PRL Serials

Following the shooting at the apartment complex where Ivan lived with his family, the landlord, a lady with a very short temper, stood in the doorway looking at the apartment where one of the tenets had been shot. There was viscera staining the carpet and though the crime scene cleanup crew would eventually make their way to that apartment, the landlord was furious. She anticipated the insurance hike after they paid for the damage to six different apartments. She also thought about the fact that her complex would be painted as the site of a massacre and it would definitely make it hard to attract new tenants. She cursed loudly looking at the apartment and had to force herself to leave before she broke something else in frustration.

“Ma’am, you really shouldn’t be here, all of these floors are part of an active crime scene.” A man in a coat marked Crime Scene Investigation said as the woman descended the stairs.

“This is my building shitface. When is all this gonna be done? I don’t want the cheap motherfuckers in this building stiffing me out of rent this month.” She appeared to be very unassuming; she was relatively short and she looked much younger than mid-thirties, but the woman had a temper and little regard for others’ feelings when it came to matters of business.

“It’ll be done when it’s done,” the investigator said shakily as the woman pushed past him.

“You tell whoever’s in charge that I want to know by the end of business tomorrow or my lawyer will be suing those cheap ass jackets off the backs of everyone in your department. Now stop ogling me and wrap that shit up.”

Back at the main office of the complex, the woman was greeted by the grieving families of some of the victims who begged her for at least an extension on the deadline to pay rent for the coming month. She bit her tongue and nodded them out furiously; if she had opened her mouth she would have definitely offended them. She did have a heart even if she mostly hid it from others. People walked all over a woman who showed her soft side, especially in a business setting.

When the families were gone she listened to her messages. Her face was red with anger after listening to the first one.

“Yo, Crude, call me back. I need to know if we gotta worry about the police all over that building. My people worried that shooting is bringing attention we don’t need. Maybe we need to find a new location.”

She never asked for that stupid nickname. Her name was Gertrude and someone thought it was funny to call her Crude because of the way she cursed at anyone, anytime she felt the mood called for it. And it stuck when she started working with the shady guys who paid her a pretty penny to rent out her apartments for whatever business they did; she’d assumed prostitution or pornography but the money was good enough that she didn’t ask too many questions. The guys who paid her seemed like the drug or prostitution type, but after they stopped using one of the apartments she rented to them and she checked it to be sure a new tenet wouldn’t find dead hookers or forgotten drugs somewhere, she stumbled onto medical waste; needles and gauze soaked with blood, petri dishes and discarded notes with complicated scientific formulas. It was strange, but she was mostly relieved that she hadn’t found dead bodies. The message on her machine reinforced what she already knew, the shooting at her complex could jeopardize her deal with the men because whatever they were doing, it definitely wasn’t a legal operation.

Crude called the man back and when he answered she lit into him, living up to her name. “Are y’all motherfuckers using apartments in that building?… so why the fuck it matter? The police won’t just go looking in every building!…that fucking lunatic didn’t even live here, he was just a stupid redneck that hated Mexicans!…don’t fuck with my money! I’ll pull your dick off and shove it down your fucking throat. We have a deal and I’ll be damned if I let y’all shady motherfuckers gip me outta my money! I’ll call the police on you myself!…that’s what I thought. Now, stop being a bitch, I’ll get the police out of that building as soon as possible and y’all just keep on doing whatever the fuck it is you doing. And I want my money at the beginning of next week, this shooting is really fucking with my finances.” Crude slammed down the phone and stared at the wall. She decided that the guy had been too worried; her records showed that they were using four different apartments on the opposite side of the complex. His anxiety had gotten to her and she decided that she should know exactly what it was they were doing just in case something else unexpected happened.

Crude took a golf cart to the section of the complex that was less inhabited by residents, where the men had set up shop in four apartments in two different buildings. On more than one occasion the waterlines in both buildings had to be cleared because of blockages that had been caused by whatever the mysterious men had going on. Crude was upset, but she was nicely compensated and the men had even bribed the city to keep the incident quiet. She was there as men with hazmat suits removed very strange things from the pipes and she cursed residents who tried to be nosey.

She parked in front of the building and as she ascended the stairs to one of the apartments the men used, someone from one of the other apartments peaked out at her.

“Hey, you the landlord right?” It was middle aged Mexican man and he walked out of the door and closed it behind him.

“What you want?” Crude said, upset that she had been delayed.

“I’ve been reporting noise complaints. I don’t know what they got going on up there, but they’re loud. And no one answers when I knock…”

Crude cut him off, “Sir, that’s what I’m going to see about now. You can go back inside.”

The man watched Crude as she climbed to the second floor. She didn’t bother to knock on the door, but used the key she had to let herself in. The living and dining rooms were bare as if no one lived there, but Crude noticed blood soaked gauze and bandages in the sink. She picked up one of the bandages without thinking, it looked fresh like someone had recently changed them. She went to the master bedroom that was locked and pounded on the door.

“Open this damn door. It’s the landlord!” She screamed and waited. She heard movement in the room before the door opened.

A man with a surgical mask stuck his head out. “You Crude? What you doing here? They said you wouldn’t ever come here.”

“What the fuck is going on in here? Who the hell are you?” Crude demanded.

“Give me a sec, ok?” The man closed the door and when he opened it again, it was just wide enough for him to slip out and close the door without Crude being able to see inside. There was a foul stench emanating from the room when the door was opened. The man had his mask on his forehead and he was dressed like a surgeon.

“Is somebody dead in there? Tell me what the fuck is going on. There are police on the other side of this complex and I don’t wanna be caught with something crazy going on I don’t know about.”

“They never told you what we’re doing? Must be a reason…” before he could finish, Crude grabbed the man’s shirt and threw him into a wall.

“Tell me what’s going on in there or I’ll get the police.”

“It’s just some medical experiments. Stuff not sanctioned for hospitals. We’re a group of doctors continuing work they wouldn’t let us do anymore.” The man seems to be legitimately afraid of Crude.

“You’re operating on someone in there?” Crude asked, slightly disgusted.

“You could say that. But I’m trying to save his life. The hospital where I worked said he was a lost cause. I don’t believe that. I’m gonna cure him.”

“That’s what’s going on in all the apartments? Y’all curing people the hospitals don’t want?”

“Pretty much,” the man said nervously. Crude was inclined to believe him because of the fear on his face.

“There’s nothing contagious anybody gotta worry about right?” Crude remembered the bandages she’d touched in the kitchen.

The man smiled, showing his teeth. He looked exhausted and he chuckled. “Don’t worry about anything. We know what we’re doing. We just need more time to do our work and the world will be a much better place.”

Crude nodded at him then said, “Keep it down up here. Your downstairs neighbor is complaining. If he complains again, I gotta move you.”

The man was still smiling. “Of course. You’re a saint for letting us work here. You’re just as responsible for the work we’re doing.”

“Whatever, make sure I get paid early next week,” Crude said as she left.

A couple weeks later, the police wrapped their investigation of the shooting and the apartments were cleaned and repaired. By that time, Crude had fallen ill and finally went to the hospital after fainting in her office. At the hospital, doctors told her that her ailment was unlike anything they’d ever seen.

“It appears to be a strain of syphilis we’ve never seen before. And it’s going to get much worse very soon.” They told her.

“Syphilis? How can I get that if I ain’t fucking anybody?” She yelled.

“We’re looking into it.”

After the first day in the hospital, the skin of Crude’s arms, legs and face began to bubble with sores. She felt aches in her bones and joints, and when she got out of bed, she realized that she had grown more than a foot. And her mind was cloudy, like she was losing her ability to think clearly. She felt urges to kill the nurses and doctors who tried to restrain her. But they couldn’t hold her for long. Crude was stronger than she had been and she forced her way out of the hospital and back to the complex where she figured their science experiments had changed her into a monster.