Too Many Humans

by Jacob Rayne

  Nicol sighed, shook his head hard.

  He went to talk, but stopped himself.

  After taking a couple of deep breaths, he began again: ‘Laverick, I understand why you are doing this. I really do. If I was in your shoes I’m sure I’d do the same. But what you are talking about is five, ten, maybe even more years in the future. If we can sustain the funding and the research into the technology. And that, given the area you are working in, is a huge if. I honestly don’t think it is going to come to fruition.’

  Laverick went to butt in, no doubt to defend the project that he was willing to take to his grave, but Nicol cut him off.

  ‘What you are doing to the bodies of these children is barbaric.’

  ‘But they are already dead, Dr Nicol. They can’t feel anything. And they may get the chance to live again.’

  ‘But what of the failed experiments? They’re being reborn into a world of pain and despair.’

  ‘Omelettes and eggs, Dr Nicol. Omelettes and eggs.’

  ‘And if the parents ever found out what you were doing you’d be wide open for legal action. I am deeply sorry for what happened to your son, Dr Laverick, but I really think you need to lay this to rest. You need to forget about all of this and, in my opinion, you need very thorough counselling to come to terms with the loss of your son. All of this is just prolonging your torment.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dr Laverick. But I am not going to work with you any more on this. Please think about what I’ve said. And I hope one day you find the closure that you so desperately need.’

  With that, he was out onto the drive.

  Laverick followed him, shouting at the top of his lungs.

  ‘Please. Don’t give up on this. On him. I can do this. I know I can. Please… help me to make this happen.’

  But it was too late.

  Nicol was already in his car, the modified garage and its macabre contents in his rear-view mirror.

  Laverick sat with head in hands for a few minutes after Nicol had gone, but then he focussed himself.

  If Nicol wasn’t going to work with him on this, he would do it without him.

  His quest to re-animate Martin would continue until he was successful or he was in a box in the ground.

  Those were the only two outcomes as far as Laverick was concerned.

  He did as much as he could, finding that as he became more focussed on his work, the problem of losing Nicol’s backing soon faded into the background like a radio being slowly tuned out.

  He did a few more hours, feeling that he had managed to add a little progress to his cause.

  Sighing, he laid a kiss on the top of the freezer that bore Martin’s frozen remains.

  ‘One day, my love,’ he said. ‘One day.’

  3.3

  When Laverick left the converted garage, he was happily thinking through the next day’s research as was his custom – he always liked to know where he was going in his next session.

  He was fishing the keys out of his pocket to lock up the heavy metal door when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

  He turned to see his wife leaning against the wall, her face like a smacked arse.

  ‘What have you been doing in there?’ she asked.

  He didn’t like her tone; it seemed she’d recently discovered something about his research.

  Nicol, he thought, cursing under his breath. Surely he hasn’t told her what I’ve been doing.

  ‘Your friend told me he was worried about you. He said what you were doing in there wasn’t natural.’

  ‘Of course it’s not natural, I’m trying to bring dead children back to life.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why the fuck do you think?’ Laverick said, tears filling his eyes.

  She looked him in the eye for a moment. ‘He’s gone, Hank. He’s not coming back.’

  ‘One day I will bring him back, I swear to you. If it takes me till my dying day.’

  ‘You need to let this go, Hank. Martin is dead. There’s no coming back.’

  Laverick thumbed a tear from behind his monocle.

  ‘Show me what you have in there, Hank.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to see. I need to check on something.’

  ‘You pick a funny time to show an interest. I’ve been working on this for years and you’ve never once listened to a word I’ve said.’

  ‘Let me in, Hank. Or I’m calling the cops.’

  ‘Call them. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  Before he could say anything else, she had shoved past him and moved into the building.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You have no business being in here. This is my workspace. It’s private.’

  ‘Your friend told me to look in there,’ his wife said, pointing to the chest freezer in the corner.

  Laverick gasped. The bastard had told her everything.

  He felt a sudden rage well up in him. At Nicol, at his wife, at the lack of funding and interest in his work. And, of course, the cruel fate of his beloved son.

  ‘What’s in there, Hank?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing. Get the hell away from it,’ he snapped.

  ‘Show me. Or I’m phoning the police right now.’

  ‘No. This is none of your business.’

  From nowhere, she shoved him, hard enough to make him stumble back and hit his head against the fridge door.

  While he recovered from the blow, she darted in and threw the chest freezer open.

  He moved in, grabbing her round the waist and trying to drag her back before she discovered his macabre secret.

  He was too late.

  The blanket was already pulled back, the steam already rising from the open freezer.

  She stopped dead in her tracks, as though slapped.

  She turned to him, her jaw flapping uselessly, no words forthcoming.

  ‘Yes, it’s him,’ Laverick said. ‘Well I couldn’t let him just rot in the ground, could I? He wouldn’t be in much of a fit state when I brought him back to life. This way everything is pres—’

  He stopped as her right hand slapped him hard across the cheek.

  ‘You’re fucking insane. How did you get him in here?’ Her mind worked overtime. ‘Oh my God. You dug him up, didn’t you? Who the hell do you think you are?’

  ‘I’m doing it so he’s intact, ready to be revived.’

  ‘How the hell could you do this to him?’ she said, tears rolling down her cheeks, an outraged look on her face. ‘How could you desecrate the grave of our poor boy?’

  ‘I’m doing it all for him. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘You’re out of your fucking mind, Hank. And I’m taking him back to the cemetery first thing in the morning.’

  ‘The hell you are. He stays here until my research is at a stage where he can come back to us.’

  She was reaching in the freezer to get him out.

  Laverick wasn’t prepared to let that happen. His research was not going to be disrupted by her or by anyone else.

  ‘Get out of there right now or I won’t be held responsible for my actions.’

  She ignored him, continued trying to get to Martin.

  ‘Last warning. Get out of there or else you’ll be very sorry.’

  She ignored him and began to lean down into the freezer.

  Rage welled up in him as if overwhelming a dam.

  It felt as though anger had possessed him and he was no longer in control of his own body. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her up out of the freezer.

  Her cries were hidden by the racing of blood through his head.

  He threw her to the floor with a thud.

  An idea hit him like a ton of bricks and a sadistic grin crept onto his face, darkening his features.

  ‘You cannot be allowed to disrupt this research,’ he said. ‘My son will breathe again. And neither you nor anyone else can stop me.’

  She gasped as she saw the insanity that dwelled behind his eyes. />
  Before she knew what was going on, he had injected her with something that made the room spin, made her legs feel as though they were made of spaghetti.

  She fell to the floor, unable to get up again.

  He led her to his car, locked the garage up and drove home.

  She was still conscious but not able to react. Her eyes were wide, her words nonsensical.

  Laverick grinned as he took off the belt from his trousers and fashioned a crude noose from it.

  Finally she saw the lengths he would go to in order to bring Martin back from the dead.

  He pulled the belt tight around her neck, squeezing so hard that veins stood out in his forehead and neck.

  ‘This is what he would have wanted. Call yourself a mother? You should want to do anything possible to bring him back, just like I have. He would be ashamed.’

  His words were far away now as the room danced in and out of focus.

  Laverick pulled hard until she had stopped convulsing and fell still.

  He stared at her lifeless body, replete with purple face and bulging eyes, feeling utter hatred for her and what she had attempted to do.

  When she’d been dead for at least ten minutes, he used a kitchen knife to cut the belt and called the emergency services, telling them he’d found her hanging when he’d gotten home from work. While he waited, he performed CPR, fully aware it was in vain, but wanting to make it look like he had tried to resuscitate her.

  When the ambulance turned up, he was already weeping. Tears were something that came easily to him in the long, dark years since Martin’s death. All he had to do was think about his son’s fate and the tears fell like rain.

  ‘She’s been struggling with depression ever since we lost our son,’ Laverick sobbed.

  The ambulance men checked her over, but it was pretty obvious she was dead.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Dr Laverick,’ one of them said.

  ‘I just can’t believe she would do this,’ he said. ‘She seemed to be getting better. And now this.’

  ‘I feel for you, Doctor, losing both your loved ones.’

  ‘I don’t know how I can go on from here.’

  ‘The police are on their way. They’ll take statements etc.’

  ‘Of course. Thank you for your help, gentlemen.’

  The police interview went well; they didn’t seem to suspect anything was the matter. The suicide angle was a masterstroke as she had had one attempt shortly after losing Martin and had been on a heavy course of anti-depressants ever since.

  A silver lining that he didn’t anticipate was the life insurance pay-out, which helped greatly towards his research.

  A full decade passed between Martin’s death and Laverick perfecting his research.

  Ten long years of obsessing, tinkering and tweaking were instantly worth it the moment he managed to bring a baby girl he’d dug up from the local cemetery back to life. (He kept a close eye on the obituaries for any kids who had died, and had an inside man at the morgue to help him with test subjects).

  Her eyes had twitched and flickered and she had let out a cry that let him know that she wasn’t in pain – not like the poor sod with the battery in its skull. But hey, he had to start somewhere. This was like the cry that a new-born infant made when it was free from the womb.

  Like the cry Martin had made just after he was born.

  This was a cry that filled him with hope, that symbolised rebirth.

  Tears of joy flooded down his face as he realised he had done it.

  Another few years of research and obsessive, round-the-clock working introduced the use of the smart features, feeding, voiding and sleeping controls.

  It was at this point that he finally dared to put his work to use on his beloved son.

  3.4

  With Martin’s body, everything was nerve-wracking, to the point where Laverick felt he was going to have a breakdown.

  Everything had to be perfect.

  This was such complex work that he had to be switched on at all times.

  If he felt himself flagging he put Martin back into the freezer as it was not worth the risk of ruining his son’s second chance at life.

  Finally, after nine months – the irony of this timescale was certainly not lost on him – Martin was ready.

  Laverick lifted his son out of the freezer and cradled him in his arms until he had defrosted.

  Then he kissed him on the forehead, muttered a fervent prayer to a God he wasn’t even sure he believed in, closed his eyes and pressed the device against his son’s forehead.

  The device beeped.

  There was a beep from deep inside Martin’s skull.

  The device beeped again.

  The wait after this third beep was interminable, even though it only lasted a few seconds.

  Then Martin’s eyelids flickered and Laverick was once more staring into the eyes of his beloved son.

  The son he had buried.

  The son he had dug up and spent ten years of his life bringing back to life.

  The son he had killed for and would gladly die for.

  ‘Hello, little fella,’ Laverick said, tears of joy streaming down his cheeks and plopping onto the writhing child’s face. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, wiping them away. ‘It’s just you have absolutely no idea how much this means to me.’

  Laverick spent his every waking minute doting on his son.

  He loved him more each passing day.

  The work had been worth it, no doubt about it.

  He’d have slaved away for three times as long in order to get this miraculous result.

  Still, while Martin slept – handy due to the remote controls he’d himself devised and patented – he further tweaked and tested his research.

  He was immensely proud of what he had done with Martin, but he wished he’d done a few more digital children first, in order to fully realise his knowledge.

  Still, Martin was perfect in pretty much every way.

  Laverick found that word of his work had spread far and wide.

  He was no longer a freak – an outcast shunned by his peers – suddenly he was a god-like figure who had power over life and death.

  He spent his days with Martin, but his nights were spent returning dead children to their grieving parents.

  If he could make others feel the way he felt every time he held Martin, he was sure he’d be doing the world a huge favour.

  After the intense revelations in the converted garage of Doctor Laverick, Nicol had performed regular internet searches to see if his one-time colleague had delivered on what he had convinced himself was an inevitability.

  But he found nothing other than the obituary for Mrs Laverick, curiously dated a few days after his last, heated encounter with the ominous doctor.

  He thought this highly suspicious, but since there was no reason for him to work with Laverick, he eventually forgot it, as he did his internet searches on the subject.

  Nicol was idly surfing the web one lazy Sunday morning, coffee in hand, when, to his utter amazement, he saw a headline on his MSN news page: ‘Hero Doctor gives stillborn baby second chance at life.’

  He spat his coffee out and his hand darted to the mouse to read more.

  Clickbait or not, he had to read it.

  It said in the article that the doctor responsible for the infant’s rebirth had wished to remain anonymous and had turned down every interview request.

  Despite this, he’d known it was Laverick; the fact that the article mentioned bionic implants was merely icing on the cake.

  ‘Holy shit, he did it,’ Nicol said aloud, wiping coffee off the screen of his laptop. ‘The crazy bastard actually did it.’

  He sunk into a stunned silence.

  Laverick’s research could be worth a hell of a lot of money now, especially since it was proven to be valid.

  He saw the proverbial pound signs before his eyes.

  Despite his utter disbelief that the creepy doctor had managed the seemingly-impos
sible, he wanted to meet with him again.

  So adamant was he in his belief that Laverick was the subject of the news article he’d read, he didn’t even bother with any further research, he just headed out to the scene of their last meeting.

  He reasoned a man as obsessed as Laverick had been – hell, probably still was – would not have the time or energy to move to a new location, so he set off for the converted garage which had housed Martin Laverick’s frozen corpse.

  To his dismay, the garage was no longer in Laverick’s hands.

  A large, tomahawk-shaped sign outside advertised cheap MOTs. ‘No questions axed,’ the legend read.

  Nicol turned the car round and headed for Laverick’s house.

  When he saw that the house had sprouted a few extra extensions, jutting out at angles that were both aesthetically unpleasing and structurally unsound, he knew the doctor still lived there.

  Only a man tight in the clutches of an obsession could fail to notice such glaring errors.

  He sighed, composing himself for the argument he figured was to come, and got out of the car.

  Slowly, he walked up the drive, trying to figure out what the hell he was going to say to the man whose dreams he had all but dashed, but who had, against all odds, managed to return life to the dead.

  He knocked on the door and waited.

  The door edged open to reveal the little boy he had thought would never breathe again.

  There could be no doubt that it was the same kid.

  He had Laverick’s nose and sunken eyes, but other than that his features were remarkably similar to those of the baby Nicol had seen emerge from the freezer.

  He had absolutely no idea what to say to the kid, indeed his blood began to run cold and it felt as though his own tongue was trying to crawl down his throat and choke him.

  ‘Hello,’ the kid said.

  Nicol put him at about three.

  ‘Is your daddy home, Martin?’ Nicol said.

  The kid didn’t seem surprised that Nicol knew his name.

  ‘Who are you? Daddy isn’t expecting anyone today.’

  Nicol debated whether to tell the truth or not.

  While he wavered, the matter was taken out of his hands.