Resurrection of the Heart
t's him...He's the one!"
Now, I'd like to think those final words from the woman I loved, screamed in an electronic brain-piercing hiss, just seconds ago, are the reason I am now mustering the courage to confront the horrific reality that currently surrounds me. But the fact is, the sight of gooey slime covering the warm lumpy mass of my intestines - which had just now been ripped from the gaping wound in my stomach and thrust into my bruised hands - happened to be the more potent wake-up call.
As my mind races, trying to piece together what's going on, the crippling pain in my mid-section is subsiding, allowing me to gather enough energy to open my tightly clenched eyes. Unfortunately, to my horror, I now realize that the blood spewing out of my controted mouth obscures so much as a glance of our attacker.
I sit back defeated in my feeble attempt at warding off this thing that now seems to be sucking the very marrow from my bones. Oh God, the initial shock is fading, the numbness in my body succumbing again to the fierce pain. My one refuge from the very real prospect of being eaten alive is to use my gift for escaping down a neural path to the purely rational, to shut out the nightmare for the few precious seconds I have left.
It's as if my mind has assumed a fetal position and now I can clearly recall all the events that led up to this untimely demise-to-be, the last hours tatooed on the very nerve endings of my soul. But as I relive these memories in this temporary time vacuum, I find they're nearly as painful as any physical wound. Meanwhile, I can hear my left leg shattering under the pressure of the ravaging jaws. The crackle echoes faintly as I push myself further into a ball of surreal consciousness and ressurect those last hours.
The subway station lay cold and barren, a stiff November wind gushing in from the open stairway leading up to the city streets. It's Friday, four hours after the homeward rush, but such was no explanation for the total lack of human life. I sat stiffly on the bench on the platform betwixt the two tracks, trying hard to drain the last scintilla of warmth from my wrinkled suit jacket, doing so as discreetly as possible to avoid looking like a downright bum. I leaned toward a steam vent to the right of my little roost, staring blankly at an advertisement, one with a girl smiling and holding up a tube of toothpaste. It reminded me of her. She was late. But then again, in all the time I had known her, had she ever had the common decency to be on time?
I tried to push these harsh feelings aside, knowing that it was only a mask for my anxiety. I had every right to be anxious. Ms. Beatrice Preston, my former high school sweetheart, was now the president of my company. Ten years after graduation and already she had risen to the top. Of course, daddy, the chairman, had built an express elevator for her, but besides that extra push, she really did have a certain drive to gain the things she wanted.
Thoughts such as these briefly passed through my mind the other day as I opened her letter, requesting we meet at a secluded place. Of course, her secluded place was not what I had in mind. A cafe, a park, maybe even a hotel, especially the latter, any such option would have sufficed. But a vacant subway terminal? It was like her to pull this on me.
"Jeff? Jeffery Marmon?"
The sudden burst of sound in the tunnel startled me and all thought was flushed out of my mind. I tried unsuccessfully to straighten myself up a bit. I must admit I was not in tip top shape at the moment, one of the costs of waiting a short eternity in 30-degree weather.
"Is that you, Bea?"
As she walked toward me, I felt a twinge of anger. Why had I waited so long for her to show up? I then caught myself; such a stupid question. She then strutted over and I was yet again mesmerized by her stunning beauty, as I had been so many years ago, and I realized why I had waited and why she knew I would. It was as if I'd been transported back to my high school days, when we first met, only in place of her red and gold cheerleading outfit, she now wore a charcoal grey business suit that just screamed executive suite. She was the wild one in our group back in school, the one who shouted down the security guards at the mall for trying to reign in her sometimes mischievious showboating. She was that kind of girl, yet as I looked at her now for the first time in ten years, I noticed a subtle change in her demeanor. She carried herself differently, no longer a reckless teenager but very much the ruthless financial predator. My assumptions were soon to borne out, but in ways I could not have imagined, let alone forseen.
"Listen Jeff, it's been a long time and I know I haven't kept in touch, but I have a problem and I need to ask you for a favor."
I stared, stunned. "Are you insane?"
"Please, Jef..."
"No, you listen. You have some nerve asking me to come out here at night and then have me hanging around waiting for so long in these near artic temperatures, all so you can ask me, me of all people, just a salesman drone cum dumped sweetheart, about some kind of corporate favor thing?"
Like I said, she had nerve and I was edgy. I came off sounding more obnoxious than I had planned and she seemed hesitant to reply.
She finally answered, "I dragged you out here because our company has a big problem, and frankly, because, Jeff, I can trust you and I know you...unfortunately, so does our problem. You remember Terrence, from back in school?"
"Terrence? Terrence Henderson?!" Shock coursed through me as the name passed my lips. He'd been my rival for her affections.
"Yes, he's the problem. A friend of yours, wasn't he?"
"After a fashion, I suppose, but I have'nt heard that name since our junior year of school. He came to work for your old man soon thereafter. If my memory serves me correctly, he entered a specialized co-op post-secondary program for gifted students, one requiring some sort of rigorous physical and mental testing. I never kept track of whether he made it or not."
She sighed. "Well, let me fill you in. He did pass all the requirements, went on to MIT, post-grad work, all at our expense, and when he returned he was ultimately given a post on one of our top secret projects, the ABC program. He came into his own when he developed..."
I was feeling, suddenly, too much the bare-threads salesman. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could you please just get to the point. I really don't feel like sitting here all night listening to Terry's accomplishments. What's the problem?"
Though impatient with the details of my old rival's life, we had left the dank platform and were now standing inside a small glassed-in waiting area, the cold wind cut considerably. I was prepared to indulge her awhile more.
"So you were saying?" And as if to antagonize me further, she twisted the subject, straining my patience to the breaking point.
"You know, I really should have had you meet me in here. It's amazing what a pane of glass does against the wind." She seemed to be toying with me, as if to dig me for my bluntness. Then she jumped back to the subject at hand. "He got frustrated..."
"Pardon me?"
"You know, Terrence. He got extremely frustrated with my father's policy of less funding, more results. Is that straightforward enough for you, Jeff?"
"Thanks. I know, while you're at it, why don't you read me the 'Cat In The Hat' again mommy." I meant that as sarcasm. Where were we going with this? But I caught myself before I went over the edge.
"J - ef, I'm sorry. I'm just tense."
Something wet and glistening in her eyes softened me up. "Okay, okay. Look, I owe you an apology as well. I had no right to..."
It happened very fast, but I'll try to piece it together. I saw Bea's head turn, her jaw drop. There was a loud crash behind me, and then a kind of electronic grunt, something hugely artificial scraping in upon its own mechanics to create, ultimately, an unholy roar. "JEEEFFFFFFFFFEEEERRRRRYYYYY111
I swiveled on a long forgotten instinct and faced the disturbance. There, standing on the shards of broken glass, was a most horrific creature. Towering well above my head, the thing spoke again, and through its jagged metal teeth, it issued a noise that went reverberating through my skull.
"JEEEFFFFEEEERRRRRYYYYY...IS NOT BRAIN FORRRR..." The robotic monstrosity took a step forward, its heavy steel limbs lurching, its mouth moving as if it were trying to speak again. It seemed as if it were almost fighting with itself to form the right words, although "Got you, April Fool!" was not what it seemed to be groping for. The whole scene was surreal. My head was spinning. I turned back and was confronted by an even greater horror. Right in front of me, where just a few seconds ago stood Beatrice Preston, president of one of the biggest companies in the world, lay a pulsating lump of flesh. Had it not been for the low guttural growl from a huge orfice, I'd have thought Bea had melted into a lifeless pulp. To my utter amazement, the sack of flesh started to creep toward me, as did the robotic monstrosity, the latter still struggling with its artificial vocal cords. I stood, paralyzed by fear, as the lumpen mass of Bea's flesh conveyed a concise telepathic message: The acronym ABC stood for "Artificial Resuscitation Construct."
My heart quaked as all this sank in; they were playing God! As if in response to this sudden realization, the robot spoke, ultimately with crisp clarity, and I was shocked anew: "JEFFFERR888 BBBBBZZZzzz CRACK...Jeffery, listen, it's me, Batrice. I was killed in a bizarre accident involving Terrence. He too was killed but my father in his dimentia ordered our brains downloaded into artificial forms, mine robotical; Terrence's in an an alien's body. The extra terrestrial was a once harmless and non-sentient shapeshifter secured from the government as part of a life-extension experiment. Terrence adjusted his form into something woefully unstable and predatory and he has escaped his confines and and has been feeding on people to sustain his bio drives. I've been sent to stop it. You must get out! You must...CONNECTION LOST." The following events happened so quickly I did not see the totality of what happened. The flesh blob lurched, bounced, and then shifted into Terrence, before turning back to an even more heinous form, which now engulfs me and has invaded and clogged the robot's circuits. The Bea robot's one last coherent statement: "It's him. He's the one!!!"
Mr. Marmon, calm down. Please."
"But nurse, there's more!"
"Mr. Marmon, it's all right. Besides, you've already told me this part."
"Did I? I'm sorry. May I have more pudding, please?"
"I'll ask Dr. Jones, but not until after you've had your medication."
