Afterlife (Book 1): Home Again

by Lonergan, Cai

  Nope, nothing good about cellars, no thanks, I don't think - "Sure, okay." I respond automatically. Darn it.

  "Great." Gerald is smiling ear to ear. "We can get some of the strawberries Gladys preserved in July. There's no bread left, but they taste great on their own!”

  I laugh briefly at his excitement; Gerald is talking about strawberries like they're some sort of legendary cuisine.

  I need to come up with an excuse. "Um. Okay, sounds great!” Darn it again.

  "Great, let's go." Gerald disappears down the hallway and I stand up. Okay, but I'm not going down there first.

  I walk into the kitchen to find Gerald holding a door next to the kitchen counter open with a flourish. He clicks on a light switch next to the door and from where I'm standing I can see tile floors and white walls.

  "I'll, you know, follow your lead down the stairs." I say, and smile.

  Gerald looks down the stairs. "Oh, right, sure." He beckons me with a wave and walks down the stairs. "Come on down, dowwn, dowwwn, haha.” he jokes as he steps down into the cellar.

  I pick up a small knife from the counter and stick it into my pocket. I can feel the handle press against my thigh as I step down the stairs.

  Downstairs, I feel strange calling the room a cellar. There are bright, lacquered shelves lined with dozens of jars packed with fruits and vegetables. I'm very hungry and I spot a jar of dark green asparagus, which has always been my favorite vegetable.

  "Wow, this is amazing, Gerald. You're set for weeks, easily. How'd you do this?"

  I should take it. All of it, now. No. What?

  "Oh, definitely not me. Gladys is the hand of magic around here. She says it's easy as pie, making preserves."

  I nod and look around the cellar. In the corner I can see a washer and a dryer. Several large plastic containers sit next to a large red machine.

  "Is that a generator?" I ask, pointing at the red machine.

  Gerald looks behind him. "Yup. There's even outlets on the back! And those are 5 gallon jerry cans, so if the electricity does give out on me and there's some sort of emergency, I can still take care of Gladys."

  I smile at him warmly. "That's very sweet of you, Gerald."

  His chest puffs up and he looks around. "So what'll it be?" he asks, waving a hand at the jars.

  I look at the jars. “Choose one?” I ask him.

  “Sure, let’s grab a couple and have a nice snack. Which one do you want?” He turns toward the jars and gazes happily.

  I already know which one. “Asparagus.”

  Gerald looks at me, his eyebrow raised. “Asparagus?...Did you mean ‘anything but asparagus,’ or maybe ‘blueberry?’”

  “Haha, no, asparagus has always been my favorite vegetable.”

  Gerald looks down at the ground a moment, perplexed. He looks back up at me. “Are you choosing asparagus because you know I won’t touch the stuff? Are you trying to ease my burden?” he asks.

  “Nope, asparagus has always been my one-hundred percent favorite vegetable.” I insist. I walk up and take the jar off the shelf.

  “Okay, okay.” Gerald holds his hands up in surrender. “The weird girl loves asparagus. As for myself…” He steps forward and grabs one of many large, full jars of red paste labeled “strawberry.”

  “I mean, I’ll help you with the strawberry.” I offer graciously.

  “Oh, haha, I thought that might be the case.” Gerald turns around and begins climbing up the stairs.

  I panic briefly, thinking he’ll lock me inside. I quickly dismiss the notion. The lock is on the inside of the door, all of his food is down here and there are large cans of gasoline. Not the kind of place someone holds prisoners. Things aren’t full-blown Mad Max yet.

  We exit into the kitchen. After closing the cellar door, Gerald hops excitedly to the table. “Oh, gosh, you are going to love this stuff.”

  I sit down and try to open the bottle of asparagus. After a moment of struggle, it pops off and the strong, sour odor of vinegar wafts through the room. I laugh at Gerald’s expression.

  I stand up and walk over to the cabinet, pulling out two plates. I hand one plate to Gerald before placing several stalks of asparagus on my plate. I take a bite. Crunchy and salty, with hints of garlic and mustard.

  “Wow, this is amazing.” I say. Gerald stares at me as if I’m trying to sell him a pair of high heels.

  “Alright.” he says, shaking his head. “But now I will share the truth with you. The real reason anyone preserves fruit.” Gerald takes two spoons from a drawer and hands one to me. He scoops out a large dollop of strawberries and puts them on his plate, bright red fruits lathered in a thick red jam. He takes a smaller scoop and places a fruit and some jam on my plate.

  It looks amazing and I immediately eat the snack. It is extremely sweet, but not empty like the candies and snacks I’ve been eating for days. The flavor is so overpowering that my nose stings a little and I tear up. “Wow, that’s really good.” I manage to get out.

  Gerald laughs. “Haha, I guess so, they’re making you cry!”

  I laugh. “I haven’t tasted anything fresh in a couple of weeks. These are both amazing.” I wave the spoon at the two jars.

  “I’ll take your word on the asparagus. Ah, Gladys would love this. We should let her know.”

  “Sure, of course.” I feel guilty for forgetting about Gladys again, especially since these jars are the result of her work.

  “Maybe she can have some of the strawberries today.” He spoons out some more fruit onto his plate and we both stand up.

  I follow Gerald up the stairs and see three more pictures on the wall. Gerald is the only person in all three. I walk a little more slowly and let Gerald get ahead of me. The small knife is still in my pocket. As I reach the second floor, I can smell something thick and sweet hanging in the air.

  Gerald turns back to me and beckons excitedly. He puts his finger to his lips and whispers.

  “She might be taking a nap!”

  He knocks on the bedroom door softly and then opens it gently. A very unpleasant smell wafts out. I can’t help but wrinkle my nose.

  “Honey, how are you?” Gerald crosses the room to reach his wife. He leans down to listen to her answer, chuckles and then waves me over. “Gladys, this is Angela.”

  The closer I get to the bedroom door, the heavier the unpleasant odor is. There is a large brown stain on the carpet next to the bed.

  I try to breathe more slowly, but begin feeling light-headed. I step inside the door and see Gladys lying on the bed, holding a bowl of peaches and a spoon. Oh, thank goodness.

  “Hello, Mrs, um...” I don’t know their last name! “Ma’am. It’s nice to finally meet you, I wanted to thank you and tell you I really enjoyed-”

  I pause. Gladys is still staring at her peaches. Her full bowl of peaches. Gerald sits down on the bed, politely listening while I express my gratitude.

  As the bed shifts under his weight, Gladys’ head falls back onto the pillow behind her and Gladys is now staring up at the ceiling. Her eyes look deflated and sunken. I remember the empty pill bottles I saw in the bathroom downstairs. Gladys stares without seeing, her gray skin crisscrossed with bright black varicose veins. Three empty pill bottles.

  Gladys committed suicide.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Well?” prompts Gerald, grinning and looking at me expectantly.

  “Um…I…really like the asparagus.” I finish, staring sideways at the bedside table to avoid the presence of a corpse. This is wrong. I feel acutely nauseous and woozy.

  “Haha, isn’t that a riot, Gladys? She likes the asparagus the best, do we-“ He turns back to Gladys and notices her lolling, heavy skull.

  “Oh, gee, honey.” Gerald quickly pulls Gladys up by the shoulders so she’s sitting a little higher, propped against her pillows. Her head falls onto her chest again.

  I notice that Gerald isn’t looking at Gladys as he rearranges her body, but rather at dozens of pictures pinned in a hal
o around Gladys’ head. Gerald gazes at each of them in turn as he adjusts his late wife’s posture, looking around and beside the gray, puffy face of his wife.

  I am staring fixedly at the brown stain on the floor.

  Gerald notices how uncomfortable I am and smiles apologetically. “Sorry about the smell. Gladys won’t really let me clean up here. It’s sort of her domain, you know?”

  Gerald arranges her right hand around the bowl of peaches and slips the spoon into her left. “You’ve got to eat something, honey, your energy is so low these days!” Gerald shrugs at me.

  I choke a little and cough. There are at least ten open containers of preserves all around the room and the cloying fumes are overpowering. I back towards the door.

  “Well, I’m still hungry, I’m going to go downstairs.” I spin around and hurry back down the stairs. Gerald calls something after me, but I can’t hear him. My head is pounding. I can’t think straight.

  The asparagus is sitting on the table. I twist off the cap and inhale the thick odor of vinegar. It doesn’t dislodge the thick stench of decay stuck deep inside my nose, part of me now.

  I can see the stairs from where I’m sitting at the table, so I leave the kitchen and walk down the corridor, past the bathroom(underneath their bedroom) to the couch(underneath Gladys).

  My hands are shaking and my stomach hurts. I keep thinking that Gladys is dead, over and over. The empty medicine bottles, the pictures arranged around her corpse, and...dead. She’s dead. Upstairs.

  When did she kill herself?

  It can’t be that long, right? How long do bodies...stick around? And it’s so humid in that room, she must be decomposing by now. “Ohhh…” I feel sick.

  I hear the bedroom door close and Gerald thumping down the stairs. I think about the knife in my pocket.

  I could kill him and stay here. The intention enters and then leaves my mind. Crazy.

  Gerald’s steps sound too loud as he walks down the hallway. Everything makes sense now.

  I am completely blank, unable to come up with anything to say as Gerald enters the living room.

  Gerald pauses at the threshold of the living room. He runs his head through his hair. “So…I guess you could tell.”

  I try to read his face. “Um…yeah. Do you need help?”

  Gerald looks straight into my eyes. “With what?”

  “I mean, um...cleaning-“

  “I know, I know!” he shouts down at the ground. He puts his head in his hands. “Her room is dirty, but she told me that she wants to clean it herself! She hasn’t eaten for days and she’s the one that cleans everything. I can’t…”

  “Gerald, you need to bury her.”

  Gerald’s head snaps upward. “What-how could you say that? She’s not dead! She’s sick, she doesn’t have time to clean! She won’t let me help her!” Gerald starts sobbing. “She won’t eat anything, I’ve tried all of her favorites. She really likes peaches.”

  “Gerald…I hate this, but she’s d-“

  “No! No, She’s fine, she’s been under the weather lately.” Gerald shakes his head violently. “She ran out of her pills the other day but she can pull through. She’s tough.” Gerald looks up at me and nods emphatically, smiling and crying. “She’s tough, she’ll make it through, she always...you’ll see. You have to leave.”

  I feel betrayed, but there isn’t any way I can argue with him. I don’t want to. I have been sleeping and showering directly underneath a corpse. I try to consider living here and helping Gerald accept what has happened, but the words aren’t there. I don’t know what to do.

  Suddenly the fact that Gladys is a corpse really hits me. Is she going to come back to life? How does this thing even work?

  “Yes.” I nod my head and agree. “Do you mind if I take some time to pack up my things? I’ll leave soon, I ju-“ Thump. Bump.

  I freeze and Gerald jumps into the living room, away from the bathroom door, which is shuddering in its frame.

  CHAPTER 14

  Gerald looks back and forth at me and the bathroom door without saying a word. I ruffle through my clothes, then groan.

  “My bat is in the bathroom!” I hiss at Gerald. “Where do you keep your bats?”

  “The craft room behind the kitchen.” says Gerald. He winces as the bathroom door continues to thump and rattle loudly.

  I stand up from the couch and run down the hallway, through the kitchen and into the spare room. There are a few trimmed pictures of Gerald on the walls and I flash back on the master bedroom and the halo of photos and clippings surrounding Gladys’ corpse.

  I see the two bats leaning against a pile of plastic bags and grab both of them.

  Gerald hasn’t moved and is cringing with each rapid thump of the bathroom door. This one is frantic. I think for a moment.

  “Hello?” I call out. The rattling increases in intensity, and I hear a sick, choking noise and a strange cough.

  I hand Gerald a bat, which he takes by the wrong end. He stares at the bat, wide-eyed.

  “Okay. I need you to open the door and then run backwards. I’ll hit it in the back of the head.” The bathroom door rattles heavily. “Okay?”

  Gerald nods but doesn’t move. The door rattles against the frame over and over.

  “Gerald, let’s do this now.” I walk to the entrance to the living room, behind the bathroom door and look back at Gerald. He straightens up stiffly and walks over to the door. He breathes heavily and stares at me, but doesn’t move.

  “Alright, so, open the door, and we’ll both be here. If it follows you, I’ll hit it. If it turns toward me, you hit it. That’s our plan, okay?”

  Gerald slowly turns the bat around so that he’s holding it properly and nods at me.

  I lift my wooden bat up, ready to swing. “Okay, whenever you’re ready.”

  Gerald immediately leans forward and puts his hand on the doorknob, leaning as far away from the door as possible. We both stare at the back of his hand and neither of us move. After a minute of inaction, I glance up at Gerald’s face. Beads of sweat are dotting his face and he’s breathing heavily.

  “Ger-“ I begin, at the same moment that Gerald twists the door knob and jumps back.

  There is a thunderous crash and the door flies wide. I throw up my hands and the door painfully rebounds off my forearms. I hear Gerald scream.

  I can see a shape flying out of the bathroom and am confused. It is so much faster.

  The shape jumps off the wall down the hallway. I frantically push the bathroom door but don’t hear anything and suddenly nothing is happening.

  I can finally focus on what is happening and notice a large brown mound in front of Gerald. He is looking down at the fur on the hardwood and then back up at me.

  We are both gasping for breath and my heart is pounding.

  “What...is that?” I ask. I walk forward and look at the lump of fur on the carpet and realize it’s a dog. The dog has most of the flesh stripped from his right front leg and is breathing heavily. I can see half-dried spittle at the corner of its mouth. Its eyes are rheumy and I look up at Gerald.

  “Did you hit it?”

  Gerald shakes his head and attempts to explain. “N-no, it hit the wall and dropped. I, I thought it was going to bite me.” he says.

  I look back down at the dog. Its chest is rising and falling rapidly. It’s a medium-sized dog, but I don’t know the breed. Its leg is difficult to look at, and I realize that its tail has been chewed off as well.

  I stare at the animal, trying to understand what is happening. Then I remember Rictus and walk forward with the bat held high. “Get back!” I scream, and swing downward.

  The dog explodes upward and leaps forward into the side of the wall. “RUN!” I scream and then move backwards, swinging my bat as the dog turns toward the sound of my voice and leaps wildly. It scrambles frantically on the hardwood floor of the hallway and regains its footing after hitting the wall near the bathroom door. It leaps at me again as I quickly move
backwards into the living room.

  The dog lands heavily next to the living room wall but is immediately back on its feet. “Gerald, it’s BLIND!” I shout toward the hallway.

  At my voice, the beast hops madly sideways. It collides with the coffee table in front of the couch I’ve been sleeping on and sliding a couple of feet before it falls off. The dog shoots back up, unstable and terrifying.

  I step behind the armchairs and don’t say anything, watching the dog as it stands on three legs, reflexively choking and snapping its jaws to its left. Without warning, the dog leaps forward and I swing the bat.

  My swing is too slow and I only manage to knock its head clumsily with the narrow part of the bat closer to my grip. I swear and quickly walk backwards as the dog rapidly falls into the armchair and then clambers over the back.

  The dog lands heavily on the ground, biting at its left side and then jumps weakly. It barely leaves the carpet before collapsing back into the ground. Blood and saliva are dripping from its lips onto the carpet and the dog is gasping rapidly.

  As soon as I understand what is happening, I step forward and smash the bat into its skull. On my first hit, the dog begins to struggle to its feet, but it isn’t as fast as it was and my second club knocks it back down as I yell with the exertion of the swing. I yell again and the third strike renders the animal inert. There is a large pool of blood leaking from its head.

  I look over to where Gerald has entered the room, holding the bat out in front of him like a samurai sword. He walks into the room with short, rapid steps. “Is it here? Is it dead?” he asks.

  I nod. “I think it’s dead. It’s not moving, and I hit it a lot.” I say.

  Gerald nods manically. “Make sure! Make sure it’s dead! Make sure!” he says.

  “We need to get it out of here, Gerald. This blood has to be contagious.”

  He nods. He turns around and walks down the hallway. When he returns, his face is grim and he’s holding two pairs of gardening gloves.

  We both put on the gloves. Gerald looks at me, then down at the dog. Neither of us want to approach the animal, let alone pick it up.