The Neverland Inn : One-Shot Collection

Lazarus Machine

"Dee! Dee! Dee please wake up!" Michaels echo groaned as his presecense makes her bedroom door swing open,
"Michael ?" She asks groggily and rises up from bed. Michael appears and immediately sprints over to her in his ghostly full apparition.
"Dee! Come see this!" She rubs her eyes and says,
"What time is it?"
Michael looks over and says,
"Its four a.m...."

Dee gives him a displeased look and says, "This better be good Mike..."
He nods his head zealous and blurts,
"Come on, follow me quick!, it'll only take a second!"
She gets outta bed and stretches, noticing the mansion to sound empty she asks,
"Are Shan and Faith still asleep?"
He nods and says,
"You went to bed the earliest, I figured you'd be the least grouchy..."
Michael leads the girl down into the basement and Dee remarks, "Michael we never come down here... Its all spider webby and kinda dark.."

Michael smiles, "I've done something incredible!"
Michael notices a lamp light on the wall and swishes his hand over the glass to illuminate it. Dee sees a tall, copper colored chamber. A small square window sat on the front and Michael whispers,
"Remember in Casper? The Lazarus machine?"
Dee shoots him a look and says, "Is that like a replica?"

Michael shakes his head, "This is Lazarus 2.0 and I'm gonna use it."

Dee gawks and says, "Michael the lazarus contraption in that movie was made up.. There's nothing like that in existence, its impossible."
Michael looks to her and says,

"I think it can work. I believe it can.."
Dee grows increasingly worried and says, "Michael, I don't want anything bad to happen. This sounds nuts...."
He shakes his head still brightly optimistic.
He goes over to the chamber and on its side was several eerie but iffy seeming switches. He flips them all on and a metallic whirring then proceeds from the tall device. Michael opens the door and Dee pleads once more, "Michael! I don't know about this!"
He steps inside and from its inside, he says muffled through the glass, "When I give the word, pull that lever Dee, believe in me..."

She looks to him still terrified and unsure. He looks around and in the clattering of the machines noise he gives her a thumbs up.
She widens her eyes and swallowing the lump in her throat, she goes over to the half thrown lever. She closes her eyes and squeezes its trigger to pull it towards her, it stops abruptly and something inside the machine begins to glow. The whirring and bustling comes to a surprising climax, now clanking and clattering. It shook and shuddered making Dee stand back now shielding her eyes from the brilliant glow. A ding comes to the air very gentle and soft but Dee doesn't calm herself, "Michael! Michael! Answer me!!" She throws her body weight into the small door and banged pleading for Michael to say anything. She's stopped by a small push to the door and Michael is seen standing with shoulders down in disbelief. She looks him up and down, unbelieving he's alright.

He sighs and says,
"That was silly. I'm really sorry I woke you. How could I be so foolish..."
Dee starts to feel a little bad and notices how disappointed he seemed.
"Michael..." she began,
"Its really okay...don't worry about it."
They began up the towards the basement door and the darkness still surrounded them from the almost abandoned basement. A loud thud is heard followed by Michael's groan from running straight into a beam from the ceiling and he says,
"Ah! Gonna feel that one tomorrow!"
Dee begins to laugh but she stops in abrupt cold tracks. Michael said 'ouch', but ghosts don't feel pain. They don't feel anything.
She spun around to him and said, "Michael....does it hurt?"
He holds his temple and he stands up straight realizing what just happened.
"Pain! .....this is pain!..I can feel..wait wait..." he traces his thumb across the part of his eyebrow that was struck by the board and noticed a scab with fresh, red blood.
"Ghosts don't bleed...."
He says lowly and Dee pulls him up from the basement and can already tell from his firm warm touch that something was very different. She looks into his eyes with the light of new day, and in his eyes, was no ghostly paranormal glow. Only beautiful dark color to his iris'. She smiles wide and Michael says,
"Dee...dee this isn't my illusion ...I'm not doing this..." he laughs and stands back. He spins around with swift feet just like on stage a thousand times and