“They weren’t the real problem last time,” I explained, fighting to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “It was the fact that I was channeling the actual death of a victim that…”
“Don’t split hairs with me, Row,” he interrupted. “I need ta’ know whether ta’ take ya’ in there or start the fuckin’ van and get outta here right now.”
“We already talked about this back at the house, Ben,” I shot back a harsh rebuke.
“Yeah, well B.F.D. Is it gonna be a problem or not?”
I gave up and told him what he wanted to hear. “They won’t be a problem.”
Apparently, he was a little short on trust at the moment.
“Is he yankin’ my chain?” He directed his question to Felicity.
“Aye, he is. But if we take some precautions, I think it will be okay.”
“You think it’ll be okay?”
“What do you want? It’s not like I do this every day, you know.” A mild spark of anger flashed in her voice. She was tired; we all were. Her own irritability was showing just as Ben’s was, and I’m certain my uncharacteristic moodiness wasn’t helping in the least. As I had suspected it would, the night was getting longer by the moment.
“Okay, okay,” Ben returned, a slight defensive note in his voice. “I’m not exactly an expert on this Twilight Zone crap myself y’know.”
“Are we going to sit here and fog up the windows, or are we going to go in?” I asked impatiently.
“When I’m ready,” Ben said. “Why don’t ya’ tell me again just what it is that you’re expectin’ ta’ find out?”
“We’ve already discussed this too.”
“Yeah, and we’re discussin’ it again.”
Truth was, I didn’t really have a good answer for the question. All I knew was that someone was communicating with me from the other side, and all indicators now pointed to that someone being Debbie Schaeffer. Coming here was the only way I knew to “complete the call,” so to speak.
“I don’t know.” I gave him the only answer I could. “A clue or something. You know, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve ever done this.”
“Yeah, I know,” he affirmed, “but in the times I’ve seen ya’ do this I’ve also seen it go south. Way south. You’ve almost died on me twice. Three’s a charm, white man. That’s ‘zactly what we’re tryin’ ta’ avoid in case ya’ missed that earlier.”
“Think positive,” I grumbled.
“I am thinkin’ positive. I’m positive I ain’t willin’ ta’ trade your life for a handful of flaky clues in a murder investigation.”
“Look,” I sighed, desperate to at least get out of the confines of the van. “It took me half the night to convince you two that we should come down here, so can we just dispense with this never ending committee meeting or whatever the hell you want to call it?”
“I just wanna make sure we’re doin’ the right thing here,” my friend expressed. “’Cause somethin’ in my gut tells me I should put some distance between you and this place and not look back. I tend ta’ trust my gut.”
“That’s just you being overprotective, again,” I countered.
“There’s no such thing as bein’ overprotective when dyin’ is one of the possibilities.”
“Well, that’s why you wanted Felicity here, right?”
“Don’t be trying to use me as a pawn, then,” my wife declared. “I want to hear you rationalize this too.”
I hadn’t been backed completely into a corner yet, but it was getting very close. I’d had my fill of the ping-pong oration I’d had to repeatedly deliver just to get this far, and it didn’t seem there would ever be an end.
I was exhausted.
I was ready to kill for a cigarette.
But the worst of it was that I was getting very tired of being treated like a child. My resolve was set in concrete, and I wasn’t about to let them make me turn back now.
I knew that exploding wasn’t going to get me anywhere even though it was what my knee jerk impulse was telling me to do. I drew in a deep breath and held it for a moment before exhaling heavily. In my head I’d made a connection that they apparently had not. Thus far, I’d managed to hold it back as my one trump card, and it appeared that now would be a good time to toss it onto the table.
“Look,” I verbally threatened, “we can either do it this way, right now, or we can just wait until I go out sleepwalking again and see where that takes us.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” My wife shook her head slightly as confusion contorted her brow.
“Yeah, white man,” Ben added, “ya’ wanna expand on that?”
“Debbie Schaeffer went missing two months ago, right?”
“Yeah, so?” he returned.
“So, I started sleepwalking two months ago. You do the math.”
My friend puffed out his cheeks and expelled a deep breath as he sent one large hand up to massage the back of his neck.
“Shit. There’s just no winnin’ with you” was all he said.
Luck seemed to be on our side for a change, as Ben knew the security guard on duty for this shift, so there were no prying questions or even odd looks. The two simply exchanged pleasantries, including what I’m certain was a tired joke about cadavers escaping, and then we were in. The watchman seemed perfectly content to return to the game of solitaire that was occupying the screen on the computer at the reception desk.
The dim lighting at this time of night lent an eerie feel to the corridors of the city morgue. Pale shadows tempted your mind into playing sadistic tricks on your eyes, seeing movement where there was nothing to move.
Seeing light where there was dark.
Seeing dark where there was light.
In reality, some of those sadistic tricks weren’t tricks at all, but anomalies within the veil between the worlds.
If they chose to listen, even those with closed minds could hear the tortured cries of spirits in transition-some in acceptance of their fate, some in utter disbelief, but all with one thing in common. Each of them was trapped between the worlds of life and death, never making it fully to the other side.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have the luxury of choosing to listen, or to ignore. It had been made for me. A relentless cacophony echoed from the walls to assault my senses even before we passed through the door. It was much like walking into a crowded party; only this party was one where most of the guests are screaming and sobbing with pain. It took almost everything I had to put up a mental shield and block them out. Even then they remained, a static-plagued radio, tuned between stations and set at low volume, interrupted every now and again with a burst of angry noise.
A brief glance told me that Felicity was feeling a similar buzz inside her own head.
Earlier this year I had actually spent the night in this place when the worst snowstorm we’d had in a decade had brought Saint Louis to all but a complete standstill. Ben and I had been trapped here with the chief medical examiner and a severely charred corpse whose spirit staunchly refused to move on. My ethereal dealing with that victim was yet another piece of the puzzle that made up the current fractured state of my psyche. I can say without a doubt that, to date, those dark hours had been the longest night of my life.
In the back of the building, we were met by the night morgue attendant. Ben simply flashed his badge and told him that we needed to view the remains of Debbie Schaefer. The pallid young man never even uttered a word and simply handed a clipboard to my friend so he could sign us in. That completed, he mutely led us into the cold storage area, flipping on the overhead lights as we entered.
The right wall of the tiled room was lined with rectangular stainless steel doors. Each of them was a gateway to an individual compartment where a corpse would spend its stay with the medical examiner. On the opposite wall there were two large sinks, each equipped with a table capable of holding a body. Here were also such things as examination gloves and implements I wasn’t the least bit interested in knowing the purpose of.