Dr. Mendall

Christopher Jay Mendall was an exceptional student. Throughout high school he was at the top of his class, always with honors and straight As. Everyone thought so highly of him.

His college years were no different. Professors loved him as their most favorite student, and his grades were always at the top of his class. He made his way through his years at college and was on his way to being a doctor.

But financial issues pegged him, as his scholarships dried up. Instead of going to the top medical school like he wanted, he was forced into a school that was barely eligible to give him a degree. They began teaching him strange techniques. Showed him how to kill patients without anyone knowing. How to operate with nothing but a box knife. How to use every day tools to fix up a patient.

They taught him old techniques that weren't used any more: leeches, cutting off the skull to let demons out, or taking someone out of their misery by putting a nail through their nose and hitting their brain.

But it wasn't until he met Dr. Frankenstein that things changed for the worse.

"I'm not sure this is going to work, Dr. Frankenstein. It seems illogical for a body to come to life after the parts have been dead. The blood can't circulate, it's been coagulated and-"

"Nonsense, Christopher. I just need to do everything just right. We can and will create a human from this."

He watched as Frankenstein assembled a body, slowly helping him stitch each part together. Every vein, artery and nerve ending- carefully placed to connect to one another. To finally piece together a human with no organs.

"Now we have to be quick about this, Christopher. I have a body coming- a fresh one- and we must quickly place all the organs in before they become useless."

"But doctor, you need a heart and if the heart has stopped beating-"

"It's why I built a mechanical heart, Mr. Mendall."

"But the blood-"

"Do you want to graduate, Mr. Mendall? Do as I say. Your research project must come to a completion and I have to sign off on it for you to graduate. Do not question my authority, or all that hard work you've done will have been useless."

He did just as Dr. Frankenstein told him after that. He waited for the fresh body to come in, brought by a shady ambulance. He brought the body in- a young adult male as he recalled, and placed it on a slab next to the creature. He reluctantly helped put the new organs in, and watched as they came to life inside the new body.

But as the last organ was put in, nothing was working.

"I told you it was impossible."

"Nothing is impossible, I just need one more element. I will return in a moment, I must crunch some numbers. My assistant will bring out the brain. You must insert it into this being."

Christopher thought it was strange that an assistant he had never heard of was there in the lab, and wondered to himself why he was there if the doctor had an assistant in the first place. But it was too soon that a small man, only around four feet tall, wheeled a cart out with a human brain on it.

Christopher did just as he was told. He put the brain into the creature. But again, nothing happened. He decided to sew the creature up and wait for something to happen. There was a pulse, indicated by machines. The stats were fine. The monitors beat with a melodic rhythm.

The lights flickered, just as Christopher was falling asleep waiting for Dr. Frankenstein to come back. To his surprise, as he opened his eyes again- the creature was sitting up on the slab. It took a deep breath, and blinked heavily. He watched as it closed and opened it's eyes numerous times.

"Hello?"

The creature looked at Christopher, but was blinded by the lights in the room like a newborn child. He watched as the monster stumbled to its feet, unable to figure out what was going on. It fell on the floor, not too hard, but hard enough for a man that was over six feet tall.

But as though its brain kicked in, the creature was on its feet and moving around blindly. It ran into machines, it knocked over the organ donor body, and made its way to a glass door to the outside that it broke through. Christopher watched as it ran off into the nearby woods.

"Dr. Frankenstein! It worked but the monster escaped!" He ran to his office, only to find a signed piece of paper that allowed Christopher to graduate. He had put in enough clinical work and was now finally a true doctor.

But Frankenstein was no where to be found and they had set loose a monster. Christopher needed to fix what it was he started. He felt the need to fix whatever it was that made this monster run off.

He chased after it, roaming the woods, obsessed with fixing what he had done. Obsessed with finding the creature.

"I must fix this. Have to fix everything." He would mumble to himself.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. He grew tired and weary, feeding and living in the wild. It was only after months of search that he gave up, and stumbled into a small town. They told him they had heard of such a monster, and that people had found him and killed him soon after he was first spotted.

"You're a doctor?" a man in white asked him.

"Yes. Right before I went into the wilderness I officially became one. Dr. Mendall."

"My name is Dr. Moreau. I have a job for you if you would like it, Mr. Mendall."

"Of course, of course. I would be very welcome to living here in this small town."

"We would not live here. I am simply visiting for the moment. But I have an island I work on, and you might be of some expertise of mine."

"What am I fixing?"

"Fixing? You'll be working on turning a man into a leopard."

"He wants to be a leopard?"

Dr. Moreau paused. "Yes, yes he does. A human half-breed."

"I will help him then. I can fix him." Dr. Mendall rocked back and forth in a chair, his grizzly beard a reminder of what he had done for months.

He was flown to this strange island and began working with this man. For years he did research, experimentation on his body, and eventually created this half-man half-leopard.

"You have done well, doctor. Might I interested you in doing some more work?"

"I have fixed this man. I have to fix the world and I cannot do so here. There are people who are sick out there and that's why I came to be a doctor. People who are sick and needing me."

"Very well, I have a place I can send you to then. It's a nice city, plenty of people who can come to you for a fix up."

Dr. Mendall was flown to a city he had never heard of in a place he could never recognize. Towers loomed above, and people claimed to see people who were human-bats. He set up a shop in the cheapest place he could find, and before he even opened up shop- a customer walked in.

"Can I help you?"

"I need fixing." The man said, his hand over his mouth, "A man-bat attacked me and my mouth is in so much pain. Can you fix me, doc?"

Dr. Mendall looked at the man, his hair crazy, his mouth bleeding, and his skin so pale it looked like white make-up. His outfit screamed he was a butler of some kind, with purple and green that no sane man would wear.

"Sure, I can help you." He told the man. "Everyone needs fixing."

He put the man in a chair, and let him uncover his mouth. His mouth had been slit on both sides, and had bled a lot.

"You got black eyes from this guy too?"

"No, I was going for a raccoon look," the man said laughing and making his mouth bleed. "I'm sorry- I'm a bit of a joker."

Dr. Mendall carefully began work on the man, but without knocking him unconscious he screamed in agony making the cuts bigger. It was only until the man had fell unconscious that he could attempt to sew his mouth up. But by then it was too late. The slits had gotten too big to fix. He could not be fixed.

His first patient a failure, he left his unopened office and began walking the streets mumbling to himself that he must fix everyone. Every person he looked at had a problem. Every person that walked by could be fixed.

"Fix everything." He mumbled over and over again. "Fix everything...fix everything..."

He collapsed in a pile of garbage hours later, exhausted and unable to move. When he awoke, he found himself in a small town. He began walking around, finding himself face to face with a man who kept coughing.

"I could fix you," he said to the man.

"You a doctor?"

"Dr. Mendall. I fix everything."

"Sorry, I can't go to a doctor. I have no insurance."

"It's free. I'll fix you for free. I must fix everything."

"You got yourself a deal, doc. Where's your office?"

"In this alley here..."

He took the man down the small alley behind a shopping center. There he found steps he told the man to sit on.

"Your office is a some steps?"

"For now. I should have a tent. I should have a tent to fix everything. I must fix that problem."

Dr. Mendall bent down and told the man to open his mouth. He peered in and saw his throat was red from being sore. "I know how to fix this," he said.

"What are you going to prescribe? I think it's just a cold."

"Close your eyes, this might hurt a little."

The man did as he was told. Dr. Mendall reached in his pocket and pulled a box cutter out. With it he cut the man's throat, blood going everywhere. He continued to cut through the throat, trying to cut out the area that was sore. As he did so, he saw the man had died and threw part of the throat in the trash. Looking at the man, he realized his own clothing was inappropriate. It was dirty. He took the man's white shirt and jeans, now stained with blood, and put it on himself. The naked man, his throat cut wide open, was dead. He took the man and threw him in the same nearby dumpster, walking away and down the street.

"I fixed him. He has no problems now because he's dead." He mumbled to himself. "Must fix everything. Must set up a tent. Must fix patients."

He walked into the night, looking for more people to fix- his box cutter in hand.