Jack O'Connell - The Resurrectionist

Taber received a smattering of applause but his shtick was fairly anticlimactic. He and Cole went through a pantomime of a physical exam, listening for a heartbeat, taking a pulse, checking ears, nose, and throat for normalcy.

When it was over, Taber faced the audience and proclaimed, “I find this man, Lazarus Cole, to be animate, healthy, and entirely alive.”

This set off a new burst of applause and cheering and triggered the show’s finale. The house lights came up, confetti descended, the band struck up the Bedlam Brothers anthem and the closing parade got under way, led this time by both Renaldo St. Clare and Lazarus Cole, joined arm in arm, high-stepping out of the big top, waving to an exultant crowd that had been remade into a vibrant and unified people by the ritual they had shared.

Milena was the first freak to speak. Over the ovation, she said, “Quite a trick, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t at all clear to whom s/he was speaking, but it was Nadja who answered. “I’ve never seen anything like it. He wasn’t under there all week, was he?”

“Of course not,” snapped the one-armed strongman. “It’s an illusion. That’s what magic is. It’s nothing but another trick.”

“But how—” began Vasco, before Bruno cut him off.

“I don’t know how,” he said. “How the hell would I? I’m not a magician.”

“But we saw him pummeled,” said Milena. “It sure looked to me like they beat him to death.”

“There isn’t a scratch on him,” Marcel pointed out. “Not a single bruise.”

“I’m sure there’s a tunnel under the midway,” said Aziz. “Isn’t that right, Chick?”

There was no answer, and when they all looked to the chicken boy, he was on the ground, twitching and drooling.

Kitty went to him at once, but before she could manage to position his head in her lap, he was already coming out of the seizure.

“That was a short one,” Milena observed.

“Bruno,” Chick said, fighting off Kitty’s attempts to calm him.

“What is it?” asked the strongman.

“The money and the truck,” Chick croaked, choking on bile and fighting for air. “We have to leave now.”

Bruno looked from Chick to Kitty, who raised her eyebrows to indicate her confusion.

“Now, Bruno,” Chick tried to yell. “We have to go.”

The strongman put a hand over the massive dressing taped from his shoulder to his ribs. Then he ran from beneath the grandstand.

THE BROTHERS,to their credit, did not attempt to cheat Bruno and his freaks. St. Clare had an envelope waiting, filled with cash and the keys to a semi that had been used to transport several of the elephants.

The ringmaster attempted to convince Bruno and the clan to stay for the wrap party, but seeing the strongman’s urgency, he didn’t try very hard.

Bruno found the truck, managed to get it going and pulled across the fairgrounds to the camptown where the freaks were waiting for him. He left the engine idling and ran around the back to unlatch the truck’s gate.

The clan filed into the cargo box silently, most aware that something was wrong but afraid to ask anyone for details. Even Milena remained quiet despite the stench of elephant dung rising up from the floorboards.

Chick was the last to get on board, but before he could, Bruno secured the gate and put his last hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“You’re riding up front with me,” Bruno said.

Chick didn’t argue. He moved to the cab and climbed up to the passenger seat. Bruno joined him on the driver’s side, slipped the vehicle into gear and steered for the county road.

After a few moments, the strongman handed the envelope across the seat to Chick, who took it and began to count the currency within.

When he was done, Bruno asked, “What was it? What did he tell you?”

Chick sighed and made a terrible sucking noise inside the beak.

“It’s the Resurrectionist,” he said.

“Cole?”

“He belongs to Fliess,” Chick said. “He was waiting to grab us. As soon as the crowd was gone.”

“How does he know?” Bruno asked and when Chick failed to answer, he turned his head to look at the boy. “How does Fliess know where we are?”

They had rolled onto the two-laner now and were picking up speed. Chick looked at Bruno, matched his stare for just a second, then looked back to the road and screamed. Bruno brought his eyes forward just in time to see Dr. Lazarus Cole standing in the middle of the road, pointing straight ahead at them. He was lit up by the truck’s high beams and both driver and passenger could see the horrible, furious expression on his face.

And then they hit him. The body was sent sailing, bouncing off the hood and pinwheeling into the dark field to their left. The noise was loud and blunt. A starburst of blood covered part of the windshield.

Bruno hesitated only a second before turning on the wipers and simultaneously pressing down on the accelerator. And Chick didn’t say a word.

At some point while reading, Sweeney fell into a heavy sleep. And sometime after that, he came awake, slowly and partially, into what he thought, for just an instant, was a dream. But when he opened his eyes, he saw a figure perched above him, sitting on top of him with its head thrown back so far that he couldn’t see a face. He was still out of breath and he could feel his heart racing. He blinked and tried to sit up and the figure came forward and its arms pushed him down and he was too weak to fight. In that moment, sinking back into the bed, he realized he was fucking someone. That he’d been fucking someone for some time and that he was about to come. And the brain shut down and his buttocks and thighs tightened and he drove upward. And the person on top of him responded perfectly, speeded up the pace of her own rocking, began to gallop, short, hard slaps down onto his cock, her own noises increasing. In the midst of it, she drew one arm up to her throat and then used a hand to push her mane back behind an ear. And in the orange light, he saw that it was Nadia Rey.

She looked down at him, understood that he was fully awake and that he knew what was happening and who it was happening with. He put a hand on either side of her waist and adjusted their rhythm. They were grinding up against each other now. He could see the sweat on her forehead and cheeks. She was wearing her nurse’s uniform, the skirt hiked up. She sat back for a second, rested her ass on his legs, and he heard her take a deep breath. And then she came forward again, put her hands on his shoulders, pinning him against the bed. She began to ride him faster and her mouth formed itself into an oval and she looked as if she could blow a smoke ring. Her nails went into his shoulders. He bore upward, felt her tighten, and saw her start to shake her head in little seizurelike motions.

He began to pump as fast as he could. Within seconds she came and reared up and back and then crumpled down on top of him. When he felt her full weight on his chest, felt her hair against his mouth, he let himself go and bit down on his bottom lip to keep from crying out.

The intensity ran to the edge of catastrophic. He felt as if his body would collapse through the mattress and the steel frame, fall through the whole of the bed to the floor below and fall through the floor into the basement, into the bed in his apartment and then through that bed as well and into the dirt and rock of this mistake of a city. And then he fell back into a dreamless sleep.

He was out for at least as long as it took for the drool around his mouth and the jism on his legs to dry. He was woken by a tap — and then a slap across his cheek. He reached up before his eyes opened, still stupid with sleep, and touched Nadia’s face and felt the stubble of a new beard. This brought him to full consciousness at once and his head jerked off the pillow and his eyes opened. And he looked up at Buzz Cote, who was grinning and nodding and biting in on both of his lips. He pinched Sweeney’s cheek until it bruised but his voice was low and excited when he said, “Well, we’re brothers now, kimosabe.”