Episode XXXVII

Several minutes after regaining consciousness, Marla remembered to check her phone messages. She was pleasantly surprised to find that she had one request for room reservations and two calls from prospective employees who had seen the “Help Wanted” sign and wondered why the place was locked up during business hours. Maybe things were going to return to normal. And all it took was inhaling deadly chemicals.

Deciding not to go shopping after all, Marla ate a quick brunch, then opened the resort office for business. Before calling back the new employees (she figured at this point she’d hire anyone who walked through the door as long as they didn’t look like a servant of Acidity) she decided to tidy the place up a bit.

When she walked into the back rooms which were her living quarters, she noticed her gold necklace lying on the ground where she had dropped it. She bent down and picked it up, but collapsed again before she had straightened. She didn’t hit her head on anything this time, and as soon as the necklace fell from her hand her strength came back. Weird, she thought. I wonder if… She sat cross-legged on the floor, carefully reached out and touched the necklace. Immediately she slumped over, but was able to stop herself and sit up again as soon as her hand slid away from the necklace. “Okay, I’m convinced,” she said out loud. “Gold must be my kryptonite.”

Just to be sure, she tested her theory with various pieces of jewelry, some gold some not. She found that only the gold ones affected her, and then only if the gold directly touched her skin. If she picked them up with a cloth, she was fine. At least gold is rare, she mused. It would be bad if I went limp when I touched wood or something.

Heading back to the phone, she called the two prospective employees and arranged for interviews the next day, then called the prospective customer and set up the reservation. After hanging around the office for a couple of hours, she decided that business wasn’t going to pick up anymore just yet and went shopping after all. All in all, a good day.

The next day was also good. The two interviews went well. The interviewees were refreshingly non-zombie-like, and she hired them both, immediately putting them to work getting the place ready for the pending customer. Meanwhile, two more reservations came in. The monster rumors, it seemed, had died peacefully.

That evening she sat down to watch the local news before going to bed. The top story caught her attention: D.S. Scientific Studies Lab had burned to the ground. Good, she thought. With any luck, the monster died in the fire. On that positive note, she went to sleep.

As the week progressed, further news reports slowly eroded at her optimism. Twelve bodies were found in the ruins of the lab, but there was no report of any of them being unusual. Furthermore, the fire was started intentionally, by carefully positioned explosives. Maybe Acidity had simply been blown to unrecognizable bits, and the explosives set by a disgruntled employee…but maybe not. He might have escaped, in which case he was now at large in the city. This was an unsettling thought.

As the days went by, the uncertainty became less and less bearable. If he wasn’t dead, then why hadn’t he sent his zombie people after her again? Was he laying low, waiting to catch her off-guard? Or had he lost interest in her? That seemed unlikely; he must have had her kidnapped for a reason. Finally, she couldn’t stand just waiting around for something to happen. Having no particular plan, she just went for a drive through town late one afternoon, looking for zombie people, or any kind of evidence that Acidity was still around.

* * *

Ironically, as Marla Stewart was thinking about Acidity, he was thinking about her. As he surveyed the damage he had caused at the former site of the lab, he reflected that his power and influence was growing. His former captors were no longer equipped to attempt recapturing him, even if they were still inclined to do so. He now had absolute control of over a dozen individuals, including the entire staff of the hotel where he was staying. (These he instructed to continue doing their normal jobs, which they were able to do for the most part. Bookkeeping turned out to be too arduous a mental task, so he did that for them.)

His main problem was that he hadn’t managed to infect anyone who had significant amounts of capital, which made the prospect of obtaining new acid supplies a daunting one. But I wouldn’t even need more acid, if I could return to the pools, he thought. Everything was perfect for me there! And that woman had to go and ruin everything. What did I ever do to her? The more he thought about it, the more angry he became. And his biohazard suit made it difficult to monologue at his minions, which was his usual method of relieving tension.

There were two reasons why he hadn’t gone after Marla already. One was that he figured the acid pools would be the first place the scientists would look for him again. However, it seemed unlikely that they were going to do so. The other was that she apparently had superhuman strength, based on what one of his servants had told him. Well, I have superhuman acid, he thought. We’ll just see how strong she is after I dissolve her. Having made up his mind, he motioned to his minions to get in the car, and began driving to Acid Resort.

* * *

After driving around the shady parts of town for over an hour and not seeing anything useful, Marla decided that she was going about her investigation in the wrong way. She wasn’t sure what the right way was, but hopefully it involved burning less gasoline. It was nearly dark anyway, so she headed home. When she got there, she saw that there was a strange car parked in front of the resort. Maybe it’s a customer, she thought. She parked her own car in her garage, then walked out to the thermal pools to see if anyone was around.

As she approached the biggest pool – the one the monster had been captured in – she saw that two men were standing there looking at it. “Hello!” She called out. They turned and looked at her. “I’m Marla Stewart, the owner of this resort. Do you want a room for the night?” The men looked at each other, then turned back to the pool and began waving their arms over the water. Thinking that this was unusual behavior, Marla slowed down a bit in her approach. Then one of them began yelling at the pool.

“Lord Acidity! Lord Acidity! Marla Stewart is here!”

Marla felt a sudden chill run down her spine at the sound of the monster’s name, followed by a surge of anger. He had come back – to her resort – just when everything was returning to normal. He’s ruining my life! She thought. What did I ever do to him?

She was still several feet away when Acidity broke the surface. “Shoot her!” He yelled at his minions as he climbed out of the water. They clumsily pulled out guns, slowly took aim, and started firing in her general direction. Marla quickly threw herself to the ground, and none of the bullets found their intended target.

She realized it was safe to get up when she heard one of the minions talking. “Lord Acidity,” he said, “I’m out of bullets. What should I do now?”

“Reload, you idiot!”

Seizing the opportunity to act, Marla jumped to her feet and rushed at the nearest minion, punching him very lightly in the face so as not to kill him. He hit the ground rather hard and stopped moving. As she turned to face Acidity, she saw him flinging out his arm just in time to close her eyes and raise her own arm over her face in defense. A stinging stream of acid splashed over her. Rushing forward blindly, she grabbed the monster, swung him around like a discus, and threw him as hard as she could. She looked up to watch him arc through the air, quickly losing sight of him in the fading light. He must have gone at least six blocks, she thought.

Just then the air was filled with a deafening bang, and she felt a tingling sensation in her left shoulder. In an instant she realized that the second henchman had reloaded, and that he had shot her. Fortunately he was close, and she was able to grab and break his wrist before he fired a second round. When she let go of him to pick up the gun and throw it into the acid pool, he ran to his car. By this time the tingling sensation had turned into unbelievable pain, and Marla didn’t even try to stop him from driving away.