He hated giving up life, but accepted that in the jungle, death was the price of carelessness, of error, and he errored badly. Surrendering life to rejoin Marti would be welcome. He could even accept oblivion. This, though…this limbo? The thought of having to endure it for eternity terrified him.
He screamed…for himself, for Marti, for all the dead trapped sleepless and peaceless and tormented in their graves. He screamed, and because went unvoiced, it echoed and reechoed endlessly down the long, dark, lonely corridors of his mind.
The horror escalated. A sheet over him blocked the vision of his eyes; temperature had become all one to him, unfelt; and the lack of breath prevented him from smelling anything, but he knew he lay in the morgue. He had heard its cold echoes on arriving, had felt them park the gurney, and heard the freezer door close. Now he heard, had lain listening for countless time, the hum of refrigeration units while he dreamed nightmares and wished Lane had thrown him in the bay, too. Better to be fish food than lie in this hated purgatory of cold and steel. He prayed for his parents to be spared seeing him here.
That was when he thought of the autopsy. His heart contracted in fear. What would it be like? How would it feel to lie naked in running water on cold steel, sliced open from neck to hips, shelled out like -
Heart?
His mind held its breath…waiting. Yes, there it was! His heart squeezed again. A slow ripple moved outward from it along his arteries. He felt almost every inch of them. A long pause later, his heart squeezed again, then again…settling into a slow but regular rhythm.
He listened in wonder. If his heart beat, he could not be dead. His body lay leaden, held unmoving on the stainless steel the surface beneath him, but a silent cry of joy banished the darkness inside him. Alive!
He drew a breath…slow, painfully slow, but a breath nonetheless. He swore his breath and heart stopped in that alley. He had felt — how he had felt! — the silence of his body. What miracle caused the heart and lungs to resume function? He could not imagine, and at the moment, overjoyed with the sound and feel of them, he did not give a damn why.
But he remained in a morgue freezer, naked under the sheet. Unless he found a way out, the cold would kill him again. Could he attract attention by pounding on the gurney? Calling out?
He tried, but the weakness that held him motionless the past — how many? — hours persisted. He still could not move. Could not speak.
Could he survive until they came to take him out for the autopsy? He felt less cold now. Perhaps if he kept alert, he could fight off hypothermia.
He wished, though, that he could change position. His body consisted of one continuous, unrelenting ache, stiff from neck to toes. By concentrating and straining, he finally managed to move. Like the first heartbeat and the first breath, it came with agonizing slowness. Still, by persisting, he managed to shift his weight off his buttocks and turn on his side. Not that it helped a great deal. He still felt uncomfortable, but at least the position of the aches changed.
He tried again to call out but managed only a whisper. He would just have to wait for them to come for him.
He fought his way onto his stomach to change the pressure points once more and felt the sheet slide sideways. Slowly, painfully, he managed to turn on his side again and pull the sheet back over him. Little protection from the cold as it was, it was better than lying bare-assed.
He did not sleep, but in spite of himself, he must have dozed because the sound of approaching feet startled him. He never heard the door open. Light blinded him as the sheet came off.
“What clown put this stiff on his side?” a voice demanded.
If he raised upright, would they faint, Garreth wondered. He wished he could find out, but gravity dragged at him, weighting him. He went without resistance as they rolled him on his back again and rearranged the sheet over him.
“Hurry,” another voice said. “This one’s a cop and Thurlow wants to get him posted as soon as possible.”
Garreth worked his hands to the edges of the gurney and clamped his fingers around the rubber bumper. Even if he could not move fast enough to attract their attention and they missed the faint motion of his chest, they could hardly overlook this.
The gurney halted stopped. An attendant pulled off the sheet. Hands took him by the shoulders and legs and pulled…but Garreth’s grip held him on the stretcher.
“What the hell is going on?” snapped the voice of the medical examiner.
“I don’t know, Dr. Thurlow. His hands weren’t like that when we put him on the gurney.”
Now that he had their attention, Garreth forced open his eyes. Half a dozen gasps sounded around him.
He focused on Dr. Edmund Thurlow. “Please.” The whisper rasped up his throat with a plea from his soul. “Get me out of here.”
2
Why were the doctors out at the intensive care unit desk talking so loud, Garreth wondered. Every patient in the unit could hear them.
“I tell you he was dead,” Thurlow said. “I detected no vital signs, no heartbeat or respiration, and his pupils were fixed and dilated.”
“It’s obvious he couldn’t have been dead,” a hospital doctor said. “However, that’s beside the point now. The question is, can we keep him alive? We’re pouring blood and ringers into him as fast as we can but his blood pressure is still almost nonexistent and he’s hypothermic and bradycardic. His breathing is so slow only the monitor tells me he’s breathing.”
Garreth looked up at the suspended plastic bags, one clear, one with contents the same dark red as Lane Barber’s hair. His eyes followed the tubing down to his arms. The blood made him feel better, but still not good. Exhaustion dragged at him. He desperately wanted to sleep, but could not find a comfortable position, no matter how he shifted and turned.
“What about the throat injury?” Thurlow said.
“A few skin sutures are all he’s needed,” came the reply. “The trauma isn’t nearly as severe as you described, Dr. Thurlow.”
“We have photographs of what I saw.” Thurlow sounded defensive. “Both the left jugular and common carotid suffered multiple lacerations, almost to the point of complete severing. There were also multiple lacerations of the trachea and left stemocleidomastoid muscles.”
“I’ve seen your photographs, so I believe you…yet twelve hours later the muscles, vessels, and trachea appear intact.”
They went on talking, but Garreth tried to ignore them. Careful not to move the arm with the needle in it, he shifted position again. The cardiac monitor above his bed registered the effort with an extra bleep. Moving proved pointless, however. Nothing made him comfortable. His bed stood near the window, and the glare of sunlight added to his discomfort.
Footsteps approached. If it was the nurse, he decided, he would beg for something to drug him to sleep.
Then he smiled weakly as Harry and Lieutenant Serruto appeared around the curtain across the door.
“Hi.” he whispered.
“Mik-san,” Harry replied in a husky voice. His hand closed hard over Garreth’s.
Serruto said, “They’re letting us ask you a few questions.”
“Yes. What the hell were you doing up there?” Harry demanded. “I’m your partner. Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing?”
“Easy, Harry,” Serruto said.
Garreth did not mind. He heard the frantic worry beneath the anger and knew how he would have felt in Harry’s place. “Sorry.”
“What happened?” Serruto asked.
Talking hurt. Garreth tried to find a short answer. Reaching up to the heavy collar of bandages around his throat, he managed to whisper, “Lane Barber bit me.”
They stared. “She bit you! That’s an understatement. How did it happen?”
How could he explain the loss of will that allowed her to stand him passively against a wall and tear his throat out? Damn, that light hurt. He shut his eyes. “Please. Close the curtains. Sun’s too bright.”