Free Frankentown by Aleksandar Vujovic

calmed down
    ,he argued with himself,
    I’m still not in any condition to go out for a trek up the hill .
    They arrived at the park with time to spare. The few street lamps that covered the playground with light weren’t enough to light the huge rock that the surrounding residents were so fond of climbing.
Time came and went and the person they were to meet was nowhere to be seen, so they waited additional twenty minutes before Frank thought to call the number on the card again.
“Number you have dialed has been disconnected.” the evil phone kept saying.
    “Screw this, let’s go back.
      I’m freezing my ass off.”
      Frank ran out of patience.
    When they pulled up to the house again, Frank noticed that the kitchen light was on. When they left, it was definitely off.
    “Let’s call the cops.” Allen suggested.
    “No. The molten alien is still in the fridge.
I told you it’s basically liquified human DNA.”
    Allen started silently snickering at him.
    “It wouldn’t look good on my resume.”
    “You said yourself it looks like corn flakes. Are they really going to sequence a sample from your fridge?
    “Stay in the car.”
    He did, while Allen slowly walked up the steps, listening for every sound.
    Someone was inside.
    Maybe it was the guy from the card,
    maybe it was just a robber.
Or had they forgotten to lock when they left?
After several minutes of not having heard a thing except the wind hitting the trees, Allen took a deep breath and entered the house.
Frank got a little worried when he heard a gasp from inside, and started imagining worst case scenarios.
Alas, the gasp was the sound of the door closing with the wind, and within a few seconds Allen emerged back out from inside.
    “It’s gone. It’s all gone.”
       Frank sought hope.
“All of it?”
    “NOW can we call the cops?”
“And an ambulance.”

Chapter Eight
    "Recovery"

    It had now been four weeks since the alien incident and Frank was beginning to start looking like his old self again. Both him and Allen agreed to keep what happened only between the two of them. There was no way to tell who was behind the phantom phone number or who stole the alien remains, though the question never quite faded from Frank’s mind.
    He wasn’t really all that eager to find out, either. He was just glad to be rid of it and on his way to recovery with proper medical care, from what seemed like certain death at one point.
    The MD examining him was content with the explanation that Frank had improperly used the DNA sequencer and was exposed to radioactivity for longer than is healthy without any further explanation. Frank begged him to keep it to himself out of fear of a committee hearing and possibly losing his tenure due to ‘gross incompetence’. Not only had the MD assured Frank that all medical records were strictly confidential, he suggested Frank to become a medical marijuana patient.  
    “This,” the MD said, “statistics show significantly reduces the risk of tumors forming.”
    It was a young, smiley MD.
“All I’m saying is, I’d rather medicate than get cancer.”
    From then on he’d worry about a potential tumor, though his worries quickly faded once he filled his prescription that afternoon.
The MD had warned him that extended use of marihuana may have negative side effects, but by that afternoon he’d already forgotten all about it.
    In the two weeks since, Frank had significantly cut down on alcohol intake. The way he saw it, he may have had a drinking problem, but more importantly, had he not been so drunk, he would have left the alien there in the first place. Or at least so he thought.
    Whenever outside, he was convinced that wherever he went, security guards appeared.
    And each time, he could’ve sworn they were talking about him. Almost every sentence had the indefinite directive- “he”.
    Right before his next lecture, as he was about to walk into a classroom full of students, he stopped at the door. Frank suddenly