Dead Flowers - Chapter Fourteen

Dr. Best is a mysterious woman. She brings Leena to the Soil and Water Research Facility, a place Leena suspected only dealt with the environmental damages of their town. It turns out theres a little more than just that going on and Leena finds the one person she had been craving for since he left.

Dr. Best drove silently down the Riverview roads. I had opened my mouth to speak, to try and ask her some form of question but nothing ever seemed to come out. I wasn’t sure if I wanted my questions answered but I still tried to voice them, still tried to breathe out any form of sound.

The amount of words and cries swarming in my head all revolved around Robert and I felt she knew that already. I tried once more to speak, once more to ask those haunting thoughts picking at my brain but she had pulled into our destination before I could.

We arrived at the Soil and Water Research Facility. It was the science labs of Riverview, a place that basically dealt with the environment and wildlife preservation. It made no sense that we would come here. Science wasn’t what Riverview was known for.

This was a farming town, a place that held a simple life that really only worried if their crops would make it through the occasional frost or if the waters were being contaminated by tourists.

“We’re going here?” I asked as we wandered from the back parking lot, “But this is just a testing facility.”

Dr. Best giggled, “Exactly.”

“No, I mean it tests soil and water and if the fish aren’t being polluted,” I cried, hurrying after the woman as she pushed open the glass doors.

A simple receptionist was seated in a desk at the back of the front entrance. She looked up with a smile, “Welcome back, Dr. Best. Should I inform Dr. Darwin you’ve returned?”

“No need, dear,” and Dr. Best rushed me toward a hall and straight to a grouping of descending stairs.

“Where are we going?” I demanded, trying my hardest to keep up to the woman. She was wearing heels and a tight skirt and yet she seemed to be able to walk quicker than I ever could.

Dr. Best paused in front of a metal doorway, “We’re going to answer your questions, Leena.”

“But wait, how do you -”

“What did I just say?” laughed the woman, “My, you are an impatient one.”

With a loud sigh, I followed the woman through the door. Her heels clicked along the tile below and what greeted us was a long hallway. Four singular doors laid spread along the wall.

Dr. Best took the second one and we were greeted by a small office. Upon the walls looked like blank televisions that I was told were monitors and a light board to read X-rays.

I frowned at the scans on the wall. They looked simple enough, a hand and what was probably an arm.

“So you’re a medical doctor?”

The mysterious woman smiled, “No, dear. I’m a scientist. Dr. Darwin is the medical doctor.”

“I’m confused,” I gripped to my arms nervously, “What’s going on here? What exactly do you do here?”

“The usual. Conduct experiments, play with chemicals and sometimes -” Her face softened.

“- sometimes, dear, we try to revive the dead.”

I didn’t know what to say. Any humour that I had been willing to give the woman died and I felt myself take a step backwards. This couldn’t be real. Luke had to have put her up to this.

“You... You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m very serious, Leena,” Dr. Best moved towards the X-rays, “Now I’m sure you have a few more questions than that.”

I picked at my bottom lip, “Why... Why did you come and get me? How did you even know I existed?”

“I already answered that, you silly girl.”

“No, I mean really... I don’t want to play games,” I said, “Just tell me why I’m here.”

“You’re here because my latest patient requested that I assure your safety before we attempted to regenerate him.”

“Regenerate?” I pause, mouthing the word over and over again, “What exactly does that mean?”

Hannah Best released a loud sigh. It was quite clear my questions were getting far too primitive for her.

“He talked about you all the time and he never once told me how stupid you were -”

“Hey!” I cried, a snarl overthrowing my timid face. She giggled.

“Regeneration is what is going to occur to your ghost Robert,” explained the doctor. She was amused, “If all goes well, your dear little ghost will be a full fledge human being.”

“If all goes well?” I whispered. My eyes widened, “Wait, it can go wrong?”

The doctor beamed, “Of course. The last six experiments never survived the night. We thought the last one was going to make it but it seemed her weak little heart couldn’t -”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. You’re not doing this to Robert,” I snarled. I wasn’t going to allow the chance that this would end wrongly. I had waited a year for closure, a year to finally see that phantom again and I wasn’t willing -

The woman chuckled, “Dear, it is his choice, not mine. If he wished to leave he would’ve left months ago.”

“He’s been here the whole time?”

“Of course! The process takes more than a few days, Leena. The ectoplasm that a lingering ghost is created from needs to be twisted and slowly replaced. That is a very long process. In fact, if it’s not done properly and the DNA is extracted -”

“I want to see him.”

She frowned. Apparently interrupting her little spiel had been annoying, “Now?”

“Yes, now. I need to talk to him. This is stupid. He could die!”

“He’s already dead, dear.”

“Well than what will happen to him if it doesn’t work?”

“Well, it’s worked,” Dr. Best breathed, “We’ve gotten their bodies back to normal, gotten their organs working but they’ve all shut down by the end of the night.”

“Take me to him. I need to tell him -”

“Talking to him may be a slight issue at the moment but I can allow you to see him,” explained the female.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you.”

So Dr. Best led me out of the small office and down the hall to the final door. She peered down at me with an almost nervous feel like the moment I stepped into that room, I’d collapse.

I was quivering, shaking. I couldn’t believe after all this time Robert had been right here. He had been a 10 minute drive from my home. He had been here; right here and I had completely given up hope.

I felt horrible, stupid and disgusted with myself.

“Go on than, dear.”

I pushed open the door and stepped inside.

I couldn’t breathe. Everything I had been wanting and waiting for was right before me and I was nowhere near closer than I had been trying on my wedding dress.

Robert lay silently, asleep upon what looked to be a metal bed. He was hooked up to an IV, a red blood pouring into a vein I didn’t even know he could have.

“Rob?” I whispered and my hands pressed against the glass, “Rob, what did you do?”

“He did it for you, you know?”

“What?” My eyes wouldn’t leave the sleeping ghost. His chest rose like he was actually taking in air and yet I could still see right through him.

“He was searching for a cure, something to bring him back to life. He wanted to be with you and he wanted you to be happy.”

I dropped to my knees, “Robert, you idiot! I wanted to be with you regardless of what you were!”

“He can’t hear you, Leena.”

“I don’t care!” I snarled at the woman, my head buried against my knees, “He needs to snap out of this! Wake him up, stop this now!”

“Leena, dear, it’s too late for that. He’s already changing.  If we stop it now I can guarantee you he won’t make it through the night let alone the next few hours.”

“But – But...” I continued to sob, to cry and to spill my complete sorrow into my lap.

Dr. Best made no move to comfort me, “We’re trying a new procedure with him. It hasn’t been tested but it’s a modification of the past failures. We’re sure this will be it.”

“You don’t know that though!” I screamed, throwing my body up in a furious yell, “If he dies... if he dies... I – I won’t -”

“Come along, dear, I’ll bring you back home. I’ll phone you when I have the results -”

“No,” I snapped, “I’m not leaving him.”

“Leena, dear, I only brought you here so you could see him. You have a fiancé now and a beautiful life ahead of you -”

“You don’t understand!” I cried, “I haven’t been able to get Robert out of my head since he left! I’m not leaving until -”

“Alright, alright,” She released a huff, “Come along than. You may sit in the study until it’s completed.”

So I sat quietly in the study for over 8 hours. At first I paced back and forth and back and forth but when my legs grew weary I collapsed in the corner, my knees against my chest as I tried so very hard not to listen to the beeping coming from down the hall.

I hadn’t met the other doctor but if he was anything like Dr. Best I wanted nothing to do with him.

As I sat there, weeping to myself and muttering angry words into the silent study, I could only think about Robert. The fact that I had a fiancé, a fiancé who was probably looking for me, barely crossed my mind.

The only time I thought about Caleb was when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t bother picking it up. I tossed it across the room and fell to the floor with an exhausted feel over my body.

When the door finally opened, I was back in the fetal position against the wall. A man had entered, a very stiff looking gentleman with surprisingly clean clothes. This had to be Dr. Darwin.

“You are Leena then?”

I nodded.

“You may see him if you wish -”

“He’s alright?” I leapt to my feet, “He’s going to make it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then?”

Dr. Darwin shook his head, “He is alive... for now. You may see him, sit with him, do whatever you wish but do not get your hopes up.”

“Is he awake?”

“No but if he does awake, call for me.”

“Will that mean he’s alright?”

“No.”

I nodded. It was the only thing I could do and with Dr. Darwin’s direction that Robert was right next door, I scampered out of the room. I needed to see him. I needed to be with him regardless of what he looked liked.

I knew he wanted to make me happy, he wanted to see me live the life a human should but all it had caused was for me to blame myself. If he didn’t make it, if he didn’t live through the night, I’d never be able to go on with that smile I had been holding onto for the past year.

To be continued...