Chapter Text
“Hold the lantern up higher, I can't see down here”
“If I do, people might see us Brian! You don’t want to get in trouble for grave robbing again! They said if they caught you one more time, they’d throw you in jail!”
“Then the trick is just not to get caught, Holly”
Holly groaned, lifted up the lantern ever so lightly. The dark graveyard surrounding them was vast and unoccupied, save for the miles of buried bodies and corpses dug below the ground. There was mist covering the earth, and the moon was full; a perfect night for digging. Brian’s shovel kept wedging itself into the cold dirt at each swing.
“Exactly how long do we have to do this again? I’d rather not stay out till the wee morning hours…” Holly mumbled.
“As long as it takes. This is the most important part Holly, we need a brain” Brian sighed.
“Is this gonna be like the last one? We had to clean exploded body parts off the walls for months...”
“This will be different! That one was just a prototype” Brian frowned. Holly rolled her eyes and looked away.
“It stills smells like decaying blood in there” she muttered.
“Shush, I think I hit gold.” Brian smirked, digging up one more large pile of dirt before pointing down for Holly to see. There was an old, grey slab of rotting wood beneath the dirt. Holly grinned and looked back at him.
“Jackpot” She giggled.
“Help me pull it up.” Brian advised. Holly nodded as she placed the lantern down and used her strength with Brian to pull the wood upwards. It quickly snapped in half in her hands. Brian wiped away a bit more dirt before nodding at Holly.
“Hand me the saw” he said.
Holly pulled out the copper colored saw from her bag. “Saw.”
Brian took it by the handle and bent down to get to work.
As Brian cut into the ground, Holly turned her head to the eerie echo of something...like a train whistle?
“D...Do you hear that?” Holly asked.
“I can’t from down here. What does it sound like?” Brian asked, not faltering from his work.
“Like, a whistle of a train? But, none are in service right now, right?” Holly questioned.
“A train whistle? But that...shit, we gotta hurry” Brian started to saw faster.
“Wha-why?” Holly asked as she bent down to the foot of the hole.
“I’ll explain once we get the fuck out of here. Take this” Brian sawed one last time before pulling. The top part of the scalp popped out with the brain still attached it.
Holly already looked like she would throw up while Brian handed her the organ.
“Ew ew ew ew ewwww! It’s all slimy!” she whined as Brian climbed out.
“That’s the idea! Come on.” Brian said, grabbing the bag of equipment and his shovel as Holly followed with the scalp and brain in her hands. He sprinted through the graveyard, his assistant following in tow and staying close as the whistle grew louder.
“Brian?!” Holly asked in worry. “What is that?!”
“Now is the time for running, not a pop quiz, Holly!”
The sounds of a train chugging down a set of tracks came into Holly and Brian’s ears as they darted for the exit. It came frighteningly close until Brian ran through the gates, slammed them from behind, and grabbed Holly to pull her out of the way from whatever was incoming. The loud clang of the cold metal hardly drowned out the noise from the train. It sounded as if it was on top of them, but there was no locomotive in sight.
Holly and Brian stayed silent as the locomotive noise passed by them like a bullet, and once it was out of earshot, they quietly stood next to the cemetery gates, letting the silence stay for a few moments.
Holly, while still holding the brain took a few steps forward and then turned to face her boss.
“Okay. What the hell was that?” Holly frowned.
Brian let out an annoyed sigh as he looked through the bag. “It was nothing.” Holly’s eyes went wide.
“Nothing? That was not nothing! Are you seriously not going to tell me?!”
"It's something you wouldn't believe."
"Right, and me with a mad scientist in a spooky cemetery collecting body parts isn't something I'd believe either." Holly showed the lumpy organ in her hands.
“God, alright, since you won’t let up until I tell you...It was the Scream Train.”
“The S-...Wait, what’s that?”
“It’s a train that takes the souls of passerbys. To who knows where.” Brian said gravely.
Holly’s face went white.
“S-Seriously?”
“Yeah. If we hadn’t have gotten away, our souls would have been taken right out of our bodies and ripped in.”
Holly shivered at the thought of her flesh being a pile on the ground with nothing inside.
“So we just almost died for a stupid mass of nerve tissue?!”
Brian shrugged nonchalantly.
Holly replied with an annoyed groan “This can’t be worth 40 pounds a week.”
“It will be once our new creation is done. Now come on, we have a lot of sewing to do”
Holly frowned, trying not to drop the slippery brain and scalp “Ugggggghhhhhh okay.”
~~~
“Brian, it's happening again! The villagers are yelling about how much of a monster you are, and they- WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?! It’s a goddamn thunderstorm! Get off the roof!” Holly screamed, one hand still holding the door lock closed.
“I have to get some lightning!! Give me a second!!” Brian called, handling a wire and tying it onto a raggedy kite.
“BRIAN!” Holly screeched. He may have been the smartest scientist she knew, but god, he was an idiot sometimes.
Brian strung the wire tightly and sent the kite flying, sending it into the sky as thunderclaps shattered the night’s silence. Ranting villagers were pounding on the door from outside, trying to force their way past Holly.
“Almost….there!” Brian yelled, seeing a bolt of lightning zap the kite, sending a wave of electricity down the wire towards the workshop downstairs. People were screaming from below.
“You've stolen from our relatives, our ancestors!”
“You're defying god!”
Brian smirked before nearing the ledge of the roof and starting to laugh.
“If I defy god, why has he gifted me with his electric sky?! Why has he aided my creation in life?! God is on my side!”
“You son of a bitch!”
“Give back our fathers and sons!”
“I have only made them better. You only let their bodies rot! If have given them new life! I am God.”
Holly was about to call up to Brian, but the electricity surged through the tabletop where their experiment laid lifeless and cut her off. It was now twitching and bouncing with surgical zaps. The lights grew in brightness and intensity as Holly covered her eyes from the sudden burst. She couldn't tell what was louder as she tucked her head away to protect herself; the villagers screams, the electricity, or Brian’s laughter.
Suddenly everything went black and the sound of an explosion shoot the entire building.
Everything seemed to go quiet.
It seemed even the rain silenced.
Once a few minutes had passed, one form stood up from the fallen debris that served as a hiding place.
Holly lifted her head up to look around.
The lab looked ruined and burnt, and various concoctions and failed experiments laid scattered and broken everywhere. The smell of gas oil and traces of flesh filled the air. She shook her head to get rid of some of the small bits of pebbles that was littered throughout her hair. Holly coughed and slowly moved around the wood blocking her way, before her heart sunk.
The table where the experiment once laid was empty.
“Oh no...uhh...Brian?” Holly called. No response.
Holly began walking around the shattered glass on the floor “Brian...?”
Still no call back to her.
Holly’s teeth clenched tight before she heard the sound of moving boards and groaning. She quickly ran over to the corner where the wood was slowly being pushed off, and helping to pull.
“Oh, shit Brian, are you okay?! How'd you get trapped under here? You could've died!” Holly frowned before finally tossing off the log.
Her heart stopped. That wasn't Brian.
She immediately backed up, almost tripping on something behind her as she grabbed the wall. “B-Brian?! H-Help?!”
Slowly, the monster of flesh and corpses rose from the rubble, quickly spotting Holly and slowly starting to lurch towards her.
“AhhHHHH!! S-Stay back!” Holly cried.
It didn't listen to her demands. It inched closer, stumbling but getting faster with each step. Holly tried to run, but there was just too much destruction in the way. She was trapped.
Covering her eyes, she could only wait to meet her maker.
Suddenly the monster stopped in its tracks.
Holly dared to peek through one eye, and look upon the frozen beast.
Brian had come up from behind it, and held tightly to its shoulder so the monster wouldn’t move any further towards Holly. He was covered in soot and his hair was burnt on its tips, still lightly smoking.
“Brian…” Holly would hardly make out her words, her words sounding near the edge of tears from the fright.
“Relax.” Brian said firmly, as he had the monster face him. The monster was tall in stature, somewhat bulky, and swayed gently from a lack of balance. It was stitched up from its arms to its face, while the thread held together decayed green and pale white skin, or what could be called skin. Brown raggedy hair and matching beard, with a single blonde streak, probably from the electrical shock, and to finish it off, two sets of mismatched eyes, dark yellow and fluorescent blue.
“It...it worked” Holly mumbled.
“It’s alive…” Brian grinned.
The monster looked at the two people in curiosity and mild fear, while Brian kept his grip on his shoulder. It looked at Brian and moaned before Brian laughed.
“Alright, I’ll let you go, but first, you can’t hurt Holly. That’s an order. Got it?”
“W...Will it even understand you?” Holly questioned.
“It should, or at least be re-adjusting to hearing words again. If it doesn’t understand me now, it will in about an hour or so” Brian shrugged.
The monster looked at Holly before moaning again. Brian decided to let it go and the monster tried to touch Holly lightly with its hand. She stiffened to its outstretched fingers before it made contact. It was...surprisingly gently, cupping her cheek gently and moving the hair out of her face.
Holly blinked at this but didn’t try and run away.
“Good monster.” Brian said lowly, tapping the monster’s shoulder.
“Does...Does it have a name or is it just ‘monster’?” Holly wondered.
“Hmm...calling it 'monster' would get old fast. Let’s see…” Brian wondered. The mad scientist looked over the bulking experiment and mumbled various names he could use “Hmm...the size of him could be reminiscent of the name Arnold, but he doesn’t look like an Arnold. Maybe a Ezekial, no no. Will? no...Mark, nah...it’d have to be something meaning big or...strong willed...or mighty like a mountain...wait, I got it!” Brian smiled and walked around to the front of it with Holly, “Arin. It’s perfect”
“Arin?”
“Yes, it’s a Hebrew word meaning ‘mountain of strength’. It’s PERFECT.”
“I didn’t know you knew Hebrew.”
“I knew someone who did once. But that’s not important right now.” Holly nodded and turning back to their monster.
“Well Arin...you’re going to make our dreams come true” she grinned.
“Uhhh?” Arin mumbled.
“Exactly. Arin, you’re going to help us, with a little...task.” Brian said.
Arin gave a slow, heavy nod.
“What are we having him do?” Holly asked Brian. The scientist grinned.
“Revenge. We’ve created an indestructible killing machine, who obeys our every will. This village will be ours in a matter of minutes.”
"How would-"
"-That be accomplished? Simple. We teach him to fight for us. And when the moment is right, we step in and order around these monkeys like we were meant to."
“He’d need to know how to even do damage…” Holly shrugged.
“Look at him already! He's huge and fearsome! I'm sure we’ll need a day tops to make him a destructive weapon”
"If you say so...what do you think, Arin?"
Arin blinked. He had no idea what anyone was even talking about.
"Uhhhh!"
"I shall take that as a yes." Brian smiled.