Necrosis

yesterday,” she said, sounding a little offended.

  “I ate these yesterday?” he asked. She nodded. “Well they didn’t taste like this.”

  “Maybe you got a bad one,” she suggested.

  But wasn’t about to try another bite, so he took a sip of his coffee instead. He almost expected the same odd blandness from the drink and was relieved when he found that it tasted like regular coffee. He downed the cup quickly and threw the pop tarts in the garbage. While he was getting his coat and grabbing his car keys from the hook by the door, Rebecca got up and began washing the dishes.

  Andy paused to look at his wife for a moment. She was as beautiful today as she was on the day he’d married her four years ago; even more so now that she was six and a half months pregnant with their first child. Even with her auburn hair still in curlers and her face unmade-up, she was still the most beautiful person he knew. He realized again how lucky he was and how underappreciated she was. Well. He’d work to remedy that when he got home that night.

  “What are you gaping at?” she asked him, stopping her dishwashing.

  “You,” he told her. “You’re beautiful.”

  “And if you keep standing there,” she said smiling, “you’re gonna be late for work.”

  “Screw work,” he said. “I’d much rather be here with you.”

  “Well,” she said, turning off the sink and coming across the kitchen to him, “as much as I would love that, if you stay home with me, you’ll be fired and we’ll be raising our daughter under a bridge.”

  “Or our son,” he said with a smile. They had opted not to learn the sex of the baby. He opened his arms and she stepped into his embrace. He kissed her, not minding that her breath smelled like fried eggs and coffee, and held her tenderly for a moment that he hoped would never end.

  The she looked up into his eyes and seductively whispered, “Don’t die on me, Andy. Please don’t do this to me. I need you. Our baby needs you.”

  Shocked, Andy took a step back and stared at his wife. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard and the look on Rebecca’s face betrayed no emotion but love. At that moment he felt the pain in his chest spike for a second and then it faded away to the dull throb again.

  “What is it?” Rebecca asked.

  “What did you just say, Bec?” he asked her.

  “I said, ‘you better go or you’re gonna be late,’” she said. “Andy, are you sure you’re alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

  “I’m fine,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s just… I thought I heard… Never mind. It’s nothing.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. I’d better get going.”

  As he was filling his cup with more coffee for the road she went back to sink.

  “Don’t forget your promise, Andy,” she called back over her shoulder. “If that pain comes back, you get some help right away.”

  Not bother to mention that the pain was returning, he reiterated his promise. He went over and kissed his wife on the cheek, patted her pregnant belly, and went to the door.

  “Bye, hon,” he said. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Andy,’ she said back. “Good-bye.”

  Andy thought that he heard something ominous in his wife’s good-bye, as if she thought she’d never see him again, but he pushed the thought out of his mind and went out to his parking space.

  It was a dank, cloudy morning, which was strange because the weatherman had predicted a sunny and cloudless day. But weathermen were almost never right, were they? The clouds looked more pregnant than his wife and Andy expected it to rain at any moment. He hurried to get to his car before he was caught in a downpour.

  For some strange reason, he was almost sure that his car wouldn’t be in its usual spot, but it was there, right where he had parked it the night before. In the dim light of that dreary morning the green car looked more black, and for a moment he was afraid to go near the vehicle. Like something out of a cheesy horror movie there was a loud clap of thunder that startled him and caused the throbbing in his chest to spike again.

  Maybe I should just call in sick, he thought.

  But he knew he wouldn’t. He had gone to work sicker and with worse aches and pains, two or three times with a hangover, and a little pain in his chest wasn’t going to keep him home.

  When the rain did start, only a drizzle, but with a promise of a whole lot more, he finally headed to the car. He was planning on just getting in and driving away, but what he saw stopped him in his tracks. There was a rather large dent in the driver’s side fender and a large crack in the windshield. The car hadn’t been damaged yesterday. It looked like it had been in an accident, but it was parked in Andy’s space right by the curb. If another vehicle had hit his car, it would have to have been driving on the sidewalk. The only other thing he could think of was that someone had vandalized his car during the night with a baseball bat or something.

  “Damn kids,” Andy muttered as he stood in the rain surveying the damage. It didn’t look too bad, and the car would probably work properly, but it would cost a few thousand to fix at least. Making a mental note to call his mechanic as soon as he could when he got to work, he got into the car.

  It started up fine and Andy was sure that the damage was merely superficial. Before pulling out of this parking space he turned the radio on.

  “More news on that fatal accident downtown,” a news reporter’s voice filled the car. Andy was about to reach down to change the channel but something stopped him. He had the feeling that the crash was somehow important and he was still concerned about traffic. Between the accident and the weather he was afraid he would be late for work.

  “The names of the accident victims have still not been released,” the reporter said. “We were able to confirm that the vehicle driven by the man who was rushed to the hospital was indeed a Toyota Corolla. That man is undergoing emergency surgery right now. We will have more information as it comes to us.”

  The station began playing some light rock ballad and Andy pulled the car out of the parking space. He sipped at his coffee as he drove and hoped he wouldn’t be late. On a good day the commute into town was half an hour long, but with the rain and the accident it could easily turn into forty-five minutes to an hour. He could be cutting it real close.

  He pulled up to the gate that separated the Fairview Estates from the rest of the world. The metal gate was closed and the gatekeeper, an older Hispanic man named Joe, was at his post in the control booth as he was every day but Sunday. He smiled amiably as Andy pulled up, stopped the car, and rolled down the window.

  “Morning, Mr. Simon,” Joe said. Despite the gloomy weather, Joe was usually cheerful self.

  “Good morning, Joe,” Andy replied.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” There was no sarcasm in his voice as he looked up at the heavy ray storm clouds.

  “Yeah,” Andy said, trying not to sound sarcastic himself, “lovely.”

  Joe pressed the button that would open the gate and as the mechanized iron-barred contraption opened, he would say the same thing he said every morning: “Have a nice day, Mr. Simon.” Like Old Faithful, Joe could always be counted on for a friendly smile and a kind word. He did smile that big grin of his, but the words that came out of his mouth weren’t his usual warm farewell.

  With a grin and a cheery tone, Joe said, “Sure is a shame, isn’t it?”

  Andy almost just waved and drove on, half hearing what he’d expected to hear, but then Joe’s words sank in.

  “What’s that, Joe?”

  Still grinning and with a cheery tone Joe said, “He was so young. And his poor wife! It’s a terrible tragedy!”

  Andy gaped incredulously at the gatekeeper. Joe was speaking of some tragedy, but his expression said that he was commenting on nothing more than the weather. Feeling a strange sinking feeling in his gut, Andy just nodded, rolled up the window, and drove through the gate. He glanced back through the
rearview mirror and saw just what he was expecting to see. The gate was closing behind him and Joe was waving goodbye.

  “What the hell is going on today?” Andy asked himself as he left the Fairview Estates behind.

  The rain was coming down harder now and he turned on the windshield wipers as he pulled out onto the street. He reached for his coffee cup to take another sip when another bolt of pain hit his chest, this time traveling right through his right arm to his extended fingers. He winced and took a deep breath, praying that he wouldn’t crash his car as the pain subsided.

  His chest still throbbing, Andy took a sip of the coffee. Instead of the bittersweet flavor of sugared coffee, his mouth was filled with what could only be blood. He spit the coppery tasting fluid out of his mouth and almost threw the cup at the crack in his windshield. The stuff that he spit onto his steering wheel and dashboard looked like regular coffee, as did the liquid in the cup, but his mouth still felt like it was full of blood.

  He flipped on his emergency blinkers and pulled the car over. He pulled down his sun visor and looked into the vanity mirror. He opened his mouth wide looking for some sign of a wound or the red tint of blood he may have unknowingly coughed up, even though he couldn’t recall coughing that whole morning. There was nothing. He looked down at his coffee cup and the light brown liquid inside it looked perfectly fine. He took a tentative sip and found two things. First, it tasted like coffee, not a trace of blood in it. Second,