The Lazarus Compound

This is the transcript of an episode of my podcast, From the Mind of Maro. I wrote this story as a Halloween special for the show last year. I hope you enjoy, and if you wish to hear more of my work, please feel free to check out the podcast itself on Spotify, Itunes, Iheart and Spreaker.


March 3rd, 1972

I leave this journal partially as an admission of guilt, but also as a record of events that have been known only to me for far too long. To whomever may discover this, I must warn you, that what follows is a tale of unspeakable crimes against nature, and utmost depravity. It is not for the faint of heart. What’s more, please do not judge me too harshly for the story I am about to tell you. I was young and naive, and began this horrific journey with only the benefit of humanity in mind. But, as the old saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

My name is unimportant. All that really matters is the terrible deeds I partook in, under the delusion that it was for the greater good. It all began in 1952, in a quiet, idyllic town in the United States. I was in my sophomore year of high school and had recently moved to this quaint suburb with my mother and younger sister. My father was away on the other side of the globe, serving in the conflict that would come to be known as the Korean War.

My mother had gotten a job as a waitress at the local diner, and I was able to get myself a paper route in the morning before taking my bike to school for the day. It was during this year that I had been assigned a new subject, chemistry. It was in this class that I met Henry North. That was when the terror began.

I had been assigned to Henry as a lab partner for the year, and to be frank, I didn’t much care for it at first. I wasn’t exactly popular in school, but Henry was what most at the time would consider a social outcast among the school student body.

He had greasy black hair that was always untidy, and abnormally pale skin with cold, penetrating eyes. I was never given a choice in regards to working with him for class. If I had been, perhaps everything that followed would never have happened. We rarely spoke to one another, except when necessary to complete our assignments. His voice was often soft and quiet, almost a whisper at times. I can scarcely recall him ever raising his voice, even when the local jocks would harass him for his awkward appearance and antisocial behavior.

If I’m being honest, Henry was actually a great partner in regards to the class subject. He was practically a prodigy, and even offered to help me with my studies, much to my surprise. I distinctly remember debating with myself on whether or not to accept his offer, as it would involve spending most of the evening over at his house to study.

Looking back, I curse myself for accepting. If I had never gone to his house that night, I would have spared myself a lot of grief and regret. It started out like I thought it would, with Henry guiding me through various textbooks and taking notes, with his mother occasionally checking on us and asking if we wanted anything to snack on. His father had left years before, leaving him and his mother alone. After we had finished studying, and I was preparing to leave, Henry asked if I wanted to see what a marvel of chemistry can really do.

I asked what he meant. “Aren’t you curious what a master chemist could really accomplish?” He said with a strange glint in his eyes. Being the foolish boy I was, my curiosity was piqued. Henry led me to his room and opened his closet which had a second door on the inside that went to the attic. Before we entered, Henry turned to me suddenly with a deathly serious look. “Can you keep a secret?” He said. I assured him I could, and until this moment, I have kept that promise, and told not a single soul of what transpired that night.

We climbed the stairs to the attic, where upon turning on the light, I saw a sort of makeshift laboratory, with beakers and test tubes strewn about, all connected to each other through plastic tubing, each one full of various chemical concoctions. I asked him what this was all for.

He explained that he had gotten a chemistry set as a gift from his mother about a year previously, and after extensive preparation and research, he had discovered a way to “reactivate” vital organs that had ceased to function, as long as they were intact, simply by injecting a chemical compound he had discovered directly into where the brain meets the spinal cord. In other words, he claimed to have discovered a way to revive the dead.

Of course, I immediately called his bluff on this, and thought this was some kind of morbid practical joke. But his expression remained serious. Seeing I obviously didn’t believe him, he simply walked to the corner of the attic and retrieved a shoebox, before bringing it over to me and opening the lid.

I gasped in shock. Inside the box was a dead cat, still with some dirt matted in its fur. I asked him where he had gotten the feline corpse. He said it was a neighbor’s pet that had died of an unexpected illness. Early that morning, he snuck into the neighbor’s backyard and dug up the poor thing before refilling it’s grave and sneaking it back to his impromptu lab.

“Why on earth did you do that?” I asked half accusingly, half appalled. He didn’t answer. Instead he went to a table at the other end of the room, and came back holding a syringe filled with a glowing blue liquid. “This is the chemical I told you about, that can raise the dead. I call it the Lazarus Compound. To be honest, I’ve never actually tested it. This will be my creation’s first trial. All I ask is for you to let me prove it works. My calculations all indicate it should. Just wait here for ten more minutes, that’s all I ask. If the test fails, we’ll never speak of this again.”

Every part of my conscience, every fiber of my being, told me I should have left at that moment. But, for whatever reason, I decided to humor him. Maybe it was out of pity for him, or perhaps it was morbid curiosity. Whatever it was, I stayed and watched as he injected the solution into the base of the cat’s skull, and sat it down on the attic floor.

For what felt like eons, we stared at the poor feline cadaver, waiting with baited breath for any sign of life. Until finally, I could see the cat’s body slowly rise and fall, as it began to breathe very lightly, but clearly. Then it opened its eyes, and for a brief moment, it seemed to look around in confusion, as if wondering how it ended up in this strange attic, then it stared up at the both of us before getting on its feet and let out a somewhat hoarse but unmistakable meow.

Needless to say, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Here was a creature that just that morning was dead as stone, yet here it was alive and kicking, plain as day! Henry and I looked at each other, me with a look of bewilderment, him with a look of triumph. We said nothing, but I know that we both were thinking the same thing: This was a beginning, the beginning of something truly incredible. Little did we know in the years to come, that it would turn out to be equally as terrible.

It was several weeks or so until we were able to procure all the necessary ingredients for Henry’s formula for his “Lazarus Compound”. I do not dare record it here, lest anyone who finds this record try to repeat our mistake. I assisted in this task somewhat reluctantly, still hesitant of the implications the effects this discovery would have on the world at large. Was it really right to reverse death? To undo what had always been the natural order of the universe? To play God? Chalk it up to youthful optimism or sheer foolishness, but a morbid curiosity in my mind wanted to know the answers to these questions.

In the meantime, Henry had adopted our first test subject as his own. Whether out of a genuine feeling of responsibility for the creature, or so as to study it for any potential unexpected effects of the compound, I cannot say. He had given the cat the nickname of Laz, thinking it was only fitting. The cat seemed to behave as though it had never died in the first place, at first. It showed all the normal signs of a perfectly healthy adult of its species, even seemingly showing more affection towards Henry. Perhaps a show of gratitude for its resurrection?

Regardless, as we searched for the components to mix a new batch of the compound, we began to notice some odd behaviors in Laz. For one, he never seemed to eat or drink. His food and water dishes never seemed to be used, and we never saw him so much as chase any sort of smaller creature, let alone try to devour one. Henry figured this loss of appetite was merely a side effect of the compound, and that Laz would regain his hunger eventually.

As we later discovered, the compound also seemed to function as a sort of embalming agent, but eventually wore off. We found this out when we began to notice a foul stench coming from Laz, as clumps of his fur came loose whenever we petted him or he rubbed against our legs. The matter only worsened when we tried giving Laz a bath so as to get rid of the smell. But no amount of soap and scrubbing did anything to diminish the odor. By the time we finally gave up, the poor thing was completely bald, resembling a breed of sphinx cat with patches of peeling skin here and there.

It was at this point we both realized that the formula was still imperfect, and needed more refining and trials. Looking back, I deeply wish I had realized that we had already gone too far, and destroyed everything having to do with that wretched serum. As we began the long, arduous process of preparing another batch of the compound, which Henry calculated would take around a month to complete, poor Laz’s condition only worsened.

Henry’s mother, still none the wiser to our grotesque experiments, eventually began to notice the smell of decay emanating from our makeshift laboratory in the attic. She assumed an animal had found its way inside the house and died. In a sense, she wasn’t wrong. She asked Henry to find the source of the smell and dispose of it. Henry was most reluctant to obey, not wanting to risk exposure of his discovery before it had been perfected. But Laz’s deteriorating form was beginning to pose a threat of that happening either way, so we were left with no other option but to get rid of our first test subject for good. This, however, proved easier said than done.

Smuggling the decaying cat out of the house in a garbage bag, we took it deep into the forest on the edge of town, where there would be no witnesses. We debated among ourselves for quite some time as we decided exactly how to put Laz down.

As we quite literally let the cat out of the bag, Laz was greatly looking worse for wear. Large patches of his skin had rotted away, leaving bone and decayed flesh visible. Indeed, it was amazing that the thing was still in one piece, more or less. By this point, the stench was enough to burn the hair from our nostrils, and I even saw a few carrion birds beginning to circle above us.

The barely recognizable thing that had once been a common house cat just sat there and looked at us with its glazed, rotting eyes. It opened its mouth and tried to let out a meow, but by this point its vocal cords had deteriorated to nothing, resulting in a pathetic hoarse gasp instead.

It was almost as though it was begging us to put it out of its misery. We’d brought multiple tools to aid us in doing so, in case the serum keeping it alive had any unforeseen effects. Turns out, it was a good thing we did. We tried poison first, wanting to give it as humane a second death as possible. When that didn’t work, we tried decapitating it with a wood ax we brought with us. But even then, the thing’s head still seemed to live,its eyes moving and blinking for far too long after the blow had been struck.

Finally, we decided to cremate it, figuring that was the only way to destroy it completely. Digging a small pit, we placed its body and still living head in the ground , doused it in lighter fluid, and lit a match. As the flames consumed the remains, I just then noticed that throughout the whole process, the thing never showed any sign of discomfort or pain. I wondered if it was an effect of the compound, or if it was that being revived after death still left the subject’s nerves dead.

With Laz finally disposed of, we buried the ashes and made our way back to our respective homes. Along the way, we discussed what to do next in regards to Henry’s formula, being very careful that nobody was within earshot to overhear. “I guess this was sort of to be expected.” He said to my bewilderment. When I asked what he meant, he replied “What we used on Laz was only the first batch of the compound I had ever made. It’s only natural it would have some flaws to be worked out. But I made some adjustments to the next concoction, and am eager to test it. All we need is another subject.”

It didn’t take a genius to know that by “subject”, he meant “corpse.” And something told me that this time, he wanted a human one. With an almost quivering voice, I asked where he intended to get such a thing. I almost fully expected him to say we would have to kill some random bystander, perhaps a hobo. To my relief, this was not his response. Instead, he merely shrugged and stated we would just have to wait for the right opportunity to come to us.

It would be over two years before said opportunity arrived. By then, I was a senior in my high school, having attained my driver’s license and saved up to buy my own car. I had met a young lady named Jessica in my class, and over time we had come to care for one another deeply. By then, I had almost completely forgotten about Henry’s Lazarus Compound, having pushed it and the proceeding events up until that point to the farthest recesses of my mind.

Henry and I had stayed in contact, even hanging out together from time to time. Looking back, I could say I very nearly saw him as an actual friend. We barely even spoke of the events that transpired two years before, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have said that it all had been a bad dream. But that all came crashing down into cold, hard reality the night of our senior prom.

To my utter delight, Jessica had agreed to be my date to the prom a week or so before. While we had known each other as good friends for the majority of the school year, and had acknowledged each other’s feelings some months prior, this would have been our first proper date. When the night of the prom arrived, I had spent at least three hours that afternoon grooming and sprucing myself, wanting everything to be as best as it could possibly be for the biggest night of my young life.

My mother was so proud. Multiple times I thought I could see her suppressing tears of joy as I went over my appearance one more time before finally departing to pick Jessica up. As I made my way down the porch steps to the driveway, I noticed some gray clouds rolling in against the light of the moon. At the time, I thought nothing of it. But looking back, even as I write this so many years later, I regret that I ever left home that evening, prom or not. Maybe if I hadn’t, I would still have Jessica with me now.

I drove my car to Jessica’s home. She answered the door almost instantly after I had rung the bell, as though she had been waiting for me behind it. Even now, I still see her in her blue dress and long golden hair in curls that accented her bright, almost shining green eyes and beautiful face. She turned to bid her parents farewell for the night before accompanying me to my car. Little did they know that was the last time they would ever see her.

When we arrived at the school gymnasium, I was surprised to see Henry there as well. Not so surprisingly, nobody was with him. He had always been quite solitary and uninterested in romantic relationships. I curiously asked why he even showed up if he wasn’t on a date. He just shrugged. “I just felt like coming.”

Leaving him be, Jessica and I enjoyed our evening together. We danced and reveled in each other’s company for hours! It was around ten forty five when the prom finally ended. By that time, a storm had rolled in, and it was raining harder than I had ever seen before. Henry had asked if I could drop him off at his house after taking Jessica home, not wanting to walk in the downpour. Being his semi friend at the time, I agreed.

As I drove around a steep curve, a bolt of lightning struck the road directly in front of my car. This caused me to jerk the steering wheel hard to the side, sending the car careening off the road and into a tree. I had banged my head hard against the steering wheel and was knocked unconscious. I don’t know how long I was out, but by the time I came to, I saw that I had been the lucky one.

My dear Jessica had not survived the crash. Her head had hit the dashboard and her neck was snapped on impact. For several moments, I sat there in shock and remorse. How on earth was I going to tell my mother or Jessica’s parents about this? It was then that Henry, who was knocked out in the back seat himself, came to.

“What happened?”

I couldn’t answer, as I was too busy trying to process the whole terrible situation. He looked and saw Jessica’s body. I could tell immediately that he was concocting a plan on what to do next. He told me to walk the rest of the way home, and say that Jessica and I had gotten into an argument after the prom and broken up. She refused to accept a ride from me and walked home, and the car had crashed after that. He would take care of the rest.

Still in shock, and unable to think of a better course of action, I did as he said. When all was said and done, Jessica’s parents believed that their daughter had gone missing after the prom. How I wish that had been the case. It would have been better than what had really happened next.

It was a month or so later, when Henry called my house and said to come meet him in the woods, near where we had disposed of Laz. When I got there, I found him waiting for me, holding a large burlap sack with something moving inside it. “Remember our experiment two years ago?” He asked.

Up until that point, I had tried to forget all about said experiment, but I answered yes. “Do you remember that the compound formula was flawed, and needed to be perfected?” Again, I answered yes, dreading where this was going.
‘
Henry then did something I had never seen him do before. He smiled, a slow, most unnerving smile. “Well, I think I’ve done it!” It was then he reached into the sack, and pulled out something that still haunts me to this day. It was the perfectly preserved head of Jessica, her eyes still moving frantically to and fro, and her mouth gagged.

I gasped and jumped back in absolute horror. Henry didn’t seem to notice as he continued. “Her neck was broken, so her body would have been useless. I had to remove her head from her body, but the compound reactivated her brain. I’ve been observing her for the last month, and there has been no signs of further decomposition. So I’d say the formula has been perfected.” I could only gawk in terror at the sight of what had become of my love. But if I didn’t think Henry had crossed the ethical line at that very moment, what happened next certainly confirmed it.

He sat Jessica’s head on a nearby tree stump before pulling out a syringe filled with the compound from his pocket. “We know what effects the compound has on the already deceased.” He said “But I’m curious as to what it will do to the still living. You don’t mind being the subject of that test, do you?”

He came towards me with the needle. That was more than enough to snap me out of my stupor. Once he was within arm’s reach, I smacked the syringe from his hand before giving him a good, hard punch to the jaw, knocking some of his teeth loose. “You’re insane!” I cried “This madness has gone on far too long! I’m done even associating with a monster like you! Our friendship is over!”

That’s when Henry pulled out a switchblade from his other pocket. “If that’s the case, I’m afraid I can’t let you live. Can’t have you telling everybody about what we’ve done, now can I?” The two of us began to grapple and wrestle each other to the ground, with me desperately trying to avoid the blade of Henry’s knife. Before long, Henry managed to pin me to the ground, his blade raised and ready to pierce my heart.

As he brought it down, I grabbed his wrist with one hand, while my other one frantically groped around blindly for something to defend myself. That’s when I found the syringe, and jabbed it into the side of Henry’s neck. He rolled off of me to the side, and began to go into convulsions and spasms, before going completely still.

Evidently, while the compound could revive the dead, it was highly toxic to the still living. I turned to see Jessica, having watched the whole scuffle. I undid her gag and she tried to speak, but she could only mouth words. “I’m so sorry, Jessica.” I said through tears. My love was nothing more than a still conscious head for a whole month, and it was just as much my fault as it had been Henry’s. But at least it was over, and that accursed compound would do no more harm ever again. With Henry dead, nobody but me knew how to recreate it. And I certainly wasn’t going to ever so much as attempt that.

I buried Henry's body in an unmarked grave, making sure to dig deep enough that no one would find him by chance. I cremated Jesscia’s head afterwards, ending her torment at last. As for me, it doesn’t really matter what happened. Henry may have created his insidious compound, but I helped him with it. I’m just as guilty as he was. After so many years, the guilt has finally become unbearable.

As I said before, I leave this journal behind as an attempt to ease my conscience, though I know it will do little good. Whoever may find this, you now know the truth. Do not attempt to find me, if I am still even alive. I am leaving this house, this town, maybe even this country. Anything to get as far away from the place where we committed our heinous crimes against nature as possible.


May God forgive me.