I skipped down after him. “Are you … drunk?” It would be just like the Billys to haze the new guy. Would Adam know any better? He hadn’t smelled like alcohol.
Adam groaned. I reached out a hand and spun him by the shoulder to face me. Upon seeing him, my heart leaped clear into my throat. This was not drunk. I almost wished it were. This was a thing far, far worse.
“Adam, you look…” I knew it wasn’t the best bedside manner, but I couldn’t help it. “… awful,” I finished.
Color appeared to be actively draining from the top of his head downward. Pools of blood could be spotted through the translucent skin on his neck, above his forearm, on the back of his hand. They looked like wine-colored bruises. If I pushed one, it would bubble to the side like a blood blister. His eyes were hollowed out, as if by an ice-cream scooper. In a span of minutes, he’d gone from awkwardly pale to walking dead. The quiet car ride was more than Adam being the strong, silent type, it was him being the near-dead type.
This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. I wrung my hands.
“Victor—” he started, lurching forward. I put my palms on his chest to keep him from falling on top of me. “Victor—” He began again before his eyes rolled back into his head and I caught his arm.
“Adam, come over here.” I guided him closer to the gurney until I could reach over and drag it the rest of the distance to him. The rusted wheels scratched and stuck. I clasped his arms and helped him onto it. “Lie down,” I directed. His elbows crumpled and his head clanged back like a newborn who couldn’t support his neck. In a drawer, I found a flashlight and flicked it on, wiping dust from the glass. I started by aiming it in his ears. The thin skin lit up red with the light. Then I pulled his eyelids apart with my fingers and aimed the flashlight into his pupils. I saw a miniature version of my face reflected in the chocolate-brown irises.
I dropped his lids. “I’m going to try to listen to your heart, okay?” I slid the hem of his football jersey up. The sight of Adam’s body sent a tingly sensation under my fingernails that made me want to peel them off and scratch. Pink branches forked across his chest in intricate patterns. Adam stared down and grazed his fingers over the scar tissue ridges.
The hatch marks of intricate scars somehow only seemed to make him more beautiful, like a snowflake that could never be re-created.
I leaned forward and pressed my ear to the spot over his heart. I closed my eyes, listened. At first, what I heard was the sound of nothingness. People might not think this has a sound at all, but it does. It was hollow, a heavy, vaulted absence. I held my breath. My own heart thumped loudly and pumped blood into my eardrums. A dull thud. Then two more. Soft but there.
“It’s failing,” I whispered. “Do you feel that?”
“Am I … dying, Victor … ia?” His voice was a rasp. “Again?”
I chewed my lip. There was no word in the English dictionary for someone who died when they were already dead. I wasn’t sure I could replicate the experiment. It worked once, but once could mean anything. The success of the experiment could have been a statistical anomaly. No variables had been controlled.
I grabbed a thick research book from a shelf and dusted off the cover before flipping through pages, nose close to the typeface. I dragged my finger line by line. Experiments in Revival of Organisms. No. Soviet Dog Experiment. Electrotherapy. I muttered the chapter titles under my breath, knowing full well that pioneers in a field didn’t get to check their work in textbooks.
I slammed the covers shut and paced the room. On the gurney, Adam’s eyes started to close.
I snapped my fingers under his nose. “Don’t go to sleep,” I said. His eyelashes fluttered and he stared at me dazed, but awake.
Okay, his energy was drained. His systems were shutting down. I thought about closed-circuit systems. When the human body grew tired, a person refueled it with food. Even from the fetal stage, a human was only able to grow by receiving calories and nutrients in utero. But Adam wasn’t brought into existence through calories and nutrients. So more likely, then, was that Adam’s fuel wasn’t food at all.
I crossed the length of the storm cellar three more times. If a car engine sputtered, what happened? Someone had to give the battery a jump to restore it to full capacity. I pulled a long breath of air like I was sucking on the end of a cigarette. I eyed Adam, then the claw-foot tub, then Adam again.
“Adam,” I said. “I think we’re going to have to try to recharge you.” I began pulling wires. “Last time, well, you don’t remember last time, but you’re going to have to trust me.” I selected a red wire and a green wire. Both had worn coating so that the copper wires were exposed.
“I trust you.”
“I’m going to need to make new incisions. Ones that are less visible. You’ll tell me if this hurts?” I dragged the scalpel over the counter into my grip. He didn’t respond. “Adam?”