Charnel House by Graham Masterton Page A

fixed in the empty, revenous look of death.
    â€œJohn,” said Dr. Jarvis quietly.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI want you to take his left arm and lead him back to the couch. Force him to walk backward, so that when he reaches the couch, we can push against him and he’ll have to sit back. Then all we have to do is swing his legs across, and we’ll have him lying flat again. See those straps under the couch? As soon as we get him down, we buckle him up. You got me?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œYou frightened?”
    â€œYou bet your ass.”
    Dr. Jarvis licked his lips in nervous anticipation. “Okay, John, let’s do it.”
    Bryan’s heartbeat, monitored in steady blips through the wires that still trailed from his chest, was still at a slow twenty-four beats to the minute. But right then, my own heartbeat felt even slower. My mouth was dry with fear, and my legs were the bent wobbly legs of someone who wades into clear water.
    Dr. Jarvis and I both inched closer, our hands raised, our eyes fixed on Bryan’s skull. For some reason I felt that Bryan could still see, even though his eye-sockets were empty. He took a shuffling step toward us, and the raw muscle that held his jaw in place started to twitch.
    â€œMy God,” whispered Dr. Jarvis, “he’s trying to say something!”
    For a moment I thought that I probably wasn’t going to have the nerve to grab hold of Bryan’s arm and force him back on the bed. Supposing he fought back? Supposing I had to touch that naked, living skull? But then Dr. Jarvis snapped, “Now!” and I went forward awkward and clumsy, with my courage as weak as a girl’s. I think I even shrieked out loud. I’m not ashamed of it. At least I tried.
    Bryan collapsed in our arms. Instead of forcing him back, we had to drag him, and we heaved him up on to the couch like a sack of meal. Dr. Jarvis held the back of his skull to prevent any injury, and we laid him carefully down with his arms by his sides and strapped him tight with restraining bands. Then we stood and looked at each other across his supine body, and all we could do was smirk with suppressed fear.
    Dr. Jarvis checked Bryan’s heartbeat and vital signs, and they were still the same. Twenty-four beats a minute and continuing strong. Respiration slow but steady. I took a deep breath and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. I was sweating and shaking, and I could hardly speak.
    Dr. Jarvis said, “This beats everything. This guy is supposed to be dead. Every rule in the book says he’s dead. But here he is living and breathing and even walking about.”
    At that moment Dr. Weston came in. She looked down at Bryan Corder and said, “Maybe it’s a miracle.”
    â€œWell, maybe it is,” said Dr. Jarvis. “But maybe it’s a damned evil piece of black magic, too.”
    â€œBlack magic, Dr. Jarvis?” said Dr. Weston. “I didn’t think you white folks believed in that.”
    â€œI don’t know what to believe,” he muttered. “This whole thing is totally insane.”
    â€œInsane or not, I have my tests to run,” she said. “Thank you for restraining him so well. And thank you, too, Mr. Hyatt.”
    I coughed. “I won’t say it’s been a pleasure.”
    We left Dr. Weston and her interns to run through their brain-damage tests on Bryan Corder’s exposed skull, and we went out into the corridor. Dr. Jarvis stood for a long time by the window, staring out across the hospital parking lot. Then he reached into the pocket of his white medical coat and took out a pack of cigarettes.
    I stood a little ways away, watching him and keeping quiet. I guessed he wanted to be alone right then. He was suddenly faced with something that turned his most basic ideas about medicine upside down, and he was trying to rationalize a bizarre horror that, so far, could only be explained by