#strange pallid cadaver

[clickbaitcowboy]

Nothing like some good ol’ family bonding! (Repaint of this painting from year)

[soyforramen]

My Pet Platypus

Jughead stared at the strange creature in the tank.  It stared back at him through beady black eyes as it floated on the surface of the water.  He couldn’t be sure, but Jughead had a strange feeling that this hybrid creature knew more than it was letting on.  In the dark room it was lit up by heat lamps that threw off an eerie orange glow that made the water around it look like fire.  Any creature that survived looking like the bastard child of a duck and a beaver could not be trusted.

Behind him, Betty and Dr. Curdle wrapped up their strange sort of pleasantries - she offering insight on new theories and experiments in magic, he calmly explaining his own newly learned techniques when it came to interring the undead.  It seemed a strange sort of relationship, on that Jughead was inherently suspicious of despite Betty’s assurances that Dr. Curdle was indeed a friend of the family.  Her assurances, as pleasant sounding as they may be, did nothing to allay his suspicions though.  

After all, it was hard not to be suspicious of a man whose being gave off none of the usual markers of humanity or the undead.  No scent.  No heartbeat.  No breath.  If the doctor hadn’t been standing in front of him, Jughead would have believed he didn’t exist.  

It wasn’t as if he were dangerous so much as something different.  Not of this world, perhaps.  The word eldritch scratched around the corners of Jughead’s mind, but he dismissed those as he stared at the creature in the tank.  A rare creature evolved to thrive in one of the harshest lands on earth, perhaps Dr. Curdle was just the same.  Something whose existence would be dismissed out of hand, too fantastical to be real.

Much like vampires and witches and werewolves, he supposed.

“Ah, I see you’ve met my colleague Gary,” Dr. Curdle said in his strangely accented voice.

Jughead straightened.  “Gary?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Curdle smiled pleasantly enough, and Jughead wondered whether it would be prudent to ask for clarification.  Was the platypus named after a former colleague or was the platypus his former colleague.  The doctor blinked with two distinct sets of eyelids and the shock of it banished all questions from his mind.

Betty stepped in quickly to direct the conversation back to the matter at hand.

“Dr. Curdle, would you mind repeating what you told me on the phone?  I just want to make sure our notes are correct.”

He turned to Betty and smiled, his cheeks stretched just enough past normal to make Jughead’s skin crawl.

“Of course.  Several of our peers have been brought in with missing pieces.”

As they waited for him to continue, the water filter burbled behind them.  Jughead couldn’t help but wonder if they’d stepped into a black hole that stretched time into infinite.

“Such as …” Betty trailed off, the smile on her face encouraging.

“One of our werewolf friends -“

The words gave Jughead a mild panic attack, and Betty laid a hand on his arm.  She shook her head and muttered a name he’d never heard of.

“-was brought to me a few days ago, curiously without his right lung, liver, and pancreas.  Would you like to see?”

In a strange sort of eagerness, Betty nodded.   Dr. Curdle nodded, his every movement clinical and detached and stilted, and lead them through a door to a mortuary room.  

“Please forgive the mess, I’ve had quite a few visitors in the last few days.”

Try as he might, Jughead couldn’t see more than a set of tweezers slightly out of place.  True, he’d never been in a morgue before, but everything was kept in clinical precision.  He glanced at Betty only to find her fully focused on the wall of morgue lockers in front of them.  With a sharp, practiced pull, Dr. Curdle pulled open the shelf and slid the body out.  

It was covered modestly with a plain white sheet, only the grey shoulders and pallid head above it visible.  The blood had been drained from its body leaving behind an ashen shell.  There was something to the unnatural, antiseptic environment that made Jughead uneasy.  He’d had seen plenty of dead bodies before, dead by his own hands and by others’, but seeing one under the harsh, florescent lights, the smell of formaldehyde around them, felt invasive and impolite.  

“This is a most interesting one, of the faery folk I’m told,” Dr. Curdle said as he walked around the body.  

In death the fae’s vanity charms had evaporated, leaving behind the natural split wood skin that stretched too tight around its skull.  Charming in life, it was terrifying in death.  It was no wonder people spoke of demons and goblins.

Undisturbed by the sight, Dr. Curdle lifted the sheet to reveal the rest of the body.  It’s torso had been split into three sections, each neatly held open by a pair of metal clamps.  From where he stood, Jughead could make out the ribs, a strange yellow blob, and just at the edge the still slowly pulsing heart.  He spun away from the sight, the little blood still in him from last night threatening to come back up.  Betty, though, held no such qualms and stood next to the good doctor to peer closer into the cavity.

“Despite the still beating heart, I can assure you she is most certainly dead.  Quite fascinating how the heart persists even after. While they aren’t human, per se - who in this room is,” Dr Curdle paused to chuckle at his own joke, “they do share much of the same anatomy as humans.  At least where the internal organs are concerned.  Quite expected when one takes into account the medieval ages and the dalliances of -”

Jughead slouched towards the wall and fought to keep upright as Dr. Curdle prattled on about the fae’s predilection for human company.  With more than a hint of black humor, Jughead couldn’t help but chuckle.  The witch who made healing potions and light spells had no trouble taking detailed notes while staring into the body of a corpse.  Meanwhile the vampire, a creature who lives off the life of others, is unable to stand the sight of a still beating heart.

“Do you see it?” Dr. Curdle asked excitedly.

His tone caught Jughead’s attention and he knew better than to look.  

“I’m afraid that might have been a trick question,” he said.  With a snap of latex he slipped on a pair of gloves and reached into the cavity.  Something squelched and Jughead squeezed his eyes shut.  

“Under here is normally where they keep the appendix -“

“The source of their magic?” Betty asked.

Dr. Curdle nodded and let out a small grunt.  Another wet sound came and Jughead slouched further down the wall.  

“Precisely, but as you can see -“

Betty gasped and Jughead cracked his eyes open to look at her.  Shock was written across her slightly open mouth and wide eyes, and he was tempted to look for himself until his stomach gave another gurgle.  

“Nothing.”

“Even stranger is that the liver, normally here, is also missing.  The tissue around both show signs of natural healing-”

“Indicating that it was done long before their death,” Betty said.

She hummed and continued her inspection of the cadaver, intent on getting as much information as possible.  Jughead knew he should be doing the same - often their notes improved when they went back through the day - but on this he trusted Betty’s instinct more than his own gag reflex.  

“Can you think of any reason why they might be missing?”

Dr. Curdle stared at the fluorescent lights overhead a moment.  “Liver, kidneys, lungs, and other various organs have been known to be missing from certain… suspect corpses that have come through here.  Common among those humans less fortunate who decide to ‘donate’ body organs when bills come due.”

“But have you seen this in the underground?” Jughead asked.  

It was one thing for humans to resort to carving themselves up and another altogether for the others to do so.  Though they might have their many problems, there was always good paying work of some sort in the underground, plenty enough to retire on.  You just had to have the stomach for it.

“Not until very recently.”

“When was the first?” Betty asked, her pencil raised and ready.

“Last month, as a matter of fact.”  

Now finished with his macabre show and tell, Dr. Curdle replaced the white sheet as carefully as if he were tucking in a small child.  With a low rattle the metal tray slid neatly back into the wall.

“Are you the only mortician who works on… us?”  

Jughead suspected that her hesitation was less from a witch’s natural self-importance than it was from the strange creature that stood before them.  He’d been in Dr. Crudle’s presence for over an hour and Jughead had yet to discern what exactly he was.   It was clear what he wasn’t though, and that alone was enough to make him afraid.

“As far as I know, yes.”

Now with the body gone, and along with it the overwhelming smell of formaldehyde, Jughead was able to stand.  He opened up his own notebook and flipped through the pages.

“Do you have any idea why those organs might be missing?” Betty asked, beating him to it.

“For the same reason as the humans,” Dr. Curdle said with a shrug.  His shoulders extended a hair too far to be normal.  

“Money?”

“Yes.”

Betty chewed her lip.  

“What about the appendix?  It’s useless in humans, can the fae transfer -“

“Transplant,” Dr. Curdle corrected.

“-transplant those?”

“Not as far as I’m aware.”

“What about using it in spells?” Jughead asked.

Betty stared at him, her lips thin.  She’d already shown how sore the subject of false rumors were about witches, but thankfully she held her tongue.

“It’s possible.  The appendix produces quite a bit of magic while the faery is alive; however I’m unsure of its efficacy after removed from the body.  From my understanding, magic is more personal then general.  A welder using such a magic, especially one stolen from a body, might themselves be on the receiving end of a very nasty defensive mechanism.”

“Like the barbs of a platypus,” Jughead said.  

“Exactly.”

“What about if its given freely?” Betty asked.  The line of her jaw was still tense, but thankfully she was no longer shooting daggers at Jughead.

“I suppose,” Dr. Curdle trailed off.  

The clock on the wall ticked by and Jughead found himself once more in the syrupy molasses of a black hole.  Dr. Curdle, meanwhile, stood completely still.  Even with his sharp eyes, Jughead could find no difference between that of Dr. Curdle and the body he’d since put away.  Ghouls were uncommon, and even so Dr. Curdle’s movements were far smoother and more coordinated than those unwilling victims who roamed the streets in the name of their masters.  

“Magic given freely, perhaps even magic sold, would, I suspect, respond just the same as the magic you sell.”

Betty’s nose crinkled and she shook her head. “I don’t sell magic.”

“You sell those marbles,” Jughead reminded her.  

She pursed her lips but said nothing more.  He wondered if he’d struck a nerve, and if he had had he done so purposefully?  To push her away before he was pulled in?  

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Jughead asked, more to get his mind off his own introspection and what it might mean.

“Not that I can think of,” Dr. Curdle said.  

Betty pulled a card out and scribbled a number on it.  She handed it to Dr. Curdle who slipped it into his apron.

“If something else comes up, please -“

“You’ll be the first one I call.  Now, if you’ll excuse me I have another appointment.”  

Jughead and Betty made their way back onto the street, the light dim compared to the surgical lights of the mortuary.  Around them the streets were filled with people, underground and human, who had no idea the disturbing implications of what they’d just seen.  It was the first Jughead had ever thought of what happened to a fae body after death.  But the more troubling aspect of it was more of what had been done to the body before death.

A fae willingly giving up their magic was just as improbably as a fish learning to fly.  And yet -

Betty’s stomach growled and she blushed.  

“I guess breakfast didn’t last as long as I thought.”

Jughead’s own stomach, still sore from the morgue, twisted in on itself to hide away from even the thought of food.  A rare occurrence considering his normally voracious appetite.  But when Betty mentioned a cafe down the street, he agreed readily.  And if the omelette and French toast she’d ordered made even a vampire green, Jughead didn’t mention it.

[mamasquirrelwithacup]

Mamasquirrel’s Simetics Simedy Short Stories Simlit: Chapter 5 of Series 1 “Luminous” Thanks to all the CC, Mod, and pose pack makers that I use in my simlit stories. Warning: Please be advised this chapter contains mentions of blood and death.

World 4: “San Myshuno”

The group of friends find themselves at the karaoke bar. A young lady approaches them. “Would any of you like to participate in karaoke night? The winner gets all the free drinks and food until the bar closes.” Asks the young lady. 

“No thanks, but by any chance do you know anything about missing people?” Asks Carafe.  

“After I sing my song, I will come and talk to you. Is that okay? Ask the young lady. 

“Sure!” Replies Carafe. 

The group of friends listen to everyone sing. They all seem to enjoy it for the most part. 

“Yes, we are in San Myshuno. No, I don’t think so. I see. Is there not another way? What if I don’t...no, please...you have my word. Just don’t, please!” Phoenix hangs up the phone. ‘What have I gotten myself into, Ursa? I hope for your sake and mine I can find...” He tries to bring his thoughts back to his quest at hand.  

“You want to know about the missing people right? I can’t tell you much about them. Just careful on who you trust. Even your friends.” Says the young lady.

“My friends? Why my friends?” Asks Carafe.

“That is all I can give you.” Replies the young lady, as she leaves.

The group of friends grab some lunch and decide where to go next. They go over all the clues and conversations again. Hoping to fit pieces together. 

“The young lady at the karaoke bar said something kind of strange to me. She told me to be careful of who I talk to and trust.” Says Carafe.

“That’s not strange Carafe. I happen to agree.” Says Fornax. 

“Yes, but even my friends? What does she mean by that. The only friends that are with us is them.” Replies Carafe.

“I don’t know, but it’s nothing I’m sure.” Says Fornax. 

Phoenix couldn’t even look at them. He only could hold his head down, pretending not to overhear their conversation. He’s hoping they didn’t notice his pallid face. 

World 5: “Forgotten Hollow”

The group of friends arrive in Forgotten Hollow. Fornax decides to look around for a few minutes. They’re not sure where to go. It’s such a small world. No bars, cafes or other business establishments. 

All of a sudden, Phoenix sees someone coming towards him that looks familiar. It’s the barista he had given his number to. 

“Hi! Nice to see you again! Says the very handsome and soft spoken young man. 

“Nice to see you again too.” Says Phoenix. 

“How is your journey going in finding their parents? By the way, my name is Caleb Vatore.” Says Caleb, as he extends his hand.

“My name is Phoenix Mars. We haven’t found much to go on in the other worlds. Found a few things, but not much. So, here we are in this one now.” Says Phoenix, taking Caleb’s hand. ‘His touch so soft and gentle. His eyes so mesmerizing. His voice so sweet. Why didn’t he call me? Maybe, he just lost the number. I should give it to him again.’ Thought Phoenix. 

Caleb turns his attentions towards the rest of the group. They tell Caleb everything so far that has happened. 

Caleb tells them he has heard of some rumors about missing people, but thought it was just that, rumors. He looks at the picture again just to make sure. 

“Sorry, they don’t look familiar to me.” Says Caleb. 

“Do you know who lives in that house there” Maybe, we can ask them too.” Asks Fornax. 

“I sure do! Matter of fact, I know them extremely well.” Replies Caleb, with a grin on his face. 

“Really? Think they would talk to us? Asks Carafe.

“Sure I will.” Says Caleb, laughing a little. 

“You live there?” Asks Phoenix.

“Yes, with my sister Lilith.” Replied Caleb. 

‘I’m so glad it’s a sister. Gosh, what would I have done if it had been a lover. Even worse, a wife and kids.Then I would never stand a chance. Not, that I really do anyway, but even a small chance is better than none.’ Thought Phoenix. 

Caleb told them of a simetery nearby they could look around and maybe find some clues. He warned them to be careful in these parts. Not all share his enthusiasm for self control. 

“Self control? Asks Fornax.

“Yes, I’m a Vampire. Vampires drink plasma/blood from other life forms. I however, choose to drink plasma packs.The plasma/blood is given voluntarily to the hospitals and put into packs. This way, Vampires have other sources of nourishment other than biting someone. Lately however, the hospitals have been running low. Less people been donating and less cadavers too.” Explains Caleb. 

“Cadavers too?” Asks Fornax

“When someone dies, the hospital prepares the body for burial or cremation. When doing this, they must drain the blood. It helps preserve the bodies until the families can bury/cremate them. Then the hospital will take the blood and put it into packs as well. This is what I usually do for my nourishment. With this shortage now, Vampires are having to rely on biting more. That is why I said be careful.” Says Caleb. 

“What if someone gives you permission to bite them?” Asks Phoenix, winking at Caleb. 

“Only if they give me permission with no strings attached. It would be unfair to give promises I can’t keep.” Replies Caleb. 

“Promises you can’t keep?” Asks Phoenix.

“I don’t want like a thousand lovers you know.” Says Caleb, laughing a little. 

The group of friends laugh too. 

‘You could drink for me anytime. You wouldn’t need a thousand lovers. I would be the only lover you need. There is just something about you Caleb Vatore I must have.’ Thought Phoenix. 

Caleb knew there was something about him too. He could see so deep within his soul. 

The group of friends head to the simetery to look around. 

After a couple of hours checking each headstone and finding no clues, they find relief and comfort in not doing so. They regroup and get ready for their journey to the next world. Will things become more clearer? Will it bring them any closer to the truth? What awaits them? 

[pianopadawan]

Descent, A Poe x Hux Fanfiction Chapter 1

A/N: Decided to post the actual chapters on Tumblr for more convenient reading. This story is also posted on AO3.

Plot Synopsis: The collapse of the Empire brought not peace but chaos. The New Republic has given way to power lust and corruption. War wages on with rekindled desperation between the Resistance and the First Order, the spawn of the Empire turned disenchanted military branch of the Republic. A new generation must enter the battle, bound to one side or the other.

Amidst the inferno, the teenage corporal Armitage Hux is faced with unstable authority over a doomed mission. Meanwhile, the Resistance fleet’s most promising young pilot, Poe Dameron, finds himself climbing enemy ranks for the sake of a tenuous “greater cause”. In the most fortunate of cases, chance meetings in troubled times strengthen both parties. At other times, one man’s rise to fame will mark the other’s descent into madness.

Rating: Mature

Chapter 1: Miscalculations

11 ABY, Mineral Fields of Eadu

The boy’s hands tremble as his line of vision lurches forward. For a moment, he thinks the transport will surely give way, that the whole team will go crashing down, buried in a heap of scalding metal. But the moment passes, and he’s allowed another hurried breath, another heartbeat.

His console has fallen to the floor again. He feels the glare of the Commander heavy upon him as he bends over to pick up the device, mutters a quick apology and retreats back to the corner of the cockpit. The walls quake again. The commander barks out something about defending the western reaches, an order to which the rest of the crew can only respond with a few worried murmurs and snide remarks. It’s only a question of how it’ll end, how many more blows the transport will take before the legs give way.

No one dares to speak of evacuation. Better to die now than be blown to bits fleeing the battlefield or executed for desertion. This wordless resolution predated all understanding of the war and whatever trivial conclusions one drew from it.

Another blast makes the transport reel to the left before the pilot can regain balance. The boy fixes his eyes on his console, refusing to look up from the screen of expanding red. He knows his task – report back on the remaining transports and support ships, those in distress and those destroyed, whenever prompted by the Commander. It’s a simple task and one that’s become all but redundant. The commander stopped caring about the losses hours ago.

But the boy remains attentive, hoping to feel useful, hoping that surely, surely he can offer something before…

“Then, it’s hopeless!”

The entire team turns to the source of the outburst –a pallid youth with his index finger pointed accusingly at the Commander.

“Get back to your post, Ensign,” the Commander’s tone is stern as ever, but the Ensign is undeterred.

“We know it’s a lost cause without the shields,” the ensign persists. “More importantly, the Resistance knows. Why else would they target the generator?”

“The main generator went up in flames,” says the Commander. “There’s no use discussing it further. What we need now is reinforcements on the western reaches and your order is to shut your trap and get us there. Understood?”

“We aren’t going to make it there, Commander.” The transport dips forward again as if to prove the Ensign’s point. “We won’t make it much longer, but as far as the Resistance is concerned, none of that matters.”

“I don’t give a damn what matters to the Resistance scum! What matters is our task!”

“Our task is to counter the Resistance attack. They’re not after the western reaches. They’re after the weapons lab. Without the shields, the lab is an easy target.”

The boy watches the confrontation, wondering what could have kindled such impertinence. His father had been sure to instill in him a loathing for impudence (thinking about it made him wince), but that wasn’t the only lesson he’d learned. Above all, there was no excuse for accepting defeat when there was still fighting left to be done.

A heavy breath of silence passes before the transport pilot says in a quavering voice:

“If you would pardon my interruption, sir. There is a secondary shield generator that is not too far from our current position. I suspect it has already taken damage but may be salvageable with some mechanical work.”

The Commander frowns, giving the pilot a brief, impassive glance before asking:

“How far?”

“Roughly a mile,” the pilot replies. “In the Eastern Outpost. The work would have to be done manually, but the outpost’s transmission systems are down. We have no way of making contact with the technical squadron stationed there, even if they’ve managed to survive, but it is possible to get there on foot from our current coordinates.” He hesitates. “Though it would be… hazardous.”

Hazardous is an understatement. Such a task would be a suicide mission. The chances of success are too high to risk the lives of the expert crew members. Yet, the stakes are too high to discard the proposition. The boy knows this all too well. He shows no surprise when the Commander turns to him.

“Boy!” the Commander barks. “Come here. I have a job for you!”

“Take this,” the Ensign says, handing the boy a transmitter. “We’ll use it to communicate as you make your way to the outpost. Once you’re inside, the generator will be on the second floor. You’ve worked with similar generators in the past from my understanding. This should be much the same. Get there, and we’ll give you further instructions on activating the emergency shields. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

���There’s a tracker built in,” the Ensign explains, indicating the transmitter. “So, we’ll be able to track your coordinates once you’ve activated the shields and give you directions back to the transport. Are we clear?”

The boy wants to scoff at the idea of a return trip. The odds of him reaching to the outpost alive, much less return to the transport in one piece, are miniscule. It’s a hopeless task and he is but a token, cast away to settle the Commander’s doubts that they’ve exhausted all options.

Pushing these thoughts aside, he responds with another sterile, “Yes, sir.”

The Ensign nods. The transport comes to a halt, and the exit ramp unfolds. A moment later, the boy finds himself standing on the slate ground, watching the transport’s towering legs stalk past him, a metallic skeleton returning to the grave.

He can see the battle unfolding above, the shadows of the TIE Fighters engaging the enemy fleet. A mile away, a squad of troopers are manning the ground artillery. A minute later, an enemy ship swoops down, blowing another cannon and its crew to pieces. The Eastern Outpost is a mile away, or so the transport pilot claimed. The boy can see its figure, peaking out on the horizon what feels like another fifty miles away.

He starts towards it.

A crash echoes across the field and out of the corner of his eye, the boy glimpses the crumpled remains of an AT-AT. Presumably it was shot down by one of the enemy ships.

He wonders about the precision of an X-Wing. He’s seen TIE Fighter models with enough precision to shoot down a single ground trooper. An eleven-year-old boy, armed with nothing but a blaster, making his way across the battlefield alone must look suspicious. Maybe that’ll be enough for the enemy fighters to target him. He orders himself not to speculate.

Soon after, he encounters another group of Stormtroopers manning an anti-aircraft cannon. A few of them turn to stare at him, before quickly returning to their work. The boy fears at first that they’ll mistake him for a deserter, but the worry soon subsides. Any deserter who would attempt to escape by running into a live warzone would be too foolish to pose a threat.

A shadow passes over him. He dives under an overturned transport seconds before the explosion, which leaves his ears ringing.

A cloud of debris rises a few feet away from where he’s crouched under the rubble. A stinging pain crawls up his leg, and he looks down to see a few streaks of blood running down his torn uniform. He tries to reorient himself, silently rehearsing his task.

Reach the Eastern Outpost.

Locate the backup generator on the second floor.

Send a transmission back to the crew on the transport…

The transmitter. He must have lost it during the explosion.

He leaves the cover of the fallen transport. After a panicked search, he glimpses a red light blinking a few paces away. He seizes the transmitter from the ground and barely has time to check whether it’s broken before he hears the whirring of a starfighter engine.

He expects another bomb. He expects this to be the one that kills him, but by some strange fate, the enemy ship passes by. Next time, he suspects he won’t be so fortunate. He’s already running out of luck. The lab, his team in the transport, the First Order is already running out of time.

He sets his gaze on the outpost and makes a mad dash towards it. He doesn’t dare to believe he’ll make it, but while he’s still alive he’s damn well going to try.

There’s more wreckage up ahead. Smoke billows from the heap of metal which appears to be the remains of a starfighter. It’s hard to tell what kind, whether it’s an enemy ship or one of the TIE Fighters, and there isn’t time to check. The unmistakable stench of burning flesh rises from the crash site.

The boy is all too familiar with the smell. He remembers long hours spent salvaging whatever was left of the fallen the morning after the battle. It was a task frequently assigned to the juvenile recruits. His father had always believed in teaching his cadets the barbarism of the enemy early on.

The boy had learned well. He thought now of the cadavers. Some of them lay scattered across the battlefield, unidentifiable limbs to fuel the crematorium’s flames. Others were left much as they’d been in life, glossy eyes half-opened, the head leering to the side as if they hadn’t had time to realize their death before it came. Those were the worst ones…

Another shadow. This time, the enemy starfighter is ablaze. It swoops above him, reeling sideways. After another heartbeat aloft, the ship plummets to the ground. Another wreckage, more smoke, more burning…

The outpost is closer now. Almost there. Slowly, the building comes into clearer focus. The vague outline of the entrance solidifies. Part of him still refuses to believe he can make it.

Just a little further. He tightens his grip on the transmitter and pushes himself to keep running.

The bomb falls between the boy and the outpost. There isn’t even time for him to lift his head to see the enemy ship race overhead before the blast flings him backwards.

The world goes black upon impact.

His eyes snap open. His ears ring worse than ever. His head feels as if it’ll burst pressing against his skull.

An excruciating jolt of pain shoots up his left arm. He turns his head towards the source.  The limb has snapped at a crooked angle above the elbow. Blood blooms from the crux of the injury, where the pale form of shattered bone juts from the skin.

At first, he can do nothing but stare, morbidly entranced by the fracture. Then, the tears blur his vision. He tells himself they’re only physical in nature, a reflex beyond his control, but that can only hold off the shame for so long.

The outpost, the generator lies twenty paces away. He’s so close.

He’d been reminded of his weakness more times than he can count. He recalls listening from behind closed doors as the High Command questioned his father.

I understand you have a son. Not of your wife – an illegitimate child? Will he be the best the Empire has to offer?

Even then, he had recognized his father’s doubts. Now, it seems the doubts were justified. Unless…

The boy leverages himself with his good arm into a sitting position. He stays like that for a few more breaths, shaking. A coughing fit racks his skinny frame. The transmitter is lying a foot away. The red light indicates that miraculously, the device is still working. The boy inches towards it, nearly falling down again as he grasps it with his right hand.

By the unknown grace that’s kept him alive thus far, he’s able to stand.

His arm shrieks as he limps towards the outpost. He’s moving slowly. Too slowly. But he’s still moving, still fighting…

He reaches the entrance to the outpost. The door is half-open, presumably jammed. The boy slips through and collapses on the floor. His broken arm jerks to the side and he bites back a cry. The tears slip down his face again. He brushes them away with a furious hand.

The building has not gone unscathed from the attack. The interior is dark, the few remaining lights flickering, dangling precariously from the ceiling. There’s no sign of the technician or security team.

Outside, the battle rages on. The ground shakes as another bomb lands. All it’ll take is for the next one to land on the outpost, and everything will be for nothing.

The boy can’t afford to think of that now. The elevator is straight ahead, its keypad still alight. He stumbles towards it, praying that it’ll work. After a few clicks on the keypad, the door opens and the boy limps inside.

The elevators opens on the second floor, revealing a long hallway. At the end is a long console with an array of glaring alarm lights. A trail of sickly white smoke rises from the corner. Collapsed over the console lies the body of a technician, her hand draped over a lever protruding from the floor. The boy feels his stomach sink.

He steps over to the console, coughing from the smoke. He fumbles for the power switch, prays that whatever damage the machine has taken isn’t irrevocable. To his relief, the lights of the main console flicker on.

“AT-AT Squadron 2406, come in,” he chokes out the words into the transmitter.

No reply.

“AT-AT Squadron 2406, come in,” he repeats.

He hears static on the other end of the line followed by muffled discourse. Then, at last, he hears the pilot’s voice come through:

“Go ahead.”

“I have located the generator,” the boy says. His arm throbs with every step. He thinks for a moment to mention his injury but dismisses the idea.

A shudder runs through the outpost. The boy glances upwards, half-expecting the roof to cave in.

“There is a K9 Reactive Switch near the base of the console,” the pilot says. “Do you see it?”

Leaning one hand on the console for support, the boy searches for the reactive switch, praying that he’ll remember his previous work on the generators at the academy. Another rush of pain ripples from his wound. It takes all his willpower to keep from screaming.

The corpse’s hand is resting on the reactive switch. The sight of it is enough to make his blood freeze. Before he can deliberate the spectacle further, the boy reaches out and moves the hand aside. The corpse’s arm falls back and the rest of the body rolls onto the floor with a hollow thud.

Don’t look at it, a voice inside him snaps. Focus. You’re burning time.

“Affirmative,” the boy speaks into the transmitter. “I see it.”

“Power it on,” the pilot directs him. “This will begin the reset sequence which will deauthorize the main generator and begin activation of the shields from the secondary generator. Once the shields are up…”

The pilot’s voice trails off. Someone is shouting in the background. The dreadful creaking sound of two hundred tons of steel plummeting to the ground blurs into static, and the boy is left alone.

He’s learned to suppress grief before. He’s watched the best officers usurp grief with cold acceptance. Efficiency, some would call it.

You’re burning time, the voice berates him. Wasteful. Wasteful…

He turns back to the reactive switch. It looks more like a misshapen bar than a switch and only twitches when he presses it.

Wasteful and weak.

The boy tries again, pushing harder this time. The switch shifts almost imperceptibly.

Weak. Always weak. I see my faith was misplaced.

His right arm trembles as he forces the toggle again, pushing all his weight downward. The ground rumbles again and he knows time is running thin. Drops of blood fall onto the console, mingling with his sweat. His head is throbbing, pleading for him to rest. He clenches the switch again and channels the last of his strength into the motion.

The switch clicks as it moves down to the active position. The console blinks and the monitor buzzes to life. A message appears on the screen: Beginning generator reset sequence. Transferring shield source to secondary generator.

Armitage Hux reads the notices of his achievement and manages a thin smile. Then, agony obscures his vision and he crumples to the floor.

Medical Bay of the Star Destroyer, The Herald

Commandant Brendol Hux strides into the medical bay. One hand rests on the grip of his blaster. The other is clenched into a fist.

The reports are still not entirely clear, but he’s heard enough to draw his own bitter conclusions.

At 11:26 on Eadu, AT-AT Squadron 2406 was hit by a T-85 Resistance X-Wing starfighter. The transport subsequently collapsed.

At 21:40, following the battle, AT-AT 2406 was located. The coordinates of the wreckage were recorded along with a body count of 21, accounting for the entire crew with the exception of the crew’s junior technician, Armitage Hux.

At 1:00 the following day, Search and Rescue Squad R86 located Armitage Hux on the second floor of the Eastern Outpost. On-site medics reported multiple tertiary blast injuries, including an open fracture in the boy’s left arm. He was transferred to the emergency medical bay aboard the Star Destroyer “The Herald” for treatment.

From what he’s heard, the boy’s condition is still precarious. Brendol doesn’t have time to dwell on uncertainties. What he does know for certain is that there are limited reasons why a cadet should be found nearly a mile away from his crew.

He’s dealt with deserters before. The punishment for desertion is clear in the First Order legal code. Still, Brendol has never been one to believe in drawn-out court procedures culminating months later in a death sentence. He values efficiency too dearly.

“Commandant Hux,” an older woman in a white uniform greets him at the door. “We’ve been expecting you, sir. I’ve been charged with overseeing your son’s treatment.”

“Where is he?” Brendol demands.

“Right this way,” the doctor replies.

She leads him into a long room lined with rows of cots. A medical droid zips past them carrying a basin, the contents of which lets off a foul odor. Several of the cots are obscured by curtains, through which the silhouettes of the doctors are vaguely discernable.

“He has an open fracture in his left arm, slightly above the elbow,” says the doctor. “We suspect it’s from a blast injury, judging from the shrapnel cuts. The cuts have been sanitized and bound with a bacta patch. As for the arm, we’ve completed our initial evaluation and bound the wound with antibiotic bacta beads. Since Armitage is not yet of consenting age, we’ll need your authorization for further surgery.”

Brendol says nothing in reply. He’s never been fond of too much chatter. He makes a mental note to comment on unprofessional behavior to the medical bay’s supervisor.

“Regarding his injuries,” the doctor continues, undeterred by the Commandant’s glower. “The footage is even more unbelievable. It’s a miracle alone that he survived the journey from the transport to the outpost, much less do what he did. I could hardly believe it until I saw the footage my…”

“What footage?” the Commandant interjects.

“Oh.” The doctor furrows her brow. “My apologies, sir. I thought you had heard. They recovered footage from the security tapes in the outpost. Apparently, some of the cameras were undamaged during the attack.”

“No,” Brendol says through gritted teeth. “I was not notified.”

As if the rumors alone wouldn’t be bad enough, there was now footage of the boy’s escape. At least, he can deal with the boy now before the situation escalates further. He tightens his grip on his blaster.

“There’s been talk around the Herald about your son,” Zan continues. “He’s younger than the typical age for any position of authority, but some of the officers here have taken interest in him. They saw the footage of him resetting the system to regenerate the shields and were rightfully impressed.”

“He did what?”

The Commandant stops dead in his tracks. The doctor stares at him worriedly.

“Is everything alright, sir?” she asks.

“I was not aware that my son was responsible for reactivating the shields,” Brendol says at length.

“Oh, my apologies again, sir,” the doctor replies hurriedly. “I… I had thought you’d seen the footage.”

“I will be sure to speak with the transmission team on the frequency of their reports,” is all Brendol can think to say. He lets his hand fall from his blaster.

They continue ahead. The doctor pauses next to one of the cots and draws back the curtain. Armitage is lying on the bed, his breathing shallow but steady. He appears to be unconscious. His head is turned to the side, revealing the ghost of a bruise which the doctors wrote off as “light tertiary blast trauma”.

Brendol gives a quick glance at the fracture and frowns at the grotesque angle the boy’s arm forms against the binding. Looking at the skinny child before him, Brendol still has his doubts about the footage. Yet, he can’t help but wonder if, for the past eleven years, he’s miscalculated the boy’s potential.

There are few things Brendol Hux despises more than miscalculations.

“Take care of him.” The indifference in the commandant’s voice strikes discord with the words. “Take care of him. I’ll be back.”

He turns to leave, but the doctor raises a hand to stop him.

“Excuse me, sir,” she says. “We need your authorization for the surgery. If you would like a detailed overview of the procedure, I would be happy to…”

“Have the required forms sent to my office,” Brendol says. “I will sign them by tonight.”

With that, the Commandant turns the corner and stalks off towards the exit. Hearing his father’s retreating footsteps, Armitage stirs. The doctor nearly calls the Commandant back before she thinks better of it.

The boy rolls his head to the other side and winces as his broken arm shifts. He’s wide awake. He’s been awake the entire time, and they both know it.

The doctor considers asking how he’s feeling, but figures the question is rhetorical. Besides, Armitage has not proven particularly fond of conversation thus far in his stay, not that anyone can blame him.

“Your father was just here,” the doctor remarks.

The boy gives no reply. The doctor purses her lips and decides not to pursue the subject further.

“It’s getting late,” she says. “We’d like you to try to get some sleep. I can give you one more dose of painkillers for the night. Would you prefer I give it to you now?”

Armitage nods. After administering the injection, the doctor leaves. The lights go out shortly afterwards.

The painkillers’ effects are swift. Soon, the agonizing pulses around the fracture are numbed to a dull ache. Armitage exhales heavily and gazes at the ceiling. The spectral hands of the battlefield reach back at him, claiming his thoughts with the cacophony of falling bombs and screeching engines.

He lays like that, haunted in silence for the rest of the night.

Next Chapter

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY Claire Ward hires private investigator John March to look into the increasingly bizarre activities of her husband Charles Dexter Ward, an esteemed Rhode Island chemical engineer. Through a series of conversations with John, Claire reveals Charles’s recent unexplained isolation in their carriage house, his sudden uncovering of his family history, and their visitation to an abandoned ancestral farmhouse near Pawtuxet where he found a painting of a man named Joseph Curwen, to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance. Since these events, Charles has purchased and moved into the farmhouse, leaving Claire without explanation.

Upon investigating, John finds that numerous deliveries are made to the farmhouse, and inquires about them to Charles, who is evasive; Charles explains that he is undertaking routine chemical tests using animal cadavers. Shortly after, an elderly man in a neighboring home is found brutally murdered, only a few remnants of his bones left in the house. Police assume he was attacked and eaten by an animal, but John is skeptical. Claire and John go to visit Charles together, and find him pallid and speaking with an archaic affect. They attempt to extract an explanation from Charles, but he simply tells them he is on “the edge of greatness”, and that in six weeks’ time, they will understand.

Claire agrees to have Charles committed to a hospital. Doctors find his metabolism to be inexplicably high, triggering ravenous hunger, and attribute his change in demeanor to hormonal issues; however, they are unable to explain his craving for blood and raw meat. Meanwhile, John uncovers a diary in the carriage house from Ezra Ward, Charles’s fifth-great grandfather, dated 1771. The diary explains how Ezra had an affair with Joseph’s wife Eliza, and that Joseph had been practicing necromancy in catacombs he constructed on his property. After a flood penetrated the catacombs, the townspeople discovered a grotesquely malformed creature in the river, which they burned alive. The diary ends leading up to the townspeople’s raid of the Curwen house, and Eliza’s admission to Ezra that she was pregnant with Joseph’s child; Claire, John, and John’s assistant Lonnie surmise that Charles’s biological great-grandfather was actually Joseph, not Ezra.

John and Lonnie decide to search for catacombs on the farmhouse property with Claire. They uncover the entrance in the house’s basement, and inside the catacombs find a laboratory and half-grown creatures in wells; Claire also discovers Charles’s briefcase. They attempt to flee but are attacked, and Lonnie is killed by one of the creatures. John leaves a bomb in the catacombs, and he and an injured Claire escape with the briefcase before the house detonates. John takes Claire to the hospital where she is sedated, and the doctor informs him she is pregnant.

John goes to visit Charles in the psychiatric institution, and confronts him with the briefcase, which he discovered filled with human bones. He accuses Charles of in fact being the 250-year-old Joseph Curwen, who successfully found a way to conquer death through his necromantic experiments. Joseph admits his identity, and confesses that the bones in the suitcase are those of Charles, whom Joseph killed after Charles raised him from the dead. He explains his plan to regain his health and eventually be discharged from the hospital, after which he can impersonate Charles. Joseph attempts to cannibalize John, but John pours the restorative potion from the laboratory over Charles’s bones. Charles’s skeleton reanimates, and begins to tear the flesh off Joseph, before the two disappear in a cosmic explosion.

DEVELOPMENT Two facets of Lovecraft’s work create problems for filmmakers, who must not only wrestle with expanding his short stories to feature length, but must also find a cinematic method of conveying the sense of malign cosmic conspiracy underlying many of his later plots. Perhaps the closest anyone has come to capturing Lovecraft is Roger Corman’s THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963), which, despite its Poe title is actually a previous adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Though Corman retained little of Lovecraft’s plot, many of the author’s more outre concepts survived, and Corman’s visual style was a fair approximation of Lovecraft’s literary voice.

THE RESURRECTED was initially written as a spec script by Brent V. Friedman, whose interest in adapting Lovecraft was piqued by the work of Stewart Gordon. “I didn’t really start reading Lovecraft until I noticed that RE-ANIMATOR was based on his story,” recalled Friedman. “I went out and devoured everything I could by him. The one story that struck me as having filmic potential was The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, because there’s so much there. His stuff is mostly short stories I saw some great little ideas, but I didn’t see a film in any of them.”

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is one of only three short novels that Lovecraft ever wrote. At approximately 120 pages, its length seemed optimum for translation to the screen. Noted Friedman, “Because I was so naive at the time. I thought, ‘This will be easy to adapt.’ It was very difficult. The way the novella is written is just how the title implies—it’s written as a kind of objective look at this strange experience. There was no real main character. Unless you want to make a documentary, that doesn’t hold up.”

Friedman set about adapting the novella without being aware of Corman’s film. “I didn’t see it until after I’d written the script I didn’t realize what it was based on until someone told me,” admitted Friedman. “It’s an interesting little film, but it’s a very different version.” After several drafts, Friedman managed to dramatize Lovecraft’s tale well enough to show the script to producers Mark Borde and Kenneth Raich, who took it to Toni Scotti of Scotti Brothers Pictures. In looking for a director, Borde sent Friedman’s script, then titled SHATTERBRAIN, to Dan O’Bannon through a mutual friend. The choice was appropriate: O’Bannon’s RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD had been an effective low-budget directorial debut; perhaps more importantly, O’Bannon��s ALIEN, though an “original” screenplay, captures many of Lovecraft’s more visual concepts probably better than any official adaptation, particularly in the sequence exploring the alien planet and derelict spaceship.

Coincidentally, O’Bannon had already been trying to adapt Lovecraft’s novella, and he brought many of his ideas to the script. “My script is relatively different from the film,” said Friedman. “I set up the main character as a psychiatrist examining Ward. The thrust was how the case affects this psychiatrist. He’s coming from a scientific background, thinking there’s a rational explanation, and takes on a case which makes him rethink everything he believes. After finding out there’s a supernatural explanation, he ends up going slightly crazy.

“When O’Bannon came onto the project, he had been trying to write a script from the same material, and he felt that he had never cracked the third act. He read my script and said, You’ve solved a lot of the problems, but the way I’d always had it in my mind was the main character’s a detective.’ If he was going to get involved with the project-which everyone was very keen on-he wanted to tell the story his way. Everyone was skeptical at first, because my script was getting good response. O’Bannon wrote out a 15-page treatment to show how you could integrate parts of my script with what his idea was.

Rejected Creature Design

“I can’t even tell you what a thrill it was to find out he was involved with the project.” Friedman enthuses. “In just the past six months that I’ve been working with him. I’ve probably learned more about writing than in the previous 26 years of my existence. It’s almost as if, until that point. I was just winging it.”

“Dan’s thinking was this story naturally lends itself to a detective because there are so many clues to be discovered. It looked good on paper, but the execution was a lot trickier than he had made it seem. The toughest thing was to keep the detective not only intellectually involved, but emotionally involved. Dan’s idea was to involve him, a la CHINATOWN, with the wife—which works on a certain level but on another level becomes distracting.”

The change in lead characters resulted in a change of title as well. “The word ‘shatterbrain’ is actually a Middle English term for crazy,” explained Friedman. “It was more relevant in my original script, because the psychiatrist came unglued. It does sound a little like a B-movie, but at the same time it evokes a certain image, so it was appropriate. I pushed for it long into post-production-people got very bored with my suggesting it. THE RESURRECTED, to me, gives too much away. Once you meet the three main characters -well, one of them’s been resurrected, and it’s not too hard to figure out which one!”

PRE-PRODUCTION Devising a photographic look that would capture Lovecraft’s tone fell to cinematographer Irv Goodnoff, who went through an interesting audition process for his director. “There was one other director of photography interested,” said Goodnoff, “so Dan gave us an assignment to bring in what we thought our interpretation of the script would be.

I went back and studied a number of painters that had the flavor of what H.P. Lovecraft felt like, expressionistically speaking. I brought in 30 books, marked out with the pictures I liked. About a week later, I got a phone call saying Dan wanted me.”

Pre-production lasted from June to October 1990, followed by seven weeks of principal photography in Vancouver, Canada, which doubled for Lovecraft’s beloved Providence, Rhode Island. The Bridge Studios, which cover almost 50,000 square feet, provided ample space for the construction of a labyrinth of tunnels where dwell the ghastly results of Curwen’s experiments.

“It’s a contemporary piece, but there’s also the 18th century and the whole world of the catacombs, so, in essence, the picture has three looks,” explained Goodnoff. “We used two different film stocks: Kodak for most of it, and Agfa for the period scene. The Agfa has a more creamy pastel look; the Kodak is much higher contrast with a denser black.

I try to create a flavor and a feeling. Sometimes, a third of the screen is black, and there are shafts of light. When you’re doing horror, you don’t show everything. Dan O’Bannon told me, “You set an expectation for the audience. Then you make them wait, and you make them wait, and you make them wait. When you finally suggest that they see something, they’re going to be scared.’ That was basically our approach.

“It was the most difficult job I’ve ever had to do. The scheduling should have been nine weeks, but we only had seven. We wrapped principal photography just before Christmas. It was one of those deadline days. The plug was being pulled at midnight. I’ve been on a couple of pictures like that: because of bonds people, financial and contractual things, one minute over 12 means you’ve blown it. Those bottom-line people have no grace in a lot of cases. We had three different units going. I was running from one to the other, checking, then shooting my own unit. It was a 14-hour marathon.”

Sarandon with O’Bannon

“Charles Ward is basically a well-intentioned, good man who is led astray by a desire to conquer this great scientific problem that his ancestor has posed. It’s kind of a parallel to Frankenstein: a good man who is consumed with something that he shouldn’t be messing with. The big theme here is basically “Don’t screw with death.”  – Chris Sarandon

SPECIAL EFFECTS The premise of the story is best summed up by a passage Lovecraft quotes from the alchemist Borellus: “… from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a philosopher may … call up the shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust where into his Bodie has been incinerated.” Typically, Lovecraft refers to the results, when not all the “essential Saltes” have been gathered, simply as the “livliest awfulness” without ever describing them in detail.

Such restraint doesn’t work on the movie screen, according to Friedman. “He didn’t really show you a lot,” said Friedman of Lovecraft. “In a book that’s almost scarier, because the reader uses his imagination to fill in the blanks. In a film you can’t just keep talking. Ata certain point you have to deliver the goods. The way the script plays is you get up to the point where he left off and then you have to start creating on your own.”

Coming up with specific designs for Lovecraft’s livliest awfulness fell to Masters, who took his initial inspiration from Friedman’s script. “There were incredibly bizarre descriptions which I had a lot of fun interpreting,” said Masters. “When it finally came to materializing these, O’Bannon would show me books of paintings by Francis Bacon, who I’ve always been a fan of. He would express himself in these imageries, these strange concoctions of paint and color and light rather than form and shape. Dan really got into talking about the character rather than the form, so it was an interesting challenge to come up with a design. What we tried to do is take the human form as groundwork and completely distort a certain aspect of itas long as there’s something the audience can grasp, it’s quite frightening. We designed about 30 monsters; in the film there are about five. I’ve still got reams of designs that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use for anything else because they’re so weird.

The effects unit during principal photography was directed by supervisor Todd Masters because O’Bannon was on a tight schedule. “Dan would take a sequence all the way up to where the effects jumped in, and he would finish off a sequence,” said Masters. “He would leave us the middle. My crew worked nights, mainly for sound reasons we didn’t want to cause troubles with the other unit. We had to match a similar camera style. Things marry very nicely.”

“We’ve done more tricks on this film than on any other I’ve ever worked on,” said Masters. “We have monster suits, remote-control animatronic characters, puppet heads, stop motion, and pneumatics. We had a set of prosthetics on Chris Sarandon for a good portion of the end of the film. You can’t tell he’s wearing anything—they match his face-until we turn on the lights. It’s networked with fiber optics, so it gives the illusion that his veins are glowing when he comes to his climactic end.”

“For most of the monsters, I was given a long leash,” Masters explains. “O’Bannon started coming down with quite a strict design on one creature that I called the ‘Darwin monster,’ which in one of the early drafts of the script was actually supposed to be Darwin resurrected. As the script developed, that monster kind of got pulled all over the place. Some of the earlier maquettes had some really wild designs, but O’Bannon finally just said, “Well, you know, what I really want to see in this movie, which we haven’t done yet, is a half-skeletal body-being that these are supposed to be resurrected corpses with its other half this kind of swollen, amorphous, elephantitis looking guy.’

“I was never too excited about that,” Masters admits, “just because I always thought it was more interesting when [the Charles Dexter Ward character] made these mistakes out of these corpses’ ashes–they didn’t always come together in the right place, and would elongate and do strange things. Dan wanted something that was a little stricter, closer to human, so he actually sat down and pencilled out this sketch which would eventually become this monster, and I did a maquette and a variety of sketches to hone in on what he was trying to get.

“It’s a pretty neat monster,” Masters concedes, “but it’s not my favorite in the film, because to me it’s too much of a solid substance. Many of the other ones are so disturbing and so amorphous that it’s difficult to put your finger on exactly what every piece is.”

I though there are a number of creatures in The Resurrected, Masters points out that there isn’t an overabundance of gore for gore’s sake-although there are some healthy sprayings of blood.

“That’s one thing that Chris Sarandon and I were really trying to steer away from,” he clarifies. “I’ve never been a fan of gore, and I don’t really care for splattering walls with blood even though I did splatter two sets with blood for this film. Actually, one day I flew in from LA, got off the airplane, and Dan came up to me and said, ‘Do you have a lotta blood?’ I said, “Well…yeah.’ And he says, ‘Well, do you have lots of blood?’ It’s like, ‘I don’t know.

Extensive visual effects, supervised by Todd Masters in post-production, helped the ambitious nature of screenwriter Brent Friedman’s evocation of the horror of Lovecraft. Though many of the effects in Friedman’s script were deemed too expensive, Masters-originally hired to produce makeup and physical effects-sought to find a way to retain them, working closely with production designer Brent Thomas.

“Thomas really pulled rabbits out of his hat,” said Masters. “He loved the project from day one. He and I would get together after office hours at the studio and sit down in the hotel bar to concoct ideas. That’s how the movie turned into such a crazy fiasco. We thought the whole idea of Brent Friedman’s script was so bizarre and wonderful that we kept wanting to play.

“Every time something was pulled away from us, because there wasn’t money for this monster or that set, Brent Thomas and I would figure a way to put it back in. We didn’t want a film that has small production value. Horror films deserve all the scope and scale they can get.”

The horror that was to be resurrected by detective John Terry early on in Curwen’s laboratory got axed so Masters’ effects unit could afford to rent a studio to work in. As a low-cost stop-gap director Dan O’Bannon suggested that Terry resurrect just two fingers, “a goofy idea,” said Masters, who came up with a believable, low-budget finger monster concept instead. “We had to keep fingers in it,” said Masters, “so we turned this thing into almost a crab monster with fingers, an eyeball, and some external organs.”

After principal photography wrapped, Masters and producers Mark Borde and Kevin Raich viewed a rough assembly to determine what effects were still needed. What was originally intended to be a few weeks of rotoscoping expanded to six months, four shooting miniatures and another two adding opticals. “The producers really wanted it to be an effects-filled film,” said Masters. “We made sure that we kept the budget down. I’ve coordinated a lot of visual effects in the past. Since our eyes were looking through the camera, and our eyes only, we cheated to hide all the expensive stuff just inches out of frame.”

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One amusing episode involved a four-foot-high balsa wood miniature of Curwen’s mansion, rigged to explode. “This was part of Ted Rae’s unit—he did two miniature shots in the film,” said Masters. “We had it set up in Ted’s parking lot, waiting for nightfall. As I was painting part of the chimney, I heard these little cracks in the structure. As I was ready with the final dab of paint, a big gust of wind came and blew the whole thing down! What a nightmare! Ted and I jumped underneath the house and tried to hold it up, but we ended up having to recreate the whole building in a day and blow it up the following night.

“Everybody that worked on this film put their blood into it,” Masters summed up. “It turned into a labor of love for a lot of us-which I know sounds cliched, but everyone was really pulling for it, and it shows in the film.”

The extensive post-production schedule turned out to be a hindrance for composer Richard Band. “They made about eight edits the night before my recording session,” said Band. “That’s a composer’s nightmare, but all too common these days.” Band came up with a synthesizer score that boasted a full orchestral sound. “To have done this score with an orchestra would have cost $400,000,” said Band. “The producers have resigned themselves to a synthesizer score.”

Summed up Friedman, “I think we retained more Lovecraft than any other adaptation I’ve seen. We didn’t just use the concepts as springboards for our own story. In fact, there’s one scene lifted word-for-word, dialogue-wise, involving the first time you see Curwen posing as Ward, and he’s talking this strange 18th century speak. So there’s some place where Lovecraft is completely intact, and there are others where liberties were taken. It’s not as grossly amusing as REANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND. It takes a much more serious, Gothic slant. In the end, I wish we could have made my original script, but I’m still happy we made something.”

CAST/CREW Directed Dan O’Bannon

Produced Mark Borde Kenneth Raich

Written Brent V. Friedman

John Terry as John March Jane Sibbett as Claire Ward Chris Sarandon as Charles Dexter Ward/Joseph Curwen Robert Romanus as Lonnie Peck Charles K. Pitts as Ezra Ward Megan Leitch as Eliza Lauren Briscoe as Holly Tender

Special Effects by Jason Barnett    … prosthetic effects David P. Barton  … prosthetic department head (as David Barton) Julie Beuscher   … prosthetic effects Bryan Blair  … prosthetic effects Evan Brainard    … prosthetic effects Kevin Brennan    … prosthetic effects Jeffrey Butterworth  … first assistant special physical effects (as Jeff Butterworth) Scott Coulter    … prosthetic department head: Todd Masters Company, Inc. (as John Scott Coulter) Bernhard Eichholz … prosthetic effects (as Bernie Eichholtz) Earl Ellis   … prosthetic effects: Todd Masters Company, Inc. Kevin Flemming   … special effects photography Thomas Floutz    … key effects makeup artist (as Thom Floutz) Mark Garbarino   … prosthetic department head Karin Hanson … prosthetic effects Marty Huculiak   … special effects assistant Timothy Huizing  … prosthetic effects (as Tim Huizing) Gil Liberto  … prosthetic effects (as Gilbert Liberdo) Geoff Martin … special effects key grip Todd Masters … special effects unit director Mike McDonald    … special effects gaffer (as Michael McDonald) Kevin O’Leary    … special effects assistant Gary Paller  … special physical effects coordinator Dennis Petersen  … special effects assistant Tom Price    … special effects assistant (as Thomas E. Price) Jonas Quastel    … special effects first assistant camera Robert Sheridan  … special effects assistant Mark Sisson  … prosthetic effects James Slavin … prosthetic effects (as Jim Slavin) Chris Spouler    … special effects assistant Candace Van Woerkom  … prosthetic effects Andrew Vincent   … special effects lamp operator Scott Wheeler    … prosthetic effects Shawn Wilson … special effects assistant Andre Bustanoby  … prosthetic effects (uncredited)Visual Effects by Bret Alexander   … visual effects miniatures Jim Aupperle … visual effects director of photography Asao Goto    … visual effects miniatures Dave Gregory … optical effects supervisor Todd Masters … special visual effects Jeff Pyle    … visual effects miniatures Ted Rae  … additional miniature / visual effects director of photography Marc Tyler   … visual effects miniatures David Williams   … additional optical camera: Illusion Arts (as Dave Williams)

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v22n06 Fangoria#106 Fangoria#112 Gorezone#22

The Resurrected (1991) Retrospective SUMMARY Claire Ward hires private investigator John March to look into the increasingly bizarre activities of her husband Charles Dexter Ward, an esteemed Rhode Island chemical engineer.