The Second Life of Nathan Jones. David Atkinson

       Chapter 3

      Once I’d made sure my rather attractive ‘corpse’ was alive and not a figment of my too often fertile imagination, I called upstairs and got them to send down some of the intensive care staff. My ‘patient’ (I thought that sounded better than ‘corpse’ on the phone) hadn’t been dead for long, if indeed he’d been dead at all. The doctors were understandably confused and fired loads of questions at me, most of which I couldn’t answer.

      Fifteen minutes after I’d discovered the patient – Mr Jones, according to his label – had been moved to an intensive care bed, wired up to the moon and subjected to all manner of poking and prodding. After they finished their tests, they loaded him up with painkillers and left him to sleep. The IT consultant told me that, ‘Nathan Jones is a medical curiosity, a walking miracle – well, he will be. Currently, he’s a lying-down moaning miracle.’

      At the end of my shift I pottered upstairs to see how my first ‘living corpse’ had fared. He intrigued me but, more than that, he’d unsettled me. I’d never developed feelings instantly for anyone before, alive or dead or maybe somewhere in between, as Mr Jones appeared to be.

      I knew I’d stepped onto dodgy ground but couldn’t help the way I felt.

      I stopped by the nurses’ station on the way and got an update from Jan, the staff nurse on duty. We’d known each other for years. She’d ‘taken me under her wing’ (her description not mine) when I’d first started in the hospital, and even confessed to me one night when we were both a bit drunk that she suspected she had bisexual tendencies but didn’t want her husband or teenage son to find out. Given that new information, I hadn’t been sure at the time whether her ‘taking me under her wing’ might be a sign that she liked me or a sign that she liked me, but – to my relief – nothing more than her drunken confession had happened.

      She filled me in on what she knew and that he remained asleep. I slipped into his room and sat staring at him for a while, wondering how on earth he’d managed to get pronounced dead and yet still be alive.

      I’d just decided to get up and head for home when his eyes flickered open. ‘Hello there,’ I said brightly.

      ‘Can you say anything else?’ he mumbled with an English accent, running his tongue around dry lips. I poured him some water and handed it to him. His left arm had been encased in plaster but his right one seemed fine and he took the beaker from me.

      ‘Are you right-handed? That’s lucky.’

      He nodded. ‘Yeah, I don’t feel that lucky just now. I think I need to thank you … you know, for finding me.’

      ‘You were being very noisy. The morgue is usually quiet, like, well … a morgue, I suppose.’

      ‘Not too noisy, I hope – not enough to wake the dead.’

      ‘I didn’t check but I think you were the only live one there.’

      ‘Has that ever happened to you before?’

      I shook my head. ‘Nope, you’re my first zombie. You were definitely dead when they shut you in the drawer again yesterday.’

      ‘Again?’

      ‘Yeah, I wasn’t in over the weekend, but it seems after your wife identified you on Saturday night, they moved you around a fair bit because they were servicing the fridge mechanisms, so you haven’t been in the drawers much. Thing is, you’d think all that moving about would have woken you up.’

      ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘Neither do I, nor the doctors. You’ve got a lot of people confused and all worked up. They don’t know why you’re alive and that bothers them.’

      ‘They’d rather I’d stayed dead?’

      ‘Probably; and if you’d stayed in there much longer you’d likely have frozen to death anyway. They’re saying you’ve been subject to the Lazarus Syndrome.’

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘Well, it’s also known as autoresuscitation after failed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which is the spontaneous return of circulation after failed attempts at revival.’

      ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘You’re very lucky.’

      ‘You said that already. What’s your name?’

      ‘Kat.’

      ‘What, as in pussy? Sorry, that sounds rude.’

      ‘It’s fine. No, K-A-T.’

      ‘Oh, okay. As in short for Katie or something.’

      ‘Yeah, something like that. Look, I really came to see if there’s anything you need?’

      ‘A new body, maybe.’

      I laughed. ‘I can’t help you there. I think your wife stopped by earlier.’

      ‘Did you speak to her?’

      ‘No, I was downstairs at that point helping saw the top off someone’s skull.’

      ‘I probably didn’t need to know that.’

      ‘Sorry, the staff nurse said she couldn’t hang around because of your kids but they’ve called to let her know that you’re awake. She said she’ll come tomorrow.’ I scratched my nose where a black piercing emerged from my left nostril. I noticed Nathan watching me intently. I must admit being overcome with a feeling of disappointment when I’d discovered he had a wife. My taste in men wasn’t getting any better the older I got. ‘It must have been a shock for her.’

      ‘What? That I’d died?’

      ‘Well, yes, that you’d died. And then that you were suddenly alive again.’ I noticed his face darken and a frown appeared, making him look older. ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘Apart from being broken?’

      I smiled. ‘Yeah, you look upset about something.’

      ‘No, just in a bit of pain, I think.’

      I didn’t believe him but whatever was bothering him wasn’t really any of my business.

      ‘Well, as your wife isn’t able to come and see you, who else can I call?’

      ‘Ghostbusters,’ he said, smiling.

      ‘Seriously – there’s no one? Your mother?’

      ‘She’s been dead for seventeen years.’

      ‘Father?’

      ‘Dead for twenty.’

      ‘Brothers, sisters?’

      ‘I’m an only child.’

      ‘Lonely child, more like. What about friends?’

      Nathan sighed. ‘You could have called my mate Graham, I suppose, but he’s on holiday in Thailand.’

      ‘Have you told your work you’re likely to be off for a while?’

      ‘I mainly work for myself, freelance, so no need.’

      ‘Freelance what?’

      ‘Just