I’m attaching the clamps to Eugene’s nipples when Iggy comes back into the room. He left the elegant dining room a few minutes ago when I announced that I was going to use a butt-probe and the forbidden nipple clamps on Eugene. Apparently, he needed some time alone to process the fact that this was where his life had ended up. 

Personally, I don’t see the problem. The clamps are supposed to stimulate the nervous system. The probe was to ensure complete resurrection.

Iggy stares down at Eugene, his face ghost-white. “You actually did it,” he says.

“Obviously,” I say.

“You actually put nipple clamps on a dead guy.”

“Oh, get over yourself.” I grimace as I attach the second clamp. “This isn’t a cheap porn, Igor. This is science, and we’re reanimating the dead. Of course it’s verging on perverse.” I say, and then glance up at him.

He’s taking a selfie.

He holds up two fingers in a peace sign, grinning at the camera.

Panic shoots through me.

I leap across the counter and slap the phone out of his hand.

“What the hell are you doing!?” I yell.

The phone goes skidding across the floor.

“Bro!” Iggy whirls around, mouth hanging open. “You did not just do that!”

We both stare down at the phone.

The screen flickers once.

Then goes black.

A spiderweb of cracks spreads across the glass.

Iggy slowly slides both hands into his long blonde hair and exhales through his teeth. He’s pissed. I can tell.

“Do you know how many months it took me to buy that phone?” he growls. “Do you know how many shifts I had to work at McDonald’s?”

I feel like shit for breaking it, but underneath the guilt is a wave of relief.

“We can’t risk someone seeing Eugene,” I explain. “We could both go to jail, Iggy. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

Iggy grabs his backpack. His hands are shaking with anger as he throws one strap over his shoulder.

“I’m done with your freaky experiments and all your weird gothy clothes, Darcy.” He shakes his head. “I would tell you to go die, but you’d probably enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”

He walks away, leaving me standing alone in the barren dining room.

“Iggy!” I shout after him.

I drop the clamps and hurry after him.

“Wait!”

I catch up with him in the hallway.

“Look, I’m sorry about your phone. I’ll find the money to buy you a new one, okay?”

I stand there in the doorway, watching him hesitate.

As much as I enjoy being alone in the darkness with my eternally damned soul, I don’t want to do this alone.

Iggy glances at me and bites his lip.

Which is horribly attractive.

How come when he does it, he looks like a Vogue model, but when I do it, I look like I just stubbed my toe?

“It’s not just the phone,” he says finally. “I’m just worried this is going to go wrong. I’ve seen enough bad horror movies to know how this goes. We could end up with a monster on our hands. And then what? Huh?”

He shifts his backpack higher onto his shoulders.

“Then we deal with it,” I reply quietly. “This is for Eugene, remember?”

“Right.”

Iggy closes his eyes for a moment, taking a long breath.

“You still owe me a new phone.”

He sighs and walks back toward me.

“Come on. Let’s do this before I change my mind.”

I lead him back into the room where Eugene is.

But when we get there, the table is empty.

The clamps are lying exactly where I left them, but there’s no body.

My heart drops into my stomach.

Iggy comes up behind me and stares at the empty table.

“Did you move him?”

“I can’t even lift him. How would I move him?”

I hurry over to the table and crouch down, peeking underneath it to see if Eugene somehow rolled off while we were gone.

Maybe some postmortem muscle spasm made him move.

Maybe he fell.

Maybe—

Iggy starts checking the cabinets.

Then the pantry.

Then underneath the sink.

“Why would he be under there?” I demand, hands on my hips as I watch him search.

“I don't know!”

“You think he crawled into a cabinet?”

“I don't know what I think!”

He opens another cabinet, but it's completely empty. 

We search the entire house.

The living room.

The hallway.

The bedrooms.

The bathroom.

I even look behind the shower curtain, which is ridiculous because Eugene is a fully grown man and not a Victorian ghost.

Ten minutes later, the house looks like it has been ransacked.

He's nowhere.

I finally stand in the middle of the living room, sweat dotting my forehead.

“This is impossible.”

Iggy stares at me.

“He's supposed to be dead.”

“No shit!” Iggy throws his hands into the air. “Now what do we do?”

I open my mouth, but no words come out.

Then I glance past him.

Through the window.

Something moves across the yard.

At first, I think it’s a deer.

Then the figure stumbles into the moonlight.

My blood runs cold.

Eugene.

Completely naked.

Stumbling drunkenly across the yard toward the woods.

I stop breathing.

I blink.

Once.

Twice. Hoping that what I'm seeing is merely a dream.

But when I open my eyes, he’s still there.

He's alive...

He's alive.