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Cheating Death

by Henry Herz

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I didn’t join in as my surviving family members conversed over dinner. Usually, the aroma of hearty pork and cabbage bigos stirred my appetite, but today it reminded me of the past, knotting my stomach. I winced—the clinking of utensils on plates like needles jabbing my brain.

Father gently pulled me aside. “What is wrong, my little Marya?” But he knew.

My sigh almost became a sob. “It’s been years, but I still miss them in the worst way, Tato.”

“Me too, Marya.”

Since the passing of my Roman Catholic mother, my father, a brilliant math and physics teacher, no longer suppressed his religious skepticism. By the age of fifteen, I too had lost faith in a deity who’d allowed disease to rip apart a loving family.

Science became my religion, defeating disease my Holy Grail. I vowed I’d wield science to cheat Death itself . . . for I still believed in it.

Father wrapped a strong, comforting arm around my shoulders and led me into the study. Boxes of laboratory equipment cluttered the room.

“What’s all this, Tato?”

He scowled. “My Russian supervisor barged into my lab at school and ordered me to shut it down. Sadly, we have no space to set up a lab here.”

My heart leaped. “Even so, will you teach me how to use the equipment?” It was a rhetorical question, for Father loved nothing more than encouraging his children to learn.

He smiled. “Yes, of course, Marya. Now help me carry these boxes to the shed out back.”

I did not receive a typical education, but then again, I was not a typical girl. Gradually under Father’s guidance, I gained familiarity with the equipment, supplementing my foundation in theoretical science. I filled a notebook with calculations and equations in my ungodly crusade to fight disease and repel Death. But I had no way to conduct experiments . . . yet.

---

My public girls’ high school, Warsaw’s Gymnasium Number Three, filled the second floor of a converted convent adjacent to the Visitationist Church. The church’s rococo facade of stacked pillars faced a broad avenue, Krakowskie Przedmie?cie, down the center of which ran a horse-drawn trolley. Before I was born, the genius composer Fryderyk Chopin used to play the church organ during services for school children, but tuberculosis took him, too. Damn that disease. Damn all disease.

After classes, I strolled home through the lush Saxon Gardens. Majestic chestnut trees formed an opera house from which birds serenaded. I stopped to scatter breadcrumbs. Sparrows flocked to the grass around me, one even landing on my outstretched palm to feed.

Alexei approached with his brutish comrades, Dimitri and Igor. They attended a nearby gymnasium for sons of Russian soldiers. A blue-eyed fourth boy, unknown to me, accompanied them.

Alexei sneered. “Well, if it isn’t Messy Marya.” Discordant notes of cruelty rang in Dimitri and Igor’s laughter.

The new boy frowned at Alexei’s unprovoked insult of my unruly blonde hair.

As the intruders neared, the birds scattered . . . except the sparrow in my hand.

It trusts me.

“Kill it,” ordered Alexei.

My eyes widened. “What?” His casual malice rocked me. “Why?”

“Because I said so.” He stepped closer.

I twitched my hand, and the sparrow took flight. You’re safe now.

Alexei’s face reddened at my defiance. He shoved me to the ground, towering over me with a scowl.

Anger boiled inside me. I clenched my fists.

The fourth boy grabbed Alexei’s shoulders. “What are you doing?”

Alexei shook himself free of the restraining hands. “Well, if you love this Polish bitch so much, Maxim, maybe you should spend time with her instead of us. Igor and Dimitri, let’s go.” They stormed off.

Maxim helped me to my feet. “Are you alright?”

I nodded. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

He shook his head. “I need to pick better friends. Can I start with you?”

I brushed my hair, now more disheveled than usual, out of my face and smiled. “I’d like that.”

Maxim’s grin eased into a frown as he turned his head. “Something’s wrong with them.”

I picked up my book bag. “Beyond being rude and bullying?”

“Yes. Sometimes after school, they mutilate dead animals from the biology lab. They also chase stray cats and dogs. If they manage to catch one in a sack, they beat it against a wall. The poor thing’s just left in an alley, dead or alive.”

Monsters! My face flushed. Wait. This is a chance to obtain subjects for my experiments! “Maxim, I love animals. Will you bring them to me?”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“I’ll heal and feed the injured ones, and I’ll bury the dead.”

Maxim gazed at me. His head tilted as he considered my unusual request. “If I agree, how will you know when and where to find me?”

We must do this without raising suspicions. “Let’s meet each day after school in front of the Treasury Ministry. That’s on my way home. If you have no animal that day, we can walk together.”

“You have a strange mind, but a good heart, Marya. I’ll help you.” He gave a polite nod and turned. “See you tomorrow then.”

I sighed. I miss Mama. Instead of walking directly home, I visited Pow?zki cemetery—a hundred acres of tree-shaded tombstones and mausoleums. Distracted by broad white elms, hawthorns, and eerily lifelike statues, I nearly tumbled into a freshly dug hole.

Reaching Mama’s grave, I bowed my head. How can I pursue my goal of cheating Death? I have lab equipment and will soon have test subjects, but I lack a lab to conduct experiments. I’m as trapped as you are here, Mama.

A sudden breeze raised goosebumps on my arms. That’s it! I had no space or privacy to set up a laboratory . . . at home. But a nighttime cemetery offered me both. Thank you, dear Mama.

I strolled down somber aisles of carved gray stone, eventually discovering an imposing gothic-style mausoleum bordered by four short, square pillars wrapped in carved laurels. Perfect. A tarnished brass crypt lock secured the heavy door. I wasn’t worried, for a year ago I’d acquired a skill of questionable morality but indisputable usefulness—lock picking.

---

While my family slept, I snuck to our rickety backyard shed. I hurried to load wood planks, tools, and nails on a toy wagon borrowed from Kazia. I mustn’t be caught. Repeatedly glancing over my shoulder, I made my way to the cemetery as quickly as Jozef eats kie?basa. I hid in alleys twice to avoid being seen by late-night strollers.

The night’s chill embraced me. Animated by gusts of wind, the jagged moon shadows of Pow?zki cemetery’s tree branches looked like arms reaching up from graves.

I tightened my overcoat collar and worked on the crypt lock with two hairpins. Cold numbed my fingers, but eventually the lock yielded. The heavy door squealed in protest as I pried it outward. The doorway gaped like the black maw of a monster. I lit a lantern, illuminating the mausoleum’s interior and the next chapter of my quest. Brass plaques named the deceased, six on the left wall, six on the right.

Stale, musty air muffled my steps like a blanket. Disturbing the thick dust carpeting the tile floor, I assembled a crude table and shelving. The hair on my neck rose as I felt growing ire from the interred. Did the harsh sounds of sawing and hammering in a formerly silent abode offend their deaf ears? Do their unseeing eyes now watch and judge me? My heart pounded in warning. I am an intruder here.

Eager to leave, I locked the crypt and rushed home. Creeping into our small bathroom, I quietly scrubbed away the grime and sweat of my labors before collapsing into bed.

---

The next night, I returned to our backyard shed. The boxes of equipment reminded me of presents under a Christmas tree. Some contained beakers, test tubes, and other glassware. Other boxes held biology equipment like a scale, alcohol burner, and even a microscope. One crate contained scalpels, sutures, forceps, syringes, and other medical equipment.

But unlike at Christmas, I couldn’t unwrap all my presents at once. It took almost a week to shuttle the equipment to the cemetery, one box per night. And the ongoing loss of sleep took its toll.

My family said nothing—if they noticed my decline, it was attributed to continued grieving for Mama and Zosia. They didn’t know that I burned the candle at both ends in my race to master science and protect them from Death.

---

Over the following weeks, Maxim proved true to his word. He brought me bloodstained sacks—rats and rabbits from the laboratory, stray cats and dogs that had fallen victim to Alexei. Those rare days when he carried no grim burden became welcome points of light in my increasingly gloomy and untethered blur of school, homework, and skulking midnight visits to the cemetery.

I would keep my promise to bury the animals . . . after learning from them. In my nighttime laboratory, I tenderly apologized. “I’d cure you if I could, but my reach isn’t that long. Forgive me for desecrating your body. Please teach me how to help the living.”

Typical girls collected dolls, but I was not a typical girl. In the lantern-lit stench of my growing collection of corpses, my hands became more skilled as animal bodies yielded their secrets.

Rising the next morning, my mirror revealed that lack of sleep and appetite had given me a gaunt, haunted expression. I no longer even attempted to control my wild hair. My family expressed concern at my deteriorating appearance. I did what I could to allay their unease—a worry I shared but forced down. Mama and Zosia would want me to continue my efforts to protect the rest of our family from Death.

---

One sunny afternoon, Maxim met me after school carrying a brown paper bag. He wore a wide grin.

My heart leaped at a tiny squeak. “Is that a rat?”

“I finally was able to save one,” Maxim said, nodding. “Unfortunately, not before Alexei broke its ankle.”

“Oh, poor thing. Thank you, Maxim. I’ll do what I can for it.” In my joy, I gave him a one-armed hug before remembering propriety. Finally. A chance to heal something.

“Thank you again, Maxim. I will see you tomorrow.” I headed home, peering into the bag.

The sturdy brown rat’s light-colored belly, slanted snout, and small eyes and ears indicated Rattus norvegicus. I spoke Russian, German, and French. But as this was a Polish rat, it seemed appropriate to converse with him in Polish.

“I shall call you Damian.” Greek for ‘to tame.’ “I’m so sorry that awful Alexei hurt you. I’ll do my best to heal your leg. But I can’t very well keep you at home. I’ll take you to my laboratory now.”

Damian, being a very clever rat, squeaked his understanding.

I walked to the cemetery, excitement quickening my pace.

As I entered the mausoleum, Damian squeaked in alarm.

Dulled by fatigue, I’d grown accustomed to the rank odor of dead bodies stacked in a corner. “Sorry about the smell, but you’ll be safe here.” I gently set Damian in a straw-padded hat box. Pouring water into a small bowl, I gave him a chunk of Tyl?ycki cheese left over from my uneaten lunch.

After feeding and complimenting Damian, I earned enough of his trust that he let me pet him. I dared not try to set his ankle without a painkiller, so I taped it as a temporary measure.

“What a sensible and handsome fellow you are. And you’ve arrived just in time. At long last, I’ve finished my stoichiometry and other calculations. My formula should stimulate bone and muscle growth. If it works, it’ll help your leg heal faster.” And eventually, bring back the dead.

Squeak?

“No, I can’t give it to you yet, because I don’t have any components. And, I’d want to test it first on our deceased friends,” I said, nodding at the pile of two dozen animal corpses, limbs stiffened into disturbing poses.

Squeak.

My mouth opened. “Yes, of course! What a clever boy. A Russian boys’ gymnasium will have chemistry supplies. I’ll be back soon.”

The fact that I conversed with a rat should have warned me I was pushing myself too hard in the pursuit of cheating Death.

I pulled Kazia’s wagon to the rear entrance of the nearest gymnasium. When drunk soldiers staggered by, I lunged behind a low wall.

This lock proved resistant to my efforts, so I wrapped my scarf around a brick and broke the door’s glass pane. Hurry. The longer I’m here, the greater the chance of being caught. My heart pounded.

After a few minutes of frantic searching, I found the shiny, modern chemistry laboratory, the hazardous items locked in a solid oak cabinet. I picked the lock and stared like a hungry child gawking at shelves brimming with chocolate. Can you hear footsteps, Death? I’m coming for you.

The glass bottles of liquids and powders tinkled as I rolled my wagon back to the cemetery. In retrospect, my indifference to being surrounded by the dead should have warned me.

“Damian, look what I foraged: acetyl chloride, aluminum chloride, ammonium perchlorate, benzene, cadmium powder, chloroacetyl chloride, dioxane, ethyl chloride, formaldehyde, hydrochloric acid, hydrazine, lead arsenate powder, magnesium, mercuric iodide, potassium perchlorate, phenolphthalein, sodium perchlorate, sodium salicylate, strychnine, sulfuric acid, uranium salts, and white phosphorus.”

Squeak?

“Well, I probably don’t need all of this, but luck favors the prepared. Speaking of preparation, if I encounter Alexei again, I’ll need a way to protect myself.” I mixed two chemical different defenses, slipping a stoppered test tube in my coat pocket and placing a stoppered Erlenmeyer flask on the corner of the table next to the lantern.

Squeak?

“Yes, I’ll make you something for the pain.” I treated sodium salicylate with acetyl chloride to produce acetylsalicylic acid. Dissolving 5 milligrams of the powder in ten milliliters of water, I fed it to Damian with an eye dropper.

Between the painkiller and the trust that had developed between us, he let me set and splint his ankle with admirable fortitude. “What a brave boy you are.”

Nearly collapsing with fatigue, I bid Damian good night and headed home.

---

After my family fell asleep the next night, I rushed to the cemetery carrying a notepad filled with calculations scribbled so messily that only I could interpret them. My hands shook with excitement.

Having traversed the cemetery many times, I now greeted some of its inhabitants by name. “Good evening, Mr. Zieli?ski. I trust all is well, Mrs. Pawlak.” They never replied. Not yet.

“Good evening, Damian.”

Squeak.

I painstakingly measured and combined the components in a complex sequence of boiling, deposition, sublimation, and condensation.

“Are you ready?”

Squeak.

Damian’s enthusiasm was contagious. I browsed through the pile of corpses, choosing a black and white Norwegian Forest cat—its head and tail bent at odd angles, courtesy of Alexei. Filling a syringe with my chemical solution, I injected twenty milliliters in its neck and another twenty at the base of its tail. Selecting a rat, rabbit, and dog exhibiting similar physical abuse, I injected their injury sites, adjusting the dosage in proportion to body weight.

Squeak?

“Nothing yet, Damian. Patience.”

That was easier said than done. For a tortured hour, I paced the cold, cramped space of the mausoleum, mumbling equations to myself, and running my hand through my unbound hair. Periodically, I’d return the bloodstained, mutilated test subjects’ open-eyed gaze. I couldn’t help myself—fretting over my four little patients like a baker checking on her first loaves.

Nothing.

Squeak.

Sigh. “Yes. Maybe the regeneration of tissue will occur overnight. All we can do now is wait.” I laid him in his bed. “Goodnight, Damian. I shall be back tomorrow.”

---

The following evening, I set Damian on the lab table, where he paid close attention as if my colleague.

The four treated corpses showed no signs of healing. Damn.

Squeak?

“I was quite careful, Damian,” I said, grinning at his earnest attempt to help. “But I suppose it couldn’t hurt to triple-check my equations.”

Staring at my calculations until my eyes blurred, I found no mistakes. “This should work,” I said, lifting my notebook. “My math’s correct, and the bottles were clearly marked . . . Hmmm. Perhaps they weren’t labeled accurately.”

It took an hour or so to titrate the chemicals. “Aha! The sulfuric acid’s diluted.” I adjusted my calculations to account for the weaker acid, prepared a second batch, and repeated the prior night’s injections.

Waiting again proved the hardest part. “Damian, would you like to try the medicine too?”

Squeak.

I injected him in the thigh above his broken leg.

After an hour of anxious hair tugging and running my fingernails along the stone mausoleum walls, I checked the corpses. Nothing. Damian, though no worse, was no better either.

Damn! In my frustration, I accidentally yanked out strands from my scalp, the blonde hair bright against the red of my bleeding fingernails, which I’d worn down to the quick.

I must find a way to cheat Death! Doubling the dosage, I administered it to all the carcasses.

Raising my arms to stretch my tight back and shoulders, I glanced at a brass plaque-adorned wall. Twelve people are interred here. Would my solution work on them? I shook my head. That’s a queer thought. Go home to bed, Marya.

---

Inadequate eating and sleeping turned my days blurry and dreamlike. Only at night, when I hunted Death, did my mind seem to sharpen and my hands regain their nimbleness.

“Marya!” Kazia tapped my shoulder as we walked home from school. “Did you hear what I said?”

I shook my head to clear it. “Sorry, I was distracted.”

“You’ve been distracted for weeks now. You’re not paying attention in class. Sorry to say it, but your eyes are wilder than your hair. I’m worried about you.”

“Thanks, Kazia. You’re a dear. I’ll be fine.” We reached her home at Pa?ac Niebieski, where her father served as librarian to Count Zmoyski.

“Please get some sleep,” she replied, concern written on her face. “See you tomorrow.”

I nodded. I’ll sleep after I drive Death into a corner.

A block later, Alexei, Igor, and Dimitri ambushed me. “Ugh. Don’t whores usually pay closer attention to their appearance?” Alexei taunted.

Scowling, I muttered, “Kretyn,” forgetting in my mental fog that cretins don’t like to be reminded of their condition.

Alexei took a step toward me. “Bitch. Your mother’s a whore, too.”

The slur against my revered Mama took me by surprise. I bunched my fists, losing all self-control. “She was a saint, you pig. Do you even know who fathered you?”

Cretins also don’t appreciate having their lineage questioned. The three boys advanced with fury in their eyes.

Having anticipated another assault, I’d gotten in the habit of carrying a chemical defense. Yanking the stoppered test tube from my coat pocket, I hurled it to the ground in front of them. It shattered, white fumes wreathing the thugs.

The test tube held an acylation of benzene with chloroacetyl chloride and an aluminum chloride catalyst. Its vapor causes skin irritation, tearing, and respiratory pain. I fled home, their coughing and curses ringing in my ears. I’m safe for now, but they’ll come for me again, angrier than before.

---

That night, the treated animals lay where I’d left them, limbs splayed as if in a macabre dance, eyes still dull. They showed no signs of healing.

I don’t know how long I cried.

Damian hobbled around, trying to cheer me up.

All that work for nothing! I stomped out of the mausoleum and wandered the cemetery, hoping for an encouraging word from one of the residents. All I heard was leaves rustling, though there was no breeze.

I found a shovel leaning against a tool shed, and dug a shallow grave, the blade strikes seeming to echo longer than they should. Gathering the rat corpses in my arms, even their fur stiff from dried blood, I carried them to the hole, apologizing along the way. My tears dripped onto their rigid bodies before I covered them with dirt. Another hole accepted all the rabbits. The cats and dogs stared back at me with unseeing eyes as I put them into their graves, except that first feline. I saved the cat for further experimentation.

My steps dragged as I returned home.

---

I felt feverish but did not let that stop me from returning to my lab that moonless night. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched as I navigated the dark cemetery. My darting backward glances never noticed anything but silent tombstones.

“Good evening, Damian. I’m going to take some muscle and bone tissue from this cat to figure out why my solution isn’t working. Would you like to watch?”

Squeak.

I expected no less from the inquisitive rodent and set him atop my table next to a cookie. It may simply have been wishful thinking on my part, but he seemed more agile than yesterday.

Shaving thin slices of muscle and bone from the cat with a scalpel, I mounted them on glass microscope slides.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the mausoleum door grated on its rusty hinges behind me.

The three Russian bullies gaped wide-eyed at me from the narrow doorway, Alexei grasping a shovel. “Ugh. You smell as bad as you look.”

How did they find my laboratory? They must have followed me here. I’m cornered at night in a mausoleum. My hands trembled before anger flared in my chest at the prospect of losing my irreplaceable equipment and notes. I stood, fists balled, legs set wide, and shouted, “Get out. Do not come between me and Death!”

“Mother of God!” cried Alexei, staring at the dead cat. “What sacrilegious devilry is this? She’s a witch.” He stepped forward, eyes narrowing. “And we know what to do with a Polish witch.”

Igor and Dimitri flanked him. The laboratory table stood between me and the Russians. But they stood between me and the doorway.

Damian hissed.

“Look. The witch has a rat familiar.” Alexei raised the shovel.

Not my sweet, clever Damian! “Don’t,” I warned.

Alexei smashed Damian with the flat of the shovel, crushing his head and spine.

“NO!”

Alexei leered. “Now it’s your turn. Do you want to say a final prayer?”

“Prayer?” A laugh escaped my lips, sounding maniacal even to my ears. “I worship only science. I won’t worship a god that rips mothers from their children and allows Russian invaders to murder Poles.”

The dead cat on my table moaned and struggled to its feet, rotting flaps of skin hanging loosely from the dissection cuts. With its head locked at an unnatural angle, the cat’s tail jerked spasmodically. Pus oozed from eyes glowing yellow.

Could it be? Disturbingly incongruous in a corpse-filled mausoleum, a grim smile cracked my face. I cheated Death!

When the cat hissed like a poisonous serpent, the boys jumped back, disbelief and terror on their faces. “Christ! What have you done?”

Seizing a bottle of sulfuric acid, I threw it to the stone floor at their feet. It splashed on Alexei and Igor’s shoes and shins.

The two howled, struggling to tear off the bottom of their pant legs without touching acid.

The cat howled in mocking chorus.

“I’ll finish the witch,” growled Dimitri.

As he knelt to grab the shovel, I hurled my lantern and the previously prepared Erlenmeyer flask at his feet, closing my eyes and covering my ears.

The mixture of magnesium and potassium perchlorate ignited with a brilliant flash and thunderous boom echoing within the stone walls. Disoriented from the noise, but with my eyesight intact, I dashed past the prone writhing boys out of the mausoleum.

I tripped on the raised threshold in my panicked haste. My right knee struck a flagstone. I gasped as pain radiated up my leg. Run! I struggled to my feet but could only hobble away. My knee swelled with each agonizing step. I spared a glance over my shoulder.

The boys staggered out of the mausoleum, their eyes still recovering from the flash. They stumbled toward me, two slowed by acid burns.

I limped between trees in the darkness. Hurry! They’re gaining. My foot snagged on a low stone plaque. Twisting in midair to protect my knee, I thudded to the ground on my left side.

The boys surrounded me, all of us gasping for breath.

Dimitri jerked his thumb back toward my lab. “Should I go get the shovel?”

Alexei grinned like a wolf. “I have a better idea. If she’s so fond of that mausoleum, let’s seal her inside. Forever. Dimitri, grab her right arm. Igor, her left. I’ll get her legs.” His eyes narrowed.

“Help!” I twisted and punched from the ground, but Dimitri and Igor managed to seize my wrists. My frantic kicking kept Alexei at bay . . . until all hell broke loose.

Blood-freezing screeches echoed through the graveyard. Patches of earth seemed to boil.

Alexei’s mouth fell open in horror.

Igor shrieked, barely maintaining his grip on my wrist.

I craned my neck for a view. A dozen animated animal corpses with glowing yellow eyes clawed their way out of the spots where I’d buried them. Stench assaulted my nostrils as they surged around us. The putrid wave swamped Dimitri.

“No!” he screamed.

The corpses savaged his face and neck. Blood spattered.

Igor recoiled, his face ashen with terror. “God damn!”

Indeed, He has, I thought.

More hissing and howling animal corpses clawed up from their graves.

Before Igor could move, creatures swarmed around him, gnawing his acid-wounded shins. That dropped him to the ground, where they scurried onto his head.

His corpse-muffled cries to a merciless god brought him no salvation, drawing instead only a savage smile from me. Igor tore a frenzied rabbit from his neck, crushed it in his bare hand, and dropped it.

Within a few seconds, the rabbit rose and resumed its attack.

My heart leaped with joy when a rat scurried over, his eyes glowing yellow. “Damian!” I scooped him up tenderly, my pain forgotten.

Alexei stood paralyzed by the carnage of reanimated animals chewing off his friends’ faces. He’d wet himself in terror.

A thrill of triumph surged through me. I did it! I cheated Death. My newfound power comforted me like a warm cloak.

The resurrected dogs snarled at Alexei, who turned and fled. He only got ten yards before they hamstrung him and tore out his throat.

I stood, wobbly. My mind swirled with questions. What shall I do with all my new friends? Will I be able to teach them more restraint? Can I adjust my chemical formula to work faster? Wait. First things first. What should be done with the bodies?

I brushed myself off and, after some searching, found an open gravesite. Addressing the two largest dogs, I pointed. “Please help me drag the boys’ bodies into this hole.

Each grabbed one of Alexei’s legs in its jaws.

“The rest of you, please lick up the spilled blood.”

Three warm bodies tumbled into the grave. “Help me cover them,” I requested.

The dogs turned their backs to the hole and scraped in loose dirt with their front paws.

Squeak.

“Yes, you’re right, Damian.” I addressed the corpse animals. “Thank you, my pretties. You saved my life.” Just as I restored yours. Euphoria dulling the pain of my injured knee, I lavished smiles and caresses before directing the creatures to return to the earthen beds from which they’d erupted. “Time to rest . . . until I need you again.”

Can I modify my formula to work on humans? I eyed the mausoleum. I do have twelve test subjects available, after all . . . But what price will Fate extract for my experiments? I shrugged off the unanswerable question for now and headed home, Damian riding on my shoulder. He was not a typical pet, but then again, I was not a typical teen.

---

Host Commentary

INTRO

PseudoPod, Episode 939 for September 20th, 2024.

Cheating Death, by Henry Herz

Narrated by Tanja Milojevic [MIL-os-o-vitch]; hosted by Kat Day audio by Chelsea Davis

***

Hey everyone, hope you’re all doing okay. I’m Kat, Assistant Editor at PseudoPod, your host for this week, and I’m excited to tell you that for this week we have Cheating Death, by Henry Herz.  This material originally appeared in The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Henry L. Herz published by Blackstone Publishing (©2023).

Author bio:
Henry Herz’s stories have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Weird Tales, Metastellar, Highlights for Children, Ladybug Magazine, and anthologies from Albert Whitman & Co., Blackstone Publishing, Brigid’s Gate Press, Air and Nothingness Press, Baen Books, Titan Books, and elsewhere. He’s edited six anthologies and written twelve picture books. Check out his blog: www.henryherz.com

Narrator bio:
Tanja Milojevic is originally from Serbia but has been in the U.S. since the age of 5. She has been voice acting since her senior year of high school and can be heard all over (including Darker Projects, Broken Sea Audio Productions, 19 Nocturne Boulevard, Edict Zero, Pendant and Dunesteef). She produces her own radio dramas and posts them to her podcast LightningBolt Theater of the mind. She says “I’m visually impaired and have ROP and Glaucoma, but use gold wave and Sound Forge to record and post-produce my audio.”

One quick note before we get started: this story mentions a “gymnasium for the sons of Russian soldiers”. For many of us, the word ‘gymnasium’ probably conjures up images of climbing ropes and big blue padded mats, but in this context it refers to a secondary school, or, for my American friends, a high school.

And now we have a story for you, and we promise you, it’s true.

---

ENDCAP

Well done, you’ve survived another story. What did you think of Cheating Death by Henry Herz? If you’re a Patreon subscriber, we encourage you to pop over to our Discord channel and tell us.

Our author sent use these notes:
In real life, Marya [MAR-yah] never raised the dead, much less stole chemicals. I selected dangerous chemicals from a 2015 Washington State Department of Health list of substances proposed to be banned from schools due to the serious health hazards they posed.

Marya never mixed the compounds mentioned in the story. However, those mentioned are scientifically accurate. Treating sodium salicylate with acetyl chloride produces acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin). Tear gas is an acylation of benzene with chloroacetyl chloride and an aluminum chloride catalyst. Flash-bang grenades use a pyrotechnic metal-oxidant mix of magnesium or aluminum and an oxidizer such as potassium perchlorate or potassium nitrate.

My notes:

And that brings me neatly to my notes. there are lots of lovely little details in this story. As a chemist, I do love the chemistry and the list of the chemicals. Having heard the author’s note, we now know why they’re in alphabetical order. I did wonder. But I’d assumed Marya had taken them from alphabetically labelled shelves.

… benzene, cadmium powder, hydrazine, lead arsenate powder, strychnine, uranium salts, white phosphorus!

It’s… quite the list. The sort of list that makes a chemist wince. Well, that explains why they’ve all been banned in schools… at least, you’d think. America in particular doesn’t seem to be that fussed about making schools safe. But anyway, back to the chemicals. Lead arsenate contains both lead ions and arsenic, woo, double whammy! It used to be used as an insecticide, because humans. Apples from orchards treated with it are likely still unfit for human consumption!

Hydrazine is both toxic at the parts per million level AND explosive! Strychnine can cause respiratory failure and brain death in 15 to 30 minutes! Never mind the violent muscle cramps. White phosphorus is also acutely toxic and ignites spontaneously in air with a flame that’s extremely hard to put out and, yes, produces toxic fumes. Uranium salts, I mean, enough said.

I don’t quite know what was in Marya’s formula, but I wouldn’t want to drink it. Or indeed be in the same room as it.

Speaking of Marya, how can you NOT love a young girl who thinks, hm, no space or privacy to set up a laboratory . . . at home. But a nighttime cemetery – perfect!

Honestly, this is my kind of protagonist.

And that’s before we even get to Damian, the rat that talks in squeaks. Is that a Discworldian Death of Rats reference? It’d be nice if it were. Let’s say it is.

And then, there’s Maxim.

He’s with the violent boys at the start, but when he sees them behaving appallingly, he speaks up and does the right thing, even though it might negatively impact him.

Well, it is a fantasy story.

I say that with a certain about of cynicism, because over just the last few weeks the list of men who have been reported as behaving abusively towards women is long and deeply, extraordinarily depressing. I shan’t name them all because… we’d be here for too long and ugh, I am tired.

But I will say this: how many men witnessed these behaviours, or knew about them, and instead of, like Maxim, deciding they needed better friends and coworkers, laughed them off?

Or worse still, participated themselves?

I know the answer. Too many. Far too many. And right now, most of those men are… silent. They’re silent because they know damn well that the harm done to those women is partly on their hands, because they stood by and did nothing and let whichever one of them you think I’m talking about right now believe he was untouchable. A god who could do anything to anyone and who would never, ever be called out on any of it. They certainly weren’t going to call him out on it because they were making lots and lots of money. And what. Else. Matters. I hope they’re all very, very proud of themselves.

Toxic masculinity can be just as harmful as strychnine and white phosphorus fumes. Uunfortunately, we haven’t quite managed to ban that particular poison yet.

Be more Maxim. Speak out. Find. Better. Friends. And make better choices.

Anyway.

…

One more nice little reference in this story. Marya says to her corpse animals: “Thank you, my pretties. You saved my life.”

This is surely a Wizard of Oz reference, you say, but here’s a fun fact: ask most people what the Wizard of Oz line is, and they’ll tell you it’s, “fly, my pretties!” But this is an example of the Mandela effect, which is where a large mass of people believe that an event occurred, when it… didn’t. Because that line isn’t in the movie. It really isn’t! Watch it and prove it to yourself. The witch only ever says “fly, fly!”

She does call Dorothy “my pretty” elsewhere in the film, and so the best theory is that the two lines somehow got merged in people’s minds. But nobody really knows what happened. Perhaps the timelines really did get crossed somewhere.

But in this story, Marya can, of course, say what she likes to her pet animated corpses. Good luck to her, I say. She’s not a typical teen. Whomst of us were?

I love it when authors slide these sorts of things into their stories. Wonderful work from Henry Herz.

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Next week we have… In Haskins by Carson Winter, narrated by Jess Lewis and hosted by Scott Campbell.

And finally, PseudoPod, and Hitch, advise us…

“Never lie, steal or cheat. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death.”

See you soon, folks, take care, stay safe.