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The body was pulled from the ambulance. Benny followed alongside. He winced at the hospital, man but he hated hospitals. The gurney was taken to the elevators, then down. Benny gulped, peering around. Weird. Then he smelled it. Formaldehyde and death as they dropped into the bowels of the hospital.
He heard the paramedic's nervous whisper. "Morgue."
Benny shivered and bolted out after his body. He stared at a pair of white double doors and tried again to argue with the driver and the paramedic. "But I ain't dead. Check me again, please? I mean, my vitals are low, but they're there, lady. Please?"
They shoved the gurney at an attendant and the body was rammed through a second set of doors.
Chilled, Benny rubbed his arms. The room was white enamel, and stainless steel gray, a proper color for mourning. Covering one wall were a series of what looked like refrigerator doors. Benny craned his neck, still following his body and the man who now had it. The guy skidded to a stop far down the wall and tore out a red tag. He scribbled something on it, "John Doe," Benny saw, peering over the man's shoulder. A number. Benny glanced at the doors. Each had a number.
"Hey," Benny yelled, "Hang on."
The gurney's wheels squeaked on, leaving Benny standing in the cold hall.
"You deaf?" He wanted to kick the man, maybe that would open his ears.
The attendant dragged open a door, second row, number 25, and drew out a long stainless steel tray. A cloud of moisture formed at the sudden drop of temperature, tumbled along the floor like something Benny had seen while watching an ancient B horror show. Ignoring this, the attendant rolled the body onto the tray. The tray slid into the gaping maw of death and the door slammed shut on all of Benny's hopes.
Wiping the blood from the gurney, he spun it about and raced back to the outer room and warmth.
Benny stared into blackness. He scowled. On his chest sat a skull, grinning and breathing.
Hello, Benny, it whispered into his soul. How very nice too see you again, my boy.
"Grandfather Grey? No," he groaned. "You're dead." Benny opened his mouth to scream. The jaws of the skull gaped. Maggots and grave filth, filling Benny's mouth, his nostrils, his eyes with squirming, crawling maggots. They wriggled and fed, scoring deep into his flesh.
Shrill, moaning laughter filled the morgue.
Benny clawed his way out of the freezer and stood panting before it. Damn, but that had been close. How long had he been in here? He sagged back. Only a couple of minutes. Seemed like eternity. Geez.
He reached in and felt the chilling bite of cold stealing through his flesh. It slowed the loss of blood, but was killing him in another way, too. Much more of this and he would be dead for sure. There had to be a way out. There had to be.
Benny stared at the clock. The second hand jerked around the numbers, becoming minutes. His life was slipping away.
Uncle Bob and Aunt Teddy slipped into the freezer room. They glanced at a policeman filling an accident report.
Bob closed his eyes, wondering how the hell was he to tell his baby sister her only surviving child lay dead. It was his fault. Had he made the boy go back to the house . . . .
The attendant glanced at the cop with ill-disguised hate. He shrugged and held the door for the man and woman.
Looking down the rows of doors, Bob muttered, "Which one?"
"Twenty-five, sir." The attendant stepped to the one and, ignoring Benny, he slid the tray out.
The bloody sheet covering the body was flipped partially back. Teddy hid her face in Bob's chest.
"Poor Benny. The kid's been through so very much, only to end like this."
Bob patted her on the back and nodded at the attendant.
He tried to hug his aunt and uncle. Benny's arms slid through them and the couple shivered. He choked and gasp, "Uncle Bob? Man, please tell Mom I'm s-sorry." He stared at his body, watched as the sluggish heart pumped once. Stopped for a long moment. Pumped again.
He glanced at the clock. Three to a minute now. And slowing. The cold began to set in. His flesh was taking on a grayish-blue hue under the deep tan as the blood flowed from the body's extremities.
Not long now. He took a deep breath and waited for the gates of hell to open and swallow him.
All around him, rising in volume came a chittering, a shrill noise like hungry rats. Benny saw one, a ghostly black apparition drifting up from between the tiles. A tormenter. His eyes dulled. Carl . . . They had taken his dad. And that pig, Leda, no loss there. But why Carl?
Glancing up, he mouthed, "Why Carl? Leda, most def-Finitely. She was murderer and worse. But Carl . . . Carl was good."
"Crap happens, kid."
Benny scowled at the man standing at the far end of the lockers.
"Who are you?" He gaped. "You can see me? Who are you?"
The man shrugged. "Oh . . . just me. I'm here and I'm there."
Benny stepped through his body. He cried out in shock, staggered as if lightening had slashed through his body. The heart rate swept up, the body tried to reclaim its spirit. "No . . . no," Benny cried and wrenched free.
The stranger leaped forward and caught him. "Take it easy, boy," he said soothingly. "You be cool. It ain't supposed to hurt, you know." Glancing at the sooty tendrils swirling through the cracks in the tiles of the floor, his hand tightened on Benny's arm. "Least ways, not yet."
Benny saw them and turned large and frightened eyes on the man.
"You wait there, young man. Best you just stay away." The man smiled bitterly and holding his hands as he back away from Benny. "Ain't your turn yet. They ain't here for you. Yet."
"But I'm still alive-"
The man looked at him, sharply, still moving back to his position by the door of his locker. He said in a soft voice, "Can't be . . . no." He shook his head.
"I am," Benny cried out.
He took a step forward, hesitant and apprehensive. A tendril curled behind him. It arose slightly, lanced through Benny's ankle. He leaped back, past the attendant, and fell onto the tray. The heat of his living flesh eased through him and Benny screamed with the pain of his tormented remains. The length of tendril slithered over his calf and dropped away.
"You must be safe there. Just you stay by your corpse. Guess they can't touch you, so long as you don't go far." He stared at creeping tendrils with a growing horror. "Dear Mama, what are they?"
"But . . . I ain't dead." Benny stared in consternation at the tormenters.
The man grunted and leaped to the wall. They stalked him, cornered him. Moved in for the kill. He screamed a wordless, inarticulate cry of defiance and bounded high.
A tormenter eased out of the wall. Benny shouted a warning. The man spun, dodged and escaped.
"Kid. If you do get out of this, tell my wife, Lillian Barstow, I didn't do it. Tell her I love her, boy. That- That it was Lester who done me in. Please," he shouted.
"I will," Benny whispered, watching the tendrils track the man.
They grew longer. Thicker. Stronger. More came out, sounding like hungry rats, weaving through the air, so many cobras, waiting to strike. They surged forward.
Barstow shrieked, struggling against them. They fed on his pain, on his terror. He was dragged down, taken away through the cracks in the tiles, hands pleading, mouth opened in an eternal scream.
Darting forward to help, Benny snarled curses at demonic tormenters. A stray tendril snapped up, whipping around his knee. Black, living fire seared into his legs. A shrill scream tore its way from his mouth. He threw himself backwards, clawing at the tongue of metal his flesh lay on.
The tray was shoved in, being pulled away from his straining fingers. They gathered. He could see them, feel them. Reaching for him, encircling his torso, his arms, pulling him away from the body.
One flailing hand touched the stiff and battered flesh on the tray. The tormenters shrilled and dropped from him.
Benny scrambled back to the locker, panting and badly shaken. Of the man there was no sign. Nothing in the least to show he had ever existed beyond the physical plane.
Uncle Bob hugged a weeping Teddy and they walked slowly out.
"Please, Uncle Bob."
Benny raised his arms in supplication and dropped them to his sides with an angry shake of his head. The old man always was spiritually blind.
"Man, no matter what, I'm going down hard."
More bodies were carried in. Dazed spirits struggled to realize what was happening to them, crying out in terror as tormenters shrilled and attacked. Some managed to escape and were eagerly trailed. Benny glanced around. He took a step. Tormenters shot up. Leaping back to the safety of his body, he snarled at them, tried again. They rose, thick and black, slithering around and through each other, waiting.
"Trapped." Benny spat at them and leaned against his locker. A humorless smile dimpled his cheeks. The injun was forted up with the Calvary circling him.
A few of the bodies were empty, mere husks. Those, Anna had taught him, were the bodies of the people carried to safety by the Guardian-warriors at the time of their deaths.
Like Grampa Waya. Like Dad.
Not like him. Not like Carl. At least he'd be in hell with ol' Papa Bear, not that he'd ever get to see them, only hear his stepfather's agonized screams forever. Benny slumped against the locker. The Owl liked it that way, it added to the torment, being helpless to aid those you loved in the Dream-world, earth.
10:15
A doctor bustled in.
He looked harried and harassed. Bob had to pull Teddy out of the way. He glared at the doctor, and gave Teddy a gentle shove into a chair.
Shoving through the doors of the freezer room, the doctor snapped, "Let me see the corpse." He glanced at a paper in his hand. "Number 413DOA215 in 25B. Some jerk pulls me out of the E-wards just to sign a death certificate. Should have been done at the scene. Blast it."
The attendant nodded. He pulled out Benny's remains. Benny stared listlessly over the man's shoulder.
Grumbling to himself the doctor noted down time and cause of death, then paused, scowling at the scars on the body's neck. "Looks like collars marks," he said. The tips of his fingers brushed them. He grunted and turned away.
The hands dropped. Benny felt that one, final burst of hope withered and died. He shot a sour glance at the tendrils. The heart rate slowed, the dull booms grew farther apart and they drew closer, inching towards him.
The attendant moved to slide the tray back into place. The doctor's hand shot out.
"Something's funny here." He eyed Benny, stretched up, hands on the sore muscles of his back, and glared at the body. "Dammed shame, isn't it, Harney? Kid can't be more than . . . Oh, sixteen on the outside."
"Seventeen. Cops says he was on his way down to boot camp in LeJeune, Doc."
"Huh." The doctor shook his head. He touched the scars once more.
"How long since the accident?"
"Hour, maybe. Maybe little more, but not much." He stared at the corpse. "Why you ask?"
The heart missed a beat. The tormenters stirred, sliding near.
Shaking his head, the man took his stethoscope from his pocket and polished the glassy tip, holding it over Benny's mouth.
Imps swarmed over the face, burying it, clogging them shut, and breathing ceased.
A tendril just missed Benny's leg.
Soon now, they whispered.
"Strange," Hanks said to himself. He patted his pocket and glanced at Harney. "Got a match?"
"Uh, Doc, you know you ain't allowed to smoke. Against the law." Harney shook his head.
"I ain't going to, son. I asked for a match."
"But the fumes. They could-"
"A match," Hanks shouted, "Not a blasted preaching to. I get enough of that from-" He glanced through the ceiling at the Veil of the Sun. "Never mind. Give me a light or I'll see to it your wife finds out about that little bimbo you've been sniffing after at the Red Lantern Lounge, McCaffy."
Fumbling in his pocket, the attendant brought out a book of matches and stared wide-eyed at the doctor.
"We didn't do nothing, Doc, I swear-"
Hanks glared at him and snatched the book of matches out of the attendant's hand before they could be soaked with cold sweat. There was a brief flare of light. Benny yelped as the match touched his face. His cold flesh twitched. Benny scowled at the doctor and brought his hand up in wonder. Here he was, a foot or two away from his body and he felt the match touch him.
"Damn it all to hell," the attendant yelped. "You see that, Doc?" He stared at Hanks. "What's it mean? Nerves?"
"Hell yes nerves," Hanks shouted and cast a glance at the Veil of the Sun in apology. "Living nerves." He pulled up Benny's arm. It came up limp and dropped heavily back to the table like flaccid rubber. "The kid is still alive. Get that dammed fool ambulance driver back here, pronto."
"Be jayzis!" McCaffy screamed and raced away.
Precious seconds crawled by.
The attendant returned with a nurse and a gurney.
They heaved Benny's slack body onto the gurney, the nurse shouted, "E-wards, STAT."
"NO. No, you can't take him there," Hanks shouted and snatched back the gurney from the attendant.
Baring his teeth at the doctor, Benny tried to figure out a way to kill the man.
The nurse bulled her way between the doctor and the gurney. Benny cheered. No one heard him but a growing pack of tormenters.
"I'm telling you, Nurse, you cannot take the boy up there. You do," Hanks shouted at the angry face of the woman, "How long you think it'll be a-fore the whole hospital's crawling with police?" Compassionate eyes stared at Benny's battered and bloodied form from three faces. Shaking his head, the doctor snapped, "Get him to Fort Bragg. It's Army, but it's the closest military base around. Civvies can't nab him there. Ma'am," Hanks said, pleading with the softening face of the nurse, "here, he'll only wind up in prison. How long you think this kid would last in a prison hospital? At least give the boy a fighting chance."
She scowled and backed away.
Hanks tossed a sheet over the body and shoved the gurney past the nurse. He raced for the doors. McCaffy was there before him, slapping at the elevator light. They waited impatiently for the doors to open.
A pair of men in matching uniforms strode out.
Pulling off his sun glasses, the older of the pair demanded, "This the kid as was in the pile-up?"
Casting a pleading look at the Veil, Hanks grinned flawlessly and said, "No, officers. This is an unclaimed for the students. The one you want is back there in the cooler. But I think someone has already claimed him." He inclined his head at a tall, dark man and a petite woman who looked ready to go into shock. "That's his aunt and uncle."
The cop grumbled to his partner. He glanced at the dark faces of the couple and smirked.
"Guess you-all will have to stand in line. The feds want him first. If you want anything of him back, you'd best see a lawyer."
The nurse scurried back into the locker room and slammed the door shut, then pulled out a yellow warning tag that read:
WARNING:
TRANSMITTABLE/CONTAGIOUS
A small skull and crossbones added to the affect.
She attached it to the handle of the door and sauntered out, coolly looking over the men. She gave a slight nod to Hanks and took the stairs door out.
The attendant smothered a laugh and trotted in after the policemen. He yanked open a door and slid the tray out.
The older man glanced at the face, then at the picture he carried. "Hey, this here ain't him," he cried. The two raced back to the elevators. The last thing they saw was Hanks smiling face and the doors slid shut.
Retired from the Army, Bob was a man of action. He decided a frontal approach was the best resort when the police headed for the stairs. He tackled the pair and brought them down cold. One punched him in the face and Aunt Terry's purse clapped down on his head.
Crawling to his feet, Bob grinned at his wife and gave her a sound kiss. He reached for the purse. She grinned and shook her head.
"Off limits, baby, you know that."
Bob wisely released the purse and, whistling, linked his arm with hers and they followed the attendant out the door and up the stairs.
Shoving a protesting man out of his way, McCaffy threw open the doors of the ambulance. He helped the doctor heave the gurney and its almost dead weight in.
"I'm taking full responsibility here." Hanks glared at the driver. "If I didn't know for sure the kid would make it, I wouldn't be going with you, now would I?" He scowled fiercely from under lowering brows and hopped in. "You coming, McCaffy?"
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder with each passing moment.
"I'm sorry doc," McCaffy shouted over the noise of sirens, "I wanna go with you all, but I got two years to go on my probation."
Hanks grinned and the doors slammed shut in his face.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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