After the Funeral

Was that rapping at the front door? Laura thought it was just the rain that had blown in. The fresh scent of wet foliage hung in the air. She was at home with her mother. She lay curled on the living room couch. The once blazing logs had fallen to glowing embers, barely warming the chill that had settled in her bones after the funeral. She pulled up the blanket that her mother kept for chilly evenings. She stared at the framed photo of her Johnny, smiling, wind in his hair, eyes full of mischief. Dead three weeks now. Killed by a drunk driver, stealing him from her world.

She lay back and closed her eyes. Again she heard rapping. Not the friendly tap of a neighbor or the careless thud of delivery. It sounded deliberate and yet somehow familiar.

A chill ran down Laura’s spine. Who could it be at this late hour? Her fingers tightened around the blanket. Then, there was a harder pounding. The hallway light flickered. She rose, heart beating like a quickened metronome. Laura walked, her bare feet soaking in the chill of the hardwood floor. She stared at the brass knob as it jiggled.

She looked through the peephole. But she didn’t see anyone. Wary yet curious, she opened the door.

Laura screamed in disbelief. Johnny stood there.

His black hair was still slicked back as in the coffin. His blue suit was damp, clinging to his frame. Mud streaked his pale face, but his eyes, those eyes, once so alive were hollow and dead. But he spoke in a tone almost normal. “Hey, babe, miss me?”

Laura staggered back, bile rising in her throat. The scent of him hit her. He smelled of decaying flesh, a fecal-like stench, with a touch of earth.

“Oh, no, no, you’re… you’re dead,” she whispered as she stumbled back from the doorway.

Johnny brushed past her and into the house. He shuffled to the living room, which had turned ice cold. He made himself comfortable on the couch. Her skin tingled where his gaze touched her. He patted the cushion next to him, and she had no choice; guided by his gaze, she sat next to him. He reached up, brushing a strand of hair from her face. His fingers were cool; she shivered as his hand slid down her cheek. She could almost taste his frigid breath as he whispered, “Love’s a stubborn thing.”

Her heart raced as she reached with trembling fingers and touched his cheek. She thought she was touching cool marble, like a wall in an empty church. Still, Laura let her fingers linger, tracing his forehead, his nose and the lips she had passionately loved.

“Why are you here?”

Johnny shrugged. “I don’t know. I woke up, and something lifted me through the ground. I stood next to my gravestone, and all I could think about was you. And then I was here at your door.”

He got up and walked to the photo on the mantle, picked it up, and smiled. “You kept this.”

“Oh, Johnny, Johnny, I wished for you to come to me every night. I couldn’t let go.”

“Laura.” He turned to her. “Then maybe that’s why I’m here.”

They sat together on the couch, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. The embers in the fireplace had turned to ashes. She breathed him in; she didn’t care about his strange rotting smell.

Outside, the wind blew; severed leaves swirled down from the trees. Inside, Johnny leaned in and kissed her.

In the morning, her mother found her curled on the couch, a contented smile on her face, but she was ice cold.