Before the Returned

by Jason Mott

  Edmund was quiet for a moment, then he nodded.

  “So what do you think about it?”

  A silence settled over the room. Edmund sat back in his chair, looking at Helen, his brow furrowed, as if trying to solve a riddle. “I...” He hesitated. “I can’t explain any of this,” he said finally. Then: “I just want to see Emily.”

  * * *

  Emily existed in a foggy, distorted land of chronic insomnia and protracted anxiety where everything felt far away and unreal. She was fatigued enough to believe anything. The sleeplessness did nothing at all to help her driving. Everything and everyone on the highway seemed to blur together. There were no cars around her, only one large river of lights and steel and fiberglass. One long chain of humanity that was not Edmund, no matter how much she wanted to believe that somehow he might run into her.

  She had made the decision to drive to D.C. knowing full well that it was the wrong thing to do. “He’ll come to you,” her mother had told her, trying to talk her out of it. “He’s come this far. You need to be patient.”

  “It’s been over a week now,” Emily said. “I can’t wait any longer. I have to see him. I have to know that he’s real. I have to know that all of this is real.”

  “Of course he’s real, Emily,” her mother insisted. “Why is this upsetting you so much? Aren’t you happy he’s back?”

  Emily had tried more than once to explain to her mother why Edmund’s return had thrown her into such disarray. There was nothing normal about what was happening. As much as she wanted Edmund back, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. But it was more than just the strangeness of the situation that bothered her.

  The past year had been difficult for Emily. She learned not to visit the places that the two of them had visited. She had grown accustom to drowning out the memories of him when they came bubbling up from her mind. She had become a master at keeping herself distracted. She even took up running—something she had considered foolish and a waste of energy before. She never understood why people ran if they weren’t being chased.

  But then Edmund died and she found herself alone, in the remains of a life that was on the cusp of being built for two, and all of a sudden running seemed like the thing to do. In the beginning it just got her out of the house, away from the paintings, away from his clothes that still hung in the closet like tombstones. It was a way for her body to take her away from her mind.

  The past year had been full of nothing but running from Edmund’s memory, trying to escape that place in her heart where the memories of him lived. And she had grown thinner, more tired, more fatigued in the past year. Closer to giving it all up than even her mother had known.

  And now, all of a sudden, all of that was undone, and neither her mind nor her body knew how to process it.

  She needed to see him, and she could not wait any longer for him to come to her. There were questions she needed to ask, words she needed to hear, things she needed to say. She wanted to apologize for everything that she had done in the past year—all the ways she had been trying to forget him—and she needed for him to tell her that it was okay, to tell her that none of it mattered now, that whatever method had brought him back to life would remain for years and years to come. She needed to hear that it was all going to be okay.

  And sitting at home sleepless was not going to make any of that happen.

  She had never been to D.C. before and she had no idea where Edmund was being held or what she would do if she found out where he was. In her mind, she played and replayed the moment when she arrived at the large towering building where they were keeping Edmund. She imagined fighting her way through the crowd of security men and news crews and curious onlookers toward a podium at the doors of the building where Edmund stood, preparing to make a statement. The people around her closed in as she came through the crowd. They swarmed her, clinging and clawing at her, slowing her down with each and every step.

  But she would not be stopped. He had returned from the dead for her, after all. The least she could do was fight her way through the people of this world to get to him. In this dream—this near-dream of someone who had not slept in far too long—by the time she reached him, she was bloodied and bruised. Her hair was in disarray, blood dripping from her mouth. But there he was—tall and lanky, his blond hair flopped over his forehead—as always, waiting for her. His eyes shone. His face was radiant. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

  “I know,” she replied, huffing.

  Then he reached down and pulled her from the crowd. The whole world seemed to stop then—at the moment he took her hand, at the moment of his touch. “I thought you were never coming back,” she said.

  “How could I ever stay away?” he asked. He sighed and Emily could smell him—that familiar oaky scent that he had always had. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tighter than he ever had before. Then he took her face into his hands and kissed her.

  At the wheel of the car, she drifted across the center line of the highway. Cars blared their horns and sped up to pass her, but she would not be stopped. She had to find him. Her logic was that of an insomniac, of someone desperately in love and terribly afraid. The traffic around her dripped into a distorted blur, but by the time she realized that it wasn’t the movement around her but rather the tears in her eyes causing the world to distort, she had already lost control of the car.

  * * *

  Edmund had to get away. He was being held in a small room with only a bed, a desk, a pair of chairs and a television. It was clearly an office, not a jail, but there was a small team of men in suits keeping watch on him, making it impossible for him to get away on his own.

  The news showed images of Emily’s car turned upside down in a muddy ditch like a giant insect, and when a photograph of the two of them together—beneath the lights and exaggerated colors of the county fair—flashed on the screen, Edmund became agitated.

  “Where is that?” Edmund asked the man who was assigned to keep an eye on him. “Where is she? How did this happen?”

  The man sat back in his chair and inhaled deeply. “You probably shouldn’t be watching this,” he said, and made a move toward the television. Edmund grabbed his hand.

  “Did you know about this?”

  “Easy,” he said. He sounded genuinely concerned. “I’m sure everything’s fine.”

  “I’ve got to leave,” Edmund said. “You’ve got to help me get out of here.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” the man replied. “Listen, I understand that you want to be with her, but...”

  Edmund sat on the end of his bed and put his head between his hands. Emily’s face appeared in his mind and he imagined her in the ditch, buried beneath her car, gasping for air. “Marcus—” Edmund said, looking up at the man. “That’s your name, right?”

  The man hesitated.

  “Marcus, have you ever lost someone?”

  “None of your business,” Marcus replied defensively. He sat back in his chair. His hand began to fidget. Edmund thought he saw the reflection of a tear forming in the man’s eyes.

  “Who was it?” he continued. “Father? Mother?”

  A look of heartache spread across the man’s face. “It wasn’t our fault,” he said eventually. His voice was low and soft, as if he was afraid someone might hear, or as if the words held a certain reverence for him. “We did everything a parent is supposed to do.” His voice became far away as he spoke. “Kids get sick, you know? We thought it was just a fever like every other kid gets. We took her out of school, gave her plenty of fluids, all that.” He scratched his chin nervously. “You got kids?”

  “No,” Edmund replied. “Emily and I talked about it. I wanted girls. A big family of girls.” He smiled. “I don’t really know why. I just liked the idea of it.”

  “How come you never had any?”

 
; He shrugged. “We never got the chance.”

  “Everyone should have kids,” Marcus replied. “Everyone should have big families. The bigger the better.” He sighed. “We were going to have at least four—two boys, two girls. We joked about keeping the numbers even so that the fights would always end in a draw.” He laughed. “Silly as hell, I know, but it is what it is.”

  Edmund sat forward. He opened his hands. “And your daughter, if she came back, would you want to be back with her?”

  Marcus flinched. “Of course I would.”

  “You’d do anything to be with her, wouldn’t you? To hold her again. To see her smile. You would, wouldn’t you?”

  Marcus nodded.

  “That’s all I want,” Edmund said. “That’s all this is. I don’t know anything about what this is about. All I know is that I’m alive. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am. I’m alive and I want to be back with the woman I love. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  * * *

  That was two days ago.

  They made their escape on the night when Edmund was being moved to a different location. There was a long convoy of cars, with Marcus and Edmund in the middle of it. Around them were identical cars so that the media—who had managed to find where Edmund was being held—wouldn’t be able to tell which car to harass.

  Getting away from the rest of the convoy had been easier than Edmund had expected. When the news vans followed the convoy, an order was given for the cars to split up. The hope was that the media would follow one of the decoys and not the car that actually held Edmund and Marcus.

  The plan worked perfectly. Edmund and Marcus were away from the convoy and the news crews. Alone in a car and bound for North Carolina.

  They were on the highway nearly three hours now, heading south. Marcus tossed his cell phone from the car window somewhere just outside D.C. Edmund asked him whether or not the car could be tracked, but Marcus only told him not to worry and then drove in silence.

  Edmund’s thoughts centered on Emily, on that last day together. It had taken him so long to muster up the courage to propose. He spent weeks with the ring in the glove compartment of his car, traveling back and forth with it to work, to home, to his apartment—all those weeks with Emily riding in the very same car, sitting only a foot or so away from the biggest question of Edmund’s life. But then, finally, he’d managed the proposal.

  And now a year had passed. For her, at least. For Edmund, it was all still fresh, all completely immediate. She had accepted his proposal hardly a week ago. His heart still rang like a bell at the mere mention of her name.

  But would it be the same for her? he wondered.

  * * *

  When she awoke, she was alone. Her head ached and the hospital room seemed to spin. On the wall at the end of her bed, the television was muted. Soundless images flickered. Emily watched for a while, still trying to understand how she had gotten here. She remembered getting into the car. She remembered driving. But that was all.

  When she tried to sit up, a wave of pain washed over her. All at once her entire body hurt. It took her a while but, eventually she adjusted to it and managed to sit up in the bed. The room spun. She coughed. Then she remembered Edmund.

  As if he could sense her thoughts, he appeared in the doorway, holding a cup of coffee, looking exactly the way she remembered him.

  “I just stepped out for a coffee,” he said, smiling.

  She replied with a half laugh that rolled into blissful tears as he sat down on the bed and wrapped his arms around her. She wanted to speak, but her throat felt rough and she had trouble assembling the words in her mind. Everything felt foggy and distant. None of this seemed real.

  “It’s okay,” Edmund said. He helped her onto her back. “You’re okay. You just...you just had an accident.” He wiped a bead of sweat from her brow and dabbed the tears from her eyes.

  Emily worked her mouth, searching for words, but nothing came out.

  “Just relax,” Edmund said. “You need your strength. It’s a miracle you survived at all.” He looked over at a glass of water sitting near the bed. “Here,” he said, offering her a drink. She lifted her head with a grunt and took the water in small sips. “What the hell were you thinking?” he asked, holding his smile even though the tremble in his voice betrayed him.

  Emily cleared her throat. Her head was still foggy and her throat hurt but, finally, she managed words. “You’re here,” she said.

  “I know,” Edmund replied.

  “You’re real?”

  “I’m real.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For letting go.”

  “It’s okay,” Edmund said, grinning. “This never would have happened if we’d gone with the Magnum Green.” And then they laughed together.

  He reached up and unclasped her necklace. She slowly eased her engagement ring off it. Then he took her hand and slid the ring back onto her finger. “Now,” he said, “where were we?”

  They held one another and wept for a long time. Emily had a dozen questions she wanted to ask him. Where had he been? How was he here now? How long would he stay? The phenomenon of the Returned was only just beginning, and in the midst of it all, Edmund would inevitably be caught.

  But, for now, it did not matter. For now, Emily had him back and, come what may—whether they lived happily together for the next fifty years or tragedy separated them once again—she would not let him go.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Returned by Jason Mott.

  THE SPARROW

  A Prequel to The Returned

  Jason Mott

  Contents

  THE SPARROW

  A couple in their twenties found her just outside Michigan, standing at the edge of a busy highway, watching the cars pass with a look of fear and helplessness. She wore a white, flowered dress, and her dark hair was pulled into pigtails with small beads dangling from the ends. She was dark-skinned and small and beautiful. When they asked her how she got there, she only replied that she did not know. “It’ll be okay,” they told her again and again. “We’ll get someone to help you.”

  It had been happening this way for a couple of weeks now. People who had once been dead were suddenly showing up alive, alone and far from home. It began with a man in North Carolina named Edmund Blithe almost six weeks ago, who had inexplicably shown up for work exactly a year after he had been tragically killed in a bus accident. Since then, the numbers had multiplied each day. It was in the thousands now, and no one—not even the government—knew where they were coming from or what to do with them.

  They were on their way home from visiting Matt’s mother just outside Saginaw. Heather was the one who noticed the girl, just off the highway, standing in the cold and darkness like a ghost. Her name was Tatiana, and, instead of calling the police or the news stations, they brought her home. As much as Heather and Matt were intrigued by it all, as much as they watched the television and the internet for all the latest developments, they never thought they would encounter the Returned firsthand.

  “What are we going to do with her?” Matt asked his wife as they stood in the doorway of their bedroom, whispering. They watched Tatiana eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table. Now and then the child looked around, taking in her surroundings—an antique wooden dinner table, a large, fancy-looking coffeemaker on the counter, a ceramic pitcher holding various cooking utensils. The girl still appeared to be afraid, though she had stopped crying.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Heather replied.

  “Where do you suppose it’s from?” Matt asked. “Africa? That’s what I’d guess by the accent.”

  “She,” Heather corrected. “And does it matter?”

  “No, of co
urse not,” Matt said. “I’m just, well, curious.” His leg fidgeted from all the energy he was holding in. “Can you believe we’ve actually got one of them—one of the Returned—sitting at our kitchen table?”

  Heather finally took her eyes off Tatiana. She looked Matt in the eyes. “We’ve got a child in there, Matt. That’s what we’ve got. Don’t talk about her like she’s something.” But he hardly seemed to hear her.

  “We’ve got to talk to it,” he said. “We’ve got to find out what it remembers. Where it’s been.” He took Heather’s hand. “Just think of what our lives will be like if we were the first ones to have answers about the Returned.” His eyes were wide and bright, like those of a child eager to unwrap a gift.

  “She’s a child,” Heather replied, taking his face in her hands. “She’s away from her parents and surrounded by strangers, Matt. That’s the only thing we need to think about.”

  Later that evening, after Tatiana had eaten everything in sight—cereal and ice cream and frozen pizza—the three of them sat together at the kitchen table. Heather and Matt were on one side, both of them smiling at the Returned girl as if they were being interviewed for a job. Heather played with her hair. Matt shifted position over and over again, unable to get himself settled.

  “You’re from Africa?” Matt asked finally.

  But before Tatiana could answer, Heather intruded. “Are you still hungry? There’s some pizza left.”

  “No. Thank you,” Tatiana said. In her lap, she wrung her hands nervously.

  “How old are you?” Matt asked. Then, immediately, “That’s a fair question, isn’t it?” He aimed the question at Heather.

  “I am ten,” Tatiana said. Her eyes shifted from Matt to Heather and back again. She was smart enough to know that there was tension between the two of them. They were behaving the way her parents behaved when they were fighting and did not want Tatiana to know.

  “And where do you go to school?” Matt asked.

  “What’s your mother’s name?” Heather asked, speaking loudly, as if to drown out her husband. “We want to help you find your family, but we’ve got to at least know who we’re looking for.” She smiled as she asked the questions, trying to make the young girl feel at home. “We’ve got to know a little about the people who love you.”