The Human-Undead War Trilogy (Book 1): Dark Intentions (36 page)

Chapter 43

The steps creaked as much as his joints. John shook from head to toe, though it was as much from anticipation as from fear. Death was finally approaching. It delighted him, to be rid of his accursed captor. To be free of living and everything it entailed.  

And yet he was also afraid. It was one of the many great unanswered questions of mankind: What did it feel like to die? Would he cease to think, to breathe, to move, drifting off into a never-ending sleep? Would he have one final thought and then nothingness? Would it be painful or peaceful? 

Would he go on into an afterlife? John wasn’t sure what he believed. He’d forsaken any type of structured religion long ago. If there was a Heaven and a Hell, he wasn’t sure where he would wind up. 

He just hoped Catherine would be there waiting for him. 

He eased a leg over the glass box Brian had fashioned. Brian stated it was supposed to be for observation purposes, but John thought it more a glass coffin than an observation tank. He lost his balance. A soft hand reached up and pushed against his back to steady him. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Ruby.  

So much like Catherine
. 

He slipped the other leg into the glass coffin. Coldness stole the warmth from the soles of his feet. Wearing only his robe to his funeral had not been a brilliant idea.  

“Everything’s ready to go.” Brian bit at his lip, arms crossed over his chest. He hadn’t spoken since John had returned for the experiment.  

John felt a weight lift off of him. These two, they cared. They were concerned that their theories regarding the experiment could be wrong. They were concerned that they were putting an old man to death and unrightfully so.  

They cared. About him. About the man who had tried to kill them. 

Tears welled up. He sank into a sitting position inside the glass coffin. Avoiding Brian’s and Ruby’s gazes, he surveyed his final resting place. Several pieces of tubing jutted through a rubber-stopped hole in the center of the glass panel on his left. Without sliding further down, he guessed the tubes were low enough to connect to his arm. Uniform holes the size of nickels were spaced around the top, inches from the edges, and all covered with a foamy film of paper. Brian had stated there was no way to determine if he would continue to live during the bonding process. The breathing holes were precautionary measures. 

John peered through the glass at Brian and Ruby. She held tight to Brian’s arm. John smiled and slid until he was lying down. 

Brian leaned over the glass above him, needles in hand. “Are you certain you’re ready for this?” 

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” John muttered.  

Was he ready? Was he prepared to face whatever Death had to bring his way? Was he satisfied with his life, with the choices he’d made? He’d always known it would boil down to this moment of reflection. He’d always wondered if that was the secret of life.  

Brian reached over the glass panels and injected one of the needles into John’s arm.  

No, he wasn’t happy with the choices he’d made. He had defended himself when his friends had died. He had attempted to stand up to Barnaby. He had tried to avenge Catherine, albeit by misdirecting his anger toward those who would outshine him in Barnaby’s eyes. He had informed his newest friends of his recent frame of mind. He had confessed his sins. 

But he’d neglected something through it all: The fate of the world. 

His breathing quickened. Was it his place to inform Brian of Barnaby’s true intentions?  

“Good-bye, John,” Brian stated quietly. Ruby gripped Brian’s arm tighter, tears streaming down her face. 

Yes. It was his rightful place to inform them. It was his right to stop the hands of Destiny from coming full circle. It would be his final legacy.  

He cleared his throat. “Brian, I—” 

“No need for any further apologies, John,” Brian interrupted. “Just lie down. I promise this will be over quickly.” 

John gulped, fighting more tears. He smiled at Brian’s parent-like chiding. Not condescending, yet authoritative. He obliged, sank down, and crossed his hands over his chest, mindful of the needle sticking out of his arm. The lights overhead became his focal point. He blinked rapidly and flared his nostrils to keep from hyperventilating.  

Brian then levitated and reached into the glass coffin. He moved in a blur, drowning out the luminescent lighting. Before John had inhaled and exhaled twice, Brian disappeared from above. John glanced at his arm. A second needle was inserted, with tubes connected to both needles. One tube ran out of the glass tank and into a dialysis machine. Another tube ran back into the glass tank and disappeared between his fingers.  

He flexed his left arm and his fingers squeezed against something soft, spongy, wet. A mushroom. He looked closer. A mushroom covered in blood. A third, thinner tube connected to a needle had been inserted into the fleshy stem of the mushroom. John glanced out of the glass panel on his left and gulped as Brian paced to the machine. The scientist punched some buttons and it whirred to life. The chimpanzees banged on their glass walls. The wolves howled, their forlorn and sobering sounds muffled by their confinement.  

Brian was then again beside the glass tank. He punched a button near the rickety portable stairs John had used to enter his coffin. A silent metallic panel began to slide across the top of the tank above John’s feet. 

His heartbeat was so loud he could no longer hear the animals. An overbearing earthy aroma strangled him. His sweat had dampened his unwashed cloak.  

The anticipation of dying dissipated. He couldn’t breathe. The metallic lid was above his knees. He still had time. Should he tell him? Should he tell Brian the truth? 

The lid was above his waist. John, in his state of panic, reached across his body with his right arm and pressed his palm to the panel near the rubber stopper. Trembling, he peered out into the room. Why was the fear so overwhelming? Death was what he wanted. Sweet revenge was what he wanted. Seeing Catherine again was what he wanted. 

Brian and Ruby stepped forth, their faces inches from the glass casing. They pressed their palms to the glass in return.  

The metallic lid was almost above his chest. John felt an uncomfortable jolt in his left arm. He diverted his attention. Blood filled the outgoing tube, pumping in short, slow bursts as it passed out through the rubber stopper toward the dialysis machine. He looked upward again. The panel was directly above his chest. 

John moved his right hand away from the side panel and placed it onto the moving metallic lid. He tried to raise his left hand, but the tubing length was limited and disallowed such movement. Tears streamed down his cheeks. 
I have to tell him!
 

Brian rested his hand on top of the lid, his face void of expression.  

A lone tear trailed into his mouth, and John lapped at it, moistening his dry tongue and throat. With a sudden burst of adrenaline, he thrust his right arm out of the remaining open space above him and locked his fingers upon Brian’ wrist. Using the leverage, he pulled his head and left shoulder up. 

The lid kept advancing and he couldn’t get his head out of the space. He spoke in a whisper, knowing Brian would hear him. 

He said what he could and nestled back into a resting position, hoping he had changed the course of the future, that he had saved Brian and Ruby and stopped Barnaby’s plan to rule the world with that simple confession. 

The lid blocked out the bright overhead lights. Then there was a soft thud. The lid closed. He peered at the dialysis machine. Blood returned to the glass coffin quicker than it was being drained from him. 

Seconds ticked by. During those seconds, he thought about his lifetime. 

And he suddenly didn’t regret a thing. 

A warmth manifested in the palm of his left hand. He closed his eyes, no longer fighting back the tears. The warmth shot up the length of his arm, into his neck. It spread to every last cell of his body, even warming the frigid soles of his feet. 

It was comforting. Like being whole again. Like being with Catherine and the children and grandchildren again. 

Like he was home. 

His breathing slowed. Every muscle in his body relaxed, and then he was floating. 

***

John stopped struggling. Brian willed his vision to infrared, and then sighed in relief. There was still concentrated activity in John’s body, still blood flowing throughout, still blotches of energy in his brain.  

Had it been painful? John had certainly acted as if in pain, at least until the very end. 

Ruby shuddered beside him. He turned and wrapped his arms around her, caressing her head. The sweet rose smell of her shampoo overwhelmed his senses. Her sobbing decreased as she hugged him back, then died out altogether. 

Brian stopped comforting her and approached the dialysis machine. The machine was working, drawing in blood from John’s body, filtering it, siphoning off a few milliliters of the waste to feed into the Morel mushroom, recycling the filtered blood back into John. 

He turned and stepped to the observation tank. The old man appeared to be sleeping. Still breathing. A smile upon his face. Brian frowned, peering at the mushroom held aloft in John’s hand. 

Nothing. The blood running from the dialysis machine was pumping into it. But the mushroom appeared normal. No veins.  

Nothing. 

Why wasn’t it working? Was there another factor present that he was overlooking? Was the final catalyst something else entirely?  

He recalled John’s final words: “
Magic exists. It is part of you. It’s what Barnaby craves. Father Stephenson can reveal everything.” 
He’d thought they were just the ramblings of a man on his deathbed, but he wondered if it were factual. If it were true, then Brian contained magic. Or was made of magic, or something along those lines. 

And the vampire blood coating the mushroom might contain magic as well.  

It didn’t seem possible, but there were too many instances of late where magic had been indicated as existing. It could explain away the Undead’s unexplainable powers, the strange electricity which coursed over his body when he was angered, the bonding between the Morel mushroom and the host.  

He pushed the thoughts away. It was too much to ruminate over at the moment. Magic couldn’t be the only reason his platelet mushroom worked. It couldn’t. 

He stared at the mushroom. Suddenly a vein sprouted atop the cap. Then another. And another. It pulsated in John’s limp hand, doubling in size in mere milliseconds. The speed of blood pumping into it quickened. Veins multiplied. Several shot out of the stem and attached to John’s arm. They burrowed into the skin like arrows shot from a bow, then began to pulsate. 

Ruby stepped forward and pressed her face to the glass tank. “Wow,” she whispered. “It’s gorgeous, Brian.” 

He stifled laughter. It was actually quite grotesque in appearance. But he did share in her affinity in seeing the platelet mushroom finally spring to life. All the years. All the research. The negotiations. The inner angst. The arguments. The money, the technology, the searching, the failed experiments, the mental turmoil. 

All of it hadn’t been for naught. 

He reached into his pocket. Unwilling to take his eyes away from the budding platelet, he took the cap off the syringe. He shoved his arm into the rubber stopper and inserted the needle into a vein on the cap of the platelet. With one hand, he moved the plunger of the syringe up, filling it with several milliliters of rich red liquid. Careful not to break the needle on exit, he slipped his hand back out of the tank.  

He brought the needle to his face and squirted the blood onto his lips, then licked at it and dabbed his tongue against the palate of his mouth. He closed his eyes and savored the flavor. Salty, a twinge of copper.  

Pure, unadulterated human blood. No doubt about it. 

Silently, he and Ruby stood, looking upon the mushroom and John’s limp body. After ten minutes, the old man’s face was no longer flushed, and his smile was flaccid. Eyeballs no longer twitched beneath the eyelids, either. Against growing fear of what he would discover, Brian willed his sight to infrared. Blood still flowed out from the heart and to the main arteries. 

But there was no activity elsewhere. 

His shoulders drooped. One look from Ruby and her frown deepened. 

He closed his eyes and offered a prayer, for what it was worth.  

Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter.  

His eyelids flew open. His body filled with the familiar warmth. Electricity spit from his eyes. 

Barnaby was home. 

***

John Ashmore steps out of the taxi, relieved yet weary, glad to be rid of the demons that have plagued him for nearly a decade. He walks past the white picket fence, through the dewy grass, floating, ethereal. He’s happy to finally be home, though his soul is weathered and battered. Light filters through into this place—
place
 was all he could think of to call it—a brilliant mixture of pink and purple and a warming white. There is utter silence, no calamity, no fears or doubts nagging at his mind.