Unbury Carol(99)
As he watched the doctor study her, he held one bloodied shirtsleeve over his mouth to block the smell of the man.
“I want to help her this time,” Moxie said. “I’m ready.”
The doctor shook his head no.
“I don’t want to turn my back on her this time.”
The doctor shook his head no. Dust rose from the top of his head.
“She’s alive, Doctor. I felt her heart beating myself.”
When the doctor started to say no once again, Moxie grabbed him by his blue suit and thrust him against the wall.
The doctor turned to dirt in his hands, thick earth sliding down the wall to the floor.
Moxie, gripping only the stained suit now, heard the front door open and close. He turned to see the back of Carol leaving, going quickly past the storefront’s cracked window.
She was no longer on the table.
“You see! She lives…”
Moxie moved fast, following her out the door. Crazed, he looked up and down Main Street. He grabbed strangers by their wrists.
“Have you seen her?” he shouted. “Have you seen her?”
People backed away from him. One called out for Sheriff Opal.
Moxie saw her standing in a second-story window of the Corey Hotel.
His boots thundered across the planked boardwalk and he entered the building, splintering the door as he did.
“Can I assist you, sir?” a voice called from deep within the fog, from beyond the images of four fiery circles, a heart exploded, dirt piled tall as the pines, and eyes opening to find themselves in the dark, in a box, buried.
Moxie climbed the hotel stairs fast and, gun drawn, kicked open the door to the second floor.
Rot stood at the window at the end of the hall, facing him.
The voice from the barbershop, from the cell in Albert’s Port, and from the other side of that fire, too, greeted Moxie.
The voice that encouraged him long ago to leave Carol.
“James Moxie. What a joy to have you here. Here…and not in the graveyard where you’d rather be.”
Moxie understood.
He fired.
The form did not recoil.
Moxie ground his teeth and fired again.
“You won’t stop me,” he said. “Not today.”
“Do you really think you would have chosen differently this time had I let the illusion persist?”
Moxie fired again.
Nothing.
“You were at the barbershop, beneath a towel.”
“Yes.”
“You were behind the bars in Albert’s Port.”
“Yes.”
“You spoke from the other side of the fire.”
“Yes.”
“And you were there, in a tavern, long ago. You told me to leave her.”
“Yes.”
“Are you death?”
“No. I am Rot.”
“I’ll give you someone else to rot.”
The eyes grew wider, trembling disks in a vague face.
“You were going to kill the husband no matter what deal we make.”
“Take the Cripple then. We’re even.”
The form laughed.
“The Cripple? I already got more from the Cripple than you can imagine. No, Moxie. The Cripple isn’t fair trade.”
“You won’t stop me. Not today.”
“I already have.”
Moxie turned back to the door through which he’d come and saw it was no longer there. In its place was the same length of hall, the same form at the far end of it, Rot, standing before the same window.
“Tell me who you want.”
“I want Carol Evers, Moxie. You know that.”
“Why her?”
“Because she’s come so close to rotting so many times. Because she mocks the end of things. Because she’s been places nobody else has.”
“She’s not dead.”
“Do you think I don’t know whether or not she is dead?”
The lines of the thing’s face moved independent of one another. His skin rippled like goat’s milk. For a brief, horrific beat, Moxie saw Rot as he truly was. Sickly, balding, slumped; fueled by the power of lust alone. Then he was indeterminate, vague once more.
“There’s no funeral happening today.”
“Isn’t there? A casket has been sent.”
“I’ll break it apart.”
Moxie stepped forward again but the length of the hall did not change. He turned and saw the man still there, hovering by the second window, a reflection of the first.
Moxie said, “Let me go.”
“But that’s not what I want to do.”
Moxie could sense a clock ticking. Time running out. Carol in the casket.
“Let me go.”
“But that’s not what I’m going to do.”
“She’s not dead.”
“Oh?”
“You wouldn’t be here with me if she was.”
Moxie moved, but the lengths of the hall before him and behind him did not change. And Rot at both windows did not change but for the black dirt writhing in the wrinkles of his face…
* * *
—
…Farrah truly planned to avoid the burial when she left the house, but realized she’d been walking toward the cemetery after all.