I open the door to my uncle's house while Iggy supports Eugene, cursing the entire time.

"Shit, he's heavy!" he complains, sagging beneath the weight of the dead body hanging off his shoulder. "Hurry up and open the door!"

"I'm trying."

I fumble with the keypad and punch in the code. It's still the same combination my uncle gave me five years ago, back when I'd helped him stumble into the house after a drunken New Year's party.

The lock clicks.

"Finally."

I open the door and help Iggy drag Eugene inside.

The house has black-and-white marble floors and a huge black chandelier hanging in the middle of the main hallway. I'd only been here a handful of times, but I could still remember the parties and admiring the lavish decorations during Christmas and Halloween, with lights glimmering like stars.

Now the place is molding in the corners, and the furniture has been forgotten beneath white sheets meant to protect it from the elements.

Nobody comes here anymore.

Which is exactly why I chose it.

We dump Eugene onto the kitchen table, and Iggy immediately sinks into a chair, panting.

"I can't believe I agreed to this bullshit," he groans, pressing his forehead into his arms.

"Why did you do this?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. "Not many people would be on board with this. Even if he was your best friend and all."

Iggy doesn't lift his head.

"I don’t know. Eugene’s just always been there for me. He might be an asshole, but nobody knows the real him. Not like I do," he admits, his voice so quiet that I have to strain to hear him. "I would give anything to bring him back."

I stare down at Eugene, studying his serene expression. I remember the lips that I had kissed before he died and how the light had faded from his eyes as I held his hand. "I get it," I answer finally. "I've lost people, too. It's like a part of you is still waiting for them to call you up or walk in through the door."

 Iggy sits up, his palms splayed out on the table. "How are we going to do this anyway?"

"Carefully," I explain, and set my backpack down on the table, unzipping it. "We're going to do this step by step, so I need you listening to everything I say." I knew that it would be the hardest thing that I had ever done, but I was determined to make this work. "Take off his shoes and his clothes." 

Iggy stands up, instantly appalled. "You want me to do what?" 

I pull out a couple of jumper cables and click-clack them together. "His underwear can stay on. I just need somewhere to clamp these cables so that we can run electricity through his body."

Iggy stares at me for a long moment. “I need a minute,” he says, and then he turns around and walks straight out of the kitchen.

I watch him disappear down the hallway. 

“Igor? Igor, darling?” I call out to him in my damsel-in-distress voice. 

He doesn’t answer. 

I sigh and glance down at the corpse that is currently Eugene Wilder. “He’s just being dramatic,” I tell him. “Don’t worry, Eugene. We’ll figure this out somehow.”

I pull out one of the jumper cables from my backpack and examine it, a slow smile spreading across my face. “I doubt his feeble mind can comprehend the intricacies of proper cable placement anyway.”

I lean closer, lowering my voice as though we’re sharing a terrible secret, and stroke his cheek with the back of my hand, touch featherlight against his cold skin. “Do you remember who you were, Eugene?” I whisper. “The golden boy? The stupid hair? The personality of a rabid raccoon as you mocked me every waking hour?”

I chuckle softly. “Well, he’s gone now.” 

I tilt my head, propping a hand under my cheek as I observe him. “Fortunately, death has made you considerably more cooperative.” I lift the cable and swing it around one finger. “And I’m going to take advantage of that. Besides, how much worse could I possibly make you?”

Naturally, Eugene doesn't answer.

I turn toward the kitchen counter and begin arranging my equipment as carefully as possible. The key to performing a successful resurrection, I assume, is being as organized as possible. I’d received my doctorate as a brain surgeon when I was thirteen; I knew the general ropes of a procedure.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

Medical school had covered cardiac arrest, brain death, trauma, organ failure, and just about every other horrible thing that could happen to a human body. But death itself had always been treated as the final answer.

I had never been particularly fond of final answers.

The battery goes down first. Then the cables. And then my collection of homemade probes. Then a pair of pliers, which I stare at for a moment.

I don't remember putting those in my backpack.

I shrug and toss them into the pile with a clatter, assuming they could be useful if I needed to pry something loose. A tooth, perhaps. Or a toenail. 

From the hallway, Iggy finally returns, looking deeply suspicious, but stops when he sees the equipment spread across the counter. “What the hell is all that?”

“Science,” I say, without looking up at him. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“That doesn't answer my question,” Iggy says. “This looks crazy, Darcy.”

He walks over and examines the battery sitting on the table. “Please tell me you actually know what you're doing.”

I sigh, roll my eyes a little, and finally look up at him, a probe clutched in one hand. “Let me tell you something, Iggy,” I say. “I was a level five trauma surgeon for four years. I was elbow-deep in anuses and organs when you were merely in diapers.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Dude,” he says, “Aren’t you, like, eighteen?”

I stare at him. "Yes," I reply. “Why yes, I am.”

“So you were a baby when you started cutting people open?” Iggy asks.

I lower the probe. “I was a prodigy,” I say. “I know that’s hard to believe given my petite form and delicate appearance, but I—”

“You were a toddler!” He interrupts me. “Oh, my God!” And his hands fly to his hair, pushing it back as he panics a little. “I can’t even fucking believe this!”

“I was a very advanced toddler.” I correct him and carefully arrange the probes in my hand next to Eugene’s pale hands. 

Iggy groans. “So what, you came out of the womb holding a scalpel?” And then he chuckles at his own joke and even attempts to smile a little to lighten the situation.

That is, until I shrug and say, “They were forceps, actually. The doctor dropped them when I was being evacuated from the womb.”

Iggy stops laughing immediately, his face going pale. 

I ignore him and pick up the cables. “Come here.”

"No," he says. 

“I need your help,” I say. “I can’t do this alone.”

“No.” Iggy takes a step back and crosses his arms. “You’re crossing a line, Darcy.”

“Igor.” I shake the probes at him a little. “I need you to nipple clamp Eugene Wilder.”

“FUCK NO!” He practically screams. “I’m not clamping his nipples, Darcy! That’s abuse of a corpse and wrong on so many levels! This is sick, man! Sick!”

I sigh a little and shake my head. “Igor, darling.”

His eyes narrow. “Stop calling me that!”

“Please,” I say, and I hold out the cables. “Do it for Eugene.” And that seems to be enough. After a moment, Iggy scowls and takes the cables from me.

I slowly rid Eugene of his tie, suit, and clothing, slowly exposing his beautiful, sculpted body to the cold air. He has abs for miles, a chiseled chest, and a trail of hair vanishing beneath his slacks. Iggy’s hands are shaking as he holds the clamps over Eugene’s dark brown nipples, which are surprisingly perky, and slowly clamps his areolas with intense precision. 

“What about this one?” He asks after a moment and turns to me, holding a yellow-looking cable with a rubber tip that looks a bit phallic. 

“That's the grounding cable,” I say. 

Iggy looks at it. “Okay, so…where does the grounding cable go?”

I pause and look at Eugene.

Then I look at the cable. And finally, back at Iggy.

“Somewhere that will make you deeply, deeply uncomfortable.”

His eyes widen.

“No.”