Cosmic Undead

Pilot 3: Somnolence

He had been thirsty, earlier, before the wave. The wave seemed to have done a lot. He felt refreshed and strong but he was in another strange place, with no one around.

Jeremy had given up on his life, though he had also given up on his life, many times before then. He was always ready for death, whenever a minor challenge arose. It was worse, at the moment. His wife was what he had cherished the most and she was gone, already.

Walking aimlessly on the empty streets and deep in thought, he heard a switch behind him; the first sound he had heard, not made by him, since he arrived. He turned back. A dimmed light flickered through a window. Jeremy walked slowly to the window and looked inside.

The first thing he saw was a tattoo; a tattoo he had seen once before. Then, there was a pant hanging on the window. He would know that pant wherever he saw it but he couldn't just see it anywhere, it was his wife's. "My wife?", he asked himself, doubting his eyes and forgetting how strange the whole place was.

The tattooed man had the lady in his arms and they were kissing passionately. His right arm held her left leg up and he pushed her against the wall. She moaned, as the man roughened her up, squeezing her breast in his hand and swinging into her. Jeremy stood out there and watched in awe. The tattooed man, named Owen, took her second leg on his second arm and he lifted her up. Hailey moved up and down, erotically, moaning louder and louder. Owen held onto her legs and stepped back from the wall. Hailey held onto the wall, remaining slant, as Owen was still inside her.

Jeremy couldn't take it. He walked to the door of the house. Luckily, the door wasn't closed. He opened it, quickly and rushed in. The interior of the house was too weird for him to ignore. It was darker than he expected. "Hello?", he called. He didn't want to collide with something worse than he was already going through. "Hailey?"

The door slammed and locked itself, startling him. He turned sharply and ran back to the door, trying to open it. He couldn't open it. "f**k!", he muttered.

Everything was silent, once again. He was sweating in the cold. The light that had shone through the window seemed inexistent from inside. "Hello?", he called again, running around, hastily, and searching quickly.

The house was empty, or it seemed so. He calmed himself down. He was going to try and open the door again but his eyes fell on an unclear human figure, outside, through the window. The breeze was blowing stronger and the unforeseen rain had begun to drizzle. "Hello?", Jeremy called, slowly, wondering whether to go and check or not. He walked slowly towards the window. It had become clear that someone was outside but the rain prevented him from seeing the face.

He was going to pull the window up and speak to the boy but a loud thud startled him. Looking up, he saw the boy but there was an axe in his head. While still wondering what was happening, a hand grabbed the handle of the axe and pulled it out. Jeremy was going to scream. He stepped back slowly, as his heart pounded violently.

As if the water on the window had cleaned up, miraculously, he could clearly see the cute face of the young boy, mutilated by the axe. While the attack seemed to have stopped, the axe came again, striking deep into the boy's head and cutting of a small part of his head, splashing blood on the windows. It was too gory to keep watching but Jeremy couldn't take his eyes off it.

While walking backwards, he stumbled and fell on somebody who pushed him back. "Stay away from my breast, you fool".

Jeremy stood up and turned, immediately. He looked at the woman behind him. She wasn't old but he was definitely younger than she was. She looked like she should have children already. Maybe she did. "Who are you? How did you get in? Why am I here?", Jeremy asked all of the questions, at once. "There's a killer outside"

"Killer? Oh! The show's over, already", the woman replied.

Jeremy turned and looked at the window. There was no blood, no axe, no boy and no killer. Everything had disappeared like it never happened. "There was blood all over the window, I swear. A young boy was hacked to death, just now. I know what I saw"

"I know what you saw, dear", the woman replied. "It's just Somnolence having it's blissful memories."

"Blissful what? What's Somnolence?!"

"Shh!!", another voice said. A chair that had appeared empty now had someone on it. The man had his face hidden by the old newspapers he was reading. He put the newspapers down, slowly, and smiled. "You're welcome to Somnolence"

“This place is Somnolence?”, Jeremy managed to ask. He was terrified and definitely sure the newspaper man was not sitting there, a few seconds earlier. The woman wasn’t in the room some minutes earlier and he was pretty sure he saw a boy getting hacked to death. “What’s happening here? I’m going insane!”

“This is the new guy?”, another voice came out. A bearded man, wearing an hat, on a wheelchair wheeled himself out of the dark. “You’ll get used to it. I’m Professor Adkins. This is one big family and it’s our pleasure to meet you”

“Pardon me”, the woman said, quickly. “I am Becca. Becca Paige, the mother of the house. You are welcome to our home in Somnolence.”

“I have to introduce, too”, the young man with the newspapers said, tapping his forehead like he had to think of what to say. “My name is Gregory Tyler. Your welcome to this horrible place.”

The lights came on, suddenly. There was a potbellied man in the kitchen, sweating as he rolled flour. There was a fat woman cheering him as he seemed to be putting a lot of strength in whatever he was doing. A boy ran out of one of the rooms and stopped, immediately he saw Jeremy, “We have a visitor?”

“This is the boy!”, Jeremy said, pointing at him. “He was the one out in the rain. Someone hacked him to death and there was blood, all over the window”

“Those dumb scenes again”, the young boy commented, expressionless. “This motherfucking place never gets-“

“Language, Billy!”, the fat woman, from the kitchen, scolded him, as she walked into the parlor. “You really need those morals you failed to learn in the real world… You’re welcome, our guest. I am Big Momma, the fattest among us”

“She’s the weird granny in the family”, Becca added, as a joke.

“Real name is Leah Fizzwick”, Big Momma said and shook Jeremy’s hand. “The boy is Billy Combs. We also have a girl, about Billy’s age. She’s-“

She was interrupted, as a pillow flung at Billy. A girl walked out of the same room Billy had run out from. “Uh-oh. Sorry”, she apologized. “We have a new member?”

“Yes, apology not accepted”, Big Momma said. “No food for you, tonight. The two of you”

Gregory laughed out loud. “It’s only a matter of time before they learn to pick sausages out of thin air”, he commented.

“I’m Lisa Morrin. Will you be staying with us?”, the young girl asked.

“Hell, no! Y’all are as weird as a rat in a pie”, Jeremy said and tried to walk out.

“Hey!”, the fat man called from the kitchen, wiping his face with his apron. “We haven’t met yet. I’m Patmos Baker. Nice to meet you”

“Nice to meet you, too. I’m Jeremy Pence”, he replied and tried to open the door. “I have to get out of here”

The door opened. “Wait!”, Prof Adkins stopped. “You can’t get out. You’ll need our help. The same way we need yours”

★

“Garfield? Be careful, out there!”, his mother shouted. He hated it so much that he never replied, unless there was a guest, then he would remind his mother of his date of birth. Then, they begin to calculate his age and how long the ‘Be Careful' words have expired.

He was taking a lot of risks and maybe his mother knew about it. He was working towards a goal, trying to expose a wrong doing, something that might affect the society they were living in but his mother didn’t believe in legacies. He never actually had that in mind. He was just a fan of mysteries and adventures, and was fond of diving into danger with a defective parachute.

He tiptoed in the lab, making sure he didn’t make any noise to attract any worker. He had been caught once and was warned to never return. Eduardo was aware that Garfield knew some of his company’s plans, though he couldn’t tell how much Garfield knew. The closing hour had passed, already but Garfield met the doors open. He didn’t need to use his unsure master plan to get in. That only meant there was someone in the building; maybe more than one person.

He could hear footsteps, approaching. He remained silent, as he almost got confused of where to hide in. He remained in a position, till the footsteps stopped. He believed he had the ability to hypnotize a person but he never used it in a risky situation, though he considered it. While that ability might have brewed his daredevil confidence, sometimes he doubted if they worked. He was naturally always seeking danger. “One… two …”, he whispered to himself, about to stand up. “Go!”.

Immediately he got on his feet, his eyes met with one of the lab workers who hesitated to make a noise. “Who’s there?”, the lab worker said, about to ring a bell.

Garfield raised his head. He was done for, already. He had to give his telepathic ability a shot. “Me”, he said, as his eyes glowed green. He muttered indistinct words and the lab worker’s eyes also glowed. The lab worker dropped his hands and remained still. Garfield had successfully hypnotized him. That was his first. “Wow!”, Garfield whispered to himself. He stepped closer to the lab worker and confidently asked, “You’re going to take me to the new project. You will tell me what it’s about and how to stop it”

“Yes, master”, the lab worker replied, nodding.

“Avoid the others”, Garfield added to the instructions, as the lab worker led him through roomsz opening doors with secret codes and thumbprints.

“Eduardo has created a formula. Not only is he going to create an army of intelligent animals. He also wants to control them and very soon, he will be successful with every of his plans”. They walked into an elevator which took them down.

“Why would he want to control an army of intelligent animals and what would be the use?”, Garfield asked, trying to get the point. Not only did he sense evil in the acts but Eduardo’s reaction was very suspicious.

“That’s where we might have to be afraid. It’s not the action that is scary. It’s his ambition; his intentions that will brew later actions”, the lab worker said, as they walked out of the elevator. There was a kind of glass cage ahead of them. There was a pretty young gorilla in one of the cages. Over the cage, there is a small board with a writing on it; “Project Amp 1; Kong”.

“What’s the gorilla for?”

“That’s the subject. The gorilla project is almost complete. He has built it’s strength and intelligence. Not just that. The gorilla is able to increase it’s intellect, think faster than a man, and adapt faster to situations.”

“So he’ll control the gorilla and do what? What are his intentions?”, Garfield asked.

“Most of it is just power. The kind of power he can get with this can bend a lot of things to his will. If that power is with a psychopath like him, he will bend every one of us-“

A gunshot was heard as blood splashed on Garfield’s face. A bullet had gone into the lab worker’s head. He turned back to see who had shot but a large steel bat hit his head, knocking him out. Three men, dressed in lab clothes, lifted Garfield.

“Put him in the tube. We are working, through the night”, Eduardo said, with his arms folded behind him. “Dispose the i***t. Let Matthew replace him, tomorrow”