by Unknown
I waved my hands in front of me, trying to make sense of what was happening while avoiding the knife that my own mother was waving closer and closer to my flesh.
Dad rushed into the room swinging one of the cast iron tools from the fireplace, like a bellowing Hun during battle. In his haste to stop before touching me, he slipped, landing flat on his back in front of the refrigerator. I know it wasn’t the time, but I just burst out laughing…doubled over, no holds barred, laughed my ass off. It made me feel better…kind of threw off the crap of waking up dead.
It took a few minutes, but finally Mom cracked a smile that led to a giggle that led to a laugh, and Dad followed suit. He even let me touch his arm to help him up.
However, the laughter died when my parents retreated to the opposite side of the kitchen with the island as a barrier between us. It seemed fun time was over and they were once again scared of their recently deceased daughter.
My dad furrowed his brow and bit the inside of his cheek; a look I had seen thousands of times. He was thinking. When he spoke it was with the authority of a retired doctor and head of a department, not the loving fatherly tone I had hoped for. “How did you get here, Zoey?”
“I walked.” I figured start easy, work up to the hard stuff.
He shook his head and sighed before continuing, “Do not be petulant, Zoey. You know what I mean. You weren’t sick. You died in an accident. How are you…back?” The dad I knew and loved was winning out over the logical doctor. (Thank God)
“I have no clue, Dad. I was on my way to meet Danny and the next thing I knew I was sinking into the lake. That’s the last thing I remember before waking up in my crypt.” I shrugged, not really knowing what else to do.
“Interesting…” Dad mumbled to himself, looking over my head. Another sure sign he was deep in thought.
“Dammit, Jay, what the hell is wrong with you? It’s our Zoey. She’s back! And she’s not moaning or trying to eat us,” my mother yelled, backhanding my dad on the arm as she made her way around the island.
Throwing her arms around me, she shivered slightly but kept right on hugging. It felt wonderful. There are things we take for granted, ya know, and at twenty-six, hugs from my mom was one of those things. I squeezed back, remembering just in time about my new ‘superhero strength’ and eased off, but refused to let go.
When Mom finally pulled back she was crying and smiling. The look in her eyes was one I’d seen so many times, but on that day it meant more than it ever had. She loved me unconditionally, and little things like death and resurrection couldn’t change that.
Not letting go of my hand, she moved to the side right before Dad swooped in, giving me a quick but thorough bear hug. As he stepped back, he pulled his glasses from their place at the end of his nose and began tapping the arm against his bottom lip. Deep thought had resumed.
“You don’t feel the hunger the others displayed?” he asked, grabbing my wrist and checking for a pulse.
“Nope, nothing at all.”
Concern filled his eyes, but instantly vanished when the glug of my almost nonexistent pulse beat against his finger. He waited patiently. I saw the recognition and confusion when it finally fluttered again.
Pulling my wrist from his grasp, I smiled. “Not much, huh, Dad?”
“No, but it’s there and that’s what matters. None of the others have one at all.” I could see the faraway look and knew he was searching his vast knowledge for a logical explanation.
“What the hell does it all mean?” Mom asked, impatience heavy in her tone.
“I don’t know…” Dad and I said in unison.
Never one to accept anything without a fuss, Mom continued, “Go upstairs. Get a shower. There’s clothes in your old room. When you get back, your dad and I will have some answers or something.” Her voice drifted off, not believing her words any more than I did, but at least she was trying. Had to give her points for that.
Dad headed towards his office mumbling, “Hurry back, dear.”
It wasn’t until the steamy water hit my clammy skin that I thought, hope this helps…not hurts. Fifteen minutes later I decided it really didn’t matter if my skin melted off my body….that was the best shower in history.
Dressed and ready to face the world, I padded downstairs in my bare feet and headed straight for my dad’s office. Just as I figured, he was sitting behind his oak governor’s desk, with stacks of medical journals littering the top and the floor surrounding his chair. He was frantically making notes on a yellow legal pad and muttering to himself.
I knocked on the door frame and entered, not waiting for an invitation. “Find anything?”
“Nothing, but that’s not really surprising. I looked at the beginning of this mess and came up empty-handed, but that was with their symptoms. Now, I have something new to work with.”
I looked around the room while he talked and noticed the couch had been made into a makeshift exam table and dad’s old, leather, doctor’s bag was open on the table next to it. Pointing, I asked, “Are you doing a formal exam on me?”
Finally looking up, he nodded and stood. “I just want to chart some of your vitals and see if we can figure out why you’re so different from the others.” He took a step around the desk, stopped, and looked me dead in the eye (Pun intended). “You aren’t feeling ‘the hunger’ are you?”
I saw real fear in his eyes, but at least it was tempered with a lot of love, so I let him off the hook. “No, Dad, I’m not feeling hungry at all. Not even a little bit. For anything.”
My father’s incessant need to solve every medical mystery forced away the residual fear and he continued forward, motioning for me to have a seat.
Thirty minutes later he had noted that even after twenty knee lifts (Seriously, I was exercising more as a dead girl than I ever had when I was alive) my heart rate was still almost three beats per minute. That no matter what he stuck under my nose, including Mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies, I had no appetite whatsoever and if he forced food into my mouth I gagged and spit it out. That holding my breath was not a problem and after ten minutes I was still the same color of peaches and cream I had been since the day I was born. And that I could single-handedly lift the couch.
Patiently sitting on the couch I had replaced after mom had run in and swept under it, I waited for one of the most brilliant doctors in the world (In my humble opinion) to give me his diagnosis. “Okay, Zoey, here are my findings. You are not a contaminated. You are not dead but…you are not what we traditionally call alive either. All I can surmise is that your condition has something to do with the scratch on your wrist. Do you think you could identify ‘Woody’ if you saw him again?”
“Yep. I’d know those beady little eyes and crooked whiskers anywhere.”
Dad nodded. “Then tonight when everyone’s asleep, you and I will go to your house and find him. He may hold the key.” His voice faded off and he stood staring at his notepad as if the answers would magically appear.
I felt sorry for him. There had never been a problem he couldn’t solve. Leave it to me to drop one right at his feet. Not willing to let him dwell on my mess any longer, I grabbed his hand and pulled until he looked up. “Don’t worry, Daddy, you’ll figure it out.”
(Stop rolling your eyes. I’m southern. We call our fathers ‘daddy’ damn near every day of the year and especially when they need reassurance. Get a grip and stop judging the ‘not-quite’ dead girl.)
The corner of his mouth lifted in the crooked grin that let me know he would never give up trying to figure it out. He was just about to speak when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” my mother called from the other room. The sleigh bells that hung from Mom’s favorite wreath jingled as the door opened, quickly followed by a gasp that had my father hurrying from the room.
One foot in the hall and the other still in my father’s office was as far as I got when the low, baritone voice of the man I wanted to wake up with every morning reached my ears.
“Hi, Dr. and Mrs. Miller. How are you?”
The sadness in his voice made my heart hurt. I wanted to run and jump into his arms. To tell him that I was alive (sort of) and that everything was going to be okay. But instead, I hauled ass the opposite way, quietly opened the basement door, and ran down the stairs like the hounds of hell were after me, until I was safe and secure in the basement.
Hindsight being what it is, I realize the ‘not-quite’ dead girl cowering in the basement is a cliché, but what can I tell you…that’s where I ended up.
I listened through the vent for several hours as Danny told my parents how sad he was, how lost he felt, and apologized profusely for bothering them. I almost made my presence known when he said he had nowhere else to go since the caretaker at the cemetery accused him of loitering and threatened to call the police. He went on to tell them how he’d never loved anyone the way he loved me. I cursed when the tears I wanted to shed would not fall.
My parents found me curled in a ball on the sofa where I had gotten my first kiss, trying with all my might to keep from screaming at the top of my lungs about the injustice of the world. I had finally met a wonderful man who loved me for who I was, thirty extra pounds and all, and I had to go and get contaminated.
Mom sat down next to my hip and Dad knelt by my head. Just the feel of her fingers stroking my hair and the sound of him telling everything was going to be all right made me feel better. Taking a deep breath even though I didn’t need it, I rolled over and looked at the two best people I knew. They had always been there for me, no matter what. Had always supported me, always been my cheerleaders, and had never judged me.
I have no idea how long we sat like that before Mom finally said, “I know all of this is confusing and all that Danny said couldn’t have been easy to hear, but you have never been one to wallow, Zoey Anne, and now is not the time to start. You have to focus on the positives. Help your dad find an answer and be thankful for every day you have.”
It would’ve been easy to get mad, to yell at my mom or throw a fit about how unfair all of it was, but instead, I thought about what she said. She was right. I didn’t wallow. I always found the positive in a situation; or, at least something not so terrible to focus on. Sitting up, I looked at my parents. I mean, really looked at them.
No other parents, hell no other people, on the face of the earth would’ve accepted their dead-for-a-week daughter back into their home like mine had. Sure, they had freaked out, but that had only been for a few minutes, and once they were sure I wouldn’t eat them, had treated me just as they always had. (Pretty cool, if you ask me.)
I picked up Mom’s hand from my leg and Dad’s from the arm of the couch and looked at them…just looked. Several minutes later, I cleared my throat out of habit and declared, “You’re right. I’ve been given a second chance. It may not be the way I want it, but that never stopped me before.”
Laying a kiss on the back of both their hands before letting them go, I stood and headed towards the stairs. “Y’all coming or ya just gonna sit there all day? We’ve got lots to do if we’re gonna figure this shit out,” I said over my shoulder.
The sound of their footsteps on the stairs behind me only strengthened my resolve. There was nothing that could stop us if we all worked together.
Now, before you cue the theme from Rocky, let me tell you that the next ten days sucked in a way that even dying hadn’t. After my meltdown in the basement and my ‘rah rah’ speech, we spent the rest of the day finding a trap for Woody and figuring out how to keep my rise from the dead a secret from everyone who stopped by on a daily basis.
The basement became my new home since temperature and moisture were not factors for me. It took until almost midnight to get my old bedroom suite and other ‘stuff’ moved down those damn narrow stairs, but my super strength made it easier. (Finally, a positive to all this shit)
At a little after one in the morning, Dad and I crept down the alley behind their house that also ran behind mine. We used the dim glow from the streetlights to avoid alerting anyone to our presence. Thankfully, I had WD-40’d the back gate a few days before I died or the creak alone would’ve awakened the dead. (But then, again I was already awake…seriously, I crack me up.)
We sat at the patio table I had gotten on sale at Home Depot right after buying my house and waited…and waited…and waited. About an hour into our impromptu, late night, backyard party, Dad started to snore. I looked over and had to laugh. My straight-laced, well-educated, highly respected father looked like some sort of low-level thug in his black sweatshirt and pants, black gloves, and black ski mask shoved up on his brow. His head was thrown back, his mouth slightly opened, blissfully sleeping.
He had to be exhausted. The last almost twenty-four hours had been as hard for them as it had been for me, probably harder. But when the crap hit the fan, they were in it to win it and weren’t letting me fall on my ass.
Lost in thought, I almost fell out of my chair when I heard scratching and squeaking coming from the side of my house. Two deep breaths later (Yes, I know I didn’t need them, but they helped my nerves) I shook my dad awake, sure to keep him quiet and whispered, “I think Woody is here.”
His eyes immediately focused as he popped out of the chair and strode across my backyard with a purpose I had only witnessed when following him through the halls of the hospital. Running to keep up, I almost tripped three times before I caught up. Peering around the corner like we were stalking a mob boss instead of a wily little raccoon, we watched the trash can shake before falling on its side. I guess no one thought to put the can on the street for garbage pick-up from the smell filling the air around us. Guess they had other things on their minds.
Woody peeked out before turning tail (literally), and from the sounds of it, began dragging his nails across the inside of the container. Finally, luck had smiled on us–the lid to said receptacle was laying just a few feet in front of us.
Dad used hand signals that I had only seen in movies starring Sylvester Stallone or Dolph Lundgren to silently communicate. I had no idea what he was saying and was just about to ask, when he dropped to the ground and started crawling towards the lid. (Mystery solved)
It seemed to take forever but I stood completely still, watching as Dad carefully picked up the lid and continued crawling until he was mere inches from the opening. In one of the quickest movements I’d ever seen him intentionally make, (Remember the incident in front of the refrigerator?) he slammed the lid atop the fallen can and twisted his body until he fell against it, effectively capturing Woody. It was a truly inspiring moment.
“Hell yeah!” Dad hollered and then quickly covered his mouth, but the shaking of his shoulders told me he was giggling like a little kid.
I gave him the thumbs, picked up the cage he’d left at my feet, and headed towards him.
“How we gonna get him outta there?” I asked in a whisper.
The look of contemplation returned to my father’s face. I watched for a total of two minutes before he grabbed three patio stones from the flower patch at his side and stacked them in front of the lid, and then stood.
Whispering, he instructed, “Open the cage and set it as close to the lid as you can.”
I did as I was told.
“Now, stand right there.” He pointed to the spot at the side of the can and stood exactly opposite me.
“Put your hands on the lid and hold it tight.”
While I did that, he moved the patio stones and placed them on top of the cage. What happened next should have been recorded because that shit will never happen again! Dad gripped the other side, counted to three, and whisper-shouted, “Lift the lid!”
We did and Woody ran straight into the cage. Dad kicked the stones, the lid slammed shut, and the large metal spring clasp locked. After two high fives and a hug, he picked up the cage and we all but skipped home.
Mom was up, had hot cocoa ready, and laughed while we detailed our mission. It wasn’t long before my parents hea
ded to bed and I was left sitting in the kitchen with my thoughts. Thoughts that led directly to sparkling blue eyes and a smile that curled my toes. Danny was everything I could have ever wanted. I was truly pissed at my fate, but kept reminding myself that I could’ve stayed dead.
The more I remembered of our time together, the madder I got. We would’ve been so happy. I even imagined our kids, a white picket fence…the whole beautiful picture. Before long my anger turned to sadness that led to crying without tears. I stopped my train of thought and focused on Woody and what we may find out from him. By the time the sun came up, I had finally made it to my hidey hole in the basement, but had discovered that I no longer needed sleep.
With nothing better to do, I rummaged through boxes until I found my laptop and spent the next three hours surfing the web. You would be amazed at the shit you can find with nothing but time on your hands. I started by looking up raccoon anatomy and physiology. Then compared it to humans. Without really trying, I stumbled upon the proper way to give a wild animal a shot and to draw blood.
Hours later, footsteps overhead alerted me to the fact that my parents were finally up after our late night shenanigans. I made sure everything I had found was bookmarked, closed the laptop, and gave Woody another piece of bologna before heading upstairs.
In the kitchen, Mom was making coffee and Dad was reading the paper. Both said good morning as I made my way into the room and sat down at the table. “I found a bunch of information about raccoon physiology as it relates to humans,” I said as I opened my computer and pulled up the material I had collected.
My statement had Dad dropping the paper and scooting his chair until he was right beside me. I showed him everything while he made notes on the back of an empty envelope. Mom handed him the small notepad she kept by the phone and he continued scribbling. An hour later, we had come up with a plan of action. I ran down to the basement, threw on jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed Woody, and met Dad in his office where he was waiting, fully dressed…lab coat and all.