UNEARTHLY

by John Farris

  Sullen and mad, Barry wiped at her tears. She was shaking, which often was the aftermath of an encounter with Mrs. Prye.

  When she had herself together, Barry turned on the lamp beside the four-poster bed. She kept Ned's picture on a mahogany rent table there, a last photo of him, bare to the waist and enjoying a big slab of watermelon that idyllic August before his death. Next to the framed photo was a statue of the Brennan family saint, Veronica, an ancient Celtic cross, and a rosary that her mother had left Barry. The cross, handed down through generations, at one time had been the property of family priests, very holy men who, Edith had claimed, gave it special powers.

  Barry saw her own face, elongated, in the slant glass of the picture frame. Ned's hair, long as Lancelot's, was wheat blond, the bridge of his nose broad and hawkish. But of course Mrs. Prye hadn't meant that the other young man was literally Ned. Her pronouncements, sometimes to the point, were more frequently obscure.

  It was almost twelve thirty on a Friday night. Sleep now was out of the question. She had a chill, a chill of events set in motion about to whirl out of control. She wanted to go to the hospital. She was afraid, but eager. She had to go.

  Barry dressed in wool pants and an alpinist's sweater, pulled on fur-lined boots, and went down the hall to Dal's room. He hadn't locked the door. She listened for a few moments, heard him snoring, then walked in and left the door ajar so that the light from the hall fell across the bed.

  "Dal. Dal."

  He struggled up, bleary-eyed. "Wha?"

  "It's Barry."

  "What are you doing in here?"

  Tinker sat up suddenly beside Dal, looking dismayed. She was wearing a flimsy peach-colored nightgown. Barry glanced at her boobs. Dal sure could pick 'em, she thought.

  "Who's that?" Tinker said, wide-eyed but apparently not in focus.

  "Oh, hi, Tinker. I didn't mean to disturb you. I'm sorry. Listen, Dal, I need a big favor. I want you to drive me to the hospital."

  "What's matter, you sick?"

  "Don't ask me a lot of questions now—it's really important. Just help me out."

  "Do I have to go too?" Tinker said. "I'm really not a night person."

  "Barry, for God's sake—"

  "Come on—we don't have much time. Night-night, Tink."

  Tinker, her eyes closing, fell back into her pillow with a soft little groan.

  "Barry, it's freezing and snowing—listen to that wind."

  "Dal," Barry said severely; "we once took a blood oath. Neither of us would ever deny the other anything within his power to grant."

  Dal sat tenderly massaging his head.

  "Jesus. There ought to be a statute of limitations on blood oaths."

  Chapter 8

  They took Dal's Mercedes. Dal, in spite of a headache, insisted on driving. It was still snowing, but the county plows had made one pass already, and the worst of the slippery spots on the hills had been sanded. Barry tried to find something on the radio they could both listen to, but gave up after Dal snapped at her three times about the garbage she was into. His preference was for gloomy cellos. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, gazing straight ahead, wondering if Dal was going to pick on her anymore.

  "Listen, you could give Tinker a break."

  Barry sighed.

  "She's just somebody I brought up for the weekend. I don't know why you have to dump all over her."

  "Me? What did I do? I promised we'd never have another argument about your taste in women, and I meant it."

  After a few seconds Dal shot her an accusing look. "You're laughing."

  "I am not. I have perfect control over my lips. See? A straight line." She glanced at him and stifled a giggle, looking as startled as if she'd farted in church.

  "There you go!"

  "Honestly, Dal. I could see why you're attracted to her."

  "Yeah?"

  "She was really cute in her little fly-by-nightie." Dal hit the brakes; Barry's hands flew up placatingly. "Don't make me walk! I'll be good!"

  Only the Emergency entrance to the hospital was open. An ambulance had pulled up. Inside the building the ER nurses and intern on night duty were busy; someone had taken a serious fall on a flight of icy steps. Barry led Dal past the vacant nurses' station and down a hallway.

  "Where're we going?"

  "Dad said he was in Intensive Care. That's on the second floor, isn't it?"

  "I think so. Now tell me what we're doing here."

  "I have to see him again. I don't think I'll have another chance.

  "He's that critical? I thought you didn't do any real damage."

  "I wish I could explain, Dal. I've just got this terrible feeling."

  They went up a stairwell, down a hail with laboratory and conference room doors closed on either side, past a porter who was swabbing the floor. He had a transistor radio hooked to his belt, a cord running to an ear button: he didn't look at them as they went by.

  "Barry, do you know more about this guy than you've been saying?"

  "No, Dal," Barry said, hurrying on ahead of him.

  At the second-floor nurses' station a woman wearing a pink sweater over her uniform turned around and glanced up at Barry from a chart she'd been reading. She had grim gray curly hair and bulging jaw muscles. She looked like a tough cookie. E. MAYO was printed on her name tag.

  "Yes?"

  Barry started to explain. Mayo's mouth opened and closed like the snap of a scissors before she got very far.

  "I can't give out information about the patient. Neither of you has any business bein' up here at this hour of the night."

  "But I only want to see him for a couple of minutes!"

  "If you're not a relative, you don't belong here."

  "That's just the point," Barry said in exasperation.

  "He doesn't have anybody else right now!"

  Mayo's eyes narrowed; her formidable chin bulged down against her chest. Dal smiled languidly and moved in between the two of them, turning his head so that Mayo wouldn't see the wink he gave his sister.

  "Barry, would you excuse me for a few minutes, please? Wait over there."

  Barry withdrew, fretting, to a water cooler and had a drink. Dal turned back to the nurse. His cranky look had vanished, his eyes were brighter, his cheeks flushed handsomely. He leaned on the counter. Mayo watched him stolidly.

  "Eileen, is it?" Dal asked, his phrasing subtly more Irish, his voice richening to a brogue.

  "Elizabeth."

  "Our mother, God rest, her middle name was Elizabeth. I'm Dal."

  He put out his hand. Mayo was startled. She almost took it.

  "I'm sorry, but you have to leave."

  Dal sighed, shaking his head. He sneaked a look at Barry. Then he turned his eyes on Mayo again, beseechingly.

  "Elizabeth, my poor sister is beside herself with guilt."

  "Guilt?''

  "It was her in the car ran the unfortunate fellow down this afternoon."

  "Oh." The nurse stared at Barry, who hung her head in a dreary way.

  "Never mind the accident wasn't her fault. She'll be scarred the rest of her life if he doesn't pull through. Tonight she was six hours on her knees at Saint Boniface."

  "Tch!"

  "Father Tim himself couldn't console her. 'Dal,' he said to me, 'take the poor child home.' But I just had a feeling that somehow a glimpse of the lad's face could ease her suffering. Do you understand my thinking, Elizabeth?"

  Barry sniveled, almost inaudibly, then bravely got hold of herself, clenching her fists at her sides. Mayo pursed her lips, stole another look at Barry, then glanced over a shoulder at the wall clock. "Well—"

  "Two minutes. That's all I'm askin'. Her mother's been dead these nine years. Dad and me, we do our best, but—"

  "Say no more." Mayo put her clipboard down, opened the gate, and beckoned to an incredulous Barry. "Follow me, girl. But quiet, please."

  In the intensive care unit a slender Jamaican nurse was taking some readings that detail
ed the young man's steady, slow regression into oblivion. Barry took one look at him from the doorway and had to swallow hard to keep her heart out of her throat. She advanced cautiously to the side of the bed, stood looking numbly down at him. His chest scarcely rose and fell with each well-spaced breath.

  "Eight beats a minute," the Jamaican nurse whispered to Mayo. "I didn't know it was possible."

  Dal was shocked. "What the hell is going on?"

  Mayo shook her head. "I've seen 'em come, and I've seen 'em go. Most have been hurt a lot worse than this boy, and they've survived. But it's like he doesn't have one iota of the will to live."

  Barry couldn't breathe for a few seconds; she could not have imagined a more dreadful scene than this neat small space with its machines and low lights, the profusion of wires and tubes—oxygen, fluids—that snaked to his body. Her vision blurred from tears. She sobbed, catching her breath at last as the electrocardiograph pens scribbled like beastly fingers and the oscilloscope yielded up yet another isolated heartbeat.

  She groped for the hand of the young man. He was so cold her fingers jerked away involuntarily. It was a toss-up then, whether she turned and fled or tried to find the courage to touch him again. She jerked a look at Dal, who was frowning. Dal started to shake his head. Barry winced and turned back and made contact again with the nearly lifeless hand of the patient. She held on, bowed her head, and said a silent prayer. It was brief. She let go of his hand slowly; there was no perception in the trailing fingers, no change in the motionless twilight body. He was dwindling imperceptibly, like an ice floe in a warming sea. She wanted alarms, flashing lights, doctors swarming in and out of the room, drastic action.

  Barry turned on Mayo.

  "But he can't be like this! Why wouldn't he want to live? Somebody has to do something!"

  Dal put an arm around her shoulders and led her out. Mayo said, "Doctor tried stimulants, directly into the heart muscle. Nothing happened."

  "But—he's—"

  "Won't last the night, I'm afraid. Now, girl. Why blame yourself?"

  "I don't. That's not it at all."

  "Okay, Barry," Dal said. "I guess there's nothing more we can do." He put discreet pressure on her with his arm. Barry balked and looked at him, red-eyed, pleading, her voice a squeak.

  "I can't go home, Dal. Can't leave him. There's nobody. It's terrible to be as alone as he is. Don't you see?"

  "I know how you feel, but—"

  "I'll be okay. I'll just sit here the rest of the night, until—" She glanced at Mayo, whose lips were pursed in disapproval. "That'd be all right, wouldn't it? I won't get in the way."

  "You need to get yourself a good night's sleep, darlin'."

  Dal attempted to put more pressure on his sister, but she broke away from him. "I'll sleep. I can always sleep." She appealed to both of them. "Don't make me go home."

  Mayo looked at Dal. He fidgeted, glanced at his sister, and shrugged. The decision was up to the nurse.

  Mayo hemmed and hawed and came up with an idea. Barry could stay in the nurses' lounge, on the sofa. A blanket and a couple of pillows would turn it into an adequate bed, and nobody used the lounge during the wee hours. Barry jumped at the idea.

  They had coffee in the lounge. The Jamaican girl brought in bedding. "No change," she said to Mayo, and went out again.

  "You're sure this won't be any trouble, Mrs. Mayo?" Barry asked.

  "Not if they don't find out about it up top. Well, I don't care if they do. Twenty-three years, I run my floor the way I see fit—like to see them manage without me. Get yourself some shut-eye."

  Dal finished the last of his coffee. "I need to get home to my own bed."

  "Oh, I don't blame you," said Barry.

  He chuckled, smacked her with a pillow, kissed her cheek.

  "Thanks, Dal," Barry said, hugging him.

  "You've got a good heart, kid. Call me if you need me."

  Chapter 9

  The closer he got to home, the more misgivings Dal had about leaving his sister at the hospital. Self-doubt made him surly and in need of a drink. He was surprised to find Tom up—it was now a little after two—and apparently waiting for him.

  "Where did you go with Barry?"

  Dal just looked at his father, took his coat off, and hung it up in the foyer closet under the stairs. "She's at the hospital."

  "Christ, Dal, what are you using for brains?"

  On the defensive, Dal said, "You know how she is. She'll be safe there. What's the use of arguing with her?" He went into the family room and opened the bar cabinet, took out an unopened bottle of Jameson's. Tom had followed him in. He stood with his hands in the pockets of his robe.

  "I think we'd better go get her."

  "Why?"

  "Because I don't like the way she's acting."

  "Barry's okay. She feels sorry for—Dad, the guy's dying. He can't last the night, that's the shape he's in."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes. I saw him."

  "I thought he wasn't seriously injured."

  "Well, something happened to him. His vital signs are all going straight down. You want a drink?"

  "No." Tom sat down, still looking worried. Dal leaned on the bar.

  "I hope you're right," Tom said.

  "That he's going to die? Sure. What a thing to say! What the hell is eating you?"

  "Barry, I guess."

  "What about her?"

  "Dal, I don't know. Something strange about the way all this happened. Where did he come from?"

  "Who cares? Somebody will claim him eventually. It was just a freak accident. Why are you dwelling—" Dal drank, put his glass down, grimaced. Tom turned his head and looked at him.

  "I had a dream about Edie."

  "Oh." Neither man said anything for a minute or so. Dal chewed on a thumbnail, knocked back more of the Jameson's.

  "Dad, it's just a lousy coincidence."

  "I wish I was that sure."

  "I know what you're thinking, and it isn't healthy."

  "We never found out who he was, either. Where he came from; what he was doing in Edie's car. Or what he had to do with the accident that killed her."

  Dal's breath was audible, a sharp burst of exasperation.

  "Dad, come on. Don't. Mom had lovers, that's all. You have to face that fact. The one in the car, the others she was seen with sometimes. Nobody knew who they were, either. Just pickups. Guys off the road. She was lonely—what the hell. It's the way you are, the kind of life you have. Jesus, Dad, I loved Mom too, but--that was the reality of the situation."

  Tom got up deliberately, without a change of expression, walked over to the bar, and stood within a foot of his son, looking him in the eye.

  "Your mother was faithful to me until the day she died."

  "Dad, what are we talking about? Everybody knows—"

  "Oh yes. She was seen with strangers. That's what everybody knows. She was seen talking to men. But not— Just talking to them, Dal. And nobody has ever known who they were because—they were from another world. Some place that Edie knew well but a world we'll never know anything about."

  Dal's mouth dried up; he felt a clutch of anger in his stomach and turned away to have another drink.

  "I don't want to talk about that! You know what I think, you know how I feel about all that spiritualist crap Barry and I were raised on. I've spent my life trying to get away from it! Faces at the windows, noises at night, Mom wandering around here for days with that woebegone look in her eyes and her mind hanging by a thread— Let me alone, Dad."

  "I can't. Because Barry might be in trouble."

  "Why? All right, she's not your average kid—she's a sensitive and maybe a little like Mom. But not anywhere as bad. You're acting like Barry's doomed in some way."

  "Do you remember what happened when we got Mrs. Prye?"

  "Yes. Some people just can't mess around with stuff like that—it's worse than a Ouija board. She's not hanging around Mrs. Prye, is she?"


  "No. I put the machine in my studio."

  "Good. Go one better and have it hauled to the dump."

  "I will. I'm not saying Barry's doomed, but we have to be careful." Tom's hand was on Dal's shoulder. "Do you understand?"

  "Yes. Yes." Dal laughed unhappily. "Barry really laid it on Tinker tonight. Gave her the whole occult history of Tuatha de Dannan. Tinker had me looking under the bed before we—" He shook his head, looked up, looked all around while avoiding Tom's level gaze. "God! I don't know why I can't get away from this house, why I keep coming back."

  "Because you can work here."

  "I can also drink myself to death here. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll paint a couple of masterpieces before my liver turns to a cinder block."

  "Better get to bed."

  "You too."

  "I think I'll go to the studio for a while. Then, maybe I'll drive over to the hospital."

  ''Barry's okay, Dad. I wouldn't have left her if—"

  "I trust your word, Dal. I guess I just have to see him for myself. I didn't have a very good look this afternoon."

  Chapter 10

  With the door to the nurses' lounge closed and a single lamp burning, Barry stared at a small-screen TV for a while but couldn't make sense of a movie she was watching, a spy story in which the characters took endless walks through picturesque streets in the smart spots of Europe. She took her boots off, turned out the light, lay down, and squirmed to get comfortable. When her eyes closed she saw the oscilloscope vividly and suspended her breathing until her mind's eye saw it blip. To get her thoughts off what was happening she pulled the blanket over her head, turned her back on the TV—now there was an interminable car chase going on, ineptly filmed in long shots—and relived deliberately every mile of the afternoon's drive from town to bridge in the snow.

  She had believed, since she was a child, that if she concentrated hard enough after the fact she could change the course of unwelcome events. Her bicycle, carelessly left in the drive, would not be backed over by the delivery truck, her mother would not smile her benumbed good-bye smile, the stranger would appear by the side of the road, safely out of her way, thumbing a ride. She would fall asleep absorbed in this mental effort, certain of awakening refreshed with the bad things erased from time's scheme—her bicycle now standing where it belonged, unscratched beside the porch, Edie as always in the morning kitchen, smoking too much, churning pancake batter in a greased bowl with a big wooden spoon.