After Life

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Jess…all right, all right,” he said, holding her back. “I’ll make some arrangements. I do have a few responsibilities, you know.”

  “They’re not important. Not anymore.”

  “Not to you and me maybe, but to other people, good people, they are. Everyone in this town isn’t a reborn evil soul, right?”

  She hesitated.

  “If we do bad things to them, we’ll work right into the devil’s hands,” he said. Where did I get that from? he wondered. I’m getting to sound like her.

  “All right,” she said. “Do what you have to do to make our leaving painless, but do it quickly.”

  “I will. I promise,” he said. They heard the doorbell. “That’s Tracy,” he said quickly when she reacted with instant fear. “I asked her to stop by and stay with you while I go to practice. All right? She’s one of the good guys, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Jessie said.

  “You never had any bad vibrations from her, right?”

  “No.”

  “So she’s clean. And while I’m gone, try to eat something, Jess. You’re only going to make yourself sick. Okay?”

  “All right,” she said, lying back. “All right. As long as you get us out of here soon.”

  “I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” he promised, and went out to let Tracy in.

  “How is she?” she asked immediately.

  “Rambling, going on and on with this hallucination. Just humor her, keep her calm. Get her to eat something, and if you do,” he said, taking out the bottle of tranquilizers, “get one of these into the food. They’re tranquilizers Dr. Beezly gave me.”

  “Oh, sure. If Dr. Beezly wants her to take them, they must be good.” Tracy smiled. “Don’t worry, everything will be all right.”

  “Thanks again,” he said, and hurried out.

  As he pulled away and down the road he looked to the right through the old stone arch of the cemetery, and in the rear in one of the older sections, he thought he saw old man Carter standing with a shovel. He just had a glimpse of him while he passed, but it looked like he was preparing to dig in front of a tombstone, dig up a grave.

  See how easily weird ideas can be planted in your mind, he told himself. No wonder poor Jessie had so many planted in hers. Her blindness had imprisoned her in a chamber of horrors and left her to be victimized by her own nightmares. It added to his weight of guilt for drinking too much that fateful night and driving them into a tree. He had hoped so much that Dr. Beezly would perform a miracle.

  Even if he were the devil and were able to offer her sight, Lee mused, I wonder if I would have blamed her for taking the deal. He had grave doubts that he would hesitate if it were offered to him on her behalf. He rode on, pursued by demons he had himself resurrected and now lived in his own heart.

  13

  As if his boys sensed that his level of toleration was low, they all played exceedingly well. There were no fights, no arguments, and there was evidence of a great deal of teamwork. It encouraged and excited him, and like a devoted jock addicted to sports and the love of the game, he lost himself in the activity. For nearly an hour and a half he thought about nothing else. At one point he substituted himself for one of the players and scrimmaged a bit with the boys. He felt younger. The boys cheered when he made his jump shot from the corner. His teamwork—the way he passed the ball sharply, screened for another player, and sacrificed personal glory to make a play work—inspired them and they began to move like a well-schooled squad instead of wild and independent individuals.

  I’m making a difference, he thought. I’m finally getting through to them.

  At the end of the practice, they were smiling and congratulating each other as well as saying nice things to him, thanking him, wanting to shake his hand or have him pat them on their backs. As they left the court to shower and dress, he thought they were finally turning into a team, his team, and maybe one of his best.

  How am I going to desert them at this point? he wondered sadly, and retreated to his office to shower and dress. After a few days, after we move out of the DeGroot house, maybe Jessie will get better, he thought hopefully. He figured if he could only find new ways to distract her, get her mind off these weird thoughts, he might turn this thing around.

  He sat behind his desk and untied his sneakers. Then he phoned home to speak to Tracy.

  “How’s she doing?” he asked.

  “She’s fine, Lee. I got her to eat some hot cereal and I opened one of the capsules and mixed it in. I sat with her until she ate it all. Now she’s resting,” Tracy said.

  “Oh, that’s great, Tracy. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “No need.”

  “Did she tell you what she thought had happened?” he asked.

  “Not really, no. I didn’t push it either.”

  “Maybe she’s getting better; maybe she’s snapping out of it,” he said.

  “Oh, she will,” Tracy promised.

  “I’m just cleaning up here. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Don’t rush. I’ve already spoken to Bob and he’s decided to make us dinner tonight. I can’t wait to see what that will be like. He hasn’t cooked for years.”

  “If he poisons you, I’ll feel it’s my fault,” Lee kidded.

  “I promise I’ll haunt you forever,” she replied. He hoped Jessie hadn’t overheard that or she would hallucinate something else, he thought.

  He showered, dressed quickly, and hurried out to the parking lot. His was the only faculty car left tonight. The late-fall afternoons had grown shorter and shorter until it was nearly pitch-dark by the time his basketball practice ended. As far as he was concerned, it was the most depressing time of the year because he rose in the dark and went home in the dark. Early evening was much colder, too. He had to remember he was in upstate New York now; it was a colder climate. It was time to wear a thicker coat. This old university basketball jacket wouldn’t suffice. He actually shuddered as he reached into his pants pocket to search for his car keys.

  Just as he opened the door he thought he heard laughter, a woman’s laughter. He turned and looked back at the building, but all was quiet; all was still. There wasn’t a person in sight. The custodians had all the corridor lights on and some of the rooms were being cleaned, but other than that, the building looked deserted. He listened again and imagined it had been only the wind whipping around a corner, that and his fragile imagination.

  He got into the car and started the engine. The laughter reminded him of Monica London. All day he had looked for an opportunity to seek her out and tell her in no uncertain terms that he wanted to end their sexual shenanigans, but whenever he was free, she was in class or simply nowhere to be found. He didn’t want to go around asking for her because he was afraid of calling attention to himself. He returned to the gym, thinking he would try again tomorrow.

  He backed the car out of his space. When he checked his rearview mirror out of habit, he thought he saw someone move out of the shadows. He stared for a few moments, but the figure turned into a shadow again. He shifted his car into drive and shot forward, driving like one escaping. Imaginary laughter, figures in the shadows, it was all getting to him. It wouldn’t be much longer before he would be in as bad a shape as Jessie, he thought. How did this happen? How did it all somehow go wrong?

  He couldn’t help recalling their first days together, meeting after a ball game and rushing off to be alone, parking up on Angel Cliffs to neck, their passion for each other becoming overwhelming until they made love in the back of his Oldsmobile. Thank goodness for that big backseat, he thought, smiling. Then there was the first night they got up enough nerve to go to a motel. What was it called…the Pit Stop? Jessie had gotten cold feet; she was terrified someone would see them go in and out. Finally they came up with that silly disguise—she dressing like a man. How they laughed about it afterward.

  He had never dreamed he would be a heavy drinker. Of course, he had had his beer-drinking days at the frater
nity and with his teams afterward, but then he got into the habit of joining the other coaches during his first two years as a teacher and coach. They would scout teams and go off to drink and talk shop. He had been very lucky up to that fateful night. So many times he had come home a bit high, but always managed to manipulate the car.

  It’s all luck, he thought. One time too many, one missed turn, all a roll of the dice, a spin of the wheel, and you pay for your errors and sins. Only what had made it worse was he hadn’t been the one permanently damaged; he hadn’t been the one punished. How many nights would he go off alone someplace in the house or even out of the house and rant and rave at himself? How many times would he curse the God who had decided to make his punishment more severe by punishing the one person Lee loved more than himself? He longed for Jessie to be angry, for her to hate him, because the pain he suffered was made more intense by her forgiveness.

  Maybe that’s why he had started up with Monica London, why he had succumbed to her advances. He wanted to hurt Jessie again, hurt her so badly that she would finally hate him. He needed to do penance; he longed to be whipped. Instead she pitied him and gave him more love and affection. If she only knew how passionately he had made love to Monica, how eagerly he had accepted her kisses and sought her touch.

  Just recalling it stirred him. He couldn’t prevent it. Monica loomed in his mind like the ultimate male fantasy, Playboy, Penthouse, Christie Brinkley, Kathleen Turner, Madonna, all and any of them rolled into one. It had been like making love with a dream. His body shook with the memory.

  And suddenly, just the way she had predicted when she had said, You know how to call me, don’t you, Lee? You just let your imagination run wild. I’ll be sure to hear it, she appeared. Not beside him, not in the car, but outside the car, her face materializing and then fading, first in the rearview mirror, which made him spin around and look in the back, and then on the windshield. She smiled and beckoned. There she was on the front passenger’s-side window. There she was in the outside mirror. He jumped when her voice came over the radio.

  “Hi, Lee. I knew you would call me again and again and again.”

  He reached for the on-off knob frantically, but the radio wasn’t turned on. Her face began to flash faster, appearing in every piece of glass. She filled the rear window. Her voice began to echo and grow louder and louder.

  “What is this?” he screamed. “Get out; get the hell away from me!”

  “Lee, oh Lee…”

  He didn’t realize he was pressing his foot down harder on the accelerator, but the more he heard and saw her, the faster he drove. Other traffic flashed by; some drivers, annoyed with his erratic driving, hit their horns, the blaring sounds adding to his own inner commotion. Monica’s voice grew even louder. He let go of the steering wheel twice to cover his ears and then seized it again.

  Frantic, he decided to pull over, but instead of hitting the brakes, he hit the accelerator even harder. It made no sense, but the car shot forward, Monica’s face now filling the windshield and blocking his view of the road. He never saw the turn, but vaguely, as the car left the highway, he recalled the route and realized this turn had come up. His automobile seemed to lift off the road like a single-engine plane off a runway. It flew a few feet over the embankment before striking a very large old maple that absorbed the blow as if it had been growing for years and years in anticipation of being struck just this way. Its long, gnarled, and crooked branches shuddered and the last few dried leaves of late autumn rained down in a mist of yellow, orange, and brown.

  Lee’s body slumped forward over the steering wheel, his chest pressing down on the horn. The damaged automobile cried like a wounded beast, its yowl reverberating through the night. Squirrels scurried for protection, a fox foraging nearby fled down a ravine, its tail floating like an afterthought in some celestial mind. A trickle of blood began to run out the sides of Lee’s mouth, the drops dripping slowly onto his hand and lap. His body lifted as though he were preparing to utter a deep sigh and then it settled against the steering wheel again. The radiator hissed steam and a wheel lifted off the ground and spun on as if the car had a mind of its own and was trying to find footing so it could continue.

  Finally the wheel spun to a stop like the wheel of fortune Lee had been imagining earlier. The tree ceased shaking and dropping dried leaves, and the horn grew lower as the battery began to short out. A dark silence fell over the scene; it was almost as though the car had been there for decades. The frightened squirrels tweaked their noses and after a few more moments began to reappear. They peeked out of the shadows with eyes made ghoulish by the light of the emerging moon. One of the braver ones leaped onto the roof of the car and, after concluding it held no promises of food, leaped off and chattered his disappointment into the night. Then, as quickly as it had been noticed, the car and its inhabitant were ignored.

  Jessie lay vaguely awake. She had been fighting to remain conscious, but any sounds she heard seemed distant and thin, making her wonder if she wasn’t really asleep and dreaming. Then she heard the voices, the whispering. It grew louder, longer, closer. It was coming from outside the bedroom, just down the corridor, toward the front of the apartment. Was it Lee?

  She moved her lips and wondered if she had made any sound. It seemed to her she had; only no one came; no one heard her. She tried again and again. Finally she was sure she had called out. The whispering stopped. Someone was listening for her. She garnered all her strength and called once more. Now she heard footsteps; it was more than one person. Lee had come home. Thank God, she thought. She tried to sit up in anticipation, but her body felt so heavy, she didn’t seem to have the strength to lift it.

  “Lee?”

  “No,” Tracy said. “It’s me and Bob.”

  “Bob?”

  “Hi, Jessie,” Bob said.

  “Bob? Where’s Lee? What time is it?” She found the strength to reach for the clock to feel the numbers. “Where’s Lee?” she repeated with a note of hysteria creeping into her voice as soon as she confirmed the time.

  “I’m afraid there’s been an accident,” Bob said.

  “Oh no.” Jessie stuffed her fist between her teeth and bit down. She shook her head frantically. Tracy was at her side, embracing her.

  “He went off the road…lost control,” Bob continued. “For some reason, he was driving very fast and missed a turn. Henry Young phoned me just a little while ago and asked me to come over here.”

  “Is he dead? Did he die?”

  “He’s not dead, but I’m afraid he’s in a coma, Jessie,” Bob said.

  “He’ll make it; he’ll be all right,” Tracy said, tightening her embrace. “Gardner Town Community General is a good hospital.”

  “He didn’t die yet,” Jessie said softly. “Then it’s not too late. Please take me to him. Please,” she begged.

  “Now, Jessie, from what Tracy tells me, you’ve had a very bad day,” Bob began. “You’re far too weak and this can only make you weaker. It’s best you just rest here. There’s nothing you can do. Dr. Beezly has been called and is on his way to the hospital now.”

  “NOOOOO!” Jessie screamed. “NOOOO!”

  “Jessie, easy. Please take it easy,” Tracy pleaded.

  Jessie fought to escape her grip, and with a surge of desperate energy tore out of her arms, but Bob was there to keep her from rising to her feet. He placed his hands on her shoulders and drove her down. She couldn’t continue her resistance. She was too weak and so tired. Why was she so tired?

  “Please,” she begged. “Please. If I don’t get there, he’ll take him.”

  “Take him? Who’ll take him?” Bob asked.

  “I told you,” Tracy said. “She’s been having some terrible nightmares and hallucinating.”

  “I’m not hallucinating…I knew this would happen; I knew it,” Jessie cried.

  “All right, Jessie. All right,” Bob coaxed. “You just rest here and we’ll keep you up to date.”

  “We’ll stay
with you. I promise,” Tracy said. Her hands replaced Bob’s and pressed down on Jessie’s shoulders hard, forcing her to lie back. “That’s better. You rest. As soon as you’re strong enough, we’ll take you to the hospital. Right, Bob?”

  “Absolutely,” Bob said.

  “No, you won’t,” Jessie said, shaking her head slowly. “No you won’t,” she repeated, but she couldn’t keep awake. She couldn’t resist. The darkness outside her crept in over her thoughts and in moments she was asleep.

  She had no idea what time it was or how long she had been sleeping when she woke up again, regaining consciousness with a shudder that traveled up her spine. It was as though someone had stuck a finger in her ribs. This impression was so vivid that she sat up and reached out to see if anyone was sitting beside her.

  “What?” she asked the darkness. There was no sound, no sense of anyone else’s presence.

  She was awake, but there was a thick veil of grogginess over her. Every move, every gesture was ponderous, difficult. She felt like she had a weight on her chest, and she groaned with the effort to sit up. It took all her concentration and strength just to swing her legs over the side of the bed. The moment she did so and pulled herself upright, her head began to spin. She started to dry-heave, pressed her hands into her diaphragm, and took deep breaths to drive the urge back down. Even so, she had to lie back again and regain her strength.

  Gradually, in wave after wave of resurfacing thoughts and memories, she recalled what had happened and where she was. Realizing how desperate the moment had become, she worked her way into a sitting position again and drove away the dizziness long enough for her to reach for the clock and feel the time. Only an hour and ten minutes had passed.

  I have to get to the hospital, she thought. I have to get to Lee before it’s too late. She listened keenly for Bob and Tracy. They were still in the house. The murmur of their voices could be heard on the other side of the wall. They were sitting in the kitchen.