CHAPTER FIVE: The freezer

It was the night of Al’s birthday. I got home about seven. Then I put the kids to bed, and made supper for John. He didn’t talk to me – he just sat in front of the TV with the food and his bottles of whisky. So I thought, I’m going out. I’ll go say Happy Birthday to Al. Even Al can’t be as bad as this. And he is my brother.

I had some more drugs and syringes for him, from the hospital, so I put them in nice paper like presents. ‘Like sweets for a baby,’ I thought. ‘Al’s just a big baby, really, with his music and a lot of expensive cars to play with. Or a doll. And I’m like his nurse.’

When I got to his house, it was very quiet. There were only one or two lights on downstairs. And the big black car was outside.

‘That’s strange,’ I thought. ‘It’s Al’s birthday. Why isn’t there a party?’

I got out of my car and walked to the door. It was open. There was soft music in the big living room, but no lights were on. The moonlight came in through the windows, and I could see the moon in the water in the pool outside.

‘Al?’ I called. ‘Al, where are you?’

No answer. Just the music – quiet, and very beautiful. I went to Al’s room but his bed was empty. All the rooms were empty. I came back to the living room, opened the door to the moonlit garden, and there…

‘Aaaaaaah!’ I screamed and nearly fell down. Then I stood still and laughed. But nothing happened. I stopped laughing, and it was silent again.

Two people sat on the ground. They sat very still, and held their hands and faces up to the moon. They didn’t move, or look at me.

‘Al?’ I said. ‘Al? What are you doing?’

But it wasn’t Al, it was a man and a woman. The man’s hair was silver in the moonlight, and the woman’s hair was long and dark. Dan and Linda Future.

They began to sing. It was a strange song, without words – and they sang for nearly ten minutes. When they finished I said, in a loud voice: ‘Where is Al?’

They looked at me then, and got up. Both of them came to me, and took my hands. ‘He’s asleep,’ Dan said. ‘We have saved him.’

I took my hands away, afraid. ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘He was very sick,’ Dan said. ‘He had AIDS. You knew that, didn’t you?’

For a minute I couldn’t speak. I was afraid. I said: ‘No, of course I didn’t! When did he get it?’

‘Who knows?’ Dan said. ‘On tour, I think – he took drugs, didn’t he? No one can cure AIDS – not yet. But one day, someone’s going to find a cure. So we helped him. He is safe now, for hundreds of years! Isn’t that good?’

Linda took my hand again. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and look.’

‘But where…?’

‘Don’t be afraid, it’s all right.’ She smiled; I saw her beautiful white teeth in the moonlight. Then she took me, like a child, into the house, through the living room, and down into the music room.

The music room was in the ground under the house. Al liked to play very loud music all night, so he built the room down there to be quiet. It was a big room with one small window, high up. It was never hot in the summer not cold in the winter. But now…

Now it was different. In the middle of the room there was a big glass case. A cold blue light came from inside it. There was the noise of something large and quiet, like a big freezer. And inside the glass case there was a body.

Al’s body. My brother.

The body was lying on a bed of ice inside the case, with its head higher than its feet. It wore silver clothes and its face was blue.

‘Oh no! What’s happened?’ I said.

‘It’s all right, Ellen,’ Linda Future said. ‘He isn’t dead.’

‘Not dead?’ I said. ‘But…’

‘He’s frozen. He took a sleeping drug, and then we froze him. It is very, very cold in there: -196 Celsius. Nothing happens to bodies as cold as that. Nothing changes for hundreds of years, thousands of years maybe. That’s what’s going to happen to Al. He’s going to stay there for a hundred years, two hundred years maybe. Then one day a doctor can wake him up and cure him. That’s what our company does, you know.’

‘Your company,’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m sorry, didn’t Al tell you?’ Dan Future said. He was in the room too now, with his hand on my back. He gave me a business card. It said:

ESCAPE FROM DEATH

The Cryonics Company

Dan and Linda Future

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What’s cryonics?’

‘It’s the science of freezing people,’ he said. ‘That’s what we do. We help people like your brother to stay alive for hundreds of years. Then, when the doctors can cure them, they wake up. And we look after their money and houses too.’

‘You do what?’ I said. Suddenly I was very, very angry. ‘You look after their money and houses’

‘Yes.’ He smiled, and his beautiful teeth looked blue in the strange light from the freezer. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket. ‘It’s all here, Ellen. Your brother wrote his name on this paper. It says that we must keep him here, frozen, in this room for two hundred years. By then, there will be a cure for AIDS. For now, we will look after his money and his house, and when we are dead, our company will go on looking after them. Then they will be ready for him when he comes back to life.’

‘But… you killed him!’ I screamed. My anger was terrible. ‘And now you’re stealing his money too – and his house! It belongs to me, not you!’

Dan Future laughed. ‘No, no, my dear. You don’t understand. The money and the house don’t belong to us, or to you. They belong to your brother, Al. He isn’t dead, lie’s just frozen. And he’s going to stay frozen for two hundred years.’

He laughed again, and his young wife began to laugh, too. I turned, and walked out of the house.