Arsenic for the Soul (18 page)

“
I think Camilla’s mother
is secretly responsible for spreading the disease. I can’t
ascertain her motives but it may be connected to her
imprisonment.”

The corpse jerked and lifted its arm.
Vivian tripped and almost landed in the wire racks stocked with
pathology specimens.

“
Careful! Nothing to worry
about,” Gavin quickly reassured her with a chuckle. “They probably
don’t lecture you in your nursing class about reflex actions, do
they?”

“
Actually, this isn’t the
first time a corpse has been excited to see me.”

“
In essence, the nerves
continue to send signals to the spine instead of the brain after
death. This can result in the occasional muscle twitch or kick, so
don’t come too close. The first time I saw a corpse stand up in the
morgue, I almost fainted dead away! One of nature’s more morbid
miracles, I suppose.”

“
Oh yes, I remember my
first experience with the walking dead,” Jezebel heartily
agreed.

She proceeded to cut into the shoulder
joint to begin the Y incision. She carved the stem of the Y from
the middle of the chest into the pubic region.

“
Pay special attention to
this when I extract the organs. We’re going to use the Rotikansky
technique to remove them as a connected group.”

Vivian winced at the sight of the
scalpel rending skin.

Jezebel’s handiwork could almost pass
for artistic if it wasn’t so gruesome. She’d been through this
routine too many times to sense anything egregiously wrong. In
fact, she wasn’t too alarmed when the man she was dissecting opened
his mouth. Normally the jaws will relax after decomposition and the
lips peel back in a feral scream. She was, however, horrified when
the corpse reached for the scalpel parting his abdomen.

Arterial blood spewed from the excised
chest, something that wouldn’t be possible from a dead body.
Bryan’s heart was still beating and generating enough blood
pressure to force arterial spray across the cadaver lab.

“
He’s alive! He’s still
alive!” Gavin screamed. Jezebel hysterically tried to restrain
Bryan on the autopsy table but she slipped in the blood deluging
onto the floor. Vivian watched in shock as the naked man reared up
with his chest carved open. His organs were still encased despite
the flesh-rending damage from the Y incision.

Bryan staggered several steps across
the lab as a scarlet waterfall cascaded down his chest and groin.
Nothing could have prepared Vivian for this vision of animated
death. Bryan’s blind, needle-gouged eyes cut right into
her.

He only took five steps before he
toppled to the floor and frothed in a puddle of his
demise.

TH
IRTEEN

Camilla felt unnaturally secure when
she was surrounded by books. Those infallible walls of knowledge
brought her comfort when little else could. Cocooned in the library
of Strahov Monastery, it rekindled memories of an innocent
childhood spent reading classic literature and Greek mythology. She
pried open a weathered tome and the smell of wood pulp and hints of
vanilla practically wafted off the pages. It was a strangely
intoxicating scent that spirited her away to every realm of the
imagination.

Camilla was expecting Vivian to call
her at any moment now with news about Bryan Hajek’s grisly death.
It didn’t take long for news to spread about a man being autopsied
alive. Camilla only took an interest in the matter because Vivian
swore up and down that it was related to the outbreak at the
hospital. She was so engrossed in her book that she barely heard
her cell phone ring.

“
Perfect timing, Vivian. So
what’s the update on Bryan?”

“
Jezebel is almost certain
that toxins were involved to keep Bryan in a heavily sedated state.
The toxicology reports are still pending but he may have been
exposed to tetradotoxin. Under a heavy dose, it can present
death-like symptoms for days. In case you’re wondering, I’m on my
way home now. I just made it through the crowds of reporters
gathered outside the medical examiner’s. I expected to see you
there.”

“
I’ve decided to take a
hiatus from the newspaper, or as I like to call it, a mental health
retreat. So tell me more about tetradotoxin.”

“
It’s a very potent muscle
relaxant. I can’t even imagine what it must have felt like to be
paralyzed on the autopsy table and unable to call out for help. He
could have been conscious the entire time.”

“
So he was being preserved?
For what?”

“
Maybe he was supposed to
die in the morgue, dissected alive.”

“
That’s a lot of
pre-meditation and gambling.”

“
Either way, he would have
died. He must have been practically overdosing on tetrodotoxin to
show those symptoms and conceal the heart rate. It’s a miracle that
he stayed alive as long as he did—only to regain control when his
chest was being sawed open.”

The thought made Vivian’s skin crawl.
Thank God she wasn’t the one wielding the scalpel.

“
So why do you suspect
Bryan was killed?” Camilla asked.

“
Isn’t it obvious? He was
trying to find out more about the outbreak. Maybe he stumbled upon
something that your mother didn’t want him to know.”

“
You’re certain that my
mother is working in the University Hospital?”

“
There’s no other
explanation.”

Vivian remembered Crenshaw standing
outside of Milo’s patient ward, eavesdropping on her conversation
with Bryan. He seemed extremely sensitive to news of
tuberculosis—almost as if he wanted the situation to remain
hush-hush. Vivian sneered as the worst possible scenario occurred
to her.

“
God, I hope you’re not
related to Crenshaw. That would be disgusting.”

Camilla slammed her book shut where
she was sitting in the monastery.

“
Trust me, I saw a woman
outside of my apartment. It’s my mother.”

“
Crenshaw could be her
lover.”

“
Now you’re just
being
gross!
”

Vivian’s car pulled into the driveway
as Camilla ended the conversation amidst shrieks of disgust. The
sun lowered over the brow of the horizon. Vivian couldn’t wait to
sink her teeth into dinner and doze off on the couch. Maybe she
would work up the inspiration to write a few stanzas of poetry in
the evening.

Vivian stopped dead at the porch.
Racial slurs were sprayed across the side of the house. The Chinese
bells that once chimed in the evening breeze lay in the
dirt.

“
Oh my God…”

Rage and pain collided when she saw
the xenophobic imagery.

“
Sons of bitches,” she
hissed, looking frantically over shoulder. She expected to see a
gang of kids laughing from the street corner but no one was around
to take the blame.

She breathed a little easier when she
noticed the lights weren’t on in the house. Her mother hadn’t seen
the damage inflicted yet. Vivian would have to work fast to clean
up the graffiti. Her mother didn’t need to be exposed to this
hate.

Vivian wasn’t much of an artist, but
it didn’t matter now. She scrounged through the garage for a few
buckets of paint and hastily set to work.

She was so furious she could barely
speak. Protestors who blamed the epidemic on foreigners were likely
responsible. She wondered who was watching her family and knew they
lived here. She felt a sickening sense of dread but the anger
overpowered it by a mile.

When would prejudice ever end? Was it
natural for the human heart to isolate one another and fixate over
miniscule differences like race, skin color, sex, orientation, and
religion? She couldn’t fathom why so many people held these
differences in such high regard. It seemed that every society
valued a scapegoat to blame their problems on, whether it was the
economy, crime, or an epidemic.

Every man and woman needs an inferior
to elevate their pathetic standing in life. That scapegoat all too
often manifested itself in race.

She bit her lip before she could spout
off a string of curses. Instead, she channeled that anger into
furiously painting over the words before her mother came home. The
least she could do was spare her the torment.

“
I never took you for a
painter.”

Vivian wheeled around to see Milo
standing in the driveway. It took Vivian a moment to recognize the
young man because she wasn’t accustomed to seeing him wear a jacket
and jeans. Come to think of it, he cleaned up quite nicely when he
wasn’t in scrubs.

Vivian stood back and heaved a sigh as
she viewed the house.

“
I know. It’s absolutely
majestic.”

“
I’d offer to help but you
see, I failed my art classes in school. You’ll thank me later if I
don’t try my hand at it.”

“
Oh it can’t be too
bad.”

“
All jokes aside, these
people deserve no mercy for what they’ve done,” he said darkly. “If
I got my hands on the cowards who did this, I’d choke the life out
of them.”

Steel-eyed, he stared at the words
splashed on the house, imagining the perfect retribution for the
racist scum.

“
I’m sorry,” he said,
catching the surprised look on Vivian’s face. “It never ceases to
amaze me how senseless people are; how divided we become over lines
of race, sex, and religion. It’s beyond the pale of understanding.
But I think there’s something seriously defective about the brains
of people like that. I’m not sure whether to pity or hate them, in
all honesty.”

“
I was wondering if you had
any fire in you,” Vivian grinned. “I thought you were all smiles
and sunshine. Nothing seems to faze sweet old Milo.”

He sighed wistfully.

“
I suppose that’s what I
project on the surface. To tell you the truth, I can be a bit moody
at times. But who can hold that against me, considering my work?
You’ve had a taste of it for yourself when you saw that young man
in the ER.

“
Now imagine seeing a child
suffering from an incurable disease while the parents weep and
blame you for failing to save him. Imagine how it feels to see a
battered women fighting for her life in the ER, perhaps someone
you’ve treated multiple times… until there is no more next time. It
takes its toll on you. I’m not ashamed to say it messes with my
head. There are nights where I can’t fall asleep and the darkness
strangles me.”

“
Well, I’m glad to know I’m
not the only one. I thought I had thick skin, but this hospital is
an entirely different beast… How do you deal with it?”

“
I read and write.
Occasionally I try my hand at the piano or I sing to express the
emotions so tightly wound up inside. It helps take the edge off for
a while, but the anxiety always catches up to me. Forgive me for
rambling. I don’t often go off on a tangent like this. It’s been
too long since I found someone I can easily talk to.”

“
Don’t worry about it.”
Vivian slapped another coat of paint over the obscenities. “Come to
think of it, my parents made me take piano classes in school. I’m
no master composer, but maybe we can play together sometime. I’ll
give you a few lessons free of charge.”

She tossed him a playful wink as the
copper sun cast an alluring glow in her eyes.

Milo couldn’t help but grin at the
sight of her.

“
That sounds lovely. Yes, I
think that would ease my pain.” He patted her on the shoulder.
“We’ve done a great deal of getting to know each other and I’ve
come to realize something. It’s strange… but I care about you,
Vivian.”

She stared at him in awe. He could
have knocked her over with a single breath if he so
wished.

Long repressed desires came so easily
to her now. Perhaps his spark of affection gave her
courage.

“
I needed to hear that…
especially tonight. To be honest, I care a lot about you, too. I
know it’s only been a few days since we’ve seen each other, but I
miss you.” She gently scrubbed the offending paint from the house.
“But you still have to make up for that debacle you called a date,”
she teased.

“
Cut me some slack, you
have to give me that much! I was knocked unconscious and someone
painted pictures with my blood!” he laughed.

“
I’ll do much worse to you
if our second date isn’t magical.”

His eyes flashed dangerously as the
sunset loomed behind him.

“
I don’t doubt it.” Vivian
coveted him down to her blood. Her heart beat faster at the notion
of inviting him inside while the house was still empty.
Regrettably, this man seemed more apt to tantalize her fantasies
than satisfy them. “Well, I should get going now,” Milo said,
gliding away on the grass. “I have an early shift
tomorrow.”

“
Enjoy your beauty
sleep.”

“
There’s nothing remotely
beautiful about waking up at four in the morning. But I suppose
you’re used to the midnight hours with your Absinthe-catering
clubs, aren’t you?”