The Dead Man: Face of Evil

by Goldberg, Lee

  That led him to conclude that the conversation with the doctor wasn't real. But that this conversation with Dorcott was actually happening.

  Which meant he'd been having a waking nightmare.

  That simple realization was scarier to Matt than anything the freakish doctor or this irritating woman had said.

  And she was still talking.

  "However, with a little cooperation from you, we are willing to waive a substantial portion of the costs of your past and continued care. All we ask is that you stay here for a few more days and that you agree to ongoing, and exclusive, participation in some simple, and perhaps minimally invasive, testing to maintain your good health and to ascertain what happened to you."

  She flashed a smile so forced, so synthetic, that for a moment he wondered if he was dreaming again, or if she might be some kind of android.

  Her smile couldn't hide what her offer really meant.

  Imprisonment. They'd never let him out, at least not until they understood how he survived death and they could replicate it in a blue pill or an expensive procedure that they could profit from.

  He was feeling fine and didn't much care how it was possible.

  What Matt needed now was to get back to his life, to center himself.

  He needed to chop some wood.

  "I'm leaving," he said. “Right now."

  Matt threw off his sheets, yanked the IV out of his arm, and stood up.

  Dorcott looked at the blood trickling down his arm like it was gold.

  Who knew what secrets, what pharmaceutical breakthroughs, were dripping uselessly to the floor?

  It reminded her of what her preacher said to the boys he caught whacking off, about the unforgiveable sin of wasted seed.

  If God wasn't happy about that, imagine how pissed off he was about this.

  Almost as enraged as the regents, not to mention the hospital accounting department, would be with her if she let Matt leave.

  The fact was, Matt hadn't signed a single piece of paper since he was admitted.

  The university had no claim on him, no clear title to his blood and tissue or to the billions of dollars that could be derived from them.

  Then again, if he walked out without paying his bills, and a few years down the road they made discoveries based on what little of his bodily fluids they had, maybe they could argue that what they were doing was simply recouping their debt, plus interest.

  Or maybe not.

  Janet thought about tearing her shirt open, screaming rape, and calling security. The idea kind of excited her, but she let it go.

  "You can't just walk out of here," she said. “You have a moral, ethical, and legal obligation to pay us."

  Matt looked at the blood seeping out of his arm and found it as reassuring as the coroner had found it shocking.

  Dead men don't bleed.

  "Send me the bill," he said and walked past her to the door, his naked ass peeking out of the opening in the back of his gown.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As soon as Matt left the room, Janet Dorcott did three things. She called the lab to collect the drops of blood on the floor, she called Dr. Travis to fill out a commitment order, and she called security, telling them to stop Matthew Cahill from leaving.

  Matt took the stairs down to the lobby. When he emerged, he was stunned to see Rachel sitting on a couch, which she'd turned into her own little encampment. There were blankets, pillows, and fast-food containers everywhere. She'd obviously been waiting there for days.

  He smiled at her. “Could I get a ride?"

  It took her a moment to realize that yes, it really was Matthew Cahill standing in front of her with his butt hanging out.

  She leapt from the couch and ran into his arms, nearly tackling him.

  They embraced, and then she stepped back to look at him again, as if to confirm she wasn't seeing things.

  "It really is you," she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “When they said on the news that you were alive, I didn't believe it."

  "I still don't," he said and gestured to the couch. “Were you living here?"

  "I came here as soon as I heard. I tried to see you, to call you, but they wouldn't let me. So I planted myself here. There was no way I was going to leave here without you."

  He looked over her shoulder and saw two beefy security guards marching their way.

  Rachel followed his gaze, then moved away from Matt as the men approached.

  "You're going back to your room," one of the guards said to him.

  "You can't hold me here," Matt said. “I'm not a prisoner."

  "Yes, we can. Your doctor has determined that you are delusional and a threat to yourself and others," the guard said. “He's having you committed to the university mental hospital."

  After his waking nightmare, Matt couldn't argue with the doctor's diagnosis, but he doubted that the commitment was for his own good as much as the university's. They would do everything they could to keep him as a scientific asset to poke, prod, and maybe even dissect.

  Matt balled his hands into fists. He didn't know if he could take them both, but he was certainly capable of messing them up bad, despite having been dead for a few months. He felt as strong and as capable as he had the day he died.

  And that knowledge made him smile.

  He wanted to fight.

  Bring it on, assholes.

  The guards could see the change in his expression and realized that Matt might actually be crazy.

  Scary crazy.

  But before the guards could make a move, or Matt could throw his first punch, Rachel stepped between them and sprayed the guards with Mace.

  The guards squealed and staggered back, rubbing their eyes. As they did, she kneed one, and then the other, hard in the groin, doubling them over in agony.

  "Fuck you," she said to them, then turned to Matt. “Let's go home."

  Their first stop was Costco. And, honestly, who wouldn't want to make that their first stop after resurrection?

  Matt hid under a blanket in the backseat of her car, just in case an APB had gone out for a crazy man in a hospital gown, while Rachel went in and bought him clothes, a pair of shoes, and, at his request, two hot dogs and a Coke.

  When she got back, he devoured the meal and then changed into the clothes while she pretended to avert her eyes. She was astonished by his physique, not because he was so buff (which he was), but because he looked as good as he had before the avalanche.

  If anything, he looked even better.

  Matt got into the passenger seat beside her and saw tears rolling down her cheeks. He wiped them away.

  "What's wrong?"

  "It's happiness, you idiot. I lost you. And here you are. As if nothing happened. With ketchup on your chin. It's unbelievable."

  Unbelievable.

  Impossible.

  He had a feeling he'd be hearing those words a lot, and he was already tired of them.

  "I don't care how I survived. I just did. I don't want to try to think about it or figure it out. I want to go on with my life, as it was, as if nothing has changed. Can you do that for me?"

  She nodded, took a napkin, and dabbed the ketchup off of his chin. “Whatever you want."

  "What I want most of all is to be with you," he said. “To have the night together that we lost."

  "Is this really happening?" she said. “Tell me I'm not dreaming."

  He wished he could, but he wasn't entirely sure himself. So instead of saying anything, he kissed her.

  It felt real enough for them both.

  She took him back to her small house and directly to bed, where they made love, nonstop, for hours.

  Neither one of them had ever felt such an overwhelming need to be with another person. It wasn't love, and it wasn't lust. It was something primal, an insatiable compulsion to couple, for the physicality, for the connection, for the release, for the proof of life.

  For Matt, each time he entered her, in whatever position they were in, h
e went as deep and as hard as he could, clutching her as close as possible, desperate to feel her tightness, to taste her sweat, to hear her cries of longing and ecstasy.

  And when he came, with such thunderous force that he could barely breathe, it reaffirmed not only that he was a man, and that he was alive, but that he was joined with another human being, that he was connected to this earth, to nature, to the circle of life.

  He was a man, of flesh and blood, and he was inside her.

  Not surprisingly, Rachel was having almost exactly the same thought. But for her, the carnal experience had a very different meaning. She wanted him deep inside her, to fill her with his masculinity and strength, so she could know with utter certainty that he was alive and he was hers.

  With each thrust, he confirmed to her his physical existence, that he was really there. And with each of her breathtaking, seemingly endless orgasms, she reaffirmed their connection, and the power of the love that brought him back to her against all logic or reason.

  She wasn't dreaming.

  He was a man, of flesh and blood, and he was hers.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Afterwards, as they lay entwined in the sheets, Rachel rested her head on Matt's chest and listened to the miraculous, comforting sound of his heartbeat as he stroked her hair.

  "There were a hundred forest rangers and skiers out on the slopes after the avalanche, probing the ice with poles, looking for you," she said, knowing that she was already breaking the implied promise that she'd made to him in the car at Costco. “We couldn't find you. I didn't want to leave, even after it was clear you couldn't possibly have survived. After a few days, the forest rangers gave up, closed off the area, and said we'd just have to wait until spring, and the snowmelt, to recover your body."

  "Here I am," he said.

  Yes, he was. She lifted her head off his chest and rolled onto her side, so she could look at him while she spoke, to remind herself that it was true.

  "I was blamed by a lot of people for what happened to you, for skiing on a dangerously steep, backcountry run and for not carrying avalanche transceivers. But their blame didn't compare to how much I blamed myself."

  "Forget about it. None of that matters now," he said. “I'm alive and I don't blame you for a thing."

  She kissed him and looked into his eyes. “There was a memorial service for you. It was beautiful. I cried all the way through it. So did a lot of people. They are going to want to see you again."

  "I know," he said, already dreading those awkward reunions, and all the inevitable questions, but knowing that he'd have to get them out of the way soon if he wanted to go back to his life the way it was. “But one on one, as they come along. I don't want to make a big thing out of it."

  "It is a big thing, whether you want to acknowledge it or not," she said. “You came back from the dead. Don't you feel any different now?"

  "Of course," he said, giving one of her nipples a pinch. “Don't you?"

  "What I mean is, what does it feel like to be resurrected?"

  He didn't have any memory of dying. One moment, he saw the mountain of snow bearing down on him and the next he was looking into Dr. Travis' stunned face. He had no idea what it actually felt like to die and be reborn.

  But then he realized that wasn't entirely true.

  "I know what it feels like," he said, "but not because I was buried in an avalanche."

  She sat up and looked at him. “I don't understand."

  "I've been dead ever since Janey died. Today, with you, is the first time I've really felt alive since that moment." He slipped the wedding ring off of his finger and set it on the nightstand. “You brought me back, Rachel. Nothing else did."

  Rachel kissed him and suddenly wanted to do everything they'd just done all over again.

  "That's very nice, but you didn't answer my question." She reached between his legs and was surprised, and pleased, to discover that he was already hard, but no more surprised, and pleased, than he was to reach for her and discover that she was already wet. “How does it feel?"

  "It feels like—" He searched for the right word, but then she climbed on top of him, took him deep inside of her, and began to slowly grind against him, making it difficult for him to concentrate.

  So he didn't. He let go. He let the right word find itself.

  "It feels like love," he said.

  "I may never let you leave this bed," she said.

  "I may never want to," he said.

  When Rachel awoke the next morning, Matt was gone.

  She felt a jolt of panic, fearing that it had all been a cruelly vivid dream, but then she saw the wedding ring on the nightstand and heard the snap of splintering wood, followed a moment later by the same familiar sound.

  She sighed with relief, but her heart was still racing from the shot of adrenaline.

  Rachel got up, went to the window, and looked outside.

  Matt stood shirtless in her backyard, chopping wood, which was amazing, considering that she'd had no logs to chop.

  Which meant he must've jumped out of bed in the wee hours of the morning and cut down a tree.

  Unbelievable.

  Then again, wasn't that true of everything about him now?

  Rachel laughed with joy. She had never been so happy, or so at peace, in her entire life, and she hoped that Matt felt the same way.

  When he came back in, they showered together, made love again under the water, and had a huge steak-and-eggs breakfast to slake their ravenous appetites.

  After that, she took Matt up to his cabin. She knew things had changed while he'd been "away," but she figured it would be better if he discovered that for himself.

  Matt wasn't happy about what he saw.

  The property was overrun with weeds, there was trash everywhere, and his truck was up on blocks, the hood wide open, the engine picked clean.

  It was no mystery who was responsible for the scavenging of Matt's truck or the deplorable condition of the place.

  Andy's truck was parked out front.

  Rachel read the expression on Matt's face. “You have no one to blame but yourself. You willed the place to him."

  "I wouldn't have if I'd known I'd be coming back."

  She laughed—she couldn't help herself. But Matt wasn't as amused.

  For him, it felt like only four or five days had passed since he'd left his cabin to go skiing. So it was a shocker to see the rapid decline, especially since the property had never been just a patch of land or place to live for him.

  It was the cabin that he'd built by hand for Janey, and that made it a monument to the short time they'd shared together. He'd treated it with reverence, and it hurt him to see it taken for granted.

  But he hadn't been gone for just a few days.

  He'd been dead.

  For months.

  And life went on without him.

  Matt got out, walked up to the cabin, and knocked on the door. Rachel joined him on the porch, and they waited. After a few moments of silence, Matt pounded on the door loudly and insistently enough to have awakened him if he was still dead.

  This time, they heard some grunts, the sound of bottles rolling around on the floor, and some shuffling footsteps, and then Andy opened the door.

  Andy was barefoot, wearing only a bathrobe and a pair of stained jockey shorts. His hair was a mess and he was unshaven, which could be forgiven, considering there was a gaping, wet, gangrenous sore in his left cheek about the size of a fifty-cent piece.

  Matt took a step back. “Oh my God."

  "I think that's my line, buddy." Andy grinned, his teeth yellow, his gums inflamed. “You're the dead guy."

  "Jesus, Andy, what happened?" Matt asked.

  "I lost my job, my best friend died, I got evicted from my apartment, and my truck crapped out," Andy said. “How about you? How have you been?"

  As Andy spoke, pus dripped from his wound onto his bathrobe. His breath smelled like he'd been sucking on a shit-flavored Tic Tac.


  "I'm talking about your face." Matt pointed to Andy's cheek.

  Andy, baffled, touched his cheek and probed the moist, infected wound with his finger. It sounded like he was stirring pudding.

  "Sorry I didn't shave for you. I would've cleaned myself up and put on a tuxedo if I knew you were coming back from the dead today."

  Matt turned to Rachel. “Don't you see it?"

  "See what?" Rachel said. “He's the same ugly son of a bitch he's always been."

  "Thanks," Andy said, then regarded his friend with concern. “What's wrong?"

  You mean besides that there's big fucking hole in your face that nobody else sees?

  But Matt didn't want to admit it to himself, much less let anyone else know that he was ever so slightly delusional.

  "I'm just wondering how a guy can crawl out of his grave after being dead for three months and still look better than you do in the morning."

  Matt laughed and forced himself to give his friend a hug to show it was all a joke. But he was careful to hold his breath and stay on the side of Andy's face without the sore.

  "It's so great to see you," Andy said, clapping him on the back. “Without you, I had nobody."

  "That's why I came back," Matt said.

  Rachel frowned. She didn't like the idea that Matt might pick up where he left off, babysitting Andy again.

  "Now that you're here, I suppose you want everything back," Andy said. “Would you like me to move out?"

  "No," Matt said. “It's your place now. It was part of my old life. I'm starting a new one."

  Matt took Rachel's hand and gave it a squeeze. Andy noticed.

  "I see," Andy said, picking at his sore and flicking dead skin away.

  That's not really happening, Matt told himself. He's just scratching his cheek. There's no wound there.

  "I don't want anything except my family photos, Janey's things, and my grandfather's ax."

  Andy looked down at his feet, as if he'd just discovered something fascinating about his overgrown toenails. “The ax is in the shed, but the rest is gone."