Read Online The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford - Free Book Online

said Witzer. When they finally were looking down at the sleeping couple, Pete and whatever that Lonette thing was, he added, “That’s what I’m fucking talking about.” He pointed his crooked old finger and his hand was obviously trembling.
    Jolle’s jaw dropped open after the second or two it took to sink in. “I never…,” said the sheriff, and that’s all he said for a long while.
    Witzer whispered, “Pete brought her back with him.”
    â€œWhat kind of crazy shit is this?” asked Jolle, and he turned quickly and looked at me as if I had an answer. Then he looked back at Witzer. “What the hell happened? Did he dig her up?”
    â€œShe’s alive,” said the old man. “You can see her breathing, but she got bunched up or something in the transfer from there to here.”
    â€œBunched up,” said Jolle. “There to here? What in Christ’s name…” He shook his head and removed his shades. Then he turned to me again and said, “Boy, go get Doc Kvench.”
    I ran to the doctor’s house and pounded on the door. When he opened it, I didn’t know what to tell him, so I just said there was an emergency over at the sheriff’s office and that he was needed. I didn’t stick around and wait for him, because I had to keep moving. To stop would mean I’d have to think too deeply about the return of Lonette Hesiant. By the time I got back to the truck, Henry Grass had also joined Jolle and Witzer, having walked into town to get something to eat after his dream ordeal of the night before. As I drew close to them, I heard Henry saying, “She’s come from another dimension. I’ve read about things like this. And from what I experienced last night, talking to my dead brother, I can tell you that place seems real enough for this to happen.”
    Jolle looked away from Henry to me as I approached, and then his gaze shifted over my head and he must have caught sight of the doctor. “Good job,” said the sheriff and put his hand on my shoulder as I leaned forward to catch my breath. “Hey, Doc,” he said as Kvench drew close, “you got a theory about this?”
    The doctor stepped up to the truck bed and looked down at where the sheriff was pointing. Doctor Kvench had seen it all in his years in Gatchfield—birth, death, blood, body rot, but the instant he laid his eyes on the new Lonette, the color drained out of him, and he grimaced like he’d just taken a big swig of Witzer’s herbaltonic. The effect on him was dramatic, and Henry stepped up next to Kvench and held him up with one big tattooed arm across his back. Kvench brushed Henry off and turned away from the truck. I thought for a second that he was going to puke.
    We waited for his diagnosis. Finally he turned back and said, “Where did it come from?”
    â€œIt fell out of the tree with Pete this morning,” said Witzer.
    â€œI signed the death certificate for that girl five months ago,” said the doctor.
    â€œShe’s come from another dimension…,” said Henry, launching into one of his Bermuda Triangle explanations, but Jolle held a hand up to silence him. Nobody spoke then and the sheriff started pacing back and forth, looking into the sky and then at the ground. It was obvious that he was having some kind of silent argument with himself, because every few seconds he’d either nod or shake his head. Finally, he put his open palms to his face for a moment, rubbed his forehead, and blinked his eyes. Then he turned to us.
    â€œLook, here’s what we’re gonna do. I decided. We’re going to get Pete out of that truck without waking him and put him on the cot in the station. Will he stay asleep if we move him?” he asked Witzer.
    The old man nodded. “As long as you don’t shout his name or break a twig near his ear, he should keep sleeping till we wake