Rebirth

by D. C. Alexander

  “Is it going to kill me? Am I gone get dizzy and pass out from it again?”

  “No, I overloaded you a little bit, maybe. You will be ok though. I knew you were ok when you regained consciousness.”

  I started to ask how to use this knowledge, but as I thought about it, the same sort of unpacking took place as when I talked with Dirt. Knowledge about air, swords, sword fighting, exercises, steps.

  I reached out and touched the air in the room, it was dim, slow, confined, I moved it and the air freshened up and listened. I could feel with something like sight all the way to the front porch. It was like what I did with Beta, but with a much larger something that wasn’t based on me. A feeling invited me to come and play, I felt that I could dissolve in the wind and go wherever I wanted, totally free with no restrictions.

  I reluctantly stepped back from some deep, cool thing, not scary but totally strange to me, and looked at the sword knowledge.

  I was holding a katana suddenly and improperly. I shifted my grip and it felt right. I had to move my feet to stand right. I felt how out of condition I was. I didn’t have the right calluses on my hands and my muscles weren’t quite right. I’d have to practice to make this work for me, I was pretty excited, even though I had never thought to use a sword other than as a last resort; I prefer a pistol.

  “Damn. That is pretty nice. I had no idea, why didn’t you do that before?” I would have really appreciated it. This was the only way to learn.

  “I belonged to The Morrigan. Then she gave me to you and you didn’t know. I owed you nothing and expected nothing but evil from you. Then you freed me and I thought you were evil. Now I am pledged to you, I will do what I can to help you.”

  Ok, yeah, I like this.

  “What else you got?” Excited, I wanted everything I could get, as quick as I could get it; I imagined not getting my ass kicked all the time, knowing what was going on, understanding…

  “Hey, you got languages? Can you put whatever it is that Mags speaks in my head and English in her head?”

  “I can, but you need to give it several days before you try anything else. You have to take the knowledge for your own and that will involve using it. If you don’t, it will fade out with time, and it is harder to do a second time.”

  I felt/heard, almost saw, the car pull up outside, if I concentrated I could hear them talking and what they were saying. I didn’t listen. I got better sense than to eavesdrop. They come in with three five gallon buckets in an ice chest filled with ice.

  “Harry’s back?What happened?”

  I filled them in while we fed Andy. He asked us to suspend his head in a bucket of pig blood and we rigged a couple towels up to hold him and left him with it, the smell had me gagging after a little bit.

  “What do you reckon happened with Megan and the other ghoul, Armando? I wonder if they out there wondering around, or if Chen killed them.”

  Carl looked thoughtful,

  “I would say it don’t matter but I know you care – we can go look tomorrow and see if they’re out at the house.”

  Mags said “Do you think they’ve gone wild without Andy? It might be dangerous going out there, we need to be careful.” She sat down and breathed out a big sigh, “They had so much meat at the, the, slaughter house. I never saw that much dead stuff before in one place.”

  “Yeah, I want to take her to the flea market, I think she’d love it.” He looked out the window, “I’d like to take momma if I could pry her out of the house. “

  “Mags, would you mind if Harry put English in your head?” I didn’t hear how it sounded till it was out there. Oh well.

  Mags looked at me closely “What do you mean? I would love to know English. How?”

  “You just sit there. Harry, are you good to go with this? Is it any sort of problem?”

  “No, it is fine, here.” He walked over to Mags and put his hand on her head, stood there a few seconds, and sat back down. Mags sagged in the chair and would have fallen but Carl managed to catch her.

  She said “I’m all right, just a little dizzy, but thanks! I appreciate the gesture.” Then her eyes widened,

  “I know what I said. Say something, somebody, talk to me!”

  Carl and I talked with her. There were odd pauses every now and then but it worked.

  Nineteen

  N ext morning nobody was dying. That kicks ass. What the fuck sort of life was I living to think that was a banner day? Wanda might recover her mind from getting skinned at some point. Harry was more or less my whatever the hell he was. He was helpful. I moved him into the basement. Business was going well, we had income, I still wanted to get some free gold and stuff out of the ground so that wasn’t urgent. Carl was taking Wanda grocery shopping and we’d go to church Sunday.

  I put the coffee on. It would work while I did morning stuff. Harry was in the damn bathroom when I got there. I waited outside the door quietly as longs as I could, bouncing back and forth and twisting my legs, hanging on while he took forever.

  “Man you gotta get out of there, I am about to bust! What the hell, are you doin’ makeup, you sure ain’t taking a shit I hope, you can’t do that first thing in the morning and we sharin’ a friggin’ bathroom.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “That ain’t the place to take a fuckin’ nap, I gotta go dude!”

  He turned the knob, he hadn’t locked it, and I knocked it open and pushed in. Yeah, he had number two’d and didn’t flush. I shoved him out.

  “You can move like greased lightening when you want, I get to busting with pee and you fuck around like you a hundred years old, what the hell is wrong with you. We gone set some rules up about this, you don’t tie the damn bathroom up like this in the morning!”

  Ok, I was ranting a little. He was fucking up my morning routine all over. I barely made it without having a mess to clean up.

  “You ain’t standin’ outside the door are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go the fuck on, what the hell is wrong with you? You don’t stand outside the door when I’m using the shitter! Go check the coffee or sit on the fuckin’ power line or somethin’ for a little while for god’s sake. If you do the power line, make sure you a bird first.” Fucking idiot.

  I hadn’t locked the door. If he opened the door it wouldn’t be the end of the world but it would sure piss me off. He was strange, he might do it. It wasn’t even I was all that worried about him seeing me on the pot, it was how helpless I feel when I’m doing business. And potty business is private…yeah, I didn’t want him seeing me there either.

  “You still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “GO THE FUCK ON! And make some noise with it.” I was finished, just needed to wash my hands and face, but he had to learn, this was no way to get up. He was ruining my whole damn day.

  He hollered “Stomp, stomp, stomp stomp” walking into the kitchen. He has no sense of humor. He was serious. That helped a lot, I finished up giggling, what the hell was up with my life?

  We drank coffee and talked and it was old home week, nice to have someone there first thing. He was wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday. Which were the same ones he had been wearing every day since I first seen him. He stunk. I’d put a bed down there for Earl and there were bedclothes and a dresser and a wardrobe; I hadn’t thought to tell him to help himself to whatever he needed.

  “Harry, did you sleep in your clothes?”

  He had a cup of coffee but he wasn’t drinking it. Just holding it and moving it every now and then.

  “I did and I did not. Whatever you like is the answer.”

  “It’s too early for that sort of shit man. Just tell me. We got to get you some clothes today, you stink, when is the last time you bathed?”

  He turned his head to point at me like he did and said

  “I bathe when I need it, I’m ok. I sleep as bird, my clothes go somewhere when I am bird. I’m not sure where.”

  “Huh. That’s pretty n
ifty, at least if they were clean it would be. You stink. There are some clothes down there, they’ll be too big for you, but you smell like you been wallerin’ in dead shit. You go on and take a bath or a shower and I’ll hunt you up something to wear. I mean, after we finish coffee.”

  He had stood up. He set back down and picked his coffee back up.

  “Do you drink coffee?” I’d never seen him drink anything, he had to drink though. At least I thought he did.

  “I drink anything if it is wet.”

  “I never see you drink, just wondered. You gone drink your coffee?”

  “Yes, I’m cooling it off so I can drink it.”

  “Just wonderin’, I like mine hot, if it gets too cold it just ain’t good.”

  “I never tried to drink it hot.”

  He leaned his head over to his cup, tilted it on the table till the coffee almost spilled, and used his lips to snap a bite of coffee.

  “Damn it man! You gonna make a slop there, where’d you learn to drink anyway!”

  He tossed his head back and swallowed,

  “I drink like I always drink, do you have rules about drinking? You have a lot of rules.”

  “It’s just common sense, what do you do when you get down in the cup a little? You can’t work it that way then. Are you messing with me?”

  “I don’t like to drink in front of people. They always question it and act like you are doing. What am I going to do? This is the way I drink. I choke if I pour it down my throat.”

  “Wow. Ok, you pick up your cup” I showed him by doing,

  “Tilt the cup so some runs into your mouth” I taught him to drink from a cup. We had a couple close calls and he choked once but he wound up able to drink out of a cup.

  “Damn, how is it that you a grown man…well, thing, let’s say, and you don’t know how to drink?”

  “I drink as a bird. I have to drink all the time. I am good at it. This is different, it is hard to stay human very long because I get thirsty, this will help.”

  “Yeah, they’s all sorts of tricks and things you can do. Later on, we’ll do the advanced classes, drinkin’ from a faucet and drinkin’ from a hose.”

  I got up, “Look, you stinkin’ pretty bad, I’ll go get you some clothes and when I get back you can take a shower or a bath and get clean.”

  I thought about it while I got the clothes. When I got back up, I asked him about bathing and his idea of a bath was to stand in water and flutter, or stand on an ant bed and let the ants eat the bugs off him. I told him how to bathe and left him with it.

  Next up I had to check the head and see how it was doing. I wanted to get the damn thing out of the house just as soon as I could; I hated dealing with the blood, and it was strange, and Mags was giving me a lot shit about the whole save a vampire thing. She wouldn’t help, she snuck around in the morning and avoided me so I wouldn’t ask her to feed it.

  All the blood was gone, the bucket was shiny and clean. The head had little skinny legs hanging under it like a spider. I wondered if the little legs had regular feet on them and how many there were. I tried to get a better look at the stuff dangling by tilting the bucket.

  “Do you mind? That’s sort of private, please stop!”

  Andy shocked me, his volume was low but I could understand him perfectly. He didn’t have much air and was pretty whispery.

  “Hey, that’s great! You got things you can move around on and you can talk, you ‘bout ready to get your nightmare ass out of here!” Maybe that was too much honesty but he looked like a head grafted on the biggest four legged spider I ever saw. The legs were made of human skin, and never mind, that shit made me want to puke looking at it.

  “Yes, if you have a little more it would help. I’ll get out of here just as quick as I can.”

  “I got another bucket here.” I took the lid off, usually it would be a bitch but I ripped that sucker off quick.

  “Can you deal with it like this?”

  “Yes.”

  He started up out of the bucket and I got out of there.

  Mags was in the kitchen when I got back up and I could hear Harry in the shower. Carl showed up,

  “Hey, morning!”

  I realized he was the only normal person I saw on a regular basis. Wanda too, but I just saw her every now and then.

  “Hey Carl, I sure am glad to see you.”

  He stepped away from the counter and his coffee, “Rose, are you alright?” He hugged me, which was a little shock, but it felt really good so I hugged him back. Then let go and stepped back, I didn’t want him to get ideas. Maybe.

  “Yeah, just jonesin’ for normal I guess. I just finished dealin’ with the head and was thinkin’ about life is a little odd these days.”

  “Yeah, ha, how’s the head doin’? Did he like the blood?”

  “Yeah, he got a bunch of, um, I guess legs and shit hangin’ under him now. And he can talk a little. I opened another bucket and left him to get in it. He’s a little spidery.”

  “How’d Harry like his roommate?”

  Carl got his cup and sat down, slurping that first swallow.

  “I think he roosted on the dresser, which reminds me, he needs to go clean that up.” I wondered about him using the toilet after shitting on the dresser. Damn nasty thing.

  “Yeah, you got it goin’ on here. Almost makes me jealous. And thankful, yeah, I’d have a hard time dealing with all that.”

  “If Harry ever gets out of the bathroom, how about you let him load you up so you know how to use a sword, and let’s practice. I got to learn what I know. Don’t ask, you’ll see what I mean if we do this. You ok with that?”

  “Yeah, I would love that, sounds really cool.” I could see the wheels turning, he was gonna be a samurai. Which I gotta admit was pretty cool.

  Harry eventually got out of the bathroom and smelled much better. Carl took him to get clothes. Harry loaded Carl with ‘sword’ and ‘unarmed’. I wanted unarmed and Mags wanted both, Harry said he was wiped out and had to rest a few days before he could do anyone else. If I insisted he said would try, I told him never mind. Andy snuck out after another day, it must have gone well, he left a day later after he said thanks.

  Wanda and I went to church and didn’t talk with the preacher. It just never seemed to be the right time and Wanda said she was doing better. She looked a lot better and did some grocery shopping, and the kids were back in school.

  It was all good and normal, I loved it. Carl and I and Mags were playing at getting in shape and practicing our stuff. Harry said “Somebody is here, out front, they’re coming around here now.”

  “Rosalee, are you back here?” Henry hollered as he come around the corner into the back with us.

  “Hey, Henry, how are you doin’?” Glad I remembered his name. I wondered what in the hell could it be now. I knew things were going too well.

  “Doin’ fine Rose, not here about trouble, just wondering if you could help me out a little. Would you mind talkin’ with me? I want to pick your brain.”

  That was a whole lot better than before.

  “Yeah, that’s fine. What you got on your mind?”

  “Let’s me and you talk a minute, I’d like to keep this kind of quiet if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure, you know I’ll help if I can. Come on, you want to come inside?”

  We got to the table. I knew Harry could hear us and probably Mags too, it didn’t seem like a problem though.

  “Rose, we got a killin’, found a body at the edge of the woods. We’re callin’ it an animal attack. Some of it looks that way.” He fidgeted, I was about to offer him a cup of coffee or something. I didn’t know where he was going with this. I was glad he wasn’t after me, mainly.

  “I hear all sorts of things, and I see things, I know you got some contacts and you’ve done some good around here. You got respect and your neighborhood is clean.” He looked like he had changed his mind for a minute, he was going to get up and leave.

  “Henry, just
say whatever it is you got on your mind. You gonna be ok here, I ain’t gonna bite you.”

  “We’re doing a DNA match to figure out who it is; otherwise we can’t id the body. Rose, I can’t do this.”

  “You bout as well go ahead and say whatever it is, Henry.”

  He sighed, scratched his head, and finally turned to face me fully

  “Ok, I think you can do things that ain’t normal. You know things, maybe you got hoodoo. Whatever it is… is they any chance you can tell me what happened out there in the woods? What eat that poor bastard? He’s tore all up, worse thing I ever saw, and I seen some bad things. The body is gone now, at the morgue, so you don’t have to see that. If you go out there, could you tell what happened? That’s all I want is to know what happened and not get a man killed fooling with something we don’t know about.”

  “Henry, I’ll go with you and see if I can tell anything. When do you want to go?”

  “Right now, if you ok with that. Do what you got to and let’s go. Can we do that?”

  I needed Harry, no doubt he could tell more than I could. Henry wouldn’t let me take him, given how much trouble he was having asking me.

  “Harry, I want you to see this, do what you got to.” I muttered, confident that Harry would pick up on it. Henry turned and looked at me, I said “Never mind me, just muttering.” He shook his head, turned and led the way to the car.

  Twenty

  I t took twenty or thirty minutes to get to the scene. Henry didn’t talk much. He was grim and withdrawn and kept his eyes on the road. We got somewhere in the woods on a dirt road and he pulled off on the grass on the side and parked. Yellow crime scene tape strung on sticks and trees formed a fence around an area from the road off into the woods. A cop car sat just a little further down the road from us.

  “It’s in the woods just a bit, somebody spotted it from the road riding a bicycle. We left the tape up.” He got out and walked around to my side of the car. “Gimme a second, I’ll be right back.” He walked off to the patrol car and knocked on the window. I got myself out and stood waiting on him, looking around for anything unusual, smelling and listening. I figured I wouldn’t notice anything the cops missed but I tried to get into the spirit of it.