“Maisie! Maisie!”
I slam on the brakes as Grady whisper-screams my name.
His hand is on his chest, eyes wide but blind, and he’s gasping for breath.
I pull over as fast as I can and throw the car in park. I lean over to him, hand on his cheek.
“Grady. Grady!”
He wheezes out my name one more time and then he just gasps for breath, the look in his eyes distant and frightening.
He’s not having a heart attack like I first thought, he’s panicking. He’s remembering. He’s not here in the car with me, he’s someplace else. Someplace scary.
“Grady, it’s me. I’m here. What’s wrong? What do you remember? Can you tell me what you’re seeing?” But he can’t seem to speak, doesn’t seem to know I’m there. What do I do? His face is even paler now, which I didn’t think was possible. “Shit,” I whimper.
My mom used to have panic attacks when I was a teen, and they were frightening like this. I try to fight off my own panic, remember what I did to help her. Whatever this is seems like a panic attack on steroids, but I have to try.
“You’re safe Grady. I’m here. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” I grab his hand in mine and squeeze, trying to bring him out of his head with physical sensations, but I’m afraid to touch him in any other way. It might make him freak out more. “Breathe. It’s okay. It’ll be over soon. You’ll be okay. Breathe with me, Grady.”
I exaggerate my breaths, make them loud, and whether or not he’s conscious of it, he starts matching his breaths with mine. A few seconds later, I see him come back. His eyes are no longer empty and unfocused, he’s looking at me, focusing on his breathing. I press my forehead to his in relief, still murmuring to him.
And then he starts to shiver, his big, bony frame shaking. “Can we go please?”
“Of course.” I want to know what he saw, what he remembers, but I want to get him someplace more comfortable first.
Back in my seat, I put the car into gear and pull out into the road. He stays silent, but the more distance we put between his work and us, the calmer he gets. However, my heart is climbing up my throat with burning claws. Either my husband is a really good actor, or something truly awful happened to him at his work.
And that hadn’t seemed like acting at all.
“Stop here.”
We’re passing the park when he speaks. With some quick navigation, I pull into a parking spot. He’s out of the door before I even get the car in park.
“Grady, wait!” I jog to catch up with him, because he’s walking fast and hard as if he’s trying to get out of pouring rain. But the sun is bright overhead, the clouds benign.
I’m speed-walking to keep up with his much longer stride, but finally he starts to slow down. Beside him, I loop my arm through his automatically. We’ve walked this path a hundred times, through all seasons. Maybe that’s why he asked me to stop here. Maybe he finds comfort in the familiarity and in better memories.
He stares at the pond with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. Eyes dark, searching the water for something. I bite my lip to keep from asking about what he remembered because it’s obvious he’s not ready to share.
I flop onto the bench behind him, eyes on his back, thoughts going in anxious circles. Trying to be patient.
Finally he turns his head and looks at me, like he just remembered I was there.
Hands still in his pockets, he comes and sits on the bench beside me.
I put my hand on his back, wanting to do more, wanting to pull him close and hold him, but I’m not sure he’ll allow it. Not sure if he wants it.
“I remembered some things. When I saw the equipment.”
“Okay,” I say, not pushing. Even though I badly want to know. Maybe.
“I went back again, after the hotel. Someone had left one of the yard lights on, and I was going to turn it off.” He pauses, swallows. “It was after hours, and it was dark and snowing. There shouldn’t have been anyone there working. I walked back behind the trailer and I remember this bright light.” He holds his arm up as if it’s shining in his eyes right now. “After that, I only remember voices, people, but I can’t see faces. I remember pain.” He glances at me, then away. “Lots and lots of pain.”
I swallow hard, eyes watering, trying not to freak out.
“Then darkness. That’s all, just darkness. And Ms. Josephine singing.”
My blood is cold, my heart aching. “So someone did hurt you.”
He nods, and I put my arms around him, the anger I had at him for his disappearance and everything that went along with that draining away.
“I’m so sorry.” Then I press my face against his shoulder, burning eyes leaving moisture on his shirt. In a small voice I say, “You didn’t leave me.”
“Of course not,” he scolds me in a whisper, then his arms are around me too and we’re clinging to each other on the bench as a man jogs by. “I would never leave you. Not on purpose.”
Not on purpose.
Sitting back, I meet his eyes. “You don’t remember who it was?”
He shakes his head.
“You still don’t think it was the homeless lady? You said she was there.”
“No. It’s...hard to explain. Her singing was after all the pain. And it was comforting.”
“We still need to find her then. See what she knows.” He nods. “And we need to talk to the police.”
He shakes his head and pulls back, but I refuse to let go. “Yes,” I insist. “Someone hurt you. So badly that you’ve been missing for six weeks, have memory loss, and look like death.” Pointing it out doesn’t seem to have much effect.
“I can’t remember who it was. I can’t even remember what really happened. They’re going to ask me, and all I’ll be able to tell them is ‘I don’t remember’. And even if I did remember, I have no proof. There’s no scars, and after six weeks, there’s no evidence.”
I throw my hands up, frustration making my chest tight. “What if it was me instead? What if it was me that was hurt?” He looks at me, wounded, and I know I have him. “What would we do then, if our positions were reversed?”
He shoots up to his feet, hands balled into fists and muscles clenched. I watch his face transform from a slightly traumatized, thinner version of my husband to a person I barely recognize with hollow cheeks and burning eyes. “I would find them and I would kill them for hurting you.”
The anger comes off of him like a wave. It makes his eyes look funny and the skin on his face tighten. He’s... menacing. I’d be scared if all that anger was directed at me.
But he’s my husband, and I understand how he feels, because that same anger is inside me. Just deeper, quieter. And so instead of backing up, I stand toe-to-toe with him. “That is how I feel, too. Someone hurt you. My husband. We have to do something. Evidence or not, we need to let the police know.”
He’s quiet a moment, calming down as he thinks things over. He paces a few steps away, then back to me. “We can’t call the police.”
I sigh, ready to argue again when he turns to look at me.
“But we should keep trying to find Miss Josephine. And we need to talk to Biff.”
I agree, but I wait for his reasons.
“Biff has to know something. He said I died, but I’m not dead.” Grady puts his hand to his chest, like he’s making sure. He does that sometimes. And then he looks at me. “And Ms. Josephine might know something about that night that will help.”
“So we talk to Ms. Josephine, talk to Biff, try to get some evidence, and then we go to the police. Okay?”
Begrudgingly, he nods. “Okay.”
“Until then I think you need to rest. Doing this today was too hard on you. You need to eat and sleep and see if you can get some of your color back. Take it easy for a few days and then we’ll look for Ms. Josephine again. Okay?”
He takes a deep breath in and then agrees. “I tried to sleep last night, but I couldn’t. Too wired I guess.”
“I’m glad.” He threads his icy fingers with mine. Then he stares, unblinking, out at the water. He so still, it’s like he’s not even breathing.
The wind picks up and I shiver. “Let’s go home, okay? It’s cold. You can warm up and get some rest.”
“It’s cold?” He comes out of his trance and glances around, eyes landing on me.
“Yes, it’s freezing out here. Aren’t you cold? Your hands are frozen.”
He shrugs, apathetic, staring at his feet. “I’m always cold.”
In my heart I know he needs a doctor, and probably a psychiatrist too. But I don’t know how to get him to see anyone if he’s still unwilling. “Let’s go home. I’ll take care of you.”
I tug on his hand and he starts walking. I lead him to the car and we get in and drive home, each of us lost in our thoughts.
I don’t know if it’s trauma, illness, or lies that I sense, but something is wrong with him. With this whole situation. My husband is alive, and I’m so bloody grateful for that, that I fear it’s blinded me to the truth.
He came back different.
Chapter Seven
Grady
“I have to leave for work. Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
Maisie called in to work the first few days I was home, but she’d apparently used up all her leave time and her boss’s patience after my funeral and couldn’t take any more time off.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
I sit back in my chair, feigning a casualness I don’t feel. On the inside, I’m a wreck. I’ve been ‘resting’ for almost a week, and I think I actually feel worse.
“Are you certain?” Maisie’s gaze lands on my fingers tapping on the table in a frenzied rhythm, and I force my hand to go still. She takes her purse off her shoulder anyway. “Maybe I should—”
“You should go to work,” I snap. I’m tired of her hovering looking at me like I’m an exasperating child.
Her eyebrows go up at my surly tone, and I know I’ve got to fix this quick. I’ve been snapping at her a lot in the last few days, blowing up at stupid stuff. My temper is on a hair trigger, but it’s not her fault. Anger seems to be the first and only thing I feel sometimes.
“I’m sorry.” I say, hanging my head. “I don’t mean to be cranky. I think some time alone would be good for me. I think I’ll eat and take a nap.” That was only partly true, but peeking back at her, I can tell it worked.
I’m just an exhausted husband in his sweats, waiting for her to go to work so he can fall asleep on the couch to the sounds of a football game.
But I can’t eat, and I can’t sleep despite feeling exhausted. Tense and sleepless most of the time, when I do manage to fall asleep, I have nightmares that scare the hell out of me. None I remember, of course.
I’ve been seriously underplaying my reaction to my flashback. Often I want to scream and cry and break things, but I’ve stayed calm for Maisie’s sake. She has no clue I am barely holding it together.
My flashback attack, for it couldn’t be called anything else, had definitely thrown me for a loop.
I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, how to explain to her that I remember dying. That I remember struggling for my last breath and the feeling of my heart shuddering to a stop as I reached out to her in the dark. And then all sensation, all awareness, even the blackness disappeared. There was just... nothing. It was like I stopped existing. And I think I did.
Only, in that nothing, I heard Ms. Josephine singing.
My next memory is somehow six weeks later, spitting dirt out of my mouth surrounded by headstones. I haven’t told Maisie that part.
In the darkest recesses of my mind, a suspicion had grown .I don’t even want to admit in silence to myself, but I think... I think I died. Like really died.
I’d denied it at first, because it shouldn’t be possible. I know how insane it sounds, and I don’t know how to tell her that. I don’t know what it means, and I don’t have all the pieces of my memory yet or even anything concrete I can say.
She nods. “Okay. But if you need anything, anything at all, call me?”
I’m an ass for the way I’ve been acting when she’s so generous and sympathetic and understanding. Guilt stings me as I nod, then stand to give her a goodbye hug and kiss. On the cheek.
I’m unsuccessful at pushing down my agitation enough to enjoy the moment with her in my arms. I need to get out, to get loose. I need her to leave, and if she doesn’t do it soon, I might crack.
But I’m way better at hiding things from my wife now than I was... before.
I count to sixty after she leaves the driveway the driveway, and then pull my hoodie on, hood up. I peek out the little window on the door. No neighbors out.
I escape.
With Maisie gone, I can finally give my restlessness an outlet. Hood pulled low over my eyes and hands in my pockets, I head down the sidewalk at a quick pace, unsure of my destination.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I mean, remembering their death would mess anyone up. And that’s part of it, but there’s more. Inside I feel a little hectic, a little crazy, but my body and brain are slow and sluggish. However, I don’t want to worry Maisie, so I’ve hid it from her.
Something catches my eye and I glance over. In the neighbors’ yard, there’s a little cross, new and white, under their big tree. Surrounded by balls and toys, a little collar hanging off the top. I stop short, staring.
Barkley had died?
It was an apt name for the annoying dog, who loved to bark at anything and everything. Bark-bark-bark, at all hours of day and night to the point that it could make a person insane.
But I knew our neighbors must be pretty upset. They took the term “fur-baby” literally.
I feel bad for them. And I feel bad for the dog.
So bad in fact, that sympathy and guilt are choking me, squeezing my breath away. Why?
Surging down the sidewalk, I escape the little memorial under the tree, pulling my hood even further down.
I feel like there are eyes watching me, wondering at my reaction. Judging me. But I feel like I’m dragging a boulder, and I can’t get away from the eyes fast enough.
Gaze on the tree-line ahead of me, I make my way to the woods, trying to clear my head and slow my breath. To fight off the edge of panic from a source I can’t identify.
Once in the shadows under the trees, I pull my hood off and tip my face to the canopy of shivering branches as I unzip it. I can breathe again.
But fatigue settles over me in a wave, as if I’d sprinted all the way here carrying a heavy pack. Rough bark grips my sweatshirt as I slide down against a tree trunk to rest and catch my breath.
Fatigue, another symptom I could add to the amnesia, the brain fog, and irritation I’d been struggling with the last few days. Plus the nausea that kept me from eating. Great.
Eyes closing, I focus on the sounds of the woods. Leaves rustling in the breeze have always calmed me, even in autumn when their sound was crisp. The air is different here in the trees, and the feeling of it, cool and damp against my skin, is comforting.
I must have zoned out for a minute, or fell asleep, because I have to drag my heavy eyes open a bit later when a unique scent tickles my nose. Musty but kind of sweet, like a horse barn, with an earthy, coppery scent beneath.
As quietly as I can, I stand up and search the shadows. Cracking twigs and crunching leaves to my left draw my attention, and I turn my head to meet the wary gaze of a healthy young buck. I can tell it is male by the rack on his head. I can tell he is healthy by... instinct.
The sound of rustling leaves turns to static, filling my ears.
We stare at each other, my eyes fixed on the blackness of his.
The color expands until everything, everywhere,
is black.
***
Grady
The darkness clears slowly, color and dread filtering in to take its place.
I close my eyes tight once more. I’m praying that when I open them again, it’s to a colorful fall forest without so much red.
Breathing deep, I open my eyes. But the scene is the same as it was before—gory.
Crawling forward on my hands and knees, sticky leaves clinging to my palms, I approach the deer to check for life. But its eyes are dull, its exposed lungs, unmoving. Its throat is mostly gone. Its dead, chunks of flesh missing. The ground around its hooves is stirred up, telling me it was incapacitated a bit before it died.
I sit back on my heels and press my arm to my mouth. But my lips and chin are wet. Sticky. When I drop my arm, there’s a big red smear on it. I try to breathe, try to think.
I’ve been a hunter all my life. I know how to humanely kill a deer and neatly dress it for processing.
This... was not that. This was not neat, and it was not humane.
This was savagery. This was predator killing prey in the oldest, least humane way possible. Nothing but claws and teeth.
My claws. My teeth.
My hands, coated in dark red older blood, and newer, brighter, shinier blood. I look down and see that once again, my shirt and pants are soaked with it. I look back at the deer, and I know suddenly, without a doubt, what happened to the neighbor’s yappy dog the night I came back.
“Oh God.”
I fall back on my hands and scurry backwards until my spine meets a tree, and then I press my head hard back into it and close my eyes.
How did I have the speed to catch a deer on foot, or the strength to bring it down by hand? How did I have the stomach to eat it raw?
What was wrong with me? Why did I have these blackouts? What happened to me in the last six weeks that made me this way?
I bang my head back a few times against the tree. Why the hell can’t I remember?
And what was I going to do now? Maisie was the only one who knew I was still alive, and yet I couldn’t share this with her. She’d be scared and worried, and disgusted. She’d want to call doctors, authorities, and who knows who else. I can’t tell her until I have more answers. I don’t know if I can ever tell her that I suspect I really died, and then came back somehow. Came back different.
A Cursed All Hallows' Eve Page 20