His roommate, Bahgavan Gupta, was a talkative man originally from India, who wore a turban at all times, even when bathing.

Zack found him annoying, someone who yakked when Zack would rather mourn Caroline or contemplate death.

One day Gupta said, "You are a sad man. Why do you weep all of the time?"

Zack replied, tears streaming down his cheeks, "Because Caroline, my wife, my love is dead. She was so young, so beautiful, had such a perfect body."

"How did she die?"

"I don't know. One night I came into the bedroom full of desire for her. When I touched her, she was ice cold, and I could not detect her breath. I checked her pulse. There was none. She was dead." Zack buried his face in his hands and let out a sigh of heartrending anguish. After a few minutes of loud moaning and sobbing, he caught his breath and continued. "The police said I killed her. But that can't be true. I loved her more than life itself. If I would've harmed her, I surely would've recalled that. I was arrested and brought to trial. My lawyers entered a plea of 'not guilty for reasons of insanity'. That's how I ended up here."

"You should ask your wife about the truth of the matter. Find out what really happened to her."

Zack looked up at Gupta suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

"I am a magi. I have mystical powers. I can communicate with the dead."

Zack recalled where he was. The man was an inmate of a mental institution. Obviously he was insane. Or was he? Zack knew that he himself was not insane and yet was an inmate. Gupta's assertion that he could speak to the dead piqued Zack's curiosity. It would be wonderful if it was true. To break through the veil of death that separated him from Caroline and speak to her would make his heart sing. "You fraud. You can't talk to the dead anymore than I can."

"You can also. I can teach you. Tonight, after lights out, we will hold a seance. Yes?"

Although Zack did not believe in seances, the prospect of speaking to Caroline once again made him agree. He loved Caroline with a love so intense it felt like pain. He wanted to ask her whether he had really killed her as the police claimed. If it was true, he would beg her forgiveness. But he did not believe what they said about him, that he was a psychotic killer. "Okay. Tonight. Now leave me alone."

Despite his outwardly skeptical attitude, all afternoon and early evening, he thought about the coming seance, sometimes with anticipation, sometimes with skepticism, sometimes with despair and most of all with dread, afraid of what the spirit of Caroline might reply to the question of how she had died.

At precisely eleven each night, an orderly turned the lights off. Zack and Gupta waited fifteen additional minutes. To escape prying eyes, they hung a blanket across the window in their door. Gupta, who had been in the institution so long he had the run of the place, had obtained a candle stub and matches, items forbidden to patients. He and Zack faced each other on the floor with the lit candle between them.

"Now we hold hands and concentrate on the departed one you wish to reach."

Zack took Gupta's feminine hands into his great mitts and thought about Caroline, how she looked when he met her, her happy face at their wedding, her calm expression the evening he found her dead. Gupta called out in a low voice, "Hear us, people who dwell in the land of the dead. We wish to contact the bride of Zachary. Please, if you hear, Madam Caroline, make an effort to reach us from the place beyond the pale." He continued in this manner for several minutes, repeating the call to Caroline to speak.

The room grew dimmer; the candle flickered and flamed although there was no air movement and neither man had breathed upon it.

Gupta said, "Give us sign woman who Zachary loved. Speak to us."

The candle guttered out, leaving them in gloomy darkness except for weak moonlight through the barred window. A chill made Zack shiver. The stench of death was in the air. An almost inaudible moan issued from above. The moaning grew louder and changed to the sound of a woman weeping.

"Caroline. Is that you?" Zack cried.

The weeping grew louder. Finally Caroline's voice, sounding hollow as though she was calling through a long tunnel, said, "My precious life was cut short, Zachary. Why did you ...?" The voice trailed off.

"Why did I do what? Is what the police said true? Did I murder you?"

"You know," the voice said.

"I don't remember harming you. If I did, I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Zack wept along with the spirit. Vague horrible memories flashed across his mind, but whether of reality or of the nightmares he experienced since Caroline's death, he was not certain.

"You must come ..." The weak voice grew faint and faded away.

"I will. I'll join you, so help me."

Without anyone touching the candle, it relighted itself. The presence that Zack had felt while he heard the voice was gone. Caroline spoke no more. He squeezed Gupta's hands. "You must help me die, my friend."

Gupta chuckled. "Dying is easy. Returning from the dead is harder. Tomorrow I'll show you how to do both."

Zack wasn't sure what the enigmatic man meant, but waited eagerly for whatever the strange man had to teach him.

* * *
During recreation period, Zack accosted Gupta in the day room. "Last night you promised to help me die."

"Easy. Be calm. The orderlies watch. Sit. I will show you. Today I demonstrate on myself. Later I train you."

They faced each other across a table. "Watch," Gupta said. He stared at Zack for a few moments. Suddenly, his eyes rolled up in his head, and he slumped to the side and fell off the chair. The orderly rushed over, knelt by Gupta and felt for a pulse.

"Holy shit," he cried. "He's dead." He stared wildly at Zack. "What happened?"

"I don't know. We were talking, and he keeled over."

The orderly called for help, and the day room was cleared of patients. Zack did not see what they did with Gupta afterwards. When he returned to his own room, he contemplated this strange turn of events. He was beginning to like the odd man and was disappointed that the "magi" as he called himself was beyond teaching Zack his secrets. It seemed as though Gupta had willed himself to die. But why? He said it was a demonstration. Some demonstration. One does not kill oneself simply to demonstrate how to do it. Gupta must have been really insane.

* * *
Later that day, when the orderly handed out the daily pills, Zack asked, "What happened to my roommate?"

The orderly shook his head. "It was the strangest thing. He passed out in the day room."

"Yeah. I know. I was there."

"Well, Doc Shwangle pronounced him dead. But as they wheeled him to the morgue, he woke up. Seemed fit as a fiddle. They took him to the medical wing to check him out."

"He's okay?"

"I guess so. Maybe, it's a brain dysfunction, like epilepsy, that makes him seem to be dead when he's only unconscious. I've seen people in comas like that. You'd swear that they'd passed away until you examined them with a stethoscope."

After the orderly left, Zack realized that Gupta had done what he had said he would do. He willed himself dead and alive again.

* * *
Two days later Gupta returned from the infirmary. The doctors could not find anything physically wrong with him, although they'd given him a battery of tests, MRIs, electrocardiograms, breathing tests and X-rays.

When Zack and Gupta were alone, Zack asked, "Did you will yourself to die?"

Gupta winked at him. "Not quite death, but next thing to it. Did my demonstration convince you?"

"Yes. Show me how to do that." Zack knew that he would not will himself alive again.

Gupta gave Zack lessons on how to put himself into a deathlike trance. For the next several weeks, he taught Zack how to make his breathing shallow, to sit in an uncomfortable position for hours without moving, to think of nothing. It was difficult, especially the last. Thoughts of Caroline, of his guilt and of death intruded. When he could do all those things, Gupta taught him self-hypnosis.

One evening after dinner, Gupta said, "You are ready, my friend. If you wish, tonight you can travel to the land of dead if you wish."

Zack smiled; thoughts of being with Caroline made him happy. "Really?"

"Yes. But you must be careful. You will see a silver cord that attaches your aura to your physical body. If it breaks, you cannot return, ever. You will die the true death."

Zack shrugged. "That's fine with me. I won't wish to return."

Gupta gave him a Mona Lisa smile. "Perhaps not. But perhaps you will."

* * *
Zack began the exercises to put himself in a deathlike trance. First he made his breathing shallow, relaxed every muscle in his body, and finally hypnotized himself. The room grew dim. Zack felt extremely light and realized that he had floated to the ceiling. He looked down to see his body lying on the bunk, and Gupta calling for the orderly. A thin silver cord stretched from his aura to his physical body. He rose higher until he was soaring far above the building, through the clouds and into a dark tunnel. Ahead was bright, blinding light. As he approached, someone waited for him, but the light was so bright he saw the person only in silhouette. He called to her. "Caroline. Is that you?"

Her sweet voice said, "Zachary. Come. Join me."

He rushed forward. When he reached her, she grabbed him and with surprising strength tossed him into an abyss that opened up below them. "Murderer. Murderer," she screamed as he tumbled over and over into nothingness. In absolute terror he was sure that he was falling into the pits of hell to eternal torment. He no longer wanted to die. He looked around to see that the silver cord was still attached.

Suddenly, his downward plunge was halted. Instead, he found himself in a tiny enclosed place with walls only inches away on each side, ahead, behind and above. I've been buried alive, he thought in horror and went into a claustrophobic panic. Could there be a more terrible way to die? His breathing became labored, his heart thumped against his chest and he gasped for air.. Pure terror sent his mind into madness. He pounded on the walls until his knuckles bled although he knew it was hopeless.

Just before he was about to pass out, there was the sound of scraping, and he felt motion. A bit of light and air that smelled of disinfectant entered. Moments later, a bright light was in his eyes and, Ken, the night shift attendant in the morgue stared at him with horror in his eyes. Zack breathed a sigh of relief. He had not been buried alive, merely placed in one of the drawers where they kept dead patients until they were sent somewhere for burial or cremation.

* * *
After that incident, Zack's melancholy slowly improved. Although he still did not recall strangling Caroline, he pretended to accept what his psychiatrist told him, that he was a paranoid schizophrenic who had strangled his love in an insane moment and that he had blocked the murder from his mind. In truth he believed none of this. He knew he was sane. Oh perhaps he had become depressed because of Caroline's death, but that was all there was to his obsessed thoughts of death. He took his prescribed medication without complaint.

He and Gupta did not speak of willing one's death or what had occurred when he was in the trance. In fact, they did not speak much at all anymore as Gupta was taken away to the isolation ward, and Zack was given a new roommate. Zack dismissed the vision he had while in the trance state as a dream or hallucination.

One day, the chief psychiatrist called Zack into his office and said, "I've been receiving good reports about you, Zachary Norton. You've been taking your medication regularly, and your demeanor has become more cheerful. How do you feel?"

Although Zack was still obsessed with Caroline and suicide and had a morbid feat of being buried alive, he said, "Much better. I realize that I was full of guilty feelings and had gone overboard with my mourning of Caroline."

"There is nothing wrong with mourning or a certain amount of guilt, as long as you're realistic about it."

"Oh I am. I know that although I'll always have these feelings, they will eventually fade into the background as I get on with my life."

"That is very insightful of you. I believe you are ready to join the society of your fellow human beings." He winked. "And besides, we could use the extra bed. I am going to sign the papers that will give you your freedom. At first you'll be in a halfway house. If you do well, you be set completely free."

"Thank you, sir. I'll try my best to return to normalcy."

They shook hands. Two days later, Zack was released from the asylum.

* * *
He obtained work in a fast-food restaurant cooking hamburgers. Thoughts of suicide never left him. He thought about the method that Gupta had taught him. He fantasized about going into a near-death trance, meeting Caroline again, pleading with her to forgive him and her forgiving him. These fantasies ended with either him bringing her back to earth or the two of them living happily ever after in heaven.

Two things stopped him. First was that terrible abyss. What if the vision had been true and Caroline threw him into the abyss again? Did it end in hell? Or would he fall forever? He shuddered at the thought of endless torment or endless loneliness. Another, even more chilling thought, was the possibility of being buried alive. He had nightmares about waking up in that cramped drawer, the horrible claustrophobic panic of not having enough air and no way out. What if he woke up in a coffin under the earth? The thought made him so ill that shivered uncontrollably and vomited.

He was torn. He desperately wanted to see Caroline and beg her forgiveness if he had really killed her, which he still did not believe. Nonetheless, his fears kept him immobilized. He spent his days like a robot, going through the motions of living to return to his lonely room in the halfway house to brood. Each evening, he tried to put himself in a cationic state, but became frozen with terror before he completed the procedure.

* * *
One day on his way to work, a familiar face approached from the opposite direction. "Oh my God, it's Bahgavan. How did you get out, old friend?"

Gupta gave him his inscrutable smile as always. "The same way you did, my friend. I convinced the top shrink that I am cured. Foolish man. It is obvious that I am crazy as a loon. All I had to do was tell them that I no longer was able to communicate with or raise the dead."

At first Zack thought nothing about this remark, but after he reflected a moment he realized that Gupta had said something that could solve his problem, a way to be reunited with his lovely Caroline. "While we were in the institution, you never told me you could raise the dead."

"One might be considered insane if one claimed to have such an ability." Gupta's grin became impish. "Do you still mourn the passing of your dead wife? Do you wish very badly to see her again?"

"Yes. I've contemplated suicide, but I'm afraid that if I die, I'll be sent to hell. Caroline and I will be parted forever."

"I do not believe in such places as heaven and hell. When death comes, our spirit travels to a shadowy place of waiting. Later, we are born again in another body. If your wife has not been reborn, perhaps there is a way to ..."

"To what?" Zack trembled with excitement.

Gupta shook his head. "I cannot explain. I must show you. Tonight late, we will visit your wife's grave. No?"

"Yes!"

They agreed on a time and place to meet.

* * *
At the hour of midnight, Zack and Gupta prowled around the cemetery where Caroline was buried. The sky was overcast, without moon or stars. Zack trembled with the damp chill. He felt as though he and his friend were about to embark on something unholy and blasphemous. From an early age, he disliked graveyards. At night they were especially creepy.

Although Zack had visited Caroline's grave several times, in the gloom everything looked different. He had trouble locating her tombstone. While Gupta held a flashlight, he examined each headstone in the area where his bride was buried in the enormous cemetery. The matter was not helped by an eerie mist which created a ghostly atmosphere of unreality. Statues of angels stared sternly at Zack, admonishing him not to disturb the sleep of the dead. As they passed a large mausoleum, Zack heard a moan which although not a breeze was stirring he dismissed as the wind. A cold finger touched his spine. The soft, muddy ground sucked at his feet. As he stepped on one grave, his foot went into the mud a couple of inches. He flayed his arms to gain his balance, feeling foolish, frightened and ghoulish. He wondered exactly what Gupta was up to. If he suggested opening Caroline's grave, Zack would absolutely not allow such desecration.

An enormous ghostly figure in robes, face hidden by a cowl and holding a sickle loomed up before them --a statue of the grim reaper that an artist had sculpted as a grave marker as a reminder of the fate that awaits every man. Zack stared at that awful countenance for a few moments and wondered what it would be like to know he had only moments of life left. Caroline's death must have been terrible. Nonetheless, he felt no remorse. He still did not believe he killed her.

Finally, Gupta's light fell upon Caroline's gravestone. Zack had neglected the grave so that it was overgrown with creepers and vines.

"Is this it?"

"Yes. What now?"

"I will raise your wife from the dead."

"Can you really do that? Bring her back to life?"

Despite the chill air, perspiration appeared on Zack's face. He began to have second thoughts. He recalled the reception Caroline had given him while he was in that false death state. "Perhaps we should leave her in peace."

"Nonsense. You love this woman. Don't you wish to speak to her again, touch her flesh?" Gupta leered at him.

"Yes, of course, but ..."

Gupta grinned. "I'm glad you agree, my friend. I will now begin the ceremony to bring your lovely wife back from the land of the dead."

He lit several black candles, stuck them into the ground above the grave site to form a five-pointed star, poured a bottle of liquid on the mound above the dead woman and began an incantation in an unfamiliar language.

Strange rumblings and the odor of burning sulfur came from the earth. Zack's eyes focused on the grave. The soil churned as though something below was trying to crawl out. A skeletal hand appeared and grasped the earth as though trying to gain purchase. To Zack's absolute horror, Caroline's decayed body lifted itself free of the earth and stood before them. Although the corpse was still recognizable as Zack's wife, she was a thing of horror, discolored mummified skin hung loosely from her face. One eye was missing, and bone showed through her decayed moldy cheek. The dress she had been buried in hung in ragged tatters revealing the rotten flesh of a once beautiful body.

Zack screamed, "Oh my God, what have you done, Bahgavan? This is not what I wanted." He sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands in despair.

Through split lips and a decayed tongue, the apparition slurred, "Zachary, come to me. I wish to make love as we used to before you killed me."

Zack became frozen with horror as the ghastly thing advanced. The rotted corpse put her arms around him, kissed him with cold, moldy lips and dragged him to the muddy ground above her grave. He felt himself sinking. Soon the earth covered him up. After a few moments, he was in Caroline's coffin tangled up with her corpse, which was no longer animate. His worse nightmare had come true. He was buried alive. It came to him that Gupta was an evil sorcerer or a demon perhaps sent by Caroline to exact her revenge.

The End