After Death (14 page)

Suddenly the figures faded to wisps and Burt’s face crowded Frank’s view once more. He spoke as though completely confident of the power of his words over Frank.

“Or I could tell ya how pa used to go to the pound’n pick us out a new puppy most every week an’ nobody never asked nuthin’ ‘bout the ones from the week before —”

Frank wanted to scream —
“Stop! — I don’t want to see anymore! Shut up!”
But it was too late — New hazy images were already forming…

This time the room darkened and a small shadowy boy appeared near him accompanied by the fierce smell of mold and decay. The boy swung a tiny dog by its tail — around and around in a whirling blur —

The motion left ripples in the air and Frank began to feel off-balance, overcome by a sense of vertigo…

The boy spun in a tight rotation, faster and faster — The boy’s outstretched arms — The dog — they were soon diffused as if creating a hurricane in the center of the room…

As the boy let go, Frank finally lost his equilibrium and fell… Down… down… down… into an enveloping darkness that seemed to rise up to meet him…

For a time he was gone — at peace and fragmented… Drifting through darkness and space without cohesive thought. And then, slowly, he began to reconstruct as if a gravitational force was drawing him back together…

His thoughts finally coalesced and he began to rise again… floating upwards like a buoy riding a geyser…

He heard Burt’s words faintly at first…

“But fact is, I don’t think that made Eli who he was. Ya see, I was there too and I ain’t like him…”

Frank again lay prone on the floor, eyes fluttering as he returned to the present. Burt stared down at him and shook his head, continuing:

“Folks always think everybody thinks like they do. Ain’t you never met someone who had a different kinda wheel in thare head, one that didn’t turn the same way as yers?

This time Frank didn’t try to get up. He lay against the yellowed newspaper column exhausted and hoped he was out of story-land for good.

He wouldn’t move until he was sure. Whatever Burt was able to do — he wanted no more of it.

Burt looked down at him totally at ease with Frank’s strange position on the floor.

“Ain’ t that what makes ‘em crazy?” He now asked calmly and logically.

Frank left Burt’s shack both relieved and anxious. He was glad to be away from that horrible feeling of being a puppet but troubled about the stories he’d heard/experienced.
Could they be true?
A child killer
!
A wife beater?
It was hard to separate out the fiction when one had actually experienced the events first-hand as Frank had.

His first impulse was to call Jackie and tell her everything. The problem was — he knew very well how it all would seem. Not only would he have to explain the type of imagination he had (she had found him in his chair when he wrote an early zombie novel, twitching and gibbering like an epileptic and he had dodged explaining that this was his “method”) — there was also the matter of proof. This wasn’t the type of accusation one could hand out easily — even if it were about a dead old guy that seemed to have only one surviving kook of a relative.

He needed to wait before doing anything rash. He was still in a bit of shock — sure he’d expected to find something odd about Eli — the contradictions had tipped him off to this expectation — but he thought it would be something small — not something like
this!

Even in the face of these possible inexcusable horrors, he found himself holding back a smile — it wasn’t rational — matter of fact he knew it to be pretty perverse and selfishly twisted — but he couldn’t help it. He’d wanted a story and now it had evolved on its own. Even if it turned out that it wasn’t completely true, he could still use it for his novel since it
seemed
so true. What could be creepier than the protagonist making a pact with a likable old guy to come back from the dead — only to find out
after it was too late
, that the old guy was nasty and evil and not as he represented himself at all! Pandora’s box had been inadvertently opened and there was no way to reverse the damage that had been done! Now that was a scary story and it was a nice twist that was sure to shock the reader, just as he had been — and he didn’t even write it — it had written itself!

The thought to abandon his research and use what he’d come across so far was now dismissed instantly. Not a chance — not when he might actually discover something as outrageous and incredible as he’d been told… He wasn’t a fool — He knew as well as anyone else that controversy and inflammatory subjects sold. The problem was — his leads were minimal… Burt had told him what he knew (or thought he knew) and the clergyman hadn’t known Eli at all. He’d never seen any other friends or relatives listed on Eli’s paperwork at the hospital so it seemed he had come to a dead end…

He was still mulling it over as he turned the VW at the bottom of the hill, following the plastic compass on his dash that seemed, for once, to be actually working. It had been a joke when Jackie had bought it for him for his last birthday — “To always help you find your way” she’d said, laughing. He’d replied that it was just because she wasn’t big on technology and didn’t want to fork out the money for a GPS system and she’d just laughed harder. He looked at it, amazed that it had led him back to the freeway instead of spinning randomly as it usually did.
Where to now?
He thought and was answered almost immediately —
There was only one place that might hold some clues
,
even if it was unlikely; the convalescent hospital. Then back to the convalescent hospital it was…

He knew the odds of finding anything there were pretty dismal. Eli had died over a week ago — too long for there to be the slightest trace left. If there’s one thing Frank had learned about the hospital it was that they did everything they could to erase someone’s existence as quickly as they could so that they could make room for the next paying customer. He could almost hear his snapping manager’s frequent mantra in her flat monotone:

“After all — it
is
a business. We’re not running a charity.”

No, they certainly weren’t.
Frank thought.
No one that knew the place would argue that.

***

Frank found Fernando in the cafeteria squeezing out scoops of mashed potatoes onto a dozen plastic plates on the pick-up counter. He looked up, surprised and pleased to see him.

“Hey, look who’s back — He’s as good as his word.” Fernando said with a smile.

Frank smiled back. “I could say I happened to be in the area but…”

Fernando finished with the last of the perfect little white balls and a cafeteria helper (one that Frank had never seen before) came by and whisked the plates onto trays and then off to the patients at their tables.

“You here to see Rachel?” Fernando asked, pretending innocence. “I know she’d love to see ya…”

He was grinning again at one of his favorite jokes but Frank ignored him, preoccupied with the crowd gathered in the cafeteria. No one seemed to be watching them but he somehow felt uncomfortable…

“Yeah… I am…” He said absently. “But first I wanted your help with somethin’… You got a minute?”

Fernando slipped off his thin latex gloves and tossed them in the trash.

“For you, Frank— No problemo.”

He called over to another Hispanic cook as he removed his apron and hairnet.

“Hey, ‘berto — be right back — hospital business.”

Roberto gave him an exaggerated eye roll and made a jerking off gesture and Fernando motioned to Frank that he’d meet him around the back of the kitchen.

***

Minutes later, Frank had explained to Fernando that he was hoping to have a look at Eli’s old room and Fernando was leading him down the hall.

“You won’t find anything, man… It’s already been cleaned out — you know how they are…”

Frank nodded, he expected as much. But he needed to be sure — He didn’t have much else to go on…

“I’ll be quick, okay? Can you just make sure no one comes in? It’ll only take a minute…”

Fernando hesitated at the closed door to Eli’s old room and finally nodded.

“Make it fast, alright — No screwin’ around.”

Frank gave a serious nod of agreement.

“Thanks, man — I really appreciate it.”

He slipped inside as Fernando stood guard and closed the door after him.

***

The first thing that occurred to Frank was that the room wasn’t what he’d expected at all. He thought it would’ve been through the standard hospital routine; bed sheets and blankets changed and tightly tucked, Spartan furniture wiped down, and all signs that anyone had ever been there (and certainly ever
died there
) removed. Instead, the room was exactly as it had been when Eli had been alive — Even down to the unfinished crossword puzzle on the small corner dresser with a pen lying across it. The effect was eerie and Frank couldn’t suppress a shiver. He glanced at the window where the drapes were pulled shut and tried not to think about the last time he’d been in here — The way the light had dimmed strangely just as Eli had grabbed his face and poked him in the stomach and then…
Died…

For a moment the thought paralyzed him and he stood frozen in his tracks in the center of the room, waiting — as though expecting Eli to return at any moment… He scratched at an itch that bothered him on his stomach but did it slowly… and quietly… as if afraid to disturb something or someone that lingered here...

W
hy would this room be untouched? Something was wrong here — this was certainly against hospital policy —

A soft tapping startled him. Fernando’s voice whispered through the door.

“Frank — Hurry up — We gotta go..!”

Frank snapped back into action—the urgency of the situation renewed. He moved to Eli’s old dresser and rifled the drawers quickly, less concerned about disturbing things now, more focused on what he could discover in just a few minutes as he might not have another chance.

There were socks, underwear, Eli’s favorite hat…

Strange that they hadn’t buried him in the hat..?

He dashed to the bed and peered underneath. It was too dark to see. He knelt on the floor and reached under as far as he could…
There was something there…
Something with a hard edge…

He finally gripped whatever it was and pulled it out towards him. It was Eli’s old, tattered shoebox, taped shut as though ready for another practical joke.

He hunched over the box, sliced the tape with his fingernail, and pulled the lid off.

Over the contents was a layer of old, yellowed newspaper. He tossed most of it out of the way and leaned down to look inside. A dark shape leapt out and stopped motionless in front of him on the ground.

For a moment his breath caught in his chest — It looked like a big nasty spider with long thin legs — The light was poor and he stared at it and it remained perfectly still and a surge of relief finally came —
It’s only a big ball of thread — He’s tricked me just like he used to do to Fernando — even from beyond the grave!
And then, just as the thought completed, the shape sprang for his face.

He yelped and twisted and scuttled backwards as it landed on his leg and began scrambling up his shirt.

Get off! Get the fuck off!

He slapped and kicked in a manic horizontal dance, trying to dislodge it — but a mass of sticky webbing kept it attached, like a puppet on a string — Only this puppet seemed oddly determined to get to his face —

He finally knocked it to the floor, leapt to his feet, and stomped it to mush just as Fernando whipped open the door.

“Hey! What’s goin’ on in here?!?” He shouted.

Frank hustled to block his entry, trying to catch his breath and sound calm.

“Nothing, nothing… Just keep guard — Let me know if somebody’s coming…”

He forced Fernando back and this time locked the door behind him.

He wiped the spider residue from his foot and returned to the box on the floor, this time with a great deal more caution.

He carefully moved the last remaining paper out of the way.

Underneath was an odd assortment of old tarnished jewelry; earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and rings. They all had one thing in common — they were all very small.

Frank lifted each item in turn and examined it. All were unmarked except for one — an old-style high school class ring. Engraved on the inside of the band was: “Paula L. Danner, Class of ’53.” Frank studied the ring, perplexed, then stuffed it in his pocket and quickly did the same with the rest of the jewelry.

***

“Not cool, man. Not cool at all, man.” Fernando grumbled and shot Frank a scathing look as he came out of the room.

They walked in silence towards the lobby, neither speaking but Fernando stealing side-glances — obviously expecting Frank to try and make amends. Fernando finally gave up waiting, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“So… you find anything or what..?”