The Risen

Chapter 2: My Mistake

            Dad's expression twists into a mask of agony.

        Blood is already blossoming brightly through my dad's shirt. At first slowly, and then faster, his heart steadily pumping out his life force. He starts wheezing and breathing heavily. A pool of blood begins to spread on the cold gray cement.

          023 takes the knife out of my dad's chest. This causes my dad to gasp in pain. He starts choking on his own blood from his ruptured lung. He is coughing up blood like crazy and his body is skaking from the shock. Dad's face is pale from loss of blood and not enough oxygen.

        I can't watch this. I grab a frying pan from a table and, ignoring my aching body, charge 023. He turns his head when he hears my footsteps echoing through the unfinished lab, but he is sitting down. An advantage for me. I swing with all my might. The frying pan collides with 023's head with a sound like a gong. His goes cross-eyed and he almost slumps to the floor. But not quite. For a normal person, that would've knocked them out and given them at least a minor concussion, but not this guy. Apparently his muscles aren't the only things that got stronger from the chemical mixture.

        I glance over at Dad. His breathing is almost non-existent. He makes a gurgling sound and blood bubbles up from his throat, eventually trickling down the sides of his face. He gives one last cough before he is silent.

        This infuriates me. I glare at 023 and whack hs head again. And again. I raise and smash, raise and smash, raise and smash the frying pan on 023's head until my arms are sore and I'm breathing hard.

        023's skull is caved in in multiple places. It's all lumpy, and, disappointingly, he doesn't really bleed. No time to figure out why, though. I'll just have to hope that he will stay knocked out for at least twenty minutes.

        I grab the beaker of dark liquid (thank goodness there was enough for two batches) and start filling syringes with the chemicals. I grab the mechanical arms off the table and drag them over to my dad. I do this all in about three minutes because I had to go hunting for more syringes.

        I grab the remote and press the purple button, then orange, then yellow, making sure that this is the right order I watched my dad press the buttons in. After the injections are done, I haul the arms away, and find the gross brown liquid in the microwave. I quickly pour this over dad's body. I drag the long wires out from under the table and hastily wrap them around him, attaching suction cups as I go. I plug the wire into an outlet and press the green button on the remote. This time I look away as the charge consumes the wires. I count off twenty seconds in my head before I hit the red button to stop the electricity. I unwrap the wires, which smoke and burn my fingers, but I don't care. My dad is alive and farting, which is great news. I grab the vial of the new chemical mixture made not an hour before and make him choke it down.

        The change is immediate. I was hoping that my kind father would be different than 023 when this method of raising the dead was tried on him. I guess I was wrong. He lets out a bellow that I am not familiar with. He fixes his hazel eyes on me. It is not a loving gaze. No, this look tells me that I am his new taget.

        What have I done?

        I turn around and run into Mr. Lumpy Head himself.  I try to run the other way, but I'm trapped by my father.

        No. He's not my father anymore, I tell myself. 

        But on more pressing matters, 023 pins me down on the floor with one hand and my used-to-be father raises the dissection knife that still has his own blood on it. I look deep into his eyes and see nothing but cold. I know he will enjoy killing me.

        "What on earth...? Matthew! Stop!" Mom chooses the perfect time to come bursting in with a plate of pigs in a blanket.

        This distracts the mutant men long enough for me to kick the knife out of my dad's hand. It lands near my mother. She nearly faints.

        "Mom, help me!" I yell at her as 023 also pins down my legs while my dad tries to find another knife.

        She drops the plate of pigs in a blanket and rushes toward 023. I can't see behind me, but somehow my mom manages to get 023 off of me. I'm impressed because I had to bang his head with a frying pan fifteen times to get him to stop struggling.

        I spring up and out of the way of my father. He runs right past me. 

        "Mom, let's go!" I shout, but she is already a step ahead of me. She is sawing at the door handle with a knife. Smart lady. It breaks off just in time before both mutants are upon us. We dart out the door and slam it shut behind us. Then we sprint up the stairs.

        "That won't hold them for long," I say. We can already hear them slamming against the door.

        Mom starts packing clothes in a suitcase. I know we don't have time.

        "What are you doing?" I ask. "Are you crazy? They are going to kill us!" 

        I hear the wooden lab door splintering two levels beneath us.

        "You're right, let's go," Mom says. We run to the car. Mom scans her hand on the pad. It reads her fingerprints. A disembodied voice says, "Beth Rado." She gets in the car and switches it to manual. I can hear heavy footsteps behind us. Mom floors the gas pedal and screeches out the driveway, the mutants in hot pursuit.