"HIS NAME is Spike," Surgeon Sin grinned while his palm dusted the top of a briefcase. He stood in front of a desk where the briefcase was placed, right below his shelves.
Meanwhile, Spike stood by the grilled doors, blocking Kaelee's way out while staring blankly at the surgeon.
This time, Kaelee could clearly see the monster's face with the help of the glow from the fluorescent light. It stood six feet in height, and its pointed single spiked hair added to its length. The spikes or pointed things on his face were made of hardened hair that formed into triangular cones, like thorns. Spike also had a pointed nose and white eyes surrounded by purple veins that were embossed on his pale, ashy skin like varicose veins.
His body was lanky like a bamboo. The surgeon kept it naked because its pointy hairs would rip off its clothes anyway. It wasn't bothersome to look at because the hairs covered its private parts anyway. The backs of Spike's hands were covered with hair, hardened like brush bristles. Its palm was big enough to hold half of the diameter of a basketball with just one hand.
When the doctor was done peeking what was inside the parcel, he immediately shut it. Kaelee only looked away from Spike when Dr. Alfred spoke. "He's one of my first creations, Kaelee. He's been here way before I figured out that I could use some dismembered human parts for the experiment."
She shot a terrified look at him because he said those things as if it were nothing. There was no shed of disgust or fear on his face. He spoke about dismembered body parts the way anyone would narrate a fairytale to a child.
"So, this is your clinic!" she blurted out. "And you create monsters like that Spike?"
That made the doctor shake his head. If only Kaelee knew that she discovered his actual business way too soon, that he was really forced to explain everything because she already saw Spike.
"Take it easy, okay?" he chuckled. "And don't call them a monster. You don't like to upset them, do you?"
"Upset them? As if may they have feelings!" Then Kaelee paused. She was frozen where she stood momentarily, staring blankly at nowhere. "T-They...." her voice quivered once the realization hit her. "Y-You mean, t-there's not just one of them..."
The silence filled the stinky room, Kaelee slowly stole a glance at Spike whose white eyes were replaced by a pair of flaming red ones. It gave her a murderous look.
"Easy, Spike, she didn't mean what she said," Surgeon Sin smiled at the creature.
Spike's eyes quickly turned blue as a smile slowly tore across its face. Then it laughed in a funny low voice, each syllable carried a robotic accent. "Ha. Ha. Ha."
Kaelee hugged herself. "What's funny?"
The doctor inched a little closer to whisper to her. "When I tell him that, he perceives that the whole conversation is a joke. I programmed them to laugh when someone's joking so..." He drew away his face from hers and laughed. "Funny, right? No one's going to tell you here that your jokes are corny!"
She just rolled his eyes and stepped away from the table, about to leave. "And you want me to be your assistant to create these—" Kaelee brainstormed for a better term for the likes of Spike. Because she just remembered that she couldn't call them 'monsters. "—these Frankensteins!"
She turned her back on Dr. Alfred to leave him. She might find a way out on that dark path opposite the doorway that Spike was blocking, so she headed that way.
At this point, she was determined to leave because, never! She would never assist that psycho! She would rather graduate late than be a part of this clinic!
Dr. Alfred chuckled. "Little girl, Frankenstein is a scientist! Not the undead creature itself!" When he noticed that she didn't stop walking, he quickly grabbed her back by the arm. "My goal is greater than that Kaelee—" His words were interrupted when he pulled her back a little too strong. The force made him step back and hit the back of his leg on the chair that faced the table. He dropped and sat on the chair, pulling Kaelee along with him. She ended up falling on his lap.
Surgeon Sin immediately pushed her away. At the same time, Kaelee jumped off of him.
"Perv!" she seethed at him.
"I just pulled you back! I didn't intend to make you sit on my lap!" he said in defense, smirking.
She flushed. How dare he smirk while defending himself! He didn't really seem bothered or sorry! "Psycho!"
"Nonsense." He stood up. "Now make your decision, Kaelee. Will you be my assistant or not?"
Kaelee took a glance at Spike, then around the creepy hallway, and finally, at Surgeon Sin's sinister smile.
"What if I don't want to?"
"Then, I will have to kill you," he stared gravely at her.
"Oh, wow! Kill already? Can't you just take back your recommendation for me to be a trainee at San Rafael Hospital?" she defended herself nervously.
"Because I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning with my place surrounded by the police, Kaelee. I know that's what you're going to do once I spare you."
She released a heavy sigh. Kaelee could tell that he was serious about eliminating her because, she believed that he was a psycho, right? Psycho! Unstable! Aggressive!
She swallowed and resisted to urge to cry. Because it seemed like she was left without a choice. Like her mother, she was meant to just accept whatever life got to give her...
Even if it was bound to give her hell.
⚕
KAELEE thought about it carefully before answering Dr. Alfred's burning question.
She agreed to be his assistant because just one wrong move or answer and he would put her into place. Kaelee could bet that that place wouldn't be very nice at all.
She was lucky that he let her go home after she promised to fulfill her duty tomorrow. It was hard to start her work this evening because she needed to recover from everything that she discovered and witnessed in that clinic.
When she came home, Kaelee prayed away all her fears. She didn't want Lola Helene to worry, so she kept everything to herself. But Kaelee was sure that once she was ready, she would confront her grandmother as to why of all the people in the world, she decided to entrust her to this lethal Dr. Alfred.
⚕
THE NEXT DAY, after her training schedule, Surgeon Sin brought Kaelee to his so-called office. It was a tiled room in the building behind his residence which seemed to be meant to be a bathroom, but the toilets and other furniture were not yet installed.
He pulled down a string which turned on the triangular pendant light that hung over his table. Then he occupied a monobloc chair and pulled out a book from a desk's drawer.
The thick book was holed on its sides for a pink yarn to pull through and bind its pages securely. The doctor handed it to Kaelee who sat on the other monobloc chair, positioned on the other side of the desk, opposite Dr. Alfred.
"I keep a record of my creations in that book," the surgeon grinned. "Feel free to take a look."
A scrawled penmanship welcomed her on every page along with stapled pictures of the creatures he made.
"H-How long have you been doing this?" she asked shakily.
"I've been doing this for two or three years," he replied, his snake-like eyes peering at her and then at the book in her hands. "Honestly, my interest lies in helping people. I kept studying even after I graduated to discover new techniques, but I got tired of it eventually. Because no one appreciates a good doctor these days. I think people appreciate doctors a bit more if they can be paid by money."
"What do you mean?" she narrowed her eyes on him.
"As a doctor, I want to be honest with my patients. Sadly, they cannot deal with that. They kept on squeezing every possible solution to their mortality out of me. They won't stop bugging me to figure out every possible method on how I can save their precious lives as if I am a god who has all the cures for their illnesses. They want to pay me money to shut me up and just do my job, but I did not become a surgeon for money, so...I kind of lost my interest in people." He left his seat and Kaelee followed him with her eyes until he stopped and stood by her side with his arms crossed. "I have become interested in creating people now."
Kaelee slammed the book on his desk. "Impossible. From the beginning, you already know that your experiment is doomed to fail because you are not God. You cannot create people!"
"Kaelee." He became firm and stiff. "I want you to be my assistant and your job requires you to follow my orders, not the other way around. I don't like any stupid opinions from you, so just let me give you a little orientation on how to do your job." He took the book from her, returned to his seat, and shoved the book back into the drawer. "All that you are going to do here is listen to my instructions, okay?
She let out a reluctant sigh.