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Suddenly the men embraced each other for a long moment. The sitting man then braced himself on the rail with his hands. When the hooded man was certain that no cars or strollers approached, he raised a baseball bat and smashed the other on the head.

Even through the closed window, the blow made a sickening crack that sent the victim over the rail and into the black water.

Jenna cried out in horror and disbelief. But what sickened her was the hideous realization that the victim had waited for his companion to bash his head in. That it was on purpose—that they had walked together to just the right spot and waited for the traffic to clear so one could put the other out of his misery.

Before the hooded man walked away, he flung the bat into the water, then looked down to where his friend had fallen and made the sign of the cross.

7

On the evening of the twenty-second day, Damian and Anthony stopped by the hospital. They had been back a few more times since the prayer incident, for which Maggie had apologized. And being the gentleman that he was, Damian said he had no hard feelings. He had even brought her a bouquet of flowers.

Zack was still breathing on his own, with his vital signs holding normal. But he was still at level two.

They chatted for a while. Maggie asked how they were doing in school, then told them how physical therapists came in daily to exercise Zack’s arms, legs, and feet and how she helped. Anthony was in the middle of a funny story about something that happened at the local mall when Zack suddenly rolled his head and made a strange cawing sound.

“Omigod!” Maggie cried out. Instantly she was on her feet and gripping his hand. “Zack! Wake up. Wake up.”

“He’s saying something!” Anthony said.

“He’s breaking through,” Damian said.

“Zack! Zack, wake up!” Maggie cried. “It’s Mom. Please, honey. Open your eyes.”

Zack’s mouth moved as guttural sounds rose from his throat—the first sounds he had made in three weeks. “Get the nurse,” Maggie said to Anthony, who bolted from the room. She rubbed Zack’s hand. “Zack, it’s Mom. Wake up!”

“His eyes are moving,” Damian said. “I think he’s trying to open them.”

“Zack! Open your eyes. You can do it. Open your eyes.”

While she continued coaxing him, Zack’s eyes rolled under his lids as if he were having an intense dream. But he didn’t open them, just kept muttering nonsense syllables.

A few moments later, Anthony returned with a nurse and an aide. The nurse began to rub Zack’s cheek. “Zack, it’s Beth Howard, your nurse. Talk to me, Zack. Talk to me. Open your eyes.”

Zack winced as if registering her voice. He continued muttering unintelligible sounds, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Zack, it’s Mom. Wake up. Please.”

“What’s he saying?” Anthony asked Damian.

Damian didn’t respond but stood transfixed, studying Zack’s face.

“Whatever it is, it’s a good sign,” said the nurse. The aide agreed, her cell phone in her hand presumably to call the resident. “Hey, Zack, your mom’s here. So are Anthony and Damian. Time to wake up. You can do it. Open your eyes.”

More mutterings from Zack as his head rolled slightly on the pillow. Maggie put her ear close to his mouth as he continued muttering strange syllables. “He’s saying something. He’s saying words.”

“Does he know a foreign language?” the nurse asked.

“He took a year of Spanish, but that’s not what it sounds like.”

Anthony leaned over Zack. “Hey, bro, it’s Anthony. Come out of there. We got some partying to do.”

But Zack made no response to the promptings, just continued muttering.

“It’s just gibberish,” Anthony said. “I do that when I sleep, too.”

“No, it’s not,” Damian whispered. “He’s speaking in tongues.”

“Tongues. What’s that?” Anthony asked.

“Glossolalia.”

“Glossowhat?”

“Glossolalia,” Damian said in a voice barely audible. “The Holy Spirit is speaking through him.”

“Cut the crap,” Anthony said as the nurse’s aide gawked at Zack. “It’s nothing.”

Damian nodded and fell silent.

Through a broken voice, Maggie continued to beg Zack to wake up, but after several minutes he fell silent again.

And anguish raked through her soul as Zack’s mouth stopped moving and his eyes fell still and he sank back into a deep sleep.

Although there were no changes in him, the nurse said it was a good sign that he tried to talk, tried to break through. There would be another time.

She and the aide replaced his IV and checked the monitors. Then the others resumed their vigil around Zack in his coma as acceptance settled over them like snow.

“False alarm,” the nurse said, and left the room.

8

No false alarm. He could hear voices.

His first thought was that he was dreaming. That he was in bed in his apartment, and faceless people were in his room telling him it was time to get up and go to class, to work on his thesis—his deadline was closing in—to get a job, to stop gambling …

Voices. Lots of them, some he recognized. His mother. Aunt Kate. Anthony. Damian. Geoff. Beth Howard, his nurse. Also voices he didn’t recognize telling him dumb stuff like to wiggle his toes and squeeze their fingers and open his eyes. He tried to tell them that he was stuck in a foolish dream, that he’d wake soon and get hustling.

But as in all dreams, he had no control. He could hear them but couldn’t respond. Couldn’t open his eyes. Couldn’t move. It was as if he had become afflicted with some kind of paralysis. But that happened in dreams, like his legs freezing when he was being chased. He couldn’t just shake himself awake. And just as weird was how things moved in dreams, how the familiar world took on non-Cartesian logic, non-Euclidian geometry, and how gravity could be suspended.

Like the snap of a finger, he found himself bodiless and floating above his bed—

no, not his bed, not the one in his apartment, with the blue paisley spread his mother had bought, but a bed all in white in a strange room with colorless walls and IVs dripping and flickering, beeping machines—

and all those people were standing around him making demands. He could see them. And he could see himself in the bed, but from above, as if he were some kind of ectoplasm hovering in the air, and below was himself: dead asleep, eyes shut, face colorless and shrunken, head roughly shaven and cocked on a pillow, arms gaunt and limp by his sides, with tubes and wires running from them and his gut to drips and bags and monitors like so many umbilical cords.

A hospital room, of course. He was asleep in a hospital room for unknown reasons.

And his mother was holding his hand and weeping. Also Anthony—a big guy with pecs like gladiator plates and biceps like muskmelons, fidgeting over his bedridden pal—and beside him Geoff, whose big toothy grin and exuberant face had given way to a solemn mask as he, too, beheld the sleeping figure. And Damian—pale, lean, angular Damian with that sincere ascetic face and premature bald spot, looking like a monk in a medieval painting before the reposed figure in sainthood.

“Glossowhat?”

“Gibberish.”

Anthony. He recognized the voice, but the view outside was wrong. Nothing lay beyond the window. No buildings, no grasslands, no river, no woods—as if fog had clotted the view. Then someone in a low voice said, “This is good. Right here.” The next moment, the wind blew sand in his face, filling his eyes and mouth. And his chest felt as if something were threatening to press the life out of him.

Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe, and mouth filling.