The Death Bump

by Tim McEnroe

startled her. “Sorry, Rosie,” he added gently, finally meeting her passive eyes. They were deep green, like their mother’s. In fact, with her hair pulled back, Rosie looked a lot like a youthful version of her, one not yet beaten down by life and liquor. A soft, compliant smile appeared on her face, and it made him feel bad for snapping. “I just had a rough day yesterday and had to get out for a while.”

  She just nodded acceptingly and went back to her toast. An awkward silence floated between them as they continued eating. Hating it more than his sister’s immediate need for answers, he said, “So...it sounded like you had one hell of a bad dream last night.”

  Her face went blank. “It was horrible!”

  “Well let’s hear it!” Justin responded with feigned interest.

  “It was about you. It was so...real!”

  “Really?” he baited as he shoved another spoonful of corn flakes into his mouth. “So what happened?”

  The words left her lips slowly. “Well, we were eating pancakes and bacon, just like we did last night, and we were waiting for you to come home. Dad was cursing you up and down for being late, and then someone came knocking on the door.”

  Her voice dimmed, as if she was afraid to hear it. “Mom opened it, and there was a policeman standing there. He introduced himself and then whispered something to her. Before he was even done, mom started screaming and crying so hard that dad jumped up and ran to her.”

  Justin didn’t realize that he was leaning in, holding tightly to each word that pushed from her mouth.

  “You were dead!” Rosie’s voice suddenly squeaked. “He came to tell us that they found you at the bottom of Stinton’s Point!”

  The words hit Justin hard and by surprise, causing him to nearly choke on his cereal.

  She drew a quick, shallow breath and continued, but the rest of her nightmare just bounced off of him like he was coated in rubber. His brain was stuck in high gear, reliving his suicide attempt over and over. There were no free cycles left to keep his other senses from shutting down. It wasn’t until she poked at his arm incessantly that he snapped out of.

  “Crazy, right?” he heard her say.

  “Yeah...crazy,” was all he could muster.

  She wiped the wetness from her eyes and shot a glance above him. “Oh hell,” she gawked, motioning to the clock above the range, “I gotta go!”

  Rosie jumped from the chair and grabbed her backpack before running out. As she opened the stubborn door, Justin heard the school bus quickly approaching from down the street, its low growl cutting through the crisp, morning air. This was her last year of grade school and of taking the bus.

  The high school being a few blocks away afforded Justin the luxury to leave at his leisure. Unable to wrap his head around Rosie’s dream, heading to school was something that could definitely wait. What played out in her nightmare was obviously a coincidence, but it still unsettled him greatly. So much in fact, that it wriggled and writhed in his brain all day, creating an impermeable barrier that nothing could pass. Fears of his leaked secrets written in the notebook fell by the wayside as did the constant taunts hurled by his peers. Even the idea of going back to the cliff was forgotten.

  Sleep was a fickle friend that night. When it did come, it was in thin slices and not meaty enough to recharge him. By the time he left for school in the morning, he was too tired to care anymore, and slowly the unnerving power that Rosie’s dream held over him melted away. By dinner time, the dream was a mere ghost of a thought.

  The next morning Justin had beaten Rosie to the kitchen table, taking the good seat for himself. As he gulped the leftover milk from his cereal bowl, he heard her light footsteps creak down the stairs and walk behind him.

  “Hey...remember that bad dream I had the other night?” she asked timidly as she stopped in front of the sink.

  Playing it down like he hadn’t given it another thought, he answered, “I think so. The one where I died, right?”

  She nodded, but barely. “I...I had another one.”

  “What do you mean you had another one?” he said louder than he meant to. The anxiety and confusion from the other day returned to him in full force.

  “Another dream...I had another dream. Only this time, it...” she trailed off.

  “It what?” he demanded.

  “This time, it was your funeral,” she said with a fragile look upon her face.

  He couldn’t do anything but sit there tending to the lump that welled up in his throat.

  “Just like before...it seemed so real,” she said. There was sorrow in her voice, like he was really dead and gone. “You were wearing your dark blue suit, and our whole family was there. I sat in the front with mom and dad, and she was hugging me so hard that it hurt. None of us could stop crying, even daddy.”

  Justin didn’t move; he couldn’t move. He could only listen in desperation.

  “The freakiest thing though was when my friend Rhonda called me before the funeral. It was early in the morning, and me and mom were still getting ready. She said that she was sorry that she couldn’t come because she was sick...food poisoning, her mom thought.”

  “Go on,” Justin pressed when she paused to gauge his interest.

  “Right before I came down this morning, Rhonda called and asked if I could bring her homework home for her today.” The look on Rosie’s face was one of fear crossed with untamed curiosity. “She thinks she has food poisoning. Justin, what’s going on? Where were you the other night? Did you go to Stinton’s Point or something?”

  He swam in her inquisitive eyes for centuries before noticing that she was gripping the sink hard enough to cause her knuckles to whiten. “Yeah,” he said at last, “I did.”

  “Why? What were you even doing there?” She sounded angry at his revelation.

  “I went there just to think about stuff,” he replied defensively as he brought his stare to the worn linoleum near her feet. Justin was afraid that the lie would be written plainly on his face.

  Out of nowhere, she hit him with a zinger that nearly rattled him from his seat. “Are you sure you didn’t fall from up there?”

  “I...I...” All he could do was stammer. A single thought speared through his mind. That feeling of weightlessness and the lack of control and being where no one could save him came rushing back. “What are you getting at?” he at last forced himself to ask.

  Somehow she managed to allow her composure to return before speaking. “It’s like...whatever I see in my dreams, I see in real life,” she finally said, clearly calm yet full of intrigue. “It’s exactly the same.”

  “Except I’m dead in them!”

  Rosie cocked her head as she examined him carefully. “What if they’re not dreams?”

  Justin shook his head at her absurdity as the bus pulled up to the house with a deep grumble in its belly.

  “So what are they then?”

  “I dunno,” she shrugged, piling her textbooks into her bag hastily, “but it’s really freaky.”

  She held him with a concerned stare before scurrying out, leaving Justin with nothing but his own endless imagination to fill in the blanks. There were too many to count.

  The days went on, and Justin couldn’t deny that Rosie’s dreams were holding his mind hostage. He spent most of his time thinking of ways to debunk her endless list of theories.

  “Maybe you’re really dead, and this life is the dream,” she would say with a smart look on her face. “Or maybe this is a sort of new life that you got bumped into when you died, and I’m seeing your old life in my dreams.”

  What he first classified as insanity grew more resilient with every new dream. One morning she spouted vivid details of her latest one. It took place at the high school football game.

  “See, that’s bull!” Justin yelled from across the breakfast table. “We never went anywhere as a family, let alone a football game. Dad’s the only one who even likes football!”

  “But the game was dedicated to you,” she replied wi
th sass in her voice. “Of course we’d all go!”

  For a moment her eyes drifted through him as if in deep reflection. “It was really sad. They put your yearbook picture on the score board and everyone cried...even daddy.”

  “And who won?” asked Justin, not convinced.

  “Saw Dogs, 17 to 0,” she responded with certainty. “Listen to the game on the radio, tonight. You’ll see.”

  He did just that. Sprawled out on his bed while over-examining the pattern of tiny, gray dimples in the drop ceiling, Justin listened gravely as the Saw Dogs scored their second touchdown with less than a minute to spare. The score was 16 to 0 in the Saw Dogs’ favor. Justin fought the nausea that thumped in his stomach as he slowly crept to his dresser. His eyes fixated on the speakers of his radio. Boos from the home crowd filtered through as the extra point was kicked. The announcer’s squawking voice confirmed what Justin already knew: The kick was good, and the score was 17 to 0 with less than 10 seconds left in the game.

  He shut off the radio and found his bed quickly before his legs gave out. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t process what just happened. A million thoughts fluttered inside his head, but none stopped to rest where he could reach them. Within minutes, Rosie was banging excitedly at his bedroom door.

  “Go away!” he shouted. “I know...okay? I’m listening to it on the radio.”

  To his surprise, she obliged without incident and left him to his misery. On his bed he sat motionless deep into the night, trying to come to grips with the fact