***
Melissa regained consciousness and immediately recoiled from the nightmarish presence before her. She attempted to raise her hands to protect her head that smarted from the beast before her but realized they were bound behind her back. Then, for reasons unknown to her, the beast darted behind the couch.
She did not know how much time had passed or what exactly had happened to her, only that a monster had tied her to a rocking chair and that the back of her head throbbed. She looked around and attempted to search for clues that would divulge her whereabouts.
Her eyes studied the room, sweeping from left to right. A pair of upturned orthopedic shoes in the far corner of the room caught her attention. She squinted her eyes against the weak lighting of the room and saw that the orthopedic shoes were worn by plump legs that lay inert surrounded by a pool of dark fluid. Sheer panic set in as Melissa realized that her kindly next-door neighbor, Miss Harriet, was facedown, dead.
Her mind shut down, refused to acknowledge or process what was happening. She suppressed the urge to scream, but instinct suggested it would do no good. Furthermore, she did not want the creature to spring from his hiding place and attack her. She needed to act subtly and try to free herself.
She wiggled and rubbed her arms in an up-and-down motion and felt a slight give in the roping. While she manipulated her arms, she caught a glimpse of the creature cowering behind the couch. It poked its awful head up and looked at her, then hid again. It repeated this twice and resembled a hideous version of the beloved whack-a-mole game offered at carnivals, except she did not have a mallet with which to strike and doubted she possessed the speed and strength required to dominate it.
The creature persisted peeking at her intermittently for quite some time. She did not understand the purpose of its perpetual peeping and disappearing. It almost seemed afraid of her. But such a notion seemed nonsensical. After all, it had murdered Miss Harriet.
Each time it spied from the concealment of Miss Harriet’s bumpy couch, it lingered longer and longer, revealing more details of its construct. She began to detect something very familiar about it.
And then it hit her. Recognition and realization gelled. She knew where she’d see it before. Five months ago in the underground laboratory of Dr. Franklin Terzini, she and Gabriel had seen a partially formed human being in a stainless-steel development tank. Its face had haunted her since. She wondered why she hadn’t recognized it immediately. She supposed some protective measure rooted deeply in her brain engaged itself and forbade her from connecting the two occurrences. She never imagined she would see the creature again save for her mind’s eye, wouldn’t have needed to; its image was seared into her memory. It had resembled a gigantic fetus in its eighth week of development.
Now, however, only insignificant changes had occurred. Gauzy-looking skin barely sheathed the veins and capillaries that bulged in an elaborate matrix throughout his body. Small, thinly lidded eyes had been tightly shut when in the tank but now spied at her through a thick, milky film that shrouded them. She did not remember if it had a nose then, did not see one now; just two holes she guessed functioned as nasal passages. It did not appear to have lips either, though a line that formed where they should have resided implied some type of opening existed beyond it.
As the creature continued its game of peekaboo with her, she pondered whether Terzini had released it early from its fluid-filled development tank to kill her. But her question only gave rise to another question. If it had been released and dispatched to kill her, then why was she still alive?
Question after question swirled in her head. She was stunned when she realized it had emerged from its hiding place behind Miss Harriet’s sofa. It moved toward her slowly, cautiously, with its arms extended in front of it, hands up with palms facing her in a gesture of surrender. It looked even worse out of the tank than it had in it. Its torso was large and curved, lending it the overall impression of crouching as it advanced. Melissa wanted desperately to scream, to cry out in fear. Its webbed fingers, though raised submissively, were attached to formidable hands, dangerous hands. It approached slowly, but she knew it was capable of far swifter movements, its body betrayed its strength. Its flimsy-looking skin did little to hide the thick, ropey muscles in his arms, legs and torso.
She wondered why it didn’t simply kill her, why it was drawing out her death, prolonging the moment before it struck.
A fleeting thought crossed her mind. She didn’t believe it had much merit, but still wondered whether Dr. Terzini had left it behind or whether it had escaped. Such a thought seemed implausible, impossible. Why would it come to her if it had been left behind or had escaped Terzini?
Suddenly she heard herself addressing it in a calm, rational tone that sounded contradictory to what she was feeling.
“Are you going to kill me? Did Terzini send you for me?”
The creature responded with shock initially, narrowing its eyes and creasing the space between them as its head shot back as if upset by the mere implication. Clearly astounded and possibly hurt by her queries, it began shaking its head from side to side in disagreement.
Melissa realized it could not communicate verbally, that gestures and its facial expression would have to suffice. More importantly, it did not appear to want to hurt her. In fact, it looked pathetic.
“Untie me,” she ordered the creature. “I have to leave. Why are you keeping me prisoner?” she asked, but knew he could not explain.
It immediately began pacing. Her question had clearly raised conflict within him; its back and forth walking in the limited space between the couch and rocking chair indicated as such. It scrunched its meager features as it strode, appeared genuinely distraught.
“Please, people are going to be looking for me. I cannot stay here.”
To Melissa’s surprise, it dropped to its knees and placed its two hands together in front of it. Though she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t praying to some foreign deity Terzini had manufactured in his lab, she felt confident his body language was beseeching, that he was begging her to stay. Then it rose to its feet and gestured with one hand in a scooping motion as if digging into an imaginary bowl it held in the other. From these signals its movement transitioned to motions that asked. It was asking her if she was hungry.
Melissa could not believe it had the audacity to think she wanted to eat! She had been kidnapped and tied to her murdered neighbor’s rocking chair. Food was the farthest thing from her mind.
Survival instinct overtook her. She began thrashing, tilting the rocking chair from side to side rather than back and forth.
“No! I do not want to eat! I want to leave! Let me go!” she screamed.
The creature briefly looked as though it had been slapped. Stunned stillness then precipitated a wounded expression on face. Its posture suggested that her outburst had hurt it. Its shoulders slumped dejectedly. It lowered its head woefully.
Slowly, it walked past her, picked up a remote control that sat atop the coffee table and turned on the television then ran from the room like a child.
Melissa’s mind felt as though it were teetering on the apex of great precipice, that at any moment it would plunge into an unfathomable void from which the was no return. People created in tanks with superior DNA, genius geneticists who sought to transform humanity, a monster that wanted to feed her and keep her like a pet, all of it was madness, an incalculable departure from sanity. She could not, and would not, remain where she was. She began feverishly rubbing her arms together to loosen her restraints but to no avail. They were tightly knotted. The minuscule give she felt was for her comfort and nothing else.
After several moments passed and the creature didn’t return, she called out to it, asked it to come back. When it did, she begged it to let her go, to release her. It did not gesture or wave. It ran away from her.
She wobbled wildly once again and toppled the rocking cha
ir. From her position on the floor, she was afforded a clearer view of the late Miss Harriet. Melissa began to cry. She sobbed for quite some time, she was uncertain of how long. Mercifully, mental exhaustion overtook her and she drifted off to sleep.