Season 1, Episode 5
Heartwrench
[Henry’s hospital room. Day. There are no longer the sounds of life support.]
VICTOR
...You’re sure it’s okay?
HENRY
Yeah, it’s fine. Whatever helps. Record away.
VICTOR
All right. Thanks.
HENRY
...You don’t have to be nervous, you know.
VICTOR
I’m not.
HENRY
Then why are you doing that?
VICTOR
Doing what?
HENRY
You’re clenching and releasing your hand, and you’re rocking a bit in your chair. Both of which you do when you’re nervous. Seriously, how long have I known you? [Beat.] No, you don’t have to stop.
VICTOR
Oh thank God. [Beat.] ...How’re you feeling?
HENRY
Like I’ve been in a coma for the better part of a year. But lucid, so that’s an improvement, I guess.
VICTOR
Right. Right, yeah.
HENRY
...You know we’ve gotta talk about this, right?
VICTOR
Henry, shouldn’t we wait until you’re--
HENRY
No. We’re doing it now. While you’re recording. ...Victor, please tell me that I’m remembering wrong. Please tell me that I’ve just got some real bad brain damage and it’s fucking with me. That I didn’t walk in on some… first attempt at reanimating a fucking corpse.
VICTOR
[Mumbled]
Second.
HENRY
Excuse me?
VICTOR
It was a second attempt, I’d done it before.
HENRY
Jesus Christ.
VICTOR
Also it’s not technically reanimation. If it had been a single body, sure, but I used materials from several donors--
HENRY
What the hell is wrong with you? In what fantasy could you ever see that turning out well? That’s the kind of shit that horror movies are made from!
VICTOR
I’m sorry, I--
HENRY
You were stupid! You were stupid, and reckless, and you didn’t think about the consequences!
VICTOR
I know, I just--
HENRY
Oh my God, that’s what the fire was about, wasn’t it? That had something to do with it. You freaked out, and you tried to burn the evidence. So what, you figured you’d risk more lives then, too? What if there had been people in there, Victor, what then?! Is that what attacked me? And did-- Did Justine really kill your brother? Or was that part of it, too? You have people’s lives on your conscience, all because you wanted to fuck around and find out if you could--
VICTOR
I just wanted my mom back, okay?! I know I fucked up. Believe me, I don’t need any more reminders. But I-- I had my reasons, it wasn’t just some ego trip.
HENRY
[Calmer now] ...Does Elliot know?
VICTOR
I’m sure he figured it out, yeah.
HENRY
What’s that supposed to mean?
VICTOR
Oh. Oh God, they didn’t tell you.
HENRY
Tell me what?
VICTOR
...Henry, Elliot’s dead.
HENRY
Oh God. God, I…. I’m so sorry, I…. How’s your dad taking it?
VICTOR
Well, considering he died two days later, I’d say not very well.
HENRY
What?
VICTOR
[Getting more and more distraught]
He’s dead too, Henry. Him, Elliot, my mother, Billy, Justine. Everyone is dead, and I have been so alone and so scared, and I have no idea what I am supposed to do.
HENRY
...Hey. C’mere. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m just stressed, I shouldn’t have said all that shit.
VICTOR
You have every right to.
HENRY
No, being a dick won’t fix anything. Plus, you’ve obviously been through hell. Your glasses look like you were just at a 4Chan meetup.
VICTOR
[Laughs] I don’t know what that means.
HENRY
It means you need to get some damn lens cleaner, how the hell can you see out of those thing?
VICTOR
Just used to it, I suppose.
HENRY
You hear from Evelynn at all?
VICTOR
Take a guess.
HENRY
That’ll be a no. You try talking to her?
VICTOR
Of course not.
HENRY
...So you’re upset that you’ve been alone, yet you haven’t even tried to get in contact with your sister?
VICTOR
Look, I don’t need a lecture right now, okay? I get enough of those from Dr Walton.
HENRY
Wait, you’re seeing Dr. Walton? Like, Robert Walton? Kinda short, always has a bow tie?
VICTOR
Yeah…? Do you know him, or…?
HENRY
Sort of, he was a guest speaker for my Abnormal Psych class during undergrad. He seems good.
VICTOR
Yeah, I suppose.
HENRY
How much you tell him?
VICTOR
I’m not sure I could tell him what happened even if I wanted to.
HENRY
...What happens when you try?
VICTOR
Don’t. Don’t do that.
HENRY
Do what?
VICTOR
That. You’re trying to… diagnose me.
HENRY
No, you’re my friend and I don’t have a license to practice. That’s illegal. I’m… offering informed advice.
VICTOR
Yeah, well, I’ll save you the trouble. Clinical depression, post traumatic stress disorder, and paranoid personality disorder. Though that last one is debatable. I might be missing some. Come back when you finish your Ph.D, Clerval.
HENRY
[Softly] Jesus…. [Trying to lighten the mood now] Doing it then it would be even more illegal. Then we’ll have two criminals here. [Beat.] Sorry. That wasn’t as funny as I expected it to be.
VICTOR
No. No, it’s fine. You’re not wrong. [Laughs] Should’ve seen what it was like trying to find a job with an arson charge. I’m lucky I managed to get the one I have.
HENRY
Yeah? What job’s that?
VICTOR
I’m over at Harris’ down on Main Street.
HENRY
Holy shit. The great Victor Frankenstein, the mad genius, the Prometheus of the 21st century, is selling discount hardware.
VICTOR
Well, I don’t actually sell anything most of the time. I’m customer service. Mostly returns, taking phone calls, fun stuff like that.
HENRY
You’re fucking with me. You hate talking on the phone.
VICTOR
And I hate my job. But if they’re willing to give a felon minimum wage, who am I to argue?
HENRY
Hey man, whatever works. I do have one more question, though.
VICTOR
Okay?
HENRY
Is that the hoodie I lent you that day?
VICTOR
Oh, um, right, yeah. I-- I was going to give it back, but then you-- You know, and then I was just so distracted, between worrying about you and the police hounding me--
HENRY
Hold on, police?
VICTOR
Oh. Right. They, um… They thought that I did it for a while. Elliot, too.
HENRY
Oh God.
VICTOR
I mean, I can't blame them. I've got a record, and that's a lot of people close to me who--
[The door opens. Both men are silent for a moment.]
HENRY
Hello…?
VICTOR
Sorry. That’s probably me.
HENRY
What?
VICTOR
Things have been… weird. It’s a long story.
HENRY
You built a person out of corpses, and I’m bedridden for who knows how long. I’ve got all the time in the world for the details.
VICTOR
...Ever since I…. Ever since the fire, things have been… happening around me. I know how this is going to sound, but you need to believe me, okay? Ever since I… made it… it’s like…. I don’t know. It doesn’t even really make sense, I-- The two concepts aren’t even remotely similar, I--
HENRY
Hey. Hey, breathe for me, okay?
VICTOR
Okay. Okay, sorry. ...That was the first night that I experienced something that I was unable to explain. Granted, I wasn’t exactly in the best mental state at the time, so for a while, I figured that it must have been a hallucination. I’ll be honest, sometimes I’m still able to convince myself that it was. But I know it’s not.
VICTOR (Cont.)
Sorry. Sorry, let me back up. [Sighs] The… first signs of life came at 1:15 AM. The rise and fall of the chest, the flicker of movement behind the eyelids. Whether or not there was cognitive function had yet to be seen, but… I suppose you know how that turned out. It was at 1:16 that everything started to go downhill. When I realized what I’d done, when-- when the possible consequences hit me all at once. The wrongness of the situation, I…. I almost didn’t hear it. Or-- No. No, I didn’t hear it so much as I felt it. I felt a voice throughout my body, in every single nerve, clawing its way into my subconscious. I-- I couldn’t make out what it was saying, but… I got the sickening feeling that it was proud of me. Proud of what I’d managed to achieve.
Whether or not anything happened for the couple months that I was in the hospital afterwards, I can’t really say. I was in shock, I couldn’t tell you what was real and what was hallucination. Honestly, you’d probably be better at figuring out if anything odd was happening during that time, you were there. But what I can tell you is that it never stopped. Sometimes the TV would turn on in the middle of the night blasting static, a couple times I woke up in the morning to find my glasses outside on the windowsill. Then there are the more… sinister ones. Beings that aren’t quite human, there one moment, gone the next. Or sinking, terrifying senses of dread that lead up to disaster.
HENRY
So… you’re seeing ghosts?
VICTOR
No, obviously not ghosts, ghosts don’t exist. Jeeze, you sound like Elliot. [He laughs, but it fades] ...Not ghosts. But… something. Something that found me that night and hasn’t left me alone since. It’s all connected, I know it is. I just need to analyze everything. You know me, I work with data and research. If I can get the evidence, I can work out what’s going on. I even ended up setting cameras up in my house, but… they always freeze up whenever something happens. Typical. Either that or-- Or I don’t even have it happen myself, sometimes it’s other people who--
HENRY
Wait. Other people?
VICTOR
Yes. But it’s not like I want it to happen, it just does. I usually don’t even know them. I just… hear about them on the news, or sometimes they tell me themselves if I happen to run into them.
HENRY
...And strangers just tell you about all the creepy shit that happens to them?
VICTOR
...Sometimes, yeah.
HENRY
...You know what, I’m not going to even pretend to be surprised.
VICTOR
Honestly, that’s how I deal with it. So yeah. There you go. Spooky.
HENRY
...Do people get hurt because of it?
[Victor doesn’t answer]
Shit…. Well then. That settles it. I guess we’ve got work to do.
VICTOR
What?
HENRY
I said, we’ve got work to do. Maybe you’re content wallowing in self-pity while creepy shit radiates off of you, but I sure as hell won’t sit on my ass as it happens.
VICTOR
Henry--
HENRY
I know what you’re doing. You’re treating it like some punishment. Like you deserve it. Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t. And neither does anyone else. You fucked up, yeah. And I’m not going to lie, it’s going to take some time for us to get back to the way we were. But it’s like you said. You had your reasons. You didn’t mean for it all to go to hell. And you didn’t kill them. So you and me are going to buck up and--
[He is cut off by a sound of pain as he moves]
VICTOR
Hey, whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. We'll figure it out. We have time to plan, take action, whatever we need to do. But right now, what you need to do is rest. I'll wash the hoodie and bring it back first thing tomorrow.
HENRY
Nah, you keep it. It suits you, I can always get another. Plus, who the hell knows where you've been the past year?
VICTOR
[He laughs. This time it feels genuine]
Asshole.