Lost Souls

by Seth Patrick

  They waited in the car, unable to raise Bob or Ray on their cell phones. Forty minutes later they started to assume the worst: that the Afterlifers had managed to block it, somehow. The sky darkened, threatening rain and matching Jonah’s mood.

  Then a car and van pulled into the revival firm’s lot. On his own in the car was Ray Johnson. Bob was sitting in the passenger seat of the van, which Jonah recognized as a body-transportation vehicle, fitted with refrigerated units in the rear and able to carry up to six bodies at once, although there would only be one body in there today. He waved to Jonah and Never, then got out.

  ‘Any problems?’ asked Jonah.

  ‘No,’ said Bob. ‘A little stalling, which is why we’re late, but their hands were tied.’

  ‘So no chance of interruptions?’ If there was anything Jonah wanted to be sure of, it was to avoid a repeat of the catastrophe with David Leith.

  Bob grinned. ‘We may have inadvertently given an incorrect location for the revival. And we made damn sure we weren’t followed. So I think the chances are slim to none.’

  Jonah nodded, relieved. Then he realized there was one person still missing. ‘Is the sister on her way?’

  ‘She’s not attending,’ said Bob.

  Jonah’s eyes widened. Not having any relatives present underlined just how unorthodox a private revival this was.

  ‘At my suggestion,’ said Bob. ‘They weren’t very close, and given the nature of the case – well, I got the impression she felt obliged but, frankly, she looked ill at the thought. She was glad to be given the opportunity to duck out. She’s given me a message for you to pass on.’ He held out an envelope.

  Jonah took it and pulled out the single sheet within, a short word-processed printout. It was vaguely impersonal, the writing formal, stilted. The sister had written of a few childhood memories, expressed regret that they’d not been in touch more, and wished Mary well. For all its inadequacy, it was probably the hardest thing the sister had ever had to do.

  He put the sheet in his back pocket. If the time came, he had easy access to it.

  So, no family were here for Mary, and no friends. Jonah wondered again if he was doing the right thing.

  ‘OK, then,’ said Never, clapping his hands together and looking up to the sky. Spots of rain had started to fall. ‘Let’s get inside before it starts to piss down, shall we?’

  *

  Jonah had brought his FRS medication with him. He swallowed the pills while out of Never’s sight, feeling strangely hypocritical after telling Never off for using what he’d thought was FRS equipment. Skipping his medication wasn’t an option, though.

  By the time the meds took effect, Never had completed setting up in the cold room they would use for the revival. Space was tight, and there was no separate area for Never, Ray and Bob to sit, so Never had set up his laptop in the far corner to give Jonah as much room as possible.

  The only other people present were the driver of the body transport vehicle and an older woman Bob introduced as the revival firm’s owner. Once Mary’s body had been wheeled into the building, the driver returned to wait it out in the van; the owner watched the preparation for a few minutes, looking on warily without a word. Then she left them to it.

  ‘Old acquaintance,’ said Bob as the woman left the room. ‘Not happy about this, but, well, she owes me.’

  In the centre of the room was the gurney from the transport van; beside it was the chair Jonah would sit in. The body was still bagged, no-one keen to open it until it was absolutely necessary. Bob stepped forward and looked at Jonah, waiting until Jonah gave him a nod. The noise of the bag’s zip seemed unnaturally loud. Bob pulled the side of the bag down, and Jonah felt his face slacken.

  He thought he’d been prepared, having seen the pictures and having so much experience with bodies that had been twisted and torn every way you could imagine. But there was something different here.

  Something plain wrong.

  ‘Shit,’ said Never. He approached the body, standing closer than Jonah would have felt comfortable being. Yet, of course – in a few minutes he’d be taking the dead hand against his bare skin, watching the corpse twitch back into activity that would, with luck, shed some light on what had happened to her.

  ‘My God,’ Jonah said at last. He stepped forward to Never’s side. ‘My God.’ The injuries followed an unnervingly straight line through the left side of her body: the arm missing, the shoulder gone, deep into the joint, the line continuing through that and a good part of the head. He spent a moment peering at the surfaces of naked bone, seeing the fine irregularities. He looked at the exposed section of brain, only a few inches across, above what remained of the left eye. He turned to Bob Crenner. ‘What the hell can have done this?’

  ‘Rogue Jedi,’ said Never, shutting his mouth the moment Jonah’s sharp look hit him.

  Jonah reached out to the woman’s right hand, which he would be holding for the revival, and turned it palm up. The flesh around the base of the little finger was gone, exposing bone. The rest of the palm was covered in miniscule scratches.

  ‘First thing I want is an account of that evening,’ said Bob. ‘Get some facts straight before we tackle how she died. In case it proves too much for her.’

  Jonah nodded. The reliving of something so obviously traumatic could easily end the revival. Better to get something concrete first. ‘I’ll try.’

  Bob cleared his throat. ‘Jonah . . . there’s something else.’ Bob wasn’t meeting his eye.

  ‘What is it?’ said Jonah.

  ‘I was hoping . . . Look, tell me if it won’t be possible, but you remember the case of a guy called Howard Reeder?’

  Jonah nodded. Of course he did. Howard Reeder had been shot resisting arrest in Los Angeles five years back, following a robbery that had seen two young cops killed. Word on the street had put Reeder at the scene, and when police went to bring him in, the man came out shooting. He’d been hit, but had escaped.

  Reeder had died alone, hiding in a disused warehouse. The body wasn’t found for twelve hot days. Revival was a necessity, and would normally have been non-vocal given the state of the fly-blown body.

  But there were complications, loud claims of a set-up, suggestions that the true culprit was being protected by the police with Reeder a fall-guy. The taint of conspiracy fell on the revival itself. If it had been non-vocal, the reviver would be reporting what was said. Normally this would be above suspicion, but not this time. Instead it had been done as a vocal, with the reviver also documenting the subject’s words – perfectly audible to them, just as in a non-vocal case – via the usual keypad.

  The corpse was almost impossible to understand without the help of the words being typed, but the critical thing was this: knowing what was said made the sounds undeniable. The half-formed words, the slurred and guttural attempts at speech, had carried more weight than the reviver’s testimony alone. Together, there was enough proof to quash the accusations of cover-up.

  Jonah had watched the footage of that revival. It was grim, something that even he found hard to view. And now, with Mary Connart, Bob and Ray wanted to do the same. ‘Are you serious? This is a clear-cut case for non-vocal, Bob. If you want it vocal, it won’t be pretty, and it’ll almost certainly mean we have less time.’

  ‘I know. But if we get something difficult to believe, hell, I’ve brought you in, and you’re a friend. They’ll call foul and ignore whatever we get. It’s a private revival, Jonah; in theory, you can say whatever you want without fear of prosecution, make up every word. They can just claim you lied, and ignore whatever Mary tells us. But not if they can hear it for themselves.’

  Jonah looked at the body of Mary Connart. He thought back to the footage of Howard Reeder, the body twisting, spasming even. The corpse almost choking out the words. ‘I’ll need to examine the body.’

  He walked over to Never, who was making final preparations on his laptop and pretending not to be listening.

  ‘You hear
that?’ said Jonah.

  ‘Of course I fucking did. You trying it? Tell me you’re not.’

  ‘I trust their judgement. It might be the only way to make sure Mary is believed. I’ll have to check the vocal chords first, though. It might not even be possible. I just need the— Damn.’ He’d realized that they didn’t have the kit he needed to do the necessary examination. Then he saw a sheepish look on Never’s face, and Never bent around to the equipment box behind him, coming back with a bag in his hand.

  ‘Confession,’ said Never. ‘I, uh, brought a fair bit of FRS kit after all. Just in case.’ He handed it over. ‘You sure about this?’

  Jonah nodded and unzipped the bag. He dug around and pulled out a rigid laryngoscope, essentially an eyepiece and a thin metal tube with a small prism at one end. Another search produced an endoscope with a longer flexible tube, ready to check the lungs and make sure they could provide enough air for the process.

  He fished out some latex gloves and put them on. The examination took a few minutes. Bob stood nearby while he worked; Ray took a seat beside Never in the corner.

  Jonah opened the mouth of the corpse, then closed and opened it several times. The body was not in as bad a condition as he’d feared. He reached in with his fingers and palpated the tongue. There would be some mobility there but it was too swollen for fine control. The laryngoscope showed the vocal cords to be viable, barely. The tone of the voice in such a revival was more dependable than the shaping of words, but in such a condition the body would deteriorate rapidly, the harsh forces involved liable to create microtears in the muscle. If the revival lasted more than a couple of minutes, the voice emerging would be little more than a deep growl.

  The lungs were clear enough to proceed; as the revival went on, some fluid would probably seep from the surrounding tissue, but it wouldn’t be significant.

  On the damaged side of Mary’s face the flesh of much of her cheek had gone, allowing air to escape. He reached into the kit pack for a flexible patch and some sealant, hoping it would be effective on such a large wound, especially with the skin so degraded, but it went on easily. He waited the required three minutes to allow the work to set, then examined the repair. It seemed to be holding well without restricting the movement of the jaw.

  ‘Ready here,’ said Jonah.

  ‘And here,’ said Never.

  ‘How do you rate our chances?’ said Bob.

  Jonah thought for a moment. ‘The body’s not in too bad a condition, so it comes down to how the injuries will play out. The damage is severe but localized. The arm won’t matter, or the shoulder. It’d be the head wound that might cause trouble, I think. It’s maybe half an inch into the brain, over an area three inches wide, but it’s not core damage. Frontal lobe.’ The thing that really played havoc with revival success was devastation, the deep destruction of a gunshot to the brain, or the widespread penetrating torso injuries of a car crash.

  Bob nodded and went to sit by Never and Ray. ‘Then let’s get started,’ he said.

  16

  Jonah sat by Mary Connart’s body and adjusted his chair until he was comfortable. The keypad he would be using to transcribe the conversation had been taped to one arm of the chair. He tested it out then took a deep breath.

  He removed his gloves and took Mary’s hand in his, flinching inside a little as he felt the rough damage to the flesh of her palm. He let the feeling settle, getting used to the sensation of the dry exposed bones of the hand. He was reluctant to begin, and hesitated long enough for Never to prompt him: ‘I’m recording, Jonah.’

  ‘I know.’ He took another few seconds, and began. ‘Revival of subject Mary Connart. J. P. Miller duty—’

  He stopped. He’d been reciting the standard FRS revival opening: J. P. Miller, duty reviver. But this was not the FRS, not now. ‘I’ll start again,’ he said. ‘Revival of Mary Connart. Jonah Miller reviving.’

  He looked at the wounds to her face. Her right eye was closed. The damage to the left eye socket had stopped it being an eye, instead it was just dead tissue. He looked at the shoulder and thought back over the years, trying to recall a revival with injuries analogous to this. Bob Crenner had mentioned dragging wounds; Jonah remembered a revival four years before of a cyclist who had been hit by an eighteen-wheeler. The driver hadn’t even noticed. Tangled between the drive axles the victim had been dragged for fifteen miles, his right leg and hip in contact with the road. The man had been conscious and had bled to death, but the resulting injury had been very different from what Jonah was looking at now. Then, the flesh had been stripped unevenly from bone that sat proud of the remaining muscle. Here, bone and muscle were level, and the edge of the wound was well defined.

  His reluctance was getting in the way now. He had no choice but to go ahead and see what happened.

  Reversal, the first stage. Losing himself, exploring the damage to the corpse in his mind. Reaching out. The injury to the head proved to be less of an impediment than he’d feared. The missing arm and the shoulder, largely peripheral. The overall level of decay was better than expected; navigating it took experience and determination but held no surprises. It all added time to the process, taking much longer than David Leith, but it wasn’t the tortuous challenge he’d feared.

  Just hold on. Hold on for the surge.

  And what form would it take here? Had Eugene Harding really heard her scream? If the injuries had been inflicted while she was conscious . . . a bad death often showed itself as a difficult surge.

  It took time to arrive. When it came, though, it was surprisingly brief. Not easy, but hardly what he’d been tensing against. A sense of plummeting through random moments in the woman’s life, no more remarkable than many revivals he’d experienced.

  Maybe it was a sign of how the revival would go. Maybe it would all be easier than he’d been fearing. Jonah felt himself relax slightly, suddenly hopeful.

  There was a flicker of movement on Mary’s face. First, her upper lip twitched briefly; then her right cheek did the same.

  ‘She’s almost here,’ Jonah said.

  ‘Well done,’ said Never, the surprise clear in his voice.

  ‘How long?’ asked Jonah.

  ‘Fast, all things considered,’ Never told him. ‘Twenty-nine minutes.’

  Then they all fell silent, as the corpse of Mary Connart began to take a very slow breath, the chest straining, the lungs filling with air. At last it stopped. Revival had been achieved.

  ‘Mary,’ said Jonah. ‘Mary, my name is Jonah Miller. I’m a reviver. Can you hear me?’

  The body of Mary Connart lay still for a moment, the lungs holding. Then Jonah felt a vibration in the hand, a rapid trembling that spread up the corpse’s right arm to the shoulder. The wheels of the gurney the corpse lay on began to rattle in unison, the sound growing as the vibration grew increasingly violent.

  The trembling reached the head. The jaw slackened wide then continued to push open, Jonah’s eye on the patch he’d applied as it was stretched to its limit, the bottom of the jaw reaching the chest. He could see the tongue, quivering, pulsating, and all the while the movement grew.

  He heard Bob whisper in horror to Never: ‘What is this?’

  Fear, thought Jonah. An initial response of uncontrolled movement was a rare manifestation of fear in the subject. An ongoing tremble in the muscles of the face, say. A regular twitch of the hand. The greater the fear, the more movement could be observed.

  For it to be so extreme . . .

  Dear God, he thought, Mary, what happened to you?

  He turned his head to Bob, about to try and reassure him, but then he felt her, and the terror in her; it swamped him, greater by far than the emotional turmoil of the surge. The air from her lungs at last began to leave, her vocal cords working well enough to produce a low, rasping cry.

  Then Mary Connart screamed.

  17

  The moment she stopped, the lungs began to fill with air again, the vibrational movement continuing. Anot
her scream would follow if Jonah didn’t get her attention.

  ‘Mary,’ he said. ‘Talk to me. I want to help you. Please.’

  He felt her become aware of him. There was a fractional decrease in the shaking.

  ‘Mary!’ he shouted.

  Abruptly the trembling stopped. Then in the silence – slowly – the jaw closed. It was a few seconds before she spoke.

  ‘Where am I?’

  The sound was harsh. He knew the words would be indistinct to the others listening, but they were clear in Jonah’s mind. He typed them, and would easily be able to keep pace, however fast she went.

  ‘You’re safe now,’ he said. The first task: ensure she was aware of her own situation, of her own death. If possible, give her the space, and hope she already knew.

  Silence, but he could tell it was a thoughtful silence. She was trying to remember.

  ‘I died. In the . . . in the dark.’

  The last word had an edge to it, an edge of terror.

  ‘I’m a reviver, Mary. My name is Jonah Miller. I want to ask about what happened at the party. Do you remember the client party?’

  A few seconds passed. Mary’s jaw began to move slowly up and down, then it began to tremble again – but the vibration didn’t spread, lasting only for a moment. Jonah didn’t feel confident about how long this revival could last.

  ‘I left,’ she said.

  It was too early to risk her becoming lost in the actual attack, however much Jonah needed to know the truth. ‘Did anything happen at the party? Anything you want to tell us?’

  ‘It . . . I was tired. It was too hot, too loud. I’d spoken to the people I needed to, shown my face long enough. And a man . . .’

  Jonah shifted in his seat, recognizing the level of importance Mary herself felt, and knowing this was critical. Mary’s lungs were empty. He tensed as they filled, wary in case another bout of trembling set in. It didn’t. He prompted: ‘A man, Mary. What man?’

  ‘I didn’t know him. He didn’t say who he was. I went to the restroom and when I came back he took my arm, half pulled me to somewhere quiet.’ Her breaths came regularly, and with each one Jonah tensed. ‘He was drunk. Told me he needed to ask me something. But he was smiling, then. I thought he might be flirting. Then his smile left his face, just left it as if it hadn’t existed. He started to ramble, wanted to know if I’d told anyone. He said I must have seen it.’