20. The Lost Lenore I.

“Fritz, I’ve been thinking about something…” Leonard sighed as he traced his finger in a pile of anesthetic too small to consume. His sober moments seemed much more drab the more infrequent they became. 

“Yeees, master?” Fritz asked. He blinked one of his bulbous eyes and then blinked the other. 

“I feel that Lenore is…” the doctor began. While he searched for the right word, he violently scratched his arm from withdrawal. “Uh… not reaching her full potential.”

“Full potential, you say…” Fritz repeated. 

“Yes, I believe being cooped up in this clinic all day is part of the reason why she’s so… so, uh…” 

“Herr Doktor!” a voice cooed from the other room. “Your anesthetic is ready!”

“Oh, thank gods!” Leonard sighed with relief. “Come in!”   

Lenore shakily walked into the office—not because of the tray she held or any nervousness on her part, but because of her… uneven anatomy. She looked like a child’s crude drawing cursed to become alive. While her face was rectangular, the rest of her body was as voluptuous as Winn’s. Her eyes made up for her lack of nose, they were as humongous as they were uneven. Her skin was colored with shades of grey and large stitches bordered where they collided. She was shoved into a revealing nurse’s uniform given to her by Leonard that seemed inefficient for actual practice. 

“I’m sorry that this batch is a little late, I had—” she said before tripping on her own heel. The bowl of anesthetic flew off the tray and a fog of white powder filled the room. Leonard gasped in horror before he began to inhale as much of it as he could. Once the dust had literally settled, the doctor’s eyes dilated and—with a pleasurable groan—collapsed back into his chair.

“Lenore, sit! Fritz, leave!” he barked with a rush of newfound energy.

“As you wish, maaaster!” Fritz muttered, rubbing his hands together like a fly as he left the room. Like a trained animal, Lenore quickly took a seat in front of the doctor’s desk with her hands in her lap.  

“I don’t like leaving him unattended for long, so I’ll make this quick…” Leonard began. “For the benefit of both you and I, you’re to be put on extended leave for the rest of the month.” 

Lenore’s asymmetrical eyes turned misty and she began to heave. “I-Is this about the bowl? If so, I-I can get you another one straight away if you jus—” 

“It’s not about the bowl specifically, Lenore, it’s much more than that. I just think that you—here, let me ask you: when was the last time you weren’t here?”

She thought about it. “I… I don’t know…” 

“Leonard, what tha hell be that thing?” Cain asked, pointing a thumb to Lenore. She didn’t notice the skeleton’s presence—she was too preoccupied mimicking a seagull’s gestures as it groomed itself.

“That’s Lenore, my head nurse,” Leonard replied. “An amalgamation of past patients and people I’ve… come across here at Saint Khan’s. She’s a replacement for my last nurse—part of her is somewhere in there, I believe.” 

“I see…” Cain said, silently making sure that his pistol was still on him. 

“She’s why I had to borrow these from you…” the doctor said as he handed the caged zombie head and the Nek-Roh-Gnom-Iee-Khan back to Cain. “For the record, I looked at the Introduction and discovered that the name of the book is actually pronounced Necronomicon—Necro meaning ‘dead’ and—” 

“And why did you summon me?” the skeleton interrupted, trying his damndest to hurry the conversation along. 

“Well, as you can see, Lenore is a bit, uh…” Leonard began. He tried to remember how he phrased it to Fritz that morning, but figured that showing the Captain would say more than he ever could. The doctor just signaled towards Lenore, who was ruefully examining a now-limp seagull.

“She’s not going to learn anything if she’s cooped up in a clinic all day, so I figured that you could show her around for a week or so to help her become better acclimated to the world. Sort of like a quick course on humanity…” 

“So, ye want me ta… just have her on tha boat, which will somehow make her not have cheese fer brains?” 

Leonard began to sob.

“Oh, Fritz was right…!” the doctor moaned as he shook his head. “But did I listen to him? No! I was too stingy to care! Didn’t want to use one of my good brains!” He took out a vial of anesthetic and consumed some. “GODS! Now look at her! All that work and I decide to use a brain that’s part dog—WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!” he said before punching through the hull of a nearby ship (which, thankfully, wasn’t Cain’s). 

The skeleton looked back at The Festering Wound and fake-chuckled. “Well, uh… we can discuss tha matter of payment after we get back, Doc. I gotta get back to tha Wound an’ make sure she be in shape—promised the crew we’d leave within the hour,” Cain lied.

The doctor reached into a pocket and retrieved a folded-up piece of paper. “HERE’S HOW TO TAKE CARE OF HER,” he yelled for some reason, “IF YOU HAPPEN TO FIND A FULL, LIKE-NEW BRAIN, SAVE IT AND LET ME KNOW!” 

Cain winced—fresh brains usually didn’t last long on the Wound. “I’ll, uh, I’ll keep an eye out!” the skeleton said as he took the instructions and Lenore’s arm, silently leading her down the dock and towards the Wound. The doctor huffed some more of his anesthetic and continued to yell to no one in particular. 

“What the hell is even that!?” Majel asked.

“It be a list of instructions I want ye ta read an’ follow,” Cain said, motioning with the folded-up piece of paper Leonard gave to him. 

“No, I’m talking about THAT,” the cat yelled as she pointed to the undead nurse beside Cain.

“Oh! This be Lenore, Leonard’s new nurse we be watchin’ over ‘til the end of tha month…” Cain said as he further motioned for Majel to just pick up the damn paper already. 

The cat took it from his bony hand and looked at Lenore’s revealing costume. “His ‘nurse’? You don’t think she’s… eh… a little bit more than that…?” 

“Maybe. I dunno. I tried to not think about it,” Cain said with a shiver. 

After looking the list over, Majel’s brow furrowed. “It says here that she just runs on that damn anesthetic and some sort of nondescript ‘meat’…”

“He means ‘flesh.’ Lenore here be a zombie, just a… uh, custom made one…” Cain grimaced as he gave the nurse’s costume a once-over.  “Do ye have any of that anesthetic on ye?” he asked her. 

“Nope! The Doktor said he didn’t trust you guys, so he made me eat a bunch before we left!” the zombie smiled. 

“Ah. Well, that solves that…” the skeleton said as he clapped his hands together. “D’anna! Why don’t ye show—I think it’s—Mrs. Picardo here to the Navyman barrel below deck?”

“Aye, aye, Captain…” the elf said. She looked at Lenore. 

Lenore looked back at her and giggled. “Your ears are cute…”

“Thank you!” D’anna cooed. She wrapped her arms around Lenore’s and led her down the ship’s staircase.

Majel turned her attention back to the ship’s rigging, trying her hardest not to think about a hypothetical Picardo honeymoon. Cain took his place at the helm and noticed that his undead crew were a little distracted at that moment. He sighed, rolling his skull the way someone would roll their eyes. 

“And the rest of ye—QUIT STARIN’ AT HER AN’ GET BACK TA WORK!”