Operation Blackout

by J. L. Middleton

  The accident had been several weeks ago, which meant that there had been a substantial period during which Marilyn should have been discovered to be alive or should have died from her injuries prior to her funeral. Peggy was not the person to ask about Marilyn’s postmortem state—the agent would need to head to the coroner’s office for that—but he’d made the trip to the hospital, and he still had a few questions that needed to be answered.

  He switched tactics, exchanging pleasantries with the nurse, and was able to persuade her to retrieve Marilyn’s primary physician, Dr. Nguyen. The middle-aged doctor distanced himself so much as he described his comatose patient’s disquieting medical status that he sounded as if he was recounting a strange case study from his university years rather than discussing his own patient. Marilyn barely responded to stimuli of any kind, including pain, and the nurses often moistened and closed her eyes to prevent them from becoming too dry. Her broken bones refused to knit, even her bruising didn’t seem to heal, and her skin was ashen gray or black where the blood still pooled. She was fed with intravenous fluids, but she had to be carefully monitored, as injections tended not to join her slow-moving bloodstream, which was a diagnosis that Reeves felt was a euphemism for her lack of circulation. She relied heavily on a breathing machine and, to date, had not eliminated any waste, and while she had not lost weight since the autopsy, she had not gained any either. Her scans had shown no activity in her gastrointestinal system, so surgery had been decided against until her body showed signs of distress. Dr. Nguyen became agitated and hostile when Reeves tried to press him further about her intestinal enigma or any signs that she was, in fact, clinically dead. Though the conversation ended professionally, Reeves had the idea that the doctor was mentally casting profanities at him. Dr. Nguyen wanted to keep Marilyn’s chart as innocuous as possible, but Reeves’ questioning revealed flaws that he would have to correct on the official record. Marilyn Chamberlain simply could not be deceased, despite the clinical signs indicating otherwise.

  After Dr. Nguyen departed, Peggy became forthcoming about another detail: She was the only nurse who was still willing to attend to Marilyn. At first, the nursing staff had become unnerved by her unchanging wounds. This was not because they didn’t heal—which was a symptom of serious infection with which they were familiar—but because they didn’t worsen either. Not only did her injuries remain static, but she also didn’t develop bedsores or any other signs associated with extended bed rest. However, superstition truly began to set in when they witnessed her strange, spasmodic movements.

  Before it had become obvious that Marilyn would not recover from her vegetative state, Robert had allowed his children to accompany him on his visits to encourage his wife to return to the conscious world. During these visits, the nurses had noticed Marilyn’s abnormal ambulation efforts. She was not coordinated enough to get out of bed or even sit up properly, but she had nonetheless made numerous attempts. “She would place her weight on her broken arm and push behind her head with her other elbow,” Peggy recalled, attempting to mimic the awkward position and failing. “Maria once said she saw her bend her knees backward beneath the sheets.” While the nurses were used to odd behavior from coma patients—they tended to awake in phases rather than all at once like in the movies—the general consensus was that Marilyn was only “alive” as long as she remained on life support, from which her husband adamantly refused to remove her. “The one time she managed to sit up, she jerked her arms about like a marionette as she tried to get out of bed,” Peggy continued. “She fell over and cracked her head against the rails pretty hard. She didn’t bleed, even though she busted open five stitches. Her daughter screamed bloody murder, but it must have traumatized the little boy. He just kept staring at her.” She shook her head. “The staff started praying for her, asking the chaplain to exorcise her.”

  “Did he?” Reeves asked quizzically.

  Peggy chuckled. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. She’s sick, not possessed.” He made a note and, after several more minutes, ended the conversation politely.

  His next stop was the county coroner’s office, where he met with the chief medical examiner, Dr. Burns. Like Dr. Nguyen, she had detached herself from the reality of the situation, recalling the procedure unemotionally and avoiding questions about Marilyn’s present hospital stint. According to Dr. Burns, Marilyn had severed an artery in the crash and had bled out before paramedics had arrived on the scene. Regardless, the paramedics had checked for her pulse and, despite finding none, had continued their resuscitation procedures until the ER doctor had been able to formally declare her dead. While an autopsy had been deemed unnecessary, she had nevertheless operated on Marilyn postmortem. She’d indicated her wish to be an organ donor, and there had been hope that her organs might be salvaged. While this had not been the case, her innards had not been properly realigned, as they would be removed again during the embalming process. Dr. Burns confirmed the injuries that Marilyn had sustained during the accident but curtly avoided speculating on the patient’s current condition. As far as she was concerned, Marilyn had died in the car wreck.

  Reeves hoped that he would find real answers at his final stop instead of more questions. Regrettably, the district could afford only a two-night stay at the hotel unless he could find compelling evidence that this case required closer scrutiny, and he could not requisition more funds unless he also identified the source causing Marilyn Chamberlain’s condition, despite the evident peculiarity of the situation. When the BSI had first been established, the Paranormal Division had had unlimited funding like its sister departments, but as the years had passed with no real closure or explanation of any case, the government had begun to examine the division’s spending habits, and it was now a herculean feat for a field trip to be underwritten. He had seen many one-off events that would never have become problematic and, therefore, hadn’t needed anything past the initial inquiry. Such events had included supposed poltergeists who functioned only when certain people were present and psychics who couldn’t perform under lab conditions. He often hoped that a pattern would emerge from the few investigations that he could conduct in person and that he might track a paranormal disturbance across the country, but the truth was that most cases were unsubstantiated or untraceable, and the Paranormal Division simply did not have a high enough success rate for the BSI to invest further resources in it.

  The next morning, he arrived at the funeral home to meet with the head mortician, Derek Winchester. He was pleasant, all things considered, and had a morbid sense of humor, which Reeves couldn’t help but believe was inappropriate for his line of work. Regardless, he was exceptionally cooperative when it came to his area of expertise. He detailed normal funeral embalming techniques, including the removal of internal organs and the unfortunate necessity of stuffing corpses with newspaper and other materials to mimic lifelike proportions. When he explained the replacement of bodily fluids with formaldehyde and other preservatives, Reeves knew that he had confirmed Marilyn’s undead status. Unfortunately, this was also the end of his lead: Mr. Winchester assured him of the security of the funeral home, including several locks and cameras, and asserted that there had been no break-ins in the history of the home, particularly not after Marilyn’s death. However, when asked if anything like the incident had happened before, Mr. Winchester hesitated and subconsciously grabbed his left hand, whose skin appeared to have been sucked dry against frail fingers, before answering in the negative. Despite Reeves’ best efforts to pursue this line of questioning, Mr. Winchester sidestepped the topic using his sense of humor, and aside from a frustrated lead the mortician only alluded to, Reeves would go home empty-handed.

  Marilyn Chamberlain presented real, documentable symptoms of zombiism, but Reeves would not find the necromancer with the resources at his disposal unless it happened again.

  - - -

  Brian missed his mother and father. They
both spent so much time at the hospital these days that he was starting to forget what they looked like. His father was growing a big, messy beard, which was an odd development because his mother only allowed him to have one during the winter. He didn’t know if that meant that she’d changed her mind about it, but he didn’t like how it made his father look, and it was just one of the many changes that kept occurring. His mother lay in bed all day, and she wouldn’t sing to him anymore. She wouldn’t hug him or stroke his hair. After she fell out of bed reaching for him, his father decided that Brian and his sister could no longer visit because it disturbed their mother, and she needed her rest.

  His mother definitely looked sick the last time he saw her. The makeup she had worn at her funeral was starting to rub off, and beneath it, her skin looked very gray and dry like his grandmother’s hands when she didn’t use enough lotion. Even her lips, which were usually bright red with lipstick that always came off on his cheek when she kissed him, were the wrong color. When she fell out of bed, he also saw some newspapers sticking out from between the stitches in her belly, and it caused his imagination to run wild. He wondered if the newspapers on their doorsteps were the same as what he’d seen inside his mother. While he’d scraped his knees before, he’d never seen anything like that in the wound. He supposed that people’s insides could be different; he had an outie belly button, while his sister did not. He tried to ask his sister, Missy, about his thoughts, but she hushed him every time he mentioned anything that happened at the hospital.

  Even though Nana’s hands looked dry, they were soft whenever she touched him. They reminded him of his mother’s hands, and he liked the way she stroked his hair as he laid his head on her lap. She spent more time with him these days, meeting him after school to walk him home, making dinner for him and his sister, and tucking him in at night. Sometimes she let him sleep on her lap while she watched TV. But as much as she tried, she could not replace his mother; she was only Nana. She was the woman who gave him extra special attention and treats, not the woman who read and sang to him at night or made his food properly and served it using the correct plates and silverware. While he loved his Nana, she was second-rate compared to his mother, and he thought he should figure out a way to show his appreciation for his mother when she returned.

  In all the confusion following the accident, no one had tended to her garden, and the struggling plants were beginning to wilt or dry out. He wasn’t allowed in the garden itself—his mother always said that he got dirty if she didn’t watch him every second or that he liked to dig up the wrong plants—so he sat on the grass as close as he was allowed and stared into the garden’s center. He imagined the tomato vines perking up, the strawberries rejuvenating, and the other greenery returning to the way he remembered it. He sat there, as motionless as a child can be, until the vegetation began to be revitalized. Although he knew that it hadn’t been restored to perfection, he imagined that his mother would nonetheless appreciate his effort, especially his stylistic touches. Satisfied, he grinned; this was a great gift for his mother.

  - - -

  The television murmured softly in the background, reporting on a macabre discovery in upstate New York. Apparently, a skinned, dismembered body had been found by teenagers in the woods, and the police were tentatively identifying the victim as female due to the length of the hair discovered. The internal organs and the majority of the body was missing, but they were able to find pieces of scalp in the pile of body parts. The police were diligently searching the area for more of the victim’s remains, especially something that might identify him or her, but the search was impeded by the thick, thorny undergrowth in which the body had been discovered.

  Peggy shook her head; it wasn’t the most gruesome story she’d heard during her stint as a nurse, but it was becoming harder to tolerate grisly stories as she grew older. As she turned away from the nurse’s station to start her hourly rounds, she prayed silently that the victim’s family would find peace.

  Marilyn Chamberlain was another unfortunate victim. Peggy remembered seeing little Marilyn playing in the street when she was on her way to work. They’d lived in the same neighborhood, and though their families had not been much more than acquaintances, Peggy had kept track of Marilyn over the years and exchanged holiday cards with her parents. People were drawn to the vibrant woman, who seemed to care about everyone, and Peggy hated to see her family in its current state.

  She heard Robert’s loud, sporadic snoring before she turned the corner, but she was surprised to see that he was no longer alone. The stranger was dressed in what appeared to be a secondhand suit, as it was clearly showing signs of wear, and while his black hair had been gelled down in an attempt to look professional, his five o’clock shadow undermined that image. He ran a gauntlet of awareness tests, including shining a light in Marilyn’s eyes, snapping in her ears, pinching her, and then slapping her smartly. The last of these actions infuriated Peggy, and she stepped in. “Who are you?” she demanded sharply.

  The stranger started, turned, and reached inside his jacket. “Special Agent Connor,” he replied as she studied the offered badge. Although the badge looked authentic, she still had her suspicions. It was past visiting hours, and while this wouldn’t have prevented his entry, the desk staff typically informed the night nurses of visitors for security purposes. It was possible that the front desk had simply neglected to notify her, but there was something about him that she didn’t trust. She felt as if he had stolen into the room rather than gaining entry legally.

  “Bureau of Special Investigations?” she read from the badge.

  “It’s part of the DHS,” he explained. “We think this might have been a biological attack.”

  Peggy sighed wearily and started tending to Marilyn’s needs, first pulling the sheets up to her chin and then tucking her in gently. “That’s what the last agent said, but we never received a follow-up visit from the CDC. What are you doing here so late?”

  The agent shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  She shook her head disapprovingly as she adjusted the IV drip. “We tested for viruses and bacteria after he brought this to our attention, and the results came back negative. It should have been in your friend’s report. You didn’t need to come all the way back here.”

  “I like to do my own investigations.”

  She clucked her tongue. “You need to leave the Chamberlains alone. They’ve been through enough.” She feigned checking Marilyn’s pulse, even though she knew there wouldn’t be one; she had learned not to dwell on that fact after the hospital had removed her heart monitor to avoid calling attention to the lack of a steady beat. Naturally, her blood pressure was also nonexistent; nevertheless, she recorded it before moving on. The agent watched Peggy curiously, at first studying her closely, as if he were learning from her, and then distantly, as if his mind had wandered. After bringing himself back to the present, he made annotations in a tattered notepad before trying to address her again. This time, she preempted him. “Before you ask, I already told that other agent everything I know. Everything else is on her chart, and I assume you’ve already looked at that.”

  He nodded, admitting the transgression. “Actually, there’s one detail that was left out that I was hoping you could fill in,” he said. “When Marilyn… Mrs. Chamberlain was still, uh, moving, who was in the room with her?” Peggy scowled, not quite comprehending his question. “I mean, Mr. Chamberlain was there, the doctors, nurses… What are their names?”

  “I’d have to check the shift schedule,” she replied reluctantly. “Why does it matter?”

  He hesitated. “A theory. Was there someone who was more present than the others?”

  “Her primary doctor, Dr. Nguyen; myself; and the family took shifts,” she replied. “Mostly Mr. Chamberlain and the boy. The daughter returned to school after the first two days. She said she had an important test coming up.” Sh
e shook her head sympathetically. “It’s sad sometimes how children cope. I hope she’s dealing with it alright,” she added, thinking about how often she’d seen the devastated looks on young children’s faces. There was no easy way to break the news to a child, especially if one wanted them to understand, and each child took extended illnesses and hospitalization harshly. Some children wouldn’t stop crying, while others believed they had to be strong for the family; she wondered if Marilyn’s daughter fell into the latter category. “Oh, and the mother, Mrs. Peterson.”