The Reviver (13 page)

‘This is for you,’ said Never, handing over the beer. ‘It’s good to see a smile on your face. Thought I’d keep it there awhile longer. You’re normally such a miserable fucker.’

Jonah smiled, welcoming the drink. ‘What would my doctor say?’

‘He’d say you’re a miserable fucker too. Now, uh, Jonah … you notice that the lovely Miss George is here?’

Jonah guessed his meaning. He shook his head. ‘No. I could feel the chill when she put a hand on my shoulder last week. Shirt and overalls in the way, so she didn’t notice, but I could tell. It’d be pretty strong.’

‘Sorry. Uh … you OK if I…?’

‘If you want a shot, be my guest.’

Grinning, Never slapped his hand on Jonah’s back. ‘
You
are a good, good friend.’

Jonah said nothing in reply.
You too.

As they sat, Ray Johnson pointed out Never’s Coke. ‘Designated driver?’ Ray asked.

Never laughed, seeing Ray’s orange juice. ‘Snap. Been driving all day, feels like. Onsite in Elizabeth City. Five-hour round trip and we were there for two hours. Apparent suicide, a well-off old guy found hanged in woodland.’

‘Genuine?’ asked Ray. About one in eight suicides was revived, a deterrent both to the suicidal and to those thinking about passing off murder as one.

‘Oh aye,’ said Never, giving him a weary look. ‘Deeply fucked off that he’d been brought back, and in no way
helpful,
but definitely a genuine suicide.’

‘Jesus,’ said Ray. ‘You guys must have some tales to tell.’

‘Nikki Wood was your second revival, right?’ Never said.

Ray nodded. ‘Second as detective. Third I ever witnessed. Just over a year before I made detective, I was first on scene at a homicide near Motts Run Reservoir, body dumped in haste. The head had been partially hacked off at the scene, an obvious attempt to prevent revival, but they’d been interrupted. There was blood everywhere. I stayed to help with scene control as the better-paid took over.’ He got a groan from the other detectives around the table. ‘I ended up chatting with the liaison officer the forensic revivers had sent out to assess the situation. The officer had said it was a long shot, and she was right – it proved
too
long in the end. I watched, and it was pretty grim. All that goddamn
blood,
but no luck. Even so, they had an ID soon enough. The killers had been so worried about taking the victim’s
head
off they hadn’t searched his pockets thoroughly. His driver’s licence was there.’ He waited for the laughter to die down. ‘It was only four days before I heard they’d found their guys, and in the end it was the mess of blood that had guaranteed conviction. Traces in their car, clothes, everywhere. Even the ones who think they know what to do get it wrong, and thank God for that.’

Across the table, Nala George nodded to Jonah and Never. ‘We’ve been sharing ours, you two must have some. What’s the strangest case you’ve had?’

Jonah and Never shared a look. ‘Suggestions?’ he asked Never, trying to pass the baton.

‘Shit, man. You worked in Baseline. There was some pretty bizarre stuff there.’

The others were suitably impressed by mention of his Baseline past, and Jonah had just enough alcohol in his bloodstream. What to tell? There were plenty of revivals that stuck in Jonah’s mind, not least that twisted wreck of a car, when he’d had to bring the unseen subject back by reaching into the wreckage. But that was too raw. Something else. ‘OK, OK. Since you mentioned your case, Ray, with the head partially hacked off. Early on, they didn’t know much, and things were limited to whatever bodies happened to find their way to us, but once the forensic research kicked off they were trying
everything.
I did a
head
once. Seriously. I mean, now we know that total decapitation rules revival out, whatever you do after. Nobody has any idea why, but nobody really knows what the hell revival is anyway. Back then, they were trying to see where the line was, and they had varying test subjects with different amounts and types of connective tissue still attached between head and body. They thought something interesting might come out of it if they could narrow it down. So one of mine was a head. On its own.’ He took a drink and looked around at the grossed-out faces. ‘And I sat there and I reached out a hand. I mean, what the hell do you do? Grab an ear? I cupped this corpse’s cheek and began. I concentrated.’ He lowered his voice, putting on as serious an expression as he could muster. The others stopped smiling, listening in silence. ‘There wasn’t a sound, everyone just watching, waiting to see if this corpse-head’s eyes would flicker open. And five minutes later…’

He let them stew for a few seconds.

‘What happened?’ said Nala.

‘I burst out laughing. And it was contagious. Everyone in the room was on the floor. End of revival attempt.’

In the middle of a laugh, Ray caught himself and frowned. ‘That’s pretty sick.’ Then he started laughing again.

‘Like Never said, Baseline did some bizarre things.’

‘Another!’ said Ray.

Jonah finished his beer and held it up. ‘A story for a drink,’ he said.

‘Fair enough,’ said Ray.

‘I warn you,’ said Never. ‘He normally says fuck all, but if you get him drinking you can’t shut him up.’

While Ray went to the bar, Jonah considered what story he would go with. He settled on the revival of Lyssa Underwood, another case at Baseline where they were trying to push limits. Fresh beer in hand, he began: ‘I’d been requested for a project at short notice, no information about its nature, but that wasn’t unusual. In Baseline most of the revivers weren’t permanently affiliated with a specific project, and things came up at short notice sometimes. But when I went in I didn’t recognize any of the project staff, and the unfamiliar faces made me uneasy. Then I saw the subject. A young woman, in her late twenties. Rare in Baseline, the norm was older, terminal patients willing to take part in exchange for improved care in their last weeks, and money for their families. But it was what surrounded her that gave me the creeps.

‘Her body was on the usual gurney. On one side was equipment that resembled a dialysis machine, clear liquid with a hint of green and blue running through spinning components and emerging through tubes which fed into the body at multiple entry sites – neck, arms, chest. A soft mechanical whirr came from the machine, but there was another sound too, the thing I found the most unnerving. A regular, driving beat.

‘The machine had a pulse.

‘They explained that it was all about preservation. Reduction of rigor, improving revival chances. Pump the blood out, switch in a synthetic version. They hadn’t had any success, but then they hadn’t come to me before.’ Jonah grinned and got an uneasy laugh. ‘We started, and to begin with it was tough. At last I figured it, and in the end it was easy, like realizing that a door says
push
when you’re trying to pull.’

He thought back to the moment he’d sensed Lyssa Underwood. She had still seemed distant, which had struck him as odd. ‘They were working with scripted questions, so the researcher would call out a number and I would read out the question. Right from the start she seemed confused, and there was a terrible loneliness. Question 1, they said, and I asked for her name. All she said in reply was:
The cities are burning.
Question 2, and I asked her when her birthday was. She replied:
The shadow is falling.

‘Every question, she said the same kind of thing. “The cities are burning.” “The shadow is falling.” There was no hint of evasion or lying, but her confusion was considerable. I started to ask her if she understood what was happening, but the researchers ordered me to stick to their questions.

‘The final question was the one that I remember most. I thought,
Why the hell would they include something like that?
The question was: Why are you frightened? She said nothing for a while, then she gave her answer.
The cities are burning. The shadow has come. Everything dies.
After that they stopped the revival. They looked as baffled as I was.’

‘What the hell had happened?’ Nala asked. Jonah looked at her, realizing how unnerved she was.

‘Sometimes they come back confused. I’m more used to that now, but like I said, in Baseline the subjects were typically terminal patients, well prepared before they died. This one can’t have been prepared at all. Something about the preservation techniques must have exacerbated it, because it was more than simple confusion. The answers she gave made no sense. Whether they kept trying with the project, I don’t know, but put it this way: you’ll have noticed that we don’t
use
those techniques. I can remember how lonely she felt. Isolated and bewildered.’

He looked at the faces around him, seeing the same deep unease he felt himself. He suddenly regretted the story. He’d run with it because it had always been the moment that had creeped him out most of all, but he’d misjudged. It was too solemn, too dour, not the simple campfire creepiness they’d wanted. That wasn’t the only reason he regretted bringing it up. It had been a stressful time in Baseline, with upheaval and controversy that he didn’t want to think about. Bad choice.

He looked at Never. ‘Your turn,’ he said. ‘Something more fun, I think.’

Ray spoke up. ‘First things first, Never. Why the name? Is it Irish?’

Jonah and Never both grinned at that.

‘It’s how often he’s quiet,’ said Jonah.

‘Shut
up,
’ Never said. ‘Ignore him. It’s how often my equipment fails.’ Ray and Nala shared a look, then both started laughing. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ Never said, defensive, looking to Jonah for backup.

Jonah shrugged, smiling. Although Never had a dozen different explanations of how he’d got the name, Jonah knew this one was the truth. Back when the FRS was just starting up, he’d been plain old Rob Geary. The revival recording equipment design team he was part of had been given an acceptable failure rate of one in a thousand revivals. Rob Geary had campaigned so hard for a rate of
never
that he’d ended up being named after it.

‘Tell them a story, Never,’ Jonah said, and Never reeled off his favourites.

The stories continued, and Never moved seats to be beside Nala, who was obviously fascinated by the topic and wanted to hear more. Jonah listened to the others but kept an eye on his friend, wishing him luck as he kept her laughing and shocked in equal measure.

At ten-thirty, Ray stood. ‘Sorry, guys, I have to get going. Early start.’

Groans came from around the table, and those depending on Ray for their ride began gathering their stuff. That included Nala George. Never caught Jonah’s eye and shrugged. Jonah raised his eyebrows as a question, but Never gave a small shake of his head.
Didn’t get anywhere.

Nala stood and made her way around the table. She stopped at Jonah and crouched to his level. Jonah tensed.

‘I wanted to say thank you,’ she said. ‘The way you treated the parents … It let them get through it.’ She nodded towards Never. ‘He told me how some of your colleagues would’ve handled it. Doesn’t bear thinking about. Anyway, thank you.’

Jonah assumed Never had been talking about Jason Shepperton, hopefully not by name. He opened his mouth to reply; the distraction of thinking what to say made him fail to see it coming.

Too late, Never saw what was about to happen. ‘Don’t…!’ he called, raising a hand.

By then Nala had already moved her head over just a little, to give Jonah a peck on the cheek.

A friendly kiss, a kiss of gratitude. The chill Jonah felt was immediate and intense: an agonizing cold, a strong taint of death. He jerked his head back, then turned. Nala was staring at him, horrified, her eyes wide and wet. She’d not experienced it before, and would have felt it even more acutely than Jonah had.

‘Oh Jesus…’ she said. ‘I didn’t … I didn’t know…’ Then she started rubbing at her lips, fear in her eyes; Jonah’s face crumbled, and she stood and backed away, trembling.

She hadn’t known. Some people just didn’t. Didn’t understand it wasn’t only contact with a reviver’s hand that gave chill. Didn’t realize how severe it could be.

Jonah didn’t know where to look, and stared down at his drink, aware that the table had fallen silent. He was first to move, heading for the exit, ignoring Never’s call.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Never sighed. He grabbed Ray’s arm and nodded to Nala, who had slumped back down into a chair and was staring at the floor, rubbing hard at her lips every few seconds. ‘Hang around for another drink, Ray. She needs it.’ He turned to Bob Crenner. ‘Well, Bob, I gotta go.’

‘Will he be OK?’ asked Bob, looking at the exit door as it closed behind Jonah.

‘He’ll be fine,’ said Never. ‘Occupational hazard.’ He hurried through the exit, half expecting Jonah to be wandering off down the street, but he was waiting right outside, so visibly tense he was almost shaking.

They drove back home in silence. When Never pulled the car over by Jonah’s apartment building, he put his hand on Jonah’s shoulder.

‘It’s not your fault,’ he said. There was no reply. ‘It’s not your fault,’ he repeated.

Jonah looked up slowly. ‘I need to get inside.’ He wanted to run and hide, to get into his apartment and bolt the door. He was only just managing to hold back.

‘Look at me,’ said Never. ‘Look at me and tell me you’ll be OK.’

Jonah heard the worry in his voice. He looked at Never. ‘I’ll be OK. Please, I’ll be OK. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.’

‘Deal. But call before noon, or I’ll be round to check up on you.’

Jonah smiled a broken smile and got out of the car, feeling cold in spite of the hot summer night. He buttoned his jacket and headed for the door to safety.

*   *   *

Jonah opened his fridge and reached in for a beer, cursing when he realized there was none. He’d had four already in the bar, but he wasn’t in the mood to be sensible. He looked over his options: vodka, Jack Daniel’s or a bottle of wine Sam had got him for his birthday.

He grabbed a glass and poured himself a strong JD and Coke, then he went into the living room and found an old Karloff movie to watch.