I couldn’t hear the TV over the rants that were coming out of me, and missed the beginning of the next report. It was about an unexplained malady that was cropping up around the city. Even before they cut to a young woman blurting something in a pitch with which I was horribly familiar, I knew what it was. I put down my sandwich, set the DVR to record. I didn’t want to miss a word, and I was having trouble hearing because the damned vocalizations kept coming.
I wiped my forehead with my sleeve; I was sweating like I was in a sauna.
Not sure I could even carry on a conversation between my vocalizations, I looked around for my phone to call Mick.
“Did it occur to you that I might want some hot water too?”
“You’re a sight to behold tonight, Helen. ”
“I’m not paying no forty-three dollars for that. ”
They just kept coming; I struggled to catch my breath between the outbursts, praying it was going to let up, terrified that this was it, the moment when the voices got so dense they stole my ability to speak.
My hands were trembling like a palsied old man’s. I stared at them, mesmerized, as an awful ripple passed under my skin. It was subtle at first, but grew until it felt as if snakes were writhing through my muscles. I wanted to dig into my skin with my fingernails and pull whatever it was out. I spotted my phone, half-sunk between the couch cushions, and decided I should call 911 instead of Mick. But I couldn’t get my hand to reach for it; my whole arm was clenched, my whole body.
The writhing gave way to a tingling, as if my whole body was falling asleep the way a foot can. I expected to drop to the ground, but, miraculously, I stayed on my feet while the tingling turned to a thick numbness. I thought I might be having a stroke. I was falling away, losing all sensation.
A sound passed between my lips, a guttural “Uh. ”My lips moved, but I wasn’t moving them. It was like I was wearing a mask. I tried to touch my face to see what was wrong, but my hand didn’t come up, it stayed there, trembling.
It was just like the experience I’d had when I was dead, only I was in my own body instead of Lyndsay’s.
I felt myself rise from the couch, then look down at my legs. My hand touched one leg, then the other. The hand was quavering so violently it was a blur.
I tried to cry out, to scream in terror, but couldn’t.
I heard myself laugh. It was a loose, blubbery laugh, and it was the last sound I wanted to make. I watched myself step away from the couch, put my hands on my hips, and start kicking my legs. They kicked and sprung in a spastic, rubbery parody of dance, the movements utterly unfamiliar to me.
“Diddle de diddle de dee,” I sang, my chest hitching, my voice a dead croak.
Just as it began to dawn on me that the dance I was doing was a jig—an Irish jig—I turned my face to the ceiling, spread my arms and croaked, “I got me legs.”
Me legs. I wanted to run screaming from the room, to escape this twisted marionette show.
Me legs.
My body stopped dancing. “And now.” Even through the thick guttural zombie belch there was no mistaking Grandpa’s accent.
I was taken upstairs to my studio, to the drafting table, to the strip I’d just finished.
“You little shit,” my mouth said. I watched my grandfather yank a pair of scissors out of a drawer with my hand. “Thieving little shit.” He stabbed the strip, hit Wolfie in the face, driving the scissors into the wooden table. “I’ll fix you.” He pulled the scissors out, brought them down again, and again, stabbing and cursing, until the images were obliterated. When he was finished he retrieved a thumb tack and tried to pin the ruined strip to the wall, but his hands were shaking too badly and he dropped the tack.
The tips of my fingers began to tingle. It was subtle at first, then it ran up my arms. I was feeling something again. It got stronger, until it felt like electric eels in my blood. I balled my hands into spastic fists.
Now that I had my mouth back, I screamed.
CHAPTER 14
The doorbell rang three times before I heard it. It rang a fourth before I could muster the strength to say, “Come in.”
Mick found me at the kitchen table, a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a shot glass in front of me. I’d completely forgotten that he was going to come by.
“All right, Finn?” he said. I was still shaking; I felt colder than the night I was pulled out of the reservoir. Could that have been just over a month ago? That was utterly inconceivable.
“I don’t need a psychiatrist,” I said. “I need an exorcist.” Or was it a delusion? Maybe I was a deeply disturbed individual. That was very possible. In fact, it seemed almost probable when I considered the alternative.
Mick pulled out a chair and sat. “What happened to you?” His voice was soft, calming, the tone you use to comfort someone who’s been raped. Which was not far off. I felt violated. I’d been ripped from my own body, pushed to a place where you go in your nightmares, where you try to open your mouth to scream but can’t find your own mouth.
“What happened?” he repeated.
I couldn’t explain. It would take too many words, too many strange words. Finally, I said simply, “My grandfather visited me.”
Mick nodded, not in understanding but to encourage me to continue. Then he frowned. “Hang on, I thought your grandfather was dead.”
“He is.”
He clapped my shoulder, went to the cabinets, and rooted around, returning a moment later with a mug. He poured himself a drink.
“Can you turn on more lights?” I asked. It had been dark for hours, but I’d been too afraid to move about the house. Grandpa was hiding in every dark corner.
“Yeah,” Mick said. His chair scraped the linoleum. “Which?”
“All of them.”
Without a word Mick went into the living room and turned on the lights. In the brighter light the kitchen spun slightly, the results of half a bottle of Jack. Mick disappeared upstairs.
“Bloody hell,” I heard him mutter.
He returned holding the strip. I looked away—I didn’t want to see it. It was evidence that I hadn’t imagined it all.
“This was good,” Mick said. “Why did you ruin it?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
I shrugged helplessly. “Grandpa.” I could still hear him breathing through my nose as he slashed with the scissors. He’d clutched the scissors in his fist the way a child does, just as he’d held a pencil when he was alive.
Mick studied me. “Why don’t you take your time, tell me when you’re ready?” He poured me another shot of whiskey. I downed it.
Grandpa was in me right now. That’s what this had all been about from that first twitch in my throat—it was Grandpa, inside me, struggling to get out.
But that was impossible. It just didn’t make sense. I dragged my hands down my face. Who could help me? I was beginning to doubt Corinne could. What if this was real? What if Grandpa had somehow crawled out of the grave and inside me?
I froze, my hand clutching the glass. Suddenly the experience I’d had while I was dead came into tighter focus. I’d been dead, so I’d taken up residence in some unsuspecting person, the way Grandpa was in me. Maybe Lyndsay had felt a twitching in her throat when I tried to speak.
Finally, I opened my mouth. “My grandfather took control of me. All of me. He did that—” I pointed to the ruined strip on the kitchen table.
Mick stared at the strip, his lip curled in disgust, or maybe disbelief. “You mean, he actually took control of your body?”
“Yeah.”
He pressed the balls of his hands against his eyes. “I’ve got to tell you, Finn, this is crazy shit you’re talking.”
“There are dead people inside us,” I said, rolling right over his skepticism. “The voices are the dead people taking control for a moment.”
“Christ, don’t say that,” Mick said. He cupped his hands over his ears, propped his elbows on the table. “You’re going to give me
another bleeding heart attack.”
I reached for the remote and scrolled until I found the news report I’d recorded. “Have you seen this?”
It was only a two-minute piece. They showed people blurting in zombie-speak, their faces in silhouette to protect their identities. A psychiatrist said that cases had been cropping up in the greater Atlanta area for the past few weeks. They hadn’t figured out what it was, but believed it was a form of post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the anthrax attack. He estimated there were several hundred to several thousand cases.
I turned away from the TV
“You really think we’re possessed?” Mick asked. “All of us? Thousands of us?” Mick clutched at my elbow. “Are you sure you didn’t imagine the whole thing? Were you on anything?”
“I’m not sure of my own name right now. But I was completely sober.” I gestured toward the ruined strip, once again saw my hand reaching for the scissors, stabbing, furious. “And it would have to be one hell of a delusion for me to do that, don’t you think?”
Hadn’t Grandpa been furious even before he saw the strip? He had, hadn’t he? I thought back, tried to reconstruct the events. He’d danced a jig. Much as that was out of character for someone as joyless as my grandfather, it made sense. He’d spent the last fifty years of his life in a wheelchair. Having control of legs that worked, that he could feel, would be wonderful. As soon as he stopped dancing, he said, “And now.” Then he went straight for the strip.
He’d already known about it.
“He’s watching us right now. Through my eyes.” I shut my mouth. It sounded so paranoid.
Mick froze, his eyes wide. “What do you mean?”
I told him how Grandpa had known about the strips even before he set (my) eyes on them.
“Do you see what he’s saying about me? Do you see? How can you take his side?” Mick said. He clenched his eyes closed, reached toward the ceiling, fingers clawed. “Christ, I can’t take this any more.”
I stared through the dark amber of the Jack Daniel’s bottle at the pads of my fingertips, debating whether to drink more. I was probably close to vomit territory.
“Wait a minute. Have you noticed that you haven’t blurted once since I got here?” Mick asked.
He was right; I’d been so freaked out I’d forgotten about the voice. “I haven’t blurted since it happened. That must have been two hours before you got here.”
Mick leapt from his chair. “Maybe that’s it. Whatever it is,” he churned his hands through the options, “a dead person, a nervous tick, whatever, works its way to the surface, takes you over for a spell, and then goes on its way.”
There was a certain logic to that. Some viruses waited hidden in cells until they finally showed themselves, then they were driven out of the body.
“God, I hope you’re right,” I said.
CHAPTER 15
The pitching machine rattled, spit a grey, rubber-coated baseball. I fouled it off. The impact of ball on metal bat stung my hands, despite the thick gloves I was wearing.
“Shouldn’t you be lights out at this, seeing as you’ve got a batting cage in your back yard?” Mick called from the other side of the chain-link fence. “You’ve got to listen to The Sonics in the original vinyl,” he added.
“I don’t use it much,” I said. Mick’s outbursts were still going strong, but it had been almost twenty-four hours since my last. We were waiting, hoping Grandpa wouldn’t return, hoping Mick would have a spell like mine and that would be the end of it.
I hit a bouncer to the left side. “That would’ve skipped just under the third baseman’s outstretched glove for a clean single.”
Mick tossed a cigarette butt on the concrete. “Is the third baseman a double-amputee? That’s the only way I can picture that.”
I laughed just as the next pitch came, causing me to swing and miss badly. The ball hit the padding behind me with a heavy whump.
Mick rolled his eyes toward the sky, grinning at my incompetence. I leaned the bat against the chain-link fence, let the final pitch go by. “You know, I haven’t had a chance to tell you how much I love your music.”
“Yeah? Cheers, mate.”
I’d been meaning to tell him that, now that it wouldn’t sound like insincere flattery, but hadn’t had the opportunity, because we had more important things to discuss. By silent assent we were taking a break from talking about our problem, if not thinking about it.
I hadn’t slept at all the night before. The thought that Grandpa might be lurking right behind my eyes, watching everything I did, judging me, was intolerable. I hoped Mick was right that he was gone, but what if he wasn’t?
“What’s your favorite, eh?” Mick asked, interrupting my reverie.
I liked all of his big hits, but didn’t want to name one of the obvious songs. “I always loved ‘Mystic Messenger.’”
Mick looked pleased. “You’ve got good taste. That’s one of my favorites. Hang on a minute.” He jogged off toward his car—a vintage Jensen—popped the trunk, and pulled out a guitar.
“Oh, man!” I shouted, raising my arms in the air. “Are you serious?”
Mick propped a leg on the steel bench outside the batting cage and strummed the opening cords to “Mystic Messenger.” Grinning like an idiot, I reveled.
He was still good—his voice had the same power, the same slightly scratchy quality that I remembered. The song was interrupted by the voice three times, but it was pure magic nonetheless. I gave him a standing O.
“I still love the music,” he said as he set his guitar against the bench and pulled out a cigarette.
“I wish my wife could’ve seen this. She loved your music, too.” I hadn’t thought of Lorena in days, I realized. Too much else occupying my mind.
“How’d you meet her?” Mick asked through the side of his mouth as he lit his cigarette.
“In high school. I had a secret crush on her. Totally debilitating. When I passed her in the hall my heart would hammer. I used to secretly take photos of her with my phone when we passed in the hall.” I smiled wistfully, remembering my awkward teenage self. “I thought I had no chance with her. I was a boy, and she was a woman. I sat in the back of the class and only talked to my friends, making boy jokes and talking about The Fantastic Four. Lorena had conversations with our teachers after class about Dostoevsky.” I shut my mouth, suddenly realizing I was babbling. Mick hadn’t asked for a history of my adolescence.
“How did she die, if you don’t mind me asking?” Mick said.
“Lightning,” I said, feeling no desire to elaborate.
His eyes got big. “She was struck?”
I nodded, though Lorena hadn’t been “struck.” Few people are truly struck. Reluctantly I told him about the canoe trip; Mick listened attentively until I got to the point where Lorena screamed that there could be snakes in the tall grass.
“Snakes?”
I nodded. “She had a terrible fear of snakes. I jumped into the water and pulled the canoe to the bank, but she wouldn’t get out. I made a show of looking all around to show her there were no snakes. I told her I’d carry her up the bank.” I blinked away tears. “I think she was about to let me carry her when lightning hit the far bank.” I could hear the rain pelting down, feel my soaked shirt pasted to my skin.
Mick nodded understanding. I couldn’t describe the moment Lorena died. I’d never described it to anyone.
“Were you hurt?”
“I was ten feet up the bank.” Up the bank, where it was safe. I didn’t remember taking those steps; somehow it was the only aspect of the event that wasn’t emblazoned in my memory.
“It’s hard to believe she was thinking about snakes in the middle of all that lightning.”
I thought of my car skidding off the road and sinking in the icy lake in the midst of an anthrax epidemic. “I think sometimes what we’re afraid of and what can actually kill us are very different things.”
“That’s nice,” Mick said. “If I
still wrote, I’d use that.”
“So you don’t have a secret cache of songs you’ve been working on? I thought all musicians did,” I said.
Mick scratched his temple at the hairline. “Most of them don’t, actually. It’s a lucky few who can keep writing good songs.” He retrieved his guitar, plucked a single string, watched it vibrate. “For most of us it goes, and it doesn’t come back. Maybe it’s the drugs and booze, I don’t know.”
He set the guitar back down. I wasn’t sure what to say; I couldn’t imagine what I would feel if my ability to draw abandoned me.
Mick glanced at his watch, signaled it was time to go. He had an appointment with Dr. Purvis, and I had one with Corinne, so we were driving downtown together.
“Truth be told, I wrote very little of my last successful album, Little Tripe,” Mick said as we climbed into his car. “It had all dried up by then.”
“Who wrote it, then?”
“My lyricist. Bloke named Gilly Hansen. I never wrote the words, was never very good with words. I was a music fellow. Gilly always did the words, then slowly took over doing the music.”
I’d heard of Gilly Hansen. He’d had a nervous breakdown or something, became a recluse and never wrote again.
“What’s it been, a day and a half since your last ghoulie voice?” Mick held up crossed fingers.
CHAPTER 16
I pulled to the curb along Piedmont Park. Parking near Piedmont on a weekday used to be impossible. Now the streets were filthy with spaces.
“I take it you fancy a walk? We can get a lot closer to the doc’s office than this,” Mick said.
I reached back and retrieved a plastic grocery bag from the back seat. “I’ve got some business I want to take care of, then, yeah, I thought it might be nice to walk. Do you mind?”
Mick smiled. “Sounds good to me.”
There were more police and National Guard than civilians in the park. The mood was muted, devoid of the usual festive cocktail of musicians, Hacky Sackers, and joggers. The smattering of civilians walked with their heads bowed, stepping carefully among the shoes.
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