Bringing Out The Dead

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In Chapter 13 of FRANKENSTEIN IN LOVE, Center For Disease Control agent Beck Driver visits the city morgue to inspect the dead rat that science genius nerd Frankie Stein brought back to life ...


INT. VENISON POLICE HEADQUARTERS - DAY
The usual drab, puke-colored institutional joint.
Strange details scream out ‘built in the 70’s.’

A LARGE COP sits at the front desk
working a crossword puzzle.

Beck Driver MARCHES up to him briskly.

BECK
Excuse me --

LARGE COP
(eyes on the paper)
Gimme one sec --

BECK
Beck Driver, CDC, here to see
Officer Chet Beverage.

LARGE COP
(looks at her)
What’s a five-letter word for fat?

BECK
Obese.

LARGE COP
That’s IT.
(writes it down, looks up)
How may I help you?

BECK
Beck Driver, CDC, here to see
Officer Chet Beverage.

LARGE COP
Beck? Like the musician?

BECK
It’s short for Rebecca.
(low)
I’m here about the rat --

LARGE COP
Oh. That.
You need to go to the morgue.
Downstairs. I’ll have him
meet you down there.

Beck nods. Marches off.
Fat picks up the phone. Watches her.

LARGE COP
Nice rack.

INT. MORGUE - DAY
Cold, sterile.
Right out of Quincy.

Chet and Beck stand next to the
MEDICAL EXAMINER (50’s),
a tall, bird-like chap.

Wisps of white hair
fleck a bald head.
Piercing eyes like steel.

MEDICAL EXAMINER
Most unusual.
We don’t usually handle animals.

He goes to a steel drawer.
They follow him.

He slides it open to reveal --
a tangled mess of blood, bones and fur
in a glass case marked ‘biohazard.’

BECK
Jesus. What HAPPENED to it?

CHET
I shot it, but it kept coming at me.
I finally got the little fucker
by smashing his skull in
with my nightstick.

MEDICAL EXAMINER
I’ve never seen anything like it
in my entire career.
It was dead -- but still moving around.

BECK
And you know that from
examining a tissue sample?

MEDICAL EXAMINER
Indeed.
It died twelve hours
before the incident.

CHET
(looks at Beck)
What do you think?
How could this have happened?

BECK
It would seem that someone --
brought it back to life.

CHET
Brought it back --

MEDICAL EXAMINER
To LIFE?

BECK
Yeah.
I need to take it back
to Washington and
run some tests on it.

CHET
This used to be such
a sleepy little town.
Now all this crazy shit’s
going on.

BECK
What else is going on?

CHET
The head cheerleader was killed
in a hit and run and then abducted.

BECK
She was abducted
AFTER she was killed?

CHET
Yeah. What? You look -- strange.

BECK
If this means what I think it means --

MEDICAL EXAMINER
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

CHET
WHAT? Tell me.

PUSH IN ON Beck’s face. Eyes blazing.

BECK
We just might have a modern-day
Frankenstein on our hands --