Beginnings

by J. S. Frankel

  It had probably been a cellar once, but now it had been turned into a laboratory. Roughly fifty feet by fifty feet square, it housed an impressive array of equipment. Four chambers stood at the wall opposite the door. Cables and pipes linked to a generator fed into them. Oval-shaped, they had to be at least eight feet in height and around four feet in diameter. All of them had cracks in the sides and were charred a deep black.

  In the center of the room, a desktop computer, beakers full of chemicals and assorted medical equipment lay on a table. Another table next to it held a jumble of circuit boards and wires. As for the rest, the only other things that stood out were a large refrigerator in the far right corner and a cot next to it.

  A figure lay on the cot, encased in a form-fitting transparent plastic cover. Paul walked over to get a better look. The person inside was a rather smallish man who appeared to be in his seventies. With sallow skin and nondescript features, he could have been anyone. However, given the situation, Paul knew this guy wasn’t just anyone’s kindly old uncle.

  Angela walked over and took up a position next to Paul. She gazed at the body and bowed her head. In a tone that indicated loss, she said, “He was our maker.”

  Okay, go with the dead scenario. “Your maker,” Paul repeated and silently vowed to stop echoing what she said. It was dumb. He fell silent as the totality of the situation hit him. Obviously, this man had created these things. And now he was dead and these monsters were free to roam and hurt and kill.

  However, it didn’t answer the question of why they hadn’t killed him. As he contemplated the intransigence of life, Angela touched his arm, which caused him to jump. “Relax,” she said. “I just need to ask you a question.”

  Right. Don’t enrage the vampire chick. “Sorry, I…uh… Go ahead.”

  “Did you have a place to stay before?” she asked. “What I mean to say is…did you have a family?”

  “No,” he answered, feeling the truth might prolong his life. “I, uh, don’t have parents. I was living in an orphanage.”

  In a quick move, she leaned over to look him in the eye. He felt the warmth of her breath on his face. “I know what an orphanage is. I guess it wasn’t much fun there, was it?”

  “No, not really,” Paul admitted. Oddly enough, right now he felt no fear, only curiosity.

  Angela gave a slight shrug and waved her hand toward the chambers. “I don’t know about other places to live. I only know here. I woke up a month ago. My friends woke up about a week after me. They’re still getting acclimated. Ooze is pretty up to speed, Sandstorm doesn’t talk very much, and CF…” She shook her head, apparently in sympathy for him.

  Call this scenario beyond strange. He had the feeling the oddities would keep on coming. “Um, you woke up?” he asked. “You mean”—he pointed at the chambers—“you were made in those things and this guy”—he waved at the corpse—“made you in them?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Angela and cocked her head to one side as if considering all the angles. “Before I give you more details, let me ask you a question. Do you need a place to stay?”

  It didn’t take him more than a millisecond to say, “Yes.” He needed food, shelter, and even though this situation was totally freaky, acceptance had started to creep in.

  She smiled. “So you need a place to stay, and we need someone to talk to. That’s really all we want, too.”

  “Okay,” he said, his mind somewhat calmer, “tell me your story.”

  Angela led him out of the door. “Where do I start?”

  Chapter Three

  Meet the Crew—Part II

  Back in the living room, Ooze and CF sat on a sofa watching television, with the former focusing on the screen and the latter staring into space. “I guess Sandstorm isn’t going to join us?” Angela asked.

  “Nah,” Ooze replied, flicking through the channels at light speed.

  Click, click went the remote, and the images whizzed by so fast they became a blur. Either he had attention deficit disorder or he could process information much faster than the average homo sapiens. Paul figured it had to be the latter.

  “Is that your answer?” asked Angela with a tinge of impatience.

  Ooze’s head didn’t move a fraction of an inch. “Like I said, he’s still feeling anti-social. You would, too, if you couldn’t talk.”

  Paul wondered how the sand thing could communicate then decided not to ask. The zombie was still eating and stared at nothing while the water-bag finally stopped channel-surfing and settled on a news program that was in the process of giving out the day’s events.

  From the way the broadcasters spoke and their animated expressions, it seemed something new and unusual was about to happen or had already happened. With a note of mounting excitement in his voice, Ooze said, “Hey, I think we finally made the evening edition.”

  Sure enough, a recap began of the previous night’s happenings with the beaten and bruised Bangers being hauled away. The voiceover continued with Louis, his face bloody and swollen and almost unrecognizable, yelling, “A vampire, man, I’m tellin’ ya. It was a vampire…”

  The police escorted him and his friends to their cruisers and took them away. A reporter, young, blonde and serious-looking, intoned, “And that seems to be the story so far. From the information we’ve obtained, it seems a vampire, a young woman, attacked these men tonight and they’re being taken away for treatment then questioning…”

  They conveniently left out the fact the Bangers were going to kill me, Paul thought. Ooze turned around and a smile formed on his face. “Hey, Angela, that was you?”

  She nodded. “It was.”

  “Lookin’ good for a first time,” he replied. “That’s the ticket right there. Own the scum. That’s the way things are done here!”

  He turned back to watching the news. The zombie continued to chomp away and as he ate, his smell gradually disappeared. This was off the chain!

  Paul started to relax, although he remained wary. The front door was close. If he had to run, then he’d motor on out as fast as he could. Screw the cold weather. He was gone. Oh wait. The girl could fly. It wouldn’t be too difficult for her to catch him, and he’d already seen what she could do in terms of fighting prowess.

  The camera then cut to the broadcast booth. “And in another item,” the newscaster said, “a teenager is still missing from St. Joseph’s Orphanage. Paul Wiseman, seventeen, apparently ran away five days ago. If anyone in New York State knows of his whereabouts, please call this number.”

  A picture of Paul’s face appeared on the screen along with his vital statistics. “He is not considered dangerous, but the authorities are concerned…”

  Ooze turned around and a look of surprise appeared on his watery face. “Hey, that’s a nice mug shot. You ran away?”

  Paul nodded. “I didn’t like it there very much.”

  The water-bag shifted and it looked as if he was shrugging. “Congratulations on surviving the mean streets. Don’t worry. You can bunk with us. Angela needs someone to talk to.”

  Angela’s face suffused a bright pink. She mumbled something incoherent then indicated with a wave of her hand for Paul to take a seat on the couch. As he did so, he caught sight of the zombie. He’d finished eating, and the body-rot seemed to halt in its tracks and reverse itself. It was like watching time-lapse photography, only faster.

  Angela cleared her throat. “Hey,” she said.

  Startled by the miracle of science then her voice, Paul swiveled his gaze to meet hers. Her eyes held no malice in them, only honesty, and he started to feel a little calmer. “So, you’re here and you want the whole story?”

  “You said you were going to tell me.”

  Angela sat down beside him and folded her hands in her lap. “Like I told you downstairs, I woke up about a month ago. I was created—we were created—by that man you saw. I don’t even know his name, but he gave us names and life and powers. He downloaded essential facts and data into us. That’s al
l I know.”

  “You knew to come to New York?”

  She tapped the side of her head. “I have knowledge, but I don’t have any experience. There’s a difference, you know. But I’ve got powers and I wanted to see what I could do.”

  “Powers,” Paul echoed and vowed once more to stop repeating things. He’d seen her fly, and she was ridiculously strong. Additionally, he remembered the gunshots. Bullets didn’t slow her down for a moment. “I saw you take care of those punks…but…what can you all do?”

  A face not unlike a smiley emoticon formed on the bag. “See this?” he asked, pointing to his bag. “It’s not really a bag. It’s a containment suit, which is just a fancy name for a bag, anyway. With it, I can walk like you do, but I travel faster in water.”

  The vision of the bucket trick returned, big time. “Wait…so you can actually go through water?”

  Ooze laughed. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am water. Be like water. You know who said that? Bruce Lee did. I become whatever shape I want, and I can control water. Sandstorm does the same thing, except he travels on land and even through the air if the wind’s blowing hard enough. It’s all done on a molecular level. It’s got something to do with atomic structures and being attuned to the particular chemicals and all that.”

  Another brief chuckle burbled out. “The guys in lab coats always use twenty-dollar words. My maker downloaded most of his knowledge in me, but I’m still learning how to do what he did. Anyway, I like to keep things simple. I don’t know the science behind it. It’s in me, so I just do it.”

  An instant later, he contorted his body into the shape of Rodin’s The Thinker, a statue of a baseball player at bat, and a starfish. “It’s impressive—or am I wrong?”

  “Yeah, it’s impressive,” answered Paul, feeling amazed. What other miracles of science were out there?

  Ooze resumed his semi-humanoid shape and said, “I can’t really hold these shapes for too long. I’m still learning. I can walk in my suit, but it’s a little difficult, you know? This suit just wasn’t made for walking.

  “Still—” He paused. “If you really want to see me get around, just dump me in a lake or river and I go where the current takes me. Or I can go against it, if I want. I’m pretty self-sufficient. I don’t eat. I don’t need to breathe. All I need is a container, like what I’m wearing right now. If this suit gets damaged, just toss me in a garbage bag. I’ll make do.”

  Pointing his finger at the zombie, he added with a note of admiration, “CF isn’t much of a talker, just like our dirt buddy. But he’s a doer, and that’s important.”

  “What does he do?” Paul asked.

  “I lift things,” CF answered.

  He got up, and with his thumb and forefinger only, he lifted the sofa and put it down. He then went over to a cabinet in the far corner and did the same thing, lifting it as a child would a toy. Ooze’s voice held a certain note of triumph mixed with awe. “That weighs over three hundred pounds with all the clothes and stuff that’s in there, and he’s just using two fingers. You don’t want to see what he can really do if he has to.”

  He swiveled his gaze to the giant. “Careful, CF. Do it gently,” he counseled with a mildly chiding tone. “This is your home, too, remember? You don’t want to be breaking stuff.”

  “I got it.” The zombie lowered the cabinet. “And now I’m hungry again.”

  “You’re always hungry,” snapped Ooze, frowning now. “Kitchen’s over there. Get something to eat and come back.”

  As the massive zombie creature lumbered into the kitchen, a smile replaced the frown. “CF isn’t what you’d call overly bright, but he’s really strong. I just wish he wouldn’t rot away so much.”

  “Rot…” Paul breathed.

  A laugh burbled out from the water. “You saw what happened before, didn’t you? Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

  Fumbling for the right words, Paul got out, “Yeah, I saw it, and—”

  “You’re having a hard time believing it, am I right?” Ooze interjected, his voice wavering between sarcasm and bluntness. “Well, believe it. If he doesn’t eat, he starts to decay. That’s the deal. When we woke up, it started to happen. I wanted to start a pool on which body part would drop off first, but Angela thought it was too cruel. Anyway, that’s why he was made.”

  “Made for what?”

  Ooze shrugged. The movement sent his body rolling and undulating in waves. “He’s cannon fodder. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Paul recalled Angela mentioning the term. “Uh…”

  “He’s designed to take the first hit and keep taking it. That’s his job.”

  Take the first hit… It sounded like they were soldiers.

  “We were made for a reason,” Angela cut in as she swept her hair behind her ears. “I can’t really explain it, but it’s like I have my maker’s voice in my head sometimes. It’s saying he gave us powers for a reason. He wanted us to be special.”

  Special didn’t cover the half of it. “Uh, don’t take this the wrong way,” Paul began, “but are you really a vampire?”

  Angela looked at him, her eyes guileless. “I can fly and control the wind to a certain degree,” she said. “I’m strong. I know that. But that’s all I can do. I don’t shape shift. I can’t control wolves or rats or peoples’ thinking. I know what a vampire is because of my download, but I’m different. Besides, I’ve never tried human blood before.”

  Her reply about not having tried human blood sent Paul’s heart racing. Was he going to be first on the list? He wiped away the sweat from his forehead. She seemed to notice his sudden fear and raised her hands. “Calm down. I’m not interested in drinking human blood.”

  To hear her say so was a relief and his heart gradually slowed to its normal rate. “But, you guys…eat?”

  “I don’t,” Ooze cut in. “I’m water. I float, I drift and I swim. CF eats synthetic food that our maker made for us. We have a pretty large supply…”

  He stopped speaking as a resounding crash emanated from the kitchen followed by, “I dropped something.”

  “Great,” Ooze muttered as he flowed off the couch and headed to the kitchen. “If he doesn’t eat everything in sight, we won’t have to go shopping for a few more years.”

  Warning given, he disappeared through the door. Angela chewed her lip. “I don’t know much about my powers outside of what I can already do,” she continued. “I know that I can’t be hurt by bullets. Those guys with the knives and pipes, they didn’t hurt me, either.”

  Paul had already seen the zombie regenerate, so what other miracles were in store? “So…let me get this straight. You’ve both got powers of regeneration and you can’t be hurt.” He thought fast. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a vampire, sort of. Can you go out in sunlight?”

  Angela nodded. “I can, but I don’t like it.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  She stopped chewing her lip and the icy glare returned to her eyes. “People out there stare. The first time I went out for a flight, I landed in a town about thirty miles from here. People asked me if I was sick. I didn’t know what they meant, but they started to make jokes. I understood then just how different I was. And you saw the way those punks looked at me, didn’t you?”

  An image of their terror-stricken faces flashed across in front of Paul’s eyes. “Yeah, I did,” he replied.

  A look of distinct discomfort replaced the one of uncertainty. “Ooze can’t go out and it’s sort of obvious about CF because of what he is. Sandstorm likes to stay inside, anyway. The upshot is, we stay here and we keep the drapes closed at all times. We keep a low profile.”

  Keeping a low profile was one thing, but what if someone delivered food or came around to check on the electricity? Putting the question to Angela, she offered a shrug. “I have makeup in my room that makes me look more”—her voice faltered—“more human. The house was registered in my name. I pay the bills in cash and keep the receipts.” She s
wept her hand toward the large cabinet. “We’ve got enough.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair in a quick, nervous gesture. “Anyway, I only go out at night because that’s the only time I can fly. That’s the way things work for me. I’m still strong during the day, but no flying.”

  “Uh-huh,” Paul said, filing this information away.

  “At first, I just flew around this area and learned where everything was,” continued Angela, and she ticked off the places she’d been to on her fingers. “I saw the river, the other houses and the highway. Then I branched out. When I found you last night, that was my first time in downtown Manhattan.”

  In the movies, the mad scientists made clones and creatures. They created the creatures to take over the world, kill and maim, and usually their creations rebelled or escaped by the end of the flick. However, celluloid wasn’t reality. This was.

  “Um, can I look at the lab again?” he asked.

  Angela got up and pulled him up with her. “Yeah, sure, you can look.” A rumble came from her stomach and she wavered on her feet. “That’s low blood sugar working or in my case, low platelet count. I need to eat. My stash is downstairs. And something inside me says we should bury our maker. Can you help me?”

  “Sure,” he answered as she led the way downstairs.

  Once there, she went to the refrigerator and opened it. A massive assortment of tiny bottles filled with red fluid lined the shelves. “This is my dinner,” she said. A transparent injection gun sat on the work table. She fitted one of the bottles onto it, twisted it, and the fluid emptied into the gun. “It’s ready now.”

  After rolling up her sleeve, Angela stabbed herself in the arm. Immediately, the fluid emptied from the gun and her veins stood out as the blood coursed through them. Giving a satisfied “ah” sound, she put the gun down.

  One second later, she stretched out in a movement and gave another grunt of satisfaction. “Yeah, the strength’s coming back.”

  As if to prove it, she did a backflip and showed off some lightning-fast martial arts moves. “That feels good. It’ll keep me going for about twelve hours. It’s synthetic blood.”