cup after cup of the hot black coffee.
He had an insatiable appetite for a while, and the very act of eating
made him feel more truly alive than anything he’d done since he’d been
reborn. Biting, chewing, tasting, swallowing-by those simple actions,
he was brought further back among the living than at any point since
he’d stepped in the way of the garbage truck on Main Street. For a
while, his spirits began to rise.
Then he slowly became aware that the taste of the sausage was neither as
strong nor as pleasing as when he had been fully alive and able to
appreciate it, and though he put his nose close to the hot, greasy meat
and drew deep breaths, he was unable to smell its spicy aroma. He
stared at his cool, ash-gray, clammy hands, which held the
biscuit-wrapped sausage, and the wad of steaming pork looked more alive
than his own flesh.
Suddenly the situation seemed uproariously funny to Eric, a dead man
sitting at breakfast, chomping stolidly on Farmer John sausages, pouring
hot Maxwell House down his cold gullet, desperately pretending to be one
of the living, as if death could be reversed by pretense, as if life
could be regained merely by the performance of enough mundane
activities-showering, brushing his teeth, eating, drinking, crapping-and
by the consumption of enough homely products. He must be alive, because
they wouldn’t have Farmer John sausages and Maxwell House in either
heaven or hell. Would they?
He must be alive, because he had used his Mr. Coffee machine and his
General Electric oven, and over in the corner his Westinghouse
refrigerator was humming softly, and although those manufacturers’ wares
were widely distributed, surely none of them would be found on the far
shores of the river Styx, so he must be alive.
Black humor certainly, very black indeed, but he laughed out loud,
laughed and laughed-until he heard his laughter. It sounded hard,
coarse, cold, not really laughter but a poor imitation, rough and harsh,
as if he were choking, or as if he had swallowed stones that now rattled
and clattered against one another in his throat. Dismayed by the sound,
he shuddered and began to weep. He dropped the sausage-stuffed biscuit,
swept the food and dishes to the floor, and collapsed forward, folding
his arms upon the table and resting his head in his arms. Great gasping
sobs of grief escaped him, and for a while he was immersed in a deep
pool of self-pity.
The mice, the mice, remember the mice bashing against the walls of their
cages.
He still did not know the meaning of that thought, could not recall any
mice, though he felt that he was closer to inderstanding than ever
before. A memory of mice, white mice, hovered tantalizingly just beyond
his grasp.
His gray mood darkened.
His dulled senses grew even duller.
After a while, he realized he was sinking into another coma, one of
those periods of suspended animation during which his heart slowed
dramatically and his respiration fell to a fraction of the normal rate,
giving his body an opportunity to continue with repairs and accumulate
new reserves of energy. He slipped from his chair to the kitchen floor
and curled fetally beside the refrigerator.
Benny turned off Interstate 10 at Redlands and followed State Route 30
to 330. Lake Arrowhead lay only twenty-eight miles away.
The two-lane blacktop cut a twisty trail into the San Bernardino
Mountains. The pavement was hoved and rough in some spots, slightly
potholed in others, and frequently the shoulder was only a few inches
wide, with a steep drop beyond the flimsy guardrails, leaving little
leeway for mistakes. They were forced to slow considerably, though
Benny piloted the Ford much faster than Rachael could have done.
Last night Rachael had spilled her secrets to Bennythe details of
Wildcard and of Eric’s obsessions-and she had expected him to divulge
his in return, but he had said nothing that would explain the way he had
dealt with Vincent Baresco, the uncanny way he could handle a car, or
his knowledge of guns. Though her curiosity was great, she did not
press him. She sensed that his secrets were of a far more personal