The Dead Zone Read online

  Just looking at it made that formless dread come back, and without thinking about it, Johnny suddenly seized Dr. Brown’s left hand in one of his own. His arm moved creakily, as if there were invisible sixty-pound weights tied to it—a couple below the elbow and a couple above. He captured the doctor’s hand in a weak grip and pulled. The funny pen left a thick blue line across the paper.

  Brown looked at him, at first only curious. Then his face drained of color. The sharp expression of interest left his eyes and was replaced with a muddy look of fear. He snatched his hand away—Johnny had no power to hold it—and for an instant a look of revulsion crossed the doctor’s face, as if he had been touched by a leper.

  Then it was gone, and he only looked surprised and disconcerted. “What did you do that for? Mr. Smith ...”

  His voice faltered. Johnny’s face had frozen in an expres sion of dawning comprehension. His eyes were the eyes of a man who has seen something terrible moving and shifting in the shadows, something too terrible to be described or even named.

  But it was a fact. It had to be named.

  “Fifty-five months?” Johnny asked hoarsely. “Going on five years? No. Oh my God, no.”

  “Mr. Smith,” Brown said, now totally flustered. “Please, it’s not good for you to excite ...”

  Johnny raised his upper body perhaps three inches from the bed and then slumped back, his face shiny with sweat. His eyes rolled helplessly in their sockets. “I’m twenty-seven?” he muttered. “Twenty-seven? Oh my Jesus.”

  Brown swallowed and heard an audible click. When Smith had grabbed his hand, he had felt a sudden onrush of bad feelings, childlike in their intensity; crude images of revulsion had assaulted him. He had found himself remembering a picnic in the country when he had been seven or eight, sitting down and putting his hand in something warm and slippery. He had looked around and had seen that he had put his hand into the maggoty remains of a woodchuck that had lain under a laurel bush all that hot August. He had screamed then, and he felt a little bit like screaming now—except that the feeling was fading, dwindling, to be replaced with a question: How did he know? He touched me and he knew.

  Then twenty years of education rose up strongly in him, and he pushed the notion aside. There were cases without number of comatose patients who had awakened with a dreamlike knowledge of many things that had gone on around them while they were in coma. Like anything else, coma was a matter of degree. Johnny Smith had never been a vegetable; his EEG had never gone flatline, and if it had, Brown would not be talking with him now. Sometimes being in a coma was a little like being behind a one-way glass. To the beholding eye the patient was completely conked out, but the patient’s senses might still continue to function in some low, power-down fashion. And that was the case here, of course.

  Marie Michaud came back in. “Neurology is confirmed, and Dr. Weizak is on his way.”

  “I think Sam will have to wait until tomorrow to meet Mr. Smith,” Brown said. “I want him to have five milligrams of Valium.”

  “I don’t want a sedative,” Johnny said. “I want to get out of here. I want to know what happened!”

  “You’ll know everything in time,” Brown said. “Right now it’s important that you rest.”

  “I’ve been resting for four-and-a-half years!”

  “Then another twelve hours won’t make much difference,” Brown said inexorably.

  A few moments later the nurse swabbed his upper arm with alcohol, and there was the sting of a needle. Johnny began to feel sleepy almost at once. Brown and the nurse began to look twelve feet tall.

  “Tell me one thing, at least,” he said. His voice seemed to come from far, far away. Suddenly it seemed terribly important. “That pen. What do you call that pen?”

  “This?” Brown held it out from his amazing height. Blue plastic body, fibrous tip. “It’s called a Flair. Now go to sleep, Mr. Smith.”

  And Johnny did, but the word followed him down into his sleep like a mystic incantation, full of idiot meaning: Flair ... Flair ... Flair ...

  5

  Herb put the telephone down and looked at it. He looked at it for a long time. From the other room came the sound of the TV, turned up almost all the way. Oral Roberts was talking about football and the healing love of Jesus—there was a connection there someplace, but Herb had missed it. Because of the telephone call. Oral’s voice boomed and roared. Pretty soon the show would end and Oral would close it out by confidently telling his audience that something good was going to happen to them. Apparently Oral was right.

  My boy, Herb thought. While Vera had prayed for a miracle, Herb had prayed for his boy to die. It was Vera’s prayer that had been answered. What did that mean, and where did it leave him? And what was it going to do to her?

  He went into the living room. Vera was sitting on the couch. Her feet, encased in elastic pink mules, were up on a hassock. She was wearing her old gray robe. She was eating popcorn straight from the popper. Since Johnny’s accident she had put on nearly forty pounds and her blood pressure had skyrocketed. The doctor wanted to put her on medication, but Vera wouldn’t have it—if it was the will of the Lord for her to have the high blood, she said, then she would have it. Herb had once pointed out that the will of the Lord had never stopped her from taking Bufferin when she had a headache. She had answered with her sweetest long-suffering smile and her most potent weapon: silence.

  “Who was on the phone?” she asked him, not looking away from the TV. Oral had his arm around the well-known quarterback of an NFC team. He was talking to a hushed multitude. The quarterback was smiling modestly.

  “... and you have all heard this fine athlete tell you tonight how he abused his body, his Temple of God. And you have heard...”

  Herb snapped it off.

  “Herbert Smith!” She nearly spilled her popcorn sitting up. “I was watching! That was...”

  “Johnny woke up.”

  “... Oral Roberts and...”

  The words snapped off in her mouth. She seemed to crouch back in her chair, as if he had taken a swing at her. He looked back, unable to say more, wanting to feel joy but afraid. So afraid.

  “Johnny’s ...” She stopped, swallowed, then tried again. “Johnny ... our Johnny?”

  “Yes. He spoke with Dr. Brown for nearly fifteen minutes. Apparently it wasn’t that thing they thought ... false-waking ... after all. He’s coherent. He can move.”

  “Johnny’s awake?”

  Her hands came up to her mouth. The popcorn popper. half-full, did a slow dipsy-doodle off her lap and thumped to the rug, spilling popcorn everywhere. Her hands covered the lower half of her face. Above them her eyes got wider and wider still until, for a dreadful second, Herb was afraid that they might fall out and dangle by their stalks. Then they closed. A tiny mewing sound came from behind her hands.

  “Vera? Are you all right?”

  “O my God I thank You for Your will be done my Johnny You brought me my I knew You would, my Johnny, o dear God I will bring You my thanksgiving every day of my life for my Johnny Johnny JOHNNY—” Her voice was rising to a hysterical, triumphant scream. He stepped forward, grabbed the lapels of her robe, and shook her. Suddenly time seemed to have reversed, doubled back on itself like strange cloth—they might have been back on the night when the news of the accident came to them, delivered through that same telephone in that same nook.

  By nook or by crook, Herb Smith thought crazily.

  “O my precious God my Jesus oh my Johnny the miracle like I said the miracle ...”

  “Stop it, Vera!”

  Her eyes were dark and hazy and hysterical. “Are you sorry he’s awake again? After all these years of making fun of me? Of telling people I was crazy?”

  “Vera, I never told anyone you were crazy.”

  “You told them with your eyes!” she shouted at him. “But my God wasn’t mocked. Was he, Herbert? Was he?”

  “No,” he said. “I guess not.”

  “I told you. I tol
d you God had a plan for my Johnny. Now you see his hand beginning to work.” She got up. “I’ve got to go to him. I’ve got to tell him.” She walked toward the closet where her coat hung, seemingly unaware that she was in her robe and nightgown. Her face was stunned with rapture. In some bizarre and almost blasphemous way she reminded him of the way she had looked on the day they were married. Her pink mules crunched popcorn into the rug.

  “Vera.”

  “I’ve got to tell him that God’s plan ...”

  “Vera.”

  She turned to him, but her eyes were far away, with her Johnny.

  He went to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “You tell him that you love him ... that you prayed ... waited ... watched. Who has a better right? You’re his mother. You bled for him. Haven’t I watched you bleed for him over the last five years? I’m not sorry he’s back with us, you were wrong to say that. I don’t think I can make of it what you do, but I’m not sorry. I bled for him, too.”

  “Did you?” Her eyes were flinty, proud, and unbelieving.

  “Yes. And I’m going to tell you something else, Vera. You’re going to keep your trap shut about God and miracles and Great Plans until Johnny’s up on his feet and able to ...”

  “I’ll say what I have to say!”

  “... and able to think what he’s doing. What I’m saying is that you’re going to give him a chance to make something of it for himself before you start in on him.”

  “You have no right to talk to me that way! No right at all!”

  “I’m exercising my right as Johnny’s dad,” he said grimly. “Maybe for the last time in my life. And you better not get in my way, Vera. You understand? Not you, not God, not the bleeding holy Jesus. You follow?”

  She glared at him sullenly and said nothing.

  “He’s going to have enough to do just coping with the idea that he’s been out like a light for four-and-a-half years. We don’t know if he’ll be able to walk again, in spite of the therapist that came in. We do know there’ll have to be an operation on his ligaments, if he even wants to try; Weizak told us that. Probably more than one. And more therapy, and a lot of it’s going to hurt him like hell. So tomorrow you’re just going to be his mother.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me that way! Don’t you dare!”

  “If you start in sermonizing, Vera, I’ll drag you out of his room by the hair of your head.”

  She stared at him, white-faced and trembling. Joy and fury were at war in her eyes.

  “You better get dressed,” Herb said. “We ought to get going. ”

  It was a long, silent ride up to Bangor. The happiness they should have felt between them was not there; only Vera’s hot and militant joy. She sat bolt upright in the passenger seat, her Bible in her lap, open to the twenty-third Psalm.

  6

  At quarter of nine the next morning, Marie came into Johnny’s room and said, “Your mom and dad are here, if you’re up to seeing them.”

  “Yes, I’d like that.” He felt much better this morning, stronger and less disoriented. But the thought of seeing them scared him a little. In terms of his conscious recollection, he had seen them about five months ago. His father had been working on the foundation of a house that had now probably been standing for three years or more. His mom had fixed him home-baked beans and apple pie for dessert and had clucked over how thin he was getting.

  He caught Marie’s hand weakly as she turned to go.

  “Do they look all right? I mean ...”

  “They look fine.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  “You can only have half an hour with them now. Some more time this evening if the neurology series doesn’t prove too tiring.”

  “Dr. Brown’s orders?”

  “And Dr. Weizak’s.”

  “All right. For a while. I’m not sure how long I want to be poked and prodded.”

  Marie hesitated.

  “Something?” Johnny asked.

  “No ... not now. You must be anxious to see your folks. I’ll send them in.”

  He waited, nervous. The other bed was empty; the cancer patient had been moved out while Johnny slept off his Valium pop.

  The door opened. His mother and father came in. Johnny felt simultaneous shock and relief: shock because they had aged, it was all true; relief because the changes in them did not yet seem mortal. And if that could be said of them, perhaps it could be said of him as well.

  But something in him had changed, changed drastically—and it might be mortal.

  That was all he had time to think before his mother’s arms were around him, her violet sachet strong in his nostrils, and she was whispering: “Thank God, Johnny, thank God, thank God you’re awake.”

  He hugged her back as best he could—his arms still had no power to grip and fell away quickly—and suddenly, in six seconds, he knew how it was with her, what she thought, and what was going to happen to her. Then it was gone, fading like that dream of the dark corridor. But when she broke the embrace to look at him, the look of zealous joy in her eyes had been replaced with one of thoughtful consideration.

  The words seemed to come out of him of their own: “Let them give you the medicine. Mom. That’s best.”

  Her eyes widened, she wet her lips—and then Herb was beside her, his eyes filled with tears. He had lost some weight—not as much as Vera had put on, but he was noticeably thinner. His hair was going fast but the face was the same, homely and plain and well-loved. He took a large brakeman’s bandanna from his back pocket and wiped his eyes with it. Then he stuck out his hand.

  “Hi, son,” he said. “Good to have you back.”

  Johnny shook his father’s hand as well as he could; his pale and strengthless fingers were swallowed up in his father’s red hand. Johnny looked from one to the other—his mother in a bulky powder-blue pantsuit, his father in a really hideous houndstooth jacket that looked as if it should belong to a vacuum-cleaner salesman in Kansas—and he burst into tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, it’s just that ...”

  “You go on,” Vera said, sitting on the bed beside him. Her face was calm and clear now. There was more mother than madness in it. “You go on and cry, sometimes that’s best.”

  And Johnny did.

  7

  Herb told him his Aunt Germaine had died. Vera told him that the money for the Pownal Community Hall had finally been raised and the building had commenced a month ago, as soon as the frost was out of the ground. Herb added that he had put in a bid, but he guessed honest work cost too dear for them to want to pay. “Oh, shush, you sore loser,” Vera said.

  There was a little silence and then Vera spoke again. “I hope you realize that your recovery is a miracle of God, Johnny. The doctors despaired. In Matthew, chapter nine, we read ...”

  “Vera,” Herb said warningly.

  “Of course it was a miracle, Mom. I know that.”

  “You ... you do?”

  “Yes. And I want to talk about it with you ... hear your ideas about what it means ... just as soon as I get on my feet again.”

  She was staring at him, open-mouthed. Johnny glanced past her at his father and their eyes met for a moment. Johnny saw great relief in his father’s eyes. Herb nodded imperceptibly.

  “A Conversion!” Vera ejaculated loudly. “My boy has had a Conversion! Oh, praise God!”

  “Vera, hush,” Herb said. “Best to praise God in a lower voice when you’re in the hospital.”

  “I don’t see how anybody could not call it a miracle, Mom. And we’re going to talk about it a lot. Just as soon as I’m out of here.”

  “You’re going to come home,” she said. “Back to the house where you were raised. I’ll nurse you back to health and we’ll pray for understanding.”

  He was smiling at her, but holding the smile was an effort. “You bet. Mom, would you go down to the nurses’ station and ask Marie if I can have some juice? Or maybe some ginger ale? I guess I’m no
t used to talking, and my throat ...”

  “Of course I will.” She kissed his cheek and stood up. “Oh, you’re so thin. But I’ll fix that when I get you home.” She left the room, casting a single victorious glance at Herb as she went. They heard her shoes tapping off down the hall.

  “How long has she been that way?” Johnny asked quietly.

  Herb shook his head. “It’s come a little at a time since your accident. But it had its start long before that. You know. You remember.”

  “Is she...”

  “I don’t know. There are people down South that handle snakes. I’d call them crazy. She doesn’t do that. How are you, Johnny? Really?”

  “I don’t know,” Johnny said. “Daddy, where’s Sarah?”

  Herb leaned forward and clasped his hands between his knees. “I don’t like to tell you this, John, but ...”

  “She’s married? She got married?”

  Herb didn’t answer. Without looking directly at Johnny, he nodded his head.

  “Oh, God,” Johnny said hollowly. “I was afraid of that.”

  “She’s been Mrs. Walter Hazlett for going on three years. He’s a lawyer. They have a baby boy. John ... no one really believed you were going to wake up. Except for your mother, of course. None of us had any reason to believe you would wake up.” His voice was trembling now, hoarse with guilt. “The doctors said ... ah, never mind what they said. Even I gave you up. I hate like hell to admit it, but it’s true. All I can ask you is to try to understand about me ... and Sarah.”

  He tried to say that he did understand, but all that would come out was a sickly sort of croak. His body felt sick and old, and suddenly he was drowning in his sense of loss. The lost time was suddenly sitting on him like a load of bricks—a real thing, not just a vague concept.

  “Johnny, don’t take on. There are other things. Good things.”

  “It’s ... going to take some getting used to,” he managed.