Revival House

by S. S. Michaels

  I smile, feeling my bottom lip tighten and swell. I took her from him in more ways than one. To me, that’s funny. To me, that’s a win. A double win. I’m really not an evil person, but it feels good to be envied for once in my life.

  I raise my right thigh out to the side, bend my knee, and deliver an expert round kick to his stomach, just like I saw him do to a hobo once. My foot knocks over the IV bag-holding pole and gets tangled in some tubing. Caleb makes an ‘ugh’ sound and doubles over, holding his side. I step closer and punch him in the head. It feels kind of good. He falls to the floor, out of breath and grimacing.

  “We have to find her,” he says from his fetal position on the floor.

  I laugh at the poor love-sick dope.

  “You never told me this could happen.”

  I unwrap the clear plastic tubing from my Sperry topsider, laughing.

  “Well,” I say, “none of the dogs ever got away.” I am free of the tubing. “Hey, this is great news, though. She’s thinking. Do you have any idea what that means?”

  “Yeah, it means she’s going to land us in prison if we don’t find her,” he says, holding his head in his hands.

  “I believe her speech capacities will be quite limited.”

  He looks at me, brows knit together.

  I sigh and roll my eyes. “Aphasia. Have you ever hear of that?”

  He just stares at me, mouth hanging open. Kind of like the old guy in the community room at The Home. Yeah, I know that sock guy. Idiot.

  “Aphasia means she can’t speak or write. It happens when there’s damage to the back of the brain, Broca’s area.” I smack the left side of the back of my head. “That’s right where she hit, Caleb. Theoretically, she can understand what we say, but she reassembles the words in a nonsensical order. Assuming she can understand at all. But, you know, some people with brain injuries like that can actually communicate by singing? I know, weird, right? Young Frankenstein.” I sing a few bars of ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ but I don’t think he’s listening. Or maybe he doesn’t get it.

  “What do you mean ‘assuming she can understand at all’?”

  I sigh and clap him on the shoulder.

  “Well, you know Scarlet is what people would call a ‘zombie’ now, right? I mean, I would not call her that, but that’s what the world at large would label her.” I smile at him, split fat lip throbbing. I taste copper and salt. “Zombie.”

  A cloud passes over his face leaving a mist over his eyes as he absorbs the word. God help me, I loved springing that one on him. Ha. He looks like he’s going to start bawling any second. It’s not like me to be so mean, but I think he’s rubbing off on me.

  “Zom-bie. Say it, it’s fun.” I nod encouragement.

  He shakes his head.

  “Don’t you want to find her, bring her back here? It’s you she wants. It’s you she loves,” he says. Obviously, he’s hurt. Funny because sometimes he loves her and sometimes he wants to chop her head off with an extra large pair of pruning shears. Yes, I know he has conflicting feelings.

  “Shut up,” I say, angry that he would think that I could ever feel something so vile for someone so disgusting. I spew venom in his ugly face. “Love has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. It’s all about living and longevity, finding the key to immortality. Science always comes first. Awkward intercourse with a fat girl is nothing,” I say, glaring into his silvery shrink-wrapped eyes.

  He lunges at me again, but I catch his fist before it connects with my jaw.

  “Just stop it.” There’s no room for drama in science. I press his arm down to his side, brush dust off his shoulders, give him a playful punch to the chin. His head jerks back, like I’m really going to deck him. According to my older brother’s rules, I should give him two for flinching. “I’ll help you find her, but only because I’d like her back for observational purposes. This could be such a boon to your business, you know, just like we talked about. ‘Exley & Sons: offering life extensions since 2012.’”

  He looks around, moving his tongue behind his closed lips, thinking.

  Maybe he’s reciting the periodic table.

  Of course I know he does that.

  Chapter 40 – Four

  I pound up the front steps and beat on the double front door. There’s no way he could not hear the flurry of pounding, even if he’s in the basement. I pound away until my hands are numb and I see him trotting down the hall.

  “Dude, you’ll never guess what just happened on my tour!” I hold up my hand. “This kid in my group just got slashed by someone, or something’s, sharp-ass claw.” I push past him and head for the kitchen table.

  He follows me, casting his eyes around the room like he lost something. Or like he’s looking for someone.

  I lean back in the heavy oak chair and put my feet up on another, still shaking. I pull my cigarettes out of my jacket pocket and light one up. “I don’t get it, man. I guess it could have been a bum or something, but I thought they’d quit going down there since the tours started up. And— get this— this creature looked like some crazy fat chick wrapped up in a sheet or some shit with a cage around her head,” I took a deep drag off my cancer stick. I’d forgotten that I was kind of pissed at this guy. He stopped hanging at the Market after I had that little talk with Scarlet, and then he slammed the door in my face when I came to see if he was still alive or what. Some friend, huh? Well, he’s the closest one I have. If it hadn’t been for Caleb, I never would have graduated from BC. You really can’t turn your back on a guy who got you through trigonometry and physics, and covered for you when you skipped out of study hall.

  “Where the fuck have you been, anyway? It’s getting old, Dude. Don’t make me say I miss you because I won’t.” He fucking knows I miss drinking sweet tea with him, shooting the shit about who’s dying, what the scariest place in town is. He knows he’s about all I’ve got. I wish that Avery kid had never shown up. Bastard. I sigh out a toxic cloud and look at my scuffed and flaking boots. It dawns on me. “She told you, didn’t she? She told you that I told her to stay away from you. That fucking two-faced bitch.” I flick my ashes into the ashtray in the middle of the table, pick a piece of tobacco or something off of my tongue. I look at his stupid blank horse face, staring at me.

  “Um, what?” Dude says, acting like I just said something in fucking French.

  “She’s turning you against me.” I smash my cigarette out. “That totally sucks. Just because she thought we were fucking gay doesn’t mean you have to stop being my friend, douche bag.”

  He turns and heads back toward the kitchen door.

  “And you didn’t have to tell her I’m ‘dangerous,’ either.”

  She told him everything, the cunt. I hope she never shows her ugly deformed face in the Market again.

  “Yeah, I was listening from the back stairs that day,” he says, crossing the room. Dammit, that’s how he knows. Fucking sneak.

  “Where is this thing you saw in the tunnel?” he says, sticking his head out the door.

  “I don’t know,” I say, yanking the padding out of the back of my jacket. “I didn’t bring it with me, you tool. I was on my fucking tour and then somebody got scratched by some crack-head bum chick and now I’ll probably get sued.”

  “So, you saw this crack-head girl in the tunnels?”

  “Yeah, but then the bitch-bag took off into the park.”

  He runs out the front door and hangs a right, heading toward the park.

  To the Dead House?

  What the fuck, dude? I don’t know what to do. I stand on the porch watching him run down the block.

  I hope like hell that kid who got scratched isn’t calling the cops.

  ~

  Next morning, the Market’s pretty empty. I blow on the white sippy-top of my coffee as if that’s going to cool the bastard down. Drinking coffee in Savannah in late spring is as close to Hell as I ever want to get— but I need it and, come on, it’s not ninety-four degrees yet. Couple of ea
rly birds, with expensive-looking cameras hung around their necks, peer through the windows of shops that won’t open for another ten, fifteen minutes. The carriage tour guides groom their broken-down mares and straighten their own black top hats. Down the block, a kid steps around the corner of Vinnie Van Go-Go’s, looking like he’s lost. His heavy black hoodie would make him look out of place in the stifling humidity were it not paired with shorts, and if the ubiquitous SCAD logo wasn’t blazing from the middle of his chest. I can hear his flip-flops smacking the soles of his feet as he walked closer.

  “Hey, tour guide dude,” he says to me, when he’s within shouting distance and closing in.

  I search his freckled face, his squinty brown eyes. Do I know this kid?

  “Dude, I’m Brett Collins,” he says, holding up his bandaged wrist. “I was on your tour last night, yeah? I’m the one who got scratched or cut or whatever.” He flashes a crooked grin and snorts.

  Shit. I am so totally fucked. I consider throwing my scalding coffee at him and running.

  Then I relax. It’s not my fault if he got hurt. I have that disclaimer on the back of my tickets that says, you know, ‘go at your own risk,’ or whatever.

  “Yeah,” I say, “I remember. How are you, man? Anything I can do for you?”

  Collins scans my half-made-up zombie soldier face and I think I can sense him calculating how much money my business might be worth, how much my family might have in the bank, what properties they might own. Or maybe I’m just ‘projecting,’ like shrinks and hipsters say.

  “No, dude, I’m good.” He looks around, grinning.

  He’s gotta be kidding. My luck’s not that good.

  “Hey, how about some free passes? You go to SCAD? Bring some of your buds on the tour. I’ll set up a private one for you.”

  “Nah, that’s okay, bra.” He leans on the podium in front of me. “Listen, I gotta tell you something.”

  “How much?” My lips purse, my sphincter clenches.

  “What?” Collins looks confused, then laughs. “No, man, nothing like that. Listen, I don’t know what happened last night, but I think it might have been pretty fucking cool, so...” He draws it out, making me wait. I hate waiting. “I made a phone call.”

  More people mill around the brick walk and my coffee is cool enough to drink. Almost. It still burns the roof of my mouth, but I need coffee, especially right now.

  “Okay, who’d you call? Your parents?”

  He laughs again, shaking his head like I told him a ridiculous joke.

  “No, dude,” he says, looking right into my eyes. “I called Boo Larsen.” He smiles like he just won some prize or something.

  No freaking way.

  David ‘Boo’ Larsen is this total tool who stars in a ghost hunting TV show called ‘Great American Ghost Hunters,’ or some shit like that. He tries to come across as this cool young guy— you know with the artificially worn-out jeans hanging halfway down his ass, artificially pumped torso, artificial spiky hair. He talks like a drunk undereducated college kid. Doesn’t exactly sound like an expert, you know what I mean? But, the guy is a star— people love him, and he did a great show in Savannah a couple years ago, over at the Old Candler Hospital. He single-handedly increased tourism by about four-thousand percent or something. His show is the reason so many people come here looking for ghosts.

  I am so relieved this kid didn’t call the cops. They’d shut down my whole business, which would not be cool. My parents would be all over me with the ‘I-told-you-so’ bullshit.

  Instead, this could totally work out for me. I can just see people lined up around the block for tickets to my television-featured ghost tour. There would be an expansion of operations, hiring employees, a real ticket booth instead of this shitty wooden pallet I stand on every day.

  Ha, ha! I’m gonna be famous, beeyotches!

  “That’s pretty awesome,” I tell the kid.

  Chapter 41 – Avery

  Caleb is going, pardon my French, apeshit.

  “Where did you look for her?” I ask, biting into a chocolate-covered doughnut some kind and sympathetic neighbor brought over this morning. It’s been about two weeks and they’re still feeding the kid. We don’t answer the door anymore, so they just leave food on the kitchen doorstep. It’s a caring town, Savannah.

  “Tunnels, graveyards, alleys, her apartment, school,” he says, raking his fingers through his thatch of black hair. “I looked everywhere.” He’s got tears in his eyes, the jilted lover. I offer him the plate of pastries and he waves it away.

  He lifts his eyes to my face. “Why won’t you help me?”

  That’s a perfectly legitimate question, for which I have a perfectly legitimate answer. I’m a respected doctor. I don’t want to get into trouble.

  “Listen,” I say, swallowing the last of the doughnut in my mouth, wiping my fingers on a napkin as I explain. “I want her back just as much as you do.” I pause for a second, swallowing again. “Well, okay, almost as much as you do. But, see, I’m not emotionally attached. To me, she’s a giant rat. And I can always get more rats.”

  He snorts and scowls at me.

  I shrug.

  Yes, some may describe me as a cold son-of-a-bitch these days, but that’s what makes me a great scientist. I thought Caleb, a funeral director, for Christ’s sake, would be the first to understand my detachment. But, he’s actually crying over the loss of this girl. I don’t understand his ‘feelings.’

  That said, we do have to find her. I need to find out what’s working and what’s not. I want to know if she can talk and understand. I mean, like I said before, I don’t think she’d be able to, but the procedure we used is highly experimental, so, you never know. She could be doing calculus and speaking Mandarin for all I know.

  The ring of the telephone slices through the silence. He gets up to answer.

  “Hello? I mean, Exley & Sons.”

  Waiting. His eyes dart around the kitchen from the table to the counter to the sink. He slides down the wall and crouches on the floor.

  “I see,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. “Yes.” His hand covers his forehead and his lips draw downward into a tight grimace. “Okay, yes. I’ll, um, I’ll have to get back to you... Five days...? Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” He punches a button and lays the phone on the white laminate counter. His hands cover his eyes.

  I stare at him until he removes his hands from his face and looks at me.

  “It’s, um, my aunt. She’s having some heart problems.” He looks at the floor in front of him. “She needs some kind of bypass, and she has insurance, but it won’t cover the whole bill.” He snorts. “They’re taking her to the hospital next week.”

  Whatever. She’s just another distraction I’m going to have to tear him away from.

  Spying a gnat buzzing around my hand, I wave it away toward the spot where Caleb cowers.

  “Hey, let’s go. I’ll help you look for your heart-of-hearts, the love of your sad little life.” I laugh.

  He frowns.

  We trudge out the kitchen door and head for the park.

  Chapter 42 – Caleb

  Jogging down the block, I trip on a tree root sticking up out of the sidewalk. I don’t fall but I thrust my arms out to the side and mutter an expletive. Avery laughs, coughing out short blasts of cigarette smoke.

  My mind reels with thoughts of Scarlet. Where could she be? Was she the being Four and his group saw in the tunnel? Why would she go there, how would she know how to get down there? Is she remembering?

  Too many questions spin around the inside of my head as I hop the curb and step into the park. It’s dark and empty. The fountain emits a greenish-blue glow, turning the leaking Spanish moss into great globs of alien hair. I spin my head in all directions, leaning on a bench.

  Would she know me? Would she remember my name, or that she’d broken my heart? Would she confuse me with Avery, remembering that she loved him even though he totally used h
er?

  A lump of rags moves in the shadows on the opposite side of the fountain, headed away from me, toward the other side of the park. I lope in its wake, catching up. Avery stays behind, acting like he doesn’t care.

  He probably doesn’t.

  I approach the swaying colorless bundle, pulling even with it, stepping just ahead.

  I turn to look into the creature’s face.

  It’s not her. My heart sinks.

  It’s a man. A black man with gaps surrounding two gold teeth. He smells like alcohol.

  “What the hell you want, boy? Gimme some money,” he says, holding out a hand swathed in a tattered glove of undeterminable color.

  “Sorry,” I say scanning the expansive lawns to my right. “I thought you were someone else.” I take a few steps in the opposite direction of the empty field, down the blacktop path, toward Monterey Square.

  “I am someone else,” the bum yells after me, “someone who needs some money.”

  I turn in slow motion, consider his pathetic silhouette, and start back in his direction.

  Helium...

  He grins as I step closer, thinking I’m going to give him something.

  I give him something all right.

  A shadow passes over his soot-colored face and his round eyes clench in a confused squint.

  Then I knock his two gold teeth— his mini-grill— right down his throat, cutting my already scabbed knuckles in the process.

  Avery stares at the ground in the half-light. No time to fuck around explaining myself to him.

  Scarlet.

  Is she scared? Is she a wild animal? Is she scaring other people, sending them running to the police? Oh, that bitch. Where is she?

  After walking blocks and blocks, we turn into the old Colonial Cemetery. Well, we try to. It’s after dusk, so the front gate is locked. Without drawing attention to ourselves (the police station is at the far end of the block), we follow the wrought iron fence behind a small crypt and vault over into the graveyard. The few cars passing by on Liberty rumble in the distance. Patches of fog cover the ground, just like in one of those old-fashioned poorly made horror films. We creep to the front of the crypt and peer around at the shadowy headstones. This is where Scarlet always started her tours. I thought maybe she’d be here. I’m wrong. There’s no one, nothing around except for old tombstones and mausoleums.