Until Midnight

It wasn’t exactly like waking up from sleep. There was the taste of dirt and something musty in my mouth. It took a long time for me to understand where or what I was. There was the smell of something chemical and it made my nose wrinkle. My eyelids felt stuck and my mouth was as if it had been sealed shut. Something in my throat burned and my chest itched. I ran my hands over the white buttoned blouse and ankle-length grey skirt. My feet ached as I realized they had been crammed into a pair of shoes that was a size too small. Slowly memories came back, like remembering real life and distinguishing it from the dream, but which was the dream?

“You can open your eyes, Helen,” came a rich deep voice. So I did and only saw brightness and shadow.

“Take a breath, Helen,” and I did that too, but it burned and I let out an excruciating exhale and could hear a scream somewhere in the back of my mind.

“Try again, it shouldn’t hurt as much” I was afraid and didn’t trust the voice this time, slowly my eyes were beginning to make out the shape, the voice belonged to this shape, this shadow. Another voice, older and more excited sounded.

“Have you done it then? Is she alive?” 

The first voice let out a frustrated sigh.

“Helen, breathe.” I shook my head. Then, I felt the shape grab me. 

“Breathe!” Said the voice and I felt a thud of force in my chest. I coughed and more of the chemical burn came up my chest with a metallic phlegm. After more coughing, I looked up to see a hand offered out to me. I took it and allowed my breathing to resume an uncomfortable rhythm as I was pulled up onto my feet and out of my coffin. He gestured to a step ladder and I stepped out of my grave. 

“Helen!” Another man gasped astonished. I looked backward at the first man, the shape as he pulled himself up from my resting place. 

“You have until midnight Harry,” the first man said. This man, not Harry, was young, handsome and a wave of anger filled me as I took in the view of the flashlight, the shovel and Harry, God Damned Harry! I didn’t know why but immediately I felt a growing disgust when I looked at Harry. Harry who in the blanched light of the flashlight looked like a monster. He looked sickly and pathetic as he wrapped his arms around me. As he held me tight to him, I felt the wave of revulsion. He pulled me away from him then and rested his palm on my cheek. He began to cry, I looked into his eyes, pleading and possessive and I wanted to run. As he leaned to kiss my putrid dead mouth, his lips looked too wet and his mouth was like the hole I just crawled out of.

“You!” I shouted remembering all that had gone on between us and I wrenched out of his hold. I pivoted to look back toward the younger man who was wiping grave dirt off his hands. 

“Why would you do this?” I screamed hoarsely. He looked back at me curiously.

“What did you do to me?” I walked slowly and stiffly to him full of rage and anger. 

Harry piped up quietly from behind me, his voice sickly sweet. “He brought you back to me my angel.” 

I glared at Harry and felt my tongue thick in my mouth. 

“Why the hell would I want to come back to you, Harry?” I looked back at this other man. 

“Why would you do this to me?” I repeated.

Harry began arguing saying something along the lines of wanting a refund. 

“Now, now Harry. You told me to bring her back, I never said she would be happy about it.” This younger man was smooth, his voice like velvet and I watched him look me over. 

Harry began whimpering again.

“Helen please, we only have a few hours together. Let’s go home.” I rounded on him marching on stiff legs, my arms numb and outstretched as my hands clamped around his throat. 

“If you think I am going to waste any more of my time with your hands all over me or in your bed with my mouth on any part of you, Harry you have another thing coming.” 

Harry’s eyes bulged and the man behind me chuckled softly. Harry pushed me but I found I was stronger, parts of my body stony, rigid and heavy. He tried to break free from my grip until finally he went silent and I let him crumble. For a moment I worried I killed him until I heard his soft wheezing breaths.

“This night is taking a turn,” said the younger man, who was standing steps from my grave. 

“I don’t know what delusions Harry cooked up, but we were not happily married,” I snapped as I kicked off my shoes. “What time is it?” I asked him and sat on the cool wet grass and began removing the beige-coloured nylons from my still stiff awkward legs. I stretched and pointed and flexed my toes in the dewy grass, taking immense satisfaction in the sensation of feeling again. 

“Just after 9:30.” He replied and I heard the metallic sound and then the flick of his lighter before the delicious smell of his cigarette. I  looked up at him from the grass. He was gorgeous, I hadn’t registered it before but in the glow of the cigarette, and the dimmed flashlight, I could take him in. Tall, leather jacket and tight-fitting jeans.

“Okay, you can start by giving me one of those and explaining to me what the hell is going on?” He laughed, so I got up and stood too close to him. Unlike Harry, he wasn’t intimidated. 

“No.” He said sternly. 

“What do you mean no,”  I practically snarled.

“I mean you were embalmed and would probably burst into flames if I even gave you a drag.” I let out a groan. 

“What the hell was Harry thinking?”

“That it had almost been three years since he’d gotten laid.” At that response, I screamed and started stamping my feet like a toddler.

“And why exactly is that my problem!” I started marching over to Harry’s unconscious body when the man responsible for this ridiculous situation placed his hand lightly on my shoulder. 

“Let’s get out of here and I will try to explain,” he said coolly and I took one last look at Harry before following my resurrector.  

I hopped into his Chevy, and we drove away from the cemetery. I rolled my window down and I let my hand ride the breeze. When Elvis’s Jailhouse Rock came on I screamed  “I love this song!” and turned the knob until it was all I could hear. The man smiled and just shook his head as if to say It’s your night.

Later we sat outside in the neon glow of the drive-thru. I loudly slurped the last of my cola, while he smoked another cigarette and between puffs lazily ate his fries. 

“I owe you an apology,” he said watching as I began licking the salt off my fingers. 

“No shit,” I said and took a large bite of my burger. I groaned loudly as my formerly out-of-commission brain registered the tangy taste of pickle and I moaned in pleasure. 

“I knew Harry was kind of off, but I didn’t realize-“ I started laughing and interrupted him then. 

“I am sorry, at what point did you think- he seemed off? Before or after he asked you to resurrect his dead wife? Also, would it have killed you to ask around a little about me beforehand? Someone who would have known exactly how it was between Harry and me? Also who even are you and how am I even here?” 

He dropped his cigarette and stomped it out with his boot. He ran his fingers through his dark hair. 

“Before and After. Yes, I should have asked around. My name is Stan and I am a necromancer.”  He picked at his fries and I took another vicious bite of the burger. Chewing and trying to process his answers. 

“So you are like magic?” I asked and he nodded wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Do you do this a lot?” He shrugged. 

“I try not to” I stuffed a handful of fries in my mouth and made an obnoxious “mmmm” sound after swallowing. 

“Do you take all your revenants out for burgers?” he nodded 

“Yeah sometimes. The dead seem to be calmed by salt, sugar, and fatty foods” As he said this I bit aggressively into my handheld apple pie and with my full mouth asked. 

“How is it possible that I am even hungry or eating?” 

Stan shrugged “It’s only temporary and honestly I don’t understand all the mechanics of it myself. But your body kind of resumes some functions and you will loosen up as the night goes on.” I swallowed the last of the cheeseburger and tried to take that answer in. 

“How much did Harry pay you?”I asked. Stan squinted and then looked away before saying,

“Too much”

“And you knew what he wanted from me?” I grabbed Stan’s hand and forced him to look me in the eyes now. “What he, really, wanted from me?” I saw the shame there in his brown eyes and the tightness in his jaw. 

“Like I said, I owe you an Apology.” I looked at him and gestured for him to continue. “I am sorry Helen.” I was happy he didn't attempt to defend himself and I let out a long satisfied sigh. I scrunched up the paper from my cheeseburger and stood up. 

“Right, what time is it?” I asked urgently and he checked his wristwatch. 

“Almost quarter to eleven” 

“I have an hour and fifteen minutes until I am dead…again.”  This made Stan laugh. 

“You do have a sense of humour about it.” I wiped my hands and stood up abruptly.

“Let’s go!” 

He arched a brow and leaned over the table, 

“Where are we going, Helen?” 

“I am not sitting here all night waiting for the clock to run out. You can either come with me or hope the cops don’t connect the dots when the clock strikes and I am not in the grave where they left me three years ago.” He grunted, smirked and got up from his seat. 

We drove back into town and I yelled for him to stop. He pulled over as I bounded out of the car. There in the store window of the consignment shop was an amazing dress. No, not a dress, a gown. The kind I always imagined wearing to a ball or a gala or some kind of event I never had reason to attend. I glimpsed my reflection in the glass. I was pale and hollow-looking but nothing as horrific as I imagined. I felt far more lifelike than I had earlier. 

“It’s beautiful!” I nearly pressed myself up against the glass. It was a pale blue, beaded in a starburst pattern with a straight neckline and dainty sparkling straps on the shoulders. The skirt was voluminous from the waist to the floor. I looked hopeful at Stan.

“The store is closed.” 

“Aren’t you magic?” 

“Do I look like a fairy godmother?” I frowned and walked back to the car when I saw a large rock just sitting at the curb of the sidewalk. Stan opened the driver's door of the car while I quickly grabbed the rock and launched it through the glass of the window. The sound of tinkling glass hitting the sidewalk and the way it sparkled in the streetlights cast a spell.

“What the?” He said as he watched me push through the broken store window and begin wrestling the dress off of the manikin. It was heavy, but I heaved it off and jumped with the dress over my shoulder, back onto the sidewalk, my feet crunching in the glass before I slid into the passenger seat with the dress in my lap. 

“Drive!” I barked and he looked at me in disbelief before slamming his foot on the gas. My poor, very dead heart soared in my chest at the sound of the tires squealing into the night. 

Stan drove around, stopping quickly at a gas station to fill his Chevy and came back with a packet of potato chips and a bar of chocolate.  before we headed back to the cemetery, we drove beyond where my burial site was and down to the river. There was no sign of Harry thankfully. I got out of the car and put on the dress. 

“Can you zip me up?” I asked and then felt his warm hands between my shoulders as he pulled the zipper up. I admired my dim reflection in the car window. I took a few pins out of my hair allowing it to flow onto my shoulders. 

There was that wonderful cool breeze and Stan pulled the collar up on his jacket. I took a spin in the dress with my arms open wide and remembered I had once done the same as a little girl and felt an ache for the child I had been. 

“Slow down there Cinderella” he drawled, but I spun and spun and spun until I was so dizzy I threw myself down in the grass. I waited for the world around me to stop spinning and settle. Stan lay down next to me, 

“You know what Helen, I like your style.” I rolled onto my side. 

“Face it, Stan, I am the best dead person you know.” He smiled and I wanted to kiss him then, so I did. He let me kiss him but didn’t participate. 

“Sorry,” I said after we parted.

“It’s okay” his voice was soft and kind.

“It’s just that for a minute, I forgot.” I felt embarrassed but Stan took my hand and interlaced our fingers. 

We lay there for a while looking up at the stars, not saying anything. I didn’t feel the cold, I did, but I didn’t suffer from it. I knew there was glass embedded in the soles of my feet but felt no pain. We shared the packet of chips but he let me have the chocolate to myself. I put a square on my tongue and closed my eyes and was overtaken by the feeling of bliss. After I demolished what was left of the chips and glutinously consumed the chocolate bar, Stan went back to turn on the car for the radio. He returned standing over me with his arm outstretched to help me up. To my delight, the song Twilight Time by The Platters was playing and as I stood he put one hand on my waist. 

“You only have twenty minutes left Princess” I took his other hand and we swayed together. I let him spin me, his boots occasionally stepping on my toes, or the hem of my gown, but I didn’t mind. We heard sirens in the distance and after a while I rested my head in the crook of his neck, my cheek on his collarbone. It felt so good to be held. His hand in mine the warmth of his body. It was the simplest thing in the world,  I remembered that my mother’s arms held me close once. I was in that same body, the one she brought into the world and yet it didn't belong with her anymore. It belonged in the ground and I needed to return to somewhere else, the dream I had woken from hours before, but couldn’t remember. For now, though, I was dancing.

When Love Me As Though There Were No Tomorrow by Nat King Cole began to play I wanted to cry. 

“Oh, Stan. It was wonderful.” He pulled away from me looking confused.

“What was Helen?” I held him close. 

“To be alive” I whispered. 

The song ended and he walked to the car. We drove in silence back to my grave, I took in my headstone. It read, Helen Marie Willis, beloved wife taken too soon March, 25th 1938- September, 10th 1961.

For the briefest moment I grieved for the baby I was, the gossipy teen girl I was, and the sad, repressed, turned angry young woman I had been. I was no longer her, and her small life was over now. I wished she had found beauty in small things, like a bar of chocolate, or the stars in the sky. I wished she had taken a risk and danced with a stranger. Then in my gown and shards of glass in my feet, I allowed Stan to help me down the step ladder and into the coffin. I laid back into it, rested my hands on my stomach and just before it was over he knelt down and softly he kissed me.