Scott's Resurrection

He began to go back and forth at a faster clip, pouring over Scott's body like water poured from one glass to another and then back

again.

The only sound in the room was the tearing rasp of his respiration and the rising pulse of the storm.

There came the moment when Scott drew a deep, dry breath.

His hands rattled and pounded aimlessly on the table.

Bosz screeched and exited. One of the women followed him, her eyes wide and her wimple billowing.

The ebony man went across once more, twice, thrice. The body on the table was vibrating now, trembling and rapping and twitching like a large yet essentially lifeless doll with some monstrous clockwork hidden inside.

The smell of rot and feces and decay billowed up in choking waves. There came a moment when his eyes opened.

Alina felt her numb and feelingless feet propelling her backward. She struck the mirror, making it tremble, and blind panic took over.

She bolted like a steer.

"So here's your wonder," the ebony man called after her, panting. "I've given it to you. Now you can sleep easily.

Even that isn't irreversible. Although it's . . . so . . . goddamned . . . funny!"

And he began to laugh again. The sound faded as she raced up the stairs, not stopping until the door to the three rooms above the bar was bolted.

She began to giggle then, rocking back and forth on her haunches by the door.

The sound rose to a keening wail that mixed with the wind. She kept hearing the sound Scott had made when he came back to life—the sound of fists banging blindly on the lid of a coffin.

What thoughts, she wondered, could be left in his reanimated brain?

What had he seen while dead? How much did he remember? Would he tell? Were the secrets of the grave waiting downstairs?

The most terrible thing about such questions, she reckoned, was that part of you wanted to ask.

Below her, Scott roamed absently out into the storm to pull some weed.

The ebony man, now the only patron in the bar, perhaps watched him go, perhaps still grinning.

When she forced herself to go back down that evening, carrying a lamp in one hand and a heavy stick of stovewood in the other, the ebony man was gone, rig and all.

But Scott was there, sitting at the table by the door as if he had never been away.

The smell of the weed was on him, but not as heavily as she might have expected.

He looked up at her and smiled tentatively. "Hello, Alice."

"Hello, Scott." She put the stovewood down and began lighting the lamps, not turning her back to him.

"I been touched by God," he said presently. "I am going to die no more. He said so. It was a promise."

"How nice for you, Scott." The spill she was holding dropped through her trembling fingers and she picked it up.

"I'd like to stop chewing the grass," he said. "I don't enjoy it no more. It doesn't seem right for a man touched by God to be chewing the weed."

"Then why don't you stop?"

Her exasperation had startled her into looking at him as a man again, rather than an infernal miracle.

What she saw was a rather sad-looking example only half-stoned, looking hangdog and ashamed.

She could not be frightened by him anymore.

"I shake," he said. "And I want it. I can't stop. Allie, you were always good to me . . ." He began to weep.

"I can't even stop peeing myself. What am I? What am I?"

She walked to the table and hesitated there, uncertain.

"He could have made me not want it," he said through the tears. "He could have done that if he could have made me alive.

I ain't complaining . . . I don't want to complain . . ." He looked around hauntedly and whispered, "He might strike me dead if I did."

"Maybe it's a joke. He seemed to have quite a sense of humor."

Scott took his poke from where it dangled inside his shirt and brought out a handful of grass.

Unthinkingly she knocked it away and then drew her hand back, horrified.

"I can't help it, Alice, I can't," and he made a crippled dive for the poke.

She could have stopped him, but she made no effort. She went back to lighting the lamps, tired although the evening had barely begun.

But nobody came in that night except the old man Almiron, who had missed everything.

He did not seem particularly surprised to see Scott.

Perhaps, someone had told him what had happened. He ordered a beer, asked where Bosz was and pawed her.

Later, Scott came to her and held out a folded piece of paper in one shaky no-right-to-be-alive hand.

"He left you this," he said. "I nearly forgot. If I'd forgotten, he would come back and kill

me, sure."

Paper was valuable, an item much to be treasured, but she didn't like to handle this. It felt heavy and nasty.

Written on it was a single word: Alice

"How'd he know my name?" she asked Scott, and Scott only shook his head.

She opened it and read this:

You want to know about Death. I left him a word. That word is NINETEEN. If you say it to him his mind will be opened. He will tell you what lies beyond.

He will tell you what he saw.

The word is NINETEEN.

Knowing will drive you mad.

But sooner or later you will ask.

You won't be able to help yourself.

Have a nice day! V

Walter o' Dim

P.S. The word is NINETEEN.

You will try to forget but sooner or later it will come out of your mouth like vomit.

NINETEEN.

And oh dear God, she knew that she would.

Already it trembled on her lips. Nineteen, she would say—Scott, listen: Nineteen.

And the secrets of Death and the land beyond would be opened to her.

Sooner or later you will ask.

The next day things were almost normal, although none of the children followed Scott.

The day after that, the catcalls resumed. Life had gotten back on its sweet keel.

The uprooted corn was gathered together by the children, and a week after Scott's resurrection, they burned it in the middle of the street.