“At fifty watts Mr. Bubbles started smelling like chicken-fried steak and Einstein tried to eat him,” Owen pointed out. Einstein was my bulldog.
“More,” I said. “It’s got to be more.” This time I didn’t wait for Owen to question me. I gathered a jar of brine water, our makeshift diathermy device, a bouquet of multicolored wires, and our scalpel. I cut back and forth across the room, weaving around odds and ends. Owen set down the clock and screwdriver and quietly joined me as I cleared a spot at the worktable.
Without further argument he bent over the kilowatt meter, calibrating it to measure out the correct level of energy—sixty watts. His tongue stuck out the side of his mouth in concentration. He positioned his back to face me as I made deep, fresh cuts in the hide of the dead rat, a part which always made Owen squeamish. A cord trailed from the generator to the kilowatt meter to which the wires were attached. One set of frayed wire ends dangled inside the jar, magnified by the brine water. I inserted another set of copper wires into the incisions.
Another rumble of thunder rolled through the cellar, this one longer and more menacing, like the growl of a feral animal. I pulled a cord above the worktable, and a lamp flicked on, spotlighting Mr. Bubbles. Owen looked up from the kilowatt meter, his tongue still squeezed between his teeth. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and tilted his chin as though to say, if you must.
I took a deep breath, savoring this moment, the one of possibility just before fates were made or broken, when everything felt balanced on a pinpoint. I took a deep breath, put my finger underneath the switch, and flipped it.
The dials on the rudimentary kilowatt meter sprung to life. Four small circles aligned on the face of the meter, each with matching needles that spun to different points like hands on a clock meting out energy. As with a spark traveling the wick of a dynamite stick, I saw the moment the volt hit the vat of brine water from the small twist of wire and the tiny ripple that grated the surface before the other wire began to tremble almost imperceptibly.
The smell of burning fur began to radiate. The rat’s good ear curled downward and then, so fast I almost couldn’t believe it happened, his tail swished from one side to the other. My eyes widened. The electricity built up and up. Mr. Bubbles shook violently. Nearby, Owen pulled his shirt over his nose. Then the tail that had just twitched began to blacken from the tip up toward the base until half of the pink appendage was charbroiled. His claws shriveled. His fur began to smoke. Coiled tendrils twisted, dark and shadowy, into the light.
“It’s going to work. It’s going to work,” I chanted, almost in prayer.
Smoke was now choking the room. The body of Mr. Bubbles was shriveling.
“All right, that’s enough, Tor.” Owen pinched his nose.
I flattened my palm over his arm. “No, wait, hold on.” I inched my nose closer. The heat dried my eyes. “Come on. Come on,” I urged.
It was Owen who broke. He hit the switch just as another crack of lightning blasted through the cracks in the hatch. The charge died at once and the needles fell back to zero position. Slowly, I stepped up to the edge of the worktable. I stooped down to peer at the shriveled rodent and, with my gloved finger, nudged him in his little rat ribs.
For a second, I had a harebrained hope that he might stir after all. And then … his whiskers fell out.
TWO
hy·poth·e·sis: a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation; a proposition made as a basis for reasoning without any supposition of its truth
Postulation: A refining of galvanic reanimation will result in the stimulation of vital forces to the point of resuscitation.
List of variables: kilowatts, point of entry, mass, density, conductor, methodology
Progress: none to report
*
It’s an absolute scientific fact that thunder is the sonic shock created by a sudden increase in both pressure and temperature at the exact moment the lightning expands its surrounding air too fast. Not that anybody in Hollow Pines cared much about facts, aside from Owen and me. I flipped the switch on the windshield wipers and they beat faster, groaning across the slick glass. Defeated, I’d dropped Owen off at home around half past one, just as the storm, which had been rattling and kicking at the hatch door, decided to unleash its torrential downpour. Rain pelted the forest green hood of my Mercury Grand Marquis, lovingly known as Bert. But it was the wind that kept pushing poor Bert off to the left, across the road’s yellow dashed line. Nature’s way of throwing a tantrum, I supposed.