Dr. Raymond Taryn's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Dr. Raymond Taryn pressed two fingers to the dead man's wrist out of habit, though he knew there was no pulse. He had waited eight days for this body, and eight days was too long. The skin had gone slack. Dark stains spread across the back and shoulders. Taryn needed a fresh corpse to prove that his machine could pull a human mind back across death. This one was rotting on his table instead. He ran a burned thumb along the faded anchor tattoo on the forearm. "The tissue is breaking down," he said. "Every hour makes the nerves harder to wake." His hands shook from four days without sleep. In the crypt below his old university, water dripped down the moldy stone. The sound measured out his failure. Across the table, Elliot Graves held the scalpel the way a man holds something he wants to put down. The medical student had been pulled from his class to serve as Taryn's assistant. He had watched too much already. "We can't use him," Elliot said. His voice stayed flat. "He's too far gone. You said it yourself." "Then get me another one." Taryn did not look up. Elliot set the scalpel on the steel tray. "That's not what a doctor does." A knock came from the crypt stairs. Three slow raps, then two. Taryn straightened. Only one man used that knock. The night watchman from Arkham Cemetery came down sideways, keeping a hand on the wet wall. Thaddeus Vance dug graves at night and sold what he found to Taryn, who paid him through written notes and never met his eye. Gin and damp earth came down the stairs with him. He stopped when he saw the stained body on the table. "That one's spoiled," Vance said. "I know what it is," Taryn snapped. Vance wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Got a buried just this evening. Soil's still loose. Young fellow. Heart gave out, they said. Barely cold." He paused. "Price went up." Taryn crossed the crypt in three steps. For the first time in eight days his eyes cleared. A body hours dead, not days. Nerves that might still carry a current. "Bring it tonight," he said. "Now." Vance did not move. "There's a thing walking the stones at midnight. A shape, all wrapped up. Been there four nights running." He fixed Taryn with a hard look. "I go back, I want to know what I'm digging next to." "It's your imagination," Taryn said. "Dig." Vance held the look a moment longer, then turned up the stairs. Elliot stepped close, his face pale. "You're sending him to rob a fresh grave. That man died today. Today." "He died at the right time," Taryn said. He was already drying his instruments. The spoiled body no longer existed to him. He had what he needed. He did not yet know that the shape in the graveyard was waiting for the same thing.