already tidying up for the exorcist.
‘No free pizza?’
All this talk about pizza, Parkman. It’s making me hungry.
‘No free pizza,’ Mohinder agreed. ‘Don’t worry; he’s not a Catholic priest.’
We stared into the kitchen, which was radiating cold. ‘A rabbi?’
‘A ghost rescue expert,’ Mohinder said.
Ha!
There’s no way I could say that with a straight face.
The man at the door was small and neat, wearing a dark blue suit. He looked more like a bank manager than anything else. I was expecting maybe, uh, a hippie, you know? Long hair and beads. So he gets to the kitchen and just nods. Then he pulls up a chair by the threshold, takes out a pad and a pen, and says, ‘So, let’s talk about your mother.’
Hehehe!
Weak Parkman, very weak.
So he left after a couple of hours, right, saying he was ‘cautiously optimistic’. But ice was starting to creep past the doorway and into the rest of the apartment.
Mohinder slipped his hand into mine and squeezed gently. ‘Come on, this is the point in the movie where the audience are screaming at us to get the hell out.’
‘You’re right, let’s go get a motel somewhere.’
We grabbed our bags and headed for the door, which is when we heard the sobbing.
‘We should go,’ Mohinder said.
‘We should.’
‘Will you please shut up?’ someone asked testily. ‘I’ve just about had it with your whining and complaining. Be a man.’
‘Well I’ve had it with you yelling at me!’
Mohinder and I looked at each other before creeping back toward the kitchen. Inside was a swirling ice cloud but we could see two guys, kinda misty, facing up to each other: an African-American guy and another guy, maybe Spanish, going head to head.
Both of them in like, tight tank tops? Both kinda muscled, the African-American with a shaved head and the maybe-Spanish guy with tousled curly hair.
Our ghosts are hot?
Not as hot at you.
Suck up.
‘Excuse me...’ I began.
‘Oy! Shut up!’ Mohinder snapped. They stopped and looked at him. ‘Are you two responsible for driving us out of our home?’
‘You’re not gone,’ the Spanish guy said sheepishly.
Mohinder lifted up the bag and gestured with it. ‘We’re just going.’
‘That’s your fault,’ the other snaps. ‘Big baby messing with the temperature.’
‘I just wanted some attention,’ he pouts.
‘Well done, you got their attention so much they’re leaving.’
‘Excuse me!’ I said. ‘Look, I’m Matt, he’s Mohinder. Who’re you?’
‘DL,’ the African-American says firmly. ‘And this nonsense in here is nothing to do with me.’
‘Isaac,’ the other man sulks. ‘You don’t know where I can score some H do you?’
DL shakes his head. ‘They have a kid, man, a kid who you scared the crap out of!’
‘Sorry,’ he says sheepishly.
‘Do we need to get the exorcist back?’ Mohinder asks. ‘Some more talking...’
‘No!’ they both said quickly. ‘We’ll be good.’
Mohinder scowled then...
I’m too grumpy in your story. Come here and I’ll show you how nice I can be.
But I haven’t finished!
Let your boyfriend grope you, Parkman. You ran on about a third of the way past the natural end. Nathan, you’re up.
I suppose someone else, someone not as close to him, might have realised sooner. He was my friend though. That he was sometimes over excitable, sometimes too caught up in his experiments, never worried me or our other friends. He was going to change the world or die trying. From being a child, he talked about the day that ‘Mohinder Suresh’ would be known to all children as the benefactor of the age.
Oh I see, this is revenge for the vampire story.
There was always wildness in him that, in conjunction with his natural beauty and fierce intelligence, marked him out in any crowd. He was never short of willing companions, male and female, but he always found something lacking in them. I merely thought him too discriminating in his tastes, I never for one moment dreamt...
He became obsessed with death. Something, I know not what, filled him a total terror of mortality, a disgust of the natural order of birth and death. He began talking of nature not as something sublime and beautiful but corrupt and unclean. My mother told me to distance myself from him; oh, I wish that I had listened!
Nathan, what’s your narrator’s name?
What’s he look like? Come on, we need to know if he’s ‘cute’!
On a dark and stormy night...
Why is the weather always bad in scary stories?
On a dark and stormy night, I went to see Mohinder at his lodgings. Plague was rife in the town and I was worried, as I had not seen him in some days. The man who met me at the door was not my friend of old; his cheeks sunken, his lips pinched, and his eyes as mad and staring, as I had ever known them.
‘Nathan!’ he ejaculated. ‘What are you doing here?’
He WHAT?
It means he exclaimed, Parkman. Look it up.
‘Dear god man!’ I said, and saw him flinch at the mention of ‘god’. ‘What is wrong with you? Let me in at once.’
‘Nathan, you are in grave peril being seen with me,’ he whispered. ‘Truly the wretched creature will see you and punish you for my folly.’
I thought then that the strain had been too much for him and that he imagined things. I was both more accurate and more mistaken than I could have ever dreamt.
‘Let me in Mohinder, and this creature will have less chance of seeing me.’
His lodgings appeared the cell of a mad man! There were clothes, books, and ornaments strewn everywhere. A haunch of beef was rotting on the table, mead and other drinks were turning in the bottles, and in the midst of this confusion a basket of plump unpecked cherries, bloom down cheeked peaches, full and fine pomegranates, rare pears, and succulent plums.
‘Do you see?’ Mohinder demanded, near to crying, as he waved a hand at the basket. ‘Do you see how the demon taunts me?’
With fruit?
‘Mohinder, I beg you, tell me your tale from the beginning.’
‘You will think me mad,’ he said quietly. ‘But I must speak of it to someone. Come and I will show you the worse of it: my workshop of filthy creation.’
He showed into the room he kept as a workshop. My god but the smell! Worse than the stink of chemicals, worse than the stench of rotting food from the main room, there was the terrible, clinging reek of death. There were limbs here, with full flesh; jars in which dark, engorged organs floated in clear fluid; and bottles of blood.
‘Mohinder, my manservant knows I am come here,’ I said, feeling an unfamiliar rush of fear toward my friend. Mohinder was of slight build, could he really have killed so many people? Surely, his passions could not have run so far astray with him.
He laughed in a tired way, as though there were nothing else to do. ‘You are in no danger from me, save by the consequences of my previous actions.’
Oh, very reassuring, mad-scientist me!
‘Where came those unfortunates?’ I demanded.
‘Graveyards and the hangman,’ he said as if it were no matter. ‘They were already dead, Nathan. They felt nothing. I however, am so tormented! My suffering is the worst and most intense in the world! You have no idea what it is to feel the misery that I feel.’
Oh brother.
‘Mohinder, you have desecrated the dead!’
‘It matters not! Oh Nathan! I was to be worshipped as a god by a race superior in all ways to humans and who would acknowledge me as father and creator!’ He threw up his arms as he said these words, and was illuminated by a crash of lightning.
‘If you are caught you will be hanged! Whether you pay the price in this life you will certainly pay it in the next.’
He shook his head and looked at me with a fond sadness. ‘You do not understand. I am paying the price for more than that. I dared to take the fire from the gods, Nathan. I created a living being capable of such things! Stronger, larger, and with more capacity than a human. I selected his features for their beauty, his brain for its potential, I made a creature so perfect, so special, that god himself would envy me. I made a creature so sensitive to others that it could almost see their souls.’ He shook his head. ‘I wrought a monster. A demon. As soon as it opened its eyes and reached a shaking hand toward me, I knew. I knew it was evil.’
Hey, that’s not fair! How can he say that? Poor thing probably just wanted a hug or something.
I don’t think the good doctor is the most reliable judge.
I could not believe it. That such a thing could be done was impossible, that such a thing had been done defied every tenet of faith I held dear.
‘Where is this supposed creature now?’
Mohinder shook his head as he paced the room. ‘I ran, that night. Ran and left it here alone. When I returned the following evening it was gone and I thought myself free of its evil malignity.’
For the love of PETE! What kind of utterly self-absorbed, demented, lunatic bastard do you think I am?
You had me snap a girl’s neck, Suresh. Play fair now.
‘When was this?’
‘Three months ago,’ Mohinder said. ‘I put it from my mind and did not think of it again until my sister’s death.’ He looked at me with narrowed eyes. ‘You have heard, I am sure, that a serving girl was hanged for the crime?’
‘Certainly, they found some stolen jewellery on her.’
‘A trick, a trick of the monster I created. It murdered my sister and blamed the poor innocent child,’ he said shaking his head. ‘Still, she died knowing she was innocent. Her sufferings were over but mine continue.’
‘How could you be sure?’ I asked. ‘How could you know that this... monster was responsible?’
‘I knew!’ he said strongly. ‘In my heart I knew it. The evil I made was striking against my loved ones.’
‘Then you made representation on behalf of the girl? Attempted to prove her innocence?’
He looked surprised at the thought. ‘No. I would not have been believed. I waited for my death to come, instead...’ he walked across to a bureau and removed a sheaf of letters. He selected one from the bottom and handed it to me with a flourish. The penmanship was rough and uncertain, the letters almost childish in their construction, and I was minded to think he had not written them himself.
‘Dearest Master,
Your most devoted and loyal slave begs an audience. Wilt you not provide guidance and society for your creation? I plead you be compassionate to my wretched loneliness and misery. If thou wilt speak with your unworthy creature, please place in your window a flower. I will attend at once.’
This is going to be depressing isn’t it?
Story-me certainly seems to need a good slap, and possibly an antipsychotic...
I did not understand the point he meant to make to me, and said so. In frustration, he gave me the rest of the letters.
Over the next few hours, I read the letters. At first unsure if someone were playing a form of joke on Mohinder, I was gradually won over by the consistency of themes, thoughts, and personality displayed by the writer. The writer of the letters repeatedly begged for an audience, for guidance, and, if love were too much to desire, for compassion. The more I read, the angrier I found myself at Mohinder’s repeated reference to it, to him as a monster, as evil, as a demon, and to his treatment of one to whom he owed care. The creature described being hated and hunted everywhere he went. He had been forced to live on scraps of food and had learnt speech, reading and writing from spying on the village children at their religious lessons. His ‘specialness’, of which Mohinder had been so proud, enraged the simple villagers he met. His peculiar sensitivity to their thoughts and wishes made them feel exposed, vulnerable. Yet he did not blame Mohinder for this, instead referring to him as ‘dearest Master’ and to himself as being ‘devoted’, ‘loyal’ and ‘obedient’. Surely, no-one had such an earnest devotee as Mohinder, and one so unfairly loathed and detested.
‘Mohinder, this last one is dated yesterday. Why have you not given the poor wretch an audience?’
Mohinder stared at me as if I had said that two and two were five. ‘He would kill me!’ He propelled me back into the other room and gestured at the food. ‘See how he attempts to poison me?’
I don’t think I can listen to all of this. It’s too sad.
Suck it up, Parkman. I listened to your bickering ghosts.
‘He thinks you ill,’ I said, finding the relevant letters. ‘He does not think you are eating.’
‘Nonsensical lies!’ Mohinder roared. ‘Why should he think that? Am I not in perfect health?’
‘Truly Mohinder, I think you look very ill indeed,’ I said and he seemed honestly surprised to hear it.
‘How does he know, hmm? He watches me!’
‘He worships you,’ I said as mildly as I could, though my blood was heated. ‘That is what you wanted. That is what you have. That you have been a most negligent creator is not his fault.’
‘It is a thing devoted to evil, and means to kill me,’ Mohinder wailed, and seemed most sadly genuine in this deluded belief.
Huh, not denying being a crappy ‘god’ then.
The man isn’t right, Matt. He’s delusional and paranoid.
‘Have you had any dealings with him that you have not told me of? Have you really only seen him when he awoke?’
‘Yes, not since then.’ Mohinder ran his fingers through his hair. ‘The food and drink he leaves on the step.’
‘He has never forced entry?’ I asked. ‘Never waylaid you on the road or on the step? If he is such a monster, such a menace to you why has he not done these things?’
‘He... I... He sends me food. Why would he do that if he does not mean me harm?’ he asked. He was swaying slightly and perspiration beaded on his brow.
‘For some reason I cannot fathom he is devoted to you and wishes you well again. Mohinder, really, you should eat something for I perceive you are very ill indeed.’
He collapsed down on a chair and looked around the room. ‘I have to work. I thought if I made another one they would keep each other company and leave me alone. But then I thought that would be worse. They should have monstrous children.’ He shook his head. ‘They would be a tribe of creatures spreading evil and destruction and generations not yet born would curse my name.’
‘Naturally, it is all about what people say of you.’
He looked at me in confusion and I knew he was too far gone to understand. I ate a peach from the basket, it was juicy, and sweet, to show him that it was safe.
‘The fruit is without poison so please eat some.’
Mohinder shook his head and tried to stand. ‘You are in league together! You...’ He swooned then into a faint from which I could not wake him.
I did what I could to make him comfortable and then I cleared away the rotting food and drink. Leaving him sleeping uneasily in his bed I went outside and plucked a flower from the small garden. I put it in the window, pulling back the curtain hoping any watcher would see it was I that had done it, and then I waited on the step.
If the creature does turn out to be a bastard I’m going to be SO disappointed.
Too obvious a twist. Why have a twist when everyone could see it coming?
Have a little faith, Parkman.
The rain was driving and the town was only lit by the dim half moon and the occasional flash of lightning but I made out the dim figure. Larger than most men and in dim, shapeless rags he had scavenged for clothing, I expected him to shamble toward me but instead he moved with grace. His form was unusual and his countenance spoke on misery and hardship. He looked about him like a hunted animal watching for the predator and approached me most cautious.
‘Art thou the doctor?’ he asked softly, huge hands twisting together anxiously. ‘Is the Master very ill?’
Why does he talk like that?
Let me guess, the bible the children were taught from was a very old one, right?
Bingo.
‘Mohinder is very ill but I am not the doctor, there is no doctor for a hundred miles. I am a friend of his though.’
‘Wilt thou nurse him to health?’
All remaining doubts fled in the face of his earnest concern for Mohinder; whatever his origin this man had no desire to harm Mohinder.
‘I cannot do it by myself.’
He looked at me and I began to understand what was meant by his ‘peculiar sensitivity’.
‘Thou wouldst have me nurse him though believing he wouldst wish it not.’
‘Mohinder is not, I fear, capable of making sound judgements.’ I stood up and the creature stepped back as if automatically afraid. ‘Come inside out of the rain else you will have more need of a nurse than fill the office of one.’
He hesitated on the doorstep, looking into the room uncertainly. ‘The Master... I wouldst not displease him.’ Before I could speak, he shook his head. ‘That the Master is not pleased with me I know. I am a sinner and do revolt his eyes. I wouldst not add wilful disobedience to the sins of being alive.’
‘Mohinder is unwell. Is aiding him against his inclination a worse... sin than leaving him?’
He looked down at his hands. ‘Thou doest not believe him worthy of my fidelity.’
Would anyone?
‘It matters not what I believe,’ I said.
‘I will assist,’ he said eventually.
I left my huge companion in the main room and see if Mohinder has awoken yet. Instead of recovering he was now soaked with perspiration and thrashing in delirium. In his ravings, he sobbed and cried out, both for revenge and for forgiveness. When he had quieted somewhat I went out and found that the creature had cleaned the main room, scrubbing both walls and floor, and moved to the workshop.
‘Place of my creation,’ he said, looking at me. ‘Unclean and unwholesome as I am.’
‘It matters not where we come from but where we go.’
He smiled and nodded. ‘Thou art wise. Art the Master better?’
‘No, worse. Will you help me bathe him?’
‘I will.’
‘What do you call yourself? I cannot call you ‘creature’ now.’
He finished cleaning the floor and stood up. ‘I have no other name. The Master never gave me one.’
That he said it without anger or frustration only added to my sense of Mohinder’s unworthiness.
He carried Mohinder like a babe, placed him in the tin bath with patient care, and bathed Mohinder with a mix of tenderness and reverence that spoke of far more than respect and veneration.
‘What do you want from him?’ I asked.
‘Happiness,’ he said quietly.
‘That is too much to ask from any one person,’ I said gently. ‘He is only a man.’
The creature stroked Mohinder’s cheek and mouth. ‘Then wouldst I have Him not hate me. Though all other men do, I wouldst have him not.’ He looked at me. ‘Wouldst that be too great a wish?’
‘No. It would not.’
Over the days, Mohinder recovered in both body and mind. That he feared the creature at first and struck out at him often I wish I did not have to say. That this gradually passed into a tearful melancholia was sad but necessary. It seemed as though I could, in good conscience, leave Mohinder in the care of his creature.
Uh oh.
Oh damn, just when I thought it was going to end well.
The plague had worsened and the villagers were in uproar. It only took for one of the villagers to see the creature as he fetched fruit in the night, for a mob to form. We saw them march down from the church, waving torches and pitchforks.
‘You must run, now,’ I told him. ‘Before they arrive.’
He nodded and turned to go, but Mohinder gripped his hand. ‘Take me with you.’
‘My carriage is outside,’ I said. ‘Go on, quickly.’
‘Thank you,’ the creature said to me as he lifted Mohinder up. ‘It shall be remembered.’
They rode through the mob, scattering them hither and thither. They rode for the mountains; where they stopped, I do not know and how they lived, I have no idea. I am sure though, that they did live.
Yay!
Parkman, you’re so sappy.
Shut up, I’m happy.
‘Dad!’ Claire calls. ‘We’re back!’
‘Did you get a good haul?’ Matt asks as she leads her band into the room.
‘Matty got more than everyone,’ Molly confides. ‘But we shared it out.’
‘Good girl,’ Mohinder says, kissing her forehead. ‘We better call the cab.’
‘So did you guys have a good time?’ Claire asks.
‘Eh, it passed the time,’ Bennet says with a shrug.
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Date: 2009-10-31 07:40 pm (UTC)LOVE YA!
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Date: 2009-10-31 07:57 pm (UTC)Thanks again! <333
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Date: 2009-10-31 10:22 pm (UTC)This was actually really amazing, I love how each story was told in a different style.
Geez, reading Nathan's story, I felt like I was rereading Frankenstein.
Very nice!
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Date: 2009-10-31 10:32 pm (UTC)I did the 1818 version of Frankenstein this past year and absolutely adored it :D One of my all time favourites.
Thanks so much! <3
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Date: 2009-10-31 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-01 01:37 am (UTC)All of these stories were fantastic with enough there to build on to expand into fully fleshed out fics at a later date if you were of a mind to.
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Date: 2009-11-01 09:23 am (UTC)I was trying to differentiate the different narrative voices so Mohinder got to be slightly overblown with slightly dodgy dialogue, Bennet was very curt, Matt was uncertain and rambly, and Nathan was both more polished and made himself the good guy, LOL.
I was quite resistent to doing the Frankenstein one since I plan to do it as a proper full length story at some point. But hopefully people won't mind if I come back to it, I'm pretty pleased with it :D I'd love to expand Matt the human/vamp hybrid at some point.
Thanks hon, for both the feedback and for your help <333
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Date: 2009-11-01 01:39 am (UTC)Although I have to ask, who was Mohinder's Monster supposed to be? I couldn't figure out if it was Peter or Sylar. The emotional connection made me think Peter, but the obsession and height made my brain go to Sylar.
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Date: 2009-11-01 09:25 am (UTC)I left it a bit vague deliberately so readers could decide. For me he's Matt but he could work equally well as Sylar, since Sylar's intuitive grasp perhaps could be focussed on how people work as well as powers/things.
Thanks again! <3
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Date: 2009-11-01 03:23 am (UTC)I love these, although Matt's story was my favorite. All the voices are distinct but his seemed especially great to me, and was all the funnier for his self-conscious telling. Awesome job, these have really enlivened my week! <3333
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Date: 2009-11-01 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-01 09:30 am (UTC)Matt's was the easiest once I go into it because I could really see him doing that, stumbling over his words and repeating phrases. I know I do it :D
Thanks SO much for your help especially when I burbling away trying to work out what to do, hee!
(I guess I don't have to check that anon commenting is still on eh?)
Thanks hon! <333
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Date: 2009-11-01 04:57 am (UTC)Love the way you had them all tell their stories, and love it when you have these four get together! ;) And I know it was a small part but I have to say baby Matty is such a cutie!! Hehe
Loved it!
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Date: 2009-11-01 09:36 am (UTC)Frankenstein is one of my all time favourites and I really enjoyed reimagining it and upping the slash. Not much though, even my text book calls it 'homoerotic'. I had to give the Creature a happy ending (even if Mohinder didn't really deserve it), I'm too much of a sap not to :)
I like people sitting around chatting :P So boring I know but I think Matt, Mohinder, Bennet, and Nathan just spark together really well. I had to keep an eye on how much they were interruprting so the flow wasn't totally destroyed, heh.
Thanks again hon! <333
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Date: 2009-11-01 07:33 pm (UTC)Admittedly I started to love the outside dialogue more than the stories are they were so snarky and amusing, especially Nathan. Brilliant work indeed :)
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Date: 2009-11-01 07:47 pm (UTC)Admittedly I started to love the outside dialogue more than the stories are they were so snarky and amusing, especially Nathan.
Hehe, yeah I did have to try not to get too carried away with the outside dialogue :D
Thanks, glad you liked it! <333