One
He was standing at the edge of Fulsom Park, a semi-public woodlands situated on a bluff above the city, which lay in a valley and lined the banks of the meandering Wetford river. In the distance he could make out the lights of Sea Dragons stadium, a brand new structure which was rumored to be mysteriously haunted. It marked the northern end of the city. Closer to him, the half dozen or so tallish buildings which boasted downtown. Even closer, the old abandoned waterfront, relic of the city's early trading days.
Dave turned his attention to that neighborhood. He felt drawn toward it and began to walk down the hillside, keeping off the main park road, cutting through the rocky ridge instead, remembering vaguely the stories about wolves and their secret caves thereabouts. He felt nothing. No fear. No fatigue. No cold. He just kept walking and soon he was entering the city through the narrow alleys and side streets that surrounded the old harbor. He saw no one and was pretty sure that no one saw him either.
Along the edge of the river he came across a narrow road and turned into it. At the end he stopped before an old bungalow and considered it. It was dark inside, but as it was still before dawn, that was no surprise. He studied its peeling white paint and the concrete steps that led to the front door. As if by magnet he felt himself pulled into the lawn and up those stairs, and then he heard his hand on the door, pounding on it steadily in a slow persistent rhythm. After a few minutes, the door swung open, and a grumpy old man stood before him, rubbing his eyes.
The man looked very familiar, with his buzz cut, his long brown face, that pencil mustache, the ubiquitous Hawaiian shirt. He felt he had come to this house and knocked on its door for a good reason, though he didn't know more than that. He tried to make a smile in greeting but his face was frozen, its features wouldn't move. For the first time, he felt a little troubled. He was unable to do what he wanted to do.
The man yawned and scratched his head a bit, then said,
"Davey. What are you doing here?"
He found he couldn't speak. He had no breath to push the sounds through his mouth. It was puzzling. He had some words in his mind but they wouldn't come out.
"And so damn early too", the man said. "Well, come on in if you're coming", and he turned away and Dave saw the man's slippers carry him into the house. He followed. The man's path led into the kitchen, where he began to fumble around with a coffee maker, while gesturing for Dave to sit down. He did.
"Nothing to say?" the man asked. "Or maybe you're in one of your moods?" he chuckled to himself. When he turned to look to see the effect of these words on his visitor, he saw Dave's head suddenly lurch to the left, and then, with great effort, slowly pull back to the right. It was the best he could do. The man didn't seem to notice his difficulty, but turned back towards his preparations. For the next few minutes, Dave sat there motionless while the old man made the coffee.
It wasn't until he'd poured the cups and came to sit down that the man seemed to really be aware of Dave. What he noticed was the smell.
"Phew!" he blurted out and, gagging, backed away, spilling some of the hot liquid on his arm and cursing about that.
"You stink, man!" he continued. "I mean, really. Ever take a bath or anything? Where've you been?"
Again, there was no answer from his guest, who tried to shrug or make any expression with his face to indicate some kind of communication. The fact was, he didn't know that he smelled bad. He wasn't smelling anything, even the drink in front of him.
"Got to clean you up", the man said. "Your old Uncle Ray can't deal with that stench, not this early at least". He tried to laugh it off, then he sat himself down at the far end of the table, and looked more intently at his nephew.
"Blood", he murmured. "You've been hurt, eh? I'll take a closer look in a minute, but first, the java", and he raised his cup and drank some.
"Can't do anything without my coffee", he muttered.
"Still got nothing to say?" he said a minute or two later. "It's not like you, Davey boy. Used to always have something to say. Couldn't shut you up half the time."
He gave a wink and a smile at this, but his visitor was still unable to respond. He was certainly trying. He was concentrating as hard as he could, attempting to move any facial muscle at all but it just wasn't happening. Eyebrows? Nope. Mouth? Wouldn't budge. Nose? Couldn't even crinkle it. Maybe if I could write something down, he thought, and turned his head towards the kitchen counter, while at the same time his hand jerked outward and his knuckles cracked against the side of the table.
"Looking for something, eh?" said Ray. "I wonder what. Hungry?"
Dave managed to swing his head to the left and the right again, this time a bit more controlled. He was shaking his head. Definitely. This could work.
"That's a no, I take it", Ray said, and this time Dave lifted his chin and lowered it to signal a 'yes'.
"And that's a yes", said Ray. "Now we're getting somewhere. More like twenty questions but better than nothing I guess."
After a pause he asked,
"Thirsty?"
Again Dave shook his head 'no'.
"Tired?"
Another 'no'. He jerked his hand up again and tried to make a writing motion. It was clumsy, awkward, but Uncle Ray figured it out after the third or fourth pantomimed attempt, and brought him a pencil and a piece of paper. He sat back again and watched as Dave struggled to make sensible markings. It was not coming easily and several times he had to cross out whatever he'd scribbled. He shook his head and would have sighed deeply if only he could breathe. Eventually he managed to write one word - wounded.
"Wounded?" Ray stood up. "Where? How? Let me take a look at you."
He came closer again, holding his breath this time so he wouldn't have to smell the guy. He took hold of Dave by the shoulders and turned him out from the table so he could see him entirely. Dave stretched up a bit and tried to glance down at his side to give Ray a hint, but Ray saw the gaping hole in front and was already ripping away the shirt. When he'd exposed the wound to air he gasped and had to turn away and exhale deeply.
"Holy mother of pearl", he exclaimed. "That's some wound, and hardly fresh, by the look of it. Man oh man! We've got to get you cleaned up, son. And I won't be taking any more of those shaken heads for an answer. I'm getting the tub started up right now", and he left to do what he said.
Dave followed willingly to the bathroom and tried his best to cooperate as Ray removed his clothing and helped him into a heaping hot bubble bath. Dave didn't feel it, not the water, not the heat, not the soap. He felt he'd lost all sense of all his senses except for sight and hearing. Couldn't smell, couldn't taste anything but dirt. Couldn't feel any touch. Couldn't speak. It was strange. It occurred to him that maybe he was in a coma, that all of this was just a dream. How would he know? How could he tell for sure?
Uncle Ray, the man said. My uncle? How is that? He didn't really remember him but something was very familiar; everything was. He felt at ease, without anxiety or worry. Uncle Ray was scrubbing his body, his face, his hands, his hair, the hole in his side.
"This ain't normal", Ray was saying. "Some of this junk just won't come off and that bloody wound. It won't be cleaned. I ought to know a thing or two. Haven't I been a barber now fifty years? You'd think I'd be having some idea but no. Ain't never seen nothing like this before. Wish you were talking, son. Well, maybe you're writing will get better and you can tell me what the heck is going on."
"Criminy. Look at that!" he nearly shouted and jumped back. While scrubbing Dave's face a patch of skin came clean off with the sponge, exposing the rawness beneath. Dave looked up at him with an attempt at a questioning look.
"Where you been?" Ray shook his head, as he helped Dave out of the tub, got him dried off and wrapped him up in an old worn robe.
"Still smells pretty bad", he muttered to himself, "and that wound, won't clean up at all, hardly. If I didn't know any better ..."
He paused to consider the implications of his thought. He tried to laugh it off but kept looking back at his nephew and with each glance the notion seemed less and less strange - less strange than the appearance of the young man, and the stink, and the blood, and the skin.
"It's like you were dead", he finally blurted out.
They were back in the kitchen, seated around the table once more. Dave hadn't touched his coffee. Ray had had three cups. Dave was writing once more.
'Under ground', he wrote, passing the note over to Ray, and then seizing another piece of paper and scribbling furiously.
'Dug out night'.
'In park', came the next note.
'One day', he pushed across the table.
Uncle Ray laid the notes side by side and repeated the words, then formed a sentence.
"You were in the ground. Dug yourself out. Last night. Up in the park. Fulsom Park?"
Dave nodded as best he could.
"You mean to say you were buried up there?"
Again a round of furious head bobbing. It was making sense now. After he had clawed his way out of the grave he had forgotten all about that. He had only been concerned with moving on. He had not been piecing together one moment to the next, but each moment was its own discrete reality. Now that he was sitting there, conversing in a manner, he was recalling the sequence, stringing together the facts. It could not be denied. He was dead.
"That would make you what they call a zombie", Uncle Ray shook his head in disbelief. "Or I guess you could look on the bright side. Some people might say you've been resurrected, boy. Hallelujah to that!"