Soon, he can do his duty too.
***
Glenda led him down the driveway toward the waterline, her damp hand slick in his, their fingers entwined in a lover’s knot.
“Dance with me,” she said again, and this time he didn’t protest. He was so lost in her eyes and her leaking smile that he didn’t notice when she stepped onto the surface of the churning waves. Sickly yellow foam collected around the tops of her pale feet as she walked, and Jonathan had taken three steps with her before he realized that he, too, was suspended above the surface. Another miracle, he thought dreamily, but the act of walking on water was nowhere near as fantastic as Glenda’s reappearance.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jonathan supposed this was a dream. This was the only way it all made sense. People didn’t come back from the dead. Not since Jesus, by his count, had anyone truly come back from the dead. Glenda had been in the ground for six days at that point, twice as long as their savior, and he suspected that if they were to walk the waters all the way to her grave, they would find the headstone undisturbed.
Because this was a dream, he reasoned. Because this wasn’t really happening.
Glenda pirouetted on the water, her soaked dress flapping behind her like a limp tail. She came to rest before him and laughed. Water trickled down from the corners of her mouth.
“Do you remember the steps? One-two-three?”
He placed his hand on the small of her back, and took her other hand in his. “I remember enough, I think.”
Years ago, in the months leading up to their wedding, Jonathan took a series of dancing classes with Glenda. He was never a fan of dancing, had never had the rhythm for it, really, but Glenda insisted he learn the basics for their wedding. “I want to dance with my husband,” she told him with her bedroom eyes, and how could he say no to that? He took those lessons and learned enough to get by, but he never did feel comfortable enough to say he enjoyed dancing. The night of their wedding, he stepped on her feet twice, but she just laughed at his embarrassment, slowly turning in time to Etta James singing ‘At Last’.
“I can’t fault you,” she later said, after they’d made love in their hotel room. “I’ve seen you try to drive a stick shift. You’re not much better at that, either.”
She was right. Jonathan never did have much rhythm, but after her passing, he would’ve learned to tango if it meant being with her another day.
Later, Jonathan supposed the miracle of her resurrection wasn’t the only miracle God handed out that day. For the first time since their wedding night, Jonathan danced again. He only stepped on her feet once, but he didn’t care, and she didn’t seem to mind. They had no audience in the dawn. There was only them and the flood, the detritus from the road and ditches, and a low breeze roiling the waters beyond the tree line.
She led him in the dance, the water spilling over the feet as they moved in counts of three. Jonathan tried not to question the logic of walking on water—after all, he was dancing upon the surface with his deceased wife. Instead, he tried to enjoy the moment and privilege to be with her once again, no matter how fleeting it was. If he was meant to wake from this dream soon, then he would enjoy it for as long as he could even if he knew the memories would haunt him for years to come. The worst dreams always did.
They danced along the surface, first across the road to the river and then along the shoreline. Glenda kept time for them both, humming a tune he didn’t recognize. Every now and then, the air in her throat would catch, punctuating her song with a seeping gurgle of water and phlegm. Jonathan didn’t mind the noise. He’d spent nearly a year listening to her hack up the remains of her lungs after the chemotherapy had done its damage. She was choked on the water, was all. Why wouldn’t she be? Her grave was no doubt flooded.
A low fog creeped along the surface of the water, silhouetted against fragments of morning light poking through the canopy of gray clouds. Those thin sunbeams fell upon both of them, and in that moment, Jonathan saw the faint trickle of water dribbling from the corner of her lips, down the side of her cheek. When she leaned in close to him to put her chin on his shoulder, he glimpsed something else slipping out of her mouth: a black, viscous sludge.
Embalming fluid, maybe. He wasn’t sure what else they pumped into her body at the mortuary. An assortment of chemicals for preservation, perhaps. Who was he to judge the finer intricacies of coming back to life?
But something about that thick, licorice blackness made a part of him grow cold. Glenda sensed his unease, pulling back long enough to look him in the eye.
“Is something wrong, my darling?”
“Nothing, dear.” He looked away, already knowing that she knew better, but too ashamed to say anything on the contrary. “Hold on to me. Don’t ever let go.”
Glenda smiled, tightened her grip on him. “Never.” She leaned in, put her chin on his shoulder once more, and he felt himself go ten degrees colder. The whole world around them had dropped in temperature. Jonathan peered out over the surface of the river at the rolling fog bank. Glenda was leading them right for it.
Later, after he’d collapsed on the doorstep of his home, Jonathan would recall that it was the fog that woke him from her spell and made him realize he wasn’t dreaming. The cold moisture in the air made his knees scream. Until the drop in temperature, he hadn’t noticed their stark agony; he’d been too lost in Glenda’s emergence to think of much else. Now, though, the cold was what sobered him up, and he gasped at the sudden jolt of pain shooting down his legs.
He was about to ask if they could stop and sit for a spell when Glenda spoke: “We’re almost there, my darling. Not far now.”
“Where are we going?” he grimaced.
“To my grave. Where the waters are waiting.”
The mere thought of that empty hole in the ground made him shiver. His whole body quaked, and she squeezed closer to him, yet her body offered no warmth. She was soaked through to the bone, her pruning skin like congealing fat on an old hunk of meat left out to spoil. In a warmer climate, Jonathan was certain that flies would’ve accompanied their dark, impossible dance across the surface of the flooded river.
“I . . . Glenda, honey, I need to rest a moment. My knees—you know how bad they get.”
“Shhh,” she said. “I’m so cold there in the deep, my darling. When the waters fill my grave, I get so cold. Won’t you keep me warm?”
Her voice was almost apologetic, as if she could not help herself despite what came next.
Jonathan turned for the shore and tried to pull away from her grip but found he couldn’t. Her pruned fingers clasped around him like handcuffs, and when he met her gaze again, her blue eyes did not greet him.
Black slime leaked from her sockets, mingling with a twin stream gushing out her nose. The skin around her face sagged, and for one horrifying moment, Jonathan realized that this thing was wearing his darling Glenda’s face as a mask. He screamed, a hoarse cry for help that sounded too thin, too distant for anyone to hear.
The cold fog inched closer, threatening to envelop them. Jonathan pulled once more, resisting his late wife’s grip.
“Keep us warm in the deep,” the Glenda-thing gurgled at him. Flecks of that blackened ichor spotted his cheeks. Jonathan struggled to find his footing and brace himself against her, only to find that he had no footing to gain. He was slowly sinking into the depths of the river, the freezing waters thick, gelatinous, a sudden bog in the middle of a churning stream.
A sandbar, he thought. Just get out of this mess, Jon. Just—
He looked down. What he saw aged him by a decade, maybe more. His heart paused for a full beat before painfully chugging to catch up with itself.
Hands.
Dozens—no, hundreds of bloated hands reached up from the depths of the river, their fingers entwined with the tendrils of the looming fogbank. They clamored for him, gripping his shoes, pulling at his pant legs, dragging him down to the dark depths of the floodwaters inch by cold, agonizing in
ch.
He twisted around, back to the Glenda-thing to make a desperate plea for his life, and discovered that her form was collapsing into itself. Her face dripped like warm wax, slowly melting into a dark blob that sank into her torso. Within seconds she was nothing more than a puddle of the black ooze, oily and dispersing into the roiling waters before him.
“No,” he cried as the hands slowly pulled him down. “No, Glenda, no!”
Jonathan struggled against them, fighting against the pain singing in his knees to lift one leg. Just one. Just enough to break free.
One-two-three, he thought, only he heard Glenda’s voice in his head. You remember how to count, don’t you, darling? Keep the rhythm. There’s nothing to it.
He leaned forward, clenched his teeth, and flailed his arms into the water, pulling himself against the current. Still the hands pulled, yanking and pinching at him, pulling at his groin, his thighs, seeking any piece of him that could be held, gripped, and dragged down to them. For an instant, he speculated what might be at the other end of those bloated limbs, but the impossible things that stretched out from his imagination made him go numb. Instead, he focused his efforts on freeing himself and swimming to safety.
Jonathan slowly lifted one leg, crying out in pain as the tendons around his swollen knees flared and sang a tune. As he did, he pulled one arm toward him, then the other. He kicked his other leg, pushing off the cluster of hands beneath the surface. Still they gripped him, but less so, and slowly—one-two-three, that’s it darling, keep your rhythm—moment by moment, Jonathan freed himself from their pull.
One of his shoes came off in their grip. A disappointed sigh breathed across the water’s surface. The hands pulled his second shoe free from his foot, and he shot forward into the current. A cold wave slapped his face, stealing his breath for a precious second. You’re free, darling. Keep going. One-two-three.
Jonathan swam. He swam harder and faster than he’d ever done before, his weak knees be damned, his old heart racing so hard he feared he might die of an attack right there in the river. Wouldn’t that be something, he thought idly, to drown after all this?
But no such thing happened that day. Jonathan reached the shore, collapsing at the foot of his flooded driveway in time to watch the sun break through the overcast sky. The fog on the river had dispersed by then, and though the temperature had risen a few steady degrees, he found he could not keep warm. Out there on the water, he glimpsed a cluster of darkened, bloated hands for just a moment before their fingers slipped slowly beneath the waves.
Somewhere beneath the surface, he knew, Glenda was there. For the second time in his life, he’d lost his wife, and when the realization struck him, Jonathan Crosby turned away from the river and sobbed.
***
Jonathan waits at the foot of his stairs, ruminating on that bizarre morning after the flood four years ago. He runs his hand over the curves of the revolver. Every day since, he’s watched the weather, waiting for the moment when the weather is right.
Every night since, he’s suffered from dreams of drowning, of Glenda returning to drag him down to the cold stillness of her grave. He can’t bring himself to visit her anymore. The last time he went to the cemetery was after the flood, to make sure she was still there and that her casket hadn’t floated to the surface. It hadn’t, of course. Deep down, he knew that thing that led him out to the water wasn’t his wife, but the promise of her return—oh, it’s too much to bear now. He prefers not to dwell on such things.
Instead, Jonathan passes his time watching the weather. He waits for a day just like today, when the rains will not let up. He waits for the conditions to be right. And when the sky opens up to let loose the furies of heaven, he remains steadfast in his resolve.
After he turns Donald away, the waters continue to rise, reaching record heights by mid-afternoon.
He doesn’t know what she really was, or why he was chosen to be her prey. He wonders if maybe there’s more to that story his daddy told him about the flood of aught-nine, but he will never know. Daddy’s long gone, for decades now, and all that’s left is speculation on Jonathan’s part.
So Jonathan waits. He sits at the foot of his stairs and watches the floodwaters rise high enough to trickle under the doorway. He looks at the revolver in his hand, runs his thumb along the length of the barrel, and wonders if she really was Glenda. And if she was, can he do what he needs to do? Can he do his duty and put his wife to rest?
He waits, and the waters stream into his home.
He waits. There’s a knock at the door. One-two-three.
He smiles.
The rain’s come again, and this time Jonathan is ready.
RADIO FREE NOWHERE
“What about this one?”
Conrad paused the radio scan, settling on a country station. Ashley clenched her fingers around the steering wheel and shot him a quick scowl before returning her eyes to the highway.
“I didn’t realize you had a death wish, Connie.”
He shook his head and held out his hands in defeat. “Come on, Ash. You don’t like Top 40. You don’t like country. You don’t like classic rock. You’re not leaving us much choice.”
“Relax,” she said, grinning. “And that’s not fair—I do like classic rock. Everybody likes classic rock.”
“Yeah, but we’re driving through Radio Free Nowhere right now. It’s a goddamn dead zone. We’ll be lucky to pick up anything between these mountains.” He tapped his knuckle against the window. “So if I’ve gotta suffer through this shit, you should too. I’m not the one who forgot the iPod.”
He had a point, but she didn’t think he had to know that. Truth was, she enjoyed driving in silence, listening to nothing but the hum of the engine and tires on the road. They were six hours into their road trip, having just crossed over into West Virginia courtesy of I-68, and still had another eight hours to go. She would’ve been content with spending the entire trip in silence if Connie would let her, but he insisted on making playlists for the drive.
Playlists he wouldn’t have a chance to broadcast. Her iPod was sitting at the back of a drawer in her bedroom. She knew this because she put it there. Connie was a sweet guy and she cared about him—maybe even loved him, but let’s not be hasty about things. And yet he had terrible taste in music.
The country station’s pop and twang gave way to static interjected with commentary from another station bleeding through the airwaves. She smirked.
“So much for that.”
“That’s enough out of you, smartass.” Conrad seemed angry, but when she glanced to her right she saw he was smiling, and she felt better about leaving the iPod. He twisted the radio dial. “If only we had one of those satellite receivers.”
“You know,” she began, “you could always try the AM band. Maybe listening to those holy rollers would do you some good, you godless heathen.”
He put his hand on her thigh and gave her a light squeeze. A pleasant chill worked its way down the back of her leg. “What, because we’re living in sin? Baby, if sleeping with you is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. Send me to the lake of fire—at least I’ll go with a big smile on my face.”
Ashley laughed, her cheeks flush with a sudden heat. Eyes on the road, she told herself. She lifted Conrad’s hand and put it back on his lap.
“Down, tiger. Wait until we get to a hotel.”
“You’re no fun, lady.”
“I’m plenty fun and you know it. Why don’t you check the GPS and find us a place to stop for the night?”
A smile slowly spread across Conrad’s face. “I like the way you think,” he said.
***
Conrad was still fiddling with the GPS when they pulled off the highway for gas an hour later. They drove for a few miles into the wilderness, following promises of a BP station back at the exit ramp. The gas station emerged before them like a petroleum oasis in a desert of trees, and when Ashley saw the gas pumps she breathed a sigh of relief. The fuel gauge
teetered on empty. Getting stranded out here was the last thing she wanted.
Ashley parked alongside one of the pumps and shut off the car. She yawned and blinked away her fatigue, wondering how truckers managed to drive for such long hours.
“This damn thing . . . ”
“Still no luck?”
He shook his head. “No. There’s something wrong with it. Like it picks up a signal but it won’t give me directions to anywhere but the destination. Everything’s locked out.”
Ashley took the device and pecked at the screen, but it remained frozen on the map, outlining their path in purple.
“Weird,” she said, handing the GPS back to him. She opened the door and climbed out. “Keep trying. You have better luck with gadgets than I do.”
“No shit,” he mumbled, tapping heavily at the screen. “I don’t need you to lose this too.”
“I heard that.”
She was filling up the car when she heard the music, a gentle tune carried on the back of a soft breeze. The trees rustled, and her hair was blown back over her shoulders. That faint sound tickled her ears, a light melody hummed by a voice too far away to be just a whisper, and yet its singer could have been no further than a few feet away. Ashley turned, surveying the parking lot and expecting to see another car with its windows down and radio on, but they were alone.
The soft music lilted along the air for just a moment longer before the breeze died, its abrupt end accented by the loud clunk of the gas pump shutting off. She screwed on the gas cap and made her way into the station.
“Evenin’, miss.”
The attendant tipped his hat and leered at her. He was middle-aged by the look of him, with a patch of silver stubble covering up dry, leathery skin.
“Pump two,” she said, placing two bills on the counter. When the attendant turned toward the register, she noticed a yellow ear plug stuffed into his ear.
Ugly Little Things Page 3