The Lazarus Effect Read Online Free

huddle of grins around a huge cake propped on the lap of a bald, prepubescent boy. A few of the other children were bald too, but unlike the boy in the middle, they wore bandanas or caps. A girl stood near the boy’s elbow, at the edge of the photo but somehow in the middle of it, as central as the boy himself. Her smile and stance were uncertain compared to the other kids, like she knew herself an outsider here – her hair too full and glossy, her complexion too rosy. As the girl crouched to fit into the frame, her hand rested on the boy’s arm, fingers curled around his bony shoulder as if he were a reservoir of strength she hungrily drew on. Even without the knitted red hat and the knife of time to carve away the baby cheeks, the girl’s face was unmistakable. An animal groan made Vee start and look around in surprise, until she realised the sound came from her own throat. A couple nearby looked up from their conversation and squinted in her direction.
    ‘Teelinglingling. Teeleeeelingling,’ sang Ikenna, tugging on her jeans. Dazed, Vee looked down as if she’d never seen him before in her life. It took a moment to sink in that he was mimicking a ringing cell phone. Hands shaking, she fished the Nokia out of her handbag.
    ‘Miss Va … um, Viona … Vaija … uh, Miss Johnson,’ spoke a hesitant voice. ‘Tamsin here, the receptionist from upstairs. Dr Kingsley’s almost done with the last patient, so he’ll see you in ten minutes. That okay?’
    ‘Yes, thank you,’ Vee croaked. ‘On my way.’
    Her face was hot, melting, sliding off, the combo of plastic and glass of her phone icy against her skin. This Air Girl, this Smiling Everywhere Girl, she lived here, inside this picture, in this hospital. She’d been inside this building at one point. There was no mistaking it, no question about that smile. The girl in the photograph was the younger mould of the tormentor, but nonetheless it was her. The one Vee kept seeing when there was nothing to see. This face was the ambassador of last week’s jogging meltdown and all the other unwelcome sightings. The force in the ominous undertow she sometimes felt when sitting alone, of being watched, hovered over, the one that pricked up tiny anthills on her skin.
    Vee wiped a clammy slick of moisture off her forehead. Anxiety rolled, fogging her vision.
    Not here. Not now.
    God no no no no no no no …

2
    Dr Ian Fourie lingered outside the front entrance of the Wellness Institute and sucked in the fresh morning air, enjoying a rare opportunity for introspection before his day began. He stood at his car, looking over the signs of progress. The place was almost finished. Almost … but not quite. Active building sites were a blight, no matter how contained and low-key the forces involved tried to keep them. And builders never finished on schedule, ever. They were meant to have wrapped up in May, when winter kicked in, yet here they were still, staring down the barrel of October in a few weeks. Mercifully, most of it was confined to the back of the grounds, but the thought of people equating a chaotic exterior to shoddy service within made him sour.
    He couldn’t think of the WI as up and running until all the finishing touches were complete. Ian liked things done . Finality and full stops were reason to relax. Right now, he couldn’t give in to any excitement bubbling under. It was unlucky to celebrate prematurely, or worse, to overstate one’s abilities to complete a task and then fall sadly and pathetically short of it. A lasting stain of my pessimistic mother, he chided himself.
    As if to taunt him, the wind picked up. Dust rose and the protective sheeting draped over the concrete lip of the roof billowed above his head. Ian stepped back and coughed, flicking dust off his coat. He looked up at the ledge above the double doors of the main entrance, where the institute’s sign was being erected at last. The temporary wooden slats supporting the lettering groaned and