CHAPTER 22 SPARE PARTS
SPARE PARTS
The dead woman is draped in a sheet and from the looks of it has been deceased for maybe a day or so. When they adjust her position on the platform, there’s no give. They’ve placed her on her back and the redhead delicately arranges the woman’s long hair around her shoulders. My stomach turns over.
“Plucked her right out of that camp in Ithaca,” Camille says.
“We’ve gotten a few from there,” the man says. “We’ll arouse suspicion if we get them from the same place over and over.”
“Who even cares?” Camille asks. “No one’s going to come looking for her.
Nobody cares about her. It’s perfect.” There’s a tone of excitement in her voice that makes me nervous.
She traces her fingers over the outline of the woman’s leg under the sheet.
“I’m lucky we found one so young. The parts will last longer. ”
The man gives a huff and the two of them exit the room through a door to the left of the altar.
I quickly stand and rush to the platform.
The woman is probably in her twenties. Her eyes are closed and her hands lie at her sides.
Her long hair is flecked with bits of leaves and her skin is tanned like she’s spent most of her days out in the sun.
My mom steps to the platform. “What is going on here?” she asks. “What are they doing with her?”
I don’t know for sure but I can guess. “Camille said the parts will last longer.” Images of the blond man flash in my mind. He was wearing another person’s arm as his own. “They’re going to use her for parts.”
“Parts?” Noah asks.
My mom looks like she’d be sick if she could.
Noah approaches us but doesn’t come too close to the girl. “It’s—it’s not right. They can’t do this . . . can they?”
“They already have,” Mom whispers. “Who knows how many times.”
Suddenly there is the sound of a door opening.
My mom and Noah scramble back behind the altar but I get tangled up in my own steps and have to duck behind one of the massive stone pillars.
Noah reaches for me but my mom pulls him down to the ground.
I press my back to the pillar as footsteps enter the room. I hold my breath and peer around.
Four people come into the chamber, all of them in hooded black robes except one .
. . ?my dad. As they shove him forward the torchlight illuminates his broken, bloodied face.
His lip is split open and he has a black eye.
The people position themselves around the woman on the raised platform.
My dad stands at her head and looks down at her.
“What is this?” he asks. His voice is taut with fear.
“Oh, come now, Jonathan,” Camille says from beneath her cloak. “Don’t be dense.”
My dad looks at her and she lifts her gaze to meet his. Her face is drawn tight, her lips pursed.
“Camille,” my dad says.
Camille smiles but there’s a strange glassy look in her eyes. “We go way back, Jonathan. Took you a moment to place me, though, didn’t it?”
“You died when I was a kid,” my dad says. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“But I am,” Camille says. “Thanks to your dear old dad.”
My dad blinks repeatedly. “My father.”
“Bingo!” Camille’s voice rings out like a maniacal bell. “But he’s dead and buried, so now it’s you in his place.” She looks him over from head to foot. “Pathetic.”
“Whatever it is you want, I’m not going to participate,” my dad says. “I am not my father.”
I’m a little taken aback. He never talks like that to anyone.
Camille’s face twists up and she’s about to say something else when another one of their order touches her shoulder.
“Not now,” the man says to her.
Camille jerks away from him. “Get off me, Roger. Morris got his arm fixed! It’s my turn!
” She pulls her cloak away from her body, revealing her badly mangled right leg.
The muscles and even some of ??her bone are visible through the torn flesh.
“No more patch jobs!” she yells. “Take off her leg”—she pokes the dead woman on the table—“and put it on me.”
My dad gasps and so do I. I clap my hand over my mouth and press myself against the pillar.
Please don’t see me.
“You don’t need me to do that,” my dad says. “Patch yourself up on your own.”
Camille grips the edge of the platform so hard I think it might break.
“The patch jobs never last because we’re using dead flesh.
” She sticks out her neck and tilts her head like she doesn’t understand how my dad doesn’t get what she’s trying to say.
“The woman has to be reanimated first. Regular body parts don’t last long enough. ”
My dad looks horrified. “You want me to reanimate her just so you can have her leg?”
Camille rolls her eyes. “What do you want? Money? We can arrange something.”
“Is that what my father did?” Dad looks absolutely disgusted. “He took your bribes?”
Camille grins. “He was paid handsomely for his work. He never did this sort of thing, though. Frankly, we hadn’t thought that far ahead.
We were content to use the parts from people off the street.
There were always fresh supplies and really, who would miss them?
” Camille looks down at the woman’s body.
“We’ll destroy what’s left of her when we’re done. ”
“Reanimated flesh is dead too,” my dad says. “That’s the whole reason you have to take care of your bodies.”
“Reanimated flesh is more durable,” Roger says. “Our experiences have shown this to be a fact.”
“And I don’t have the privilege of living with Ithaca’s most deft mortician, like your pretty little wife, do I?” Camille asks, a ring of sarcasm echoing through her angry words. “Must be wonderful to have every little injury fixed right on the spot.”
“But we’re correcting that problem, aren’t we, Jonathan?” Roger asks. “You’ve forgotten where you belong. A reanimator’s place is here with us. But you’ve always known that, haven’t you? You always knew this day would come.”
“I’m not staying here,” my dad says. “I can’t.”
“It’s not a request,” answers another hooded man.
“Langan, please,” Dad says to him. “We don’t have to continue this way.”
Langan, the man from the snowcat, shakes his head. “It’s too late for all of that. I was reanimated before you were even born. Your father brought me back and he was agreeable to everything we asked of him. He lived a productive life, you can too.”
“My father was absent, uncaring, and cold,” my dad snaps. “He chose this work over his family. I won’t do that.”
“We’ve recovered the book, Jonathan,” Roger says. “Morris is preparing it right now. You’ll stay with us, and you will dedicate your considerable skill to us and us alone.”
Langan leans toward my dad. “You will do this or we will kill you and then we’ll go get Meka. She can take your place.”
My heart lurches in my chest.
“Leave her out of this!” my dad shouts.
“No,” Camille says bluntly. “And now that we know what you’ve been up to maybe we should kill you regardless. I think Meka would make a wonderful servant.”
My dad is trembling, his jaw clenched. My head spins. Dad is being forced to do this work but I can’t understand it. These people are what—four or five strong? Why do they think they should control him? I’m missing something. I can feel it in my gut.
I silently move across the pillar, looking for my mom and Noah but they are still hidden behind the altar.
The sound of a door opening again cuts through the room.
Footsteps approach but these are different from the ones that had come before.
They are heavy and each step sends a little tremor through the tiled floor.
The reanimates fall silent as the footsteps echo in the room.
The hair on the backs of my arms stands straight up.
A pit forms in my stomach. It’s like a sudden and terrible dread washes over me and I’m more afraid than I’ve been at any point until now.
Trembling, I peer around the pillar in the direction of the altar. A figure comes into view.
Whoever it is is dressed like the others, draped in a thick black cloak, but I cannot see their face.
They approach the altar and my heart trips into a furious rhythm.
This person is well over six feet tall. Their shoulders are massive even under the flowing black robes.
They stand still as a final hooded figure comes into the room holding the strange book we uncovered in Grandpa Redwood’s coffin.
I can see it clearly, but the person holding it can’t.
I can tell by the way their hand slides across the cover, finds the edge, then grips it tightly.
The reanimates all bow their heads in the direction of the tall figure. My dad does not.
“We’re ready to proceed,” Camille says.
“No, we’re not,” my dad says.
Panic grips me. They’ve already threatened to kill him and I know that it’s not an empty promise.
“Yes, we are!” Camille shouts. She grabs for the book, misses, then finds it after grasping at the air for a moment. She shoves it into my dad’s hands. “Get to work.”
My dad shakes his head as the book begins to glow softly. A jolt of electricity shoots through my palms and I have to bite my tongue to keep from crying out. I press myself into the pillar, struggling to keep sight of my dad.
“I won’t do this,” Dad says. “Reanimate her so you can take her apart? Are you insane? All for what?” He sighs heavily. “Maybe if the upkeep of your body is too much of a burden, you shouldn’t exist in the first place.”
Camille glares at my dad. “You’re a goddamned hypocrite!” she spews, with so much venom in her voice the words strike my dad like a fist. He steps back.
The tall figure at the altar doesn’t move.
“I am a man who did something because I couldn’t live with the grief,” my dad says.
“I did something to keep myself from the pain but the pain came anyway. It grows in me every day.” His voice catches.
“And it’s your fault,” he says, looking toward the robed figure. “If you had just let us go . . .”
He knows this person?