B003UYURTC EBOK (20 page)

“Cullen, people can’t give up on other people yet. We all get a second chance, you know? We get to start over like Noah after the flood. No matter how evil man gets, he always gets a second chance one way or another.”

Book Title #85:
God Knows What.

When one is lying on the floor of his bedroom exactly ten weeks and three days after his brother has vanished off the face of the Earth, he begins to imagine quite a grandiose scene. The doorbell rings and his mother, in a black dress, opens it up to greet his aunt Julia and her husband, the doctor James Fouke, by her side. He doesn’t look dead at all, Cullen Witter thinks to himself, getting up from the floor and moving to the couch. The doorbell rings again as Julia and James move into the kitchen. He jumps up and beats his mother to the door, opening it to
find a nicely groomed Lucas Cader, necktie and all, with Mena Prescott attached to his right arm. She is wearing a black dress as well, only hers has no straps and is much tighter fitting. He silently motions them to go into the living room, and as soon as he tries to shut the door, he sees someone else approaching. He waits there, holding the door open, until Ada Taylor walks through, kisses his cheek, and continues on into the house. He shuts the door, shaking his head with a smile, and walks slowly into the kitchen where he finds his parents, aunt, and uncle all raising champagne glasses into the air.
Clink.

He walks into the living room but turns around as soon as the doorbell rings once again. The door opens before he can get to it and Oslo Fouke steps in, smiling, in a white button-down shirt and black necktie. He smirks at his cousin, looks him up and down, and shakes his outstretched hand. Oslo steps to one side and walks into the living room, where he takes a seat beside Lucas and Mena on the couch. He asks Lucas about school. He comments on Mena’s dress. He does not look dead either as he asks Ada Taylor to dance and they begin to sway in the center of the room. From behind them, Cullen Witter sees someone walk down the hall. He tries to stand up on his tiptoes to see over his guests and as he does, Gabriel Witter comes walking into the room from the opposite side, turns his eyebrows up at his cousin, and walks right past Cullen, lightly patting his shoulder. He sees Gabriel’s mouth moving, but no sound comes out. He notices the same thing when anyone else tries to speak in his direction.

Alma Ember and her mother barge into the house with an odd
familiarity and go directly into the dining room, where Cullen believes he hears the faintest sounds of laughter. He steps into the room, and instead of finding a four-chaired wooden table bought on sale at Lily’s only furniture store, he sees a long table with eight chairs on each side and one on each end. The table is covered in a white lace cloth and dotted by silver platters with lids, bowls of grapes, baskets of bread, and glasses of bubbling liquids. His parents are seated at either end of the table, and his aunt and uncle are right next to his mom on the left side. Alma and her mother take a seat next to them, and as Cullen tries to leave the room, his friends pour through the doorway and take their seats.

Just as Cullen surveys the room for a seat of his own, Russell Quitman stands before him, his friend Neil at his heels, and extends a hand. Cullen shakes it, noting this to be the first time, and motions them toward the table, staring down at Russell’s working legs as the two walk away. Neil turns back to wink at Cullen and makes an I’m-shooting-an-imaginary-yet-playful-gun-at-you hand gesture his way. Cullen stays by the door and waits only a few seconds before hearing someone else walking up the porch steps. John Barling, Shirley Dumas, and Fulton all file into the house and greet Cullen with handshakes and smiles. They make their way into the dining room as Cullen looks at them in confusion and shakes his head. He leaves the door open now and retreats to the dining room with all the others.

He takes a seat to the left of his father, who is saying something that Cullen cannot hear. He tries intently to read his father’s lips but can’t seem to pick up on what he is saying.
Bored with this, he reaches across the table to take the lid off a huge silver platter. Just as he does so, a hand slaps his away. It is Shirley Dumas, who smiles at him and shakes her head as if to say,
It’s not time yet, young man.
He smiles, picking up his glass to take a sip of whatever has been poured into it. He tastes nothing, though, and puts it back down. He looks across the table and beside him and down at the opposite end. Everyone is smiling. Talking. Laughing. He feels hands placed on his shoulders and turns to find Gabriel, standing there with a guitar strapped around his neck and arm. Gabriel smiles down at Cullen and walks over to their mom’s end of the table. He pulls out the empty chair to her left and stands up on it, beginning to tune his guitar. Cullen looks around; everyone has stopped talking. Their smiles remain.

His brother begins to strum the guitar with what looks like skill but sounds to Cullen like nothing but silence. He wonders when his brother got back and when he learned to play guitar. He sits back in his seat, though, and watches intently as everyone begins to move slowly to whatever song Gabriel is playing. He looks up to see Gabriel’s lips moving. He is singing now. His eyes are closed. He is really killing this silent song, Cullen thinks. He watches the guests watching his brother, Mena resting her head on Lucas’s shoulder, Oslo holding a cigarette lighter in the air, his mom wiping happy tears from her eyes. And then he sees something out of the corner of his own eye. It is red, black, and white, and it is fast. He looks up at Gabriel, still strumming, still singing, and he sees resting on his shoulder a two-foot-tall Lazarus woodpecker. He looks around to find that no one seems
to be concerned with it. He looks directly at John Barling and tries to call out to him, but no words leave his lips. John Barling sits in silence, a big dumb smile on his bristly face, with Shirley Dumas swaying beside him. The doorbell rings. Cullen jumps up, runs through the kitchen, and sees Vilonia Kline standing behind the screen door. He motions her in. She shoots him a smile. She walks in front of him and takes a seat, waving to everyone at the table but then looking up to admire Gabriel’s performance.

Cullen stands in the back corner of the room. He examines the faces of his friends, his family, of people he barely knows and people he can’t stand the sight of. He leans his back against the wall. He still hears nothing. He tries to scream “HELLO!” but nothing comes out once again. His father looks back at him and motions for him to sit down. He does. He watches his brother with everyone else. He wishes he could hear the song. He wishes he could hear his brother’s voice one more time. He looks at the bird. It looks back at him and flaps its wings one dramatic time. Its beady eyes are fixed on his. It opens its mouth, perhaps making a sound, but maybe not. Cullen can’t tell. He cringes at the closeness of the bird’s large bill to his brother’s neck, wishing it would fly away. It doesn’t. It stays there and begins moving its head up and down as if dancing in its own way to the silent song. Cullen looks across the table at Neil and then over at Russell, whose jaw is beginning to droop strangely. He motions to Russell, pointing to his own jaw, but Russell waves his motion away and points up to Gabriel. He looks over at Oslo and sees the same thing happening to his jaw. His eyes
also begin to droop. His face becomes completely contorted. He looks back at Russell; his eyes are doing this as well. Cullen stands up, backs away from the table, and realizes that everyone around him is beginning to look very strange. His back bumps into the wall, and he lowers himself to the floor. The people in front of him become zombies, moving slowly, standing up, all leaning to one side or the other, eyes hung low, mouths open, and swinging dead-like. They all stand in place, still focused on Gabriel, who remains normal, still strumming, still singing. He looks down at Cullen. And though his lips are still moving, he appears to be frightened. Cullen looks to Lucas Cader but finds a zombie in his place. He stands up and reaches for his brother. Gabriel does not move. Cullen shakes his little brother’s shoulder, and the guitar falls to one side. The bird flies off across the room and lands on Oslo’s head. Gabriel looks at him blankly, his face still human, his eyes still frightened, and he mouths Cullen’s name before crashing headfirst onto the table. Cullen backs away again, tries to make his way to the door, but runs into something. He turns around and sees his house full of these same unhuman beings. They all walk toward him, their arms outstretched, their heads bobbing, their feet dragging. He climbs up on the table and tries to lift Gabriel’s head. He suddenly finds nothing in his hands but empty clothes. He begins to scream and nothing comes out. He does it again. Still nothing. He closes his eyes. He clenches his fists. He opens his mouth as wide as it will go and lets out the loudest sound he’s ever made. He opens his eyes to find himself sitting on the table in an empty room. He counts the chairs; there are four on each side. He hops
down, shakes his head, and straightens his hair with one hand. He walks into the kitchen and sits down beside his brother at the breakfast table. His brother looks over at him and says, in a whisper, “This is how it ends.”

Book Title #86:
Zombie Dinner Party.

           It was hard for Alma to surrender to the fact that returning to Lily was probably in her best interest. She was no longer in college, having dropped out during her third semester because of morning sickness, two Ds, and one F. Lily, she thought, would be simpler than Savannah. More familiar. More supportive. And most important, Lily would have less Cabot Searcy. Since she’d left him, Cabot had continued harassing her, calling late at night, showing up with flowers or candy or big stuffed bears, sending messages to her through friends and acquaintances. His efforts had proven unsuccessful, and this became quite evident when he was served divorce papers by a short, stocky man named something like Carl or Joe.

Beverly paid for Alma’s flight home. She hugged her tightly. She cried. She whispered into her only granddaughter’s ear, “You are so loved.” Alma boarded the second flight of her life and within two hours she was back in Arkansas, standing near baggage claim and waiting to see her mother appear on the escalator. When she did, everything was good and nobody was sad. The crowd moved around them, people running into one another, mothers trying to keep up with their children, husbands telling their wives to hurry up, luggage wheels rolling and squeaking, an electronic voice announcing a delayed flight.

Cabot Searcy had talked to his wife only once since she’d moved back to Arkansas, and just long enough for her to beg him once again to sign the papers so she could get on with her life. In response to his endless questions as to why she’d left him, Alma hung up the phone. This was the same day that Cabot Searcy fell asleep and saw what he called a heavenly vision. He stood alone in a treeless field, nothing but stumps and dead limbs scattered around him. From above his head a beam of slightly green light set his body aglow. He heard a voice and saw himself look up into the sky. When he woke up, he repeated what little he could remember, a verse from Hebrews about Enoch: “Taken up so he should not see death; and he was not found.”

“What’s it matter if they find that bird or not?” Alma Ember asked her mother some weeks later.

“Well, sweetie, something like this could cause a lot of business
and such to come to town. Lily could use all the people it can get, ya know?” her mother replied.

“Guess so.” Alma shrugged.

“Plus, isn’t it excitin’ to think that something can just come back like that?”

“So it’s just been hiding here for all these years?” Alma asked.

“Yeah,” her mom said back.

“Seems like it didn’t wanna be found,” Alma said, filing her fingernails.

That night in bed, Alma Ember thought about how similar she and the Lazarus woodpecker were. They both left. They both came back. They both wanted to be as invisible as possible. She imagined herself sitting by the river and watching hundreds of birds fly all around and above her. She laughed at the thought of being there, seeing that amazing thing that was giving everyone in town so much hope. She decided then that if ever she were to catch a glimpse of the bird, she would tell no one. She would simply smile, nod her head, and continue on with whatever she was doing, knowing that she had saved the bird in some small way.

It was by chance that Alma ran into an old friend from church at the grocery store one day. He asked her how she was, told her she looked great, and with all the confidence in the world asked her if the rumors were true about her getting married. She hid nothing, laughing through the entire conversation, and said little about Cabot save for mentioning that he had gone “a little bit crazy.” This encounter was the first time since she’d moved back that Alma felt unjudged. The first time she’d been able to
talk about it without feeling stupid. And all of this with some high schooler she hadn’t seen since she graduated. Yes, Lucas Cader had made her day. And though their conversation had ended minutes before, Lucas approached her once more in the parking lot and asked her a surprising question.