See Jack Die (Part 1 in the Paranormal Series) (See Jack Die Series)

by Nicholas Black

  And I didn't want to be out when the monsters came.

  Chapter 3

  R.H. Dedmen Memorial Hospital.

  Later that evening . . .

  I didn't eat much that night. My stomach was twisted in about a thousand knots. And when I finally sat down to look at the book, all I saw were scribbled pages, empty of anything I could understand. I tried looking at it in different colored lights. From different angles. Even got real close to it and breathed on it, giving the bottom of the first page a hot liquidy breath. Blank, nothing more than old, crinkled egg-white paper . . . with squiggles. I rented National Treasure I and II, but that didn't even help.

  The book looked old and valuable. And it had that musty old book smell. The odor of nostalgia and history. But what it didn't seem to have were any words I could recognize. I tried squinting at it for a while, but that just gave me a headache. I even closed the book, and then reopened it, really fast. Like that would make a difference. Todd Steele doesn't have any clever advice for magical old books . . . I checked.

  So, I called young Ricky. He sounded like he was eating something when he answered the phone.

  “Yeah?”

  “Ricky, this is Jack.”

  “Oh, hey man. What's up? You talk to that psychic chick?”

  “Uh . . . yeah,” I replied, “ . . . she gave me this book and I—”

  “Hmmm?” Ricky said.

  “I said that she gave me a book. Like a voodoo book or something.”

  “What's it called?”

  And that was a pretty good question, because I had never even thought to ask. “Not sure, hold on a second.” I reached across the bed and grabbed the dusty old thing, dragging it back across the bed. “This damn book is heavy,” I said as I flipped it back and forth, turning it over onto my thighs. “I don't see a title.”

  “What kind of book doesn't have a title?” Ricky asked as he chewed on something that made his words bloated.

  “She said that it would help me understand what's happening to me.”

  “You talking about all of those shadow thingies that you keep hallucinating?”

  I sure hoped he was right. That would be wonderful if all of this was just me losing my mind. “Yes. Whatever it is I keep seeing. She says they will come more and more. Until I start seeing other things.”

  “And the book will explain all of it?”

  “I guess.”

  “I'll be over in a few minutes,” Ricky said, between chews, “ . . . I'm finishing up a little grudge match on-line. This guy from Germany has been talking big shit all week about how he will take me down in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. So I have to put his ass in check.”

  “You're playing a video game?” I asked, thinking that my little 'seeing the dead' problem wasn't very high on his list of interesting things.

  “He's stuck in this building, in the south of the city, right now. I'm going to sniper his bitch ass and then I'll be on my way. Ten minutes, tops.”

  Click.

  And the line was dead. And my head still hurt. And my stomach felt like it had turned inside-out and was being pricked with a hot iron. And really, I'm not sure why I think that Ricky, a 22-year-old nurse who smokes more weed than Cheech-and-Chong is going to be able to help me. I hope I don't eventually find out that he was my kid.

  13 minutes later . . .

  “Smoked his bitch ass!” Ricky says as he walks into my room. He was wearing baggy tan khakis and a long, red pin-striped sweater. He had a Texas Rangers baseball cap on, covering his shaved head. “Germans can't fight.”

  My place near the hospital is modest, but comfortable. Our tax dollars at work. Think of it like one of those hotel rooms where you can stay for weeks on end. Like where junkies and drug dealers stay so that the government can't ever snatch them up. There's a little kitchen nook. A bedroom, with a bathroom so small you can extend your arms and touch both walls.

  The living area is in the few feet of space between the kitchen and the bed. Everything is either blue or brown. Blue Formica covers the table and counter tops. Blue carpet, and light blue floor tiles for both the kitchen and bathroom. Brown shelves and furniture. This would probably be like entering the seventh ring of Hell for an interior designer.

  And I've got a small refrigerator that can hold little more than a meal at a time. It's almost the same scale as a Barbie Refrigerator. But then, this is just temporary living, until I get on my feet and the hospital caseworker in charge considers me fit enough to have my own place in town.

  I've actually got a meeting with my caseworker, Dr. Smith, in a couple of days. I'm supposed to talk to him about how I'm coping. And how my job hunt is going. I probably won't mention any of this other stuff to him. Something tells me that it would probably set back my progress . . . at least, in his eyes.

  “Is that the book?” Ricky says as he drags his feet across the carpet, leaving little Ricky trails in his wake.

  I nod, lifting the thing towards him. He reached out and took it, and his skinny arms almost buckled. “Geez! What's this made out of . . . lead?”

  I laughed, “That's what I said.”

  He sat down on a small brown stool that might actually be a coffee table, we're still not certain. He laid the book on his thighs and opened it delicately, using just the tips of his fingers to lift the cover.

  The book was covered in a dark, leathery material. “Think this is, like, dried human flesh or something like that?” He lowered his head and studied the inside of the cover. “What language is it written in? It looks kind of like Arabic.”

  He looked up, “I took a course in Middle-eastern studies. This could be some old terrorist propaganda. They do that, you know.”

  I shrugged. “Ms. Josephine said that I would be able to read it soon enough. But I've been staring at the first page for over an hour and it still looks like nonsense.”

  “Maybe there's a key,” Ricky said, slowly turning the pages. “Lot's of old books have keys.”

  I pointed to the bottom of the page, “Ms. Josephine told me that it's read from the bottom up, and from the right to the left.”

  “That makes sense, I guess.”

  “What part of any of that makes sense?” I said as I frowned.

  He closed the book. “It's something that they don't want people reading. Whatever it says, the people who wrote it thought it was a secret. Thus the absence of a title, and any other instructions about its use.”

  He handed the book to me, almost struggling, and leaned his head back. “You know, maybe it's music. Do you know anything about music?”

  I know that I like some of it, and hate most of it, I told him. Country music makes me feel like taking prescription medicine until I can't see straight. Rap makes me want to do a drive-by. All the other stuff they call rock, I'm not even sure about that. I like jazz. Just jazz.

  Ricky smiled, his eyes lighting up, “I took a class on music appreciation. And sheet music follows a system, just like the written word.”

  “I've lost my memory, Ricky. I'm not retarded.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But listen . . . not all people write music in the same way. Think about tribes in the jungles of Africa, or South America. They don't read sheet music, so they find other ways to record their music, like dots and squiggles and shit. Maybe this is that.”

  I sighed, “You think my magical, no-name book is musical notes?”

  Ricky crossed his arms, “Look, Jack, I'm just trying to think this all through. Like an investigator would. I'd think you would be a tad bit more open-minded about all of this. You did just wake-up with your memory erased. You're the one seeing ghosts and shit. Anything is possible.”

  I crossed my arms, realizing that he was right. I was getting frustrated and it was clouding my judgment. “Okay. So, if I can't read it, and we can't find what language it's written in, well . . . then what?”

  “The Morgue,” Ricky said, his eyes wide as he nodded slowly.

  I squinted at him. “What in the hell a
re we going to learn at the morgue?”

  He stood up and walked to my balcony door, peering out into the night. “That's where the dead people go. So, if we go there, there should be a shitload of spirits floating around, or whatever. Maybe the book would work there.”

  He turned back toward me, holding his hospital ID in his left hand, fanning it back and forth, “And . . . I can get us in. Probably wouldn't even be that busy right now.”

  That was the most ridiculous idea that he had come-up with yet. This was quickly deteriorating into an epic waste of time. For sure, we would both be less capable adults when all of this was over. What was next?

  Dungeons and Dragons?

  Japanese Animal Pornography?

  Finger painting with mustard?

  No, all of this was getting too creepy. Sane people don't engage in this kind of behavior. I should know, I've been taking a class on Integration with Society. I'm going to end up one of those losers who works in a comic book shop, instructing teenagers on what issue of Super-Mutant Fish is the best.

  “So,” Ricky pressed, “ . . . what do you think?”

  I'll get my jacket.

  Chapter 4

  R.H.D. Memorial, Morgue . . .

  Of all the crazy things that I've ever done—at least, that I can remember from the last nearly five months—I can't recall doing anything as dark and morose as this.

  Ricky walked us in, smiling at this thin blond girl at the reception desk. She smiled back in such a way that I knew there was more going on there. He whispered something to her, and then we walked on by. We headed toward the Emergency Room where, thankfully, there was not a lot of activity.

  “It's a good design, keeping the morgue close to the ER,” Ricky said under his breath. “Less work for the orderlies and interns.”

  We walked down several glossy-floored hallways that smelled like they had a fresh coat of bleach on them. It was stinging my eyes it was so prominent.

  Ricky seemed to notice me squinting, “Bleach kills everything.”

  “Even walking shadows?” I miffed.

  He shrugged, “Maybe.”

  We continued on down the long, hallway, our bodies reflected in the shiny white linoleum tiles. I could see our green scrubs rolling in front of us. Ricky had gotten the scrubs from the back of his black SUV. He had all sorts of expensive-looking stuff back there. Stuff they probably didn't give him.

  A couple of doctors walked past, not even noticing us. Like we didn't exist. We were as inconsequential to them as lonely molecules floating through the cold dark universe. The caste system is still very much alive and well in America's hospitals.

  Ricky played it cool, as always. And soon we were turning left and heading down a shorter, darker hallway. “The morgue is like a big refrigerator,” he said. “To keep the bodies in a sterile environment. All sorts of concerns in a place like this.”

  “Like what?” I asked as we approached a large set of double doors.

  He slid his card into the magnetic strip reader and a small green light flickered a few times. The double doors opened slowly as if by magic.

  “ . . . disease and pathogens getting accidentally spread. Decay of the bodies—before and after autopsy. Contamination of the testing machinery. The whole thing is clean. Actually,” Ricky said as we approached a large, baby-blue door, “it's cleaner than the average kitchen table. You could eat off of the floor of a morgue.”

  “Not that you'd want to.”

  Ricky nodded, “Right,” as he slid his card into another strip-reader. There was an audible click and the door opened.

  As we walked in I felt a cold chill swallow up my body. The only part of me that was warm was my stomach, where the book was hidden underneath my t-shirt.

  “So, how should we do this?” I asked as I got out the book.

  Ricky held up a warning finger as he walked around the room looking in the different offices and small hallways. On the floor, there were checker-boarded black and white tiles. All of the machines were different shades of polished metal, some brighter and more reflective than others. The room had a sharp, pointy feel to it. Like, at any second some guy wearing a leather mask was going to come in with a huge knife in his hand and start hacking at the dead.

  This whole place felt surreal. In the large room beyond this one, there were several square doors on the wall. Each one of them had an index card with some printed text on it.

  Ricky walked out from that room, thumbing me to follow him. “This is the Body Farm, in here.”

  How cute.

  I reluctantly walk forward, entering the room with all of the cadavers. My nose was getting desensitized to the bleach sting, so the smell wasn't as bad. But it was colder in this room. Ricky pulled up a couple of heavy black vinyl chairs and drug them to the center of the room, near a large stainless-steel table that had little troughs cut along the edges.

  “That's where the magic happens,” Ricky said. “Maybe we should put the book on there and try reading it?”

  I shrugged. Why not? I lifted the heavy thing up and placed it in the center of the examination/autopsy table. I got this feeling that I was violating something sacred. I felt like someone was going to burst in on us at any moment. I needed to get my mind collected and calm.

  “So tell me, what happens here?” I asked. I'd read about places like this. Seen a few on television, but I'd never been anywhere near one. Something told me that I could definitively scratch doctor off of my list of possible jobs in my erased past-life.

  “Well, this is where we perform the Autopsy. Also referred to as necropsy, postmortem, or postmortem examination. It is basically a dissection and examination of a dead body and its organs and structures to determine cause-of-death. In addition, we also observe the effects of disease, and establish the sequences of changes and thus confirm the evolution mechanisms of disease progression and processes.”

  “You have to remember all of that to be a nurse?”

  “No,” Ricky laughed, “ . . . you have to learn that shit to become a doctor.”

  “You went to med school? I didn't know that,” I said, wondering what happened. Wondering if it was drugs, or girls, or video games about drugs and girls that stifled his education.

  He nodded, his eyes looking off into the past, “Yeah . . . lots of money. Lots of time. Very little fun. I burnt out. I started med school when I was nineteen.”

  That's young, I said.

  He explained that he used to be something of a prodigy, but somewhere along the way, whether it was his parents pressuring him, or his friends needling him, he just quit. Said, no more. And went to nursing school.

  “The first real dissections, to study disease, happened around three hundred, B.C. This Alexandrian physician Herophilus and his partner Erasistratus were the first. But it wasn't until Galen—a Greek physician—in the late second century, A.D., who was the first to correlate the patient's symptoms and signs—you know, complaints—with what was found upon examining the affected part of the deceased.”

  He tapped his fingers delicately on the shiny, metal examination table. “And that, my memory-challenged friend, is what eventually led to the autopsy. It signifies a great progression in modern medicine.”

  “You're actually smart,” I said, not trying to sound surprised.

  “Oh, I'm a stoner, now. But I used to be a real Doogie Howser.”

  “What's a Doogie Howser?” I asked, not sure if this was another one of his trendy terms.

  “Never mind,” Ricky said as he shook his head. “Open the book and see if it makes sense, now.”

  And for the next 30 minutes we looked from all manner of angles, with all kinds of squints from every direction. Nothing. It still looked like a bunch of nonsense. We found ourselves sitting in those vinyl chairs, leaning back, yawning. The room had it's own sound. A kind of low buzzing.

  “What do they do next?” I asked, breaking the frustrated monotony. My head was hurting again, and I was tired. This was all a waste
of time, so I figured I'd try to enjoy the moment. In a morgue.

  “Next?”

  “ . . . during the autopsy?” I reminded him.

  He kicked his legs up on the examination table, his arms folded behind his head as he leaned back in his chair. “First thing is an examination of the exterior for any abnormality or trauma. You have to make a careful description of the interior of the body and its organs. Then, depending on how much time you have, you do an examination of the cells and tissue under a microscope.

  “The next thing is the main incision. For the torso, a Y-shaped incision is made. Each upper limb of the 'Y' extends from either the armpit or the outer shoulder and is carried beneath the breast to the bottom of the sternum. You cut to the breastbone, in the midline. And there's really not that much blood like you'd think. None left. They've sucked it all out.”

  He stood slowly, leaning forward over the table, as if there was a body in front of him. “From that point, at the bottom of the sternum, the incision is continued down to the lower abdomen where the groins meet in the genital area. Sometimes you get a model that overdosed. If you know what I mean?” he said, raising his eyebrows up and down several times.

  That's gross.

  “That's nature, pal. Even dead chicks have nice bodies. Well, until you start cutting on them. Some morticians actually got charges pressed on them for, um,” he tip-toed around the words, “ . . . inappropriately manipulating the bodies.”

  I sat up, “What kind of person does that?”

  “A lonely person,” he sighed. “Anyway, listen. Depending on where you went to school, the procedure changes a bit. In one method, each organ is removed separately for incision and study.

  “But . . . in the en masse methods, the chest organs are all removed in a single group and all of the abdominal organs in another, for later examination. The great vessels to the neck, head, and arms are ligated—which is, um, tied-off, basically. The organs are removed as a unit for dissection. The neck organs are explored in situ only, or removed from below.”