This'll be an interesting night. I grabbed my jacket and was out the door when I called to Dad to hurry up. He came out wearing a grey button down shirt and khaki pants.
"Where are we going?" He asked, grabbing his coat.
"To the lab. I told Dalia earlier today to meet us there around nine." I explain.
Dad sighed, "Okay. Hang on a second."
He exited the living room, and about a minute later he came back with a pile of fresh clothes in his hands.
"What are those for?" I ask, eyeing the pile.
"Do you want to see me half-naked? My clothes don't just magically appear on my body after that happens." Dad explains.
"Good point." I say as I open the door to leave our apartment. I was very nervous, but I could tell Dad was extremely nervous. I couldn't imagine what this felt like for him, and I could tell it was about Dalia seeing him as a monster.
I knew I could keep Dad in line, but I was nervous that I could do something wrong and have New York see a battle between the SWAT and a giant green monster. My worst fear was not handling the monster and ending up hurting Dalia. If I somehow didn't break every bone in my body when Dad flung me out the window of the radiation center, then I wasn't too worried about myself tonight. But like everything there's always the one question everyone asks theirselves in a big situation: what if?
*************
When we arrived at the lab, we didn't go through the front doors, but into the alley way and to a door that was at the end of stairs heading into the ground. As we entered the lab, I smile to see Dalia on the table eating fried rice from takeout she got.
"Oh!" she exclaims, putting the white plastic container down. "Hey guys," she greets with half a mouth full of rice. Dad and I walked up towards Dalia, a bit close together. Dalia moved herself in front of Dad, and I knew this was my cue to move away letting them have a moment, but also to eavesdrop.
"Hey, Bruce," Dalia whispered to Dad. I pretended I was setting something up while taking off my coat. "Whatever is going to. . . 'Go down' tonight, I'll still be with you." I saw Dalia smile from the corner of my eye.
Dad smiled. "Thanks, Dally,"
Dalia smiled. "Dally?" All Dad did was smile small of embarrassment, but Dalia's cheeks turned pink as she smiled even bigger.
"Here, lets go this way," Dad says, directing us to the double doors on the other side of the room. After exiting the doors, I realize we're heading towards the Radiation room.
"So, where'd you come up with Dally?" Dalia asked.
"You always say, 'don't dilly dally,' and I can't help but think of you because you're so motivational." I hear Dad say. Dad's so awkward, but I can tell it's making Dalia feel like the best girl in the world.
As we walked down the hallway we passed the Radiation room where I met the Other Guy for the first time the other night. The doors and shattered windows were taped with yellow 'DO NOT CROSS' tape, and I could see a bunch of safety cones everywhere inside. I looked to Dad, which was a bad move, but saw he was looking too, and I could tell he was putting on an act for right now.
"Did Barbara tell you? The Radiation Room got blown up by the main controller." Dalia explained. A silent sigh of relief left my lips, and I felt instantly better that Dad's company didn't find out it was us.
The three of us entered a room a few doors down from the Radiation Room. All the machines had a covering over them to keep them from getting dirty. The machines were surely here because they were either broken — hence some without a covering — or they were back up machines that were replaced with new technical machines.
"What's this place?" I ask, just to make sure that if anything in here breaks it won't matter to the company.
"It was the old main lab, now it's just known as the Dirt Pile." Dad says, looking around the room himself. I pulled off a covering on a machine, which made a heavy dirt and dust cloud in the air and travel down my lungs.
I could see exactly why it was the Dirt Pile now. Dad walked passed and towards a larger, wider machine and pulled the covering off. Instead of a machine, it was a chair. Technically, a metal table with leather bound hand cuffs like a shock chair. Dalia had the most bewildered look on her face and looked towards me.
"Unlock the cuffs," Dad tells me as he walks away and around a few machines. Dalia and I look at each other. She looks absolutely horrified, while I'm shaking in my shoes nervously. Looking at Dalia, I started to get scared as well. What if something did go wrong tonight? What if Dalia and I get seriously injured, and Dad can't help because he's all beast mode?
I was somewhat able to keep the monster from hurting me, and that's what I promised Dad I'd do. But I'm also the reason I feel as if Dalia could help as well, maybe she could control him too.
"Kerry," Dad calls out. I walk around machines to see Dad shirtless with his khakis still on.
I nervously laugh, "You trying to impress Dalia or something?" I meant to calm my nerves and his by making a joke about how half-muscular Dad is.
Dad didn't hear my joke as he whispered to himself and opens a mini fridge. He pulls out a cold small glass jar with clear liquid that looks like glue mixed with water. I squinted at a piece of tape on it that read, 'HULK.'
What the heck is a Hulk?
"If anything goes wrong, inject this in me." Dad says as he hands me a needle. I nodded and nervously looked at the needle. If there was one thing I hated, it was needles.
As Dad handed me the small jar, I ask, "How much?"
"Up to the top." Dad replied. I raised an eyebrow in suspicion.
"A full needle?" I ask, "Dad, do you know how bad that is?"
"Well — "
"Its not good!" I whispered, my voice shaking out of fear.
Out of all the shots I've ever gotten for flu season, I don't think I've ever seen a full needle. Dad ignores me once again and walks passed me back to the silver table. I follow holding the jar and needle in both hands. Dalia jumps out of fear as Dad nears her. She's probably going through all the scenarios in her head of what we're about to show her.
As Dad gets on the table, I see Dalia's dark eyes roam over his body, and I had to hold back my laughter. I guess in some way he was going to impress Dalia — big time. I look at Dalia, who snaps out of her stare and walks around the other side of the table. Dad lays his head at the head of the table, which is where I realize that his curly hair is much longer than it used to be, and I could tell because some curls were covering his ears. He didn't look bad as long as he slicked his hair back, but I knew Dad wasn't for that kind of style. Ok, Dad's hair is really annoying me.
The table had four cuffs, two for hands and two for feet. "Tighten the cuffs," Dad says, uncomfortably moving on the cold table. Dalia shoots me a horrified glance, but I pretend that I didn't see it. We get his hands first and feet second. When I had done his hands, I left his left hand cuff a little loose on purpose. Unfortunately, Dad could see that I did and told me to make it tighter.
I had left the needle and jar on the desk behind me when I tied to cuffs, so when I picked them both back up, my eyes caught one of the handwritten ingredients on the back of the jar. PROPOFOL (x10) I remembered in a Health course over the summer that propofol was used in anesthesia, well, was anesthesia. My nerves started to shake as I saw the times ten next to it. I remembered what the teacher, Mr. Finnegan said about side affects and unlikely overdoses, "Overdoses are highly unlikely, but side affects include severe drowsiness, shallow breathing, and slow or fast heart rate." I wonder what Mr. Finnegan would say right now if he were here. I was too scared to read the rest of the ingredients in case I found something even worse than this much of a drug.
"Dad," I say, "I am not putting this much propofol, in you." Dalia perks up when she hears this, nervousness on her face as well.
"Kerry, you have no idea how bad this could get. Just fill it up." Dad sternly says. Before I could protest, Dad shoots me a dirty look that every parent gives their sons and daughters when they don't want to hear them say another word. Dalia walked over to me, taking the needle and jar from my hands and filling the needle up herself without a double take. She flicks the needle to rid of bubbles and gently placed it in a needle holder that sat on the back of the desk.
"Whatever you want to show me, do it now because. . . Because you're freaking me out." Dalia said as she walked back over to the other side of the table. I look to Dad, who sighs deeply in exhaustion and nervousness.
"Okay." He whispers to himself. Dad takes a deep breath as he rolls his brown eyes to the back of his head just as his eyelids close. His exhales a long time and lies on the table, looking like he was peacefully sleeping. I stand over Dad, looking at his closed eyes, full of confusion.
"Dad?" I ask. His eyes shoot open, and they're no longer the soft brown I once knew. Now they were green. The same green I saw the night I met the Other Guy, the ones that looked like they said, "I want to kill you." I jumped back and gasped, hitting the edge of the desk, knowing my spine was bound to be bruised tomorrow. Dalia looked scared because of my reaction, and she tried to figure out what the matter was.
Dad's jaw clenches and he grits his teeth. He grunts and arches his back, trying to break free from the cuffs. Soon, his skin becomes green and spreads across his chest to his neck and so on. Dalia screams and backs up against machines behind her. Dad thrashes wildly like a caged animal in the cuffs. I wanted to let him out of the cuffs so badly, because as he thrashed he'd look at me every few seconds, his eyes screaming in pain.
Everything went downhill when his now ginormous green feet broke through the cuffs and started kicking the air. As if these few seconds couldn't get any worse, Dad breaks free of the hand cuffs. With each second of him transforming and growing huge, the table bends downwards, screaming for the pressure to be taken off. Dalia is screaming and hiding behind one of the machines as I back up into the table behind me. I jerk my head to see the needle behind me, so I grab it tightly, and quickly make sure there are no bubbles. The Other Guy roars and fights to pull himself up and off the table.
At first, I question how I'm evening going to do this, but I don't have enough time to think when the Other Guy starts sitting up, punching the lights above him, and starting to move off the table.
"No!" I scream, running towards the table. The Other Guy swats his hand at me, but thankfully I duck out of reflex. The monster roars, making my eardrums shatter and scream with pain. I pull myself on to the table where The Other Guy still is, but he thrashes and roars. As I get the serum ready, the Other Guy grabs me by my whole waist, and moves his arm out in front of him to drop me on the ground.
I scream and grab his trap muscle in my hand to pull myself towards him. The Other Guy roars as loud as he can, while I yell back, "Look at me, Dad! Dad! Look at me!" The Other Guy huffs and glares at me as he hears his new name. His eyes are the same green color mine turned into, monster-like-daughter, I guess. The Other Guy then thrashed around again, having me to almost lose the grip of the serum. "Dad!" I screamed, "Where are you?!"
I checked for bubbles before I grabbed The Other Guy's shoulder. It was hard to make sure there were no bubbles in the serum when you were being thrashed around in the air like a rag doll. The monster was smashing the table next to me as I tried one last attempt for Dad to make an appearance.
"Dad! I know you're in there!" I cried, "Look at me! Just look at me!" In the split second the monster turned to face me, I saw that his eyes were now the dark brown that Dad has, and his face relaxed for the moment as if to say, "I'm here!" So it was at that moment after his eyes went green again that I stuck the needle in his left shoulder.
I press the pressure part of the needle down until all the liquid is drained from it. The Other Guy looked at the needle, his eyes wide (I was amazed that he could show other emotions besides anger). Then his green eyes went back to anger as he grit his teeth and low growled.
"I'm sorry!" I told him right before he growled and threw me sideways. Dalia shrieks as I fall to the ground in the broken bits and pieces of the desk that once stood behind me. The monster roared again, quickly getting up and off the table, unaffected by the serum and now looming over me.
"NO!" Dalia cried, fearing the worst to happen at that same moment. I thought he was going to punch me into the ground until I looked like a cartoon design of a splatter. The monster huffed, bringing his hand towards me. I closed my eyes, knowing the pain was going to be fast and quick. The monster used his index finger to brush a strand of hair out of my face. My heart was beating so fast and my mind raced with question as I opened my eyes to see that the Other Guy now had brown, tired eyes.
"Hey, Dad. . ." I whispered. He huffed with the look of sorrow on his face as I realized that he was getting smaller. His skin was growing a light shade of green as his muscles started to shrink back down to normal size. The needle was still stuck in his left shoulder, so with the strength I had left I grabbed it and pulled it out from his skin. I could see Dad coming back as his skin became lighter and his muscles looked normal. Dad looked immensely tired, and because of that he couldn't hold himself up.
I was just standing up when Dad fell down, luckily I caught him but still fell to the floor with him. As I laid him on the ground, I could see a few veins in his head and arms that had popped out were slowly swelling back down. Dad frightened me because though he was breathing very slowly, he looked dead.
"Dad?" I ask, voice trembling. I said his name, called him dad again, and even shook him to see if he'd wake up. He's not waking up! He's not waking up!
My heart pounds fast against my rib cage, and all the bad thoughts of what the anesthesia did to Dad filled my head. I shook him harder than last time, just to see if that could try again, I yelled his name in his face, but got nothing at all. There was only one other option I could do, so I moved over onto Dad's stomach, and did the worst thing I could ever do. Dalia had moved over just in time to see me panic, which made her panic. "Should I call the hospital?" She asked, voice shaking, after yelling back 'no', I decided to use the last idea in my mind. I throw my arm behind me and thrust it down, slapping my own father across the face.
"AH! — God!" Dad cries, moving his hands to his face. He groans as he rubs his cheeks, where I see a red hand mark left by me. "Oh man. . . Oh. . . Man. . ." Dalia moves closer just as Dad brushes his long hair back, and looks up at me.
"Hey. . ." He says, staring awkwardly at me.
"Hey. . ." I say to him, tired and frightened. Dad looks up at me, and then to the way I sat on him, wondering how we got from the table to the floor.
"Oh! Sorry! This is awkward — " I say as I get off of him. I trip over my own feet once I'm standing, making this more awkward than it had to be. Thankfully, that's not all Dalia and Dad seem to care about. Dalia knelt down beside Dad, whose eyes were closed from the anesthesia kicking in. She brushed his long curls off his face and kissed him on his forehead. Dalia gently and kindly brushed Dad's hair out of his face and played with it to help him relax muscles that were still tense.
I wanted to ease the atmosphere by laughing at how ridiculously huge Dad's pants were now. It was like a blanket around his waist that stopped at his knees, but was huge in width. Dad wasn't completely out after all as we had him sit up and get his new clothes on that I had fetched for him in the place where he put them. We got him to put on his shirt, but then gave him privacy when putting his pants on — at the extent with him falling asleep twice before pulling them on. After that, we left the building with the two of us girls holding Dad up as we walked to his car. We decided just to lay him down on the bench in the backseat to let him rest more.
The silence Dalia and I shared in the car was extremely heavy. The only sound the three of us made was Dad, who softly snored in the back. Finally after a few minutes, Dalia asked, "Is your Dad unconscious?" I turn around in my seat to look back at Dad.
"Bruce," I say leaning my arm back and pushing him a little. "Bruce," I say a little louder. He didn't respond, to which I told Dalia, "He's knocked out."
All of a sudden, the car stops in the middle of the road, and I look over to Dalia who's trying to make all the little points of detail piece together.
"How is that even possible?" She asks me, face full of confusion.
"Dad turning into — "
"Yes! Yes, how is that possible?" Dalia asks, eyes wide with bewilderment.
I shrugged. "He was testing a serum on himself a while back, and a little Gamma exposure can go a long way,"
Dalia nodded as if she pieced one thing together. "Makes sense. Your father was having me test different radiations when he was on break."
After half a minute of silence, Dalia asks, "Was this before or after you were born?"
"Before," I answer. Dalia looked at me with suspicion and fear. I knew exactly what she was thinking. "No. Either I don't have it in me, or I just haven't found it yet." I say in disappointment, hoping one of them is true.
Dalia nodded, still a bit shocked from everything that happened tonight. "Okay."
Looking out the window, the dark night of New York passes by me in a blur of lights. I've heard bad things happen to good people, and how true can that get from here? Dad became a monster, my mother left him without any warning, and his only child saw his biggest secret he tried to keep. I didn't want to think about it, but my life wasn't peachy keen either. Dad and I could be in the same house but not talk at all, I was left alone for hours on end, and I couldn't even tell my two best friends about all of this. This life wasn't easy that's for sure, for me and especially Dad.
******************************************************************************************************
[ Yayyy consider this part edited!! ]