by Jeff Strand
"Let's talk about what exactly is going to happen," Donald said.
"Though again the science involved is very complicated, the procedure is relatively simple." Brant patted the top of a large black cylinder, which held the other end of the tubes that were in the corpse. "This machine will deliver the chemicals in the proper doses into the subject. That should take exactly three minutes and eight seconds. From then, we'll expect the corpse to return to life within several minutes."
"And if this works, what condition will the specimen be in, mentally and physically?"
"To be completely honest, we really don't know."
"Let's say it doesn't work. Could you then just hook another dead body up to the machine?"
"Ah, that would certainly be convenient, wouldn't it?" said Brant with a smile. "Alas, it's not quite that simple. Someday in the future we'd like to be able to just slap another body in the machine and return them to life, but for now, Mr. Dabernath is our only hope."
"So let's say that nothing happens tonight. Where does that leave Project Second Chance?"
"Well, first of all, it leaves us looking rather foolish on national television, as well as yourself, if I may be so bold."
Stick to the cue cards, funny guy, thought Donald.
"Beyond that," said Brant, "I don't care to speculate."
"Fair enough. Now, does the thumbs-up sign that the other scientist is giving you mean that we're ready to begin?"
"It does indeed, Donald. So I'm going to have to ask you and your camera crew to leave."
Donald blinked. What the hell?
"I'm only kidding. Just thought I'd add a touch of humor to an extremely weighty moment in human history."
"Ah, well, I'm sure millions of viewers out there found it highly amusing."
Brant walked over to the machine and placed his hand on the lever. "And so we begin," he said. After a dramatic pause, he pulled it.
There was a loud hissing sound, several multi-colored lights began to flash, and a motor began to whirr as the machine started pumping chemicals into the cadaver. Donald felt a tingle of excitement that did a bit to offset his horrible stomach cramp.
What if this worked? What if this body really did come back to life? He'd get to witness it firsthand, see this miracle of human accomplishment with his own eyes.
For a brief moment, all thoughts of his career vanished as he stared at the corpse, watching its closed eyes.
Then he remembered that he was on live television and supposed to be saying something. "Now, can we expect to see any signs of change at this point in the process?"
Brant shook his head. "Nothing until the chemicals have been fully infused into the body."
Donald watched the corpse anyway. The cameraman remained focused on it as well, and Donald knew that the television viewing audience was seeing a clock counting down the time remaining until this stage was complete.
For the next two minutes, Donald explained what was going on for the benefit of those viewers who were just tuning in.
"We're at three minutes," announced the other scientist.
Donald silently counted down the final eight seconds, and then the machine stopped.
The corpse lay still.
"I need to remind you, nobody knows exactly what's going to happen, or how long it will take," Donald said into his microphone. "It could be seconds, it could be minutes. But whatever you do, do not take your eyes off the screen."
Donald was sweating so profusely that it was dripping off his nose, but that didn't matter. The camera wasn't on him.
He took his eyes off the corpse for just a moment and looked at Richard Brant. The guy was so excited he was practically twitching. Donald wondered if he'd cackle and shout "It's alive...it's alive!" if this worked.
When it worked. He needed to stay optimistic.
"One minute," announced the time-keeping scientist.
"We've just passed the one-minute mark," Donald said. "As you can see, there are no external signs of life, but again, we don't know how long this is going to take."
The second minute passed with no change in the corpse's activity, as did the third. By the fourth minute, Donald was becoming a bit antsy, and by the fifth, the stomach cramp had far overtaken the tingle of excitement. The sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh minutes consisted of increasing degrees of being pissed off.
"I would like to stress once again that nobody knows how long this is going to take," said Donald, who felt that he probably had flop-sweat dripping from his teeth by this point. "This type of human accomplishment has never been accomplished by humans before, and so we have to be patient. Mr. Brant, at what point would we consider Project Second Chance a failure?"
"There are never failures in science, only opportunities to learn from our mistakes."
"Okay, so, at what point do you decide that tonight's experiment is an opportunity to learn from your mistake?"
"Obviously we're going to continue to monitor the cadaver for as long as it takes."
"I understand that, but let's pretend that eventually we need to go to a commercial break..."
The time-keeper scientist pointed to the corpse's hand. "We've got movement in the index finger of the left hand."
Donald's frustration vanished. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll look closely, you'll see that we do indeed have a tremor in the corpse's finger. In fact...yes, it looks like the middle finger is twitching as well. My God, this is incredible. Approximately twelve minutes into the procedure, two of the corpse's fingers are showing unmistakable movement."
And then, without warning, the corpse sat up, screaming.
CHAPTER THREE
Stanley Dabernath sat up, tubes popping free of his body, and shrieked as if waking up from the Godzilla of nightmares. "Shit!" he wailed. "Mother of fuck!"
Where was he? What had happened to him? Who was that guy with the camera?
"Holy shitting damn shit!" he screamed, looking around the room, eyes wide. His vision was kind of blurry, but he could tell that there were a couple of guys dressed in white and some guy holding a microphone.
Had he been on the operating table? Had he almost died? This place didn't look like a hospital room. Maybe these people were conducting illegal experiments on him.
He screamed some more.
"Stanley, can you hear me?" asked one of the men in white. "Can you understand what I'm saying to you?"
"Shit!"
"Stanley?"
"Shit!"
"Stanley?"
"Shit!"
His whole body felt like it was burning up from the inside. He realized that the other man in white was coming at him, holding some kind of freaky metal thing, so he punched the guy out, sending him crashing into some black cylinder-shaped machine with tubes connected to it. The force of the punch hurt his hand so badly that he thought he'd shattered it, and he let out a profanity-laced cry of pain.
Tubes. There were more of them in him. Who knew what kind of stuff his body was sucking up? He yanked the remaining tube out of his side, and then began to pull out the ones in his legs.
Then his vision went into sharp focus as he looked at his legs.
They were a sickly grayish-blue color, with small splotches where the skin looked like it had rotted away.
What had they done to him?
What disease had they injected him with?
He looked at his arms and chest. They were just as bad.
Stanley let out a dry heave, and then passed out.
* * *
"Stanley...?"
"Huh?"
"Stanley, my name is Richard Brant. How are you feeling?"
Stanley opened his eyes. It took a few seconds for his vision to focus, and then he saw that he was in somebody's bedroom. Aside from the bed, the only furnishings were a large bookshelf and a wide-screen television. The walls were decorated with paintings of peaceful scenes, mostly beaches at sunset. He was under a fluffy pink blanket, which was bunched under his ch
in but completely covered the rest of his body.
"Stanley, can you hear me?"
Stanley realized that his hands and feet were strapped to the bed. He began to violently tug on them, but quit immediately when it felt like he was going to rip his arms and legs out of their sockets. His left foot hurt particularly bad and felt like it was wrapped in something.
The prick who said he was Richard Brant was seated in a chair next to the bed. He was middle-aged, with a full head of completely gray hair, and wore glasses and a neatly-trimmed goatee. He was wearing a casual tan sweater-vest.
"Let me go," Stanley pleaded. "I won't tell anybody about what you've done, I swear."
Brant chuckled. "Oh, on the contrary, we've spread the news far and wide. You're a star, Stanley."
"What did you inject me with? Am I gonna die?"
"No, you're certainly not going to die. Tell me what you remember."
"Let me out of here."
"Stanley, I need you to calm down. I apologize for the fact that we awakened you in such a cold, clinical environment. This room is a bit nicer, don't you think? You even have a waterbed." Brant leaned over and pressed his hand against the mattress, jiggling Stanley a bit. "Are you in pain?"
"Yeah."
"Where?"
"Everywhere."
"Yes, that's to be expected. Don't worry, if you follow our instructions, it will fade before long. Now tell me what you remember. What happened to you before you woke up in the other room?"
"I don't know."
"Try and remember."
"I think I stomped on a fish."
"Did you, now?"
"Yes...no, wait...I don't know. No, I didn't. I watched it. Extreme Fishing. I went out for a walk, and this semi came at me, and it fell on me and I couldn't get away from the milk. I almost died."
"And what do you remember after that?"
"I'm not sure." Stanley tugged at the straps again, wincing in pain. "C'mon, let me go."
"Not yet."
"At least take off this blanket. You did something to me. My skin is all messed up."
"Try and concentrate, Stanley. What do you remember after you nearly drowned?"
Stanley thought for a long moment. "Nothing."
"Nothing at all?"
"Just waking up in the other room with all those tubes stuck in me. Please take off the blanket."
"I need you to take a long, deep breath. Can you do that for me?"
"You can't keep me here! The cops'll find you! My parents are probably looking for me right now!"
"Stanley, you have to calm down or I'm going to walk out of this room and leave you alone in the dark for a while. I'm sure you don't want that, so how about taking that long, deep breath for me, all right?"
Stanley closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His lungs burned as he did so.
"You didn't almost drown after that truck hit you," Brant explained. "You did drown."
Stanley opened his eyes again. "What?"
"You died."
"Did not."
"Yes, I'm afraid you did."
"I didn't die. I remember..." He tried desperately to recall what had happened to him afterward, but his mind was blank. "Well, I sure as hell don't remember dying!"
"But you did. And I brought you back to life. On national television. With record ratings, I assume."
"Fuck you. You give me some disease and tell me you brought me back to life? You think that's funny? What kind of sick bastard are you? When the cops get here, they'll lock your deranged butt away for good."
"You have no disease. You are, in fact, remarkably healthy for somebody who was dead for eight weeks." Brant stood up. "I'm going to remove the blanket now, and it will probably disturb you. You may even pass out again. But I need you to be strong. Can you be strong for me, Stanley?"
"I can be strong enough to kick your ass."
"You know, Stanley, we're going to have to work on that profanity problem. We can't have you being a celebrity with such a foul mouth."
"Quit saying 'Stanley.' It's not nearly as soothing as you think it is."
"Very well. You don't seem willing to calm down, so I'm afraid I'll have to leave you for a short while. Take this time in the dark to compose your thoughts and make that special effort to cooperate."
Brant stood up and left the room, shutting off the light behind him.
Oh, sure, like I'm supposed to be scared of the dark, thought Stanley. I'm not five years old anymore, you jerk.
He took another deep breath and exhaled slowly. He didn't know exactly what kind of perversions were going on in this place, but he sure as hell hadn't died and been brought back to life. Or if he had, it was one of those deals were he'd been legally dead for a couple of minutes and they revived him. He definitely hadn't been dead for eight weeks.
He did smell pretty bad, though.
Maybe he had leprosy.
Or maybe they'd infected him with one of those flesh-eating bacteria.
It could even be some experimental disease commissioned by the government to use in combat. That was the most likely explanation. They were going to see how long it took for him to die. Well, these sadists weren't going to get any good research out of him. He'd find a way out of here and inject them with their own funky virus.
The dark was kind of scary.
He almost tugged at the straps again but decided against it.
He needed to stay calm and focused. If he just played along with them, there was bound to be a chance to escape. And they probably had an antidote for whatever disease they gave him. He'd be fine. Everything would be fine.
Did something move next to him?
No, no, he was just imagining things.
Deep breaths. Lots of deep breaths.
He needed to distract himself.
I spy with my little eye...
You're in the dark, dipshit.
I'm going on a camping trip and I'm bringing an apple.
I'm going on a camping trip and I'm bringing an apple and a box.
I'm going on a camping trip and I'm bringing an apple, a box, and a cooler.
I'm going on a camping trip and I'm bringing an apple, a box, a cooler, and a deadly disease, one that's eating through my legs at this very moment.
He wasn't going to panic.
He wasn't going to scream.
Who had saved him from the milk? Maybe it was the idiot driving the semi. Or maybe it had been Martin. Hopefully it was some hot chick who'd given him mouth-to-mouth.
I just need to get some rest.
Stanley closed his eyes. He got no rest.
CHAPTER FOUR
Richard Brant turned the light back on as he walked into the room, holding a briefcase. "Are you feeling more peaceful, or should I leave for another hour?" he asked.
"I'm fine."
"Good." Brant sat down next to the bed again. "I apologize for that. It wasn't very polite. But there's a serious physical risk if you get too worked up, and so I'll have no choice but to do the same thing if it happens again. It's for your own safety."
"Thanks. I feel very safe now."
"Excellent," said Brant, apparently oblivious to the sarcasm. "So let me restate the situation. You died and we brought you back to life."
"If you say so."
"The truck fell over, crushing one of your feet, and you drowned in the flow of milk that leaked from the side. The driver of the truck was killed instantly. He was drunk and hadn't been wearing his seatbelt, so it's no loss to the gene pool. Another driver arrived several minutes later and called for help. You were brought to the hospital where you were pronounced dead. You lay on a mortuary slab for several hours. The tag that had been on your toe is doing quite well on eBay, for what it's worth. Your corpse was then taken into custody by Project Second Chance. Two months later, you were the star of a television special where we brought you back to life. And now you're here. Any questions?"
"No, I guess you covered it pretty well," said Stanley. "It's go
od to be in the know."
Brant set the briefcase on the floor and stood up. "You're probably going to scream," he said. "That's fine. But don't struggle or you'll only hurt yourself."
He pulled off the fluffy pink blanket.
Seeing his body without the mental cushion of blurred vision and disorientation, Stanley realized that it was even worse than he'd thought. Sickly grey. Shriveled. Almost skeletal in places. And covered with small splotches of black rot. "Oh shit..." he whimpered.
"You should feel fortunate," said Brant. "Because of the treatment we gave you in the morgue, your body didn't decompose the way a normal body would. It looks bad on the outside, but we believe that your internal organs are in more or less perfect working order. Normally they would have liquefied."
Stanley felt absolutely sick to his non-liquefied stomach. "Is it going to get worse?"
Brant shook his head. "You'll be given an injection every twenty-four hours. They will halt the process of decomposition. If you should miss one of them, it will be unattractive. I suggest that you don't miss any of them."
"But this is all going to heal up, right?"
"Sadly, no. We're able to stop it from spreading, but there's no way to reverse it. My apologies."
Stanley sat up as much as he could. "I need a mirror."
"I don't think you're ready for that."
"Goddamn it, get me a mirror!"
"Are you going to make me leave you in the dark again?"
Stanley sunk down into his pillow. "No."
"Good. Now, you will continue to eat, sleep, and handle necessary bodily functions like a normal living human being," Brant explained. "However, you will not bleed. Shall I demonstrate?"
"No, no, that's okay, I trust you. I'll wait until I accidentally cut myself on something."
"That sounds reasonable. I realize you're upset, Stanley, and I don't blame you at all. However, keep in mind that this is a blessing. You should still be dead. Your body looks bad now, but think how it would look six feet underground, covered with maggots and spiders."
