Work Text:
Long, spindly fingers fill the syringe with his– our panacea, casting a spectral green glow over each digit. His hands remind me of small fluttery ghosts performing a ritual they’ve done countless times before. They’re pale like phantoms too, and freckle-free, as if they’ve never been touched by the sun. Something that only comes out at night.
The ghosts move in desperate, erratic arcs as they prepare the freshly dead corpse for reanimation, contrasting their typical well-calculated demeanor. You’d have to really know the man attached to the ghosts to notice– but they’re trembling ever so slightly. You’d have to unintentionally stare for longer than appropriate at the sacred ritual one too many times to know why the man is shaking. He isn’t agitated about the previous failed reanimation, nor nervous about the outcome of this one, but excited, as if this is his first time breathing life into the dead. It certainly isn’t.
The air hangs hot and stiff, the oppressive humidity buzzing with the all too familiar smell of death. The stench permeates our makeshift lab, which is somehow even more haphazardly constructed than the one back home. A pathetic excuse for a medic tent, with bed sheets for walls and the earth itself for flooring. It’s located at the very end of a line of similarly disheveled tents, the thirteenth in the row. I like to pretend that the coincidental unlucky number is the reason rumors spread throughout the camp about our tent, but I know that isn’t the case. Being sent to Tent Thirteen is a sentence worse than death.
Herbert holds the cadaver’s head up with his freshly gloved right hand, and meticulously positions the syringe’s needle into the back of its neck, staining latex crimson. They never do survive head wounds, do they? His left thumb slowly pushes the plunger down towards the body, injecting it with the fluorescent green liquid. I idly remember the old wives’ tale that left-handedness is the work of the Devil. Herbert would disagree. Not only with the “moronic drivel” of superstition, but with the comparison of him and the Devil. No, Herbert sees himself as nothing less than God. More so playing God, in my mind. And God– well, God is playing me.
I still don’t know why I agreed to come here. Herbert wanted an endless supply of fresh test subjects– I wanted to get the hell out of Arkham. The quaint, charming town in the middle of nowhere Massachusetts was slowly suffocating me, and it had too many ghosts. So naturally I fled to war-torn Peru to start work as a medic, taking one of the said ghosts with me. I like to joke with Herbert that we’re honeymooning here. He doesn’t share my sense of humor.
Three seconds.
It’s always my job to count. I am the assistant and he is the god, after all.
Five seconds.
No matter how many times we do this, I still hold my breath without fail.
Seven seconds.
I notice that I am still not breathing. I exhale, yet I don’t let myself relax.
Ten seconds.
The agonized moans of soldiers refusing to give up the ghost soothe me in a way. Anything’s better than the howls of the undead.
Fifteen seconds.
Herbert would just shove the ghost right back down their throats whether they wanted it or not. I have begun to dread their deaths, no longer due to the tragedy but due to what must follow. This makes me feel dirty. Stained.
Twenty-five seconds.
Me and Herbert both know that at thirty seconds the experiment is practically a bust. I’ve decided that I’d prefer another failure over the howls.
Thirty seconds.
Nothing. Not even a twitch. The dead sleep, if only for tonight. I imagine a scoreboard flashing neon numbers above Herbert’s head, the type I used to see at Red Sox games with the few guys I could stand from my frat.
God: One
Herbert West (Self Proclaimed Deity): Zero
I wonder how they’re doing now. It’s hard to keep in touch with old friends, a doctor’s work is never done. Neither is a scientist’s. Herbert doesn’t like me seeing them anyway. He says it distracts me from the work. But again, I know Herbert. I know the way he looks at me. They distract me from him. Jealousy is a nasty thing, a “fruit of the flesh.” Yes, Herbert is no god.
Herbert carefully peels off his surgical gloves, of course using the proper technique. The “beaking method” its called. He’s ridiculous. We’re in the middle of a civil war goddamnit, no one gives a shit how you take off a pair of gloves. I can no longer tell where the blood and grime end and I begin. The gloves are nothing but decoration at this point.
There’s this thing called permadirt, it often happens to people on those back-to-nature survival shows. No matter how much you clean yourself, or how hard you scrub, the dirt remains. I wonder if this has happened to me– if I am forever stained.
“Herb…” I start.
“Herbert. Thank you.”
So this is how he’s going to be. How lovely.
“Herbert– how about a break?”
Herbert is standing over the body with his hands behind his back, they’re quiet now, no longer flittering with the thrill of the unknown. His head is hung, mourning his failure. Not the man’s life– his failure. Our failure.
“I’m fine, Danny.” I can’t tell whether he’s mocking the “Herb” incident or if I truly am Danny to him now. I was Danny to Meg. Meg’s not here now though, her memory haunts unremarkable suburban streets. Herbert is here. Intermingling perfectly with the blood-stained jungle. Herbert may be a ghost, but he is no memory.
“You reek,” I reek too, “There’s apparently a stream not too far from here, one of the nurses mentioned it. We can–“
“That won’t be necessary, Daniel,” And just like that, I’m no longer Danny. Back to square one.
“C’mon Herbert real, fresh, water– we can’t pass this up! I’m so tired of bathing with fucking– moist towelettes like I’m bedridden or some shit!”
Herbert attempts a pitying glance my way, but it comes off as more of a pout. It’s never a concern of his how I feel so I try an angle he invariably cares about.
“It’s honestly distracting me from the work and–“
Hook, line, and sinker.
“Fine. Take me to this mystical oasis of yours.”
The stream is about three feet deep and five feet wide. A faint scar slit into the earth, curving its way through a small clearing of trees. I can’t bring myself to notice that the stream’s surface glints playfully in the faint moonlight, nor that the water gliding over dark stones makes a sort of cheerful babbling sound. Poetics such as these have lost their whimsy. All I see is the looming smog of war, and in turn death. All I hear are the groans of the wounded, and if I listen closely enough, gunfire. The fitful BAM, BAM, BAM firing off in the distance reminds me of the heartbeat of one of me and Herbert’s– patients. Loud, angry, and desperate to put an end to its own existence.
The stream is certainly no mystical oasis, but it’ll do. Clean water, God, how I’ve missed you.
Herbert is still pouting, as he was the entire walk here. He stands a few feet off in the distance, posture rigid and arms crossed tight.
The wet tropical heat of the rainforest is relentlessly suffocating, and I feel as if I’m being born again as I peel off my sweat-drenched clothing.
Birth is always painful. I think as I lose my lab coat, followed by a once white tank top, now tinged pink from an accidental spin cycle with my favorite red sweater. Washing machines and favorite red sweaters seem foreign to me now. I don’t dwell on this though, aimlessly tossing the clothing to the water's edge. Who gives a damn about the mud, that’s a problem for Future Dan. Present Dan is going to be clean.
“God, Herbert, can you at least pretend to not be staring at my dick?”
Herbert scoffs and flicks his eyes back down, deciding to focus on his pile of neatly folded clothes. He makes no attempt to deny my allegation.
I let out a less than dignified noise as I step into the water and promptly begin to wash myself with the aid of a travel-sized bottle of shampoo. It’s lavender-scented and obscenely purple. I’m most likely poisoning whatever intricate web of flora and fauna rely on the little stream for survival with it. I could not care less.
The water is lukewarm, and quite possibly infested with some sort of rare, skin-eating parasite, yet it feels heavenly compared to the constant, suffocating humidity. The dirt is coming off in soapy streaks down my thighs.
“Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”
I let out a sigh of relief.
Herbert’s finally stripped nude as well, his hesitation not due to any sort of sheepishness (God knows Herbert West is anything but shy) or attempt at modesty. No, Herbert is being stubborn. The “I don’t want to do this so I’m going to make everyone else miserable,” kind of stubborn. The kind that my coworkers would drive me nuts with. Herbert isn’t my coworker though. I don’t know what Herbert is in relation to me. If he’s God does that make me an angel? I feel like God wouldn’t stare at his angel’s dick. Well– not the Lutheran God my mother had me worship every Sunday at eight in the morning. A terrible time to praise The Lord, for the record. I skipped the sermons nine times out of ten in favor of “worshiping” a blunt with the pastor’s dollish, not-so-Lutheran daughter. I still remember swapping spit with her under the shadow of God, until she ratted me out to my mother. I still don’t know why. Maybe this god isn’t above such base desires, no matter how much he’d like to think he is. Whatever we are, I’m certainly not going to let him ruin my bath. My baptism.
Herbert reminds me of Rufus with how he awkwardly shuffles in the stream, as if he’s afraid of it swallowing him whole, or the water suddenly becoming acidic. Both God and geriatric cats fear water, I guess. He's standing a good, safe distance from me, the water lapping at the bottoms of his knees. I consider making a show of staring at him as he bathes as a sort of revenge, but ultimately decide to look away. Surprise, surprise– nothing is alluring about watching your lab partner wash his ass.
“Would you like any– assistance, Danny?” Herbert startles me out of my thoughts. Something about the little stream makes me lose track of time.
“I think I can figure out how to bathe myself, thanks.”
“Well… yes of course you can– I’m well aware,” Herbert flounders.
“Herbert.”
“Yes?”
“You’re staring again.”
“Oh, yes… I hadn’t noticed.”
God, he’s practically making eye contact with it now.
“We’re going to have sex, right?” Herbert says nonchalantly, yet his arms are crossed awkwardly and his ears are flushed pink. Not “can we” or “we should,” but “we’re going to.” It’s almost cute how bad he is at this. Herbert West. Cute. The heat must really be getting to me.
Herbert West (Self Proclaimed Deity): One
Daniel Cain (Angel Suffering From Heatstroke): Zero
The good, safe distance inevitably does not last. What happens in Peru, stays in Peru, I suppose.
I leave the stream feeling nothing short of rejuvenated. Herbert’s hands are giddy specters once more (even as the dead rest,) dancing about in front of him as he begins to rant about the importance of our work in relation to– lizards?
Back where Meg haunts white picket fences and baseball games and favorite red sweaters I’d be heavy with guilt now, I realize. But the Peruvian forest is forgiving of our blasphemy, in all its forms. The impossibly green, endless foliage casts a welcoming shadow over us gods and angels and scientists and doctors. And unlike the shadow of The Lord, it will never tell.