Kurt pushed himself back up against the wall. The heat was overwhelming now, Lazarus growing hotter with each excited line.
“The toxin was simply meant to find more like you,” he continued. “People who I could bring over to the Deadspace. It had its side-effects, sure, and it only brought you halfway, but with a bit of creative pivoting I managed to tip you over, didn’t I? The migration is complete and, if my hypothesis is correct, you’ll remain here with me, frozen in limbo, free to assist. A permanent test subject, if you will.”
Ira smiled. The burnt flesh on his cheeks creased and peeled away, disappearing as it fell.
“You knew I’d do it?”
“Of course. You gave the information away so freely” He slapped his hands together, his face twisting and morphing into Kurt’s own. Suddenly Kurt heard his own voice, loud and echoey as though played through a tannoy. ““I’m looking for my sister, Amy. Have you seen her?”
“Stop it!”
The face morphed back. “A lonely little stubborn orphan looking for his sister. Textbook waster if you ask me. Throw in a few close encounters, maybe a door that didn’t open, and boom! I knew you’d do it. I’d have placed my money on you doing it at some point. May as well do something productive for the world and come here… to my workshop. The one I built within the fabric of the Deadspace itself! The one I built through my thoughts and memories. You people don’t realise how incredible the Deadspace is… what it can do… the things that exist here.”
He stepped towards Kurt and rubbed his hands together.
“Reality here is a manifestation of intention and memory. I shoot you with a gun here and you still die… move on… whatever, but not because a shard of metal has broken your physical body, but because you believe it would kill you. Here, I’ll show you.”
Out of nowhere, a gun appeared in Lazarus’ hand. He aimed it first at Kurt’s chest, then lowered it to Kurt’s foot. The trigger pulled, the shot sounded, a pain exploded. Kurt hopped and screamed until the pain dissipated almost as suddenly as it came. When he looked down, there was nothing to see.
Kurt shook his head in disbelief.
“I don’t understand… why do you want me here?”
“I may be a cruel man but I’m a scientist first and foremost. That means I’m willing to forgive my cruelty. And a scientist needs resources, subjects, and now you’re here, for good. I’ve got you all to myself. There’s so much I want to know about you, Kurt. How is it that you have this gift? What is it within your makeup that allowed you to do what we couldn’t? You’re a puzzle box, and within you are the answers to a million secrets.” He stepped towards Kurt, lifting his fingers again. “Secrets I plan to unlock, and don’t worry, we have an eternity to uncover them.”
Kurt began to cry. Maybe because he was trapped there, in that place that Lazarus had built within the emptiness of the Deadspace. Maybe because he already felt that whatever force held him together was loosening. Being yanked apart as Lazarus threaded himself into the patchwork of Kurt’s soul and plucked. Those elements that made up Kurt – his experiences, memories, dreams – being pulled taut like spider legs in a child’s grip.
Pluck, pluck, pluck …
And why?
How long would it be before Lazarus picked on something that unravelled Kurt from the ground up? He couldn’t even gather how long he’d been there. The concept of time contorting within his assailant’s sharp fingers. Had he been there a minute? An hour? Hell… longer than that?
Amy. I’m sorry.
The name had a honey-sweet taste that brought soothing memories. That name was the reason he came here, to the Deadspace. But all that was a lie. She wasn’t here. All a lie.
Stephen, David, Sabrina … even Lucas.
At one point or another, they had all said or made Kurt feel that he was special.
But it was Lazarus all along. There was nothing special about Kurt. He was just a child. Just a fucking baby.
Kurt screamed as Lazarus’ body flared and smoked. The heat reaching Kurt’s face before Lazarus’ hands did. Every part of him burned as Lazarus’ greedy smile grew. His body screamed for help, his mind trying its best to focus on anything else but the pain. For half a moment he wondered where Lucas might be, whether he and Maddie had yet discovered his body, whether Lucas would ever be able to forgive him for what he’d done. The one person that seemed to have some answers, who would have helped Kurt without a second thought. The only person to see Kurt as a person, and not just the stupid kid he’d proven to be.
And there it was. He squinted past the shimmering wave of heat where something moved behind Lazarus. On the far wall of the cell, a door appeared.
48
Lazarus didn’t notice the door behind him, slowly opening to reveal the shape of Lucas. Kurt tried to shout, but there was no way anything was coming out of his throat now. The smoke weaved and played through his body, feeling like a dry rag pulled through his airways. Was this just a manifestation of his hope? Was Kurt dreaming?
He would’ve said yes, until Lucas seemed to register what was happening and cried, “Kurt!” before swinging a powerful kick at Lazarus’ waist.
Lazarus toppled to the floor, the smoke momentarily releasing its hold on Kurt who took in a lungful of Deadspace air.
Lucas grabbed Kurt’s face in both hands, examining his eyes, supporting his head as it lolled weakly before Kurt crumpled to the floor. “Kurt, what has he done to you? Can you hear me? Kurt?”
There was a sound of a bubbling vat of viscous liquid as Lazarus peeled himself off the floor and chuckled. “Well this is a nice surprise. I was beginning to wonder when I’d see you.”
“Ira,” Lucas stated, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Lucas. How long has it been?”
“Not long enough.” He paused, uncertain. “But… how have you…? How did you…?”
“You killed me, remember?”
“Don’t say that. That’s not it.” For the first time since Kurt had met Lucas, he was surprised to see his confident façade fading. The happy-go-lucky, not a care in the world attitude crumbling to reveal real emotion as Lucas tried to understand and process what he was really seeing. “We never left you for dead. That’s the last thing we – I – would ever do, Ira. We were best friends. We were brothers. But you got greedy, we all saw it. You wanted more and more and more, and I tried to help give it to you.”
“Oh please. Don’t give me that ‘I’m just a victim too’ bullshit. We were never brothers. We were never equals. How could Ira King ever hope to share a pedestal with the great Lucas Dixon, the genius that birthed it all? The brainiac that found a way to delay the inevitable fate of cancer sufferers, stroke victims, and practically every illness on the planet? The papers wouldn’t care about Ira. The media wouldn’t share the light. You created a miracle, and you used us as toys to test its boundaries. I was nothing more than another number on the sheet for you, Lucas. I just happened to be the one stupid enough to let you do it.”
Kurt coughed against the wall, doing his best to stop himself from vomiting. The smoke left a dry taste in his mouth, wood chips and coals burned to embers. He struggled to swallow. Struggled to take it all in.
He looked at Lucas, eyes creased in confusion. “You think I used you?”
“You used everyone. It’s all the reason there can be.”
Lucas flared his nostrils, face contorting in a rage that scared Kurt. “I’m not the one who told you to push the limit. I’m not the one who made you put yourself under in the middle of the night while we all slept. It wasn’t me that did that to you. Me, Sammi, Fred, Ani, Maddie… we were asleep. What the hell did you expect us to do? We were in the middle of the woods, miles and miles from any form of medical care, out in the dark. If it hadn’t been for Freddy’s sleepwalking, who knows when we might have found you.” Lucas took a step forward, his rage dying. “You died, Ira. You became addicted and you killed yourself. There was nothing anyon
e could do about it.”
Kurt looked into Lucas’ eyes and felt his head throb. It was then that he remembered Lucas’ words in Frieda’s house. The tale of the Reviver who had tested the limits of the Deadspace, who became the first among them all to put a number on how much a body can take before it gives up altogether, and the door closes. Kurt imagined them all, a younger Lucas, Maddie and Ira, out in the woods together. Silhouetted pines spiking into the sky, tents large enough to sleep three apiece. A strange man wandering from the zipper and out into the woods, discovering the fallen body of Lazarus… of Ira.
When Kurt opened his eyes he could see it all, as though he were a part of it. It played in slow motion with the forms of ghosts running in panic as each member of the Revivers ran, no clue what to do or where to go as Ira King died in Lucas’ arms. No heartbeat. No rhythm. No breath. Lucas screaming to the sky as Maddie cradled Fred. An Indian woman watching over a tall, blonde woman’s shoulders as she fiddled with a put-together medikit of strange syringes, charts, and wires. It was an awful sight. The whole ordeal making Kurt feel instantly guilty at leaving the Cooper’s house behind mid-attack. Maybe they had encountered something similar to this. One of them could be dead for all he knew. Or all of them? How many people had been affected by the RevitaGo formula?
In the background of it all, he could hear Lucas and Ira talking. Their words heated as blame was cast from side to side. He closed his eyes, focused on them both, and found himself back in the room. The tent, the Cooper’s, everything gone. Now, it was the three of them again. Only, where Lazarus stood, there was now a man Lucas’ age. He wore a long white lab coat from which feathers of smoke swirled up from the hem. He had a neatly shaved goatee, a wide-set mouth, and boyband hair.
“You don’t understand what it’s like down here, Luke. To be trapped day after day. Bound to the Deadspace.”
“It’s impossible. No one can live down here. There has to be a way to bring you back.” Ira looked at Kurt. Lucas drew a breath. “No…”
“He holds the secrets, Luke. Him and a handful of others, I just know it. Please. Work with me. Help me find my way out again.”
Kurt’s heart leapt in his chest. He hated the way that Ira was looking at him, as though he were merely an object to be devoured. Worse still was the way that Lucas’ eyes darted between the two, clearly torn with a decision of what to do. To surrender the boy, or to abandon his former best friend.
With each passing second, the smoke began to rise, pouring out of Ira’s lab coat in waves. Thick, choking smog forcing Kurt to rise to his feet just to reach the cleaner air.
“Well?” Ira said, offering a hand to Lucas. “It’s always been about the advancement of science. Help me. Help resurrect the dead. Help resurrect Lazarus.”
“That’s not what you want though is it? You don’t want life, you want more of this… more of the Deadspace. That’s why you made the bomb.”
Sensing what was coming, Ira exploded in a storm of smoke, doing his best to disappear and distract them both. Kurt was blinded, but seconds later felt the burning hand as it grasped at his face, fingers searching for his eye sockets. The sound of a door opening. Kurt managed to open his eyes just enough to see a fist slamming against the glowing eyes that hovered before him, and then one final boot landing down on Ira’s jaw. The sound of Ira’s teeth hitting the concrete floor was like crunching stone into powder. Kurt reached blindly, hunting through the smoke for Lucas, finding him standing to Kurt’s left, a desperate look in his face as the smoke began to thin.
“You alright, kid?”
Kurt nodded, and then looked back down to Ira. The mess of blood and black still smiling. His broken teeth on display with a big shit-eating grin. A laugh followed. A deep, rattling cackle. He was already beginning to shift again.
The laughing softened, becoming effeminate. No longer the crooked nose or the wide face of Ira but the soft delicate features of Kurt’s sister, broken and beaten beneath Lucas’ boot.
“Amy?”
“Why are you letting him hurt me, Kurt?”
“No… Amy, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t listen to him!”
“Please, Kurt. We made a promise, remember?”
“No…”
“Always be together, when everyone else is gone?”
Kurt brushed Lucas’ hand aside and reached for his sister, grabbing hold of her hair, shoulders, anything, but he was too rough. As he reached for her face his hand passed right through and then to her shoulders. Her form crumbled within his hands, melting away into a pile of black dust, finding its way into the gaps in the floor. What little remains there were dancing gently in the soft breeze.
“No!” Kurt screamed. “Please, no!”
Lucas dropped down and wrapped his hands around Kurt’s shirt. He shook him, screamed in his face. The words were far away, though. The man was far away. What man? Kurt was alone and that was that. Here he would stay. Here was his final resting place.
“It’s not her,” Lucas bellowed, spraying his face in spit. Louder now with fingers prying at his eyes, pulling them open. “It’s not your sister. It’s this… this… demon. It’s always been. Come on, kid, come back. We have to go. We have to get out of here.”
Slowly coming back to the present, Kurt rubbed his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” Kurt said weakly.
Lucas shook his head, confused. “Not now, kid.”
Another scan of the room and they were alone. Ira had disappeared.
Lucas held his hand out again and helped Kurt up to his feet. They stepped towards the door.
“I just… Amy and…” hot tears began to flow down Kurt’s cheeks. “I thought…”
They were alone now. Where Ira was, or how long they had before he returned, neither person knew. Lucas concentrated with Kurt sheltered under his arm and walked towards a door that appeared.
It was as he was reaching for the handle that he stopped. Kurt sobbed into Lucas’ arms, all thoughts on Amy. An overwhelming desire to see her, to at least know that she was okay. Oh, just to see her once more, to have some kind of guiding vision of where she might be.
Kurt felt himself slip from Lucas’ arm and fall to the floor. He was suddenly more tired than he’d felt in a long time, the blackness of the floor taking his vision. Kurt thought of a time when he and Amy were young – Kurt no more than four or five years old. Amy stroking Kurt’s hair with a soft palm as his eyes fluttered to sleep.
“Shhh… Go to sleep my baby… rest your weary head…”
The song his parents used to sing.
Without thinking about it, all focus on Amy’s soft voice as it crooned in Kurt’s ears, he reached out with one balled up fist, and knocked on the floor.
Once.
Twice.
A third.
“That’s three for luck,” Amy smiled, slipping into nothingness.
Kurt smiled, feeling the rush of cool air as something changed around him. He heard Lucas mutter a surprised exclamation.
“Kurt… what have you done?”
Kurt groggily raised his head. Lucas was frozen with hand outstretched towards a door, but they were no longer in the makeshift cell in which Ira had them trapped. They were in the middle of a quiet woods. The monochrome landscape now in full colour. It was night, pine trees spiking the sky. A single tent in the middle of a clearing, the material blowing gently in the wind.
Lucas helped Kurt off the floor and to his feet.
“Where are we?” Kurt asked.
Lucas took slow steps towards the tent, looking around the clearing in stunned awe. He turned back to Kurt and said softly, “Where it all began.”
49
The silence was palpable, broken only by the ticking clock on the wall. All eyes watched the hands tick as one. The little girl who Maddie had called Frieda had her face buried in her hands.
“Try again,” Anita ordered, idly wiping a lock of hair behind her ear.
Sammi obeyed without question,
returning her mouth to Kurt’s, giving several strong puffs until his chest inflated. She shimmied across, locked her fingers and began compressions again. Behind her, Maddie could be heard performing the same operation on Lucas.
Anita watched with eyes sparkling with tears. Behind her Miguel had fallen asleep on his chair, a recently filled vomit bowl laying at the floor by his feet to expel the tainted water. The tension was so thick you could feel it.
Somewhere outside they could just about make out the sounds of ferals screeching, followed by intermittent gunshots, but no one paid it any attention.
“How long has it been?” Sammi gasped.
Anita watched the clock. “Nineteen minutes. Jesus… Is there anything else we can do?”
Stan shrugged, clearly unsure of what he could do. Sammi watched the screen, waiting for any sign at all of movement. Of something. Of the green line to show some kind of activity so that she could pronounce them as living.
“What if we… what if we… eurgh!” Anita growled, grabbing an outdated looking piece of machinery and throwing it across the room. Sammi lowered her eyes, Stan and Maddie looked away.
Miguel awoke with a start. “What the hell?”
Anita rounded on him, opening her mouth to launch a volley of emotion-fuelled words. Before she could start, they heard a beep. Short, but distinct. Anita whipped around and saw Stan clicking a button on his watch. He seemed to realise what Anita had thought. “Sorry. On the hour every hour.”
They carried on in silence. Repeating the same pattern. A check of the machines, a puff of breath, several chest compressions. It was all they could do. The blue was in Lucas and Kurt’s system, they were certain of that. Yet there had been no sign of movement. No breath, no heartbeat, not even so much as the smallest recognition of brainwave activity on the monitor.
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