Vial Things (The Resurrectionists Book 1)

by Leah Clifford

  I swallow hard and remember the panic, no air, tightening hands.

  “It’s not totally healed yet,” she says, breaking me out of the memory. “The longer the stitches are in, though, the harder they are to remove and you need to crash soon.”

  I don’t bother denying it. Already, it’s a challenge to keep focused on her. I tense my muscles, willing them to fight sleep but my body melts against the mattress as she snips the knots one by one. With a pair of hemostats she tugs each thread. “There,” she says when she’s done. “Do you want me to get you a new shirt?”

  “No, it’s fine,” I say, between slow blinks. My head’s fogged. The walls look corrugated, metal, the boxcar, but I know that’s not right. “Are you staying in here?”

  The question clearly catches her off guard. “Why?”

  Normally, the slightest sound wakes me but I can’t count on that now. “You were worried about someone coming after you.”

  She bristles. “No offence, but you’re kind of useless to me in that regard,” she says, and I think about before when she said she could protect herself. She fuels her confidence on control. Gaining her trust might be as easy as giving her control, even over me.

  “Okay, let me rephrase,” I say, changing tactics. “I just got stabbed to death, fixed up by magic blood, and I puked from walking fifteen steps.” I pause, waiting for her to get the point but instead she only crosses her arms over her chest. She’s going to make me say it. “I’ve watched your back, Allie. I’m asking if you’ll watch mine.”

  “Oh,” she says quietly. “I...I guess I can hang out on the floor,” she starts.

  “Don’t be stupid. There’s plenty of room for both of us on here.” I don’t mean anything by it. What I feel or don’t for her doesn’t matter. What I’d want if the circumstances were different. It doesn’t keep me from hearing the catch in her breath.

  “Fine,” she says, feigning nonchalance. “I’ll take the left side.”

  “Closest to the door? How’re you gonna escape if they can’t get to me first?” Her face falls and I trail off. “Bad joke,” I mutter. Why am I letting it get to me so much? “Can you get my pack? I need to change my pants.”

  She reaches into the laundry basket and tosses me the sweatpants I left folded in the bathroom. “Here. Wear these.”

  Before I can peel off my blood stained jeans, she shoots out of the room, closing the door to give me privacy I could care less about at this point. All I want is to let go, give in, fall asleep. It takes most of the energy I have to unbutton and unzip. The rest goes to tugging off the jeans and kicking them to the floor. I can’t even manage to pick them up and toss them toward the dirty clothes basket.

  When she returns a couple of minutes later, I’m flopped pretty much where she left me. I slide one arm under the pillow as she toes at the back of her sneaker. She lays down, a wide gap between us. The ceiling fan spins. Humid air lulls me as she kills the light.

  I’m edging into a waking dream. I’m with Jamison and we’re younger, tossing a ball back and forth in my father’s backyard, our gloves worn and the sun hot. Catch it, Jamison says, and lobs the baseball like a bullet at my head. Just before it hits me, Allie’s voice drifts in from the sky, says my name and the scene floats away like dirty newspaper in the wind.

  “Ploy?” she says again, a little louder this time as if she’s making sure I’m asleep. I’m barely aware of the bed under me, the girl curled up a careful distance away. I draw a breath to respond, but the words won’t come. The air escapes in a sigh that seems to satisfy her. “Sarah will understand. I did the right thing.” I’m not even sure she’s talking to me, and then after a moment she adds, “I need you.”

  It’s the last thing I hear.

  Allie

  The blankets are so warm. It’s my first thought as my consciousness swims out of the blackness, before I remember there were no blankets. The last remnants of sleep shatter, leaving me hyperaware. I freeze. My arms are curled, tucked against Ploy, his over me. My head rests under his chin, the rise and fall of his chest rubbing against my cheek. His breath tickles the hairs at the crown of my head. Under my fingertips, his heart beats, strong, alive. I did that, I think absently.

  Even in his sleep, he seems to sense my unease and tightens the arm he has around me. This close, I can smell the blood he mostly scrubbed off, sweat. Underneath is the light scent of my bodywash on him. For some reason, it starts to calm me down, until I realize our legs are tangled together.

  Oh, God. Did I do this? I think. He sighs hard and stretches. I take the opportunity to slide my legs away. There’s no way to unwrap the rest of myself without waking him up. I debate faking sleep and rolling away, putting some distance between us.

  “Did you have another nightmare?” His sudden question startles a gasp from me. I’m not prepared when his fingertips skip over my shoulder blade. “It’s okay,” he murmurs in a drowsy voice.

  With a jolt, I rip away. Ploy sits up beside me.

  “Did you hear something?” he asks. His hand moves toward my shoulder again.

  “Don’t touch me.” The words are out before I can stop them, sharp enough to cut off his attempt at comfort. I force myself to take a breath. “Sorry. I didn’t expect to wake up like…that.”

  He rubs his face and yawns. “I don’t mind. Didn’t take you for such a cuddler though.”

  “I’m not.” A chill runs through me. It’s eighty degrees out and I’m cold without him close. The thought unsettles me.

  “Yeah,” he says, leaning over to go through his bag in the light coming in through the closed curtains, his movements stiff. His words come out strained. “You don’t exactly give off a snuggly sort of vibe. As a rule, I don’t mess with girls who strap knives to themselves whether they can bring me back from the dead or not. You grabbed for me, I figured I’d better go with it.”

  “So it was self-preservation.” My attempt at humor falls utterly flat. He finally notices how rattled I am.

  “Listen,” he says carefully as he struggles into a shirt. “It was nice, okay? It’s been awhile since…” I can’t see him that well, but the energy in the room swells, a wall of tension rising between us. “Look, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” I manage. “I just don’t want you to get any ideas. About us.”

  He snorts. “Don’t worry. I don’t consider you drooling on me as a get-into-pants-free card.”

  Relieved for the reprieve, I smack his shoulder. “I don’t drool.” The banter feels so normal. And then I remember what got us into this situation. “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  He takes a moment to consider it. “Kind of like I’m getting over the flu. Achy. Tired. Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Are you up for a trip?”

  “I think so.”

  “It’ll be a bus ride and then a short walk. To my aunt’s. She’ll know what to do.” After what happened to Ploy, we can’t stay here. She and I might have a rocky relationship, but I need her. She’ll make sure we’re safe.

  I click on the light. After a second of digging through my closet, I pull out an old backpack from senior year. The new information may be the tipping point for Sarah to put the evacuation into effect. I was too little the last time this happened to remember how it went. She might want us to leave immediately. I don’t tell Ploy. I’m worried he’ll change his mind. But he needs protection, too, because the hunters went after him. Everything he owns is in his pack, so I’ll make sure he brings it along.

  I turn around to find Ploy slipping out of the sweatpants, his movements ginger and hesitant. A blush heats my neck as I spin to the closet. Clearly, the boy has no modesty. I take my time picking an outfit and then sidestep toward the door. “I’m going to the bathroom. Be back in a few.”

  As I walk through the living room, I glance at the clock. Almost six. I debate taking a shower, but there’s no time. I change, drag a brush through my hair and tie it up in a bun. I don’t bothe
r with makeup. By the time I come out, Ploy’s dressed and sitting on the couch.

  “Any pain?” I ask. He shrugs. I go into the bathroom and grab a bottle of Tylenol from the medicine cabinet. “Here,” I say tossing it to him. “Take these.” Instead of getting water for him, I let him do it himself, studying him as he walks. He doesn’t stumble, stands straight. There’s no swoon as he grabs a cup from the drying rack and fills it. He can make the trip. He tosses the pills into his mouth and swigs from the cup.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  He nods and we head to the bus stop, my distress growing with each step.

  The bus is nearly full when we get on, but with every stop the crowd thins. After almost two hours, we disembark and start walking. A car would have gotten us here so much faster. Too late, I wonder if I shouldn’t have just sprung for a taxi. Instead of sticking to the streets, I lead Ploy to the edge of the woods and start us down a small footpath. From this angle, it’s only a short walk to get to the house.

  My aunt’s property borders a forest. It swells from her backyard into a preserve, eventually mucking up into a swamp. When I’d first moved in with her, I’d been too consumed with grief to explore. Later, it hadn’t interested me. Not much had.

  A garden backs the yard, surrounded by a fence to discourage animals. Red tomatoes hang thick, waiting to be picked and canned. Beans droop from vines climbing whitewashed trellises. Ploy hesitates at the sight, but is at my heels before I can suggest he help himself. Truth is, I want him at my side when I tell Sarah what happened, what I did and why.

  Bringing back the dead isn’t a free for all. There must be structure. Rules. Limits. Each of us needs permission from the leader in our area to do a resurrection. Sarah then documents the case. It’s the way we’ve always done things. A rebel resurrectionist puts us all in danger. I’m sure she’ll see why I had to save him. That it wasn’t a bias. She knows how I feel about what we do. Right now, Ploy’s the only person who knows what this killer looks like. If anything, that should pay off any services rendered as far as the resurrection goes.

  I should have just called her, I think. Why didn’t I just call?

  Each step more hesitant than the last, I creep up the back porch steps. Ploy follows. Sarah’s Jeep isn’t in the usual spot beside the house, but I practice the lines I’ll use anyway in my head. I trust Ploy with this. Look, he can keep crashing on my couch, protecting me. He knows about Brandon and he knows what I am, why I need him. Not that I need him, need him. Ploy’s more backup than bodyguard. With no room for romance. This angle just might work.

  “Are we going in?” Ploy asks, and I realize we’ve been standing on the top step, our eyes locked. Maybe I should have run this whole thing by him. What if he doesn’t want to stay with me?

  Of course he will, I think. He needs a roof over his head. This’ll help us both.

  I don’t bother knocking. The door creaks open on worn hinges. Sarah has never hurt for money, mostly because she doesn’t spend it on things like house repairs. She’s the one resurrectionists from all over the country go to when they are in trouble. Sometimes ‘in trouble’ meant needing a fresh start. Other times when I’d been living here, ‘in trouble’ had come in the form of a late night knock on the door, a scared teenager glimpsed through the spindles of the stairs before I was told in no uncertain terms that it was bedtime. Technically, I’m in trouble too. Sarah, and the percentage she takes in from what the other resurrectionists collect, is paying for my apartment. My groceries. The bus pass that got Ploy and I here.

  “Aunt Sarah?” I call. Familiar smells—the scent of spices, oregano and basil, and the sweetness of simmering tomatoes long since soaked into the wood of the cabinets—greet me, even if she doesn’t. A plate sits on the table, a fly crawling over the dried crusts of a sandwich. I stare at it, confused.

  “Sarah?” I call again. She hasn’t ever been a neat freak, but leaving the dirty dish and leftovers is out of character. A cup of coffee is beside it, clouded cream floating on the surface.

  “Allie,” Ploy says carefully from just behind me. “Something’s not right.”

  “I know,” I whisper. Another trio of seconds passes before I can tear myself away from the scene. “Sarah?” I call louder. “Are you here?” She might have had an emergency, had to leave quickly. “I probably should have told her I was coming,” I say to Ploy. I pull my cell phone from my pocket, only realizing as I scroll to her number that I forgot to charge it last night. It’s almost dead.

  I hit send. Somewhere in the house, I hear her phone ringing. I drop mine to my side, following the sound.

  As we turn into the living room, Ploy’s hiss of surprise is my only warning. His fingers wrap around my wrist as he jerks me to his chest, his startled, “Wait!” coming too late to stop the image from burning into my brain forever. Sarah’s body is in the middle of the floor. Her eyes are open, her mouth wide.

  She died screaming.

  Ploy reaches for me as I step forward. His fingers drift across mine a second too late to catch them. I can’t stop the clues flooding my brain. Defensive wounds on the arms. A spattering of arterial spray across the filmy sheer fabric covering one of the front windows. She fought. She knew what was happening.

  Sarah had been alive when they’d started to gut her.

  My eyes catch on a vial beside her body, the glass blue. The top is missing.

  “You can’t bring her back, can you?” Ploy asks. The words pound the air out of my lungs. Even if they hadn’t taken out her organs, once she drank that vial, she was done.

  The vial. Aniline to change the hemoglobin in the blood to methemoglobin and stop oxygen from being absorbed, adder venom to break down the red blood cells. Everything rendered useless. The last ingredient is a powerful paralytic. It goes into effect in less than a minute. Our breathing slows, along with our heart until unconsciousness steals us away from the painful death the other drugs would have us endure as our blood turned toxic. Even if a sample is taken, the blood is nothing more than broken, worthless cells.

  We can’t let people get a hold of our secrets. In her last moments, Sarah hadn’t had a choice.

  I concentrate on my breathing, focus so I won’t faint. That’s not Sarah anymore, I remind myself. It’s a body. Just a body. Distancing myself from emotions comes naturally. After all, most times, the dead are up and walking around fine a day after I see them. I can’t let myself think about how this time will be different.

  “Allie,” Ploy says again, more urgently this time.

  Sarah’s dead! my head pounds.

  But we’re not, I remind myself. And if we want to stay that way, I need to think clearly.

  “No,” I answer finally. “It’s too late. Whoever killed her, they knew how to stop me from helping her.” Sarah’s words echo in my head. What do you do if I don’t come home from a case? We’d run through the scenario a dozen times. My brain shifts into automatic, my legs moving on their own. As I skirt the edge of the room, my foot crunches the vial into powder. I take the stairs without looking back. Ploy follows with a weak protest. I ignore him.

  I know exactly where to go. I slide the drawer of the nightstand open. Reaching blindly, I unlatch the false back. The thin strip of wood clatters. I feel around until my fingers close on the spine of a notebook. “Got it.”

  Sarah’s scrawl decorates most of the pages I flip through. The book is split into sections. On each is the name of a resurrectionist, their address, and multiple phone numbers. Some even have favorite restaurants listed. When time was of the essence, Sarah would need to know how to get hold of them at a moment’s notice. Following their personal information is each case they’ve worked on. Some are only a name and a few brief notes of the death and circumstances, what price was charged for the resurrection and whether anything was still owed. Others detail complications, mostly from brain injuries and cases pressing the three hour time limit. Stroke-like symptoms as the synapses reconnect. Problems with speech and recogniti
on. Loss of fine motor skills. Usually they resolve within the month. Others linger into permanence. They’re the reason we have time constraints.

  “It wasn’t the same person who killed Brandon,” Ploy says quietly, the end lifting in just the hint of a question. “This was different right? Something else?” I can’t think about that just yet, can’t think about Sarah. I clutch the book to my chest and go for the closet. Brushing aside blouses, I find the wooden chest and open it. Inside are extra medical supplies. Amidst the tools used on every job are inhalers and bottles of pills. I glance through them, scanning the labels. I grab some narcotic pain killers and hand them off to Ploy.

  “Put those in your pack,” I tell him. I smash half a dozen extra syringes into my backpack on top of the clothes. Riffling through the rest, I snag gauze, a needle and thread, extra tubing. They won’t help Sarah now, though. Nothing will. At the rear of the chest, where it’s always kept, is an envelope with my name on it. I don’t need to open it to know it’s filled with a few hundred dollars of emergency cash, a spare key to her missing Jeep and an ID. The picture on the ID will be of me, though the name won’t match. “Okay,” I say, emerging from the closet. “We can go now.”

  Ploy’s back is to me. He’s hunched over, his hands working at something I can’t see. He drops an empty frame onto the bed and holds out the picture he’s taken from it. “This is you, right? I thought you might want it.”

  In it, my five-year-old self smiles so wide my eyes are crinkled shut, hands above my head clutching onto a set of monkey bars. Sarah’s below, ready to catch me if I fall. In the background, slightly out of focus, my parents sit at a picnic table. I glance up at Ploy, surprised. “Thank you,” I whisper.