Before Morticia met Gomez, she was a sullen girl who hated compliments. Most days she hated everyone and everything, but hid it with perfect posture and gentle gestures just like her mother had taught her to. She had just turned fourteen a few weeks before Theodore Morozov came to visit her father’s laboratory.
The doorbell rang its loud metallic shrill just as she was walking past the entrance way foyer, and more from boredom than curiosity, she decided to answer it. In her black and gray school uniform, with a single french braid tying back her long hair, she opened the door to an angry old man who was obviously dying and obviously determined to do it in the worst way.
“Hello, I’m here to see Dr Frankenstein. I have an appointment,” he said as he brushed past her in a determination bordering cruelty. He dropped his coat into Morticia’s arms and walked into the patient’s waiting room; very familiar with the Frankenstein mansion though Morticia had never seen him before. She held the coat for half a second before letting it drop to the floor.
“Ehh..” Lurch said as he came in to pick up the coat and hang in the guest closet.
“Lurch, have you seen that man before?”
“Ehh..” With a nod.
“Is he here for a body swap?”
“Ehh..” the nod was almost imperceptible, but Morticia didn’t need her psychic ability to read Lurch. She’d known him her whole life and his lack of words never meant a lack of character.
“I’m going to watch this one, if father allows it.”
* * * * * *
Dr Frankenstein was in his laboratory doing the final checks on the new body freshly grown. It was his father, mad with genius and free from ethics, who had first discovered how to grow a clone stem cell into the form of a twenty year old body in just twenty days. But twenty days is still time for a developing brain to develop. What the young doctor remembered most from watching his father’s procedures was the new-born screams of the new bodies before they lost their heads for the paying customers. The screams were different in ways that showed the personality of the new life that was created just to die. All of them haunted his dreams.
Despite his father’s disapproval of “needless sentiment”, Dr Frankenstein Jr had discovered a way to grow perfectly healthy bodies that were completely brain dead. They were healthy and strong, in almost any form the customer desired. And just drooled in a simple way from their first few breaths to their way to the execution chair. There were still risks, but it amazed him how many customers were eager to change almost everything despite the risks that were tripled when not using an exact clone.
The customer that Lurch had just informed him now waited in the waiting room was a return customer who had been a friend of his father’s and had the same heartless sensibility. His exact clone was now ready to be born.
Everything on the charts read correctly, so he pushed the button to drain the amniotic fluid and breathe life into the naked body that was the picture of perfect health.
* * * * * *
Morticia took a seat in the waiting room across from the old man. She stared at him, counting the seconds until he felt the need to break the silence for his own comfort. She didn’t get past the count of three.
“Are you familiar with how these procedures work?” Theodore’s skin was dry, cracked, and wrinkled, but his eyes held a self-contained fire.
“No…” Morticia lied, knowing this wasn’t the kind of man who wanted a lesson in anything.
“I was one of the first to have it done. I faked my own death and stole my own fortune from the parasites who thought they stood to inherit. Ha.. or what was left of it after your father took his cut! This will be my third time getting the swap. I was one of your grandfather’s first customers and one of his last. Is your father really as good as they say he is?”
“He’s a better man than his father was, like most boys seem determined to become.”
“Ha! Such wit from such a child! Do you not think girls want to become better than their mothers were?”
“I can’t speak for all girls, but I’d be happy to be much worse at everything my mother is good at.”
“Get ready for disappointment then! Your mother was pretty but it’s clear to these old eyes that you’re blossoming into a rare beauty.”
“Some might say so.”
“My dear, anyone who says different is tragically delusional. Very soon there will be men killing each other just for the chance to be a thing in your possession. In ten years or so, I might come calling. It’s the heart that tells the brain how old it is, not the other way around. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see these wrinkles fade from my face. The society from this lifetime has grown burdensome, and I’m looking forward to the month of isolation to wait for the new body to grow new skin for my face.”
“If you’re lucky… did father tell you the success rate goes down with each repeat procedure?”
Just then her father entered the room. “Now Morticia! Don’t scare the old man who’s here to pay for your fancy schooling!”
“How many peasants have you experimented on so far? Has the success rate dropped below 90% for an exact clone?!” Theodore demanded of the doctor, deeply unsettled.
“The experiments have been extensive and I assure you there is a 92% success rate for an exact clone. Now, if you’ll follow me, let’s begin?”
“I know the way.” Theodore brushed past the doctor, his strong right hand holding a cane that clicked on the stone floor.
“Father, may I watch this one?” Morticia asked with her sweetest smile.
“Will you promise not to unsettle the customer?”
“I make no such promise.”
“Alright, come along.” Dr Frankenstein was too frazzled today to argue with Morticia. A lot of investments were riding on this procedure being a success. Morticia had always taken an interest in his work and watched most of his experiments.
As they entered the laboratory, Theodore was already sitting in the correct chair, next to the one that already held the naked body drooling in it. “Why is this one not screaming like the last two were?”
“I’ve made a very slight change to the brain chemistry just to prevent the screaming for your comfort. I assure you, good sir, that the body is healthy and ready to revitalize your formidable intelligence.” The doctor assured the nervous patient.
“Did your father never tell you that screams are soothing to me?! You’ve made a mistake here if you think this is for my comfort.”
‘For my own comfort you old beast,’ is what Dr Frankenstein was thinking but knew it would be a mistake to say. “Shall we begin?” he asked in a confident voice.
“Yes, let’s get on with it. Let us spit in the face of death!”
Morticia took a seat at the work table that had bloody tools scattered on it. She loved watching these moments of death. Her father never seemed to see it, and she never mentioned it to him. But every time with a failed experiment, she saw the soul’s astral body step out of the physical body and either dissolve into white light or grow heavy with shadow and sink into the earth. She was on the edge of her seat with this one. Unsure if she wanted it to fail or succeed but excited nonetheless.
The metal powered by extraordinary batteries that harnessed lightning began to whir. Simultaneously, metal prongs grabbed onto the head of the old man and the clone just before metal blades came out the sides of the backrests for both chairs to decapitate the bodies. The old head was fit on the new body as a metal collar clamped around the neck to both provide an adhesive and the electric shock meant to revitalize. One shock… Two… Three. It was meant to revitalize on the first!
“DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!” Dr Frankenstein was frantic as he tried to get the highest voltage that wouldn’t damage the brain. “Not this one! We can’t afford this today!”
Morticia knew the additional shocks were now pointless. She saw Theodore’s astral body stand up with a look of agony on its face. Already, it had begun to darken and sink. But Morticia had liked the old man and decided to try something new. She grabbed a bloody butcher knife off the table with her left hand and sauntered over to where the spirit stood in front of the dead head that sat on the dead body. With her right hand she reached into the astral body and took a firm grasp on the heart of the man. The rest of the spirit body followed in a trail as Morticia put the man’s heart inside the dead body’s right hand. With her right hand on top of his she trapped his spirit inside it. With miraculous dexterity and strength, she chopped the hand from the rest of the body.
It failed and hit the floor. It lay there writhing with the overwhelming experience of having all five senses in a single hand. Morticia bent down to gently pick up and cradle the severed hand.
“Morticia, what the hell is that?” Dr Frankenstein had stopped the resurrection attempts just in time to see Morticia sever the hand.
She just smiled and spoke to the hand, “You’re coming with me, Thing.”
She walked out the room with the creature she owned.
“Morticia?!...” her frazzled father was left wondering how much of the human had been left alive without the head.
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