Captured Souls (21 page)

Yet each one of them mirrors all of mine perfectly.

I’m in perfection overdrive.

Specimen 5

It was a spontaneous decision to add Specimen 5 to the mix. There was something about her that I needed to have, that I craved to be part of my life. Something familiar about her, an echo from a haunted dream, fueled my obsession even though I had already decided that the three muses were all that I needed.

I didn’t have to find her at the sex club. She appeared in my dancercise class. A buxom, slender woman who wore tight spandex T-backs and bicycle shorts that highlighted her perfect apple-cheeked ass. I was in love the moment I cast eyes upon her.

For several weeks I’d noticed her in the class, watched her jump around behind me reflected in the mirror, gazed adoringly at the sweat that dribbled from her forehead.

In the showers after class, I hoped to speak with her one day.

That day came mere hours ago.

She was showering in the stall next to me. My heart beat rapidly as I listened to her shampoo her hair, humming softly. I heard the shower turn off and I in turn did the same. We both stepped out naked at the same time, reaching for our towels. My eyes beheld the gloriousness of her firm young body, her high breasts, the soft folds of barely touched flesh between her legs.

“Hello,” I said as I wrapped my towel around my waist, walking from the stall to the locker room. She walked with me, towel slung across her shoulders.

“Hi,” she said.

“My name’s Miriam,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Cindy,” she said.

As we arrived at the locker room, we realized our lockers were in the same alcove. She began to speak nervously, as if I were going to do something to her. It was rather odd.

“I’m a student, studying neurology. I know your work.” She smiled. She seemed eager for my response as she perched like a puppy, hands clasped in anticipation of a positive answer.

“Do tell, which work would that be? I’m involved in several projects.”

“All of it, I think, I hope. I’ve been kind of a fan of yours for years. I’d been hoping to one day get a chance to talk to you.”

She pulled on her T-shirt and smiled over at me. She kept trying to explain herself.

“Underground research fascinates me the most. You know, reanimating corpses, just like Frankenstein.”

“Well, we’ve come a long way in science, but there’s still a long way more to go. Reanimating body parts is old hat these days. Playing puppet master to dead chunks of flesh is really just a matter of stimulating the proper points, oxygen, blood flow…”

“Oh, I know that. I like the ideas about brainwashing and creating lifemates. Those are the studies I find most fascinating.”

“I find most people I meet want to talk about those ideas most of all,” I said.

“Will you teach me? Will you let me come study with you, at least for a while, or even once. One hour. Just to let me see how it’s done. How the master works and plays,” she said as she pulled on her jeans.

“Let me think about it,” I said with a smile. A sudden headache pierced my temples. I raised my hands in pain.

“Oh.” The word slipped out unexpectedly.

“Something wrong, Dr. Frederick?” she asked me, snapping her jeans.

“No, just a sudden headache. Probably a workout headache or something…too long in the shower.” I muttered excuses and willed the headache to leave me. My finger buzzed as I shut the locker door, a mild electrical shock surged through me. I pulled away and there was a small arc. Specimen 5 saw me jump back.

“Are you all right, Doctor? Do you need to sit down?” She stepped towards me and I stepped back.

“No, I’m good. It’s all good,” I said.

I wondered if one of my implants had malfunctioned. It was not outside the realm of possibility. The headache pulsed and I went into the toilet stall and sat down. I rubbed my temples as I urinated. The headache wasn’t a regular stress headache or an allergy headache. It was a buzzing, annoying headache and I knew it was because of at least one of the specimens.

After splashing water on my face, I looked at myself in the mirror. I had to pull myself together. The headache caused me to see glimpses of bright lights shimmering out of the corners of my eyes. My face appeared normal in the reflection, business as usual, yet the inner turmoil hurtling through my brain raged on.

The headache began to throb with more persistence. In fact, it rippled along from one temple to the other, sometimes around the back of my head, sometimes around the top. I returned to the locker room to find Specimen 5 fully dressed. She handed me a business card.

“Call me when you want me to start,” she said.

“I haven’t agreed to see you at all yet,” I said as I made a valiant attempt not to stagger under the vertigo of the headache.

“However much time you can give me, I’m yours.” She smiled and left the locker room. I heard her boots clicking down the hallway and out the door.

In that moment, my headache was too overwhelming to do much more than get dressed and get out. As I drove home, I decided that I would indeed tutor her in neurological sciences for a while.

Journal

My four specimens don’t like Specimen 5 at all. They are more annoying than ever when they swarm around me. I wonder if she thinks I suffer from a tic, or if she can see or sense their electrical charges snapping and swimming through the air. I wonder how I really look to others as I try to ignore the niggling pests.

She has been coming over to learn from me for several days now. I’m high on her thirst for knowledge, adore her pale face and worship her perfect, lean body. Her dark eyes gaze at me with such intensity that I often wanted to kiss her.

I did lean over to kiss her last night. She was watching me with those eyes, those delicious chocolate eyes, and my mouth watered. I licked my lips and pursed them.

I leaned forward to kiss her. Just as her lips were about to touch mine, there was a spark between us. Specimen 5 lurched back on the chair, her hand to her mouth.

“What was that?” she cried out. The smell of singed flesh wafted by for a moment and was gone.

“It must have been carpet shock,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

She gave me a look as if she didn’t believe me. I knew I wasn’t sounding convincing as I touched my own lips and tasted Specimen 3’s perfume.

I didn’t try to kiss her again. She placed her delicate, pale hand on my lap. I shivered as she touched me, answering her never-ending supply of questions about my work. She was hungry for my knowledge and I was thrilled to have an eager student willing to listen to my theories and rants.

Sometimes when she was listening, she would quickly pull her hand from me, as if she had been slapped. I’d keep talking but wondered if it were possible for the electromagnetic fields programmed for me to jump to her briefly since my focus was on her?

Her hand traveled along my leg and she leaned forward as if to kiss me. I leaned towards her and an arc of electricity surged between us. We both jumped back and held our mouths with our hands. After a moment, Specimen 5 lowered her hands. She stared at me as if waiting for an answer. I said nothing.

“Well, I’d say it’s time to call it a day…whatever’s going on,” Specimen 5 said, gathering up her notes and books. She kept a safe distance from me and hurried towards the door.

“Will I see you at the gym?” I asked her, my interest in her returning as my lips ached from the shocking almost kiss.

“I’m sure you will, thank you for your help,” she said. She couldn’t get out of my house fast enough.

As I locked the door after her I yelled to the air.

“Stop bothering her. I’m allowed to do whatever I want.”

I wondered if they were ghosts or just electricity. What was making them sabotage my time with Specimen 5 but not with anyone else ever, even among each other?

Was it just a part of their loyalty programming to keep me from her? But it didn’t make sense. The continuity wasn’t there.

Sadly, I watched her walk down the porch stairs, wondering if I dared to do what I dreamed.

Journal

Whenever I see her, they are angry. They twist and spark around me. I can smell my flesh burning as they snap their displeasure.

I can’t even program the iPod for her; they continue to interfere with my settings, short-circuiting any electronic manipulation I might try.

It still isn’t time to continue on to the next phase. I have to think of something to keep them at bay.

Journal

I sat in the writer’s chair, my fingers perched on his keyboard as I waited for him to channel through me for that day’s notes and journals, and, of course, a page or two for his book.

I poured his favorite scotch (undrugged) into a glass filled with ice and took a small sip. I took a drag from his favorite cigarette. I thought about the year or so he sat in this chair. How much I adored watching him work, staring at his strong, firm fingers punching the wireless keyboard as I dreamed of them touching me.

And how now he never stops.

I conducted some calculations since my last entry and determined that I may be able to block all of their frequencies for a short time. I would have to work fast because I didn’t want them to disappear forever either.

A few hours ago, I finally, reluctantly, sadly, roughly, quickly, removed all my implants. It was depressing and painful work to dig out the little electrodes from my genitals and breasts and head. I’ll have some nasty wounds for a while. I didn’t have the time or patience to go slowly and carefully. They were still turned on and so were the ghosts. Now they are with me in my pocket.

I scooped the implants out of my pocket and placed the tiny metal pellets on Specimen 1’s keyboard. I watched as his essence buzzed along with the exposed electrodes. I had rigged a small handset to program the electrodes, as they wouldn’t respond to my brain impulses and pheromones anymore. I turned the dials slightly and punched in a digital code. More essence swam forth and I knew it was Specimen 2. I could tell it was him because I suddenly wanted to abandon my experiment and go run on the treadmill.

At last, I had the two of them swarming along the keyboard. I couldn’t quite see or feel them, but I knew they were there, feasting on each other, transparent electromagnetic waves winding and weaving through each other like ribbons on a Maypole.

I put the keyboard and the specimens into a big demagnetized bag. I carried it carefully up the stairs to my newest laboratory, a hidden one behind the walls where the walk-in pantry and a little bathroom used to be. Beyond that, there was what looked like another large room from the outside of the house, with a false wall of drapes and plants.

Inside was a plush gothic bedroom where Specimen 3 resided. Black metal and ruby-red velvet were the accents around the room. Of course, half the room was the necessary surgical bed, lamps and other equipment that kept her alive.

I had revived her a week or so ago. Her reanimation is recorded in another journal that has all the specifics of every formula and preparation. Needless to say, scientists have been able to reanimate corpses for decades; they just don’t want the public to know.

It was not the most pleasant task, taking her out of the tank. She wasn’t the specimen I wanted to reanimate first. All the plans were for Specimen 1 and it wasn’t time yet. But I was going mad with the rebellion of the implants and needed to take action.

It took her a few days to grow used to breathing and walking and all of those normal tasks. She was allowed to wander around the room unhindered since she mostly just sat and posed. Until she was more viable, she was no threat.

It seemed best to keep her on an upper level where I could access her more easily. Her rebirth wasn’t pleasant, it was very premature, and she was still very delicate.

Specimen 3 has been rather stunned at her new surroundings. I do suspect some brain damage but she is still so very beautiful, despite issues with her decaying flesh. She looked sallow, her usual milk-chocolate-colored glow tinged yellow. Perhaps from daylight. Perhaps from rigor mortis setting in. Maybe I had miscalculated the preservation formulas. How I hoped not, or I’d be stuck reassessing the problem again.

“Hello,” I said to her as she sat on the black velvet fainting couch. I kissed her briefly on her cold, damp cheek. She said nothing, just stared like a doll.

“Come over here and lie down,” I instructed as I led her over to the metal operating table. She lay down and I raised the bed higher. She whimpered a little bit, almost holding her breath as the table raised.

“This won’t take long,” I said as I wheeled over the tray of tools. I brought the bag with the keyboard and my implants. She lay patiently, crying out a little when my sharp sterilized scalpel nicked a tiny incision to slip new implants into her.

Several nicks around her body later, she was done. I closed up each little incision with a staple, in case she had any thoughts about digging them out with those long claws of hers. But then again, she probably doesn’t even have the reasoning skills left to think about digging them out. Still, the staples would secure the implants, even in her clitoris.