by Seth Patrick
It was too much. Jonah came round on the floor, the link with Harker broken. He was sobbing, and Never was there, telling him it would be OK. Jonah gathered himself. He sat up and looked at the clock. Seventy-two minutes since he’d started. It felt longer.
Hugo entered the revival room. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to try this.’ He stepped towards the corpse, reaching to the dangling arm, ready to replace it by Harker’s side.
‘Don’t touch him!’
Hugo turned to Jonah, taken aback by the raised voice, by the defiance in Jonah’s eyes, even though he looked shattered.
‘Don’t touch him,’ Jonah repeated, quieter now, regaining composure. ‘I’m close.’ He stood, wiping the cold sweat from his face with his left hand. Given how near he’d been, as long as Jonah started again soon, the chances would hardly be affected. ‘I need a minute before I get back to it, but I’m almost there.’
Hugo shook his head, but in resignation rather than refusal. ‘Five minutes. See how you feel.’
Jonah spent the first two of those five dry heaving in the toilet along the corridor, while Never stood fretting outside the cubicle. Jonah emerged, rinsed his mouth and began rubbing at his neck to rid himself of the sensation of movement that was still beneath his skin, the intense larval itch that he knew would take days to leave him completely. He drank straight from the tap, gulping down mouthful after mouthful of cold water.
He rose, grabbed a paper towel and dried the water dripping from his chin. ‘Thirsty,’ he said, out of breath. It was little wonder, given that Harker had probably died of dehydration.
Jonah returned to the revival room and took his position again. He waited until his stomach had settled, until his skin was no longer moving. Recording resumed. He took Daniel’s hand, and soon he was back, the maggots ascendant.
Better prepared now, he held on for the long minutes until the maggots fell away, and the degradation of his own body began to reverse, flesh re-forming and regenerating.
Slowly, his eyes filled out, his liquefied innards regrouped. Putrefaction left him. He was Daniel Harker then, intact and pristine, and he called to Harker’s essence – whatever that might be, wherever that might be – and he waited, steeling himself for the surge.
An answer came. Jonah felt like he was in free-fall, tumbling uncontrolled as images filled his mind, but he’d not come this far to lose it now. He held on. Moments later, Harker was there.
Jonah opened his eyes. He was sitting as he had started, holding the hand of a ravaged corpse. But now the corpse had become more; he sensed the consciousness within, the thoughts forming. He looked at the clock again. It was forty minutes since he had resumed the revival. It had taken almost two hours in all.
He was exhausted. At last, the work could begin.
* * *
‘Daniel? My name is Jonah Miller. Do you understand what’s happening?’
The whorl of thought within Harker clarified. It was slow, the wait for a reply agonizing.
‘Yes. I died.’
With his left hand on the keypad, Jonah recorded the words fluidly. He was well practised. In the observation and tech rooms, they would be watching the screens to follow Harker’s side of the conversation.
‘I’m a reviver with the FRS. I want to ask you some questions about what happened to you.’
‘Jonah. I remember your name. You’re the boy who brought back his mother. Where am I? And who is here?’ Harker’s answer had been immediate that time; he felt less vague now, his presence stronger. A sign that they might have minutes left to them, rather than seconds.
‘You’re in a revival room in the FRS office in Richmond. Detective Bob Crenner is the police representative.’
‘Is Annie here? My daughter?’ There was heartache in the words that Jonah couldn’t transcribe, and a sudden distance that worried him. He would have to get off the topic of his daughter as soon as he could.
‘She wanted to be present,’ said Jonah. ‘When we’re finished, you can talk to Annie. I’ll make sure there’s time. I promise.’ A pause. Harker felt even weaker. Jonah wondered if keeping that promise would be possible.
‘Thank you, Jonah. Now ask me what you want to ask me. We may not have long.’
‘Tell us what happened on the day you went missing. Describe people in as much detail as you can.’
Another delay. Jonah hoped it was just Harker gathering his thoughts, and when Harker did finally speak it was with purpose; he knew time was against them. ‘Wednesday afternoon, around one-thirty. There was a knock at the door. I answered, and there was a man, mid-thirties. Short black hair, long face, extremely thin with a sharp nose and cold eyes. Small round-framed glasses, quite thick lenses. Voice was much deeper than I expected, much more confident. Well spoken. I thought he was a fan. He seemed to be there for a reason, seemed to recognize me, know who I was.
‘He said a name. The moment he said it I knew I was in trouble. The name of a man I’d met who had told me things he believed people would kill him for. The door chain wasn’t on and I was cursing myself, whatever good it would have done. I moved to shut the door but his foot was already in the way.
‘He pushed hard enough to send me backwards. I turned to the phone but he was faster and took it. Another man followed him in. Shorter, cropped ginger hair. Hard-faced, a bulldog of a man, nervous eyes, young. Mid-twenties. I was frozen.
‘The first man spoke, said he had respect for me, that they’d just leave once I agreed to say nothing about what I’d been told. He put out a hand, said, “No hard feelings”. Bewildered, I took it. His grip became firm, then painful. No empathy in his eyes. He grabbed my arm as the shorter man came behind, reached around and held me fast. The dark-haired man put his other hand in a pocket and came out with a syringe. He injected something into my arm, a rough sharp stab that made me understand just how bad this was. I blacked out.’
Harker stopped. Jonah gave him a few moments, hoping he was gathering his thoughts again. In his earpiece, Bob Crenner was asking for the name of Harker’s contact.
Keep the flow going, Jonah thought, ignoring the request for now. It would be better coming in Harker’s own good time.
‘What happened next?’ Jonah asked.
‘I came round in that fucking chair is what happened next. My whole body was cramping. I was gagged tight. The ginger guy was there, and another guy – fat but tall, brown hair. Ginger called to Fats that I’d woken. They asked me for the code of my ATM card. I stared at them so hard. I hated them. I was outraged by them. I knew Annie was coming. I knew how worried she would be. I gave them the code.
‘Ginger and Fats took turns watching me. I didn’t see the first man again, the gaunt one with the cold eyes. They didn’t try to give me food until the evening, gag removed but I was still tied. I started to scream the instant the gag came off. I didn’t expect we were in earshot of anywhere, but it just came out. Ginger punched my stomach, and he hit hard. The gag went back on, and he talked to me like I was a child. They left me alone overnight, and tried again next morning. I was hungry, by then. Ginger spooned some god-awful stew into my mouth. He gave me a drink of flat cola.’
Harker stopped. Jonah sensed it with total clarity: it was the memory of the drink that had made Harker pause. Given what had followed, the thought of that drink was a thought of heaven.
After twenty seconds of silence, Crenner’s impatience got the better of him. ‘Is he still there?’ he asked.
Jonah typed his response, for the tech room only: ‘Yes.’ He didn’t think he dared risk rushing Harker yet, but after another ten seconds, he was getting worried himself. ‘Daniel?’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ replied Daniel, slow and sounding worryingly vague. ‘What was I saying?’
Jonah wondered just how much time was left, and if his daughter would get any of it. He phrased his response with care, not wanting to mention the drink again. ‘They’d fed you. What happened next?’
Again, a
pause. Running out of time, Jonah thought. ‘They gagged me again, tied my feet to a short chain that was fixed to the wall, and untied me from the chair. My hands were still tied at the front, my feet at the ankles. They left me alone much of the time, checking in on me every hour or two. I had a bucket as a toilet but needed their help to use it. I tried to make as big a mess of it as I could, hoping they’d untie my hands, at least for a while. I only saw Ginger and Fats, but I heard maybe two others in the house. Some days I heard some of them go outside and a vehicle leave. It would be gone for a few hours at most. When they all went out, they tied me up in the chair again. They only fed me once a day. When they did, I tried to talk to them, but they said very little.
‘They’d leave the light on in the cellar. I could only tell how many days were passing by the birdsong in the mornings. I’d counted five days when they started bringing boxes down. Ginger told me the old air conditioning in the house had failed. The cellar was the only cool room. They’d come regularly, fetch something from one of the boxes. I’d hear them in the yard, curious sounds like a failed firework. When I got the chance to talk, I asked them what they were doing. They just smiled. But there was something, something Ginger said…’
He stopped. Jonah tensed, sensing that Harker had remembered something crucial, something he was struggling with. Jonah could feel Harker’s intense effort to grasp the memory, but it was failing; as the effort grew, the memory receded. Unchecked, it could easily end Harker’s coherence. Something Ginger said. Whatever the memory was, he had to make Harker abandon it, try again later if there was time.
‘Daniel. Who was your contact?’
Nothing. Only the tight desperation in Harker as he tried to remember whatever it was that was sucking him down. Jonah had to try something more emotive.
‘Daniel. Why did they leave you to die?’
It was like a slap to the face. The tempest of Harker’s thoughts froze, crystallized into that one question.
‘Why did they leave me to die?’
A deep pain in his words, and a horror, but Harker was focused once more. Jonah took a long breath, regretting the cruelty but knowing it had to be done.
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘Early. Ginger and Fats came down and told me they’d all be leaving for a few hours, that they’d return soon. They tied me into the chair. And they didn’t come back. I spent that day in cramped discomfort that was turning to pain, thirst increasing. It was eternity there. When the next morning came, I really started to fear. By that night, I was hallucinating. I saw Robin, my dead wife, and talked to her. I talked to Annie. When I was rational again, I started to understand I would die. I tried to free myself, and became so angry I struggled and threw all I had into it. The chair toppled and I lost consciousness for a while. When I came round, panic took over. I struggled until I was too exhausted to struggle, too exhausted to notice anything. It was a mercy. I suppose I died, eventually. I can’t remember it.’
Harker stopped. After a moment, Bob Crenner spoke: ‘We need information about his contact, Jonah. What did he know?’
‘Daniel. Who was your contact?’
‘His name was Tobias Yarrow. He sent me a letter, asking to meet. Something had been going on at Baseline, he said, something secret and dark. He’d got involved with people who wanted to stop it. I was intrigued. I’d heard that kind of thing before. Conspiracy theorists had had plenty of fun with Baseline, like they had with everything else. It always fascinated me, how they could take such little pieces of rumour and speculation and create their bizarre world views. I had a brush with the Afterlifers a while back, but it was the fringes that interested me most. Total belief in the most ludicrous things. And Yarrow clearly fit that bill.
‘I’ve wondered more than once if I could get an article out of things like that, maybe a book, and now I saw a chance. The thought interested me enough to get me out of the house, and if you knew me you’d know just how big a deal that was. We arranged a meeting, and he told me fragments. Yarrow had known someone he called “Fifteen”, who’d given him information about the development of BPV. I asked if they had worked at Andreas Biotech, but Yarrow either didn’t know or wouldn’t say. That information led Yarrow and his friends to stumble on what he called Unity. He didn’t tell me what it was, only that his friends wanted to put an end to it, and they had got out of control. He thought there was another way and that I could help him. That was all he told me then. He would tell me the rest at our next meeting, and I agreed. He told me his associates would kill him if they found out. The way he phrased it made me think Yarrow had been an Afterlifer. He didn’t show up for our next meeting. I was disappointed but not surprised. I thought I’d hear from him soon enough. I thought I knew what kind of man he was, the kind that thrived on melodrama. I thought what he’d said about his friends was pure exaggeration. I was wrong.’
Jonah waited a few seconds until he was sure Harker had finished. ‘Thank you, Daniel,’ he said. Deep exhaustion was creeping up on Jonah, a sign that Harker was weakening fast. In his earpiece, he could hear Crenner and Johnson whisper about the information they now had.
He knew there was more, if he could get Harker to remember. And if he did, it would likely use up what little time was left. Break his promise to Harker – and to his daughter.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Crenner. ‘Do you think that’s all we’ll get?’
Jonah typed a message to the tech room: ‘No.’
He wasn’t certain how strongly Harker was present. ‘Focus, Daniel.’ Weak, but still there. ‘There was something Ginger said. You remember.’
Silence.
‘I can’t…’
‘Please, Daniel. Talk to me. You remember.’
Jonah tried to calm his own nerves and get a better grip on Harker. The memory was close; he could feel Harker strive for it again. Then, sudden and bewildering, an image flashed in Jonah’s mind, a box upended on the cellar floor. The shock of it caught him by surprise. This wasn’t something that had ever happened to him in the middle of a revival.
Harker spoke, ‘The box had fallen.’
Jonah focused and pushed hard. It took everything he had, but Harker came back, a rush of words that Jonah could barely keep up with:
‘One night the others had gone out and Ginger was alone, drunk. He came down and told me the boxes were going. He took them upstairs one by one. The last box, he stumbled. Fell down the steps. The box fell in front of me. Containers inside, but he was quick. He took the box again, looked at its contents, then looked at me. Mournful eyes. He said that before they let me go, they would tell me everything, and I would write about it. It would be up to me to explain their actions to the world. He told me he wasn’t proud. He told me it was just the way things were. Sometimes, he said, sometimes people have to die.’
In the tech room, Crenner cursed.
‘What did he mean, Daniel?’ Jonah asked. ‘What was in the box?’ He could sense the moment approach. Whatever it was that had stalled Daniel Harker before, it was coming, and Harker was receding with every second.
‘I didn’t see what was in the containers, Jonah. I’m sorry. But I saw the shipping label. I think the company was called Alpha Chemicals or something similar. And I saw the date. I saw it and everything stopped. It was the day she died, Jonah. It was the date Robin died.’
That was all it had been. The date on the box. The anniversary of his wife’s death. Jonah felt the despair Harker had felt, as the smallest of details had mocked him. The memory of it was enough to submerge Harker in that despair once more, his presence draining away again, fading too fast now.
Maybe the thought of his daughter would be enough. ‘Daniel? Please. Your daughter’s here. Annie’s here.’ Even as he said it, Jonah knew it was a forlorn hope.
Harker’s voice was well below a whisper now. ‘Will I see Robin? Will I see her again?’
‘Please, Daniel.’ Jonah focused. ‘Annie’s here.’
But Daniel H
arker was gone.
* * *
The cold of the room had finally got to Jonah as he signed off the revival. He needed to get somewhere warm. The recording lights went out, and he stood, eyes rooted to the floor, as a moment of dizziness came and went. He moved through into the corridor, glancing up as the observation room door opened. It was Annabel Harker. She was looking right at him, angry and lost. Her mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out.
He looked away and continued past.
I’ll make sure there’s time. I promise. He was shivering now as he moved up the hall to the rest room. Mouth to tap, he gulped water down until he felt nauseous. He lurched to the nearest cubicle, vomiting water and bile until his stomach was as empty as the rest of him felt.
He went to a sink and scrubbed at his hands and at the itching in his neck. A quarter of an hour later, the door opened.
It was Never. ‘You’ve been a while, mate. You OK?’ He was always good at giving Jonah the space he needed after a revival, but from the worry in his eyes Jonah could tell it must have been a struggle to leave him even this long.
‘Been better.’ He grabbed a fistful of paper towels and dried his neck, harder than he needed to. He caught his expression in the mirror. Anger. Disappointment.
‘Steady, Jonah. You did well. Bob Crenner left happy enough, although I think he’ll have a busy few hours.’
Jonah didn’t reply.
‘You can’t always do it,’ said Never, giving him a long, hard look. ‘You can’t always let them say good-bye. That’s not your job. The most important thing is to get what you can.’
Jonah nodded. His friend knew him better than anyone, yet part of him was thinking that saying good-bye was exactly the most important thing. Right now, he wanted to get home. ‘Is his daughter still there?’ He couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Annabel Harker’s expression again.
‘She stayed in the obs room for a while, but she’s gone now.’
‘Then I’m going to wait a few minutes and go home, Never. Get to bed.’
‘You sure you don’t want to kip here?’
