Jack O'Connell - The Resurrectionist

“You’ve got to go,” she was saying, a panic in her voice that made her sound like a teenager. “It’s Daddy.”

She shoved him off and stood up, began straightening her clothing and hunting down her shoes. He looked around the room, helpless, infected by Alice’s alarm. She was hopping on one foot, storklike, an arm behind her trying to jam toes into a shoe.

“Up to the study,” she said, trying to yell through a whisper. “Leave the way we came in.”

He ran for the stairs and on the second landing heard the front door open. Then he stopped running and walked, small steps, balls of his feet, to Dr. Peck’s study. He let himself in and moved for the opposite door that led back to the Clinic. But before he stepped into the hallway, he took another look at the portrait of the doctor’s wife, then helped himself to a copy of the doctor’s book.

He closed the door to the study and looked out on the long, narrow corridor stretching in front of him. In that instant, the booze coupled with his exhaustion, and the hall began to tilt and expand. Sweeney placed a hand against the wall to steady himself. And as he did, the doctor’s text fell open and the comic book pressed inside dropped to the floor.

Going down on one knee, he picked up the comic and stared at its cover, which featured the strongman, Bruno Seboldt, lying on a patch of straw and dirt, in a vast puddle of his own scarlet blood. The issue was in pristine condition, as if it had never been read. Used only, perhaps, as a place marker in the fat medical tome.

The surprise of finding the comic inside Dr. Peck’s book gave way almost immediately to that reflexive fear, that compulsive desire to check in on Danny. As if the discovery of the comic were an omen. Sweeney stood up slowly and placed the issue back where he had found it, tucked the text under his arm and hurried down the corridor. And, in seconds, he was lost.

The route that Alice had taken from hospital to residence had been relatively short and direct, and Sweeney was certain that he had retraced it correctly. But at some point, he’d gotten himself turned around and ended up in a dim and narrow passage that dead-ended in an eaves that was crowded with dusty file boxes. He reversed direction and tried to work his way back to familiar ground. In minutes, he was completely disoriented and fighting a small panic.

And just when he was beginning to consider heading back to the Peck home, he found what he knew was the correct hallway and jogged to the door at its end. He pulled it open to find Romeo, the janitor, standing like a statue, his hands tight around a mop handle and a smile on his face as if he’d been expecting Sweeney.

“You out exploring again?” Romeo asked.

Sweeney stared at him for a second and then ran past him, sprinting all the way to Danny’s room.

He found his son in his bed, clean and warm and safe. Sweeney sat down on the ward’s empty middle bed and tried to breathe normally and stop his hands from shaking. After a time, as if it were the only way to calm himself, he pulled the issue of Limbo from Dr. Peck’s book, lay back, and began to read.

The chicken boy waited in the corridor of the county clinic, a blanket wrapped around his blood-soaked feathers. Nothing, however, covered the protruding beak, and the few doctors and nurses and aides who passed by couldn’t hide their shock and revulsion.

It was hours before the surgeon came. He was a tall, stout man who did not offer his name. He had the bearing of a sadistic policeman, though he was still dressed in yellow surgical garb that was stained about the midsection.

“You’re the one who came in with him,” the surgeon said.

Chick roused himself and let the blanket slip to the chair as he stood and nodded.

“You’re both with the Jubilee, I take it?”

Another nod.

“I ask,” said the surgeon, “because I’ve never seen you before.”

“How is my friend?” Chick asked.

“He lost a considerable amount of blood,” the surgeon said. “I’m afraid I had to amputate the arm.”

Chick again nodded his understanding.

“He’s stable,” the surgeon continued. “You can go in and see him in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” Chick said.

“Don’t thank me,” the surgeon said. “It only makes this more difficult.”

“Makes what more difficult?” Chick asked.

“Normally,” putting his hands on the small of his back and stretching, “a procedure like this, I’d like to keep the patient under my care and supervision for several days, perhaps a week.”

“Normally,” Chick repeated.

“But it’s my understanding that this man is indigent.”

Chick stared, unsure of what to say.

“Is that correct?” the surgeon asked. “He has no papers? No money? No insurance?”

“It looks that way,” Chick said.

“Well, if that’s the case—” the surgeon began but Chick interrupted immediately.

“I understand what you’re saying. As soon as he’s ready to travel, I’ll take him with me.”

IT WAS CLOSEto dawn when Bruno came awake. Chick was in the chair next to the strongman’s bed, just coming out of a mild seizure. He wiped the bile from his beak and opened his eyes to see the patriarch staring at him, a slack anesthesia-cast to his huge face.

“You knew it would happen,” Bruno said in a dry voice. “You knew they’d take my arm.”

Chick shook his head, got up, and sat on the edge of the bed.

“You’re going to be fine,” he said. “You lost a lot of blood. But the doctor says you’ll be okay.”

“I’m going to be fine?” Bruno said.

Chick put a hand on the giant’s chest.

“Let me ask you,” Bruno said. “Have you ever known a strongman with only one arm?”

“I can’t think of any,” said Chick. “Which is why you’ll be all the more unique.”

Bruno bit down on his bottom lip and squinted. He drew a hitching breath, focused on the water-stained ceiling and said, “Don’t patronize me, boy.”

“Look at me,” Chick said and waited.

After a few seconds, Bruno met his eyes.

“Would I patronize anyone?” Chick asked evenly.

“My life has been ruined,” Bruno said, “since I took up with you and your tribe.”

“I’m sorry,” Chick said. “I’m honestly sorry for everything that’s gone wrong. But understand something, Bruno. Every choice you’ve made has been your own. I know that’s not what you want to hear right now. And trust me when I tell you that it’s not what I want to say to you. But it’s the truth. You chose to come warn us back in Odradek. You chose to deliver us from McGee. You chose to come to Gehenna with us and you chose to save us from drowning.”

“So I’m a fool,” Bruno said, his voice thick with drugs and exhaustion and despair. “And now, I’m a one-armed fool.”

“Now,” Chick said, “you’re one of us.”

Bruno tried to lift his head from his pillow.

“I don’t want to be a freak,” he said.

“You’ll find,” Chick said, “that it has its advantages.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Bruno said, “when I’m working as a gazonie for the bottom-feeders.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a gazonie,” Chick said. “But you’re not made for a shovel and a broom. Not anymore, anyway. You’re one of us now, Bruno. You’re a freak. And one thing that every freak knows — better than the average person — is that life will throw catastrophe into your path. Not conflicts. Not challenges. Out and out catastrophes. And it’s during those catastrophic moments, when we’re at our most terrified and grief-stricken and enraged, that anyone can turn into a real monster. We all trip over catastrophe, Bruno. But some people turn into monsters and some don’t. And maybe that has more to do with luck than anything else. But I doubt it. I think it has to do with the people around us. I think if anything keeps us from turning into monsters, it’s the people we travel with. So you have to take real care when you choose your friends. And it seems to me, in this one area, you’ve chosen well. Most of us are good people.”