Elsa 1

	You pulled your coat tight as you walked down a damp downtown sidewalk. You had just left another job interview, your fourth of the month, and you didn’t expect the results to be anymore positive than the rest had been. Rent was due and you were broke, desperate for some work. You reached your bus stop and sat down on the chilly metal bench inside the glass shelter. Another guy leaned on the glass next to you.
	While you waited for your bus, you thought about your situation. Out of work and nearly out of money. Your short stint as an I.T guy was a bust and even scraping the bottom of the barrel as a Target employee ended with you unemployed. As your bus arrived, you asked yourself what could be even closer to rock bottom than a department store grunt working with highschoolers. The man standing next to you lined up at the bus doors, revealing an ad taped to the glass. You stood up and looked closer.

CLINICAL RESEARCH TRIALS
TWO WEEKS/TWO HOURS PER DAY
PAYS $1000
CONTACT ELSA FRANKENTEEN

	You raised an eyebrow. Certainly looked sketchy. But $1000 for two hours of work a day? That could cover rent while you looked for a real job. On the other hand you could end up with one less kidney. The doors of the bus opened. You went against your best judgement and took one of the scraps with a phone number on it.

----------

	You sat at home with your phone in your hand. You figured you’d call just to feel it out and the chances of actually going were slim. You dialed the number, and the phone rang twice before you could hear someone pick up.
	“...Hello?” said an apprehensive female voice. Her voice was deep for a woman and she had some sort of German accent.
	“Hello? Elsa Frankenteen?” you said. “I’m calling about the, uh...clinical research trials.”
	“Oh!” she said. “You’re interested?”
	“Well, I just wanted some details.” You said.
	“Well.” she said. “Nothing incredibly dangerous. The most you’ll have to withstand is mild discomfort. Of course, I’ll still need to interview you and make sure you’re a good fit.”
	“I don’tー”
	“You can come to my lab on 77 Salsify Street.” she said.
	“I don’t wanna jump theー”
“11:00 tomorrow works, will you be free?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sureー”
“Good. I’ll see you then.”
“Butー” She hung up. You put the phone down and sighed. “Fuck that.” you mumbled.

----------

	You paced back and forth in front of the Brownstone building at the address Elsa told you. It certainly didn’t look like a laboratory. You told yourself over and that you wouldn’t come and yet here you are. But now, as quickly as you arrived, you might leave. You sighed, and turned on your heel.
	“Hey!” you heard from behind you. You turned. Behind you, a small, middle aged woman with a poor posture and a slightly lazy eye behind her cat eye glasses.
	“Hello?” you said.
	“You’re the research patient aren’t you?” she asked. “Don’t get cold feet now. Come with me.” You scratched your chin, and, against your better judgement, followed her into the building. She led you into a normal looking lobby, but rather than the elevator, she led you to a backroom, and down a dusty staircase.
	“I’m Ms. Ygor. Elsa’s assistant.” she said. “Ya nervous?”
	“A bit.” you said. “This is all a bit weird.”
	“Yeah…” she said. “You’re the first person who’s ever even volunteered.” She laughed, or maybe cackled. You reached the bottom of the dark staircase, before you a cracked and warped door. “In you go.” Ygor said. “I don’t like going in there. Elsa gets snappy when she’s working. She creaked the door open and gestured for you to enter. Giving her a small, nervous nod, you entered, before she slammed the door shut behind you.
	The hall was nearly pitch black, illuminated only by a doorway lit with a dim green glow. As you approached the green room, you made out a figure rummaging through cylinders filled with glowing liquid. You froze for a moment when you made out the severed limbs, organs, and eyeballs floating in the goo canisters. You wet your dry mouth and pushed forward, closer to the doorway.
	“...Elsa?” you called. You heard a gasp, and the figure sprang straight up and smashed it’s head on the bottom of a shelf.
	“Ow!” she yelled as the sides of her head sparked with little electric sparkles. One of her hands reached for the top of her head and the other to the wall. She flicked a lightswitch. Dim yellow incandescent lights lit up the hallway. It was dusty where you were. The paint of the walls was chipping and spiderwebs stuck to the corners of the ceiling.
	Before you stood who you could only assume was Elsa. She was slender and tall, her hair adding a lot to her height. It stood straight up, a jet black striped with pure white. She winced as she rubbed her head, before she put her hand on her hip and looked you up and down with an unimpressed, intimidating, maybe even frightening look. She wore a lab coat over her shoulder, obscuring her other arm. Her skin was patchworked shades of green, and around her neck and on her forearm, rows of stitches. Two steel bolts stuck out from each of her neck, still releasing sporadic sparks.
	“You’re the patient?” she asked. You nodded.
	“I didn’t mean to scare you.” you said. She looked away.
	“...You didn’t.” she mumbled. “Let’s get started.” She began walking down the hall.
	“What about the interview?” you asked. She waved her hand.
	“Forget about it.” she said. “I just want to get this going.”

----------

	You found yourself in a dark, stuffy room filled with medical and scientific equipment that looked like it belonged in a more professional looking lab. Even worse, you were strapped in a dentist chair, with Elsa wiping your forearm arm with disinfectant. Her eyes flicked up at you as she cleaned your arm.
	“You feel tense.” she said. “I'm not going to have to sedate you, am I?” You shifted around in your seat. She smirked. “That was a joke.” Her accent was showing out. She stuck a few electrodes up your arm. “This might be uncomfortable.” she said, flipping a switch on one of her expensive machines. “Ready?” You nodded and braced yourself.
	A very slight tingling tickled your muscles, causing your middle finger to twitch slightly. You looked up at Elsa as she loomed down at you with a blank face.
	“Is that all?” you asked. She scribbled notes on scraps of paper on her cluttered desk.
	“Ja.” she said before turning the machine off. “That’s all for today.” she said, pulling off the electrodes and unfastening the straps on the chair. Your brow furrowed.
	“That’s it?” you asked as you stood. She nodded.
	“Same time tomorrow.” she said, patting you on the back, although it was more like a hard smack. “Get some rest tonight.”

----------

	After a week of being her test subject, Elsa seems to have warmed up to you. As she sent pulses of electricity ー much more intense than those on your first day ー through you arms, she told all about her friends, the ghosts and the vampires, the werewolves and the mummies, none of whom would let her do any experiments. She told you about how she thought nobody would ever agree to volunteer for her.
	“How’d you get into research like this?” you asked, you hand and fingers jerking about.
	“Well,” she said, adjusting her machines. “I’m a product of this research...maybe I’m just continuing the legacy.”
	“But you enjoy it?” you asked. She scribbled in her journal.
	“Yes.” she said. “But sometimes it isn’t about enjoying it.” She chuckled as she flipped off the machine. “Sometimes people take having living flesh for granted.” She looked down at you for a moment before flipping aside her lab coat that always hung from her shoulder, revealing nothing. She had no right arm. “I’m tired of always having still cold fingers. And having to replace my limbs every two months because they become necrotic. And I know people like me all feel the same way. I want to make life better for those of us who are...dead...for lack of a better word…” She let out a wry chuckle. You stood up, noticing the large undead woman lacking her usual gravitas, her typical stoicism. Every day this week she was opening up to you, little by little. She was always stuffed up in this bug infested lab, and you were always stuffed up in your own bug infested apartment. Maybe you both needed to get out.
	“I don’t know if this is unprofessional or whatever.” you said. “I could meet you back here this evening, and we take a walk down to the bars and get a drink? You can tell me about your Grimwood friends.” She looked down.
	I’m sorry, I have a lot of work.” she said. “Same time tomorrow.” She kept her gaze down on her notebook.
	“Sorry.” you said.
	“No need.” she said, still looking down.

----------

	“I changed my mind”
	“Elsa?” you asked. Her call woke you up from an evening nap.
	“Yes.” she said.
	“You changed your mind?” you ask, recalling earlier in the day. “About going out?”
	“Yes.” she said. But let's not go to a bar.”

----------

	You were surrounded on all sides for hundreds of feet by lines of headstones. Some tall and extravagant, some bare and worn, embedded in the ground. Elsa stood next to a small tomb, running her one hand along the damp stone.
	“So why a cemetery?” you asked. “Is it a poetic thing? A graveyard for us is a nursery for you?” Elsa laughed.
	“No.” she said. “It reminds me of being a kid. Playing volleyball. Toadstool tea and mold muffins. Girls school things.” She turned to you. “I’m surprised you’ve stuck around with me shocking your arm so long. I was expecting you to stop showing up”
	“It’s nothing.” you said.
	“I’ve been holed up, researching for so long, I hardly remembered what it was like to go out and do something. You remind me what it was like to have a big, freaky estate to live on. As many rotten apples as you could pick, beautiful overcast skies every day.”
	“I’ll take that as a compliment.” you said. She put her one, slightly waxy feeling hand on your cheek, turning your face to meet her olive green eyes, reflecting the moon as it glowed through the clouds. Her freckled cheeks rose into a soft smile.
	“Thank you.” she said before pecking you on the cheek. “For treating me like a human. Even if I’ve been acting more like Dr. Frankenstein.” You smiled.
	“Don’t mention it.” you said. She held your gaze for a moment, the two of you basking in the cool autumn atmosphere, feeling the lilting breeze against your cheek. Elsa took a soft breath through her nose, and sparks began to pop out of the bolts in her neck. She gasped and her cheeks flushed green, her only hand raised up in an attempt to cover the sparkles. She chuckled, embarrassed and mumbled something in German. She patted the bolts for a moment to smother the sparks, and looked up at you with a bashful eye from under her brow.
	“...Sorry.” she said.
	“It’s ok.” you said. “...So, am I still the subject of your mad experiments?”
	“Of course!” she said, playfully punching your shoulder, hard enough to make you stumble back a few steps. “I was thinking maybe a full time research assistant, I know you were looking for work. Tomorrow, you’ll help me stitch on my new arm. You helped me come up with some new ideas to combat the circulation issues.” She took a few steps away, before turning to you. “Walk me home?” she asked. You smiled and took hold of her hand.