by Robert Wilde
The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living
By Robert H Wilde
Book One of The Dead Speak
Contents
One: The Array
Two: Fluffy Bastards
Three: Curriculum Vitae
Four: Bones
Five: Collateral
Six: Your Truth
Seven: Relics
Nine: The First
Ten: Fell In Love With A Girl
Eleven: The Cage
Twelve: The Duck
Thirteen: The Wait Is Over
Continued in The Dead Speak 2
Dedicated to Jonathan Wilde.
Everyone is an ark.
Thanks to Sarah Sharp.
Cover by The Cover Collection.
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One: The Array
You didn’t have to be six years old to find the rain scary, especially not the way it was hammering off the windscreen, so the little girl and her father were equally worried. Her, in case the pounding water would smash right through the glass and into her body, he, in case he skidded on the road and crashed into something hard, such as the forest to his right. But there had been no question of skipping this trip, the one they’d both made every month for four years, the trip to see their mother and wife. Many men had regular meetings with the mother of their children, but the lead in his heart was because they were visiting a grave, and for her these trips to a small grass oblong, with a small stone oblong at one end, were all she knew of her mother. Nothing stopped their visits, nothing, not even a storm of this…
Something happened and the car skipped to a halt as brakes squealed. It took a few moments for him to realise his ears had heard a titanic noise and his whole body had contracted in fright, training making one of his feet stick out to stop the car. It took another for him to turn to the forest and see a light through the trees, some sort of fire maybe burning despite the rain.
“What’s happened?” she whispered, having shrunk back into her seat, having never heard anything like that, so loud, like something huge tearing through something equally sized, like a building ripping apart.
Her father paused, looked at the forest, made the mental calculation that people might be in danger and he was the first on the scene, then turned and explained “Dee, I need you to be brave for me, okay. Something’s happened, and your dad’s got to go and help. But you need to stay here, with your phone,” and the pink, cat shaped rucksack was pulled through from the front seat, “I need you to stay here and wait until I come back.”
Dee nodded, proud to be considered a big girl who could do what her father said, and she felt him kiss her on the forehead, and saw him disappear into the rain. Then she was alone, so she undid her straps, pulled herself through into the front seat, and decided it would be okay to turn on the radio. In a few seconds she had music, although she didn’t recognise the band, or even if that really counted as music, so she sat where had dad had been, the seat still warm, and looked out of the window at the rain and the forest and the fires within. How long would Daddy be? Would a fire engine come soon? Ooh, yes, that would be good.
Dee sat, growing colder, the desire to wee getting stronger, and hoped more and more that her father would return back so they could go home. Then she began to debate leaving the car to wee at the edge of the forest, which dad wouldn’t like, but which he’d prefer to her wetting herself. Big girls didn’t wet themselves.
Finally she saw something moving, and pushed the car’s door open. The blurred black shape soon became her father, as he was moving at speed, and he looked wet, bedraggled, and had red smeared on his face. Then he was with her, pushing her back, talking at speed, saying words and phrases she didn’t understand, but picking up on his panic. Then there was a noise behind him, he turned, and…
Stevens considered it babysitting, just fucking babysitting, which wasn’t entirely baseless as he was tasked with escorting a seven year old girl around and writing up the reports. Quite how he’d been given this job he didn’t know, it wasn’t like he’d blown an assignment or let the Prime Minister’s daughter get touched up or anything, but here he was, sitting outside a third state approved psychiatrist, waiting for the ‘expert’ and the girl to finish. He looked down at the magazine he’d taken from a pile in the waiting room, and concluded if he never saw a ‘celebrity’ gossip rag again in his entire life he’d consider it well lived.
Finally the door opened, so Stevens stood and nipped over. The girl sat on a chair, her red hair tied back, her skin looking more sickly than pale, her face deeply unhappy. She always looked the same after these things, which might be a good sign depending on your priorities, and the psychiatrist came out and shut the door.
“Well?” Stevens asked.
“I’m not sure what you expect me to find, this girl has seen three people like me already, and all three have drawn the same conclusions.”
Stevens felt the man was fishing for explanations, and while he wasn’t going to get those, indeed Stevens didn’t have them to give, he could get partway. “This girl witnesses, or most probably witnessed, something of grave importance. We have to make absolutely sure we’re making the right conclusions.”
“An event of… magnitude.”
“Yes.” A friendly pause, then a not so friendly “and?”
“Well sir, I’m afraid to report that the girl has no memory of those events. She remembers getting into the car at her mother’s grave, and remembers being driven away in a police car, but as to the death of her father, what happened, anything at all, she has none of it. I can assure you, she’s not pretending, this girl does not remember.”
Stevens smiled inside. The psychiatrist had got the wrong end of it. Had missed the main problem. So Stevens had to ask. “Are the memories in her head? Will she ever be able to remember them?”
“If she saw it, if she was conscious, then yes, the memories are locked away. Something that affected her so badly she’s buried them deep inside. As to whether they’ll come back, maybe with years of therapy something could be extracted, but you’d have to be careful that ideas weren’t being embedded. You may never really know if you’d found them or if she was fantasising.”
“So there’s a chance.”
“Slim; the mind is an odd thing.”
Stevens closed his eyes. Four experts, all in agreement that little Dee wasn’t going to remember, and if she did she’d never know if she was remembering right. That might be enough. Just enough to let her go.
20 Years Later
An alarm barked a harsh digital signal for eight seconds before a groaning was followed by a hand thrusting out from beneath a duvet, stabbing the off button, and then retreating. Silence reigned for twenty further seconds, before the duvet was thrown off with protest and the sleeping figure sat up on the bed, rubbing her eyes and groaning once more. Opening her heavy lids in the dull light, Dee looked disheartened into the mirror opposite her, and saw her tangled hair, worn out t-shirt, and still pale legs.
“Another fucking day,” she complained to no one, not even a cat, then sighed, and forced herself up. Her first port of call was the bathroom, where she went to the toilet, spent scant minutes under the shower, and then opened the door to the room’s cabinet. Inside was a cavalcade of pill bottles, prescribed over the many years by a range of experts, all for something supposedly wrong with her.
She knew what was wrong with her, but there was no pill to open your memories. Yet.
Deciding to reject medicine once more she dressed herself in leggings, skirt and jumper, dried her hair and combed it straight and, having grown bored of getting ready, decided to check her phone. An old model, but dependable, and it certainly coped with being dropped all the time. Well, she thought, not all the time. But she’d been right initially.
Low and behold, she’d had a missed call, her boss seemingly aware of whenever she was showering, morning or night. But there was a message, so she dutifully listened to it while bounding down the stairs.
“Dee, I’ve got an article for you. There’s this laboratory, or science installation, or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now, they want to do a PR piece, show the world they’re not a bunch of animal killing freaks or what have you. Actually, don’t think they do animals, just some shit too weird for me. But perfect for you.” Dee paused, hand on her fridge, and scowled. They always gave her the odd jobs as if she was an odd person. Bastards. But the details came next, and Dee scribbled them down before assessing her chance of a decent breakfast. There was some cider, a pork pie, and a lot of empty space.
Coffee and pie it was then, so she dropped them on the table, switched the radio on, and pondered whether she was getting old because this music didn’t seem as good as it used to be.
Jesus she sounded… well, like she imagined her Dad would have sounded if he’d still been alive. She did a lot of imagining that.
More sighing, but at least the pie was fine, and the coffee was miraculously good too. Measuring exact amounts of anything was not in Dee’s character unless she was trying to impress, and there was no one like that here.
Then it was time to get up, grab a coat, and enter the wide world of bullshit. A lab, how weird could that be? She was hardly going to get bitten by a spider and develop fun powers.
An alarm played out the theme from a well-known science fiction programme –the Doctor Who music never had lyrics so it was eminently suitable - and a figure rose immediately from beneath the sheets, sitting on the side of the bed and shaking his head clear before he reluctantly turned the music off. Sweet music.
He looked round his room, with everything where he’d both put it and expected to find it, and considered what lay ahead for him: the lab was getting close to a breakthrough, and he’d be putting in more long hours. But if, no, when it worked it would be amazing… Energised he snapped himself upright and went in the bathroom. Shedding his smart blue pyjamas he washed, dried, and opened the cabinet door. Inside was the bane of his life, his contact lenses, but after months of torture he’d decided he had enough, so he slammed the door shut, went back to his bedroom, and put on his good, trusty spectacles. Then he dressed smart casual and checked his phone… ah, he’d missed a call. He listened to the message as he went downstairs to check the fridge.
“Hello Joseph, Doctor Monroe here. I know you’re busy, but I’ve negotiated taking you away from the project for the morning.” Joe felt suddenly sad. “I have been cultivating some press contacts, and a local paper have agreed to send one of their journalists to write a piece on us. I feel this is a chance to put our case to the local public, and really convey there’s nothing odd or weird about what we do here. Get them on our side, so to speak. And, to be frank Joe, you’re the most normal member of staff, so I’d like you to speak to the writer, give them a tour, make them feel like we’re on frontiers, but happy frontiers. See you soon.”
Joe considered this as he looked in his fridge. On the one hand social interaction wasn’t his strongest suit, on the other it was always good to have the man in charge of the whole complex singling you out for special work. And he only had to talk about what they did, how hard could that be? Oh, and he had some sausages left over from left night.
A hot pork sandwich was soon prepared, and Joe ate while listening to Radio 4. Did this mean he was getting old? Probably. Then it was time for the rows of pill bottles, all filled with vitamins and minerals which would boost his immune system and keep him fighting fit. Hmm, he thought, as he selected the ones which matched how he felt that morning, as well as those he took every day.
Then he was ready to get to the lab. A journalist. Hmm. He supposed they’d be after radioactive spiders and that sort of thing. But he did have something equally exciting to offer them.
Joe had purchased a cup of coffee and custom made lunch from a sandwich bar, a place he could be induced to admit was his main source of social interaction outside the lab. But was finding comfort in a barista wishing him a good day really all that bad?
Okay, it was pretty bad wasn’t it, and that ate at his thoughts as he drove into work. The radio, discussing a particularly fierce point of economic difference between two people who needed to get out more than even Joe, passed him by. But soon he’d waved at security, parked up, deposited his lunch in his locker and dressed himself for battle. There was something special about putting on that white coat that civilians would never understand. It made him feel… catching himself before his brain finished ‘like a man’, Joe went to Monroe’s office, was briefed more fully, and then went down to wait in the car park because there was no reception, because there really weren’t ever any visitors.
Soon a car Joe hadn’t seen before pulled up to reception, spoke to the man, was finally allowed in the carpark, and a woman in her mid-twenties climbed out, picked up a bag and looked around. Seeing her long red hair, fair skin and bemused smile, Joe was rendered unable to move, and it was she who came up to him and asked “hello, can you direct me to Doctor le Tissier’s office?”
She thinks I’ve got an office? It was all he could do to stick a hand out and say ‘that’s me.”
“Oh, hi, I’m Dee Nettleship, I have an appointment with you.”
“You look just like…” and he once again caught himself, because saying ‘Amy Pond, one of Doctor Who’s assistants’ would not have been the opening lines Monroe envisaged. Instead he mumbled quickly “someone I used to know.” Quick, think of something human and social to move things on… “Is Dee short for Deborah?”
He clearly hadn’t got that right, as the bemused smile turned into a half scowl, and then a look of resignation. She seemed to heave out “it's short for Dulcimer.”
“Dul…”
“Yes, the musical instrument.” Obviously annoyed, she added, “you don’t look very French.”
“French?”
“le Tissier?”
“Oh, that was generations ago. Call me Joe.”
“Right. I’m Dee.”
“Indeed.”
“So, shall we go inside and you can show me around?”
That seemed like the right thing to do, so Joe led her into ‘his’ building, first by swiping his card into a reader, allowing the locks to open, and waiting for the door to catch up and open itself.
Looking at the walls, the roof, the inset lights, Dee came to a conclusion. “It’s very white, very sterile.”
“My bosses are very minimalist. And to be honest they spend all the budget in the lab, not on plants or anything.” Seeing her nod, he added, “please don’t put that in the article.”
“You’ve been briefed to keep it all PR friendly?”
“Err…just to explain how things are.” But she smiled at the tremor of panic in his voice, and nodded.
“That’s fine by me. So, how many people here?”
“The science park has the capacity for four full size research centres, hosting several hundred people, but the economy has been tricky and we’re currently the only facility working.”
“Perhaps they should have built it in London or Cambridge?” Dee offered.
“Maybe.”
“So how many of you are their?”
“Forty eight people are employed here. That’s ten of us on the main project, and everyone else in support roles. And Monroe.”
“What does he do?”
“Mostly bosses u
s around.”
“We share the same sort of employer then. If he’s not in charge, who is?”
“Doctor Scott is leading the team, he’s the brains. Err, did you want to write this down?”
Dee held up her hand to reveal a small metal object. “Digital recorder.”
“Cool, very small.”
She waved it at him like she might a toy to a child. “So what exactly are you working on?”
By now they had stopped in front of a double door, covered in warning signs.
“We’re pushing forward the field of quantum biology.”
Smiling at his evident pride, Dee nodded, “can you put that in a way my readers will understand?”
“Ah, okay, well, how about quantum physics is essentially the study of the miniscule building blocks of the universe, and biology the study of how living organisms work. We’re looking into how both these interact.”
“Sounds interesting, so do you have many animals here?”
“No, no,” and Joe became insistent. “No animals, nothing like that at all.”
“So where does the biology come in?”
“Our main project, our pride and joy, is clarifying the quantum functions of the brain.”
“Oh, so you have a load of brains in there.”
“No, no, no,” that would not sound good would it, “we’ve got cell cultures. Nothing beyond cell cultures. No brains, no animals.” Jesus, if they ended up getting bombed from this article Monroe would not be happy. “We looked at the interaction of cells and the quantum world, and what we’re building is a quantum foam, applied to a model we’ve made of the human brain on our computers, and the aim is to find out how they work.”
In all his five years working on the project, Joe had never once considered that some people might find it odd, freaky, horrible. Now, having garbled those words out, he was worried Dee would. He scanned her face, trying to find any trace of revulsion. Then he realised she was looking at him.
