by Eli Constant
But he wasn’t around to protest it.
The Victorian is silent as a tomb and very chilly as I walk through the side door. I’ve parked the black sedan in the covered freestanding garage behind the house. The hearse was already tucked inside of it, gleaming like a chunk of obsidian beneath the automatic light that flared to life as I remotely opened the garage door. The boys must have cleaned it up before leaving, even though I’d told them to go home and worry about it tomorrow.
It’s late, pitch black outside with only a few stars peeking through the clouds. The rain has paused its falling, only threatening like an angry specter in the sky above now. I find comfort in the narrow gaps between the clouds. Perhaps, finally, we’ll get some nicer weather. Maybe.
Bonneau is odd in another way. The weather, even if it is cheery and gorgeous only miles away in Moncks Corner or St. Stephen, can still be dismal and dark here. As if the city resides in some secondary dimension, our own little Bermuda triangle of storminess and decay.
I think about going into the funeral parlor and making sure everything’s locked up, but I trust Dean and Max and I’m so tired. It’s well after midnight. I’m grateful that tomorrow is business as usual, no funeral or scheduled appointments. I can clean up, removing the evidence of Lilly’s service and hopefully her sweet, sad face from my mind, and think on other things.
My phone buzzes then, the sound it makes when I’ve received a text message. It’s from Dean.
Hey, Tori. Called the Tacklons. They’re coming in tomorrow to meet with me, but they’ve made it clear they want to do this all quickly. I told them Monday was fine since you’d said we could handle it. Hope that was okay. The body will be here Friday evening. I’ll accept it if you aren’t around.
I sigh as I read the lengthy message. No rest for the living or the dead.
Taking a deep breath, I turn around and despite how tired I am, I go down to the parlor to scan my calendar in the office and see if I need to rearrange anything. Dean could handle all the meetings and particulars about the coffin and flowers and such, but I’d still have to do the body.
While I’m there in the office, I write a follow-up card to Lilly’s family (I’ll mail that out a few days from now, when things aren’t so fresh) and close all the downstairs windows which were open for the service (fresh air is good for grief) that Dean and Max should have closed before leaving. I’ll have to talk to them about that. And then, lastly, I check over the basement. I’m not sure why I do the last. The refrigeration room is empty of bodies. The embalming room is cleaned, no evidence that Lilly’s body was ever on my prep table. Still, there is an aura that draws me down to walk each room.
The sensation still resides in my mind as I walk up the stairs to finally crash into bed.
My last thought is maybe I’ll paint tomorrow. It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up a brush and I miss making beautiful things that have nothing to do with death.
Chapter Ten.
I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, but I find myself very jarringly sat up in bed staring around the dark, hopefully empty bedroom. I could swear I’d heard… no felt something moving about the room.
I’d been dreaming about Adam.
The way he used to touch the small of my back, sliding his fingers so gently down to cup my buttocks before pulling me into a firm hug. His lips would press against my own and there’d be wildfire rushing through our veins.
He always awakened a part of me that stayed dormant when he wasn’t around. It was like he reached into my body and forced out the real me, the one I kept hidden.
And, God, the sex. He wasn’t overly-endowed or muscled to kingdom-come, but he could last forever. Pushing himself in and out so fast and so hard and then suddenly becoming slow and gentle. From a storm-raged ocean to a rippling lake in a blink. He’d tease me, entering only a little bit at a time and pausing, waiting for me to beg.
I can even now feel him against me. Goosebumps sprout along my skin.
My vision is blurry, trying to make things out in the deep shadows that surround me. I blink, trying to focus.
A soft wind that feels like I’ve just stepped out onto a deck of a boat floating through Antarctic waters hits my face and my features go numb with the chill. “Who’s there?” I mumble the words as I sit up, still trying desperately to blink the sleep from my eyes and see whatever is in the room with me. “Who are you?”
I don’t have to wonder if it’s beast or person. Only a spirit would bring with it such cold. Something’s wrong though, the way the icy air is coming and going, intermittently interrupted by the warmth of heat pushing through the upper air vents in my ceiling. If a spirit was pushing into my home through its own volition without any assistance from me, then no warmness should be creeping in. It should just be cold. Cold as hell.
“Who are you?” I repeat the words, finally able to see clearly. But there’s nothing… nothing in the room.
“Tori.” The voice is muffled, like it is being pushed through a thick pile of comforters and taking every bit of strength the speaker has. I feel ill, recognizing the voice instantly despite the distortion.
“Jim. God, Jim. It can’t be you.”
“Tori, I don’t feel good. Something’s… something’s wrong. Where are you? Why can’t I see you?” Finally, I see a flickering. A mist of movement that takes the vague shape of a person before dissolving once more.
This happens sometimes— the spirit is still caught so firmly in its body that it cannot see, only speak. That meant that he wasn’t dead yet. It meant that he was dying. He was dying and he’d found his way to me.
“Jim, where are you? Can you tell me where you are?”
“I don’t know. It’s dark. It’s so dark.” He sounds feeble, every minute his grandfatherly age.
I swallow, pushing down the feeling of helplessness that’s welling up inside of me. “What’s the last thing you remember before it went dark.”
“I don’t know.” He pauses, sniffs. His spirit takes a foggy form again, then melts away almost immediately. He’s fighting back tears. It still gets me— that spirits can cry. After all this time. I don’t think I’ll ever stop finding it both gut-wrenching and fascinating. “Tori, I can’t think. I can’t see. What’s happening? What’s wrong with me?”
“Jim, you’re dying.” I hate the words, hate the bluntness of them, but you have to be clear with a ghost. They don’t usually understand subtlety. Yet, he wasn’t dead… not yet.
“No. I can’t be dying. I’m dreaming. That’s all. A terrible fucking dream.”
I nearly smiled. I find spirits that curse amusing. But he’s not a spirit yet, I remind myself. He’s wilting in the in-between. He’s still alive, his soul moving in and out of his body. I can help him. He’s not lost yet. I have to help him. He’s not just my informant. He’s my friend.
“You have to think, Jim. Where were you? Were you still at the bar? Where you at home?” I will Jim to answer, to give me any bit of information that might lead me to where he is.
It feels like the silence lengthens into a great tight rope we will never cross. Until we do, with his voice traveling the length of wire. “I was at home. Got up to piss. Can’t make it through a night these days. I remember going to wash my hands. Reaching for the towel… and then pain. I tried to make it to the phone, but I couldn’t.”
He’s at home. I know where that is. “Hang on, Jim. Help is on the way.”
“I’m scared, Tori.”
“I’m here, Jim.”
I tumble out of bed, every bit of me vibrating with purpose and desperation. My phone is charging on my dresser. I yank at it, not caring if the plug snaps in the outlet, because of my brutality. Cell phone in hand, cord dangling behind me, I race to push my feet into my polka dot rain boots. My jacket comes next, my hands pushing savagely into the arm holes. I dial 911 as I take two steps at a time down the stairs and grab my car keys off the little hook that hangs next to the door that leads to the attach
ed car port.
The Bronco roars to life as someone answers. “911, how can I help you?”
“Yes. I need an ambulance to come to 15 Blackdog Lane. The owner is hurt. I don’t know what’s wrong.” And I don’t. I have no idea what’s wrong—is he having a heart attack? God, did someone find out he’d been feeding us information? If they have… this is my fault, I brought Jim into this case, into so many cases. If he died because he helped me… I can’t finish my thoughts, I can’t focus on blame. I need to be angry, angry and focused.
Because the only thing I’m sure of is that if Jim doesn’t get help quickly, then he was dead.
I feel him with me as the car moves away from the house. He hovers about me, an unseen force. It makes me press my foot just a little harder on the gas pedal. It’s funny how you finally realize what someone means to you, just as they’re getting ready to abandon you forever.
I’m a block away from my house when I realize the Bronco’s nearly empty. “Dammit,” I slam my hands against the steering wheel and redirect my brain towards the nearest gas station. It takes precious minutes to roar in like a bat out of hell, turn the vehicle off and jump out to slam my card in the reader.
“Dammit, hurry up!” I curse at the machine as it tick, tick, ticks away filling the Bronco slowly. “I don’t have time for this!” I only fill it halfway, impatience getting the better of me.
The station has taken me in the opposite direction of Blackdog Lane. But Bonneau is small, and god I’m grateful for that.
***
I park in front of Jim’s brick rambler, my chest rising and falling rapidly. His thunderbird is nearly blocked by the ambulance, its lights still awakening the night with flashing color. They got here fast; thank god they got here fast. As I run towards the house, my rain boots making a sucking sound like a baby at its momma’s breasts, I spot the cobalt blue Harley that Jim basically treats as his child on its side in the grass. It was the reason his third marriage had ended, or so he said. I wasn’t sure how it had gotten there, but if Jim wasn’t having a heart attack, he was probably going to have one when he saw it.
The front door is ajar and the inside of his house is a buzz of activity. Two EMTs are working over his body. They have a portable defibrillator and Jim’s upper body sports two electrode pads, the wires of which run back to the unit.
“Is he okay? Tell me he’s okay!” I speak hastily, my voice breaking. Why? Why do you only realize how much someone matters after they’re gone?!
No one answers me. Jim is on the floor. He looks normal, okay, save for his eyes being closed and his body not moving. The EMTs are concentrating. I want to yell at them again. I want to know if he’s okay!
I hear a second siren outside approaching the house. A second ambulance wouldn’t come; the town just didn’t have enough resources. A few minutes later, Darryl walks into the house, his hand on his hip like this is more than a medical call.
“Ms. Cage, why are you here?” His eyebrow quirks and his mouth turns down in a frown. More than once, Darryl and I have butted heads. He’s not fond of me and I’m not fond of him, if I’m honest. Maybe he’s afraid of me, Casper the Bonneau spook, and that translates into hostility. I wish it was someone else here tonight, but it’s my luck that it isn’t.
Darryl is a tall man, on the too-thin side, with an elongated face that ends in loose skin around the jawline that wobbles when he gets mad. He’s also got thinning hair that he self-consciously combs over each day in such a fashion that it only further draws attention to his scalp.
“Ms. Cage, I asked you a question.” Darryl pushes, taking a step forward, his hand still threateningly close to his holster.
“Jesus, Darryl, what’s your issue?” A buzzing begins to build in my head, soft at first like a bee passing by and then growing stronger until it is so intense that I have to close my eyes. I put my hands over my ears instinctively, as if that will help. The noise drowns out everything around me. I can’t hear what the EMTs are saying. I can’t hear what Darryl is saying in response to my snipe. I can’t hear or do anything.
Everything is enveloped by the noise. It becomes the entire world.
And then it stops.
My eyelids part quickly and I spot Jim, or rather his soul, pouring back into his body. It is like watching an early morning fog hovering over a lake until that moment when the sun warms everything and it melts back where it belongs.
A shuddering gasp tells me that Jim is alive. The EMTs both rock back on their heels, one swipes at his forehead. A hand brushes my shoulder and I jump.
“Ms. Cage, do you also need medical attention?” Darryl actually sounds concerned. Odd for him. I suddenly feel like I’ve been on a rollercoaster ride and I very, very much want to get the hell off.
I move my body away from him, towards a wall for support. “I’m fine. Just tired.” And I am. More tired than I think I’ve ever been in my entire life. Sometimes, I wish for a way to really shut out the dead, quiet my gift for an evening of real peace and normalcy. I don’t know how though. The threads of the afterworld are always beneath the surface, reminding me that I am not normal. “And worried about Jim.”
“Worried about Jim,” he glances over at the man on the floor. I can tell what he’s thinking—that the world wouldn’t be any worse off without the bartender, but he is wrong. Absolutely wrong. Darryl gazes back at me leaning up against the wall, weak and ill. “You know, this is why I tell Chief Goodman that a woman has no place on the force. Too damn fragile.”
“I’m not on the force, Darryl,” I snarl the words, indignation burning away the wooziness. “And you know what? That sort of backwards thinking is bullcrap.”
“You might as well be on the force,” he persists, “Gallivanting around like you own the place. Always pushing into cases. It’s damn unprofessional of Goodman to let you muck about like you know what you’re doing.” Darryl’s voice isn’t mean or intentionally cruel. He’s speaking his mind. Airing his opinions. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is worse than him just being a downright douchebag.
My grandmother used to say that opinions are like assholes. Everyone’s got them. They just don’t always know when to keep their shit from coming out. Or when it’s time to wipe up the filth and flush the fucking toilet.
“Gallivanting’s a big word for you, Darryl. Watching a little extra Jeopardy with Debbie? She’s a good influence.” It’s a low blow, bringing his fiancé into the mix, but I don’t care at this point. I’m stood there, trying not to pass out, and this dickhead thinks it’s okay to act like the vote for women never happened. What Debbie sees in him—with her sweet nature—I’ll never understand.
Darryl blushes, his face going so red that I could fry an egg on his skin. “I read, Ms. Cage. I don’t need no fucking game show to teach me words.” The skin under his face wobbles like silly putty as he spits out the words.
Ah, there we go. The real Darryl. No asking if I need medical attention or feigning concern. That’s much, much better. “Look, Darryl, Chief Goodman is your superior. If he thinks I’m fit to help, then that’s that. Because he’s in charge and not you. So get the fuck off my back and let me see if my friend needs something. Unless you’ve forgotten, this isn’t a damn crime scene.”
Darryl sputters and spits, his brain trying to come up with something to say.
“Don’t strain yourself, Darryl. You might kill whatever brain cells you have in that giant, empty head of yours.”
I walk away from Darryl, whose face is still contorted and blazing fire, and towards Jim, who was now sitting up. One of the EMTs was supporting his back. “We need to take you to the hospital for observation. Make sure there wasn’t any permanent damage to your heart; monitor your vitals for a while.”
So, it was a heart attack. No one hurt him. Natural. Relief floods through me. I reach forward with my powers, both those of decay and those of blood, and try to sense through his body. His liver has seen better days, that much is plain as day, but his heart… i
t seems okay.
“I don’t need to go to the damn hospital. I’m fine.” Jim is pushing the man’s hand away, wanting to sit up on his own.
“Sir, you’re not fine. We barely brought you back.” The EMT is obviously exasperated, dealing with the crotchety old man who’d nearly just died. He holds his hands out, placating, but Jim is having none of it.
“I said I’m fine.” Jim’s face is going red and it’s bright and jarring against the bright white of his beard and hair. He looks like Santa Claus. A very angry, portly Santa Claus.
“Jim,” I say softly, and his eyes flash to focus on my face as soon as I’ve spoken. Confusion paints his expression. I know why. He’s been touched by the afterlife. He’s danced across the in between. He won’t ever be the same. He may even remember, in bits and chunks of images, contacting me as a spirit. “Please go to the hospital.”
“Tori,” Jim rubs a hand across his chest and then his fingers go still, resting over the place where his heart thumps beneath the skin. Confusion flickers across his gaze, his forehead scrunching up before he speaks, “why are you here?”
“Um…” I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t have a story prepared this time. I always have a story ready. “We talked on the phone earlier, don’t you remember? You seemed really confused, mixing your words up. I thought I’d come check on you and when I arrived, they were already here.” I pointed at the EMTs and hoped he believed me.
“I don’t remember talking to you.” He’s trying to stand, but the EMT won’t let him. A mobile stretcher is already lowered to the ground beside him.
“I really have to insist that you don’t move around too much, Sir. Let’s get you on the stretcher and into the ambulance.” The EMT that spoke had a wonderful voice, top notch bedside manner.
Jim wasn’t having any of it. “I told you,” he was biting off the words like a Doberman with a wad of beef jerky, “I am not going to the damn hospital!”
