Better Off Undead

by James Preller

  The driver’s-side door opened and he emerged, standing tall and erect in a black suit. He walked around the car, gave us a slight bow, and opened the back door.

  “Sweet ride,” Talal observed. “You got anything to eat in there? Or are we going to stop at the drive-thru for a bucket of instant chicken?”

  The driver did not share Talal’s sense of humor. He gestured me inside with a tilt of his head.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  He showed no expression. “My name is unimportant.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Unimportant,” I deadpanned. “My name is—”

  “Lazarus, the boy who rose again,” he said. “My employers are quite familiar with your case history.”

  It shouldn’t have surprised me to hear those words, but they still caused a tremor of unease to ripple down my spine. I wondered if I was making a mistake. Too late. Something told me that eventually I’d have to come face-to-face with the notorious Bork brothers. If I could help them in some way, maybe they could do something for me. I couldn’t allow them to follow me around forever. Besides, I’d never been in a stretch limousine before. I admired the black leather interior and the car’s overall vibe of wealth, taste, and luxury. Talal was busy exploring every nook and cranny, pushing buttons, sliding out drawers, opening secret compartments. I declined his offer of salted cashews, malted milk balls, and K & K Kola.

  Talal took a swig and burped loudly.

  “You’ll find that the car is fully appointed with refreshments to suit your taste. My employers wish to extend every courtesy,” the driver said. He shut the door and returned to his seat behind the wheel. “Make yourselves at home. They will be expecting you within the hour.” He gazed back at us in the rearview mirror, as if awaiting some signal.

  Talal found the stereo system, tuned in a station on satellite, and pumped up the volume, huge. “Boom,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I like it—I like it a lot. You good with this, Adrian?”

  “I’m good. Let’s do it.”

  “We’re off to see the wizard,” Talal announced, and at those words, the luxury car eased into the lane as if sailing soundlessly on white, puffy clouds.

  KRISTOFF AND KALVIN

  We rolled up the long, winding driveway to the massive white mansion at the top of the hill. Talal whistled at the sight of it. “Ah, now this is a horse of a different color,” he murmured.

  Talal elbowed me. The lift of his chin directed my attention to the far side of the estate. The area was crowded with construction materials of every sort, including scaffolding, cement mixers, heavy-duty forklifts, Bobcats, and stacks of lumber.

  “What are they building over there?” Talal asked.

  As our driver turned his head in reply, I could once again make out his thin white scar. “I don’t get paid to ask questions,” he said, without really providing an answer.

  “How long have you worked for the Bork brothers?” I asked.

  “Years,” he replied.

  “Do you like it?”

  “I’m well paid.”

  “And how about the Borks?” Talal asked. “Do you like them?”

  The driver said, “I can’t say one way or the other.”

  “No opinion?” Talal asked.

  “I’ve never met them, to be perfectly honest with you,” the driver said.

  “Excuse me? Never?” Talal said. I could hear the surprise in his voice.

  “They don’t go out much. Besides, I’m just an errand boy, glad to have a job. So that’s enough chitchat outta me.” At those words, the car rolled to a stop and automatically shifted into park. Our guide stepped out to open the door for us. “I’ll be here, cooling my heels,” he informed us. “I’ll give you a lift back home when you’re ready.”

  An unsmiling man waited for us at the main door. He was thickset, built like a bank vault, and he held up a hand the size of a dinner plate. “Not you,” he growled at Talal.

  “Nuh-uh, that wasn’t the deal,” Talal protested.

  The bodyguard—he must have been a bodyguard, though he could have worked as a professional wrestler on weekends—took one step forward. He did a pretty good impression of a brick wall.

  “It’s okay, I’ll be all right,” I spoke up, hoping it was true. “You can wait here, Tal.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure, I’m sure,” I lied, forcing a smile to my face. It wasn’t like we had a choice. The man gestured with a slow sweep of his arm, thick as a fence post. Talal sat on the front steps, rolling his hat around an extended index finger. The door clicked shut behind him.

  I was inside, and I was on my own.

  The bodyguard led the way. We went through a huge tiled lobby, through a set of locked double doors, up a wide flight of carpeted stairs, and down another hallway.

  About twenty feet ahead, a door opened and a tall blond woman in a nurse’s uniform stepped into the hallway. She seemed startled to see us there, as if she hadn’t expected to be seen, and quickly retreated into the room from which she’d come.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “No one,” the bodyguard helpfully explained.

  Sigh. I’d met kitchen appliances with more personality.

  As I stood wondering about the nurse I’d just seen—What was she doing here? Was someone sick?—the bodyguard opened the door to my right. “This way,” he said.

  I stepped into a green room. It was dimly lit—long and narrow and high-ceilinged. Click, the door shut behind me. The guard took his position beside it, his feet wide, his hands clasped together, his face as blank as slate.

  “Come forward!” boomed a deep, resonant voice.

  Lights flickered at the far end of the room, at least one hundred feet away. Floor-length drapes, the plum-dark color of avocado skin, covered the windows. Wall sconces gave off a greenish glow. In fact, I realized that most everything in the room was a shade of green—the walls, the faint lights, even the carpet. I walked, a little unsteadily, toward the voice. As I drew closer, the dark forms became clear. A few carpeted steps led to a sort of high table, or altar, at the end of the room. I stood at the bottom of those steps, looking up at an enormous television screen that filled the entire wall. Two huge, wizened heads floated on the screen. Their images were grainy, as if the signal were being sent from another world, with the flickering snow of an ancient tube television from the 1960s. The faces were wrinkled, gnarled, and shriveled.

  Wisps of smoke billowed up from somewhere. Lights flashed and danced, causing me to shield my eyes.

  “I am Kristoff Bork,” boomed the face on the right. His voice was loud and intimidating. It sounded amplified and unreal. “And this is my dear brother, Kalvin Bork.”

  Kalvin’s face twitched, a grimace of recognition, but otherwise remained expressionless, heavy-lidded, and feeble.

  I hesitated. Was I really speaking to faces on a television screen? “My name is—”

  “Silence,” Kristoff interrupted. “We know who you are, Adrian Lazarus.”

  The lights in the room pulsed brighter, as if lit by Kristoff’s anger.

  “We are old men,” Kristoff said, his tone softer, his eyes twinkling. The lights dimmed. “But you—and you alone—hold the secret to eternal life.”

  Coming here had been a serious mistake. My brain was flooded with noise and confusion. “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  Kristoff glanced to the side, his lips tightened to a thin line. He nodded once.

  A door opened and shut from somewhere behind the screen. A man in a white lab coat entered the room. “Dr. Halpert!” I said in astonishment.

  “Adrian Lazarus.” He smiled as if this was the most natural meeting in the world. “You look well, considering. I see you’ve been drinking your shakes. Very good. How’s school? Keeping your grades up, I hope.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I work here,” Dr. Halpert replied. “Kristoff and Kalvin are my employers, as well as my patients.
My only patients, in fact. Besides you, of course, but you’re special, aren’t you?” he said, running his fingers down his thick mustache. “I head the research laboratory here at the compound.”

  “Really?” I said. “But I’ve been to your office. It was—”

  He shook his head dismissively, “Oh, that was just for show. My real work is here. My research.”

  “What kind of research?”

  “The best kind,” Dr. Halpert said. He stepped closer to me, just a few feet away. “I seek a cure to man’s gravest illness: death, of course.”

  I glanced up at the screen. “Are the brothers even here? Or just images on TV? Why all this drama? The lights and the projections?”

  Dr. Halpert gave an amused shrug. “The Borks are near, and very dangerous. Make no mistake about that, Adrian. But they are frail men, just the same. Not like you. No, not at all like you. Highly vulnerable to germs. It is my job to keep the brothers out of harm’s way. As for the screen, what can I say? There’s no business like business.”

  Up on the wall, the image of Kristoff Bork stared down on our conversation through small, dark, piercing eyes. Kalvin looked lost, incoherent, gravely unwell. I directed my question to Kristoff: “You are actually, seriously looking for a cure for death?”

  Dr. Halpert answered, “Surely you realize that’s why you’ve been brought here—to assist us with our research.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, sensing danger.

  I became aware of a strange tingling in my fingers, unlike anything I had ever felt before. My knees buckled as I sensed another presence worming its way into my consciousness, as if a signal was attempting to reach me from a distant satellite. All I received was garbled static. I shook my head, slightly dazed, vaguely aware that Dr. Halpert seemed amused.

  He grinned in a way I didn’t like. The smile of a fox as it enters the henhouse. He tugged at his white lab coat, pulled on his whiskers. I’d seen that tic before.

  Kristoff spoke up. “We are not unreasonable men, Adrian. We will pay handsomely for your services.” There was eagerness in his voice, a minor note of desperation. He was trying to close the deal.

  “The brothers do not have much time left,” Dr. Halpert explained. “Surely you can see that. Kalvin, in particular, exists in a sort of twilight zone.” He glanced up at the screen. “No, there’s not much time left at all. Months, weeks, days.”

  Kristoff muttered, “Enough blather, Doctor. Let’s finish this business. Nurse, bring my checkbook.”

  “And what if I refuse?” I said.

  Kalvin fell into a spasm of coughing. His head flopped and lolled from side to side. Kristoff seemed to lean away from his brother, repulsed, a look of disgust on his face. Then his eyes returned to me, the way a sharpshooter zeroes in on a target.

  “Have any idea what we do, boy? How we made our billions?” Kristoff didn’t wait for my answer. “I’ll tell you. We collect flashes of light, waves on computer screens, whispers in the dark corridors of the Internet—clicks, likes, comments, purchases, page views—in sum, we gather your digital footprint. But not only yours, Adrian. Don’t think you are so special, boy.”

  I stiffened. “Don’t call me boy.”

  Kristoff’s lip curled. “Words, only words. But very well, Adrian. As you wish. We own the data. Like farmers, we reap what you sow. Then we sort and organize and sell in algorithms that are beyond your meager comprehension. In the end, we already own you—you’ve been bought and sold like a piece of meat.”

  “I’m free,” I answered.

  “Free? Oh, nonsense.” Kristoff chuckled.

  “You don’t own me,” I countered.

  Kristoff smiled ruefully, as if conceding the point. “We own only the digital footprint you so freely give away, Adrian. If you post a photo, we have a copy. If you send a text, we capture that, too, like a butterfly in our net.”

  “That’s illegal. It’s private,” I said, surprised by my own anger.

  “All your data points are known!” Kristoff’s voice now rose in volume and venom. “To the world, you are only digital code, lines of ones and zeros signifying nothing. We’ve been where you’ve clicked, we’ve watched when you’ve blinked. We know what you buy, what you wear, and even what you secretly desire—often before you yourself are aware of it.

  “There are no secrets from the data collectors.”

  I felt a whispery chill in my body. Like a great, cold hand had wrapped its fingers around me.

  “You want to conduct experiments on me,” I said. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s your research. You want to cut me up to help you live.”

  “I prefer the word incision,” Dr. Halpert interjected. “Cut up seems so crude, like something out of Frankenstein.” I’d almost forgotten he was standing there. “Think of it, Adrian. You may hold the secret to eternal life. The fountain of youth! If only we can get inside, unlock the mystery—”

  “I have rights,” I declared. “I don’t care what you say. I won’t be a subject for your experiments.” I pointed a trembling finger at the wasted, shriveled brothers. “I’m not just another thing for you to use and throw away, like you’ve done to everything else on the planet. I refuse to be your guinea pig.”

  A fierce buzzing rippled through my mind as the volume of the white noise increased. And from that commotion of dizzying hiss, a single word slithered toward me like a snake across the carpet:

  Escape, escape, escape.

  I heard it clearly. I felt it clearly. Beyond speech, beyond ordinary language. It was a ripple of thought, a persistent hum. Something, or someone, was trying to send a message to me. My head pounded. Escape, it said. I felt a raw power surge through my body, an electric current of pure violence. I turned and moved quickly for the door, driven by animal instinct. The huge bodyguard stiffened to block my path.

  I pointed back at the screen and demanded, “Let me leave!”

  No answer.

  I felt a surge of power inside me that was beyond myself. It was something other, and greater, than my ordinary being. My fingers curled, my muscles tightened. In that instant, I was not myself. The buzzing filled my head, louder and louder. My eyes locked on the vein in the bodyguard’s neck. As I was about to attack, teeth bared, Kristoff’s voice shouted out, “We have every intention of granting your request.”

  The guard rose from his defensive crouch. He looked, questioningly, toward Dr. Halpert.

  “Let the boy go,” the doctor instructed.

  The big man stepped aside. His skin was ash white, as if he had just gazed into the visage of an avenging angel. I had scared him. I had scared the blood right out of his face.

  I flung open the door, didn’t look back.

  Talal paced in the front courtyard. He stared at me in wonder and, I think, with a shiver of apprehension. “It’s all right,” I angrily snapped. “Let’s go. Now.”

  Once we got into the car and created some distance from the house, I slumped over, utterly exhausted. All energy drained out of me. As the limousine floated through the gathering darkness, over hills and into valleys, Talal ventured a question. “What happened in there?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m afraid.” How could I explain that what I feared most … was my own self? The creature I was possibly becoming?

  Talal didn’t say a word. I could already detect the answer in his watchful eyes. He was afraid, too. We were silent the rest of way home.

  When the car glided into town, I again heard the same high-pitched sound as before. I looked around for the source. An agitated bee probed the car window for an opening, gossamer wings batting against the glass. “Ah, there you are,” Talal said. He pressed a button, the window soundlessly lowered, and the bee flew away.

  THE HUNGER

  I woke that night with a fierce, burning hunger. My mother’s door was closed. I looked in on Dane, who still slept with a night-light, door ajar. I knelt beside his bed, listened to him breathe, his small chest rising and falling. H
e looked innocent sleeping there, a fragile creature.

  He deserved a better world.

  We all did.

  I went downstairs, slipped on a sweatshirt, and stepped outdoors. I didn’t think about what I was doing, didn’t stop to ask myself where I was going. I just walked, walked, walked—a zombie in the night—while hologram advertisements flashed across the sky.

  The boy who’d come back from the dead, out for an evening stroll.

  I felt lonely and afraid.

  What had happened in that room with the Bork twins? I played the scene over in my mind. I had been ready to leap at that bodyguard’s thick throat, clamp down on his jugular vein with my teeth, chomp on flesh and blood. All the while, I didn’t feel like I was in control. It was as if I was following some deeper instinct for survival.

  I pushed aside thoughts of the Bork brothers. For now, at least, I didn’t want to worry about them. I just wanted to be me, whoever that was.

  I noticed that my limp had gone away. I was walking normally now. There was even a bounce in my step. I felt like I could jump, I could run a mile. I could hop on a pogo stick and bounce, bounce, bounce. What was happening to me? Why had I become this strange shifting creature?

  I remembered something I’d learned from Zander. He must have read it somewhere. Two years ago, a group of scientists announced to the world that a star had disappeared. Not just any star, but the North Star, Polaris, the guiding light by which sailors for ages had determined east and west, north and south. The bright star had held nearly still at the celestial pole, marking due north. Then one day, whoops, it vanished. Not into thin air, but into thinner nothingness. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Sure, stars die. Stars burn out and explode into supernovas. Stars shed their outer layers, transform into white dwarfs, black dwarfs. Stars burn hydrogen for billions of years, then take millions of years to die. Not our North Star. It just disappeared without a trace. Basically, the best scientists in the world scratched their beards, adjusted their glasses, scanned the data, and concluded, “Weird.”