The Dead Have A Thousand Dreams

by Richard Sanders

  He shook his head in wide arcs, full 180’s, then stared again at the table, gazing at it as if he thought he could find some kind of answer there.

  >>>>>>

  WEDNESDAY JUNE 20, 11:00 a.m.

  THE DEAD ARE ALL AROUND US

  Marco put up resistance. She had a lot of work to get done, a full schedule, she couldn’t meet with anyone right now. I told him it was about her health. After a two-minute interval he was back on the phone. Come by at 11.

  The study was as barely lit as ever. Georgiana looked tired, though I knew the weariness was more than busy-fatigue. One of her photographs was propped up on a chair across from the desk. Incredible image—cedar trees that turned to mist as you looked at them.

  She had a cell in her hand. She’d just sold the photo, she said, and the client had asked for some backstory to go with it. She was in the middle of taping the narration.

  I took a seat. “Is there a story?”

  She nodded. “I remember the day. I was very down, very depressed that day. I could hardly shoot a thing. Everything I tried felt like utter garbage. Utter useless garbage. But once the photos were printed, almost all of them had this beautiful…shimmer. Marco said it was like a glowing nebula, like a moving, mysterious fog.”

  I looked at the photo again. “What do you say the trick is? Capture nothing that isn’t there, and the nothing that is there?”

  She put the cell down on the desk. “You wanted to talk?”

  “I did.”

  “About my health of all things?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do it. I’m busy.”

  “I know. Your time is short.”

  She was curious. “Are we talking about my day?”

  “Your life.”

  “And my time is short.”

  “Less than a year, probably closer to six months.”

  I was rewarded with a brooding, Hamlet-like smile. “You’re turning psychic, Mr. McShane?”

  “Just doing a job.”

  “And you want, what, confirmation? Is that why you’re here?”

  “Something like that.”

  Georgiana shrugged—no emotion whatsoever. “What can I tell you? It’s true. The tumor will kill me in a matter of months.”

  “I know it’s inoperable. Can’t it be treated?”

  “I’ve decided against it. I won’t be able to work. I won’t do anything, even keep myself alive, if it means losing the work.”

  “I can understand.”

  “And please, don’t say anything more about this to Marco. He knows I’m not well, but he doesn’t know how much. I’ll find a way to tell him myself.”

  “You’ve got a brave attitude.”

  “Brave? No.” She leaned back in her chair, casual, relaxed. “It’s simply a matter of accepting fate. I’ve been able to accept death as a friend. Or at least not as the stranger people take it to be.”

  “Death is all around us? Everywhere, always?”

  “Exactly. All around.” The way she was looking at me, it was almost like she was looking at me. “As are the dead.”

  “The dead?”

  “The dead are all around us, Mr. McShane. And they dream as well, just as we do. Their dreams…haunt us. Everywhere, always.”

  The silence in the room was so strong I could feel it weighing in my bones.

  I had to break it.

  “The tumor,” I said. “Do they know what caused it?”

  “There’s speculation.”

  “Could it be environmental?”

  “Environmental?”

  “Like the light from Material Witness?”

  Georgiana laughed—good one. “You still suspect me, don’t you? You still think I’m after your ridiculous friend.”

  “The predictions are about to kill him.”

  “Not my problem. I simply told him what I saw. I simply see what I see. There’s nothing planned or calculated about the visions. I don’t even know where they come from. Perhaps from the tumor, beginning in its early stages. There may be a causal connection between the tumor and the visions—I’ve considered that. Or perhaps it’s the dead, speaking to us through dreams. Or perhaps it’s death itself. Death is all around us, as you said. Every moment of our consciousness is ringed with death. It always was, from the moment we were born, and it’s nothing to be afraid of. Who were we before we were born? Who will we be after we die? That’s where the answer lies.”

  >>>>>>

  WEDNESDAY JUNE 20, 2:00 p.m.

  THIS GUY IN MICHIGAN…

  I needed to talk to someone sane, and what does it say that the sanest person I knew around here was a 15, 16-year-old girl who lived by herself in the woods? I called Jen’s prepaid cell while I was finishing a room-service lunch in the hotel, said I just wanted to see how she was doing. She gave me directions to a break in the Paumanok about a half-mile from Wooly’s house. Heavy clouds were moving in when I got there. It was getting as dark as twilight, five hours ahead of schedule.

  I asked what she did when it rained. No worries, she said. Her tent was totally waterproof. Sealing the seams, getting plastic sheets for seepage—those were some of the last things her father had done.

  “I’ve been watching the house,” she said, practically sticking her hair up her nose. “I haven’t seen anybody. Nobody’s been hanging around.”

  “Good.”

  “But I know something happened this morning. I saw you. You were running in like something was wrong.”

  I told her about Wooly cutting himself—she had friends like that—and about the predictions.

  “That’s some bad business,” she said.

  “One more day to go.” I slipped her another 20. “Stick around.”

  “Still, what he did to that boy, Ralphie? It’s hard to feel sorry for him.”

  “Yeah, but you see somebody acting like that, you’ve got to think the way they grew up wasn’t so good.”

  I told her about Wooly’s past, his mother dying, his father ignoring it.

  “Oh man that’s so sad,” she said, all kinds of hairplay going on. “That makes me sad. It’s like, I don’t know, it’s like there’s no comfort in this world at all.”

  “That’s not true. There’s some. There’s always both.”

  “It’s like that guy in Michigan, came home and killed his whole family. His wife, two children.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Happened last night. I was redeeming my stuff in town today, I saw it on the news.”

  “What happened?”

  “This guy in Michigan, he came home last night and shot his whole family. To death.”

  “Got it.”

  “It’s like, maybe you’re angry or something? Or you’re lonely or something? It’s still better than doing something like that, putting people in the ground forever.”

  Truer words.

  >>>>>>

  WEDNESDAY JUNE 20, 5:30 p.m.

  SEVEN FINGERS ON ONE HAND

  The storm was so powerful it was almost magical. Waves of water were sweeping through the streets outside and smashing into car windshields. Winds had ripped part of the Hidden Lake Hardware awning across from the hotel and the canvas was flapping in the gusts like gunshots. It reminded me of the day my wife and daughter left me. It was that bad.

  The storm noise was so loud I could barely hear the phone ringing in my room. Nickie’s cell. A make-up call? No.

  They need you here. Can you get over?

  “What’d he do now?”

  Not him. HER.

  They were all there, my extended family, Wooly, Genevieve, Nickie, standing in the living room by the front double doors. Along with a chaotic clutter of shopping bags randomly stuffed with shoes, slippers, combs, brushes, pants, shirts, a bathrobe, a travel iron, shampoo, conditioner, prescription meds, toothpaste and a toothbrush. It looked like someone had packed while sleepwalking in a tsunami.

  Wooly and Genevieve were battling each other with high-pit
ched babble.

  “Why’re you fucking with me like this?” said Wooly.

  “I can’t take this anymore!” said Genevieve.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “She’s leaving,” said Nickie.

  Genevieve concurred: “I’m leaving.”

  Wooly blew it out. “She says she’s leaving!”

  “What happened?”

  “I cannot stand another goddamn minute of this,” said Genevieve. “I’m getting ready to fix dinner, I say what do you want? What’re you in the mood for? He says oh I don’t know—it could be my last meal. Or at least my last supper. Well fuck all that! I’ve had it!”

  Wooly was pacing in broken patterns, flailing his bandaged arms. “What am I supposed to do? I’m supposed to sit there alone with my thoughts?”

  “You’re giving me the shivers with your shit! All over my body!”

  “Well what d’you think it’s doing to me? I don’t mean to upset you, but these death predictions have done something to me!”

  I looked at Nickie. She looked away. She wasn’t interested in talking to me.

  Almost on cue, as she turned away, the walls of the living room went white with a lightning flash outside. Thunder followed a moment later.

  “Where you gonna go?” said Wooly.

  “I don’t know. My sister’s? The hotel?”

  “I don’t know what to say. This is fucking outrageous and I don’t know what else to say. How many times did I ever walk out on you like this?”

  “Plenty.”

  “You can count them on the fingers of one hand.”

  “If you’ve got seven fingers on that hand.”

  “Really?” Wooly was surprised. “Seven? Is that how many times it was?”

  “That many.”

  “I didn’t realize. Sorry.”

  Genevieve forced herself to draw a medium-size breath. “Wooly, let me ask a question.”

  “Okay.”

  “It might even be construed as a rational question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You think you’re going to die tomorrow. Here. In this house.”

  “Bet your ass.”

  “Then why don’t you leave? Just go somewhere else for the day. If you think something’s going to happen here, then why stay?”

  “Cause this is my house.”

  “What kind of answer is that from a person?”

  “Cause this is my house and nobody, nothing’s gonna drive me out of it. Whatever happens, I want to stay here.”

  “You’re one fat stubborn fucker.”

  He sidestepped a few of the shopping bags and moved closer to her. “I want to stay here, and I want you to stay with me. My house is your house. My house is nothing without you. Please, I’m asking you to stay.”

  “Don’t, okay?”

  “I’m sorry to be giving you so much trouble, but please. Please don’t leave. I need you here.”

  “Don’t talk that way.”

  He saw something in one of the bags and reached in. Out came a jewelry case. He opened it: A diamond tennis bracelet was inside.

  “Remember I bought this for you? You remember that day?” Tears were seeping into his eyes.

  “Wooly.”

  He suddenly threw himself down in front of her, thudding the whole floor as he landed on his knees. “I know I make mistakes. I know I’m all tangled up in error-roots, I know all that. But please, I’m begging you. Please forgive me.”

  “Get your ass up.”

  He grabbed her arms, yanking on her so hard he nearly pulled her over. “I need you here. Even if it’s just to clean, okay? Not asking for anything else. Please. Nobody can do it like you. Just to keep the place clean, please stay.”

  She shook her head, but not to say no. Mostly it was to shake the tears out of her eyes.

  “Nobody can clean like you. You’re the cleanest person I know. If there’s a cleaner woman in Suffolk County, well, shit, they’re gonna have to drag her here in front of me, cause I don’t believe it.”

  Genevieve’s answer was slow to form. “Okay,” she said in a low, low voice. “Okay, I’m here.”

  She took his hands and held them. Neither of them said a thing. Silence.

  A poignant moment—until Nickie opened her mouth.

  “Oh my God,” she said, looking completely rattled. “Oh my God, it’s all here.”

  We all looked at her.

  “Diamonds,” she said. “Seven fingers. It’s the prediction. Diamonds, seven, Genevieve trying to leave. It’s all here.”

  Wooly swayed to his feet. “What? What did she say? What did she word-for-word say?”

  Nickie reeled it off: “When the thunder comes, it will bring you great turmoil, it will bring you great strife. When the thunder comes…thunder and diamonds…when the thunder comes, the empress will try to abandon her throne. The number seven will decide. It’s all here. Everything she said is here.”

  It sure looked like she was right. All the bits and pieces of the prophecy had been sucked up like trash in a tornado and flung together in the same place at the same time. Georgiana’s prediction had materialized, had come true. And there was just one more left after that, one more prediction to go.

  “Are you serious?” said Genevieve. “Is she serious?”

  That was all anybody said. We just stood there, lost in the living room, lost in the house. The house, I don’t know, it suddenly seemed too big. The rooms were too wide. The ceilings were too high. The windows were too tall and too broad and too exposed. It was like the house had suddenly gotten too large for us. Or had we suddenly gotten too small?

  >>>>>>

  WEDNESDAY JUNE 20, 9:30 p.m.

  WHY DID YOU DO IT?

  I stayed for dinner—an uncharacteristically quiet and subdued meal chez Wooly. He’d continue to apologize for his behavior every once in a while. Genevieve would say, “Man was made from dirt, woman was made from bone,” and that would end it. I tried to talk to him about the Serenity Prayer. You’ll be fully protected tomorrow, I said. It’ll be important for you to stay calm. Whatever’s gonna happen, it’s out of your hands. Whatever happens, take it on faith and try to accept it.

  He nodded like he understood, but he looked like he was two breaths away from a coma.

  Nickie paid no attention to me the entire time. She was all sullen attitude. The message was clear: I was dead to her.

  Not something guaranteed to make you feel welcome. When dinner was over I said I was going back to the hotel. I needed to rest, I needed full sleep. I told Wooly I’d be back early in the morning.

  “You fucking better,” he said.

  The rain had ended. The storm was over, leaving the sky clear enough for a nervous moon to rise over the woods. I drove back on the still-wet roads, thinking, thinking. The most accurate measurement of time in the world is the cesium atomic clock. I felt like I had one inside me, could feel the atoms vibrating in my head.

  I parked in the hotel lot and started walking to the front entrance, still thinking about things said and not said, done and not done. The street was dusted with mist. Wind-blown debris was plastered to the curbside cars. The Hidden Lake Hardware awning was just barely hanging on, draped over half the store’s exterior.

  Looking back at that moment, I did catch some tiny movement on the side of the building, some gleaming motion, but it was as small as the flick of an eyelash.

  It didn’t register. I didn’t think about it until one of the hotel windows blew apart in a nova of radiating stars.

  It never occurred to me to duck down, jump out of the way. That’s how surprised I was.

  Then a second window shattered and its pieces fell to the pavement with the music of a thousand percussive triangles. My throat shut tight like a methedrine rush. I dropped to the ground and belly-crawled for the parked cars.

  More shots. It was like it was raining again. This was a hailstorm of gunfire. One consolation: Whoever was shooting didn’t seem to be a very go
od shot.

  I got to a car and pulled the Glock.

  A voice yelled from across the street. Why did you do it? Why did you have to do it?

  I moved to the front of the car, looking for an angle.

  I heard steps running, a car engine turning over. I looked out. Nothing there but smoke from the gun, merging with the mist and rising in the light until it disappeared.

  >>>>>>

  “You now?” Alex Tarkashian said when he first got on the scene. “What is it, contagious?” He took weary notes while the other two members of the Hidden Lake constabulary tried to corral the bystanders back into the hotel bar. This show’s over, folks.

  “I’m sorry,” said Alex, staring at his pad, “but again. This has something to do with Wooly? Or this has nothing to do with Wooly?”

  “Your guess.”

  “My guess. I’m just trying to get a grasp here. I’m at a loss.”

  “Then there’s two of us. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.”

  “Jesus fucking. Okay, what you heard, it was Why did you do it?”

  “Yeah. Why did you do it? And then Why did you have to do it?”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “I’m sure I did something, but I don’t know what.”

  “How about the vehicle? You see it? Was it the Grand Cherokee??”

  “I never saw.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “I told you what I saw and that’s all I can tell you.”

  “End of story.”

  “There you go.”

  “God, the bunch of you.” He flipped back through his notes. “That’s some group you’ve got out in that house. Between the lot of you, I’m going to need a new pad real soon.”

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  CHAPTER 8

  TOO LATE TO STOP NOW

  >>THURSDAY JUNE 21 (Solstice Day)

  SOLSTICE DAY 7:00 a.m.

  THE BUDDHA DIET

  In terms of daylight hours, the solstice, of course, is the longest day of the year. It felt like the longest day of my life.