Who: Archibald Black What: Good, old fashioned, parricide. Where: Black Mansion When: Sunday Evening Warnings: Violence, crazy, murder.
A typical Father’s Day at the Black Mansion felt more like a dentist’s waiting room. The family sat around a table too large for just three people, eating in silence as they struggled to get through the day. Archibald had been at the family home all weekend at the request of his mother, who showered him with unfamiliar affection that only made him suspicious. She loved him, that was certain enough, but had always treated her son like another piece of valuable junk. Nothing more than a grandfather clock that only required a little money to keep it ticking. But, now she was hugging him in front of the help and insisting that any woman would be happy to have him as a husband.
Knowing something was wrong, Archie started to search his mother’s office for clues and in moments found her correspondence with Spider-Man. She wasn’t smart enough to keep evidence hidden and Archie knew it would be this stupidity that would finally be the end of her. Now the weekend was about survival. His mother was a nice enough woman, but she had positioned herself in the way of his success. She wanted to lock him up long before he was finished with his experiments. For this, she didn’t deserve another breath on this grand, grim earth.
Lost in thought, Archibald looked down at his soup that he had not touched. He turned the broth over and over with his spoon. Studying how the translucent liquid spilt delicately and curled around seasoning and chopped potatoes. He was counting seconds. Buzzing through equations in his mind. Calculating how much longer he’d have to wait.
“Archibald, your mother and I would like to talk about your expulsion from college.” Frances Black broke the silence in a proper, but strangely gruff voice.
“Frances!” Doris Black gaped, mouth open like a slobbering fish as soup dripped down her fat face.
“That was years ago.” Archie replied flatly. Bored. They had this conversation a thousand times before, but it was never about the real story. When Archibald reanimated his professor’s cat, the man was so horrified with such an act of god that he simply made up another excuse. That Archie had been abusing the privileges of the campus laboratory. Well, he wasn’t exactly wrong about that.
“Your professor refused to explain what happened in front of the committee, but he approached us later with the truth.” Frances made a bold statement that earned a curious, amused smile from his son. There was a strange moment of exchanged looks between the two men. Gamblers; each believing their held four aces in their hands.
“Honey. We understand you think that science caused the cat to come back to life-” Doris began, but she was interrupted by Archie’s laugh. He dropped his spoon loudly into the china bowl and pressed the palm of his hand against his head. Humored disbelief that she was daring enough to go there.
“Archibald, we’re trying to-” Frances began, but Archie shot a look of anger out from behind his hand.
“Give me the birds and the bees talk about being a creation?” Cold, disgusted. “Isn’t too late for that?” They were terrible parents. The kind who could only hold the title because of basic human biology.
“It is. We know what happened to the cat. We know that it was you releasing birds and then showing up at a bank with a pack of dogs. Do you really think you’re doing science, Archibald?” His father’s voice rose to a yell. He kicked his chair out behind him and jolted to his feet in a rare show of thundering rage. The elder Black had been alive for so long that he had learned to control his temper. His madness was normally in check, but his son’s poor development despite a rich upbringing was the last straw.
“Frances, please. Archie, honey, we think you need help.” Doris played the good cop well. Turning her giant, obese body delicately towards her son, a bulbous hand reaching out for him.
It cracked Archie up. He looked at them in suspense, genuinely surprised in the most delighted way that they underestimated him. They had full knowledge what he was capable of, what he had already done and yet they thought this was an ambush on him. He leaned back in his chair, tilted his head up and howled in laughter. He was completely overcome with an immature, loud giggle fit like someone was tickling his stomach mercilessly. Soon he was on the floor, gasping for air and in tears.
Frances tried to walk over to his son, but stumbled over his feet, toppling dishes and glasses that rested on the table with a sweep of his hands. Doris looked to him in fear as her breath began to leave her body. Four massive arms suddenly sprouted from her sides, ripping through her blouse as she reached for her throat and coughed loudly, violently. Frances continued to stagger towards his son, woozily gripping chairs to grapple his way across the room. Archie stopped laughing, a smirk weaving his lips into an upwards turn as he popped back up onto his feet like a performer who just took a prat fall.
“You know what is science?” Archie pointed up a finger as if he just had a clever idea. His voice dark, vicious. “Chemistry. Developing a poison out of basic household items that can quickly shut down all your vital organs while leaving the body intact.”
With perfect timing, Doris face-planted into the tainted soup, dead as doornail. Archie’s skin was burning with adrenaline. This past month he was looking for the final jumping off point and his parents just handed it to him. Frances gave a dizzy look to his deceased wife, his body itching with little blue sparks. He slowly turned his gaze towards his son and delivered a sudden shot of lightening from the palm of his hand, sending Archie tumbling back to the ground.
“You don’t know anything about science.” Archie snapped at his dying father, gasping in pain. “I proved a paradox. I did what Schrodinger could only theorize. I made a cat that’s visibly both alive and dead at the same time!” His green eyes sparkled as he broke out into another laugh. Frances cut him short and sent a crackling wave of blue lightening at his son, slamming the boy against the dining room’s back wall. There was a moment of silence and then Archie slowly slumped to the floor like a broken toy.
“Now. Now-” Archie struggled for air, closing his eyes as he reached for words that were slipping out of his ears. “I’m going to show you what I can r-really do.” The slight man let his arms drop to the floor, hands palm up as if he had nothing and let himself sleep. Frances took two more steps, then fell gently in a heap. An exhausted animal who didn’t have any choice but to just give up.
Hours passed until the darkness of night stirred young Archibald. He blinked hazily at the fuzzy, broken shapes of his dead parents and then smiled victoriously.