#hillbert

Young. Ambitious. The word unhinged only fell once when West was within earshot, and the one that’d uttered it was quick to change the topic, quick enough as to avoid raised eyebrows and questions. Herbert West's’ eyebrows knitted together, the only expression of his anger any of the other students would ever get to see. He turned and fled, with the urgency of a rodent being chased by a predator, and the small group that’d gathered in the hallway fell back to gossiping about him.

Unusual, maybe. Herbert West certainly had an unique idea of what could and could not be done, and he was determined to bring his plans to fruition. He cared not for minor setbacks - he would call almost dying a minor setback in the way only he could, one supposed - and pushed on daringly where no one else had gone before.

One thing Herbert West was not was ungrateful. He thanked his collegue Dan Cain when he offered to take him in for the time being. He  always knew when to thank people for hospitality, in the sense that he was aware of what to say, even if his face did not betray any emotion. He wore square glasses that he seldom took off, and the lenses liked to reflect the lamplight under which he would work, making reading his face exceedingly difficult. His colleague had given up and the key to his cellar to Herbert two weeks ago now, and during that time he had only come down twice to look after Herbert, faking concern over the way he’d sit in the same spot for hours on end until something or other seized him, besieging him to run around the makeshift laboratory like a rat in a cage that just realised it’d fallen into a trap.

He was quiet, mostly. He paid his rent and Dan Cain was happy with that much, even if he’d be woken in the middle of the night by noises he wished he hadn’t heard. He barely went into the cellar before this, but now he almost avoided the place. Almost.

That night, he was woken by a sound that distinctly sounded like a human scream; worried about his boarder he’d left in the cellar, Dan hurriedly got dressed. By the time he’d opened the cellar door, the screams had subsided, but what he found there was no less horrifying than the screams.

Herbert West was holding a human hand in his hand, his middle and ring fingers pushing into the remains of the esophagus. His free hand was bloodied, stains on his shirt bearing witness to the struggle that must have taken place. He wasn’t looking at the door, nor Dan as he entered, his large, dark eyes fixated on the head in his hand. Dan did not know why until he stepped closer and wished he hadn’t.

There was blood. So much blood. More blood than there should have been, rightfully, and for a moment Dan feared West must have cut open another human to get that much blood on himself. He took a step back, drawing in a sharp breath. Before he could think clearly again, West spoke, however.

“Dan.” He said, turning his head just enough to fixate Dan with his glassy gaze. He was not wearing his glasses, Dan noted; they were resting on top of his head and sitting slightly askew. Herbert must have pushed them up in a hurry, leaving smears of now-dried blood on the glass.

“What are you doing there.” Dan asked, fingers twisting together nervously. Herbert smiled and said in the quietest voice one word, as though he was talking to a child asking the same inane question over and over.

“Science.”

Dan fidgeted; what was one even supposed to respond to someone sitting on a table with the a human head - no, the remains of a human head - in his lap and his fingers pushed up into the back of its throat as though it was some kind of grotesque, bloody hand puppet. “Herbert, this is ridiculous.”

Not the word he wanted to use, but good enough for the moment, he supposed. He’d intended to use stronger words- maybe crazy or something- but they appeared to be failing him when West turned the head around. Its tongue had been severed, Dan couldn’t tell if manually or by the mouths’ own teeth, but regardless, he supposed that explained where all the blood came from as well.

“Herbert, that’s unsanitary and y-you’re scaring me.” Herbert looked as though that was very much his intention, and Dan recoiled a little. “... I mean, do what you like, but … why.” The body seemed fresh enough, and Dan wondered where Herbert had come up with it - had it been dead before, had he killed them? It couldn’t have been too long ago, or the blood would have settled and clogged, and judging by the mess, that wasn’t the case. In fact, the blood in Herbert’s hands looked fresh-

“Well, it’s science.” Herbert repeated, and Dan was shocked to see the head in his hands moved its eyelids, staring right at him. “I told you I’d be moving to bigger things soon, and here we are. I’m sick of cats, they’re not good specimens.”

“But humans are?!” Barely concealed disgust seeped into Dan’s voice. “I didn’t give you a room to sleep so you could desecrate human bodies and … whatever it is you are doing, stop it. I forbid you to turn my cellar into a morgue. This is my place.”

“Dan.” Herbert pulled his hand out of the head’s stumped neck and set it on the dish in front of him, wiping his fingers on his shirt. That would explain the stains there… The head moaned and Herbert made a shushing gesture. “Dan… come on.” The fever wasn’t gone from his eyes, and he squinted a little, still without his glasses. “Dan, this is important.”

“This is gross.” Dan replied, taking a few steps backwards. “You’re crazy! This isn’t science, this is madness, and I’ll be leaving now. Goodbye. I’d ask you to clean the room, but-”

“DAN!” Herbert had gotten up, putting the head aside, and for a short man with disheveled hair and his glasses on his head he looked remarkably terrifying. Dan remembered that he was not sure how recently the head had been removed from the body, and the image of Herbert with an axe, trying to sever the spine and muscles and-

“Dan, Dan. Dan.” Herbert repeated, slowly drawing closer. “What did you just call me. What did you...” Herbert’s sleeves were pulled up, but even so, blood had seeped into the white fabric, leaving dark red stains that were slowly starting to dry. Dan retched. “I’m not crazy. I’m unusual. Ambitious, am I not? Because,  let me tell you.” He clapped his hands together with a wet squelching noise. “I did it.”

“Did what. You-”

“It was dead!” Herbert proclaimed, looking entirely unaffected by the fact he brought a human being back from the dead. “But not anymore.”

“That’s nice, but can you-”

“Do you know what this means?” Herbert was not intend on letting the other finish, or so it seemed; he’d picked up a nauseating pace that was only outmatched by his rapid blubber of speech. Dan thought he had really gone mad this time, truly lost it, but then Herbert looked at him as though he expected a reply. What had he been saying…?

“Dan, you weren’t listening. I thought you wanted to help me. God.” Herbert looked honestly hurt now, brows drawn together as the only indicator of such. “I thought we were friends.”

That wasn’t what Dan would be calling Herbert in the best of cases. He backed up the stairs, keeping his eyes on Herbert so intensely he tripped backwards up the stairs. “I’ll be going now, Mister West. Goodbye.”

Herbert could not have cared less. He left Dan to go upstairs, stumbling and tripping, and turned sharply to tend to his head on the table, running his bloody fingers through the matted hair. He leaned in, reached up to pull his glasses over his eyes again, and, despite the fact the could see even less than before, moved back in his chair. It groaned. He didn’t mind.

Bloody fingers slipped over the buckle of his belt, failing to open it a couple of times, and he cursed under his breath as though the head on the table was capable of reprimanding him for his foul language. As though it mattered, even. Herbert tugged the belt open and unzipped the fly of his pants with one shaking hand, the other grabbing the edge of his table. He hadn’t slept in a while, and it was beginning to show, but he absolutely had to get this over and done with before Dan returned. Because he would, eventually.

Herbert slipped a hand into his underwear quickly; he had to hurry and although he would have liked to take it slow, and at a leisurely pace, he could hear Dan upstairs walking around still. It was late, so maybe he’d sleep it off until morning. Herbert hoped he would as he fumbled with fabric and took the head out of the little basin it was resting in. He’d had to cut off the damn tongue because it wouldn’t stop mumbling, and it had screamed and for a moment, he was mad at the head. Then he remembered that time was ticking and he had to hurry and quickly pushed two fingers into the bloody hole that used to be the head’s mouth. The bloody stump at the back there had to be the tongue. He could feel the teeth and the lack of resistance.

Good.

Shuffling on the chair, he wrapped a slippery hand around his length and squeezed a couple of times. He really shouldn’t have taken out the tongue, goddamnit. Herbert had to bite his own one  and tasted fresh blood as he grabbed the back of the head and tried to wedge the mouth onto his cock.

“God damn it.” He hissed past clenched teeth, one hand clinging to the head still while the other grasped the remainder of his shaft that he couldn’t force down the head’s mouth. Not that he really had to; the feeling of the cooling flesh on his throbbing length made him gasp already. Upstairs, he could hear Dan banging around, presumably opening drawers or something. The chair groaned again and he paused, adjusting his position briefly.

He might be able to finish everything and clean up before anyone came here. His grip around himself tightened, and he thrust into the open mouth of the head balanced in his lap shallowly. If he just hurried up a little… Something fell over upstairs. Sticky fingers slid over his skin and his breath went heavy, hissing through his teeth.

His orgasm was quick, dripping down the throat of the head and pooling in his lap with the congealed blood, turning it a light orange. Herbert took all but a moment to set the head back into its proper place on the table, zip up his pants and get up, the same fervor that drove him through night after night of studies now aiding him in cleaning up the traces of his activities. The blood would be harder to remove, especially since he’d stuffed his last clean shirt into the laundry basket earlier (he would have to thank Dan for not complaining later, if he didn’t call the police yet). The body was already in the wardrobe, so all he really had to take care of was the head and the empty syringe on the table. Sounded easy enough.

The rest of the reagen was stored in the fridge, and Herbert leaned against the door after it shut with a soft thump.  Normal people did not stick their cocks into a dead man’s mouth and enjoyed it. Herbert wiped his sticky hands on the front of his shirt with a sigh, loosening his tie and taking off his glasses.