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The
Lazarus Condition
"Paul
Kane's THE LAZARUS CONDITION is a wonderfully
unsettling tale of resurrection, self-recrimination, and our
reluctance to confront issues of both mortality and
immortality. Humanity leaves behind the remains of our loved
ones and walls of our hearts as best we can from feeling their
absence, sometimes as easily but always with as much necessity
as a snake shedding its skin.
Paul Kane holds up a mirror to show us just how
frightened of the end we really are and how much of human
nature is involved in moving on after loss. He's here to
remind us that none of us is ever really ready to leave this
life...and certainly not ready to come back and answer for
what we might have done while living it.
An excellent novella, backed up with a quick jolt
short story called 'Dead Time ,' which is, in some
ways, the other side of the coin.
Paul Kane has offered you a
dark and contemplative gift.
I recommend you take
it."
Christopher Golden - The Myth
Hunters, The Boys are Back in
Town
'A brilliant zombie story with a hell of a
difference -- compelling, sensitive, deeply touching and
leavened with a subtle humour.'
Simon Clark - Darkness Demands, Death's
Dominion.
"A disturbing and very creepy take
on the zombie theme, this one builds slowly and effectively to
a surprising, moving climax."
Tim
Lebbon - Dawn, The Everlasting
Read the exclusive
extracts:
The Lazarus
Condition
Prologue
‘And he that
was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes:
and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto
them, Loose him, and let him
go…’
John
11.44
No one paid any attention as the dead man walked down
the street.
A familiar street to him, with children playing
football on the grass verge, wives gossiping on the corner
next to the shop. He took in all the streetlamps, never having
noticed them, really noticed them before. Now he was
scrutinising everything around him: from the pebble-dashing of
the council houses to the rickety nature of the peeling fences
- which could so easily have been resurrected with a lick of
paint.
Given new life.
He paused to look up at the sky, seeing the
birds there catching the mild breeze, returned from their
winter migration now that spring was here. They’d been drawn
to sunnier climes, just as he was being drawn to this place,
pulled as surely as if he was made of metal and someone was
holding a gigantic magnet. He continued up the street, passing
more people as he went: a man walking with a stick, newspaper
jammed under his arm; a young woman pushing a buggy with a
screaming kid in the seat; postman making deliveries to each
of the houses. None of them looked closely enough to
truly see him. None of them ever looked too closely
at anything, they just went about the business of their
mundane lives, worrying about bills - the same ones the
postman was shoving through letterboxes that very morning -
about the weather, about their
families…
He was almost there. The house he was looking for was
just across the road. He stared at the overgrown hedge and
front garden: once neat and trim with a pond in the middle and
gnomes fishing with tiny rods. What had happened to those? He
couldn’t remember. In the great scheme did it really matter?
Things came, things went. It was how it was.
He made to cross over the road, almost stepping into
the path of an oncoming car. He pulled back just as the driver
blared his horn, shouting through the open window: “What the
hell’s wrong with you? You tryin’ to get yourself
killed?”
The dead man watched him drive to the end of the road
and follow the curve around. Those words went around and
around in his mind: “Get yourself killed…Get yourself killed…”
He closed his eyes, images flashing across his field of vision
below the lids:
A flash of red, of light. Hands clutching at
something, tightly, white knuckles and a ring on the third
finger of the left hand. A pair of eyes, dulled but open in
shock. A-
He snapped his eyes open, flinching
when he felt the hand on his arm. “Are…are you all right?”
asked an Indian woman standing by the side of him. He searched
her features but found nothing recognisable. Again he just
stared, not saying a thing. In the end the woman left him be,
not knowing what else to do. As she walked on up the street,
she looked back over her shoulder just once.
Turning, he checked for traffic this time and crossed
the road to the house.
He studied the small semi, the windows gaping back at
him in disbelief. He put a hand out for the gate, which was
hanging off by the hinges. It creaked heavily as he moved it
aside, the latch long-since vanished. The path was overgrown
too, each carefully laid slab now raised slightly at the side
by the sheer amount of weeds pushing up from beneath, like a
healthy tooth dislodged by its crooked neighbours. He trod the
path slowly, dead flowers on either side, leading him to the
front door: its mottled glass set inside a faded varnished
frame.
Raising a hand he prepared to knock on the door. He
hesitated. Why, he had no idea. This was what he was meant to
do, he felt sure of it - and yet…
He shook his head and rapped twice on the wood. The
wait was excruciating. He gave it a few minutes, then knocked
again, cocking his ear at the same time. He heard movement
from within, a voice calling, “All right, all right, I’m
coming.”
The door opened a crack and someone peered out. It was
difficult to see clearly as it was dark inside the hall, but
then the door opened more fully. It wasn’t because the
grey-haired woman standing there was willingly allowing him
entrance, it was more that she was in a state of severe shock.
She put a quivering hand to her mouth, eyes wide and
filling with moisture. “Matt…Matthew?” The old woman made to
take a step towards him, but her already unstable legs gave
out. “No…no it can’t be.” He covered the distance between them
in an instant, hands there to catch her as she fell back into
the house. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she began
gasping for air.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he said, experimentally
talking again. He half carried her back into the house, then
he closed the door on the outside world. He tapped her face
gently with his fingers. “It’s me, Mum,” he told her. “It’s
really me.”
But she fainted again - the result of seeing her dead
son standing there on the doorstep after seven long
years…
Chapter
One
Mrs Irene Daley woke from her nightmare to find herself
on the couch.
She’d had the most awful dream. In it she’d been
watching the television - The Breakfast Show had just
finished, and she was just about to turn off a report on the
troubles abroad, the commentator stating that they were on the
verge of yet another ‘conflict’. Then there had been a knock
at the door. She hadn’t heard it at first for the explosions
on the TV, but when the knock came again she’d switched off
the set with the remote then got up to answer it, her back
aching as she lifted herself out of the high seat chair.
Whoever it was they were persistent. Might be the
postman? she’d mused as she turned into the hallway. But
why would he knock? No one ever sent her any packages - not
even her own family. She was lucky if she got any mail at all
that wasn’t simply junk. She’d called out to them that she was
coming, and by now she could see the shadowy shape through the
misted glass at the door. Irene even considered putting on the
chain, but it was the middle of the morning not ten o’clock at
night. Nobody would be trying to break into her home this
early on in the day, surely? So she decided to meet the
potential threat half way, only open the door a tiny bit -
that way she could always shut it again quickly if need be,
but she could also see who was so eager to get her attention.
When she opened the door she thought her eyes were
playing tricks. Through the gap she looked out at a face she
hadn’t seen in over half a decade. A face she’d adored more
than anything in this world - last seen under a very different
set of circumstances. Her boy; her Matthew.
But that couldn’t be. It only happened in dreams, in
nightmares. So when she’d collapsed in the hall and everything
had gone black, it only lent more weight to the argument that
this was all in her head; that she’d made it all up because
yes, even after this length of time, she still missed him so,
so much.
She’d heard him say something but by that time darkness
already had her. And now that she was rising from that deep
pit of despair and pain, she was even more convinced the
events that put her there were a product of her own
imagination.
Irene resolved to open her eyes, get up and pop the
kettle on. To try and put this whole episode out of her mind.
But that was going to be incredibly difficult, because as she
turned her head and looked over at the chair facing the couch
she saw him again. He was sitting there with his hands
clasped, staring at her. No, that wasn’t strictly true - his
eyes weren’t so much staring as burrowing into her.
She turned away again quickly, not able to meet his gaze, nor
accept what must be the truth. That Matthew was in the room
with her, right now. Unless she was still dreaming? Could that
be it? Irene pinched the loose skin on the back of her hand,
nipping it tightly and hoping the pain would deliver her back
to the world she knew. Back to
sanity.
She didn’t fully turn, but caught him still sitting
there in the periphery of her vision.
Seconds passed like hours, until finally she knew she
had to speak. “Who…who are you?” Irene asked. “What do you
want?”
“I…” he began, and she felt compelled to look at him
now as he shook his head. “I’m your son.” The man said it so
certainly that for a moment she almost believed him. For one
thing he was saying the words in her son’s voice.
“No…no you’re not. You can’t
be.”
He nodded. “But I am.”
Irene sat up against the cushions, where he’d placed
her, and brought her legs around with a slight crack of the
bones. “You look like him-”
“I am him,” he interrupted.
“You have his face, but…” Oh sweet Lord did he have her
son’s face. It was exactly the same, every line, the dimple in
his chin, the crowsfeet that were beginning at the corners of
his eyes even though he was barely into his thirties. Those
hazel eyes were identical too, and the way his hair made him
look like he’d just got out of bed in spite of trying to brush
it flat. All the same, all the same… And those clothes, the
shirt and trousers part of the suit they’d buried him in? Or
just very, very similar?
“Why won’t you believe me?” It was a simple enough
question and yet staggeringly complex. “You know, deep down,
that I’m telling the truth.”
Irene could feel tears starting to form in her eyes.
“You’re…” she managed before she began to cry. The tiny beads
of water crawled down her cheeks, running into the rivulets
created by her wrinkles and breaking up. “You’re…you’re…” She
couldn’t get the word out, and when it did eventually slip
free it came only as a whisper:
“Dead.”
He frowned, saying nothing. What could he say? If he
was her son, as he so vehemently claimed, how could he deny
it? Yet here he was, in the ‘flesh’, in her living room - that
was a good one, living room - sat in the armchair he
always used to occupy when he visited. “I…I can’t explain it,”
he finally offered. “But I know who I am, and I know that I
love you, Mu-”
Irene held up her hand. “Don’t…Please
don’t.”
He got up, putting his hands in his pockets. Walking
over to the window, he pulled aside the net curtains and
peered out. Then he looked down at the photo in the frame on
the windowsill. He lifted it up.
“Put that down,” said Irene.
He held it out instead to illustrate his point: it was
a photo taken at least ten years ago, of Matthew with his arm
around his mother. “Look,” he said. “This is me…this is me
here with you.”
“No,” said Irene again. She was crying freely now.
There was a noise at the back door and they both
turned. A shadow appeared in the hallway, small and dark,
followed by another shadow: this one very much alive. The jet
black cat froze when it reached the doorway, the swinging and
creaking of the catflap still carrying into the living
room.
Irene was half standing, looking from the cat to the
man holding the picture.
“Tolly?” he said.
The cat had something in its mouth. It looked like a
toy at first, but when the animal dropped it onto the hall
carpet they could both see it was a sparrow the cat had
stalked and caught, just like it always loved to do. The
feline - named after Tolstoy, because of its long ‘tail’ - was
now locked in a battle of gazes with him. He took a step
towards the creature and its fur stood on end, hackles rising.
On some level it could sense there was something wrong. Was
this really the man it used to curl up to, making itself
comfortable in his lap, pressing its feet into his thighs as
if making a nest?
One more step and the cat hissed, spinning around and
shooting off in the direction it had come, leaving its prey
behind. The man stood and looked across at Irene; she knew
exactly how the cat felt - didn’t want him coming anywhere
near her.
“Mum,” he said.
“Don’t call me that…”
“It’s who you are,” he insisted. “You’re my
mother.”
“I was Matthew’s mother. I…I don’t even know
what you are.”
He looked wounded.
Perhaps she was losing her mind. Was that it? Were
these the first signs of Alzheimers? Or a brain aneurysm? Was
she conjuring up this whole scene because she wanted to see
Matthew so badly, at this time of year especially… Was this
all her doing? Irene shook her head. No, this was real - the
man in front of her was real. And she had to figure out some
way of dealing with this before she really did go
insane.
“I’m Matthew. I’m not an hallucination,” he told her,
seemingly reading her mind.
“I…I don’t believe in ghosts,” Irene
said.
“I’m not a ghost either,” was his reply. “I’m solid, as
solid as I was in this photograph. See?” He reached over and
grabbed her arm and she nearly fell back onto the couch in an
effort to escape him. But there was no force in that grip; it
was merely to illustrate his point. “I carried you back in
here, remember?”
Her eyes were wide and white as dinner plates. He let
go of her, slowly, and Irene was profoundly aware that she was
trembling.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you…It’s just,
well…I don’t know how else to convince
you.”
“T-tea,” said Irene, her mouth a straight line. “A cup
of tea…”
The man smiled. “Of course, tea. The cup that cures.”
He said it like he knew that was her mantra. Like he knew that
all the problems there had ever been in this house had been
solved over a cup of hot, steaming tea. “I’ll…I’ll go and put
the kettle on.”
Irene almost laughed then, a nervous laugh. Her dead
son, or at least someone who purported to be so, was now
offering to go and brew up. She nodded and watched as he put
the picture down on the coffee table and left the room. From
the kitchen she heard cupboards being opened, the tinkling of
china - he knew exactly where to look. Then the sound of the
kettle being filled with water.
Irene snapped out of her daze. She picked up the
cordless telephone she always kept down the side of the couch
when it wasn’t charging. And, with one last glance at the
photo, she stabbed the buttons with her finger.
Dead Time
(Filmed as
‘New Year’s Day’ for NBC/Lionsgate’s series Fear
Itself)
I sought refuge in the
local mini-mart, trying a back-door and finding it open. There
was a light on somewhere inside as I crept through into the
shop itself, passing doors that must have led to the
storerooms or back offices. Slipping as quietly as I could
through strips of plastic acting as a partition, I scanned the
interior of the mini mart, the harsh strip lighting blinking
and dim. It was obvious I hadn’t been the only one with this
idea: the shelves of those four or five isles had been
ransacked, there were tins on the floor, dented like somebody
had hit them with something, remnants of loaves of bread,
fruit and vegetables squashed as they’d been trampled on.
There wasn’t much left,
but then beggars couldn’t be choosers I supposed. I found an
untouched bag of crisps, ready salted, and scoffed them down –
likewise, a packet of digestive biscuits. I was partway
through these when I heard a plopping sound coming from my
right. I froze. Turning my head sideways, I couldn’t see any
of the figures I’d been expecting – rather, the noise was
coming from the chiller section. The fridges must have packed
up at some point during the previous night, because the meat
there – bacon, porkchops, liver, chicken – was defrosting
under the lights. Not only that, the nearer I drew to it, the
more it became obvious that the meat was moving on its own.
Those cuts which were open to the air were crawling – yes,
crawling! – over each other in an attempt to get out of the
fridge. It was this that was making the noise, as the meat
dripped onto the floor of the mini-mart and made its way,
caterpillar-like, over the shiny surface. The same thing was
happening with the fish, too, scaly trout flapped around on
their beds of green garnish, dead eyes watching me accusingly.
The boxes of eggs, were also tipped onto the floor – and the
whites and yolks were fusing together to create some new
creature in death; the chick embryos, nowhere near fully
formed, wanted a taste of the life that had been denied them.
Watching the meat
inching towards me made me feel ill again, and I struggled to
keep down the crisps and biscuits, failing miserably. If what
I’d seen earlier on had been hard to take in, this was so much
worse. Whatever had brought back all those dead human beings
hadn’t stopped there. Anything dead was fair
game, it seemed. It didn’t matter whether it had been in the
ground or frozen solid; large or small, or just barely
organic; nothing escaped it.
More noises, this time
from the back of the mini-mart. A figure came through the
plastic strips, holding something in its hands. It was the
sharpened end of a broom, sticky with gunk. The man was
middle-aged with greying hair, wearing spectacles, and two or
three more figures came through behind him, a ghastly thin
woman who would have given some of the dead out there a run
for their money, and a couple of children: a girl aged maybe
eleven and a boy, eight. I didn’t recognise them so they
didn’t go to my school – probably private? The youngest child
was holding his arm, though, blood pouring from a huge gash
there…no, not a gash. A bite…
The man looked left and
right, holding the broom like a rifle, then his eyes settled
on me. “Look what they’ve done, Mary. Look what those fuckers
have done to our place!” I couldn’t tell whether he was
talking about the looters or the dead people. I have to admit
I do most of my weekly shop on the way back from school at the
supermarket, so I had no idea who these people were – but
assumed they must have been holed up in a flat above the mart.
Though from the looks of things they must have come down at
least once for the boy to have gotten bitten.
The owner waved his
makeshift spear in my direction, and I brought up my knife.
Not as effective as his weapon at a distance, but I was hoping
it would make him think twice.
“I don’t know if you’ve
noticed, mister, but there are more things to worry about than
the state of your shop.” I nodded at the meat and eggs on the
floor.
The older girl screamed
out loud. The father jabbed his stick in my direction, a
little too close for comfort. “Get out! Get out right
now!”
Friendly, I thought. The whole town – and for
all I know, the world – has gone to Hell in a handbasket, or
even a shopping basket, and he’s taking the mess his shop in
out on me…
“Listen,” I started, but
he jabbed that stick at me again. I tumbled backwards, almost
into one of the shelves. “For God’s sake, I’m not the
enemy!”
“Arthur!” shouted the
woman, and I thought at first she was telling him to back off.
But it was a warning. The little boy was running towards his
father – I assumed he was the father – and climbed up on his
back. Startled, he whirled around, trying to dislodge the kid
but not having much luck. The older girl ran to help pull her
brother off, but the he kicked her away. Then the boy bit into
the man’s neck, ripping away tendons and smearing all three of
them in redness. The man dropped his stick, then fell
backwards, but the boy still didn’t let go. The once-frozen
meat, sensing that there was a victim on hand, slithered
towards the man, crawling onto him as he thrashed about. What
it would do with no teeth, I had no idea, and I didn’t want to
find out.
I
turned and ran, towards the front of the shop this time - not
really caring if anyone saw me. The glass was smashed in
several places, so I could get out easily enough. What stopped
me in my tracks was a gathering of figures outside the shop.
At first there were only one or two, then a handful, like the
group that had chased the young man that morning. More soon
joined them, a dozen or so, emerging from the semi-darkness.
As they came nearer and the fluorescent lighting of the shop
caught them, I could see the many variations, from one man who
was completely naked, the skin pock-marked and decayed, to one
that was ancient and bony, dust and rags falling from its body
as it shuffled into position. And then one more figure, barely
there at all, formed out of ash and dirt with deep pockets of
black for eyes. Just as they didn't warn you in horror flicks
about the meat, so it was that they hadn't took into
consideration what might happen to those people who hadn't
been buried. Not everyone chose to rot away in a casket
beneath the earth - some were fried in furnaces, crushed down
into ash and kept in urns, or scattered to the winds. What I
was looking at was one such creature, made up of powder and
dust, that had somehow reformed itself into some semblance of
a man...
Review by Mark Smith-Briggs of
Horrorscope.
The
Lazarus Condition is the new novella from British Fantasy
Award nominee Paul Kane
(Funnybones, Touching the Flame). It is the debut release for
Australian small press publisher Tasmaniac
Publications.
RRP:
$22.95
The Lazarus Condition is an excellent
read. The unsettling, and at times moving, novella follows the
story of Matthew Daley, a man who reappears seven years after
his death to the disbelief of his friends, family and the
authorities to exact revenge on those that wronged
him.
Littered with religious undertones, the story
focuses on themes of loss, grief and the impact someone would
have if the long dead arrived on their doorstep. It also
avoids the clichés of many zombie stories, Daley is neither
incoherent nor a rotting corpse. Instead he is presented as an
intelligent, but confused reincarnation of his former self – a
man to whom the past seven years never happened.
Kane
draws you into Daley’s struggles with sharp, active prose. The
details of Matthew’s death, along with the true reason for his
return are left unanswered at first, being revealed in bites
and nibbles that progress the story, rather than just fill us
in. The chapters are short and to the point, building nicely
until the surprisingly touching ending. All of this is backed
by strong, rounded support characters that help us to connect
with Matthew’s struggles and the impact he is having on those
around him.
At 96 pages, the Lazarus Condition is a
story that can be enjoyed in one sitting and is probably at
its most potent when it is. So sit, read and enjoy. The horror
element may be more subtle that you’re used to in a zombie
tale, but the impact is every bit as powerful.
Also
included is the bonus short story Dead Time which takes a more
traditional view at the problems of an undead
plague.
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