Chapter One

A Chapter by E.H. Koski

First chapter of The Life of MC and Me

Chapter one

Yet again, I am extremely thankful I live alone in this big house with only MC. I sigh, putting my groceries on the kitchen counter and follow the muddy foot prints from the backdoor to the living room. I hear my piano groaning out random notes ever so softly, like it doesn’t want to disturb anyone with its horrible noises. I go into the doorway and cross my arms firmly.

“Michael Samson Crelly, what do you think you’re doing?” my voice is tired and grumpy. It has been one long day, and I didn’t want to come home to such a big mess.

MC jumps at my voice, backing away from the piano. He knows better not to sit on the piano seat while he is wet and muddy from playing in the rain outside, but he can’t resist trying to play when he is inside. I think he used to know how to make this wooden beast sing like a chorus angel, but that knowledge has dug itself deep into his brain, out of his reach. Now all he can do is tap his fingers on the keys. He is always gentle with it, just as he is with everything else. He only hits the keys hard enough for it to be a whisper.

“Sorry,” he grunts, hanging his head so he doesn’t have to look me in the eyes.

I sigh again, walking towards him, making sure to avoid his footprints. I look into his face, trying to see his eyes. He is slightly taller than me, but he knows that that doesn’t matter and he should listen to me. It is like having a fully grown child.

His gray eyes glance up at me quickly, then down again. “Sorry, Kim-ber-lee,” his throat has trouble getting the all the syllables out.

“Look at me, please.”

He reluctantly does look up, his face is a pale bluish color, and since he is sopping wet it makes it look worse. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead, dripping down onto the floor. I watch the water drip down from it for a moment too long and he gets uncomfortable, so he pushes it back, running mud through it as he does.

“Sorry,” he repeats again.

I look him up and down, then at the floor, then at the piano. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, anxious by my staring. I lock eyes with him, and see how pleading his are. His eyebrows are arching up slightly, waiting for me to say something.

I smile softly at him, “Did you want to play more?”

He looks confused, but looks down at the piano and then back at me. He firmly nods.

“Let’s get you cleaned up first, alright?”

He smiles, and nods again. I take his hand and walk down the hall, past the bedrooms, past the basement door, and to the large guest bathroom. I start up the shower as he strips down to his underwear, which are wet from the rain but the only article of clothing that doesn’t have any mud on them. I take his clothes, and then step out the door to wait outside it. When it opens again, it only opens a crack. He reaches out and hands me his wet undies.

“Thank you,” he says before closing the door.

“I’ll start dinner while you wash up.”

He only makes a throaty noise in response to this, but this is nothing new to me. I can remember back when he could only do these noises to communicate. Oh, but that was so long ago.

I go down into the basement, MC’s domain. He doesn’t mind sharing his basement with the washer and dryer; he enjoys the noise of them rumbling away. In some ways it reminds me of him, the way they groan and creak as it spins. So much happening inside, but outside it comes out as a rumble. I let him decorate both the washing machine and the dryer, along with the baskets that hold the clean and dirty clothes. They are all very colorful, all with stickers and even a few painted handprints. I painted his hand and he did mine, then we both stuck them on the side of the washer. This will always be a fond memory of mine, and I think it is one of MC’s too.

I put his clothes into the colorful washer, added the detergent, and started it up. Before going upstairs I looked around the room. It was long and wide, perfect for him since he enjoys pacing around as he plays with toys or reads. He keeps it neat and tidy, since he knows I like it that way. His books, consisting of mostly Dr. Seuss, are on the nightstand. His bright orange bed is made as well as it can be, since his hands sometimes clench up and are hard to move as if he has crippling arthritis. The whole room is colorful, which was my choice at first but MC kept adding to it with pictures and bursts of creativity. It seemed to bring him out of his shell, which what I think is what we were missing back at the lab. One of the many things we had been wrong about.

Going back upstairs, I hear MC’s grunts and slightly formed words, going along in the tune of “Under My Thumb”, by The Rolling Stones. It took me ages to figure that out song he always tried to sing.

I always wonder who he was back when MC had been alive and well, back before we robbed him of his eternal sleep and forced him back into the world of the living. I also wish I could apologize to him for it, but I don’t think he would entirely understand. He could also resent me for doing it to him, and that scares me more than anything.

I push the thoughts away as I go into the kitchen. Grabbing a rag and some cleaning supplies, I start to clean the mess MC has made. First the tile and the sliding glass door, then the hardwood, and finally the piano. It went quickly, and I thank God that I had decided to go with the hardwood floors instead of carpet. I put the cleaning supplies away, and throw the rag into the sink.

I hum the same song as MC was trying to sing to as I put the groceries away. Milk in the fridge, bananas on the counter, beans in the cupboard, packs of beef in the freezer. All fairly normal, except for the amount of raw meat I have in my fridge, freezer, and ice box out in the garage. MC eats this for breakfast lunch and dinner, along with some snacks here and there. That’s the one stereotype that is true, I guess. The undead love to eat raw meat.

MC’s favorite is a few tenderloin steaks, but he is never really all that picky. Tonight though, he is just getting a pound of ground beef. I take the clipboard off the side of the fridge and mark this down. He may not be trapped inside the lab anymore, but I still record everything I can about him, just in case.

I myself decide to have some leftover shrimp pasta. As it warms up in the microwave, my stomach growls impatiently. I remember I had a light lunch, and skipped breakfast. MC had his breakfast, and I see he had himself an apple sometime during the day. I mark that down and continue to set the table. I hear MC shuffling down the hall, pausing at the piano for a moment, but then he gets a whiff of dinner so he continues on.

He has gotten into his favorite pajamas, fuzzy pants with yellow stars in a dark sky, and an old comfortable shirt. He has his slippers on; they are bright green with zebra print on them. His blood may not circulate as quickly as the blood in people who have never died before, but he still gets cold from time to time just like everybody else.

“Hope you’re hungry,” I smile sitting down at the round glass table.

“Yes,” he says happily, coming over to join me.

He picks up his fork easily enough; the warm water has calmed his muscles so he isn’t as stiff as usual. One would be surprised how well his table manners are, considering how when he first started out he would pile handfuls of anything he could get his hands down his throat without chewing.

“Did you have fun playing in the rain?” I ask him, digging into my pasta.

“Yes,” he smiles back at me with that lopsided grin he has. “I sat. In it.”

“No wonder you were so muddy.”

He blushes, if you can call it that. His gray skin warms up to almost a normal skin tone when he blushes, but it never lasts long. “I wanted. To. Help clean.”

“It’s alright, it wasn’t too much trouble,” I shrug.

I see his brain powering away, trying desperately to get the rest of his body to cooperate. I see this mental struggle he goes through every day. His body can’t keep up with his mind, not since he had started to decay in the few hours he was dead. Things had to be retaught to him, lots of things he may never be able to do again. His body may never catch up to his brain, but that is the goal.

“Have a good day?” he says, smiling at himself for not stuttering or breaking up any words.

“It was alright, just long. I wanted to take a nap around one, and now I’m just worn out.”

“Work too hard.”

“It’s my job to work hard.”

He shrugs, looking down as he eats.

“I have some medicine I think we should try tonight,” I say softly.

He looked up suddenly, a hopeful look on his face. “Kind?” When he is excited or mad he uses very few words, since his brain is going even faster than normal. I’ve gotten so used to him talking with me like this that I don’t even register it anymore. I almost always know what he is trying to say.

“Two shots, no pills.”

He nods. “What do?”

“Hopefully it will make your heart work better, and that’ll increase your blood flow. It should help your muscles be less stiff and help your brain connect more with your body.”

His smile gets even bigger. “Will work?”

“It has worked on LB and JW,” I nod, not telling him it has only worked slightly. I didn’t want to kill his good mood.

“Lil? Jer? They better?”

“Lily and Jeremy are both doing fine.”

“Jeremy grumpy?”

“Yes, he’s still rather grumpy. Lily is starting to communicate more logically, but she still has her tantrums.”

“Talk yet?”

“No, they haven’t talked yet.”

I had hoped Lily Bradford would begin to use speech as her form of communication soon, instead of grunting and moaning, but I’m not so sure how close she is. It took me well over three years to have Michael say one word to me, and it was “eat”. Jeremy Waters is far from Lily’s progress, but at least he is beginning to calm down.

“Only me.”

I look up at him and see he has lost his smile. I know how much he craves to have another person like him to interact with, to have someone here with him while I’m gone. We had a girl like him, but she had returned to her grave long ago. Michael is supposed to be six feet under as well, but I couldn’t allow that to happen to him. I watched the girl, Judy Laramee was her name, get beheaded and then cremated. My once best friend was the head scientist working on her half of this crazy project. She broke down crying and refused to work in the project anymore. She, of course, still does by force. But she only prepares the meals for the specimens now. I have never told MC about JL, and I don’t think I ever will.

I reach over and put my hand on his shoulder. He didn’t flinch away, not like LB would have. JL wouldn’t have either. They were both showing signs of further decay, and both were still not communicating with words after a nearly two years, so they were “scrapped”, as they put it. I stole MC away and brought him home with me. It was rough at first, he had to get used to living in a house with people again instead of a bare white room with one door and a one-way mirror in it. Now he is more than I had ever hoped he would be. JL could’ve been like him too, if I hadn’t been too chicken to try and save her too. I hate myself for not trying to.

“Don’t cry,” MC whispers, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Please.”

I realized then that I was crying. I got up and put our plates away, both in separate parts of the sink as always since I can’t share plates, bowls, or silverware with him. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands and try to stop fussing. MC gets up too, and comes over to me. He grunts softly, and I look over at him. He gently pulls me into a hug. He knows how tough it is to be working in this project, and how much I wish I wasn’t. He knows I risked my own life to save his partial one. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew how many times I’ve had to push away family and friends just so they don’t find out about him. He is a quiet man who listens to everything. Sometimes I think he can peer right into my soul.

MC makes shushing noises, and I hug him tightly. He takes my hand and leads me down the hall to my bedroom.

“Let’s sleep. Shots later,” he sits me down on the bed and looks into my eyes.

I sniffle, and nod. His fingers have curled up stiffly, but he manages to grab a tissue from the Kleenex box by pinching it between his knuckles. I take it from him and smile.

“Thank you, MC. Go brush your teeth and go to bed. I don’t have work tomorrow and we can do whatever you want.”

“Shots. Piano. Will you play?”

“I sure will.”

He smiles. “Goodnight, Kim-ber-lee.”

“Goodnight, MC.”

He leaves with a small smile on his face. I hear him walk down the bathroom, brush his teeth with a minor amount of frustrated grunting, then go downstairs. I get dressed in my night gown, brush my teeth in my private bathroom, brush my long caramel colored hair, wash my face, use the toilet, then curl up in my big bed. I feel so worn out, and wish I would fall asleep quickly but I stay awake for a long time, thinking about JL and her two traumatic deaths. I could’ve prevented one of those. But I choose not to. I saved my project specimen, but not my best friend’s. It was just another reason to push her away, so I didn’t have to deal with the guilt. I didn’t know I’d still feel this guilty, even nearly six years after all of it.

I do eventually drift off to a restless sleep as it begins to rain lightly again. The soft pitter-patter of the water hitting my window helps me calm down greatly.

I was standing up against a table, looking through the mirror at my specimen. He was pacing near the door, knowing it was meal time. You couldn’t help but smile at him. I watched as someone pushed through a metal tray full with mixed beef. I had hand-picked his meals since he became my new specimen. He was the best specimen we’ve had yet. He was being to act human again, if only slightly. Just the other day he smiled, which meant he was recovering muscles and relearning how to use them.

“Kim, we need to talk,” the door opened behind me.

I turned to see Jack, the person who made all of this possible. He is my supervisor, as well as Patti’s. He tells us what we need to accomplish each time he checks on us, since all of this is his vision. He has been working on this project well over forty years. His hair, what was left of it at least, was white. But his face made him look a lot younger than what he was.

He dismissed the people in the room who were all taking notes, doing blood samples, and everything else we had to do for MC.

Once we were alone I waved him to the mirror. “He’s been doing great, sir. He hasn’t had a fit in weeks now. I think it’s safe to be in the room with him now.”

Jack looked at him, but something about his face looked off. He didn’t have that gleam in his eyes like he usually does.

“He is beginning to understand things, sir. Two days ago we gave him a child’s puzzle; you know the ones where they fit the animals into the right place? He did it within a half hour. We all expected him to take much longer than that, considering it was the first time he’s done one. He didn’t even throw the pieces when he got frustrated. He’s problem solving!”

“Kim, I’m sorry,” Jack’s face didn’t change at all as he spoke.

“What?” I was shocked; I hadn’t expected him to say these words yet again. MC is doing so well.

“Specimens 247 and 248 are being terminated. Specimen 248 is already being taken to the morgue.”

The morgue was what we called the room we decapitate and then burn the failed specimens that is the floor under us. I never liked going down there.

“But, sir, he’s been doing so well! I don’t understand. Weren’t he and JL the best we’ve had yet?”

“Yes, but you could have said that for specimens 39 and 40, they were the first ones to actually live longer than a few hours after being brought back to life. You could have said that for specimens 102 and 103, who were the first to walk. I could give you a mile-long list of specimens that were the best we’ve had so far. But, as you know, they were all terminated. Why? Because they had problems, problems I wouldn’t stand for. They have served their purpose, and now they are no longer of use to us.”

MC fell to the floor, not moving again afterwards. I screamed when he did. Jack put a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to look back at him.

“He’s been heavily sedated. Patti is taking specimen 248 to the morgue herself, just as all head scientists have done before her. Say your last goodbye to your specimen as you bring him down. I hope to have you back once we pick new specimens to continue on in their place.”

I knew that people in my position before me usually quit and went to work in some lower position of this project, but I never understood why until now.

“Sir, what problems does MC have? I know better than anyone how well he’s been doing. You said yourself he is like a person who was born mentally disabled.”

“And that is his problem. I don’t have enough evidence to prove he will one day act like you or me,” he walks towards the door. “I’ll tell the morgue team that you’ll be there in less than twenty minutes. Don’t keep them waiting.”

With that, he left. I felt tears spilling down my cheeks. My chest hurt, and I felt like I was being forced to murder someone. I looked over to MC lying on the ground. How could anyone spend all this time working with a living being and then be forced to kill them? I now knew why all the people before me now resented their jobs, when I had loved it. I must have looked like a fool to them.

MC looked like a wounded animal to me. I decided then and there that I couldn’t let him be killed.

I quickly looked around the room, seeing that my team had left everything on the tables. I see a vile that held what we called Wakeys. It was the pill we fed them to the people who were responsive from the work we had to do to bring them back to life. It gave them that extra push to bring them out of unconsciousness. I put three into my breast pocket.

I wipe my eyes, straighten my lab coat and take a few deep breaths. I knew I didn’t have much time. As soon as I walked out of the room, I saw Patti pushing an operating table down the hall. There was a body wrapped around in a white blanket, which I knew came off of JL’s bed. Patti was crying heavily, but stopped a bit when she saw me.

“Kim, they’re killing JL and MC,” she sniffled.

I began to cry again and went to her, giving her a hug. I was tempted to tell her my plan to save MC, but I knew we ourselves could get killed for trying something like this so I didn’t. I went with her down to the morgue, holding her and telling her it’ll be alright. She told me she was going to try to quit, but we both knew this was a life-long job. You only got to quit when you died, even then you may be brought back to life if you fit all the specifications they look for in a specimen.

At the morgue, the men and women took JL, wrapped up in her blanket sleeping soundly, and covered her in plastic. They took a small saw-like tool and removed her head. At that point Patti had to leave the room since she was hysterical. I watched as they slid the body in what they called the oven. Her body burned into ashes.

I was about to go save MC, when I noticed Jack was rolling him down the hallway. He hadn’t bothered to put the blanket over him. I screamed as I tried running towards him. Large men grabbed me and held me back.

“Jack, please! You can’t do this!” I wailed.

“I’ve been doing it most my life, Kim. I don’t plan to be stopping now.”

I screamed on and on, but the morgue team paid no attention to me. They wrapped him up in the plastic, but I could still see him. I saw the blood pour out into the plastic as they cut through his neck with the saw. I was screaming louder than I ever have when they put him into the oven.

I hung my head and sobbed, letting the men hold me up. Jack came over and put his hand on my shoulder again.

“You’ll get over it Kim. There will always be new specimens. Try not to get attached next time. I hope you take up my offer of continuing your job as one of the head scientists.”

My body jerked painfully, bringing me into consciousness. Tears were rolling down my face, and I was coated in sweat. My legs were tangled up in the blankets, and I tried to kick them off. Lightning light up my room, making me gasp, and soon after thunder shook the house. Harsh rain was battering against my windows.

There was a small knock on my door. I always kept my door open, so when I looked up I saw MC there, looking at me with a worried expression.

More waves of tears came to me and I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t get out of the blankets. I nearly fell out of the bed but MC came to me to help. I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tightly. He sat down with me and let me cry into his shoulder until I was calmed down to only a sniffle. This wasn’t the first time he’s come and calmed me down after a nightmare, and I know it won’t be the last.

“Heard you shout,” he whispered.

I nodded. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Did you want to sleep in my bed tonight?” I asked, hoping that he would say yes because I didn’t want him to go.

“Please?”

I moved the blankets off me and we curled up into the bed. I sighed in relief, glad to have him with me after that dream. It was a reoccurring nightmare, but it still upsets me every time. MC has never asked about it, even though he has come up to see if I was alright every time I shouted.

“Thank you,” he yawned.

I smiled. “It’s no problem MC.”

Even though MC was old enough to be my husband, I could only see him as my child. He’s my baby, and I love him.

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