Page 3 of Twisted Diaries of a Monster Groupie

Dear Diary,

How do you get blood out of the carpet? There must be A science to it.

XOXO – Roxy

P.S. Acid Rules! Just a few more days until Scream-A-Con!

A stitch here, a few tweaks to the nervous system there, and… a couple of alterations to the frontal lobe to drive out those pesky toxic traits, then… voilà! A whole new, custom self-made family.

The surgeries were going well, and Roxy’s makeshift shock contraption, which was pulled together at the last minute, seemed to do the trick. Once connecting Hank’s car battery to the extended jumper cable wires, then clicking the car’s remote starter to shock the shit out of his brain, it finally made his arm twitch. She couldn’t help but giggle when she clicked several times just for fun when the car wasn’t starting right away.

“Dance little puppet, dance.” Looking over her notebook on the tool bench, she double-checked before finally hitting the button one last time and hearing the motor run. “Come on, live, damn it! Live!”

When she saw his eyes flutter open as his head twitched, she’d done it. Total reanimation of life.

“Yes! It works!”

She rushed to remove the cables before asking him a few questions. Tweaking the implant in his brain on her computer, she’d make him just to her liking.

“You little bitch I’ll…”

“ Oops! I forgot to adjust that nasty little attitude… There. That should do it.”

“Hello, Roxy. Isn’t it – it – it – it a lovely d-d-day?” he said with a bit of a glitch as his head jerked.

“Damn it. I must have hit a nerve when I put in the implant. Oh well. At least you’re not an asshole now. Right, Hank?”

“Not an asshole.”

“That’s right.” She giggled, patting his shoulder. “Now get up and help me with Mom. She’ll need some extra work from the number you did on her. I hope I can get her moving after all that brain damage.”

“Sorry,” he pouted. “Hank bad?”

“Hank’s a jerk but it’s okay. You’re all better now and will never hurt anyone again. I’ll work on that glitch later.”

“Thank – thank – thank… Rox – Rox – Roxy.”

“You’re welcome. Now get to work. I’d take care of that twitch once the stench of burning flesh airs out.” Looking back at her notes she added, “I’ll need to be a bit more careful with Mom, so I don’t scramble her noggin like an egg in a frying pan.”

“Eggs? Hungry.”

Roxy watched as the reanimated man just walked right out of the room and started heading to the kitchen to fix breakfast. “I think I fried a few eggs in his basket.”

She did assume from Hank’s imbecile behavior that if she had to ever do this again maybe a battery charger from the garage would be a better option if she could figure out how to modify it to the right amps. She was in such a hurry she didn’t have time to even think.

“Okay, Momma. It’s your turn. Let’s give you the life you always wanted, just like in those old black and white shows you like.” Kissing her mother on her cold dead cheek, a tear rolled down her own. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have given you the life you deserved when you were living. But you’re going to be better now in this new life. I can do this and we’re going to be happy again, just like it used to be when we were with Daddy.”

After working day and night, she’d completed both Hank and Darla’s reanimation, and they were sitting at the kitchen table looking surprisingly dapper. She’d even used her stepdad’s bank card to buy them some new clothes and a few things for herself. They looked normal, except for a few stitches that she was able to keep to a minimum. Until they healed completely, it probably wouldn’t be in her best interest to let them out of the house.

As she checked on Hank’s bandages, her mother’s reanimated corpse went right to work at being Roxy’s idea of the perfect mother, fixing sandwiches for lunch and baking cake for their reanimation birthday. A little party was in order after all. They were given a new lease on life, complete with happy vibes and smiles all around. The perfect family.

She looked over her shoulder watching her mom water a withered flower that had been sitting on the windowsill for going on two years, barely hanging on. “Mom, stay out of the windows. We don’t want the neighbors asking questions.”

“Yes, dear,” the woman chirped as almost Stepford wife behaviors kicked in.

With the last bandage, she slapped Hank on the back. “There, you old fart. How do you feel?”

He didn’t say much as his head twitched, but at least he wasn’t trying to kill her. It was clear she’d made him a bit of an idiot, but most people who knew him wouldn’t notice any difference, anyway. He wasn’t well-liked in the community and didn’t have close friends or family. Hell, most people who even visited his butcher shop only grabbed what they needed and left without much small talk.

“Let’s hope you remember your job at work. We’re going to need money around here to keep the place going. I’ll figure out a way to pay you debts too to keep the mob guys off our asses.”

“Work,” he said as he stood to head out.

Roxy quickly grabbed him, sitting him back in the seat. “Oh, no you don’t. Not yet. Maybe in a few days, okay?”

He nodded. “Few days.”

“Good boy. You can even take a second job if we can figure it out. How about you go out back to the tool shed and get some work around here done in the meantime.”

Quickly he went to grab the rake from the shed and began to clean the yard as she requested, without question. How could she not be impressed with herself? She turned Hank into a semi-likeable creature. He was even whistling as he worked.

“And fix that damn shutter! It’s driving me crazy!” she yelled after him with a giggle. “Moron.”

It had worked. All her research with her father, the years of dreaming of creating the perfect TV sitcom-inspired family, and her desire for a better life was right there. She’d created a Frank-n-family specific to her liking, and no one was the wiser. At least she hoped. All she had to do was lay low and keep her creations out of trouble.

Hank was easy. He didn’t do much in real life other than work and come home outside of whatever money he owed. Her mother was the challenge. For now, they’d pretend she had gone to rehab. Maybe a little ruse of saying the family joined her at therapy would make people believe they were on a better track. Too bad real therapy wasn’t that easy.

After she cleaned up her makeshift laboratory in the garage, Roxy yawned, ready for a nap after a long day and night of monster creation. To be honest she shouldn’t have been able to sleep at all knowing her home was a murder house and her family were now the living dead.

“Oh, well. At least they aren’t arguing,” she said with a shrug before heading to her room.

As the door closed, she fell back on the bed, stretching her limbs. Above her, Acid’s face smiled down on her. “I did it. My family is just like you now. I fixed them. They won’t hurt anyone ever again.”

Her imagination had her believe the image of him winked as she rolled over to write her scientific findings in her diary. After a few words, she rolled back over and pulled a Frank-n-plushy to her with Acid’s likeness, hugging it tight. It seemed like everything in her life was perfect now except one thing, she didn’t have him.

“If only you were mine.”

The cutout seemed to say, “I could be.”

“How?”

“The tickets. I’m just a few days away from being in your arms. Come find me. Take me home. If you can kill your parents and turn them into Frankenstein monsters, you can do anything. Just think of the possibilities.”

Looking at the ceiling her toxic mind showed her images of Acid in a dreamlike state. A first date. A first kiss. The first time making love. And then… a wedding. The perfect marriage, complete with a beautiful home and a white picket fence. The best part, her father was there, smiling at his daughter for all she’d accomplished. There in her utopia, the scream queen had her king, living the perfect life in a perfect world.

She looked over at the plush doll. “He’s right, you know. I can do anything. Including making Acid Green mine. He was created by my father, so by rights, he belongs to me.”

That was it. She was going to do the one thing she knew she shouldn’t, but the intrusive thoughts were too much to hold back. Without her meds, she was capable of anything, including kidnapping a celebrity to be her plaything.

Rolling from the bed she rushed to her desk, typing away on her laptop to plot the perfect plan. She searched his location, the horror convention’s layout, and everything down to the path he would take to avoid the raging fans on the way to various events.

When she finally sat back and looked at her devious plan to nab her dream guy, she smiled. This was it. She was going to be his scream queen. The bride of a real-life Frankenstein.

“Yeah. A bride.” She giggled, rubbing her curly red hair before glancing down at her frumpy-bibbed overalls. “Ick. I need a makeover. No self-respecting Frank-n-man wants a bride who doesn’t look the part.”

After grabbing an autographed framed image from her bedside and kissing it, she swirled around the room in a fit of giggles.

Maybe the therapist was right. Maybe she was a little crazy. But boy was she fun.