Stranger Things Happen | Page 9

was grinding into the pillow,
bucking and pushing and pretending it was you, Stacy? under me, oh
fuck it felt good, just like when I was alive and when I came I said,
"Beatrice." And I remembered coming to get you in the hospital after
the miscarriage.
There were a lot of things I wanted to say. I mean, neither of us was
really sure that we wanted a baby and part of me, sure, was relieved
that I wasn't going to have to learn how to be a father just yet, but there
were still things that I wish I'd said to you. There were a lot of things I
wish I'd said to you.
You know who.
The dead man sets out across the interior of the island. At some point
after his first expedition, the hotel moved quietly back to its original
location, the dead man in his room, looking into the mirror, expression
intent, hips tilted against the cool tile. This flesh is dead. It should not
rise. It rises. Now the hotel is back beside the mailbox, which is empty
when he walks down to check it. The middle of the island is rocky,
barren. There are no trees here, the dead man realizes, feeling relieved.
He walks for a short distance-less than two miles, he calculates, before
he stands on the opposite shore. In front of him is a flat expanse of
water, sky folded down over the horizon. When the dead man turns
around, he can see his hotel, looking forlorn and abandoned. But when
he squints, the shadows on the back veranda waver, becoming a crowd
of people, all looking back at him. He has his hands inside his pants, he
is touching himself. He takes his hands out of his pants. He turns his
back on the shadowy porch. He walks along the shore. He ducks down
behind a sand dune, and then down a long hill. He is going to circle
back. He is going to sneak up on the hotel if he can, although it is hard
to sneak up on something that always seems to be trying to sneak up on
you. He walks for a while, and what he finds is a ring of glassy stones,

far up on the beach, driftwood piled inside the ring, charred and black.
The ground is trampled all around the fire, as if people have stood there,
waiting and pacing. There is something left in tatters and skin on a spit
in the center of the campfire, about the size of a cat. The dead man
doesn't look too closely at it. He walks around the fire. He sees tracks
indicating where the people who stood here, watching a cat roast, went
away again. It would be hard to miss the direction they are taking. The
people leave together, rushing untidily up the dune, barefoot and heavy,
the imprints of the balls of the foot deep, heels hardly touching the sand
at all. They are headed back towards the hotel. He follows the
footprints, sees the single track of his own footprints, coming down to
the fire. Above, in a line parallel to his expedition and to the sea, the
crowd has walked this way, although he did not see them. They are
walking more carefully now, he pictures them walking more quietly.
His footprints end. There is the mailbox, and this is where he left the
hotel. The hotel itself has left no mark. The other footprints continue
towards the hotel, where it stands now, small in the distance. When the
dead man gets back to the hotel, the lobby floor is dusted with sand,
and the television is on. The reception is slightly improved. But no one
is there, although he searches every room. When he stands on the back
veranda, staring out over the interior of the island, he imagines he sees
a group of people, down beside the far shore, waving at him. The sky
begins to fall.
Dear Araminta? Kiki? Lolita? Still doesn't have the right ring to it, does
it? Sukie? Ludmilla? Winifred?
I had that same not-dream about the faculty party again. She was there,
only this time you were the one who recognized her, and I was trying to
guess her name, who she was. Was she the tall blonde with the nice ass,
or the short blonde with the short hair who kept her mouth a little open,
like she was smiling all the time? That one looked like she knew
something I wanted to know, but so did you. Isn't that funny? I never
told you who she was, and now I can't remember. You probably knew
the whole time anyway, even if you didn't think you did. I'm pretty sure
you