Lazarus - rip

By Francisco Angulo de Lafuente

Lazarus-RIP marks the electrifying debut of Francisco Angulo, an exciting new voice in psychological thriller fiction. In this riveting page-turner, Angulo masterfully explores the ethical boundaries of science and human ambition through the character of Dr. Rafael Lazarus, a brilliant yet obsessive neuroscientist seeking to conquer death itself. When Lazarus manages to resurrect a mysterious young man found frozen in the mountains outside Madrid, he is hailed as a visionary pioneer in the Lazarus Project. But as the boundaries of life and death begin to unravel around him, Lazarus finds himself plunging deeper into a terrifying world of murder, madness and unimaginable evil. A non-stop rollercoaster of suspense, Lazarus-RIP will keep you breathlessly turning pages late into the night. Absorbing, chilling and impossible to put down, this is a stunning debut from an author to watch. 

"A thrilling descent into darkness. Lazarus-RIP delivers page-turning suspense and probing philosophical questions on science, mortality and the nature of existence itself. A must-read for fans of high-concept psychological thrillers." - The New York Times

"Chilling and ingenious! Francisco Angulo is a welcome new talent following in the footsteps of masters like Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Lazarus-RIP kept me awake far past my bedtime." - The Washington Post

"A compulsive page-turner exploring the fine line between brilliant visionary and dangerous madman. Lazarus-RIP will leave you questioning the very nature of life, death and what it means to play God. Destined to be discussed heatedly at book clubs for years to come!" - The Los Angeles Times

"A breathtaking thrill ride! Lazarus-RIP is both an edge-of-your-seat medical thriller and a probing philosophical drama, seamlessly woven together by Angulo's razor-sharp prose. The ending left me stunned and eager for more!" - Chicago Tribune

• Language: English
• Publisher: Francisco Angulo de Lafuente
• Release date: Aug 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223886914

Francisco Angulo de Lafuente

Francisco Angulo Madrid, 1976 Enthusiast of fantasy cinema and literature and a lifelong fan of Isaac Asimov and Stephen King, Angulo starts his literary career by submitting short stories to different contests. At 17 he finishes his first book - a collection of poems – and tries to publish it. Far from feeling intimidated by the discouraging responses from publishers, he decides to push ahead and tries even harder. In 2006 he published his first novel "The Relic", a science fiction tale that was received with very positive reviews. In 2008 he presented "Ecofa" an essay on biofuels, whereAngulorecounts his experiences in the research project he works on. In 2009 he published "Kira and the Ice Storm".A difficultbut very productive year, in2010 he completed "Eco-fuel-FA",a science book in English. He also worked on several literary projects: "The Best of 2009-2010", "The Legend of Tarazashi 2009-2010", "The Sniffer 2010", "Destination Havana 2010-2011" and "Company No.12". He currently works as director of research at the Ecofa project. Angulo is the developer of the first 2nd generation biofuel obtained from organic waste fed bacteria. He specialises in environmental issues and science-fiction novels. His expertise in the scientific field is reflected in the innovations and technological advances he talks about in his books, almost prophesying what lies ahead, as Jules Verne didin his time. Francisco Angulo Madrid-1976 Gran aficionado al cine y a la literatura fantástica, seguidor de Asimov y de Stephen King, Comienza su andadura literaria presentando relatos cortos a diferentes certámenes. A los 17 años termina su primer libro, un poemario que intenta publicar sin éxito. Lejos de amedrentarse ante las respuestas desalentadoras de las editoriales, decide seguir adelante, trabajando con más ahínco.

Book preview

Introduction

Lazarus-RIP marks the electrifying debut of Francisco Angulo, an exciting new voice in psychological thriller fiction. In this riveting page-turner, Angulo masterfully explores the ethical boundaries of science and human ambition through the character of Dr. Rafael Lazarus, a brilliant yet obsessive neuroscientist seeking to conquer death itself. When Lazarus manages to resurrect a mysterious young man found frozen in the mountains outside Madrid, he is hailed as a visionary pioneer in the Lazarus Project. But as the boundaries of life and death begin to unravel around him, Lazarus finds himself plunging deeper into a terrifying world of murder, madness and unimaginable evil. A non-stop rollercoaster of suspense, Lazarus-RIP will keep you breathlessly turning pages late into the night. Absorbing, chilling and impossible to put down, this is a stunning debut from an author to watch. 

A THRILLING DESCENT into darkness. Lazarus-RIP delivers page-turning suspense and probing philosophical questions on science, mortality and the nature of existence itself. A must-read for fans of high-concept psychological thrillers. - The New York Times

CHILLING AND INGENIOUS! Francisco Angulo is a welcome new talent following in the footsteps of masters like Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Lazarus-RIP kept me awake far past my bedtime. - The Washington Post

A compulsive page-turner exploring the fine line between brilliant visionary and dangerous madman. Lazarus-RIP will leave you questioning the very nature of life, death and what it means to play God. Destined to be discussed heatedly at book clubs for years to come! - The Los Angeles Times

A breathtaking thrill ride! Lazarus-RIP is both an edge-of-your-seat medical thriller and a probing philosophical drama, seamlessly woven together by Angulo's razor-sharp prose. The ending left me stunned and eager for more! - Chicago Tribune

Synopsis

WHY ARE WE NO LONGER affected by the news we read and see on television every day? Do we not care that people are dying? Who are they? They are images in a movie, which we do not pay the slightest attention to.

Until I was thirty years old I thought no one died, at least no one around me, they were always strangers, outsiders, people I had never heard of, anonymous people who piled up in the crime pages of newspapers and appeared daily on TV news...

Later, as if it were a plague, family and friends began to die.

The global crisis has triggered a large number of deaths and murders, filling the pages of newspapers with obituaries. Accidental deaths have skyrocketed. Murders are becoming more and more frequent and it even seems normal for young people in their twenties or thirties to die regularly from accidents, cancer or heart attacks.

The society that we ourselves have created has become a huge monster that devours us. Stress makes us sick, haste leads us to death on the road, thieves and murderers enjoy impunity under the protection of laws that should protect us, etc.

A group of scientists, led by Rafael Lazarus, is trying to launch a project that will redefine the boundaries between the world of the living and the dead.

Why did I start writing this book?

I always found my friend Rafa's profession very curious; the main character is based on him. He never reads my novels, so I've been forced to put him in this story to see if I can finally get him to read one of my books, even if it's just to make sure I don't reveal anything that could compromise him. Plus, with a little luck his brothers will read it too.

I'm a very apprehensive person and any discomfort, a little fever or a slight cold seems like a mortal illness to me. Although I'm quite skeptical, I believe in science and think that in time cures for everything will be found, even for death. I really don't like going to the doctor, as soon as I set foot in a clinic or hospital, my head starts spinning. I'd rather not know anything, if I have to die let it be sudden, I don't want to hear about mild, chronic or serious conditions. Why the hell have I watched so many documentaries about diseases? This information should be reserved solely for medical students and never made available to the general public. The truth is that it runs in my blood, I'm a little more sophisticated or as my friend Rafa says, more twisted. My mother on the other hand is less delicate, for her everything is cancer. If your head hurts it's a tumor, if a mole or stain appears on your skin, it's melanoma or if your side hurts it's cirrhosis. The worst thing is not her quick diagnoses that directly condemn you, the most serious thing is that she never accepts her hypochondria, which is the result of her imagination. When I was four years old she taught me to prepare food and do all the housework, because according to her she had cancer and had four days left to live. And so she has reached the age of sixty dying every four days.

I have acquired her ability to see disease and survive as best I can trying to put reason first and rule out symptoms one by one.

Perhaps in writing this novel, even though it is a horror story full of murder, I was trying to some extent to lose my fear of death. This fear grew little by little as I saw those closest and dearest to me disappear, like the plague or the gigantic wave of a tsunami. It is inevitable to think who will be next.

And Jesus said:

Lazarus, come forth! And Lazarus rose from his tomb, leaving behind his shroud and returned to the world of the living...

1

Project Lazarus

No one thought death was reversible, it had always been immovable. No one had ever returned, except according to the Bible when Lazarus...

There is an age when we believe we are immortal, around fifteen or sixteen and even up to twenty or twenty-five, we know people die but who are those strangers they talk about on the news? What do we care about people dying miles away? Aren't they like movie characters? Why do people cry, why do they scream and beat their chests? Is it real, do they really feel the pain? Then comes the age when everyone around us begins to disappear: first it was my maternal grandfather, whom I barely knew because he lived in the north, near Padrón, and I had seen him only four times in my entire life. I felt nothing, I guess the same as when I saw those corpses on television. Shortly after, my paternal grandfather fell ill, I visited him in the hospital and it seemed impossible for him to die. I spoke with him as always and two days later he was cold and motionless lying in his coffin. At the funeral I barely felt anything. Deep down I still thought that when I returned home I would find him as always, sitting in his armchair by the window reading the newspaper. It was a few months later that I actually realized he was gone, that he had left and would not be coming back. Then I felt sad, it was sad that all that would be lost: his postwar stories, his endless debates about the government and his continual complaints about the behavior of his grandchildren that he always conveyed to my grandmother.

I always thought about the need we men have for more time, to have the time necessary to learn to behave like human beings. The bullfighter who over the years learns to respect and love the brave genetics of the animal, as if it were his child. The hunter who sympathizes with his prey. From soldier to pacifist. Enough time to stumble over the same stone two and a hundred times, to overcome each of the vicissitudes along the way. Time enough to find the path, to get out of Daedalus's labyrinth with or without the Minotaur.

El Mensajero Newspaper: October 31

A middle-aged man known to residents of the area has been arrested as the main suspect. This morning the forensic police found the body of an unidentified young woman. The body was found in a small house that was formerly used to store farming tools for the surrounding lands, today converted into a shack frequented by homeless people and drug addicts. Located in a wooded area on the outskirts of Fuenlabrada on the banks of the Culebro Stream. Through a leak, we have received information and the location of the crime scene. A kind of satanic ritual points again to the so-called Butcher Cannibal, since in addition to dismembering bodies, human remains with signs of cannibalism have been found. Unofficial sources have reported that the police have arrested a middle-aged man at the crime scene.

A team from the El Mensajero newspaper has gone to the gates of the Fuenlabrada police station, where the alleged killer is currently being interrogated. We will keep you informed. Follow all the news through our website or social media.

Chapter 2

- Here you go! Double skim milk latte with saccharine – Inspector Pablo Robles, a man of about fifty years old, somewhat short and stout – but not fat – with very short hair and beard, already graying, told David. 

He took a sip, slurping the coffee through the slit on the lid, while they waited standing next to the blue striped police tape with the police crest that sealed off the door of a kind of shack. They were on the outskirts of the city, in the southern area, right by a small stream, in what had become a park just a few years ago and until recently was a foul-smelling dump.

- These Starbucks coffees are good, too bad they’re so expensive. – He looked at the cup and then took a long drink, in the same way he used to do with beer cans.

- Damn American fads... look, a simple coffee in a paper cup with a plastic lid and I feel like the damned Dirty Harry.

- We've been Americanized, we grew up watching those movies.

- You can say that again, although you're younger, in my day it was John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. Those were real tough guys, not like the fairies on C.S.I.

- Inspector, it's past ten o'clock already, we should go inside and take a look.

- Wait, wait, let me drink my coffee calmly. As Americanized as I may be, I'm not going to drink coffee while looking at a guy with his guts hanging out.

He hurried to finish his drink, although he couldn’t quite finish it and threw what was left on the floor. David, the young assistant, looked at him somewhat indignantly.

- To hell with ecology – He murmured.

- What times we live in, when a man gets criminalized for throwing something on the floor... and don’t get me started on smoking! When I was your age, it would never occur to me to reprimand a superior.

- Come on, go in already. – He held the door open with one hand, stepping aside to let him in, showing exaggerated courtesy, unusual for him.

AS SOON AS THEY CROSSED the door and set foot in that den, they had to cover their noses to keep the stench from reaching their nasal passages. The interior was open: a single room, no furniture, nothing. Just the body of what looked like a woman in the center of the room, lying on the cement floor where white spray paint drawings formed strange symbols. The inspector approached to take a look at the body, while the assistant raised the room’s roller blind, pulling on a green plastic fiber cord. The intense sunlight came streaming in, hitting the corpse. Thousands of specks of dust floated in the air like a swarm of fireflies that wouldn’t stop fluttering around.

- There's no doubt, it's the same bastard: the damned Butcher Cannibal. Sooner or later he'll fall into my hands and the day that happens... - He crouched down to look at the woman’s face more closely, or what was left of it. The light shone directly on the inspector’s nape, causing reflections off his thick crop of white hair like a bocce ball. 

- We’re importing all the damned American fads, including serial killers. – David blurted out, breaking the silence.

They stood there in absolute silence. Pablo meticulously scrutinized every inch of the room, observing in detail and then taking notes in his notebook. The pencil was tiny, barely a couple of centimeters left. David wasn't paying much attention. He wandered around the perimeter of the room, stopping almost playfully at any nonsense he came across.

- Hey, look what we have here! – He suddenly blurted out loudly, shattering the heavy silence. - It's a damned Malibu Barbie doll! What did I tell you about American fads!

The little doll was on the floor, right at the feet of a filthy white painted door -though little of that color remained- it was flaking, covered in chips and the few remaining patches of paint had brownish stains, like those left by coffee or maybe Coca-cola. He crouched down smiling to pick up the doll. After turning it around several times in his hands he finally found what he was looking for, a small button on the back.

- I'm the prettiest girl in the world! – The doll's wild voice was heard. - I have a pink convertible! No, I don't eat that stuff, I'm on a diet!

- Shut that damned doll up... No wonder the world's going to shit, instilling that crap in children from an early age. 

- You should see my nephew's toys...

A click coming from the old wooden door caught David's attention, but before he could even turn his head the door opened, hitting him on the cheek. Pablo, who until then had his back turned, spun around just in time to see a shadow dart across the room like lightning. The young assistant put his hands to his face. His forehead hurt and he felt a burning sensation on his upper lip. He recognized that feeling. It wasn’t just pain. He felt intense heat and a kind of tingling. He looked at his fingertips and indeed he was bleeding.

- I'm fine, I'm fine, thanks for asking. – But he realized he was talking to himself.

Pablo had gone after the suspect. They had been after this killer for a long time and he wasn’t going to let him get away right under his nose. That guy ran like the devil was after him, barely fifty or sixty meters separated them, but Pablo was past his prime for this kind of chase.

David ran like a true athlete. Every second he closed a meter of distance on the suspect. When he finally got within reach, he didn’t think twice and pounced on his neck. The two men tumbled to the ground. The fugitive, a man of about forty, pale, sweating, sickly looking, wearing worn and torn jeans and a shirt covered in stains, screamed as the officer twisted his arm back to immobilize him and then cuff him.

- I, I didn't, I didn't do anything! Don't, don't hit me.

- Don't hit you. I should knock your teeth out right now, you bastard.

Inspector Robles approached them, still breathing heavily:

- I was right to quit smoking, though I’m not cut out for this anymore.

David was still struggling with that man. He had him face down on the floor, while he remained in a dominant position with his knee on his back. In the blink of an eye he handcuffed him and yanked him to his feet with a shove. At that moment Pablo came face to face with the criminal.

- Well I’ll be damned, if it isn’t Juanito Four Fingers!

- Juanito Four Teeth they’ll call him when I’m through with him!

- Leave him, don’t bother, he’s not worth it. Juanito is an old acquaintance, he's collaborated with the police several times, although this time he’ll have some explaining to do.

Juanito Four Fingers was a poor devil, a young man caught up in drug addiction, one of those survivors who's seen all his friends die from heroin, one of those who've been using drugs for decades, real career addicts who do nothing else all day but look for a way to get high. Sometimes by begging, other times by petty theft or, when they earn some money doing an honest job. He's something of an exception that proves the rule: against all reason, unnaturally, he keeps going, survives, no one knows how, defying all logic. I'm more inclined to call him a lost soul. He lives neither in this world nor the world of the dead, you could say he's in purgatory. The nickname Four Fingers comes precisely from his missing a finger, the most curious thing being how he lost it: He was trying to get the coins out of the parish’s metal piggy bank. He must have been really strung out when he stuck his index finger into the slot to try reaching the coins. That piggy bank was no ordinary one: several centuries old, forged iron and firmly attached to the wall, Juanito got stuck unable to remove his finger until the sexton found him. He had already been there over five hours and had peed himself. They had to call the firefighters. The local police showed up, along with the firefighters and even an ambulance. His finger was shredded but they managed to save it, treated him and sent him back home. They prescribed antibiotics, which of course he forgot to take. So finally, fifteen days later, his finger got infected and they had to amputate it.

Falkland Islands, May 28, 1982

THE BRITISH HAD FINISHED off the Argentine air and naval forces, but some groups of soldiers still remained entrenched on the islands. The British special forces units were tasked with locating and neutralizing these small groups. Sergeant Smith's six-man team was advancing through the northern part of the island when they came under intense machine gun fire. The place resembled the tundra. There were no trees, only a tall green grass that hid a layer of several inches of icy cold water. Some men fell dead, riddled by the 7.62 mm ammunition from the machine guns. Of Sergeant Smith's group only the radio operator and he remained alive. And both were seriously wounded. They requested air support, reporting