The Dead Road

by Seth Patrick

  Jonah sat back from the monitor and glugged a beer. The real mystery he needed to think about wasn’t the word Pandora. Instead, the biggest question was what had made the revival of Grady so different? No revival he’d ever heard of had involved that kind of illusion of being in a different location. The reversal process sometimes had an element of it, certainly, and the reviver’s surroundings receded while that first stage happened, but to feel fully and convincingly elsewhere wasn’t a phenomenon he’d ever come across.

  Except once. It hadn’t been in a revival, though. It had been as he lay unconscious, shot in the chest and fighting for his life. He’d met Annabel’s dead father, and he’d met his own mother, but ever since then he’d assumed the experience had been purely imaginary.

  Perhaps it was more real than he thought.

  *

  He slept on it, but the next morning he was still thinking about his encounter with Tess. Annabel seemed to assume his distraction was entirely down to the revival, and Jonah wasn’t keen to correct her. She had another meeting to get to, relating to a scandal brewing at one of the major for-profit hospital companies. It was a story she’d tried explaining to Jonah before, but it was one of those depressing ones where the sums involved were huge but the details were hard to follow, and hence tricky to get people to give a damn about.

  A quarter of an hour after Annabel left, the doorbell rang. When he checked the door camera, Jonah wasn’t surprised to see Cathy.

  ‘Did you wait until Annabel left?’ he said, smiling.

  ‘Was it obvious?’

  ‘Completely.’

  She winced. ‘I wasn’t sure if she’d ever want to speak to me again, given what I did.’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll hold it against you. Not for long, at any rate.’ He gestured for her to come in. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’

  ‘Please,’ she said, following him into the kitchen. ‘I came to thank you, again, but I guess I also wanted to get out of the house. I spent all night trying to distract myself, but Sara and Armel are finalizing things with the funeral home for the service tomorrow. I started to feel odd being alone with Grady’s body in the house.’

  ‘There’s no need to feel odd,’ he said. He pointed to the coffee machine, putting a cup under the nozzle. ‘Take your pick.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, pushing the button for a latte. ‘Oh, I don’t feel odd because of the revival. It’s just the weight of it . . . Difficult days ahead, I guess. Difficult weeks. Every time I walk past the door, knowing his body’s on the other side of it, it hits me hard. There are only so many tears before you feel emptied out.’

  ‘How are his parents doing?’ he said. ‘I hope the revival helped them. I know it will, over time, but sometimes it can be too much for people at first.’

  ‘They’ve been quiet, as you’d expect. Armel especially. He’s an only child and both his parents are gone, and I think he’s trying to hold it all together for the sake of me and Sara. He’s got nobody else to unload on, so he’s bottling it all up.’

  Jonah nodded. He got himself a black coffee, no sugar. The bitterness suited his mood. After a few moments of silence, he said: ‘Cathy, have you heard anything about last night’s aurora?’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I mentioned I was trying to distract my-self, and you got me. I was seeing what I could find out. There’s been some chatter about the solar flare that triggered it. Well, triggered the geomagnetic superstorm, which then caused the aurora.’

  ‘Chatter?’

  ‘The low latitudes don’t make sense. The coronal mass ejection that accompanied the flare wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as it would need to be to trigger a superstorm like that.’ She sipped some coffee. ‘So naturally everyone’s buzzing. One thing a scientist loves is stuff not making sense. Means there’s something interesting happening!’

  Jonah felt nervous. ‘What kind of something?’

  Cathy shrugged. ‘I don’t know that much about aurorae, I’ll admit, but normally solar wind doesn’t reach Earth’s inner magnetosphere easily. A geomagnetic storm needs some kind of door to open; a “magnetic reconnection” is the term I’ve heard, but I don’t know much about the details. Some are saying that the conditions weren’t there for that to happen, so it’s a mystery.’

  He’d been bringing his cup up to his mouth as she spoke, and found himself freezing with the cup halfway. Something she’d said had shaken him, but he dismissed it; a stupid thought.

  ‘It’s not that well understood,’ continued Cathy. ‘Hence the arguments. How can someone say the flare wasn’t strong enough, if we don’t know much about the processes involved? Still, one thing’s for sure: it’s unprecedented. Whatever this is, it hasn’t happened before, at least in the last few thousand years. People can sniff funding.’

  ‘The news reports last night talked about communication disruption being unlikely. Is that true?’

  She shook her head. ‘Actually, the radio interference it generated has been unexpectedly wide-ranging, and long-lived. Trust me, the people I talk to online are very annoyed about it. Radio astronomers across the globe are twiddling their thumbs as we speak. Long-range radio is something I listen in to sometimes, to relax. Living here means lower-powered signals are less likely to be swamped by local noise. Last night I couldn’t pick up shit. Solar activity is still high, so there could be more flares. We didn’t get a full hit from the last one, either.’

  She finished her coffee and headed to the door. ‘I’d better get back,’ she said, dejected. ‘Thank you, Jonah. Talking about anything other than the obvious is exactly what I needed.’

  ‘Any time,’ he said, letting her out. ‘Good luck with the service tomorrow.’

  He let out a long breath when she was gone. When he’d frozen, it had been because of the words she’d chosen: a geomagnetic storm needs some kind of door to open.

  Some kind of door.

  However tenuous the link, the coincidence was chilling. On the same night, an unprecedented revival; an unprecedented aurora.

  And the words of the Beast came to him again.

  The door is open now, Jonah. It will not shut.

  8

  He didn’t sleep well that night. He told Annabel that the boy’s revival was responsible, and that it was nothing serious – the act of performing a revival after so long a break had just shaken him a little.

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he told her.

  Tuesday’s aurora was still making the news. Fringe theorists were picking up on the aspect that Cathy had mentioned, that the solar flare had been much too weak to create the observed aurora. On every news channel, experts in atmospheric physics were being interviewed and showing their excitement at the prospect of a good scientific mystery, but all too often the reporting would then cut to those with bizarre ideas to explain the mystery, ideas that ranged from government conspiracy to the Book of Revelation.

  The irony didn’t escape him, though. His own theory, the one that had been forming for the last few days, was surely the very definition of fringe. Cathy’s mention of a door being opened was just unfortunate phrasing, but a door had been open. Ever since Winnerden Flats.

  What had been missing was the vessel for the Beast’s power to flow into.

  It was Thursday, and Never had promised to come over for some more drunken pool. Jonah really didn’t feel like it, and considered putting him off by citing Grady’s revival as an excuse, but that kind of thing would guarantee that Never would come. All Jonah could do was hope that something else came up. He didn’t relish having to spend the night putting on a social mask and acting as if nothing was wrong. At the very least, he couldn’t risk drinking anything. If he did, he’d spill his guts at the drop of a hat, as always.

  *

  ‘Greetings, stranger,’ said Never when Jonah opened the door that evening. ‘How’s tricks?’ He had a mini cask of beer with him. ‘I bear gifts. Well, gift.’

  Jonah smiled in spite of himself. ‘Come in,’ he said
. ‘It went fine, by the way. Just to get that dealt with.’

  ‘Good,’ said Never. ‘I wasn’t going to ask.’

  ‘Like hell you weren’t,’ said Jonah. In the kitchen, he fetched glasses while Never opened the cask.

  ‘Naturally. So, when you say fine, you mean . . . ?’

  ‘It was emotionally draining but positive.’

  ‘Where’s the missus?’ said Never, as they flopped onto the couches with their drinks.

  ‘Saving the world from dubious medical accounting,’ said Jonah. ‘She’s on her way back.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Never. He downed some beer. ‘I look forward to failing at pool again. Oh, another flare is predicted for tomorrow. You see that?’

  ‘No,’ said Jonah.

  ‘I heard it on the radio on the way here. Could be a big one. NASA’s Solar Dynamics project gives it a sixty per cent chance of being the biggest in a decade, if it hits us full on. CNN did a survey to see how people felt about it, and you know what the biggest concern was?’

  Jonah shook his head.

  ‘The impact on access to social media,’ laughed Never. ‘Seriously. That’s, like, the least worrying thing that could happen. Second was whether cellphone service would be affected, which, actually, is more of a likely problem. I think fifth was the world being burnt to a cinder. Tenth and last was satellites failing, and that one’s the most likely by far.’

  ‘Priorities!’ said Jonah.

  ‘Actually, I think there was an impact,’ said Never. ‘An impact on revivals.’

  Wary, Jonah looked at him. ‘What?’

  ‘The ENFRI posted up some figures,’ said Never. The ENFRI was the French equivalent of the FRS. ‘From late Tuesday night, success rates took a tumble. The call went out for other groups to check their own stats. I mean, these are the kinds of blips we all see locally from time to time, just chance effects, so it’s only when you gather up nationwide figures that anything will show up, but . . .’ He paused.

  ‘OK, tell me.’

  ‘I rang round to get some FRS figures. Comparing estimated chances of success to actual outcome is usually within five per cent, on average. The FRS success rates on Tuesday were thirty per cent lower than the estimates. Yesterday, it was back to normal. Interesting, right?’

  The last thing Jonah wanted to hear about was another link between revival and the aurora. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ said Never. ‘There hasn’t been anything interesting in revival research for years, and all you can say is “sure”?’

  Jonah sighed. ‘The last big revival research effort was at Winnerden Flats, Never. Let’s just say I’m not that keen on anyone starting up another one.’

  With a grimace, Never nodded. He absently rubbed at his chest. ‘Fair point.’

  ‘Uh . . .’ said Jonah. ‘Was there anything else odd at work?’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘I don’t know. Anything strange being reported by revivers, during cases?’

  ‘Nothing I heard,’ said Never. ‘I’m in on Saturday so I’ll ask around. Do I get any clues as to what I’m asking around for?’

  Jonah shook his head vaguely. ‘The revival with the little boy on Tuesday . . . it ended strangely. I kind of hallucinated. I had an image of Tess.’ He shrugged. ‘That was all.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Never, looking deeply suspicious. ‘That was all. OK.’

  On the wall of every room was a small security panel; on the one near the TV, a light went red. Having spent the first few months living here with everything still seeming like a threat, Jonah saw it at once – it meant that a vehicle was coming along the drive.

  ‘Annabel’s home,’ he said, getting up.

  ‘I’ll keep drinking,’ said Never. ‘Bring some grub on your way back?’

  Jonah was at the door ready for her.

  ‘Hey,’ she said.

  ‘Evening. Never’s here already.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’

  Then the hairs stood up on Jonah’s neck. In the distance, he could see another vehicle coming towards them. A black van, it looked like.

  ‘Get inside,’ he said to Annabel, urgently.

  ‘What?’ she said, turning. She saw it too. ‘Shit.’ She hurried in. Jonah went to the security panel nearest the door and pressed a button.

  Lockdown.

  The main focus of the alterations that had been made by the previous owner – all that concrete and cinderblock – had been to turn the building into something where every entrance could be secured. Slowly, metal shutters wound down on the windows and doors.

  The cacophony brought Never to them. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘We have a visitor,’ said Annabel. She pointed to the screen near the door, showing the camera feed from outside. The black van pulled up behind Annabel’s car.

  ‘Oh,’ said Never, anxious. ‘It’s definitely not FedEx.’

  The van door opened. Out stepped Sly, and the three of them relaxed.

  ‘Yay!’ said Never. Then he frowned. ‘Sly turning up out of the blue. Good or bad, do you think?’

  ‘Bad,’ said Annabel. Jonah nodded.

  Sly was at the door shutters. She knocked.

  Jonah pressed the intercom. ‘Password,’ he said. They may have dispensed with most of Kendrick’s precautions by now, but it was probably better not to let Sly know that. Whatever she said next would indicate whether she was under duress or not.

  ‘Fuck off,’ said Sly. All clear. Jonah started to raise the shutters, wondering why they’d let Never pick the responses.

  With the shutters raised, he opened the door.

  ‘You two gentlemen with me,’ said Sly, turning and walking back to the van.

  ‘Is a hello out of the question?’ mumbled Never, following.

  As Jonah moved, Annabel put a hand on his arm. ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘Something’s wrong.’

  Jonah nodded. He could feel it, too – Sly coming here unannounced was concerning enough, but there was something in the way she’d spoken that didn’t sit right.

  She’d seemed shaken.

  She and Never were now at the rear of the van, its doors wide open. Both were silent as Jonah reached them. He followed the line of their gaze, and saw it.

  In the back of the van was a body bag.

  Jonah felt his blood boil. He’d told Kendrick many times that this was a line he’d not cross – interrogating corpses that Kendrick needed information from.

  ‘I told Kendrick I wouldn’t do this kind of thing for him,’ he said. ‘He agreed.’

  Sly gave him an unusually cold look. ‘Take it up with Kendrick,’ she said. ‘He’s the one in the bag.’

  *

  They set the bag down on the hallway floor and went through to the kitchen.

  ‘Get me something to drink,’ Sly said to Never. He filled a glass of water and put it in front of her, getting a severe glare in response. That wasn’t the kind of drink she’d meant.

  ‘Drink it,’ he said. ‘You need to. I’ll be back in a second.’

  Sly sagged visibly and picked up the glass, downing the contents without a pause. By the time she was done Never was back, a bottle of vodka in hand. He passed it to her, and she poured out a third of a glass.

  She sat, taking long deep breaths.

  Jonah, Annabel and Never waited, glancing to each other. Jonah also kept glancing to the door that led to the hall, where Kendrick’s body was. The FRS had plenty of rules, and one of them was as obvious as they came: you didn’t revive a subject you had a connection to. Part of the reason was to remove any possibility of bias from the resulting court evidence, but private revival firms had the same rule. It just wasn’t a good idea.

  Almost three years before, Sam Deering had been stabbed. It had been touch and go for a time, and Jonah had stayed in the hospital overnight waiting for news. Sam’s wife Helen had been there too, of course, and at one point she’d spoken to Jonah about the possibility of Sam dying.

  Sam
had revival insurance, she’d explained, but they’d not been able to afford the best; the chance of failure was high. She’d asked Jonah the question that he’d been fearing since the moment she’d started talking to him.

  Promise me, she’d said. If it comes to it. Let us say goodbye.

  Just the thought of it had sent Jonah into turmoil. Sam had pulled through, thank God, but even with everything that had happened afterwards – all the horrors he had faced – Jonah still found himself waking some nights with that moment being replayed in his nightmares.

  He’d not known Kendrick anywhere near as well as Sam, of course, but he’d come to respect the man more than he’d ever thought possible. His heart was already racing, thinking of what Sly had – surely – brought his corpse here for.

  Finally, Sly spoke. ‘He didn’t tell me what he was doing,’ she said. She talked with a slow, precise voice that suggested she was struggling to keep calm. ‘He didn’t always, though. Sometimes he followed hunches at short notice, and he knew I hated that. It was too cavalier, and he’d taught me that cavalier was dangerous. But he’d set up what we call an overdue. A message you have to cancel once you’re done and safe, or else it gets sent, and the person who gets it knows something went bad.’ She took a punishing gulp of the vodka. ‘I got his overdue. He’d gone to a place out in Arkansas, to see a source he’d mentioned to me but not given me much detail about. The overdue had the location and the name, a man called Virgil Drayton. I called a contact I have in the State Police, to see what he knew about Drayton. Rich guy, it turned out. Reclusive.’ She had another drink and met Jonah’s eyes. ‘Died in a fire three days before. I met my contact at the site yesterday. The recluse lived in a decaying mansion with one servant. Both men were found dead in the burnt-out building. The servant was in the hallway near the source of the blaze. Drayton was in the basement, tied to a chair.’

  Jonah saw Annabel’s eyes widen, her face paling. Her own father had been found tied to a chair, dead for weeks.

  ‘The building was unsound,’ said Sly. ‘A full search was delayed. Forensics concentrated on the areas around the two bodies. Both men died from smoke asphyxiation. The servant was set to inherit a decent amount of money. The working hypothesis was that he’d tried to engineer his boss’s death, but had screwed it up. When I got there, I could tell the fire was Kendrick’s doing. But there was still no sign of him. So I went looking. In the basement, the ceiling had collapsed. This basement was stone-built, and should have been solid as anything, so with it compromised they knew at once how unstable the building must be. They’d not searched beyond the collapse of that ceiling yet, too risky. In I went. Place nearly came down around me, I think, but at the end of what remained of a long corridor I found a set of rooms, piled high with charred filing boxes, and on the floor—’ She stopped talking, and looked to the hall. To the body bag. She took a drink. ‘I have no idea what the chances of revival are, Jonah. I didn’t have another option.’