possessed?”
Mick shrugged. “Has to be the anthrax attack. No way the timing’s a coincidence.” Another blurt followed— something about wanting pizza before bed—then another almost on top of the first.
“What if it’s not so much the anthrax, but so many people dying at once?” Summer suggested. “Have so many people ever died at once before?”
I opened my mouth to suggest Hiroshima, or the fire-bombing of Dresden, but neither had killed six hundred thousand people. Millions may have died from the bubonic plague in the middle ages, but that was over a couple of years. Plus the deaths were spread over a much larger area. Same with the flu pandemic of 1918.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Over half a million people in four or five days?” Something was niggling me about all this. I rotated my glass, thinking, trying to get a grasp on it. Then I had it. “But hold on—Grandpa didn’t die in the anthrax attack. Why would he come back?”
I had to raise my voice to talk over Mick’s blurts. His forehead was damp with sweat. “Mick? You all right?” I asked, putting a hand on Mick’s back. Around us the buzz of bar patrons was rising.
Mick raised his arm like he was going to gesture at something, let it drop. His hands began to shake. “Oh, bloody,” Mick blubbered. His face was so slack he looked like he’d had a stroke. He inhaled deeply, jerkily. His hands were jerking like fish just hauled into the boat.
People left their seats. A dozen headed for the door in quick order. I knew just what Mick was going through, and I felt for him. Maybe it was easier for him because he knew what to expect.
The bar stool squeaked against the wood floor as Mick stumbled off it. He looked at us, wide-eyed.
Summer put a calming hand on his arm. “Can you tell me your name?”
“I thought I was dreaming.” His voice was the same deep, crude thing mine had been when Grandpa spoke, but he spoke fast, spitting and blubbering so you could barely understand. He looked at the mirror behind the bar, pressed his hands to his face. “I’m Mick. This is unbelievable.” He looked at me. “He can hear me, right? Isn’t that how it works? That’s how it was in the dream.” He stuck his hands under his arms like he was cold.
“That seems to be how it works,” I agreed.
“Mick!” He called, looking at himself in the mirror. “Gilly here.” He held up his hands as if warding off a blow. “Now don’t get mad. I’m sorry about all that legal stuff. That’s all behind us now, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” Summer said. “Gilly?” She held out her hand. “I’m Summer.” Gilly studied Summer’s palm, then held out Mick’s quavering hand, dangling loosely at the end of his wrist. “Hey.”
“Can you tell me your last name?”
“I’ve been watching you.” He pointed at the mirror.
Summer nodded. “Can you tell me your last name?”
He touched Mick’s lips.
“Hansen,” I said. “His last name is Hansen.” Summer looked at me, her head tilted, questioning. “He co- wrote most of Mick’s big hits.”
“I was also in the band for a while.” He looked around the bar, as if he’d just noticed where he was. “Did I die or not?”
“What’s the last thing you remember, before you started seeing through Mick’s eyes?” Summer asked.
“The wind,” he said. “Music going through my head, on and on and on and on and on. That’s why I’m back. I need to find my notes and get back to work.” He looked at the mirror, raised his voice. “I been working on something new for you, Mick. It’s good, really good. I promise. Not just a retread—”
“Wait a minute, back up,” Summer said. “Why are you back?”
Gilly held his outstretched palms over his head. “Because the gods, or the cosmos or whatever, wanted Mick and me back together. How could that be any clearer? We’re in the same fricking
“Hang on,” Summer said, grasping one of Gilly’s hands and tugging, trying to get his attention. “The other side? Can you tell us about it?”
My hands were shaking. That awful crawling sensation started up.
“Me and you, man, together again.” Gilly shook his head.
“Summer,” I interrupted, before the tingling swept over me, numbing me like a full-body shot of Novocain.
Summer looked at my hands, gave me a look that said “Don’t leave me with two dead people.”
Grandpa turned to the bald bartender, shouted, “Whiskey, neat.” He nudged my drink toward the gutter of the bar. “Scotch is for sissies and Englishmen, which is the same thing.” He pulled his stool closer to the bar as if it offended him.
“Mr. Darby, my name is Summer Locker.” She motioned to Mick. “And this is Gilly Hansen.” Gilly offered Mick’s wobbly hand.
Grandpa looked at it. “I was listening. I know who the hell he is.”
Alarmed, urgent voices carried from the far end of the bar. Someone was sobbing, “I don’t understand what’s happening” over and over. Grandpa glanced at them. Most of the patrons remaining in The Regis were standing, packed toward the entrance as if watching an avant-garde play. Most looked scared shitless, though a woman with dyed red hair was snapping pictures with her phone.
“Do you remember the other side?” Summer asked Grandpa. Grandpa shrugged. “I got nothing to say to you, missy. Why don’t you jump in front of a bus and go there yourself.” He jerked a thumb at the door.
“Wait. You were dead too?” Gilly asked.
The bartender ventured within a few paces of us. “I think you should leave.”
“I think you should go to hell,” Grandpa shot back. “Pour my drink, and be quick about it.” The bartender retreated down the bar.
“Really, what was it like?” Summer persisted, staring Grandpa down, daring him to engage her.
The bartender slid Grandpa’s drink down the bar from ten feet away. It slid past Grandpa’s spastic grip. Summer caught it, set it in front of Grandpa without dropping her gaze.
Without bothering to thank her, Grandpa took a swig, exhaled loudly as the whiskey burned the back of my throat. “It’s like nothing. At least after a while it is. At first it’s like a drunken dream.”
His voice was still a croaking mess, but not as bad as last time. He was learning how to use my mouth, forming sounds more clearly with practice. The slackness was leaving his face as well. I barely recognized my face in the mirror behind the bar. The muscles around my eyes were pinched, my lips pulled into a frown. My grandfather’s features seemed to be bleeding through—his cheeks like angry boils, his beady eyes.
“So what are you doing back? Usually when you die, that’s it. You know?” Summer asked.
Grandpa took another pull, swallowed the thick whiskey. “How the hell do I know? They don’t hand out instruction manuals over there.” He motioned to the bartender, pointed at his empty glass. “But if I had to guess, I figure there’s going to be a little less Finnegan Darby and a little more Thomas Darby every day.” He smiled with satisfaction, checked my watch.
The significance of what he said roared in my head. He couldn’t know for sure, but it made sense. It started as just a voice, and each day it got worse. What would happen to me if he took over for good? Would I stay in here, helpless, for the rest of my body’s life?
Summer turned to Gilly, who was watching the proceedings with dumbfounded fascination.
“How about you, Gilly? What was it like for you?”
“What is this?” Grandpa interjected. “Who are you, Larry King?”
“What was what like?” Gilly asked.
“Being dead.”
Gilly shook his head. “I heard what you were thinking of doing. You don’t want to go there. Not if you don’t have to.”
A camera flashed. A guy with a high-speed camera was halfway to our table, snapping photos.
“Hey, stop that,” Summer said. The guy ignored her.
Mick’s face began to shake, the loose skin under his chin jiggling. Gilly moaned, shut his eyes.
The slackness in Mick’s face vanished into a grimace. “Bloody hell!” Mick cried. “Christ.” He pounded the bar
