Revival House (14 page)

I grab Harley’s generous bottom lip in my latex-gloved hand. I wiggle my fingers in over his bottom teeth and yank his jaw down. Yes, when you die, someone will stuff wads of cotton or gauze pads into your oral cavity so your cheeks don’t have that deflated basketball look. You may be noticing a pattern here. When you die, lots of things on your body just cave in— eyeballs, cheeks, even your abdomen. We’ve got filler for that, too. It’s like kitty litter, minus the clumps, of course. Anyway, after filling Harley’s mouth, I pull up his lower lip, insert a mouth form, pull down his upper lip, and seal them together. The undertaker’s equivalent of Krazy Glue, called Aron Alpha, works like magic.

“You know what we did then?” Avery asks, leaning on the edge of the sink, extracting another cigarette from his pack. “We drained the saline and pumped their own blood back through their bodies, warming them back up.”

Magic.

“Then, we gave them a quick shock, and guess what?” he said.

“They came back to life.” The needle injector shoots pins into either side of Harley’s bottom jaw, immobilizing it forever.

“Resuscitation.” He grins and exhales a cloud of smoke.

I pull off my latex gloves and throw them in the garbage. Harley’s almost done. He just needs a shave and some make-up.

Scarlet should be doing this.

Avery shouldn’t be here.

I should be thinking up ways to save my business.

Maybe I am.

Prodromal symptoms call out through my left eye. I’ll have to lie down soon.

“Do you get it, Caleb?” Avery says. “This is the gimmick you’ve been waiting for. Forget about taking stupid pictures and that silly
Weekend at Bernie’s
stuff you had planned with that idiot friend of yours. Four. That’s a number, Caleb, not a name.” He snorts.

I had come to the realization that dragging bodies around town was not going to work. The bodies were too heavy and setting them up in public locations was too conspicuous and risky, even in the dead of night. Technically, according to Georgia Code, Title 31, Chapter 21, Article 1, as a funeral director, there wasn’t much I couldn’t do with or to a dead body to constitute felony abuse or anything as terrible as that. Plus, the coroner and his deputy were friends of the family. Four wasn’t an employee, though, so he could be charged with a felony. But, the coroners didn’t care, they knew he was my friend. Besides, what would they do, tell on me? Arrest my friend? I didn’t think so. But I kind of didn’t want to do what I knew Avery had in mind.

Reanimation.

The thought had crossed my mind, that day I sat at my desk with Four, looking at the Forever Hollywood website. And several times since. I did not think it could be done, but with Avery’s educational background, perhaps it could.

No.

The logistics of obtaining appropriate subjects are near impossible.

It cannot be done. Well, it can be, but I am not going to harm anyone that badly. I like to fight, but I don’t want to critically injure anyone just so we can kill them and bring them back to life. I must have some small shred of morality.

“Just try it,” Avery says an inch from my ear. “Start small.”

I think of the bothersome squirrels running wild in the streets, always getting hit by cars and left in the middle of the road to rot or be eaten by turkey vultures.

Avery, I know, is thinking a little bigger.

Chapter 25 – Caleb

“What in hell are you doing?” I slam down a file on my lab table and pull Avery up by the collar. He stands up straight and pushes his perfect Roman nose right into mine.

“I am just trying to save your business,” he says, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. “You’re not mad, are you?”

Three of my guinea pigs are stretched out on the table in front of him, each secured to the black table top with electrical tape. Thin plastic tubing, no thicker than angel hair pasta, penetrates their soft fur in strategic locations— legs, abdomens, necks— flooding ceramic-wrapped jars with their blood. Their beady eyes shine in the fluorescent light looking almost teary. My favorite little auburn one’s eyes begin to close, fighting to remain open, looking for a future. Frantic mewling sounds issue from their buck-toothed mouths. They call to mind little furry Jesuses, bleeding so that we might find a way to prolong our own somehow more valuable human lives.

Of course, I am interested in seeing the outcome, as I do value science. I recognize that some sacrifices are necessary in the advancement of medicine. The guinea pigs wind up being too small. The saline infusion doesn’t work. Their tiny vascular systems explode with the flooding of the saline. The clear solution soaks the fur surrounding the tubing’s points of insertion and continues to puddle on the table around their lifeless bodies.

A couple of hours later, after dark, I lean over the sink, eating a Pop Tart and pondering how those guinea pigs could help save my livelihood.

Avery comes slinking through the kitchen, dressed all in black— black jeans, black turtleneck, black gloves, black ski mask rolled up on his head. I wonder where he got a ski mask in Savannah in the month of May.

“Um, where are you going?”

“Out.”

“No Scarlet tonight?”

“I don’t know, maybe later. Who cares? There’s important work to be done.”

“I thought maybe you would care. What if she comes by while you’re out?”

“Tell her I shall return at dawn.” He waggles his eyebrows and pulls the door shut behind him.

I have no idea what chicanery that boy is up to.

Or maybe I do, but I choose not to think about it.

Not five minutes later, as I finish my Pop Tart, Scarlet comes bumping through the door in a flurry of paper and fake black roses. “Hey,” she says when she sees me.

I’m busy chewing.

“Look, I have to go to work in about half an hour...”

I stare at the academic paper Avery left on the kitchen counter, from his trials at the Safar Center, trying to decode it, reconcile it to the meaning of death.

I hate Scarlet.

But, I love her.

A tug-of-war rages somewhere inside me.

I have a headache. “I’m going upstairs to lie down.”

“Do you want...”

“I have an extremely bad headache, so would you mind keeping it down?” I ascend the back stairs, heading to my room just above Serenity.

“Great,” I hear her say.

I’m tired. And trying to decide whether or not it would be against my own moral code to try Avery’s resuscitation project on a human, should I ever get the opportunity. Do I even have a moral code, a moral compass?

My nose bleeds onto my pillowcase.

I don’t notice until morning.

Chapter 26 – Caleb

An insistent scratching on my bedroom door wakes me a few hours later. I think it may be Scarlet. Then, I hear the whimpering of animals. I get out of bed, cross my room and crack the door.

Three dogs wander the hallway, whining and sniffing. They come to me, tails wagging, tongues lolling.

They’re cute. I love dogs.

Across the hall, Avery’s door stands open just a crack. Another dog, an ugly bulldog, pushes its way out of the room, widening the gap. I can see Avery and Scarlet doing something unspeakable (explaining Scarlet’s whimpering which has now grown into a sort of guttural moaning). My stomach twists as a yellow lab that I recognize from down the street licks my fingers. I snatch my hand away from the dog and slam my door.

No, that’s not why the dogs are here. I don’t want them to be here.

I feel physically ill. I feel unreal, like I’m not here. I’m a ghost. My headache has returned with a vengeance, and I vomit all over the expensive Oriental rug that covers my polished red maple floor. It smells like blueberry Pop Tart and sour bile, of course, because that’s what it is. I knew she was falling for him, with his jet black hair and smoky steel eyes. The minute I saw him at Sterling’s funeral I just knew she’d want him. He is everything I am not: good looking, smooth, brilliant. I hate him. I can’t believe he’d do any of this right in my own house. I don’t know what to do.

The dogs. What are all those dogs doing here? I know that lab— he belongs to the McSorleys’, down the street. His name is... Pluto? Plato? Cato? Something like that. I see the kids outside playing with him all the time. I don’t know why he is in my house. I don’t know why any of them are in my house. (I hope I don’t know why.)

I want to confront Avery, but he seems otherwise occupied at the moment. Also, I’ve got vomit all over my hands and the front of my shirt. I step over the mess that flew from my esophagus and slip out into the hallway. I glance toward Avery’s room, which is now dark and quiet. I do not know if they’re in there, sleeping, or if they’re downstairs, or maybe they’ve even left the house. I don’t care.

The dogs follow me down the hall. I close myself in the bathroom and look in the mirror. I look like some kind of disaster casualty. My hair sticks up at odd angles, my eyes are wet and red, my nose and upper lip are crusty with dried blood, I still have a bruise on my cheek from the last fight I was in, my clothes are stained with purple fragrant puke.

I look for a clean hand towel on the towel bar but there isn’t one. I look around and see the room’s usual supply of clean towels piled on the floor between the toilet and the bathtub. Educated gentleman or no, Avery is a slob. I take off my soiled shirt and throw it on the heap of dirty laundry.

God, I hate Scarlet. And Avery. And what are all these dogs doing here?

What is happening?

I need to regain control of the situation. My livelihood is at stake and there’s no one to watch out for me anymore. I must be my own savior.

I swallow a Seroquel and an Imitrex. I will deal with Avery and the dogs in the morning.

Unreal.

Chapter 27 – Caleb

“Hey, man, you look like shit,” Four says. “I dropped by to see if you’re up for helping out with a tour tonight. Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

He stands on the porch staring at me through the screen door.

I don’t say anything.

“Dude, did you dye your hair?” He points at his head.

I look down at my slippers. “Yes, thank you for stopping by, Four, but I’m feeling a bit under the weather. Maybe some other time.” I start to shut the kitchen door.

“Wait,” he says, holding the door open a crack, listening. “Do I hear dogs in there?”

“I need to go, Four.” I close the door and look at Avery. He leans against the counter, flicking cigarette ashes into the sink. I have not smoked in days. Hasn’t made a damn bit of difference in my headache situation.

I probably have a tumor or something.

“I’ve done it before. You know that. I am quite capable.” Avery, so arrogant, so smug.

The beagle howls from the basement. My heart cracks.

I wish I were drunk on River Street, punching and kicking a bum. Or a tourist. It’s all the same. Crunching bones, spurting blood, that rush of adrenaline. I wasn’t always like this, violent and combative, but I can’t remember when it began.

“I need you to procure some additional equipment and not hold any services for a couple of days,” he says.

The lack of services would not be a problem. I haven’t had a customer since Harley Man, and that was about a week ago. Unless someone has an accident, my schedule is clear.

“What kind of equipment do you need?”

~

We could not set up in the embalming room, just in case someone did have an accident, which happens all too frequently in Savannah. My mind wanders to The Dead House that Four shows his tour groups, but that hardly seems practical. How would we sneak the boxes of stuff into the tunnel without anyone seeing us? Not to mention the dogs. And, then the people on Four’s fully-booked tours would ask a lot of questions, see a lot of things they shouldn’t see. No, that would not work.

The only other option is my basement lab, so we carry boxes and boxes of medical equipment down the stairs and stack it next to the row of dog kennels.

The cute beagle trailing me sniffs around, his tail straight up in the air. He heads straight over to my glass-fronted bookcases. I think he smells the small animals inside, but then he starts scratching at the back corner of the shelf. He’s whining, tearing long streaks into the case with his sharp nails. I look at Avery and motion for him to help me move the bookcases.

“Wow, these are surprisingly heavy,” he says, shoving from one side as I pull from the other. We finally wrestle both of them away from the wall.

A bricked up arch stands behind them.

Avery and I look at each other.