“Good morning,” Bob said, noticing Jennifer.
“Good morning, Bob,” Jennifer replied, stepping away from the door.
“Catching a smoke?” Bob asked as he pushed the can past her towards the ramp.
“I wish. Security camera caught someone in the lot.”
Reaching the dumpster, Bob forced up the heavy lid up, and began to stuff a black garbage bag in. As the bag banged to the bottom of the dumpster. Bob dropped the lid. “Someone trying to break into the vans?”
“No, an old lady, looked homeless.”
“What does homeless look like?” Bob asked, pushing the can back up the ramp.
“You know, disheveled, unkempt.”
“That could be anyone this early in the morning,” Bob said, fighting to keep the wheels moving in a straight line.
“You’re right.”
“Maybe she was just out for a walk, and wandered in.”
“There’s a no trespassing sign by the gate.”
Bob chuckled, “When did that ever stop anyone?”
“True,” Jennifer replied, as the gate at the back of the lot began to open. A moment later an ambulance turned in.
“Looks like we got company,” Bob said pushing the can through the door and letting it roll into the hall.
“We’re not expecting anyone,” Jennifer replied.
“Unexpected deliveries are never a good thing,” Bob said, as the ambulance came to a stop in front of the dock.
Jennifer looked at her watch again. “I’ll inform Mr. Taylor that he has a guest. Make sure that the paperwork gets to Samantha right away.”
“Yes ma’am,” Bob said, knowing the procedure better than most people, seeing that the funeral home had been in his family for three generations.
As they stepped thru the doors. Bob grabbed the trashcan and rolled it towards the elevator. Pressing the down button, he heard the driver get out of the ambulance and slam the door hard.
“Heading down?” Bob asked, as the elevator door slid open.
“No, I’ll take the stairs. I need the exercise.”
“Alright,” Bob replied, forcing the can over the slight gap between the elevator and hall. Reaching inside, he pressed the down button and stepped back before the door closed. “Can you tell Raymond to grab the can. I’ll be down in a bit after I see what’s going on.”
“Will do,” Jennifer said, starting down the hall.
Bob watched Jennifer for a moment. Knowing that the message would never get relayed.
CHAPTER TWO
Does anyone know the exact time they will die? Car wreck, tumble down the stairs, old age. No one knows.
Do you feel the pain of a gunshot to the head? Is it instant death? Or just the beginning of a trail that you cannot escape?
Is it a comfortable slide into sleep if you slit your wrists in a tub of warm water? Your life seeping away while you drift off.
I have no idea. Nor do I want to find out as I travel this highway called life. Then again, I’m lucky if I remember what happened yesterday. Not to mention remembering what happened this morning. I’m too young for Alzheimer’s. But at this very moment, I have no idea where I am. Or what the hell is happening to me.
I know that I got up at six, had a bagel, and let the dog out. Wait, do I have a dog? I think I do. The buzzing sound that’s filling my ears is making it hard to keep a coherent thought. It’s like a thousand bees had found their way into my skull.
I try to open my eyes. It’s hard. When they finally do. It feels like sandpaper scrapping over my cornea’s.
I’m not sure what’s going on around me. Everything is dark. Not the nighttime darkness where a little light seep through the windows. But a pitch black that makes me feel like I am encased in something.
That’s when I realize there’s a heavy weight settling into my bones. But I’m breathing. Well, at least I think I am.
Suddenly I’m jerked to the right. How do I know? My head falls in that direction as the vertebrae in my neck snap and pop. The muscles of my neck are stiff. ‘Hard as iron,’ my dad use to say.
Somehow, I know that I am laying down. I’m not sure how I know. But I am.
Just over the buzzing, I hear a car door opening. I’m jerked again. A shock of movement rolls up my spine. It’s like needles are being rammed between each vertebra. The door closes behind me. Hard and fatally sounding.
Then I’m moving. I hear wheels rolling on asphalt. Then there’s the sound of metal on metal as whatever I’m on strikes a door.
I try to call out, ‘What’s going on? Where am I? And, ‘Help me.’ But nothing comes out. My tongue feels like it’s filling up my mouth. Caught behind a jaw that won’t budge.
Through a clouded tunnel, I hear a voice creeping towards me in the darkness. “Hey Bob, how’s it hangin’.”
My names not Bob. But I try to answer anyway.
“Not much,” comes the reply over my head. “Another day, another dollar.”
“What do we got?” The other voice says, now on my left.
I try to turn my head towards the voice. But my muscles will not respond.
“Another stiff as usual. Poor guy bit the big one this morning.”
‘Bit the big one?’ I scream. ‘No way in hell. I’m right here.’
“Robin and I got a bet goin’ on this week that we can guess what happened to the first one in every mornin’. So far I’m ahead three to one.”
“Oh yeah. What’s the bet?”
“Breakfast at Michelle’s over on Mulberry.”
“Sounds good,” came the reply, and all I can think is, ‘What the hell is wrong with you people.’
“Well what’s your guess?” A hand comes down on my chest. A hollow sound emits as if my lungs were empty.
“Hmmmm,” Bob says, fingers tapping on my chest.
“Car wreck? Suicide?”
“Open him up,” Bob says.
‘Open him up!’ I scream.
“Wouldn’t that be cheating?”
“Only if you tell,” Bob replies, and they both have a good chuckle at my expense.
What the hell is going on? Am I in a hospital? I don’t remember much of anything other than being trapped in darkness with a thousand bees buzzing in my skull.
The sound of a zipper works its way into my world. Bright light rips into my eyes. I try to close my eyelids. But they won’t move. I focus the zipper. The silver metal separates link by link. And I realize that I am in a bag. A dark, thick, plastic bag.
‘How did I get in here,’ I scream. But no one hears.
The fuzzy image of a clean-cut man, in his mid-thirties, comes into my line of sight. He reaches into the bag. Grabs the side of my head and straightens it upright.
“Damn, will you get a look at that.” Bob says, leaning over me. “What the hell happened to you?”
Bob let’s go of my face. No longer in control, my head flops back to the side. Everything goes black in my right eye. But from the left, I see that I’m in a large room lined with cold white tiles.
“Was he mauled by a bear?” Bob gasps.
“No, but close.”
“Damn, what then?”
“Cops said he got hit by a car after getting attacked by a pack of dogs. But look at this.”
I hear the zipper moving further down. The bag is pulled open, and I hear Bob gag.
“Don’t puke!”
I agree. I don’t want anyone hurling on me. What the hell is so wrong that someone would feel the urge to vomit just by looking at me.
Bob grabs the zipper and pulls it up. I scream for him to stop. But he doesn’t hear me. The zipper goes up, and the light goes out as I get sealed in.
“Dogs did that?” Bob says in a shuddering breath.
“That’s what the cops said. Had to be chewin’ on him for days.”
“Naw, can’t be. He’s to fresh. Anyway, there’s no pack running around the suburbs attacking people. We would have heard about it.”
“I d
on’t know. Maybe he pissed off someone, and they sicked their Pitbull on him.”
“Could be. Anyway, did the coroner signed off at the scene.” Bob said, picking up a clipboard that lay across my legs, and flips through the few pages clipped to it.
“Yeah, well, he’s got no next of kin. So, do the voodoo that you do.”
“Very funny,” Bob replied, as he scribbles his name on the bottom form, and then handed it to the ambulance driver.
“Poor guys got no family. So, what you gonna do with him?”
“Cremate. The city won’t pay for burials anymore We only get five hundred for every John Doe we burn.”
“What do you do with the ashes?”
“Box ’em up. They get stored for a while. Then tossed in the trash with the rest of the garbage.”
“Man, that’s cold.”
“Yeah, grandpa use to bury them. But it’s too expensive to keep a graveyard in city limits. We use to have one. But it’s condominiums now.”
“Living over a graveyard. Man, you wouldn’t catch me doin’ that.”
“You’d be surprised what’s under your feet.” Bob replies.
I feel whatever I’m lying on start to move. Mind racing, I try to make myself get up. Lift my arms. Scream that I’m alive. But still my body refuses to obey.
“Well, I’ll see ya later.”
“Much later I hope.”
I feel myself being bounced through another door and down a hall. The wheels are no longer moving over rough asphalt. But over smooth tile. Bob starts to whistle. All the while, my mind is racing through the fog that last few hours had become.
It’s clear that I’m in a bad situation. I can’t move to let anyone know that I am not dead. I have to figure a way to do so, before they put me in the furnace.
The furnace, ‘OH MY GOD!’ There gonna burn me up. I’ve got to get out of here. But how the hell did I get here in the first place.
We go through another door. I bounce hard, and the buzzing comes back in a rolling wave. Until I black out.
CHAPTER THREE
Jennifer went down ten steps to a small landing. Turning right, she moved down three more into a dimly lit, unadorned hallway with cinderblock walls painted white. No matter how much money Mr. Briggs put into maintaining the temperature and humidity of the basement level. There was always a chill in the air. Most likely from the cooler in the holding room where all the bodies were stored.
Down the hall, the door to the elevator slid open spilling light across the hall. Rushing down, Jennifer reached into the elevator just before the door began to close, and wrestled the trashcan out.
Rolling the can across the hall, she pushed the can against the swinging door. With a bang, the garbage can rolled abruptly to the left against the door as it opened and struck the wall. A cool burst of air radiated into the hall from the cooler set in the left side of the room.
On her right, Jennifer heard the door of the embalming room open at the far end of the hall. Outstepped a balding, grim faced, gentleman in a button-down lab coat. Thick, horn rimmed, glasses hung precariously on the tip of his nose. Threatening to fall onto the white sheet that covered a heavy-set woman on the gurney he was pushing.
“Good morning,” Jennifer said, not noticing the aged hand that wrapped around the edge of the door that pinned the old lady against the wall of the holding room.
“Oh Jennifer, lovely morning isn’t it.” Mr. Raymond Taylor replied as he pushed the squeaky wheeled gurney down the hallway.
The door to the holding room started to close making the garbage can shift and roll back into the hallway. With the toe of her shoe, Jennifer caught the can before it struck her and nudged it back against the door. Never noticing movement inside the room.
“Mrs. Wilkens is prepared for Mondays service. All that’s left is make up and to be dressed.” Mr. Taylor said.
“Good,” Jennifer replied. “An ambulance just pulled in.”
“Hmmm, I had a feeling that we were going to have a busy day.” Mr. Taylor replied, aiming the gurney for the holding room.
“Yes, well remember, we have a tour going on this morning. So, try to keep our customers out of view.”
“I will do my best,” Raymond answered as he started to push the gurney through the door. “Will you help me get the good lady into the cooler. I’ll take her upstairs to be dressed in a bit.”
As Raymond pushed the gurney in, it struck the trash can forcing it further into the room. The door bumped against the gurney wanting to close. Giving a grunt, Raymond felt the weight of the door as if a heavy resistance was on the other side.
Grabbing the side of the gurney, Jennifer helped to guide it in. The door resisted a little more. But as Jennifer put a shoulder against it, the door popped back half a foot as if whatever was blocking it, gave.
“I’ll have maintenance look at the hinges,” Jennifer said, seeing the look that crossed Raymond’s face.
Not replying, he pushed the gurney more to the left. Letting go of the gurney, Jennifer stepped around Raymond and the stainless-steel table set in the center of the room. “Let me get the door.”
Reaching the cooler, she grabbed the heavy handle and jerked it back. Popping the seal, the door opened with a hiss.
Forcing the end of the gurney to the right, Raymond posted himself against the door and guided the gurney towards the open door.
From the hallway came the sound of the elevator opening, and the timid voice of Judy Ramsey, intern, and all-around gopher for everyone during her first-year studies in mortuary science. “Mr. Taylor.”
Letting go of the gurney, Raymond stepped back to look out the door. “Yes, my dear?”
“Doctor Cass from Mercy Hospital is on line one for you.”
“Can you take a message, and let him know that I will call right back.”
“He said it was an emergency.”
Hearing this, Jennifer left the cooler door open, and stepped out of the room. “Emergency?”
Giving a smile at seeing Jennifer’s sudden appearance. Judy replied, “That’s what he said.”
“Hmmm,” Raymond glanced at Jennifer as she checked her watch, always worried about everything being on schedule. “I wonder what could be wrong. Very well, tell him I will be right on. I need to put Mrs. Wilkens away first.”
“Well, I have a tour to tend too.” Jennifer said, as Judy stepped back to the elevator and pressed the up button. “I will see you in a bit,” and she left the mortician at the door to the holding room.
Raymond lifted a hand in a halfhearted wave, and watched the ladies disappear into the elevator. As the old lady in the flower print dress shuffled from her place against the wall. The gurney shifted towards the steel table as the door scrapped loudly against it. With only one way to go, she shambled into the darkness of the open cooler.
Stepping back into the room, Raymond grabbed the end of the gurney. Giving a hearty grunt, he pushed the gurney into the cooler. Stopping just outside, he grabbed the heavy door and swung it closed, without giving the coolers contents a second glance.
Leaving the holding room, Raymond headed back to the embalming room and his office in the back to answer the emergency call from Mercy Hospital.
CHAPTER FOUR
Walking through the embalming room, Raymond could feel the stillness that lay over the room. Here, he was blocked from the outside world and the turmoil that it always seemed to be in. In this quiet place, he could think. Spending every day with the dead was not his ideal form of entertainment. Though it was better than being out on the streets and in the malls with the living. At least the people who passed through on his table didn’t complain. That’s why he never married or had children. The dependency that came along with any union always seemed to be a minefield of pain and heartbreak.
Entering his small cubby hole of an office. Lined with file cabinets on the far wall, and a set of three large x-ray film viewers mounted on the wall near the door. A sturdy steel desk dominated most of
the room. On its pitted surface sat a small desk lamp that shined down on a calendar placement covered in hastily written notes. Half of them Raymond could no longer decipher. In the upper right corner of the desk sat an off-white phone with line one button shining brightly.
Picking up the handset, he put it to his ear and pushed a rolling chair away from the desk with the heel of his shoe. Taking a seat, he pressed the lit button and the line immediately connected.
In one practiced breath, Raymond said, “Doctor Cass, Raymond Taylor, Briggs and Sons Funeral Home. How may I help you?”
There was a moment’s hesitation on the other end of the line. Then Doctor Cass came on sounding distracted as if multiple things going on in the hospital were calling for his attention. “Mr. Taylor, I am glad you could take my call.”
“Yes sir, what can I do for you?”
“We are having a bit of an overflow problem.”
“Overflow?”
“It seems like we have run out of room,” Doctor Cass replied, his voice filled with stress.
“Was there another pile up on I-90?”
“Ahhhh, no, ambulance calls are coming in like wildfire. It seems this morning there’s been a rash of deaths, city wide. Personally, I haven’t seen this many in such a short time.”
“And you need me too?”
“Well, we need storage space for the bodies until we can figure out what’s happening.”
“I cannot authorize this. But I do not see it being a problem.” Raymond looked at his workload penciled in the calendar for the rest of the week. “Let me speak with Mr. Briggs, and we will contact you in a bit with how many we can take. Let’s say, fifteen minutes.”
“Please do, the orderlies are threatening to start stacking bodies like cordwood.” And the line went dead.
Chicago Undead (Books 3-4): Encounters Page 2