Waking Lazarus (32 page)

Odum was clean.

Jude checked the cuffs one last time to make sure Odum was secure. He closed the door and went to the other side. As he slid in, Odum opened his eyes for the first time. He stared blearily as Jude started the vehicle and turned it around. Jude held the gun so Odum could see it; Odum stared at it but said nothing.

They drove in silence for a few minutes before Odum spoke. ‘‘Well, doesn’t this just beat all?’’ he said.

Jude stayed silent. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Kristina; she returned his gaze, said nothing. Now wasn’t the time to talk. They would have plenty of time to talk when they got back to Red Lodge.

Odum moved slowly, slurred a bit as he talked; the chloroform hadn’t worn off all the way yet.

‘‘Mr. Gress, I’d like to congratulate you on your psychic vision thing. Well done. Maybe you should go into business with Dionne Warwick.’’ He chuckled. Jude said nothing; he was too tired, too drained to talk. And he was still afraid. Very afraid.

‘‘But I bet there’s one thing you didn’t see coming tonight,’’ Odum continued. ‘‘One very big thing.’’

Odum stopped. Obviously he was waiting for Jude to answer. Okay, Jude could humor the man. ‘‘What is that, Chief Odum?’’

‘‘This.’’

It happened so fast, Jude barely saw it. Odum’s cuffed hands snapped out and grabbed the steering wheel, wresting control from Jude. Jude, in his surprise, dropped the pistol, putting both hands on the steering wheel. Odum was stronger, so much stronger, and the car was already off the road before Jude could react and get his foot to the brake.

A canyon, it’s a canyon
, Jude thought as the car sailed through the crisp autumn air. And yes, of course they were in a canyon. In a heartbeat Jude thought of Nathan and Rachel and mouthed the words, ‘‘Please, please, please . . .’’ He saw the rocky bottom approaching, and Jude had the sensation not so much that they were falling, but that the earth was rushing up to meet them.

42

WAKING

Rachel was stunned when she walked into the hospital room. It couldn’t be possible, couldn’t be possible at all. Too much damage. The rational side of her brain told her this, let her know all the things it had categorized as possible and impossible.

And then the voice inside—in harmony with her son’s voice— assured her of what was real.

The octopus Nicole was gone. The smiling, vibrant Nicole was back, sitting up in her bed. After a few days in intensive care, she had been transferred to a private room, and this was the first time Rachel had seen her since . . . since.

‘‘Thanks for taking Bradley for a few days,’’ Nicole said. Amazing. A little slurred speech, but no paralysis of any kind. Nicole Whittaker had taken a bullet to the brain, and now, just a few days later, she was sitting up and talking.
Miracles still happen
, the voice inside her said. Rachel smiled. Yes, miracles did indeed still happen.

‘‘Bradley is welcome at our house any time. In an odd sort of way, since they went through the whole—’’ Rachel paused and searched for a word to describe what the boys and Nicole had endured, yet no such word existed—‘‘the whole thing together, I think they’ve been kind of healing together, too.’’ She smiled at Nicole. ‘‘Sounds crazy, I know.’’

‘‘No, it doesn’t,’’ Nicole said. ‘‘It sounds perfectly sane to me.’’

‘‘He’s just down the hallway, in the play area with the nurse,’’ Rachel said. ‘‘You wanna see him?’’

A tear slid from Nicole’s eye as she nodded. Rachel backed out into the hall again and waved at the nurses’ station.

‘‘They told me I should have been a vegetable,’’ Nicole said. ‘‘And without Bradley, without him, I think I would have been.’’

Rachel nodded, sensing Nicole needed to get out something important.

‘‘I don’t really remember much. But I had the strangest dream,’’ Nicole continued, wiping at her eyes. Rachel grabbed the box of tissues from the nightstand and handed it to her. ‘‘You ever have that dream where you’re trying to run, but you can’t seem to get out of slow motion? Like you’re in molasses or something?’’

Rachel smiled, nodded.

‘‘Well, that’s what was happening, and then I heard you.’’

Rachel stiffened. ‘‘Me?’’ she said.

Nicole dabbed at her eyes with the tissue. ‘‘Yeah. I remember exactly what you said: ‘Nicole, he’s okay. And we’ll bring him back. Just hang on to that.’ When I heard that, I could run. Somehow I knew I was going to be fine. Nutso, huh?’’

Rachel took Nicole’s hand between her own hands, cradling Nicole’s palm as she had done just a few days before. ‘‘No,’’ Rachel answered softly. ‘‘It sounds perfectly sane to me.’’ They smiled at each other.

‘‘So how’s Boo Rad—er, Ron—doing?’’ Nicole asked.

‘‘Well, for starters, his name isn’t Ron. I have a long story when you get out of here,’’ Rachel said. ‘‘But the short story is: he’s fine. With you and him in the same hospital at the same time, I think we have a lot of doctors scratching their heads right now.’’

‘‘Mommy?’’

Rachel turned and saw Bradley standing at the doorway, accompanied by the nurse. His eyes were bright, joyous. He ran across the room to Nicole’s bed, and Rachel helped him crawl up into bed next to his mother. Nicole hugged her son, long and hard, and Rachel knew what she was thinking at this very moment:
I’m not going to ever
let him go
. Jude opened his eyes, stared at the wall of the hospital room. He was in a bed. He was smiling.

He knew he’d been to the Other Side again, but this time had been entirely different. His heart still pounded with the joy of it, his lungs still held the crisp, living air. Most of all, his lips still tingled with the aftertaste of the Other Side: a taste like the sweetest, purest honey he had ever imagined.

A taste nothing like copper.

At the base of the bed, a doctor was intently studying charts on a clipboard. Jude cleared his throat, and the doctor looked up. Jude recognized the look in the doctor’s eyes. It was a look he knew well, a look that said
my status has just left my quo
. A look Jude had seen on a few doctors’ faces in his lifetime. Or should that be lifetimes?

‘‘I . . . uh . . .’’ the doctor stammered. ‘‘You’re alive. I mean, awake.’’

‘‘Old habits die hard,’’ Jude answered.

‘‘What’s that?’’

‘‘Nothing. Why’s my bed up like this?’’

The doctor seemed puzzled. Clearly this was not the first question he’d expected out of a resurrected patient. ‘‘I’m sorry, uh—’’

‘‘I mean, why is my bed up instead of down?’’

‘‘Oh. Well, your wife . . . she’s been coming in, and she said you’d be more comfortable that way. That you preferred to sleep sitting up. And since there wasn’t any clinical reason to keep you flat on your back . . .’’ Jude smiled.
Your wife
. Rachel wasn’t his wife, of course— although the sound of the doctor saying the words sounded oddly sweet. Still, he made no move to correct the doctor. In an odd sort of way, he enjoyed the thought himself.

‘‘You were in a serious accident,’’ the doctor began. Jude recognized the beginning of the sermon, usually entitled something like
You’re Here and You Shouldn’t Be, and I’m Trying to Figure Out Why
. ‘‘When they brought you in, you were clinically—’’

‘‘Dead?’’ Jude finished.

‘‘Yes. We couldn’t detect a respiration, or any brain activity—’’

A thought flashed into Jude’s mind. Kristina. Kristina had been in the car with him. ‘‘What about, um, the other passengers?’’

‘‘Michael Odum? Dead on arrival, I’m afraid.’’ The doctor looked at him uncomfortably, and Jude could tell the doctor desperately wanted to add
but then, so were you
. So Odum was dead. He somehow knew that would be the case.

‘‘Actually, I meant Kristina.’’

The doctor’s eyebrows furrowed. ‘‘I’m sorry?’’

‘‘Kristina. She was in the backseat.’’

The doctor put on a new look, the old
I don’t know what you’re
talking about, but then, you did take a pretty good hit to the head
look. ‘‘I’m sorry, you’re mistaken,’’ the doctor said, finally getting to use a bit of condescension in his voice. ‘‘There wasn’t anyone else in the car.’’

Jude blinked a couple of times. The familiar bloom of surfacing memories burst before his eyes in vivid color again, and he saw. He
saw
.

Rewind
. Eight years old. The hospital morgue. The crisp, linen sheet rolls back, and the smiling face of a woman looks down at him.

Kristina.

Fast-forward
. Kristina sits in his house. ‘‘Let’s just say I won’t be here very long,’’ Kristina says.

Rewind
. Sixteen years old. His hospital room. The nurse tells him there’s something special about him, then serves him dinner.

Kristina.

Fast-forward
. The Red Lodge Cafe. ‘‘I’m not here for me,’’ Kristina says. ‘‘I’m here for you.’’

Rewind
. Twenty-four years old. The hospital lobby. The woman opens the emergency door and lets him escape.

Kristina.

Fast-forward
. Odum’s car. ‘‘You’re a prophet, Jude,’’ Kristina says. ‘‘Like Moses. A messenger.’’

Play
. Now. Thirty-two years old. Kristina’s cryptic notes, scribbled on sticky papers:
Eight, sixteen, twenty-four . . . see a pattern here?
Yes. Crazy eights, signifying a new beginning, a resurrection. And the next number in that pattern was thirty-two. Jude’s present age.

Jude looked back to the doctor.

‘‘Are you okay?’’ the doctor asked. ‘‘You seem a little flushed.

Experiencing any—’’ ‘‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’’ Jude said, although he wasn’t. A door had been opened inside his head. ‘‘Could you hand me the phone there?’’

The doctor kept his gaze fixed on Jude a few more moments, then moved to the phone. He handed it to Jude, and Jude immediately dialed. He still remembered the phone number.

‘‘Thanks for calling the Stumble Inn. How can I help you?’’ the voice on the line said.

‘‘Could I get room 305, please?’’

A pause.

‘‘I’m sorry, sir, could you say that again?’’

‘‘Room 305.’’

‘‘Well, sir, we don’t have a room 305. Could it be another room?’’

Jude paused. ‘‘You’re telling me there’s no such room?’’

‘‘That’s what I’m telling you. We only have two floors.’’

‘‘Okay, thanks.’’

‘‘Sorry I couldn’t help, sir.’’

Jude smiled. ‘‘Actually, you have helped. Quite a bit.’’ Jude hung up the phone and handed it back to the doctor.

‘‘Out of curiosity,’’ he said to the doctor, ‘‘what room am I in right now?’’

‘‘I was just thinking of that while you talked,’’ the doctor said. ‘‘A strange coincidence that you’re in patient room 305.’’

Of course. ‘‘Coincidence,’’ Jude said with a smile. ‘‘That’s me. Mr.

Coincidence.’’ Jude somehow knew inside that every time he had been in the hospital, he had always been in room 305. He didn’t know the significance of the number, and maybe there was nothing horribly significant about the number itself. But it was a sign. One of those infamous signs Kristina had referred to, big as life and glaring in front of his face.

‘‘One more thing,’’ the doctor said. ‘‘I did some tests because, well—’’

‘‘Yeah?’’

‘‘Anyway, I’d like you to start taking an iron supplement.’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘You’re anemic. Happens more often to women, but sometimes in men, too. If you don’t get your iron up, you might experience some disorientations—strange smells, maybe—’’ ‘‘Strange tastes?’’

‘‘Yeah, I suppose. If it gets serious enough, it might even cause memory lapses.’’

Jude thought about it. The copper taste, the blackouts, the visions . . . could they all be symptoms of anemia? It seemed good old science was trying to explain everything for him now.

Trying.

Jude smiled and leaned back against his pillow. ‘‘Does this bed go back any farther? Like flat?’’

‘‘Sure it does,’’ the doctor said. ‘‘You want to lie down?’’

‘‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’’

Jude pulled on his first shoe, then reached down to tie it. He stopped, closed his eyes for a moment, concentrated on all the sounds filtering in around him. He heard a doctor being paged out in the hallway. A low cough from someone in the next room. A muffled television playing some atrocious sitcom. The squeaking of rubber shoes on the linoleum outside.

And then, a squealed ‘‘Daddy!’’ Jude opened his eyes, looked toward the door marked 305, saw his son standing in the doorway—
his
son, radiant and perfect—and smiled.

Nathan bounded across the floor and leaped into Jude’s arms. Jude embraced him, drank in the smell and feel of having his son close, and knew he would do everything possible to hang on to those feelings forever.

Rachel appeared at the doorway and walked across the floor toward the bed. ‘‘How are you feeling?’’ she asked.

‘‘Never better,’’ he answered. And it wasn’t just a fluff answer. It was the truth.

‘‘We have a present for you, Daddy,’’ Nathan said.

Jude held Nathan at arm’s length and grinned, then looked at Rachel. She shrugged her shoulders and brought a wrapped gift out of the shopping bag she was holding.

Jude took the package, made a show of shaking it and trying to figure out what it was. ‘‘Is it a new car?’’ Jude asked.

‘‘No!’’ Nathan squealed with delight.

‘‘A big pot of spaghetti? Spaghetti’s my favorite, you know.’’

‘‘No, no!’’

‘‘How about—’’

‘‘Just open it, Daddy. You’ll see.’’

Jude pulled off the ribbon and tore at the paper. Inside was a box kite. He stared at the kite a few moments, let the memories of a chilly Nebraska morning spent with his father blow across his mind. Then he fixed his eyes on Rachel. ‘‘Thank you.’’

She shrugged again. ‘‘You talked about flying one with your dad. Maybe Nathan should fly one with his.’’

Jude turned back to Nathan. ‘‘It’s the second-best present I’ve ever been given,’’ Jude said. ‘‘You remember the first best?’’

‘‘My hand?’’ Nathan whispered.

‘‘You got it.’’ Jude slipped on his other shoe and started to tie it.

‘‘And look, Daddy, I got a present, too.’’ Nathan reached into his pocket, fished out something, and held it up. It was a small wood carving of a frog with a crown on its head. A frog prince. ‘‘The other Mr. Janitor gave it to me.’’