From a Dead Sleep
FROM A
DEAD SLEEP
JOHN A. DALY
From a Dead Sleep
© 2013 John A. Daly. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying, or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Published in the United States by BQB Publishing
(Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company)
www.bqbpublishing.com
Printed in the United States of America
978-1-937084-54-7 (p)
978-1-937084-97-4 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013933400
Book design by Robin Krauss,
www.lindendesign.biz
To my wife, Sarah, whose love and encouragement helped me fulfill a dream.
To my children, Chase and Olivia, whose smiles and laughter are constant reminders that anything is possible in this world.
Contents
July 14th, 2001
Saturday
S
ean Coleman grunted at the mercy of an excruciating headache as he began to awake. His skull throbbed in anguish, as if it had been knotted tightly with a rope. With blurred vision behind flickering eyelids, he struggled to find clarity and discovered himself lying facedown on a bed of damp, coarse dirt. Blades of long, healthy grass, wet from morning dew, brushed against his cheek as he clumsily turned his head to the side. A roaring cough erupted from deep within his throat, contorting his face and prompting him to raise his muddied fist to his parched lips.
Fragmented events from the night before began to stumble through his mind as if a diary was being thumbed through. He remembered getting off work late and stopping by O’Rafferty’s Bar for a drink. One drink turned into many, and he soon lost fifty bucks to Moses Jones in a game of eight-ball. Sean couldn’t afford to lose that money. It was his lifeline, but he had beaten Moses in the past on numerous occasions and another Sean Coleman victory seemed like a sure bet. Moses must have been practicing.
That money was needed for rent—rent that was already two months overdue. His landlord’s patience had been expended. He recalled the seriousness in that angry man’s eyes while he threatened Sean with eviction if the amount due wasn’t paid in full by the week’s end. It was the story of Sean’s life: always making the wrong decisions at the worst possible times.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” he grunted. His voice was hoarse, barely audible above the clamor of river rapids. The words were hoarse, grating.
Birds chatted peacefully above, their song the only sound that resonated above the loud roar of moving water whose constant echo bounced off the towering trees and large, rounded, moss-covered rocks. Fresh daylight shined through narrow openings in the thick Gamble Oak and evergreens. A ray kindled a swaying glimmer off of an empty beer bottle that lay just inches from Sean’s face. His stinging, bloodshot eyes glared hypnotically at it, as if he were staring through an open campfire.
He grappled with adjusting his eyes over what felt like an eternity, but was closer to a minute’s time. Finally the world focused.
Among the muggy turf and the scent of pine, his nose intercepted a lingering, recognizable, but vile stench. Through narrowed eyes, he scowled at the large clump of vomit that nested intrusively on the ground in front of the beer bottle he barely recalled carrying in his hand the night before. The sight prompted him to hastily spin over onto his broad back, away from last night’s penance. A wake of pain flowed across his skull from the brisk movement. His body flattened the grass beneath him, while small, underlying stones crackled from his movement.
His fluttering eyes soon grew large when a piercing sensation pricked into his chest. His hand hustled to his front shirt pocket, and his fingers quickly clenched the thin but heavy metal object that resided there. He grabbed it and raised it to his face. He examined the blemished badge whose securing pin dangled loosely in the light breeze. His thumb smeared mud and tiny grass particles from the front, exposing a smooth glimmering shield with an etched star at the middle. Above the star, in blue engraved print, read the word “Hansen.” The lower half read “Security.”
A whisper of moving brush and the snap of a thin twig spun Sean’s head to the side like a weathervane through a sudden wind gust. A subtle smile formed on his lips as he welcomed the unexpected company of a large jackrabbit who glared back with beady black eyes. The critter was hunched timidly between two smalls shrubs; its oversized ears pointing straight upward, while its nose trembled erratically. The small animal’s coat was nearly camouflaged against a dead overturned tree that lay in rot behind it. The rabbit examined him curiously, approaching within a few feet with a single lunge. Sean sneered back, engaging in a stare down with its lifeless black eyes that appeared to be silently judging him. The rabbit’s eyelids clenched with an expression that could be best interpreted as a scowl if it were formed on the face of a human. After several seconds of neither giving in, Sean sighed in dismay.
His low, gravelly voice broke the stalemate. “I know,” he stated in a hopeless, conceding tone.
Seemingly satisfied with the large man’s confessional, the furry creature quickly lurched to the side and scurried off under brush and around trees. It soon disappeared from sight.
“I know,” Sean repeated before his eyes slowly dropped to the ground.
He lay there in an almost relaxed state, tracing the contours of the shield with his eyes while using his fingernails to scrape the remaining filth from each and every groove. To Sean, it was a badge of honor . . . a dwindling reminder that he had a responsibility, a noble purpose in life, even though life hadn’t turned out the way he’d imagined it. He craned his head forward; the action of which formed a double chin that displayed a day’s stubble which looked prematurely gray for a man of thirty-seven years of age. He quickly used both hands to reattach the shield to the front of his pocket. He fiddled with it until he was certain it hung symmetrically.
From his reclined position, he couldn’t help but notice his exposed stomach peeking out from under his untucked, gray button-up shirt. It crested over the top of his belt, no longer resembling the defined row of abdominal muscles of which he had once been very proud. His uniformed pants, accented with black pinstripes, were severely wrinkled and stained by grass, mud, and vomit. The tips of his brown, worn-out cowboy boots pointed upward toward the morning sky.
A straining groan slid from between his large, yellowing teeth as he crunched his body up into a sitting position. With his broad shoulders, he looked like a large lonesome tree stump, indigenous to the wilderness that surrounded him. He felt dampness on his back and butt, immediately accompanied by a brief chill going through his body that was now being exposed to the open breeze. The night’s events flooded back to him. Wallowing in the familiar misery of his loss and convincing himself that there was no redemption for his mistake, the barrier of self-restraint crumbled down around him and he had found himself at the bar ordering a much-needed drink at O’Rafferty’s. It was the first of many.
He also remembered Ted O’Rafferty himself limping outside into the parking lot after him and all those drinks and snatching his car keys away.
“You ain’t driving anywhere tonight, Coleman!” the old man had lectured as he pressed the tip of his crooked wooden walking cane into Sean’s chest.
Sean recalled he’d caused the kind of scene that had become expected of him over the years, but stubborn Ted would have none of it. The old man had too much respect for Sean’s uncle to let his drunken nephew climb into his car and drive off. Hobbling back up the steps toward the front doors, Ted had screamed in his grainy, frail voice, “You can sleep out here in your car, but you ain’t driving anywhere tonight!”
Now lying among the cool grass, Sean wondered why he hadn’t taken Ted’s advice rather than attempting to walk home. The last thing he remembered was stumbling his way down the roadside and marveling at the wicked lightning storm that had illuminated the night sky to the north.
“Yeah, this is much better . . .” he muttered wryly.
His legs burned when he reached for his knees, attempting to stretch out his wide back as his shoulders lunged forward. His hand went to the back of his head, where his teeth-manicured fingernails scratched a constantly irritated area at the base of his skull. A quarter-sized patch of hairless skin resided there, rubbed raw. The blemish was surrounded by an otherwise decently kept, short flat-top crew cut.
He noticed a collection of small dusty pebbles stuck to the bottom of his elbow. The same section of skin served as home to fresh scratches and scrapes. As he glanced up at the dirt road above the ditch he was nested in, he noticed his black plastic hair comb snagged on the thin limb of a small straggly bush. It was about halfway up the hill. Above and below the bush lay a wide vertical path of flattened and broken vegetation. Sean concluded that he had fallen down from the road above before rolling down the gradual embankment. He remembered none of it, but strangely enough enjoyed a touch of satisfaction at being able to reenact the scene in his mind based on the clues before him.
“Forensics . . .” he whispered. “They’re the only true identifier to the mystery of an untold past.” He grinned as he repeated the profound statement, which he remembered hearing William Petersen iterate from a recent episode of
CSI
.
With County Road 2 and Meyers Bridge residing so closely above, it was a wonder no early morning drivers had seen him lying down in that ditch. Maybe they did and just didn’t care. Maybe the locals had all figured out by now that it was best not to ever engage Sean Coleman.
With his finger carefully scraping yellow crust from his eye, he raised himself up to one knee, yawning while peering out from behind the thin wispy grass that surrounded him. His gaze traced the tops of the low mountain range that sprawled familiarly along the northern horizon. He then glanced over his shoulder and along the road leading up the old wooden bridge—the same one he drove back and forth across most days.
That was when forced clarity suddenly grabbed Sean’s attention, as if he had been shaken awake. His eyes focused in surprise as he beheld an odd site—the dark figure of a man, clad in a long trench coat, standing directly at the center of the bridge. Sean hadn’t heard him approach. The black outfit cloaking the stranger’s body couldn’t have been any more misplaced; a foreign sight to the rural area far outside of any large cities. The man was leaning forward, peering blankly out in the direction of the river’s flow. His knees pressed against the rusted steel guardrail that traveled along the edge of the bridge. It was clear that he hadn’t spotted Sean in the ditch.