by David Jobe
“I know.” Lanton sighed. “I should be building my team; figuring out what the protocols will be. Start building some sort of plan. It just seems that lately it’s been running from corpse to corpse.” He frowned. “Sorry. I know that’s not polite talk for a dinner date.”
Another arched brow, but she said nothing. “Don’t sweat it. I am far from squeamish. The tales I could tell you.” She gave a hollow laugh.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
Lanton paused, considering his next words. “Do you believe in zombies?”
Eleanor slipped out of the kitchen, swaying across the carpeted floor to stand at the other side of the table. She considered him before taking another sip. “No. I believe that there are things that can mimic it, but corpses hungry for brains just doesn’t float with me.”
“Even with all the changes going on in the city?”
Again she appeared to consider this. Lanton had begun to understand that while Eleanor had a spectacular knack for verbal quips, she took great care in answers that she considered serious. After a few moments of thought, she shook her head. “No, I still don’t buy it. I am willing to bet that whatever is causing these changes in people, it is grounded in science, not the supernatural.”
“You don’t believe in the supernatural?” His gaze going to the gold cross that dangled from a chain around her neck.
She smiled at him, rubbing the cross between her thumb and forefinger. “This isn’t supernatural.” She held up her other hand as if to forestall argument. She gave him another look he didn’t understand when he didn’t move to say anything. “I believe in God, and I believe in demons and angels, but I don’t think they show up in everyday life. And I don’t think they are coming down, or up, to ride shotgun on dead people’s bodies.” Lanton chuckled and she shot him a smirk. “I know it’s a blurry line, but it’s mine. God gave us science so we could sort all of this out for ourselves. I think once the dust settles, we will find this all has scientific origins. Why do you ask?”
Lanton smiled. “Because a corpse walked out of the morgue today.”
She stared at him for a moment, before speaking. “Literally?”
Lanton opened his mouth to say something, but his phone began to ring, “I Shot The Sherriff” playing over the music in the background of the apartment. He shrugged and then motioned toward the phone. “That means it’s the office. You okay if I take it?”
Eleanor laughed. “Quaint tune. You can answer it now, but once dinner is ready, I will take great offense if you answer a call, even if it is from Jesus himself.”
“He doesn’t have my number,” he reassured her. Swiping on his phone and placing it to his ear. “Lanton.”
“Detective Lanton. This is Officer Triffle from Evidence.” The man on the other end of the phone sounded nervous.
“How may I help you, Officer?” Lanton watched as Eleanor hummed in the kitchen, taking a sip of her drink and swaying her lovely hips to the music.
“I. Uh. I.” The man stammered. Lanton could hear the desperation in the man’s voice.
“Just speak plain to me, Officer. I’m not a biter.”
Eleanor raised a brow to him, but her full lips curled into a smile. She snapped her fingers as if to say “shucks”.
Lanton felt his cheeks heat. “I am sorry, Officer, what was that?”
Eleanor giggled behind her glass.
“Did you check out the Knox rifle?” The words came out in a rush.
“What? No, why would I do that?”
The man on the other end gave an audible gulp. “The weapon is missing from evidence. The desk clerk had hoped you had checked it out without signing it out.”
Lanton blinked. “You have a habit of letting that happen down there?”
“Sir, no, sir. It’s just. It’s just that it’s missing and we show no log of anyone checking it out. One of us has been here all day, and I know personally it was here this morning.”
Lanton sighed. “Check the video log, both at the gate and in the cage. That group did have a guy who could jump in and out of places.”
“Oh yeah!” Lanton knew he had just given the kid an out for whatever foul up this was. He might have been mad, but he couldn’t say for sure it wasn’t the kid or someone with a similar power.
“Call me back when you know something.” Lanton clicked off his phone.
“Problem?” Eleanor sauntered in, placing fresh rolls before him.
Lanton nodded. “The Zombie has a rifle.”
She raised that brow again, and Lanton had begun to discover that he enjoyed making her give him that puzzled look. “That’s new.”
Lanton found himself laughing despite himself. “May I?” he motioned to the rolls.
She nodded and returned to the kitchen.
His phone began to ring again. Creep. He gave a long sigh.
“Your girlfriend is calling again.” Her tone a little sharper this time.
He jammed his finger to answer the button. “Lanton.”
“They are all gone. In the dead of night.”
Lanton sighed. It was like he had dialed into a daytime soap opera. This one with morbid humor. “Who are all gone?”
“The Altered we had on ice. Even the samples we had from them are gone. Everything. Cleaned out. We’ve been boned.”
Lanton muted the phone so he could get his laughter under control. After hearing her ask if he was there a few times, he was able to regain his composure and answer. “Um, I know that was supposed to be a morgue pun, but boned actually means something dirty the way you just used it.”
Eleanor stared at him with questioning eyes that almost made Lanton lose it again. He shook his head and waved her off, smiling like a fool.
“Oh.” Her tone got ice cold.
“Try maybe something like, they took everything and left us the bones.” He felt foolish trying to help her turn her sexual pun into a death one, but Lanton understood that English was her second language and he respected that. Carrie Anne had a genius IQ, and she had her little ticks, but they all did, and it felt wrong letting her go without helping.
“Thank you.” Her tone had become less cold. “You are a good man, Detective Lanton.”
“Thank you too,” Lanton said. “So, they took everything? What about the sample from the energy drink I gave you for testing?”
She growled in frustration. “They took that too, maldito junkyard dogs.” She slipped into what he imagined was Portuguese when she got angry. He didn’t need to know the translation to get the idea that it was bad. “The good news is that I had already sent a sample to my friend at the CDC. Don’t worry, it is off the record. He’s looking at it now just to be safe. I will let you know if he finds anything to raise the dead.”
Lanton sighed. “Alright. Have the tech team check all the video and see if they can find anything.” He hung up the phone, shaking his head.
“Another problem?”
Lanton let out a long sigh. “A shit storm of epic proportions. I get the feeling that there is something bigger going on, and I’m flying in blind.”
Eleanor nodded, moving into place a steaming pot in the center of the table. “Try to put it out of mind, at least for dinner. And no more phone calls, okay?”
Lanton nodded, switching off his phone so she could see him do it. That earned him a wide smile that made his nervousness at doing it seem more worthwhile. “Dinner and the couch.”
She nodded, taking a seat across from him. “You okay if I say grace?”
Lanton smiled and he felt a warmth grow inside him. “I’d be honored.”
She smiled back and then bowed her head. She closed her eyes but then opened them to verify he had closed his. He smiled and closed them. “Heavenly father, we are here today to ask your thanks. Though we may not be privy to your designs, we hope that you grant us the wisdom to play our part according to your will. Lord, I personally thank you for bringing Monty into my life and hope that
I offer him refuge from the storms that plague him in these dark times. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
“Amen.” Lanton wiped a tear from his eye, trying to conceal it before she opened hers. When he looked back, her soft eyes watched him. He did not know if she saw, her face unreadable. “It smells wonderful.”
“Of course it does. I cooked it.” She gave him a soft smile. “Dig in. Afterward, if you are up for it, we can watch a comedy of some sort. I think it will do you good.”
Lanton nodded, dishing her out a serving first. “Everything about this place is doing me good. The food, the music, the company.” She rewarded him with a blush. He smiled. “Though I may not be able to stay awake for a whole movie.”
Her eyes sparkled. “I will try to not take it as a personal affront if you fall asleep.”
“Much obliged.” He portioned out his own serving. He raised his coffee mug. “To a quiet evening together.”
She smiled and tapped her wine glass to his mug. “Though hopefully not too quiet.” The wink she added amounted to overkill.
Lanton felt his own face grow hot. “Well played.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Other Side of Death
Chris awoke with no memory of a dream or a vision. Sunlight streamed in through the small square window that adorned the room, casting a shadow that hinted at it being either early morning or late evening. Chris couldn’t remember off hand if his room faced east or west, and decided that it didn’t matter. Dropping his bare feet onto the floor he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Trip’s bed sat empty, the sheets neat and tidy. A first for Chris’s memory; which set his suspicious nature in motion. He looked out toward the hallway and could see that the gurney still rested just beyond, pressed up against the far wall. Now, though, a body lay on top of it, sheeted in white. Around the area that covered the neck a red oval stain continued to grow. The left side of the corpse faced him, and he could see more blood stains on the area covering the left forearm. Blood dripped from the edge of the bed onto the gurney railing and then to the floor.
“Trip?” His voice more a croak than actual words. His throat had become parched and he could feel his lips cracking from the lack of moisture. He had never taken Ecstasy before, so he didn’t know if this was a normal side effect or something that came with his weird powers. Edging closer to the gurney, his right ear cocked forward so he could hear, he tried to listen for any signs of what might be lingering beyond the threshold to his room.
Nothing.
The whole of the hospital was enveloped in a deathly silence. He took another cautious step forward, ever alert for an attack. Still, nothing but him seemed to stir in the hospital. He took another look around his room, trying to determine if there was some sort of clock around. He had been here a few weeks, and until now had never found the need to know the time. He knew a clock had been hung in the large gathering room, but he would have to peek his head out of his room to see it. He couldn’t be sure, but the blood stains on the body just outside his room had the hallmarks of a violent death at the hands of another. He could not be sure if the perpetrator still lingered, or if their murderous mission was at its end. Another slide of his foot brought him close enough to grab the frame of the door. In police training, they had taught him about sweeping open rooms for suspects upon entering, but that had always been with a gun in hand. Sweeping from left to right without one would not be as effective in combating a possible attack. Then again, sitting in a boxed in room had just about as much risk. Risking it, he swept into the hallway, hands out in a mock gun. Sweeping left to right, he muttered “Pew pew pew.”
The area appeared to be empty. The clock over the television in the large room read seven-twenty. With just the dial face, it gave no indication on if the clock gave the morning hours or the evening hours. He padded over to the gurney, his foot stepping in a small pool of blood. Looking down he could see that there were other drops of blood leading away from the body.
In training, they had warned him that once you become a police officer, you would always be a police officer. No matter if you washed out, like Chris had, the instinct to investigate would stay with you.
They trailed off in the direction of the nurses’ station. He stepped closer to the next few drops of blood and knew that judging by the coloring of the drops, that the drops were older than the ones nearest him. He had been worried that the drops meant that the killer had walked off that way, perhaps holding a blood-soaked knife. No, the blood most likely came from whoever lay under the stained sheet.
Fifteen years he worked the force, six of those as a detective in homicide. The man that had trained him, a burly fount of foul language with a handlebar mustache had warned him that no matter how many bodies you saw, it never got easier. Handlebar had been right on the money about that. The many faces of death always shocked. He took a calming breath and eased back the sheet.
The pale face of Nurse Silvia Ray stared back at him with eyes at the first stages of turning gray. He pulled the sheet back further to inspect the horrible gash that dominated her throat. The wound looked deep, the right side of the cut more shallow than the left. “Killer was right handed.” He leaned in, noting that he could see bone at the back of the cut. “Weapon was long.” He thought of Tinkle’s switchblade and shook his head. “This blade was quite a bit longer.” He pulled the sheet back further to discover that her shirt had been torn, but not cut. “A struggle, perhaps?” He looked at her left forearm and found a wide gash, shallow near the elbow and deeper near the wrist. “A defense wound.”
He sighed. He had liked Silvia. He could tell that she had been one of the ones who came to work to make a difference. “Who killed you, Silvia?”
Silvia’s head turned to regard him, her pale eyes focusing on him.
Chris staggered back, slipping on the blood pool and falling hard on his ass. Using his feet and hands, he pushed back until his back rested against the wall.
Silva rose with eerie grace, the sheet falling away from her in folded sections. The tattered shirt revealed more than Chris found himself comfortable with. It presented a conundrum he did not want to consider. She slid off the gurney, coming to stand about four feet from him. Her pale, though pretty, smile appeared on her face. She took a step toward him, a hand outstretched to help him up. She offered her left hand, the cut splattering fresh drops of blood on the floor.
It clicked in Chris’ head. “This is the vision, isn’t it?”
Silva nodded, arm still extended.
Chris nodded, taking the offered hand and returning to his feet. He stood before Silvia, making a concentrated effort to look at her face. “So, someone kills you. Here?”
Silva shook her head, pointing with her right toward where the blood drops came from. The nurses’ station.
“Can you tell me who did this?”
Silva opened her mouth to speak, her mouth moving as she tried to form words, but nothing came out. Well, she did make noise. A hollow wheezing noise that had accents of wet gasps. Blood trickled out of her neck as she tried to talk.
He gave a long sigh. “I can talk to the dead, but you can’t talk to me. You could be saying your killer was a Jack the Ripper and I wouldn’t know.” He scratched his head, looking at her as she smiled at him. Her unwavering happiness played havoc on his nerves. The teacher had been mad, the girl almost petulant, but happy? A happy walking corpse sounded too insane. “Wait.” He tossed the sheet off the gurney to look at the blue padded bed that lay under it. “Write the name in blood here.” He motioned of wiping his neck and then writing on the padding.
Silvia raised a brow and him but shrugged. Taking a few fingers of blood, she began to write. When she finished, she turned to smile at him.
“Jack the Ripper?” He looked down at the three words. “Are you trying to be funny?”
Silvia shrugged again and then planted her hands on her hips.
“That’s universal for, you better figure it out and quick.”
She nodded at him, that cute smirk returning.
“This is all so weird.” He tapped his chin, looking at the scene. “I was a detective.” He looked around. “I was a good detective.” He smiled and nodded. “Challenge accepted.” He began to follow the blood trail, feeling Silvia trailing behind him.
The blood trail led to the nurses’ station as he had figured, and then beyond. Turning the corner the blood trail carried on for a few more feet before turning into a room that sat next to the nurses’ station. It was their little pharmacy. Frowning, Chris followed the trail into the room.
From the look of things, it became obvious to Chris that this is where the attack had taken place. The pharmacy consisted of a room about the size of two broom closets. The room had just the one door and the rest of the walls were lined with shelves a foot apart from each other. Blue plastic bins sat on shelves with white labels bearing the names of patients.
A large blood pool dominated the center of the room. Blood splattered the right side of the room, going up in an arching pattern. “You were facing them.” He stepped in, turning to play the part of Silvia. “You tried to block with your arm, but they cut you deep. At that point they may have grabbed you, ripping your shirt and the completing the coup de gras. “
Silva just stared at him from the doorway.
“The knife had to be big. I am thinking butcher knife.” As the words left his mouth, he saw the tip of the blade peeking out from a bottom shelf near the door. Bending down he picked up the knife. “This is a vision, so I am not ruining actual fingerprints.” He wasn’t sure if he was telling himself or Silvia. Weapon in hand, he turned the butcher’s knife around in the light, hoping the blade held some sign of who had been using it. He could find no features that made it unique. “Murder weapon is a dead end.” He chuckled, looking up at Silvia. “Sorry. Gallows humor.”
She just shrugged and watched him with her arms crossed over her chest. A blessing by Chris’s estimation. He needed as few distractions as possible.