I understood more about Daniel in those few minutes than I had the entire twelve hours of my nonexistence. Like me, he was hurting. I moved closer, no longer completely terrified of the monster contained under the surface—the monster that Daniel probably didn’t like any better than the earthbounds standing outside. Metal Girl and her friends had a point. He wasn’t as bad-ass as he thought. At least, if there was a chance I was going to be like him, I hoped that was true. Because, for what I wanted to do to Pete, I was more monster than Daniel.
“What happened, Daniel? Wrong place at the wrong time? Or did something happen with your family, too?”
“Don’t ever talk to me about my family, all right? Don’t go there.” His voice had an odd quiver to it.
I stepped back, stunned and somewhat hurt at his sudden outburst. “Sorry.”
Still, how awful being a demon must be for him—an eternity of never being able to control his anger. Never being able to do anything to defend himself other than by the most gruesome of methods. Maybe he honestly didn’t have much of a choice.
Daniel laughed. “Funny, isn’t it? How we never saw the consequences to our actions that brought us here.”
“Yeah,” I said in complete agreement. But how could we have foreseen this, this afterlife? “Yeah. Real funny.”
He steadied his eyes on mine. “Now that you know what I am, what I’m like, do you have sympathy for me?”
There wasn’t any hatred or anger in his tone. His face was no longer hard and set. The soulless eyes I’d seen outside weren’t there. Now, they were soft and brown, although the pupils were dilated. I swallowed hard. “I don’t think you’re what you make yourself out to be.”
“Do you want another demonstration? I can show you what demons really look like.”
“Daniel, that’s not necessary.”
“Do you feel sorry for me, Keely? Do you?”
Deep inside, how could I not? He was a demon. Yet, what I’d seen outside wasn’t likely the Daniel who’d once been human. My instincts said that whatever he’d done, he wasn’t any more demon material than I was, and that scared me the most.
I nodded.
“Well, don’t!” He shoved away from the wall and stalked off. “Soon, you’ll be just like me.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Daniel!” He was not going to walk away and leave me here. Not here. Not alone.
“Leave it alone, Keely. Just leave it? Okay?”
It wasn’t like him to not call me Sunshine. He was hurt, or pissed, and I had no idea why. I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. He was quirky, moody, but there was something about Daniel that drew me, made me want to know more about him. Strange how he and Banning intrigued me so much.
Birds of a feather flock together, a voice sang out in my head.
“Why are you being like this?” I asked. “Why the hot and cold treatment?”
He scrubbed his chin with one hand and looked anywhere but at me. “Keely, look. I…” He glanced at me and sighed. “Never mind. I’m a demon. Why do you need anymore of a reason than that? Don’t ask, okay?”
I blinked. Did he have to ask why I needed a reason? Because without answers, I was even more afraid. “Because I can’t walk away, Daniel. You and Banning are the only people I have. The only ones I can...trust.”
“Why me? They should have sent… Never mind.” He turned and walked off, leaving me alone in the white hallway with its old florescent lighting and an empty gurney.
“Daniel!” I went after him. “You don’t have to be like this.”
He stopped and glared at me. “Think you got me figured, do you? You think you found a soft spot? A weakness? You are just like Banning. I told him that this morning. The reason he’s sticking his neck out is because he sees a lot of himself in you.”
Banning? I was nothing like Banning. Banning was calm, sensible. Logical in all this mess. He was caring. All I cared about was finding Jordan, getting even with her killer. “I’m sure—”
Daniel turned his back to me. “Well, you don’t have me figured out, okay? Stop looking for a weak spot. Unlike the two of you, mine’s not there. You know what? Maybe you should go look for your sister on your own.”
So this was it. He’d lured me away from Banning and now he was dumping me here. Unless I could calm down and convince him otherwise.
“Just listen, okay?” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as terrified as I felt. “Sure. People find a weak spot and they’ll use it against you every time. I’m a lawyer’s kid, remember? I learned from the best. But that’s not what—”
Daniel shook his head and laughed. “Oh, no. No. This isn’t where we hold hands, sing Kumbaya, and start talking about family.”
He was mad, I guess. At least he was trying hard to make me believe it. But his tone, his words, even his actions seemed halfhearted and more of a show than the real thing. At least he was listening. He wasn’t storming off. “Fine. We won’t. I’m a bit raw on the subject myself, okay? But I’m probably more like you than Banning. Half of what I did was because I didn’t know what else to do. I was just sort of wandering. I didn’t exactly have a direction. I don’t know, maybe you didn’t, either.”
Daniel faced me again and stared, probably debating whether to say something smart-ass or set me on fire like he’d done to that kid.
“Oh, I had purpose. A direction,” Daniel said. The fight went out of him then. Just melted like snow in May. The hard glare softened, his posture relaxed ever so slightly. “You’re nothing like me.”
“You didn’t choose to be a demon, did you?” I asked.
He sighed and stared at me for another moment or two and then laughed, but it wasn’t a friendly laugh. “Did Banning put you up to this? You even sound like him. You’re a bit misguided, you know that?”
Daniel didn’t want anyone to read him. Just like me. I returned his stare, scared half out of my mind, but determined not to back down this time. I wasn’t about to let him get off with sarcasm in place of a real answer. I don’t know why it was so important. Maybe I finally needed a sense of reality, something I could understand, to hold on to. I just wanted to know what I was dealing with.
“I can’t tell you anything else.” He turned and walked slowly away, leaving me with even more to wonder about.
I followed him down the hallway, letting him keep a short distance ahead. I had a lot running through my mind and staying a few paces behind gave me a chance to think.
Every horror movie about demons I had ever seen flashed through my head. Granted, Daniel didn’t look like a demon. They were supposed to be hideous creatures, not normal looking.
There was one thing about Daniel that might have held true to the demon stereotype: his normally pessimistic nature suited hell just fine. Or did it? Aside from his obvious dislike for almost everyone and everything, including me, something else was eating at him. Apparently, Banning had seen it too. That’s why the two of them weren’t at each other the way they’d been last night—they’d come to some sort of compromise. Somehow, I had to find that same middle ground with Daniel. Like the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I wouldn’t call Daniel a friend, but I wasn’t sure he was an enemy either.
I really hoped I knew what I was doing.
Daniel disappeared through two wide doors without waiting for me. There were two more like it on either side, each with a sign labeled Autopsy Room above them. I took a deep breath and followed Daniel into Autopsy Room B. Instantly, I recoiled. A solid wall of stainless steel coolers caught my eye first.
My body was behind one of those. Me.
Slowly, my eyes shifted to the middle of the room, toward the gleaming, stainless steel autopsy tables and beside those, rolling carts with drills, thick needles, and bone saws. I wanted to rub my arms, but Daniel was watching me and I did my best to look unshakable.
Get it together, Keely. Act normal.
But this wasn’t normal. I wanted to see my body. No matter how I told mys
elf that I didn’t have to, that I’d come strictly to see if Jordan had been here, I knew better.
Liar, liar, soul’s on fire.
There were other pieces of equipment that looked like heavy-duty gardening shears and I winced thinking about their purpose. A microphone hung over one of the tables and, in my head, I heard the medical examiner recording autopsy findings. Pedals underneath the table made it easy for the medical examiner to start and stop the recording with their feet—seeing as their hands were probably wrist-deep in corpse. A stainless scale hung beside the microphone. Along the wall beside me, helmets resembling a cross between riot gear and nuke masks complete with ventilators rested on shelves. It reminded me that not everyone came here as quickly as I had. I thought of my sister.
“Daniel!” a dark-haired man in a lab coat exclaimed as he walked in. Daniel nodded as they shook hands.
“You pushed through the lines again, didn’t you?” the man said, taking in Daniel’s sullen expression.
Daniel shrugged. “Yeah, well...”
“Has it ever occurred to you to stay in line and wait like everyone else?”
When Daniel didn’t respond, the guy turned to me. Recognition flashed in his eyes. “I expected to see you sooner or later once your body came in. Your sister has already been here.” He waved a dismissive hand. “The young ones never can believe they’re dead until they see themselves firsthand.”
“You’ve seen her?” I nearly shouted. “You’ve seen my sister?”
“How long ago?” Daniel asked.
The guy shrugged. “An hour, maybe longer. I don’t know where she went. Quiet girl. Didn’t stay long after viewing your body.” He studied me for a second. “Hi. I’m Tim.”
I feigned a smile. “I’m Keely.” I motioned toward the coolers, hoping I didn’t look like I was going to be sick. “But I guess you already knew that.”
“We’ll find her,” Daniel said to me. “She’s probably still close.”
Tim turned and walked to the coolers, resting a hand on drawer number nine. I should have grabbed Daniel and demanded we go right then, that we go look for Jordan. Instead, I just stood there.
Oh, my God! I’m in a morgue. A real morgue!
“I remember seeing your sister’s body when the medical examiner brought it here,” Tim said, oblivious to my freak-out. “A couple of months ago, I believe. Horrible. Recognizable from the photos, but still. Just horrible. My deepest apologies.”
He seemed genuinely sorry, if not exactly tactful. Probably because this is where he spent all his time. Corpses didn’t have feelings. And, in fairness, I was a bundle of emotions lately and still very sensitive to the words people used when talking about my sister. I remembered overhearing my parents talk about the condition my sister’s body had been in, even though I’d desperately tried not to.
“Your sister cried when she saw your body. I suppose you’ve come to see it, too?” he asked.
Oddly, the thought that my sister had come to see my body cheered me up. I’d started to think she was really mad at me. I couldn’t blame her—I’d never forgive myself for what I’d done. I’d taken my life while she’d fought for hers. I’d left our parents without any of their children. I glanced at Tim who still had a hand resting on the drawer containing my body. My mouth went dry. I was dead. Completely, irreversibly dead. If I needed a shot of reality, this was it.
Daniel glanced at me, the concern and softness seemed to have returned. Through some scrap of coherency, I nodded. Yes, I wanted to see it.
Tim pulled the drawer open, “The medical examiner will be here shortly. There’s an autopsy scheduled—drawer six, not you. Anyway, you’ve only got about five minutes, Keely.”
Daniel turned to me. “You okay with this?”
“I need to see,” I said, staring at the form draped under the sheet.
Daniel rested a hand on my arm. “You sure? You don’t look so well.”
I forced a smile. “I don’t look so well because I’m dead.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have come here.”
“I need to see, Daniel. I’m good. Really.” And I did need to see.
“Five minutes,” Tim reminded me. “Place the sheet over the body and slide the door shut when you’re done. We can’t have anyone walking in and finding the drawers open and you won’t be able to close them once the medical examiner arrives.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Sure. No problem.”
“Liar,” Daniel said. “You’re gonna make one hell of a demon, Sunshine.” He and Tim walked through the doors, leaving me alone.
I walked toward drawer number nine, listening to the rapid breathing echoing in my ears, feeling the cold draft from the cooler raise the flesh on my skin. It felt like a horror movie. In the surrounding quiet, I heard my heartbeat spiking in my chest and my runaway imagination heard another, louder heartbeat from under the sheet. My hand extended in front of me and I watched as it pulled back the sheet.
This was where a horror flick derailed from real life. If this were some B movie, I’d scream as the body lying on the cold slab of drawer number nine opened its eyes. It wouldn’t be me, of course. It’d be the tortured and rotting body of my sister, the ligature marks around her neck caked with blood. The corpse would raise a broken, sheared finger at me, accusingly. It would tell me that I should have been with her, should have saved her.
But it was me.
Just me.
Despite the cold temperature of the morgue refrigerator, I could detect a slight, rank undercurrent of odor.
I stared at my body. I’d come all this way, run off from Banning to find my sister. But, now, as I stood alone in this chilly room, I had a chance to explain to my decaying corpse why I’d taken my life. How that’d help, I didn’t know. Maybe it was like some sort of obligation, some sort of letting go. Maybe that’s why everyone else had gathered outside. This wasn’t making peace with death, I wouldn’t go that far. But it felt close. Resignation?
I brushed a hand across the arm of my corpse. It was smooth and cold, the skin still pliable to my touch. I wanted to apologize for never having graduated high school, gone to college or gotten a real job—all the things Jordan and I had talked about. I wanted to say I was sorry that I’d never move to another city, get an apartment. The list appeared endless. I was sorry that I would never get married, get a house, a dog, have kids.
Grow old.
Instead, I’d grown cold. One of my eyes was open—just a slit. The once mossy iris had turned a fetid, milky green.
Me. Not me.
I withdrew my hand. I didn’t need to catch my reflection in the surrounding stainless steel drawers to know the body inside drawer number nine wasn’t me. Not anymore. I was only seeing the waxy remains of what used to be me. The cadaver shared the same dark brown hair, the same angled face, same high cheekbones. But I had nothing else in common with the stiffened corpse lying before me. Lividity had settled in, speckling the skin near my back. Had my sister visited her own body, sitting and taking stock of her former life? Of what should have been? Had it been easier for her to just come see my corpse?
I wondered if Jordan was glad to be free of her body after what her murderer had done to her. She’d been here, too—in one of these compartments. Drawer number nine? Eight? Wherever Jordan was at this moment, she wasn’t here.
The only thing here now was death and decay. The past.
I placed the sheet over the corpse’s face, slid the drawer back into the cooler, and closed drawer number nine with a solitary click.
CHAPTER TEN
I stepped out of the autopsy room and into the hallway. I should have been crying. But I was far too numb, and completely powerless to force all the randomness racing around in my head into a single, coherent thought.
A balding man of about fifty walked up and slid on a pair of booties, before pushing the button to open the doors and entering the autopsy room. I thought about drawer number six. I wondered if there were
occasions when earthbounds watched their own autopsy.
That finally sparked my brain into gear. I fled down the hall, putting distance between me and the voice of the ME talking into the microphone, announcing the date and time. The image of the saws and drills cutting into flesh made me wince. It’s not anything I ever wanted see or hear again. To a lesser degree, I’d been there, done that. The whir of the Dremel’s motor and spinning blade as I held it steady to my left wrist would stay with me for eternity.
The idea of the medical examiner working away in the autopsy rooms every day, unaware that ghosts, angels, demons, and possibly even reapers were peering over his shoulder, gave me the creeps.
Soon, he would slide open drawer number nine.
Stop it! Just stop it right now!
Okay. Maybe I was entitled to a moment or two of freak-out mode. I was dead. Never coming back to life.
Now what?
I had to find Daniel. He wasn’t in the lobby where we’d come in, so I backtracked. I had no intention of joining the crowd of earthbounds standing out front. Instead, I followed a woman dressed in scrubs down a different hallway, past a break room. I peeked in, expecting to find Daniel sitting at one of the tables, brooding over someone drinking vending machine coffee. No luck.
The glow of an exit sign on the other side of the break room caught my attention. I needed some air and a chance to think things over—alone. Just a few minutes to let my little soul-to-body visit sink in for good. Without counting or holding my breath, I passed through the door, fully aware of the ghostly wisps I made. Once outside, I leaned against the brick wall and sighed deeply.
Wow. What a dose of reality. The weight, the gravity of what I’d done threatened to crash down on me. I had been so foolish and selfish. Anger replaced my need for tears. I wasn’t angry at the world, Peter Fagan, or even fate itself. This time, I had only myself to blame. Daniel came to mind again. If he saw me right now he’d spew out more facts about the stages of afterlife grief.
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