Re-Animator

by Jeff Rovin

  Dr. Harrod half turned from the side of the unconscious woman and reached for the defibrillator paddles. To her left, one nurse was compressing an ambu-bag to feed the patient oxygen while, behind her, another monitored her vital signs. The green line on the electrocardiogram was straight and unpromising.

  “C’mon, charge ’em! Let’s go, let’s go!”

  One young intern apologized while another squeezed conductive gel onto the paddles. Her lips tightly pursed, Dr. Harrod pushed the metal plates together to spread the gel evenly.

  Damn Allan Halsey, she thought. She couldn’t believe she’d actually considered marrying him when she first came to Miskatonic from UCLA. She’d realized later that it was Megan she felt sorry for. She still did. Life with Halsey could not be easy.

  While she stepped over to the patient, whose death was written in the pallor of her face, Harrod reminded herself that she’d given up Los Angeles for this, had run from the bloody street crime and drug overdoses that never seemed to quit to the quiet suburban setting of Arkham. If she’d known that red tape and bullshit could be as frustrating as failed law enforcement and drug rehabilitation programs, she might never have come. As it was, she couldn’t leave now because she knew that if she did, the whole system would unravel. That’s what had happened when the previous medical director left, and she couldn’t live with herself if she put the city and her interns through that kind of hell.

  Of course, every now and then there were compensations—like the young intern across the table. Daniel Cain had his hands folded one on top of the other on the patient’s bare chest, administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He stepped back when Harrod approached. Cain was naïve but an excellent diagnostician with a superb bedside manner. If he managed to come down from his idealistic ivory tower, he’d make a fine physician. If not, he’d end up running from the very imperfect medical establishment and treating yokels in the backwoods of New Hampshire.

  The doctor placed the charged rectangular paddles on the woman’s chest and pressed the triggers. The patient’s limbs jerked, stiffened, then fell back.

  Standing beside the monitor, Judie Reynolds shook her head gravely.

  “Straight line.”

  Dr. Harrod looked over at Charles Ward, who was squeezing the air bag.

  “Anything?”

  “Nada.”

  “I’m going to zap her again.”

  The process was repeated, and once again the results were negative. Dr. Harrod rose from the body.

  “All right, let’s call it.”

  “No!” Cain placed his strong hands between the patient’s breasts, resuming the external massage.

  Dr. Harrod shot him a stern look. “Mr. Cain, I said give it up.”

  He continued pressing down with slow, firm strokes. “She just needs a little more time. The drugs have to circulate.”

  “The drugs? We just gave her two shots of forty volts!”

  Ward quipped, “That’s enough to jump start a 747.”

  “We don’t need her to fly,” Cain said humorlessly, “just to live.”

  “We’ve done everything that can be done for this woman,” Dr. Harrod continued, “and she’s not going to respond. She’s gone.”

  Cain looked up from the body. Dr. Harrod’s eyes were hard, the expressions of the three other interns dispassionate as they replaced the equipment and swabbed the decks for the next slab of meat. Reluctantly, he backed away.

  The seasoned resident shook her head. “Cain, your optimism is touching but a waste of time. A good doctor knows when to stop.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Harrod, I was just—”

  “Wasting time on a dead woman when there are patients in this hospital who need us.” Her eyes softened. “Look, I’ve said it before, and so has Dean Halsey: you’re one of the most dedicated young doctors I’ve ever worked with. But you do have to accept, Cain, that once six minutes have passed, it’s better to let them be.”

  Ward sang out softly, “Brain damage . . . malpractice!”

  The rattle of the wheels in the corridor pulled the resident and her interns around. “Accident on I-95!” shouted an orderly as he raced past with a blood-soaked stretcher. “Make room, there’s two more comin’!”

  Dr. Harrod bolted for the door. “Ward, Reynolds, Trupin—you come with me. Cain, you take Ms. Grant to the morgue.”

  After watching his colleagues dash down the hallway into another cubicle, Cain dragged his perspiring palms down the front of his green robe, pushed his longish brown hair from his eyes, then ambled over and pulled a tag from a drawer. Printing the young woman’s name on it, he slipped the tag on a toe, drew the sheet over her head, and wheeled the table toward the elevator.

  Harrod’s logic be damned, this was the most upsetting loss he’d experienced in some time. The young woman’s name was Wendy Grant, and she’d suffered cardiac arrest while leading an aerobics class. From what sketchy details they’d been given, she had no history of heart disease or circulatory problems. In the three years he’d been at the Miskatonic Medical Center, Cain had lost car-crash victims, a few junkies, and a lot of overweight smokers. This one hurt because the woman wasn’t as far gone as most. There should have been something they could do to save her.

  Cain wondered again if he’d survive his internship. It wasn’t going days without sleep that got to him, or having to work with Dr. Harrod, who had the patience of a tiger shark. It wasn’t even that idiot Ward, who spent far less time healing the sick than he did blowing grass and thinking up clever nicknames to go with Cain, like “Nova” and “Coe” and “Candy.”

  What troubled him was losing far more patients than he saved. That wasn’t the way he always thought it would be.

  For as long as he could remember, Cain had wanted to work in a hospital emergency room rather than have a private practice or do research. His father was a storefront lawyer dedicated to helping the impoverished in Washington, D.C., and even now Cain loved nothing more than to listen to him talk about this cause he was championing or that eviction he’d gotten the courts to rescind. Truly a son of the sixties, Cain had taken up medicine to help people. He’d come to Miskatonic from Johns Hopkins because, only five years old, it was as complete and modern a facility as a doctor could wish for. And as a traffic cop he was fine, mending broken bones or suturing cuts with skill and good humor. But as a marksman, getting in there and gunning down the big ailments, he wasn’t nearly the crack shot he’d always dreamed of being. No one was, but the dream was dying hard.

  Cain rode the elevator to the basement and headed for the morgue. As usual, big Mace was holding down the fort. Seated behind his desk in the hallway, he was rolling a cigar around his mouth while he read the newspaper. The former college tackle looked up when he heard the squeaking of the wheels. He grinned broadly.

  “Hey, Cain! How goes it?”

  The intern smiled weakly. “I’ve had better mornings.” He stopped beside the heavy metal door. “Got another one for ya.”

  “So I noticed. Ain’t locked, though. Dr. Hill’s in the autopsy room.” Mace chuckled. “Don’t know why they keep locked doors around here in the first place. Nobody wants in, and there ain’t nobody gettin’ out.”

  “Insurance,” he replied. “A body was stolen out from under your predecessor’s nose, and the family sued the hell out of us.”

  “Probably did it themselves,” Mace commented as he returned to his paper.

  Opening the double doors, Cain backed the table into the cavernous cinderblock room. He pushed it along slowly, so as not to distract Dr. Hill and his assistant, Douglas Scott. The two men were huddled beneath a single bright spotlight in the center of the room. Hill was using a laser to open a small hole in a cadaver’s forehead, just above the right eye. A tenuous stream of smoke rose from the burning flesh, the smell of which was strong enough to overpower even the antiseptic odor that pervaded the chamber.

  Putting his back to a heavy metal door marked “Restricted Area,” Cain pull
ed the table inside. The sweat on the front of his smock grew cold in the refrigerated air, and Cain shivered as he looked around.

  “Great.”

  The small room was full, tables packed side by side along the green-tiled walls. But he wouldn’t leave Ms. Grant in the aisle; although she’d had no dignity in dying, she would have a measure of it in death.

  Jockeying the carts nearest him closer together, Cain managed to squeeze out enough room for the new arrival. While sliding her in, he accidentally nudged the table to her left; the arm of the other corpse rolled from beneath its sheet, swinging grotesquely in the narrow space between the tables. Cain reached out and replaced it, the flesh cold and stiff. The first time he’d handled a cadaver, the skin had reminded him of a milk carton; from that point on he’d had to get all his calcium from pills, since he was no longer able to keep milk down.

  Dr. Hill seemed not to notice Cain when he returned to the autopsy room. The gaunt Hill was a strange sort. Fortyish, with a long face and hollow eyes that made him look older, the neurosurgeon had earned his reputation in the early seventies, having been the first to apply computers to a complete study of brain death. During the course of his research at the University of Zurich, he had measured an energy source in the cerebral cortex which he felt might well be the human soul; unfortunately, his experiments with living subjects had resulted in the electrocution of a young man. That was followed by an embarrassing inquiry, a mysterious falling-out with Dr. Gruber, and, eventually, Hill’s resignation from the faculty. But his research made good press and loosened purse strings, so young Miskatonic snapped him up. Cain found him cold and self-absorbed, but his patients tended to live. In his mind, that more than outweighed his many personal failings.

  Cain lingered by the door, watching Hill’s technique. His hands seemed to become a part of whatever instrument they held, whether wielding a scalpel or, as now, deftly maneuvering the laser to pick small tendrils of flesh from the opening.

  Handing Scott the pen-shaped implement, Hill picked up a long wooden Q-tip and inserted it into the hole.

  “Lesions in the brain tissue and reported epileptiform convulsions lead us to suspect cysticercosis,” he said in a deep, resonant voice. His assistant brought over a test tube, into which Hill placed the Q-tip. “Mark that one for Taenia solium, whose presence will confirm the hypothesis. I’ll want another for red corpuscles and a third for possible traces of calcification.” He stole a look at his watch. “Note, too, that we were in and out in three minutes—a fraction of the time a scalpel would have required.”

  Cain shook his head. Hill had an uncanny sense about the brain which transcended what could be learned from books and classes. He was an artist in the truest sense of the word, a man using mind and instinct to mold the medium in which he was working.

  A hand clapped down on Cain’s shoulder. Spinning, he saw the old but still cherubic face of Dean Halsey, his wide smile splitting his rosy cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Dan, I didn’t mean to scare you. We arrived while you were in the other room.”

  The intern shrugged. “It wasn’t too bad. I just didn’t know anybody was here.”

  A nasal voice from behind the dean said, “You mean . . . anybody else.”

  Cain peered into the shadows as a small young man stepped forward. Wearing a pencil-thin black tie, black suit, and a pair of black-framed glasses, he looked every inch an undertaker. But there was something in his manner that made him different, something snide in the thin, unsmiling mouth, something arrogant, not servile, in the rigid posture.

  Dean Halsey chuckled. “Herbert, Daniel Cain may not be much of a linguist, but he is one of Miskatonic’s best young hopes for the future of medicine. He may be soft-spoken”—he clapped Cain again on the shoulder—“but he’s as determined as they come in the emergency room.” He motioned the other man over. “Dan, this is Herbert West. He’s also rather the quiet type. He’ll be joining you in your third year. Herbert was doing independent research in Switzerland with Dr. Gruber shortly before he died. I’m sure you two will work very well together.”

  West was not looking at Cain but past him, at Dr. Hill, who was just finishing up with the autopsy.

  Cain extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you. What were you researching?”

  West brushed past the outstretched hand and walked closer toward Hill. “Death,” he said tersely, watching as the neurosurgeon pulled off his mask. West stared ahead intently, burning that first full view of Hill’s face into his memory. He wanted it clear and vivid, accessible when he needed a spur in the dark solitude of his laboratory.

  Looking toward them, Hill smiled broadly when he spotted Dean Halsey. He came forward quickly, with long-legged strides.

  “Allan! So good of you to stop by!”

  “Good to be here!” Halsey answered in his raspy voice.

  “My word, we don’t see nearly enough of you around here since they moved you to the front office. How’ve you been? And how was Israel?”

  “To tell the truth, I’m in slightly better shape than the Middle East. The security there is absolute hell. It took hours just to get into and out of the airport. But we’ll have to have dinner soon; there were some excellent papers presented at Technion.”

  Halsey missed Cain’s little smile. He and Megan had also enjoyed her father’s two-week trip enormously. Her new project was to get him to go to the convention of deans at UCLA over Labor Day.

  “Well.” Halsey rubbed his hands together. “I was just giving our newest student, Herbert West here, the not-so-grand tour. This should interest you, Carl: he worked with Hans Gruber.”

  “Oh?” Hill’s smile wavered somewhat, and his eyelids drooped suspiciously. “That’s quite a switch, Zurich to Arkham.”

  “The greater adjustment will be the loss of a dear friend and respected colleague.”

  “Yes, of course. I was very sorry to hear of his passing. However, I’m sure he is well represented by his successor.”

  If West were flattered, his face failed to reflect it. He continued to stare at Hill, something unpleasant burning in the back of his eyes.

  “Mr. West,” Halsey resumed in his ebullient tones, “allow me to formally present our eminent brain researcher and grant machine, Dr. Carl Hill.”

  “I know your work, Dr. Hill. Quite well, in fact. Your theory on the location of the will in the brain is”—he smiled suddenly, wickedly—“very interesting.”

  Hill thanked him with a nod, but his eyes never left the student.

  “It’s interesting, Doctor, though derivative of Dr. Gruber’s research in the early seventies. So derivative, in fact, that in Europe it’s actually considered plagiary.”

  The comment turned Halsey around, a shocked look on his soft features. Hill said nothing, merely stared; Cain was surprised but intrigued by the brash young newcomer.

  “Furthermore, I would point out that your support of the twelve-minute limit on the life of the brainstem after death is in error—”

  “Six to twelve minutes, Mr.—”

  “West. Herbert West. Frankly, Doctor, what I’m saying is that your work on brain death is . . . outdated.”

  A pair of veins bulged prominently on either side of Hill’s high forehead, and his chin rose defiantly. Though Halsey was still stunned, he stepped casually between them, his back to West.

  “Uh . . . Carl, while I’m thinking of it, we’re having a Grant Committee meeting on Thursday. Why don’t you come for dinner then? Megan and I would both enjoy it.”

  The neurosurgeon smiled stiffly. “Why, I’d love to, Allan—I look forward to it.” His gaze rolled back to West. “And I’m looking forward to seeing you in class, Mr. West. I’m looking forward to that very much.”

  Hill stalked away, followed by West’s angry gaze; Halsey glanced at his watch.

  “Dan, I’ve just remembered a call I have to make. If you’ve got a minute, would you mind showing Mr. West the emergency room?”

  “No problem.
I was heading there myself.”

  Thanking him, Halsey followed Hill from the autopsy room. When they were alone, Cain took a deep breath.

  “Nice going. You certainly know how to impress the right people.”

  The young man gazed at the double doors. His features were relaxed now, almost pleasant as he looked up at Cain.

  “Were you referring to Dean Halsey or Dr. Hill?”

  “Actually, the dean didn’t look too thrilled with you, but I was talking about Mr. . . . I mean Dr. Hill. He can be a son of a bitch, but he has a lot of influence here. I assume you’re taking his class.”

  West sneered. “I’ll be sitting in the classroom, yes.”

  “Well, if I were you I’d sit without the chip on my shoulder. An F from him is like a bad review in the New York Times. It’s tough to stay in business after that.”

  “Oh, I think I’ll be around all right.”

  The sneer brightened into a smile, a cherishing of something unspoken. Cain did a poor job of concealing his displeasure.

  “As for the rest of the tour, Mr. Cain, you needn’t bother. If you’ll just direct me to the microscopy lab—”

  “The lab?”

  “Yes, I’d like to take a look at the equipment. Is there something wrong with that?”

  “No, it’s just that—are you sure? Halsey may not have told you, but this place was laid out by a gal who designs mouse mazes for a living. It was someone’s idea of a great way to get publicity.”

  West regarded Cain. “Am I sure, Daniel? Yes, I’m sure. I’m always sure.”

  Cain was annoyed, the more so when West’s head cocked to one side—like Rufus, it struck him, when the cat lay on the opposite side of the kitchen, watching to see whether what was being dumped into his bowl was worth getting up for. Cain felt like handing the diminutive West his round little head.

  “Tell me something, though, Mr. Cain . . . Daniel. If the dean thinks so highly of you, why are you on morgue detail?”

  West’s interest caught Cain off guard. “We lost someone we shouldn’t have. I guess I was pretty upset.”

  “Was it the hospital’s fault?”