The Reviver (27 page)

The shape moved, almost imperceptibly.

‘
What do you want?
’ he asked, fear surging. He turned on the light.

The corner was empty.

He strode to the door and took the pill bottle, then returned to the kitchen.

Just hallucinations,
he told himself as he filled his glass.
I’ll sit and calm down to whatever crap’s on television. No point going to bed in this kind of a state, and …

Ice filled him. He straightened, the water still running. The glass fell from his hand, smashing on the floor. Behind him. He sensed it behind him. He turned, slowly, to face it.

The rank and bloated corpse of Daniel Harker stood at arm’s length, head bowed, wearing the same long coat it had worn since the first time Jonah had seen it. Jonah’s legs would not move. The corpse shuffled closer, the dead face rising up as it came, without expression, eyes closed. Its mouth sagged open, and it exhaled, fetid air escaping with a sigh that was almost a hiss. The lights began to dim as the corpse’s arms lifted, settling on Jonah’s shoulders, the skin seeming to flow somehow, Harker’s body dissolving into gore and noise that spread darkness where it touched.

Jonah tried to scream, but it was too late.

20

Flashes of awareness came, memory and dream combined.

The moment he let go of his mother’s hand.

In his car, driving along a road he had not seen before but that was utterly familiar.

The family Dominic Pritchard had killed.

A door opening, a young woman’s confused face.

The baffling answers Lyssa Underwood had given to the questions he’d been told to ask her.

And then, cold and real: he was Daniel Harker, tied to a chair in a dim-lit cellar. In front of him was the face Jonah had seen scorched and twisted under a white plastic tarpaulin two days before; alive now, but grim, his eyes wide with fear and alcohol.

‘We’re the only ones who know,’ said Ginger. A bottle of vodka in hand. He swigged. ‘We’re the only ones who can stop it. Something came from the dark. It came from the dark and
talked
to them.’

*   *   *

Jonah opened his eyes, pain in his head and the larval itch still present. His mouth tasted terrible. He rubbed furiously at his neck, the dreams fresh and unwelcome in his mind. He sat up, looking around him, confused and cold and drowsy, feeling like he hadn’t slept at all.

Then he realized that he had no idea where he was.

The room was both familiar and alien – a jumble of old trinkets on every surface, a large-screen television in one corner, book-loaded shelves covering the walls. He stood from the couch he had been laying on, wary. His jacket was draped across an armchair, his car keys on top. As he went to pick them up, he saw a framed photograph on one shelf. Daniel Harker, his wife and daughter. Beside it, a picture he had seen before. The one Harker had used for the jacket photo in his revival books, of him standing alone on windswept shingle, the sea behind him. Wearing a long coat.

The pieces began to slot together in his mind. The image came of Harker’s corpse, advancing towards him. He shivered. Harker had brought him here. The same thing that had happened to Victor Eldridge had happened to him. The remnant had taken control.

With one difference. Eldridge had been fully aware while powerless, but Jonah had no idea what Harker had done after taking over. The shards of dream and memory from the night before were all the clues he had, and they were already slipping from him. Vague images of Harker’s daughter were all that came now.

‘Something came from the dark,’ he said aloud, wondering where he had heard those words. Then he remembered Harker’s kidnapper, fearful eyes and terror in his voice.

Remembered?
Could he call it that? It was Harker’s memory, not his own:
It came from the dark and
talked
to them.

A noise from another room startled him – a clink of glass, sharp in the silence. He went to the hall, turned and saw Annabel Harker asleep, slumped with her head on the kitchen table, a bottle of whisky and an overturned glass in front of her.

He wanted out of there. He went back and got his jacket and keys. He wanted to get home and take those damn pills before it could happen again. At the thought of the pill bottle, he hunted through his pockets.

Gone. Of course. Probably the first thing Harker did. Get rid of them before they got rid of
him.
Jonah knew what that meant.
Harker wants to come back again,
he thought.

He went to the front door but stopped. However much he wanted to leave, the urge to know what had gone on in his absence was overpowering. He turned and went to the kitchen.

‘Miss Harker…’

She stirred.

‘Miss Harker?’

One eye opened. She winced, then sat. ‘You’re awake. You’re you.’ She eyed him. There was hostility in her expression.

He realized he was trembling. ‘Please, what happened here?’

‘Sit.’ She looked exhausted. Drained of emotion.

Jonah sat opposite her. She delved into a pocket and produced the missing bottle of pills. He held it up, surprised to see the yellow diamonds within. But only two. One had gone.
He doesn’t want me to have them all,
Jonah thought.

‘There’s one missing,’ he said.

Annabel Harker looked him in the eye for a full ten seconds, clearly not approving of what she saw. ‘Here.’ She pushed a cell phone across the table towards him. He picked it up. The video playback app was on the screen, paused. He looked at the image. Himself, sitting exactly where he was now. Glass of whisky in his hand. That bottle of pills in front of him.

‘Play it,’ said Annabel. She stood and walked out, back into the living room.

Jonah looked at the face in the image. He took a long, deep breath before he pressed the screen. The footage played.

‘Good morning,’ his image said, taking a deep drink of the whisky.
That’s why my head feels this way,
Jonah thought. ‘Hell of a night. I didn’t mean this to happen. Believe me. I had no idea what I was doing. No idea
how
I was doing it. Wait, that’s no place to start. Introductions first. I’m Daniel. You already knew that. My daughter, though, took some time to convince.’ Daniel Harker sighed. ‘We have things to discuss, Jonah Miller. But before we do, I owe you an apology. I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry. What did I do?’ Harker looked at his own (
Jonah’s
own) hands in disbelief. ‘If you could make this last, it’d be a hell of a way to cheat death, don’t you think? I was watching, you see. Watching as you went to Stephanie Graves. Watching when Graves gave you
these
…’ He picked up the pills and rolled the bottle between his fingers. ‘And I was thinking, I have to say good-bye to my daughter. You didn’t give me the chance. I was angry, and then … Christ. Here I am. But there’s more. You see, I want to know. And my daughter wants to know. What the people who killed me were trying to stop. Yarrow had called it Unity. I’d thought he was just a crank. But then they took me.
We’re the only ones who know,
they said.
The only ones who can stop it.
I saw the fear in their eyes. I want to know what they thought Unity was, and if there was any truth in it. I want to know how they planned to stop it. And most of all … I want to know why they left me to
die.
’

Harker punctuated the last word by slamming the pill bottle on the table, then took a slow breath before he went on. ‘Help my daughter. I’m not there to watch her back, so you’ll have to do it instead. You owe us, Jonah. Do this for me. Do this for Annabel. And in exchange, she’ll find what you want.’

Harker paused for another gulp of whisky.

‘What do I want?’ Jonah asked the screen.

His own stolen face smiled back. ‘Eldridge. You want to talk to Victor Eldridge. You want to know why what happened to him has happened to
you.
And most of all, you want to know how he ended up, so you don’t have to be so damn scared about how
you
might end up. So, please. Help her.’ Harker lifted the pill bottle up, looking at it. Jonah could see the fear in his eyes. Those were the pills that Stephanie Graves had promised would be the end of Daniel Harker.

Jonah felt cold as he watched Harker open the bottle and take out one pill. A second death. Harker held it in silence, turning it over in his fingers, watching it. Then he looked at the camera again. ‘What am I, do you think? Graves made it sound like I’m a patch-work, a ragbag of memories. I’m a figment of your imagination. I’m a
dream.
Let me tell you, that’s not how it feels.’ His gaze drifted away from the camera. ‘The greatest mystery of revival. Even with all we saw, we still didn’t know what it meant. What it meant for
after.
I’m not a religious man, Jonah. About as far from it as you can get, if I’m honest. Not that I ever said as much, not publicly. Who would credit that the man who found Eleanor Preston was an atheist? My wife knew. She asked me how I still could be, now that we’d found out there was an afterlife. I told her we don’t even know
that.
Revival could just be an encore. A tease. A joke. The sum total of everything we’ve been and done, all our memories, dreaming of being real.’ He looked back to the camera and smiled. Gentle, bemused. ‘Some would say that’s all we ever were.’

He put the pill in his mouth and washed it down with more whisky. ‘Good night, Jonah Miller,’ he said, reaching out to the camera to stop the recording. The video ended.

*   *   *

Jonah sat for five full minutes before he plucked up enough courage to walk to the living room. Annabel Harker was sitting on the couch, staring ahead, eyes wet with tears.

‘Miss Harker, there’s something I should tell you. The men who took your father were found. The connection hasn’t been made public yet, and I don’t know their identities, but…’

She looked at him. The hostility of before had faded; now it was all just exhaustion. ‘I know.’

‘How?’

‘I found out who I needed to pay, and I paid them well. Don’t be surprised. My dad was pretty wealthy. I’m a journalist, and I suddenly find myself with funds. Dangerous combination.’ She smiled at him, and he was surprised to find himself smiling back, despite how drained he felt. Drained and battered and desperate for sleep. It hadn’t just been the alcohol Daniel Harker had been drinking that had left Jonah so drowsy, he realized. It was the medication too, just as Graves had warned him. He sat at the other end of the couch and closed his eyes.

‘I don’t think I’ve seen you smile before,’ said Annabel. ‘Suits you.’

Jonah opened his eyes and looked at her, remembering the exhaustion on her face before her father’s revival; and after, when the exhaustion was coloured with anger. No, he hadn’t seen her smile before either. And even though the smile she wore now was so fragile, it was preferable by far. ‘You too.’

‘Not much to smile about.’ Her smile flickered and disappeared. A tear fell. ‘But I got to say good-bye.’

Jonah looked down. ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t…’

‘No.
I’m
sorry. It had seemed like such a small thing to ask, such a little mercy, and then it was taken away. But you did what you had to do. You were there to help find out what happened, and that’s what you did.’

‘I still let you down.’

She smiled at him through tears and moved to take his hand. He flinched at the sudden contact, pulling his hand back a few inches even though there had been no chill. Her smile faltered for a moment, but she persevered and took his hand anyway. ‘You have to do your job day after day, and you still care. That can’t be easy. It must cost you. And then someone like me gives you a look like
all of it
was your fault…’ She shook her head. ‘I take it back. If that’s OK.’

‘That’s OK,’ he said, feeling impossibly weary. He lowered his head to the cushion beside him.

*   *   *

His eyes snapped open again. He knew he’d been asleep but had no idea how long. Judging by how he ached, it had been hours. Annabel’s head was on his lap. She was asleep and still holding his hand. He watched her, wary of the contact, uncomfortable because he knew it was Jonah’s curious link with her father that had stopped her letting go.

After a few minutes he moved, carefully positioning a cushion and lowering her head onto it. He went to the kitchen and made two cups of coffee, bringing them in on a tray with a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar.

She woke as he came in. She sat up, looking startled, a hint of red appearing in her cheeks.

‘I didn’t know how you took your coffee,’ he said.

‘Black, one sugar.’ She looked over to something behind Jonah. ‘My
God.
Did we hibernate?’

Jonah followed her gaze to a clock on the wall. It was half past two. ‘Shit,’ he said, and hunted for his phone. It had been switched off, so he turned it back on and waited. As he’d thought, Never had been calling him.

‘Ten missed calls,’ he mumbled.
I’ll be checking up on you,
Never had said. Jonah stepped out to the hall and called him.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ said Never.

‘Long story. I’m fine. Don’t fret.’

‘Easy for you to say. I’ve been ringing since before noon.’

‘Honestly, I’m fine. I’ll explain later.’

It took a few more reassurances before Never sounded appeased. Jonah ended the call.

‘Who was that?’ asked Annabel. ‘Your wife?’

Jonah smiled and shook his head. ‘Friend of mine. He gets worried about me.’

Annabel sipped her coffee. ‘What, does he think he’s your mother?’ It was just a flippant remark, but after a moment’s delay her face fell. ‘Shit, Jonah, I didn’t mean to…’

It took a few seconds for him to understand. ‘How did you know about my mom?’

She glanced down. ‘My dad told me about you, years ago. When he interviewed you. He told me about the accident, and what happened with your mother.’

‘Sixteen when he talked to me. Fourteen when she died.’