The Bridge (Para-Earth Series)

by Krummenacker, Allan

  “Ah, the loyalty you inspire in your colleagues,” observed Julie as her friend handed her the money which included a big tip. “Spoil sport.”

  Ronnie was about to reply when Pam suddenly looked up and said, “It’s the Morgue. Shall I patch it through to your office?”

  Shaking her head Ronnie took the phone from her. “Hi Charlie what’ve you got for me?” A moment later she rolled her eyes and added, “Besides your oversexed imagination.”

  Julie and Pam sniggered, but Ronnie immediately focused on what the Medical Examiner had found out so far.

  By the time Dr. Wells assistant had finished, Veronica didn’t feel so hungry anymore. It must’ve shown on her face, because the other two were studying her closely. After asking him to fax the report, she hung up.

  “What’s wrong Ronnie?” asked Julie.

  “A few days ago, the Medical Examiner found traces of an unknown element in the lungs of Paul Chase and those kids who nearly ran you down. Now in all three cases, there was a strange smell on the bodies. The other day, Alex encountered that same smell over at the Graham estate coming from the stream and notified us. Roy went out there and took a sample of water and gave it Dr. Wells. And sure enough the mystery element was in the water. This morning Wells called asking for another sample so he could run a few tests and send some over to a lab in New York to have the element identified. So I went and got it for them and dropped it off this afternoon.”

  “And the mystery element was gone, right?” suggested Pam.

  “No,” Ronnie replied in a controlled voice, “It was still there, along with traces of decomposed tissues. Initial testing indicates they may be human in origin.”

  As Pam shook her head and went to answer another incoming call, Julie leaned over and said quietly, “Let’s go to your office.”

  Ronnie knew what she meant and did not resist as she let herself be led down the hallway and through the door with her name on it. As soon as they were inside, her friend took her by the shoulders and studied her closely. “You’re afraid some of it might’ve come from Rachel, aren’t you?”

  Veronica’s face hardened, “I don’t want…” she began. But, her muscular friend was already hugging her saying, “You don’t know, so don’t think about it okay? It’s probably not even human. If that mystery element is poisonous, it probably took out a bunch of animals over the years. Now, usually most critters will avoid an area that has carcasses. But that stream gets pretty swollen and moves pretty fast, which would’ve swept the bodies downstream.”

  “So other animals would have met the same fate. Good point,” Ronnie nodded hopefully. “Which means we better keep people away from that bridge, the area could be more dangerous than we originally thought.”

  Alex carefully made his way down the incline towards the bridge. He knew in spite of the groundskeeper’s efforts, there were likely to be rabbit or gopher holes lying in wait. And it wouldn’t do to be seen tumbling down the small hill. Cassie would never let him hear the end of it.

  As he drew nearer to the bridge, his mind went back to the other day when he had visited Jason. He must have picked up on the events of the past, and had witnessed them as if they were taking place all over again. Such things had happened to him before. He’d often wished his abilities had come with an owner’s manual. Something like:

  ‘CONGRATULATIONS! You are now the proud owner of the Mark Infinity Psychic Upgrade. You may experience chilly rooms, sound effects, déjà vu, and cold spots. If you also purchased the visual expansion pack, seeing spirits is guaranteed.’

  He had just reached the bottom of the slope when it struck him. Silence enveloped the area. But it wasn’t just the lack of sound, he wasn’t sensing anything nearby. Usually he could sense something in the background, animals, birds, etc. They acted as a sort of psychic white noise. But, there was nothing.

  He was about to go back and see where things cut off, when he heard a splashing noise. Turning he spotted a teenage girl standing waste deep in the water. She was soaking wet and looked frozen to the bone.

  Without thinking, he called out to her and rushed down to help. She headed towards the shore and waited for him. Immediately, he whipped his jacket off and placed it around her shoulders. “Are you all right, Luv?” he asked gently.

  The girl seemed a bit dazed and kept staring at the bridge.

  “Do you have friends parked over on the other side of the stream?” he asked.

  She looked at him but said nothing.

  “If not I’ve got friends up at the manor who can help…” he began. But the girl’s face, what he could see of it through her dripping hair, went rigid. So he quickly changed gears. “I also know a fellow who has a cottage on the other side of the bridge, who would be more than glad to make us some tea and whatnot.”

  The girl nodded and headed towards the stone structure, leaving him to follow.

  They had just reached the center of the bridge when that same unnatural cold from the Morgue suddenly hit him like a bullet train, almost taking his breath away. A moment later, the stench from the Impound Lot joined the party as well. It seemed to engulf them on all sides and was so overpowering, he could barely stay upright. He felt his body swaying to and fro as if the bridge itself was undulating beneath his feet.

  The ‘wail’ erupted all around him. Alex clamped his hands over his ears, but once again it proved useless. The cry tore through his very being, wreaking havoc in its wake.

  Cracking open one eye, he could see the girl clinging to the bridge. He could sense her fear and concern, but none of it was for herself. It was all for him.

  He started to crawl towards her towards her but then the world twisted and warped past him.

  All of a sudden he found himself back in the corridor leading to the Morgue, heading for the dreaded double doors. The passage seemed to stretch on and on, while the walls flew past him at tremendous speed. Yet the doors at the end of the hallway remained far in the distance.

  ‘I don’t belong here. I don’t want to be here’, he kept thinking and realized it was his own reluctance that was keeping the portal at bay.

  “Someone must know,” said a man’s voice from nearby, breaking his concentration.

  Suddenly the doors rushed towards him, and opened wide…

  Charles O’Connor hung up the phone and turned to his boss saying, “Sergeant Hottie wants a copy of the report as soon as it’s ready.”

  Dr. Stephen Wells barely looked up from the sample he was examining under the microscope. With a sigh he removed the slide and replaced it with another.

  Behind him the cold metal table used for examinations stood empty. Beyond that, a set of metal doors made up one entire wall. All but two of the spaces behind those doors were vacant at the moment.

  After a moment he straightened up and sighed, “Barely recognizable, but human in origin,” he announced. The sound of his voice reverberated off the sterile metal walls, making it seem loud and eerily hollow.

  “Did they come from the same person?” asked his assistant.

  “We’ll have to wait for DNA results from New York to find that out,” the older man sighed. “But I have a feeling we may be dealing with some kind of mass grave.”

  Charlie shook his head, “Is it just me or is this case getting more bizarre? I mean, who’s gone missing all this time?”

  “Good question,” his mentor looked at him with approval. “That’s something Chief Peterson, and his crew, will have to find out. Along with, how did that water,” he pointed at a jar on the table, “which came from the stream on the Graham estate, wind up in the lungs of a man who was miles away in the Impound Lot?”

  The young intern nodded, “Are you sure it’s the same water? Couldn’t someone have just knocked him unconscious, stuck him inside the wreck, and then ran a hose through the window?”

  Wells shook his head, “I took water samples from all the taps and sinks at the Impound Lot. None of it matched what we found in the victim’s lungs. Bu
t, it did match what we found in our other two guests.”

  Charlie nodded and glanced warily at two of the metal doors in the nearby wall. “What samples are you looking at now?”

  “They’re from the stream on the Graham estate,” Wells replied, putting his glasses back on. “That was the last place the young couple were seen alive.”

  “I thought we sent the last of those to New York to get the element identified,” remarked Charlie.

  His boss nodded, “I did. But I asked Sergeant Ross to get another larger sample so we can run some more tests of our own.” He pointed to a jar filled with murky water on the table. “And now I’m thinking we may want to get a sample of the mud at the bottom of that stream as well. It may tell us even more.”

  “Like?”

  “If there are any remains buried under or near that bridge,” Wells replied solemnly. Then he gave his assistant a smile, “Why don’t you go on home for the night? I can manage on my own.”

  “Are you sure? I can make a burger run for us,” Charlie offered. “There’s a new girl working at the diner who’s been giving me the eye.”

  “I brought something I can microwave and eat here. You go on and have fun,” Wells told him and then added, “Oh and can you turn on the extractor fans? I’m going to be using a lot of chemicals.”

  “You got it,” the young man called over his shoulder and disappeared. A moment later the sound of the fans starting could be heard.

  With a satisfied smile, the Medical Examiner turned back to his notes. Some of the tissues found in the water had been muscle and possibly skin, which had been the first indication that human remains might be involved. But then he’d found several with human hair follicles, which had clinched it.

  But the condition of some of the tissues had raised a lot of questions. Naturally there was some deterioration, but their current state was not typical for remains found in water after any given time. And to make matters worse, some of the tissues appeared to have been altered somehow. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they’d been attached to larger identifiable tissues, he wouldn’t have been able to recognize them as belonging to any known form of life.

  But that wasn’t the end of it. Throughout all the tests he’d done on the water, there were no indications of any life commonly found in streams. No bugs, fish, cyanobacteria, or other microorganisms. So what was going on?

  He was now beginning to wonder if the mystery element/mineral was actually part of a meteorite. If that was the case, then what was its chemical make up? Could it be responsible for the alterations in the cells and the absence of other life forms?

  Well, there was only one way to find out he told himself and readied some clean slides and test tubes. Then he turned to the jar with the new sample and opened it. Immediately he was taken aback by the odor that rose from it. It was definitely the same smell that had been on the three victims, only much stronger. Thinking back to the first sample, he didn’t recall there being any stench attached to it. Then again it had been a much smaller sample.

  Fanning the smell away, he poured some of the water into the test tubes and prepped a few slides then stopped. He suddenly had the impression that he was not alone. Looking up, he saw no one. He called out Charlie’s name, just in case his assistant had decided to play a prank on him. There was no answer.

  With a shrug Wells went back to his work, but still the feeling of being watched nagged at him. Every so often he would stop what he was doing and look around once more. What the hell was going on? He’d worked in morgues for over thirty years, and had never experienced such a sense of unease before.

  That was when he noticed the entire room stank and realized he’d left the jar with the sample open. He quickly put the lid back on it and hoped the extractor fans would take care of the rest.

  He placed a slide into the microscope and looked through the eyepiece. It was just as he suspected; more tissue fragments in various states of decay. Including another hair follicle, but this one was blonde. The other one had been black. He began making notes, when a sound reached his ears.

  Looking up he saw the sample jar vibrating slightly and then stop.

  “All right Charles that’s enough,” he called out with annoyance, “If you’re going to hang around and play games, I’ll put you to work.”

  Again, there was no answer.

  Wells walked over to the double doors and stepped through them. A long empty corridor greeted him. ‘I’m still being watched’, he thought and hurried back into the room. It was still empty.

  Shaking his head, he went back to his microscope, looked into the eyepiece and gasped. Black strands were now visible among the tissue fragments. Where had they come from? As he watched, they began to move and wave, occasionally grabbing some of the tissue fragments.

  He quickly made some notes, removed the slide and inserted another one.

  Once again, tissues in various states of decomposition were visible but nothing else… Wait. Something dark was appearing in the center of the slide. It was a black dot which was slowly growing in size until it almost filled the viewing area of the microscope.

  The Medical Examiner stared in amazement. Was it some kind of bacteria or mutated organism? If so, why hadn’t they found it sooner?

  The dot seemed to quiver and pulse as he watched. Then suddenly a slit grew across its surface and opened to reveal a red-rimmed human eye staring back at him with menace.

  Wells gave a cry of horror and fell backwards.

  Hitting the floor jostled his panicked mind into some semblance of order. Surely, his imagination was running away with him. It had to be. He had had that feeling of being watched earlier. And now that he thought about it, the room was feeling colder than usual. Maybe he was coming down with something. Perhaps he caught something from Sergeant Ross’ boyfriend who’d collapsed the other day.

  He wrote a note to himself, to call her and ask about Mr. Hill. Hopefully, she could give him a rundown on the symptoms the guy had experienced, and how he was doing now.

  Then, steeling himself, he cautiously approached the microscope and took another look. There was no eye, black dot, or strands. Just the tissues, although he could swear they seemed to have changed somehow.

  Rubbing his eyes he glanced around the room once more. The smell had not dissipated in spite of the extractor fans going full blast. His gaze fell to the test tubes on the table. Could the smell be coming from them? It seemed unlikely they were stoppered. He turned back to the jar and gave a startled cry. Not only was the lid missing, but there was now an eye floating in the water, watching him.

  The telephone on the wall rang, making him jump. Then he lunged for the device, like a drowning man reaching for a life-preserver. Someone would be on the other end. A real person he could talk to and ask for help. Grabbing the receiver, he turned back to the glass container and saw it was empty.

  He stood there staring. What was happening to him? He took a deep breath and noticed the smell was much worse now. The odor… could it be some kind of hallucinogenic?

  Remembering the phone receiver in his hand, he spoke into it, “Medical Examiner’s Office, this is Dr. Wells.”

  At first he thought there was no one on the line. Then he was able to make out a wet sound, like gurgling.

  “Who is this?” he demanded.

  A wailing screech erupted out of the phone, echoing off the walls of the room. Wells dropped the receiver and clapped his hands over his ears. Looking around in a terror he saw dark putrid water bubbling over the sides of the test tubes and the sample jar. The brackish fluid was quickly covering the entire floor.

  Primal instinct told him that he needed to get out of there. Still covering his ears he did a football drill run, avoiding the dark waters as he went, and reached the double doors where he turned and took one final look at the room. The puddles had merged into one dark pool with black rope-like limbs rising out of it and towards him.

  Uttering a cry of horror, Wells bolted through
the double doors and into the silence of the hallway.

  Leaning up against the far wall, he tried to catch his breath. The sound had stopped the moment he had passed through the portal. Nervously, he looked back at the doors half expecting them to burst open as black tentacles pursued him. But nothing happened.

  He quickly put two and two together. The odor had come from the water sample which must have caused him to hallucinate. That had to be the answer. After all, as soon as he had escaped its influence he had recovered. Incredible!

  If his heart hadn’t been pounding so hard he might have turned a cartwheel. The relief of having escaped such a nightmare had left him giddy and grateful to still be alive. He was sure his mind would have succumbed to the unfolding horror had he not managed to get away.

  Could Chase and the two teens been rendered paralyzed with terror from hallucinations and then drowned?

  But if that was the case, then how could the teens have been seen driving hours after they had died? Maybe they hadn’t been dead. Could he have made a mistake about the condition of the bodies and the time of actual death? The tissues in the water had clearly shown signs that alterations had taken place. But the thought of one mineral with such capabilities seemed impossible.

  His eyes slowly turned to the double doors that he had just escaped through and thought, ‘What I just experienced in there was real enough.’

  Convinced that they were dealing with something new and incredibly dangerous, he pulled out his cellphone and dialed Chief Peterson’s number. He knew his friend would be at the Open House at the Graham estate where the source of the water was. They needed to keep people away from that stream at all costs.

  Unfortunately, he got the Chief’s voicemail instead of the man himself. He quickly relayed his suspicions and insisted on being called back as soon as possible. As soon as he hung up he started to dial the station and then noticed the sound of dripping.

  Turning he saw a teenage girl standing in front of the double doors staring at him. The poor thing looked as though she had just climbed out of a swamp. She was soaking wet from head to toe. He noticed her hair was incredibly long. It fell past her waist and below her knees, ending just above her bare feet.