Jack O'Connell - The Resurrectionist

When the Sheep parked, Sweeney sat loose and limp and not quite there. His sensory equipment was working — he saw the Abominations tinkering with a bike, heard their calls from the dock. He smelled oil and beer. Could still feel the shift in weight as the Sheep dismounted. These sensations were registering but without any significance. Their meaning, the ability of their input to shape his reality, had been lost in the moment of the Sheep’s embrace.

Sweeney sat on the back of the bike and waited for nothing in particular, knowing that he could wait until his bones turned to ash.

And it was as if the Abominations sensed this, because after a moment of the usual celebratory uproar upon the Sheep’s arrival, they fell quiet and uneasy. Sweeney heard saliva being gulped over the hump in someone’s throat. He heard boots shuffle on gravel and slow flies circling someone’s beard.

Then Buzz appeared out on the loading apron and looked down on the Sheep and on Sweeney.

“Knew you’d come,” he said.

Sweeney shrugged and said, “Did I have a choice?”

Buzz shook his head.

When Sweeney didn’t get off the bike, Buzz gestured to the Fluke and the Elephant, who lifted him by the arms and dragged him across the yard and up the stairs to the dock. They propped him up in front of Buzz, who looked disappointed.

“You gonna be a dick about this?” he asked.

“I’m not going to be anything at all,” Sweeney said.

Buzz took a deep breath. Sweeney watched the chest fill.

“Shit, son,” Buzz said, “don’t make me bring the bad Buzz out again. Can’t you just believe I’m here to help you?”

“I can’t believe,” Sweeney said, “anything at all.”

The Sheep joined them. Buzz kept his eyes on Sweeney but spoke to the chemist.

“How about you?” he asked. “How’d things go in the cave?”

“I got what I needed,” the Sheep said.

But the comment didn’t seem to bring Buzz much pleasure. He nodded for a few seconds, then said, “So how long you figure this should take?”

The Sheep looked at the two men, then down to his boots.

“If Sweeney helps me—” he began and Buzz said, “Sweeney’ll help.”

“Then we’ll be ready before you know it.”

Another nod, then Buzz said, “You go ahead. I’ll send him up in a minute.”

The Sheep hesitated, but only for a second. He moved to go inside the factory, stopped, turned back to say something, then changed his mind again, and went through the loading bay.

“Nadia misses you,” Buzz said.

Sweeney asked, “Is Danny inside?”

“Danny’s back at the Clinic,” Buzz said. “Safe and sound. Under warm blankets.”

Buzz expected an expression of relief or at least confusion. But the druggist looked as if he’d been spiked with an assful of Thorazine. Maybe given a little electroshock for good measure. The face was slack. Boredlooking. The body was loose, as if a knee to the groin would bring nothing but a dull, slow slump. The guy looked as if he could be deposited on a free bed at the Peck and no one would notice for a week. What the fuck had the Sheep said to him?

“You hear me?” Buzz said, a little louder and faster than he’d intended. “I said your kid was okay.”

“I heard you fine,” Sweeney said.

Buzz leaned into him, dropped his voice. “What the fuck’s the matter with you? You want some food or something?”

“I don’t want anything,” Sweeney said.

Buzz turned to the Fluke and said, “Get him a drink. Then take him up to the Sheep.”

“I don’t want a drink,” Sweeney said, but Buzz had already turned away.

The Fluke took Sweeney by the arm and led him inside the mill. There were a couple of Abominations lounging in the lunchroom, drinking and reading back issues of Limbo. They looked over to see the Fluke throw a thumb over his shoulder, then they grabbed their bottles and left the building.

“You don’t want a beer or nothin’?” the Fluke asked and Sweeney shook his head. They exited the cafeteria, found their way to a wide, steep stairwell and climbed to an upper floor. There was only emergency lighting at that level, and it reminded Sweeney of the basement of the Peck. The Fluke led the way down a corridor and came to a stop at a door that featured some fading words stenciled on its opaque glass window — RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT.

Sweeney followed the biker inside and found what looked like a large high school laboratory from the middle of the last century. The room was lit by dozens of candles and a handful of lanterns, which created a competition of shadows. Everything seemed covered in layers of grainy brick dust. In the corner, a portion of the plaster ceiling hung down like a great gray tongue streaked with fat veins of brown water stain.

The center of the room was lined with long, slablike tables, some fitted with marble tops, others with an odd green laminate. The tables were covered with lab equipment — test tubes and vials, beakers and graduated cylinders, Bunsen burners and a centrifuge, and a coffee mug that held various syringes and thermometers. A lot of nontraditional equipment was also scattered around — a Waring blender, a car battery, and some jumper cables. Lots of coiled wire, a wooden toolbox overflowing with pliers and screwdrivers. Wire coat hangers, plastic milk cartons, smoked glass jugs that Sweeney recognized from the pharmacy. An acetylene torch and a hot plate and several barbecue tongs and a white plastic egg timer. Underneath the tables were dozens of empty beer cases and an orange crate or two. It looked like a yard sale for chem majors.

Sweeney heard a toilet flush and the Sheep came out of an adjacent room, wearing plastic goggles and buckling his belt as he walked. A rolled-up comic book protruded from the back pocket of his jeans. Sweeney looked away before he could read the title. The Fluke shook his head and said, “Have fun, ladies,” laughing as he left the room.

The Sheep moved to the tables, squatted and rummaged through boxes until he found two vinyl bib aprons. He threw one to Sweeney and slipped the other over his head.

“You have any coffee recently?” he asked.

Sweeney shook his head.

“Well,” said the Sheep, “we’ll call down for some later. I can’t give you any speed, sorry to say. But you’ll be needin’ some caffeine.”

He pulled some latex gloves from beneath a spool of copper wire and began to work his hands into them.

“I think there’s another pair down there,” he said but Sweeney didn’t move.

The Sheep didn’t seem too upset by this.

“It’s your skin,” he said and began to clear some space on the table before him. “Could you at least find us some decent music?”

There was an old Grundig on the floor.

“I’d love some Ethel Waters, but put on whatever you want,” the Sheep said. “No one’s allowed inside the mill while I’m working. And Buzz backs me up on that.”

Sweeney walked around the tables, got down on one knee, switched on the radio, and began to spin the tuner. He slid through static and talk and came to a stop at “Shame on the World.”

“Now that,” the Sheep said, “surprises me. I woulda figured you for an arena rock kind of guy. Real meat and potatoes, you know?”

Sweeney sat down on a metal stool and watched the Sheep prepare his workspace. There was a methodical ease to the guy, a comfort level among the equipment and the solutions that he’d never find with people. It was that lab rat sensibility, that chronic desire to live in the midst of a process. In the heart of something quantifiable and repeatable.

The Sheep felt himself being watched, but didn’t seem to mind. He’d run a garden hose out of the bathroom tap and was filling a couple of beakers.