Shallow Graves

backyard like?
    He never found out.
    Pellam was halfway across the road when a small gray car crested the hill, hit a patch of leaves slick as spilled oil and skidded hard. He tried to dance out of its path but a part of the car—some piece of resonant sheet metal—caught him square on the thigh.
    John Pellam saw:
    A sea of leaves, mostly yellow, rising to the sky. A flare of sunlight on glass. A huge oak tree spinning, the blue house turning upside down, caught in a tornado. Then someone swung the curb at him, and everything disappeared in a burst of dirty light.

Chapter 3
    “ WHERE’D YOU GET that scar?”
    Pellam opened his eyes. Thinking only that he wanted to throw up.
    He told this to the white-jacketed man standing above him, muscular, in his forties. And, as the doctor was telling him that it was normal, Pellam started to.
    A bedpan appeared just in time and, while Pellam was busy with it, the doctor continued his calm monologue. “You wake up from a concussion, you always see regurgitation. I don’t mean stunned but actually knocked unconscious. Yep, completely normal reaction.”
    He looked like a veterinarian Pellam had taken a dog to once. A standard poodle, he thought, but he couldn’t remember for sure. He liked standard poodles but he didn’t think he’d ever owned one. That bothered him, not remembering. Maybe he had amnesia. Or brain damage.
    He groaned. After the completely normal regurgitation, he felt burning stomach muscles and a fiery throat join the agony that swelled inside his skull, a balloon that wouldn’t stop expanding until the bonecracked and the pressure hissed out like steam from a burst pipe.
    He took a mouthful of water, rinsed, and spit into the bedpan. There was no nurse and the doctor disappeared with the pan. He returned with a clean one and set it on the table next to Pellam.
    No, it wasn’t a poodle, it was a terrier. One of Trudie’s, he believed (Trudie, Trudie . . . had he called her?).
    “That should be about it,” the doctor said and didn’t explain any further.
    Pellam did a self-exam. He wore just his Jockey briefs under a blue cloth robe. He lifted the sheets and checked body parts in descending order of importance. The only sign of damage, apart from the bandage on his head, was a bruise on his thigh the color and shape of a mutant eggplant.
    “I wouldn’t drink anything for a while,” the doctor said.
    Pellam said he wouldn’t. Then added, “I got hit by a car.” He was disappointed that this was the most significant thing he could think of to say.
    The doctor said, “Uh-huh.” Mostly he seemed curious about the scar. It was a foot long, a gouge of glossy, indented skin across Pellam’s right biceps and chest. It was a memento of the time an arms assistant got the charge instructions wrong during a car chase gag and used dynamite instead of smokeless powder in rigging the Oldsmobile Pellam was driving. When the car exploded, Pellam got an eighteen-inch auto part in the chest. The medic told him that if it’d been going straight it would’ve pinned him to the wall. “Lahk a stuck piyag, Pellam. You a lucky somvabitch.”
    “Used to do stunt work,” he now said to the doctor.
    “Oh, you’re the movie man, huh?”
    Pellam focused on him. He really looked like he should be treating fuzzy terriers and poodles and mending tipped cows.
    “I’m the movie man.”
    “Don’t do stunts anymore, I hope.”
    “Life’s exciting enough.”
    “I hear you,” the doctor said.
    “How am I?”
    The doctor said, “Nothing serious. Concussion but no cracks. You fell good—I guess because you’re used to stunts. That scrape on your head is wide, it can get infected pretty easy, so keep an eye on it. I’ll give you some Betadine.”
    “This a hospital?”
    The doctor laughed. “It’s got me, a mini lab, a podiatrist, an OB-GYN. If that’s a hospital, this is Cleary General.”
    “Can I leave?”
    “Nope. You’ll have to stay here the night. You’ll be pretty dizzy for a while. I wouldn’t want you to fall. I’ve got plenty of magazines. Reader’s Digest s. Some National Geographic s. Good things like that. A Bible, if you’re interested.”
    “I’ve got to get a message to somebody.”
    “There’s a phone in the lobby. I can make a call for you. If you—”
    “No, not a phone call. Somebody’ll be waiting for me back at my camper. It’s parked on Main Street.” Pellam told him that Marty would be returning about six.
    The