“It could get worse. It could get much worse.” Dr. Harry had said.
I didn’t want to believe him.
THIRTY-THREE
Okay, so maybe it’s kind of weird I hadn’t spent a lot more time trying to figure out why I was suddenly telepathic or dreamapathic or whatever. But let’s be honest, I had a few things on my mind and absolutely no access to Google. Not that I had a clue about what search terms to use: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE BUT DON’T? LONGTERM NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES? SUBVERTING DEATH? Even if I did have the Internet, it might not have been helpful.
Not much happened the rest of the week. The nurse from the agency arrived. Her name was Kelly. She was very young, only about a year or so older than me, I think. Her skin was pink and creamy, and she always looked like she’d just woken up. She wasn’t as clueless as Ray, but I did get the feeling sometimes she wanted to run and check her class notes.
Goth and I watched a few more movies from his sack. He had a couple in there that weren’t about death: Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral—well the second one did have a little death in it but it was sudden and over quickly. Then Goth wasn’t doing so great and had to spend a whole day on oxygen.
Nurse Kelly kept coming in and readjusting it until he snapped at her that it was fine. We called her Nurse Kelly even though she wanted us to call her just plain Kelly. She corrected us a lot on Wednesday but by Friday had given up. She was Nurse Kelly whether she wanted to be or not.
Goth took Edmond over to see the girls another time. And then, when he got sicker, Nurse Kelly walked Edmond over. I could have taken him, but I didn’t really want to. I still wasn’t in any big rush to get to know the girls. It was too weird being the guinea pig everyone was waiting on. It was bad enough Goth and Edmond were watching me, hoping I was improving, because that meant they’d be improving soon.
I hadn’t improved much, though, and it felt like I was letting everyone down. My heart hadn’t stopped again. That was in the plus column. I was managing to breathe, at least when I remembered. My appetite sucked. Anything to do with food going into me and coming out of me was just, well, I don’t even want to think about it. I was bloated, so I felt fat even though I was probably pretty skinny. Mostly I liked staying in bed and being still. Which wasn’t good. Wasn’t good at all.
And I was still hearing things I shouldn’t. The girls talking about TV shows they missed and wished they could see. Dr. Harry should at least get cable. Once or twice, Miss Haggerty made a call in the middle of the night and told someone they were a “real fucker.” I had no idea what that was about.
By Friday afternoon, I’d started wondering if I might be able to somehow control the dreams. I mean, why not? It was better than just laying in bed. Actually, I’d still be lying in bed but it was at least laying in bed with a purpose.
Sometime around year two of acute-blah-blah-blah-leukemia my mother started bringing home all these new age books she thought would help me think myself well again. To get her off my back, I spent a lot of time relaxing my entire body, imagining myself on an idyllic desert island and then slowly, carefully imagining a yellow bubble working its way through every single part of my body.
It didn’t work. Obviously. And at first, my mom was convinced I hadn’t really tried. Which was kind of silly since it wasn’t exactly hard to imagine a yellow bubble. Still, she made me do it again and again until she finally gave up.
So, it wasn’t all that difficult for me to relax my entire body and then just let what happened happen. The noises around me—Goth’s movie leaking out of his earbuds, Nurse Kelly tapping a pen as she did a crossword puzzle at the front desk, cars going by, flies dive-bombing the window screen—all faded away. It was a little harder to push away my fear of what would happen next, but I did it.
There was nothing but me, the conscious me, sliding off the bed and drifting out of the ward. I tried to focus hard on where I wanted to go. Upstairs. That’s where I wanted to go. I wanted to go into all the rooms I’d never been in. I passed jaundiced-Jesus and floated up the steps to the second floor. There were a lot of doors. I tried the first one to my right. It was a closet filled with a mop and a bucket. I sort of giggled and eased my way back to the hallway. I tried the door on the other side. That put me into a laboratory.
I looked around. It was nearly as big as the ward I was in. There were two counters with some kind of indestructible-looking black stone on them. You would want it to be, I suppose. In case you accidentally made some sort of acid that ate through things or blew up a petri dish. Each counter had a sink at one end and a couple of gas nozzles so you could heat up chemicals. Or your lunch.
Other than that, the countertops were bare. It didn’t look like anyone was doing much in the way of experimenting at the moment. Each counter had a lot of drawers. I wondered if Property Five was in any of them. I also wondered how exactly I would find out since I couldn’t open the drawers any more than I could open the door.
The problem was solved when I turned around and noticed a small cabinet with a glass door standing behind me against the wall. Inside I could see a white box, open at the top, with around twenty small vials filled with clear fluid. That was it. It didn’t need a label. I remembered Dr. Harry holding the vial to the light. That was what I was looking for. Looking the cabinet over, I noticed it was padlocked. Which was weird. Did Dr. Harry really think someone might break in and steal it here, in the middle of nowhere?
Suddenly, a key turned in the door. Someone was coming. I pushed myself up against the wall, afraid of being caught. And then remembered I was there and not there. I wouldn’t be seen by whoever—
Miss Haggerty walked into the laboratory. It was early in the day for her to be there for her shift, though. She wore her street clothes, a dark blue Spartan’s T-shirt over a pair of black yoga pants. She went right for a filing cabinet on the far side of the laboratory.
Taking out a key, she unlocked the glass cabinet. On the shelves above Property Five were rows of medications in plastic bottles. Miss Haggerty took two bottles of medication from the second shelf from the top, slipped them into a pocket, then carefully lined the bottles up so they were all at the front and no one would notice any were missing. Over her shoulder, I read the bottle. Morphine. Extended release.
Apparently, Miss Haggerty had a little problem with drugs.
She locked the cabinet, returned the key to the file drawer and scurried out of the room. Then I wondered about something. Did Dr. Harry know? There was something weird about the people who worked at the Institute. Nurse Margie had had a spotty work history and a big mouth. Ray didn’t seem to know what he was doing. Nurse Kelly was barely older than I was. And now, Miss Haggerty—
Dr. Harry was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Was he doing it deliberately? Knowing they were desperate, knowing their problems, did he think they were easy to manipulate? Did he know they would do his bidding?
THIRTY-FOUR
Saturday morning, we slogged through our basic routine. Breakfast, vitals, pills, blood, it was getting kind of repetitive. I fell asleep while Nurse Kelly was taking my blood and didn’t wake up until well after she was done. Goth wasn’t in his bed and neither was Edmond. I was pretty certain I knew where they both were: Edmond was making time with the girls, and Goth was outside smoking.
I climbed out of bed and dragged myself through the Institute until I got to the back. Just outside the back door, I found Goth leaning against the back of the building, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
“Are you feeling better?”
He shrugged. “Not exactly. But I lied to Nurse Kelly and she let me come out here.”
“Can I have one of those?” I asked. Maybe it would keep the flies off me.
“No. You’re not really a smoker. And this isn’t exactly what you’d call a good time to start.”
“Is there a good time to start smoking?” I said, swatting at a fly.
“Cute. Look you’re just getting—”
“Don’t be an asshole, just give me a cigarette.”
With another shrug, he offered me the pack and his lighter. I lit it and managed to inhale without coughing but God it was disgusting. Why did people do this? It tasted like I’d licked asphalt. I wanted to just throw it away but I did think it would keep the flies from bothering me. Not many people could use that as an excuse for smoking.
“I told Nurse Kelly I wanted to get some exercise. Can we walk a little so I’m not a liar?”
“Sure. I don’t mind.”
“Just not fast.”
We walked out passed the double-wide on our way to the pond. I asked him, “You’re having trouble breathing?”
“Always. It’s okay, though. I’m due for percussion therapy. That might help.”
“Percussion therapy? That’s what they call it? Sounds like you’re a drum.”
“It feels like I’m a drum.”
“You want me to do it?”
“No. Nurse Kelly will do it later.”
The pond was to our right. I could tell he wanted to stop there for a minute but I figured the cigarette smoke would only keep the flies off me for so long so I kept walking.
“How do you feel? Are you doing okay?” Goth asked. There was hopefulness in his voice that worried me. I needed to get better to save him.
“I’m okay. Better.”
I wasn’t better, though. At best I was the same.
We reached the raised gardens. I stood at the foot of them, staring down. The two tilled gardens looked different than they had the last time we were there. Different than they had in my dream. In two of the gardens, the ground had settled and sunk. As though something had been removed. And maybe something had been.
A breeze meandered in from Lake Michigan. Cool and moist. The very back of the property was mainly a small, lazy hill covered in clumps of grass. I scanned it, looking for I don’t know what. Then I noticed something—
“Why are we looking at the garden?” Goth asked.
“I wanted to see if anything was growing.”
“It’s the beginning of September. Things are going to stop growing soon.”
Ignoring him, I trudged up the little hill. There, just at the top, was a spot where the ground had been turned. It was about two-foot by two-foot. Obviously, it wasn’t a garden. Someone had dug a hole and buried something. I looked up and noticed another turned spot about fifteen feet away. I went over to it. Goth fell behind, unable to keep up. I stared at this new spot then looked up to scan the grounds for another spot. I found one. Then another.
I lurched from hole to hole, spotting more each time I stopped. At least twelve small holes, maybe more, had recently been dug and something buried in them. A horrible feeling crept up my spine, across the back of my neck and grabbed me by the throat.
The old men had dug themselves out of their graves. They’d tried to get into the institute. But someone had stopped them. And that someone had buried them again. In a dozen different places. In pieces.
Goth was fifty feet away. I was near the double-wide, hurried over, climbed onto the deck and opened the sliding glass door. I rushed through the kitchen, the living room, and then I was standing in front of the walk-in door. The refrigerated room. I hadn’t thought about it at all since I’d first seen it. I mean, a lot had happened. But now, now it seemed like the most important thing in the world. I looked down at the handle ready to pull open the door. But someone had put a padlock on it. When had that happened? Why had it happened? What was in there?
I hurried back to the kitchen, began opening drawers and cabinets, but they were mostly empty. A dish, a bowl, nothing that would—and then I found what I needed under the sink. A small, red fire extinguisher.
I grabbed it and hurried back to the refrigerated room. I smashed the extinguisher into the lock. It took a few tries, but the lock finally broke. I pulled it off, threw it aside, dropped the extinguisher, and opened the door.
Inside it was cold, very cold. So cold even I noticed. On one side of the walk-in stood a set of shelves with mostly plastic tubs sitting on them. On the other side a gurney. Whatever was on it was covered in a sheet. It was probably a body, a corpse.
I decided to look into the tubs first. I pulled one out. In it was a frog pinned to a board just the way we’d done in ninth grade science. It was partially dissected. Its chest was open; it’s internal organs exposed. They were dried out, desiccated. I wondered why someone would save something like that. Then its head moved. It looked at me. I jumped back pushing the tub away from me.
There were half a dozen other tubs. I couldn’t look into them. Imagining what might be in them was enough. Knowing seemed worse. At the far end was some kind of cage with a checked tablecloth partially draped over it. Something inside the cage moved. I couldn’t stop myself puling the tablecloth off.
Inside were a dozen white mice. They turned their heads toward me when the cloth came off. Each in various stages of decomposition. Fur patchy. Skin taut. An odor wafted from the cage. It was the smell of rot, food turning, carcasses fermenting in the sun. It reminded me of garbage bins and unwashed alleys. I stepped back. Not wanting to be close to the mice.
Then something touched me.
THIRTY-FIVE
I was outside standing on the deck when Goth got to the double-wide.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “You look weird.”
“Nothing’s going on,” I said. Even though a lot was going on.
I was fairly certain the little girl I’d seen was inside the double-wide, laying on a gurney and that she’d touched me. I probably could have pulled back the sheet to be sure, but I hadn’t wanted to know. Knowing meant I should do something, but there was nothing I could do.
“Let’s go in there,” he suggested pointed at the double-wide.
I didn’t want to go back in. I’d broken the lock on the walk-in refrigerator. I was afraid the things inside would try to get out. “Let’s just hang out here.” I sat down on the edge of the deck. He came over and sat beside me.
“There’s more privacy inside.”
I couldn’t think of a good reason not to go inside the double-wide, so I threw myself on Goth and started kissing him. His lips were fever hot, like they’d been before. Only now I knew why. There wasn’t anything wrong with him. It was me. All me. I was cold, anything warm felt hotter than it was. What did Goth feel? I knew I was cold to the touch. Did he think everyone was as cold as I was? Did he think this was what kissing was like with everyone? We kissed for nearly a whole minute and then I pushed him off me.
“Can’t breathe.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Actually, I didn’t need to breathe which I guess might come in handy when making out. Just then, though, I needed a moment to collect my thoughts. Or at least change gears. The things I’d just seen. The thing that had touched—
“How’s your heart?” Goth asked.
“Beating.”
“Good,” he puffed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this isn’t the right time for privacy. You’re probably doing better than I am right now.”
“Let’s just hang out then.”
He took my arm and tucked it around him so that my hand was in the center of his chest. But then he started coughing. Eventually he spit into a tissue, wadding it up and putting it back into his bathrobe pocket.
“Sorry. That’s disgusting, I know.”
“No biggie,” I said. It was hardly as disgusting as the things I’d just seen. In fact, it was completely normal. I mean, everyone hacked things up now and then. It was just life. What I’d seen wasn’t life. It was half-life. Shit, I thought, what I’d seen were things like me. The frogs, the mice, the girl, me. We were the same. Half alive, half dead.
Pulling me closer Goth said, “Can I tell you something? I think Dr. Harry brought you here for me. Because we’re both gay.”
“So, this is like the creepiest blind date ever?”
He shrugged. “I guess. It’s my first b
lind date.”
“Do you mind?” I asked.
“I don’t mind. I like you. Do you like me?”
“I do like you. It’s just that I have a lot going on.”
“That’s what’s kind of cool about this. Us,” he said. “We both have a lot going on. I’m not sure I’d want to be with a regular boy. He wouldn’t understand, and he might feel sorry for me. You don’t. You get it.”
I squeezed him tighter and he squeezed me back. We fell silent and I began thinking about everything I’d seen. The old men buried in pieces. Dr. Harry’s failed experiments. And that’s when it hit me. It really hit me. I couldn’t die. But the way things were going, I couldn’t exactly live.
I had a horrifying thought. My body was decomposing while my mind, my consciousness remained strong and aware. What had Dr. Harry done to me? Even if he stabilized me, someday I’d grow old, my body would wear out, then what would happen? Would I end up buried in some fetid coffin completely aware for all eternity? Oh my God, that sounded so, so shitty.
That’s why Dr. Harry didn’t want to give anyone else the treatment. He didn’t know how to stabilize a person after their microtubules had been fixed. He didn’t know how to stop the decomposition. Some of it worked, some of it worked a little, and some of it didn’t work at all. If Dr. Harry didn’t fix this, I was simply going to disintegrate.
THIRTY-SIX
“I can’t die, can I?” I asked Dr. Harry when he called me into the examining room later that morning. He looked tired, worn. The good looks I’d seen floating below the surface seemed to have fled. I wasn’t sure, but I think he smelled like booze. My question stopped his exam. He took a step back and considered his answer.
“That’s a matter of definition. As long as—”“
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