Chapter Two
“You died,” she deadpanned. Not exactly the reaction I’d been looking for, or any reaction at all really. “What, at home?”
“No… maybe… I’m not sure. All I know is, I woke up in the morgue, dressed like this.”
“My morgue, downstairs?” That seemed to personalize it for her, and I nodded.
“No shit! When did that happen? Are you gonna sue the hospital? Oh, if you do, name that dickwad Simpson, I hate that guy.” Her eyes alight with avarice, I could tell she was already mentally spending my settlement money and anticipating sweet revenge against the hated doctor.
“I don’t even know who that is…” My brows drew together as I tried to get her back on track. “Bridge, you’re missing the point. I don’t know how I got there or why I look like this.”
“Well, what did you do after I left for work? I told you not to shop for dates on Craig’s List,” she teased. We both knew I hadn’t dated since breaking up with Trent. Since we’d both broken up with Trent, actually. It’s a long story.
“Very funny.” I wasn’t as amused as she was. “I went to bed alone, and the next thing I knew I was here like this, that’s it, I swear. They said I was pronounced dead over an hour ago.”
“Damn, I can see how that would wig you out,” she conceded and I was glad to be finally getting through to her. Bridget had a good heart, she just wasn’t always the most sympathetic of ears. “I wonder what this is all about?” Her fingers reached out to lightly trace over one of the heavy pins holding up the dress. “This is cool, I’m gonna borrow it sometime, okay?”
That was a first, she’d never asked to borrow anything of mine before. It was kind of cool, but if it brought bloody deaths and trips to the morgue, it wasn’t worth it in my books. “Can we maybe focus less on the jewelry and more on the whole dead thing?”
“It’s Norse.” Mr. Gutterman sounded raspy, as though there was too much air passing through in ratio to his voice.
“What’s that, Mr. G?” Bridget asked as we both approached the bed.
“I thought you said he was deaf?”
“I lip read,” he shrugged thin shoulders. “I said it’s Norse, the jewelry, the clothes. Old Norse to be exact.”
“You mean like the Vikings?” My brows rose in surprise.
“Yes, exactly. My mother was Norwegian. She had a brooch very similar to that one. I remember she took me to a festival when I was a little boy. There were many dressed as you are today. I remember…”
“That’s nice, Mr. G, but we’re having a private conversation, okay?” Bridget turned her back on him again, but I wasn’t in such a hurry to brush him off.
“I want to hear what he has to say.”
“Fine, but I warned you.”
At first I chalked it up to her brusque manner, but after a couple of minutes I realized she was trying to save me from dying of boredom. Mr. Gutterman’s walk down memory lane took a lot of twists and turns, and we doubled back a few times. By the time we got to the end of the road I wasn’t in possession of many more facts beyond what we started with. The clothes and jewelry seemed to be Norse in design, and that was about it. After a while he talked himself out and lapsed into silence, snoring softly.
“Told ya,” she grinned, eyes flashing playfully.
“Next time I’ll listen,” I returned her smile, scooting away from his bed. “Anyway, the guy down in the morgue freaked out when I woke up, and there was someone there from the coroner’s office I think, they wanted to ask me a bunch of questions, and I sort of…”
“Bolted?”
“I didn’t mean to. I know it was the wrong thing to do, but the door was right there, and I was still reeling from waking up like that. So, I took off and came here to find you.”
“What do you think I can do? I’m not a doctor.” There was open scorn in her voice, not directed at me; her opinion of doctors wasn’t high. I have often questioned why she chose to work in the medical profession with such a bias, but she usually just swore and changed the subject. It was her way, and I’d long ago stopped taking offense over it.
“No, I know you’re not a doctor, for Pete’s sake. I’m in a hospital. There are doctors on every other floor if I wanted one. I came to you to help me figure out what to do next. Why, do you think I should see a doctor?”
“What for? Aren’t they the ones that put you in the morgue in the first place?” She seemed skeptical. “What are you in for?”
“They said I died from blood loss and tissue damage on the neck.” My hand automatically rose to touch my neck.
Her eyes widened enormously. “Shut up, are you kidding me right now?”
“No, I’m not kidding, why?” I blinked, not catching what she’d keyed in on.
“Come here, I wanna see something.” Dragging me by the arm, she led me to the bathroom, snapping on the harsh, fluorescent lights. My other arm rose protectively to shield my eyes from the bright light as she pulled me in front of the sink.
“What are you looking for?” I asked when she stared in dismay at our reflections in the mirror. “Blecch, I look awful,” I scowled at myself, taking in the dried blood crusted in the underside of my hair.
“I can see you,” she sighed dejectedly.
“Yes, and I look awful.” The artificial light made my skin sallow, and there were dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep.
“I guess you’re not a vampire then.”
“Was that a concern?” I laughed, more than a little amused at her expression in the mirror.
“Oh come on, don’t tell me that’s not what you were thinking too. Blood loss… neck trauma… it’s got vampire attack written all over it.”
“Okay, A - I don’t believe in vampires. B, I’m pretty sure you have to drink their blood to turn into one. And C, it depends on the reality you’re going for, some vampires have a reflection the same as anybody else.”
“Yeah, that kind of sounds like you believe in vampires,” she snickered, and I admit, I have read my fair share of vampire novels. I even had friends who liked to dress up and play vampire games once a month on the full moon. I tried to point out once that the full moon didn’t have any bearing on vampire lore, but they ignored me. “Maybe you did drink a vampire’s blood and don’t remember it?” She tried to force my mouth open and I slapped her hand away a little harder than I meant to.
“Eewh, I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of thing I would remember.”
“Why? You didn’t remember playing dress up with a Viking stalker.” She nursed her hand close to her body.
Bridget had a point, but it was one I didn’t feel like acknowledging yet, so I changed the subject. “Do you think you can get me something to change into? This dress is making me itch, and I’m probably likely to attract less attention if I’m not dressed like a zombie.”
“Yeah, no prob,” she agreed readily enough. “I’ll be right back.”
While she was gone, I took the opportunity to study myself a little closer in the mirror. I wasn’t used to seeing myself so clearly in the mirror without my glasses, especially when I looked like hell. Sure enough, other than being a little crusty, my neck showed no sign of trauma at all. Could there have been a mistake? Were my records switched with Jane Doe number six? I filched one of Mr. Gutterman’s hand towels and swabbed off my neck and hair the best I could, the bloody water grossing me out a little as it ran down the drain.
Bridget barged in a few minutes later with another set of scrubs, identical to the ones she wore. I tried not to think about the fact that I wasn’t wearing any underwear under the costume, that was too creepy to dwell on. While I was at it, I decided to wash my face and I felt better afterwards. Dressed like any other worker in the hospital, I felt almost human again.
“Cool, you look like you could pass for the rest of my shift. How about you take over and I sneak out for a smoke?” she teased as s
oon as I emerged from Mr. Gutterman’s room.
I ignored the question, never thinking for a moment she was serious, though her job didn’t seem all that complicated. “Is it always this quiet here?”
“Usually, unless one of the monitors goes off. For the most part it’s making sure nobody dies and everybody takes their medicine on time. The real nurses make their rounds mid-shift, other than that I’m pretty much on my own up here until break times.”
“Do you think I could hang out with you for the rest of your shift?” I steeled myself for the roll of the eyes or the snort I expected from her. Instead she looked at me, really looked at me for once.
“Are you afraid to go home?” There wasn’t a trace of laughter or judgment in her tone, it sounded like she really wanted to know.
“Well, kind of. I mean that’s the last thing I remember, being at home. Whatever happened to me, that’s where it started.”
“Why don’t you talk to the cops then? Have them come over and check the place out, make sure it’s safe?”
I wasn’t sure why, but that sounded like a bad idea. I’d never been afraid of the police before, I’d been raised to believe you went to them for help, but something kept me from wanting to involve them. I could have called my sister, but I didn’t want to drag her out of bed in the middle of the night either.
“I’m sure they’ll track me down at some point, they had my name after all. But I can’t deal with that tonight. Couldn’t I stay here with you? I’ll stay out of the way, I promise. I’ll even help out if you want. I can pass out water cups with the best of them,” I smiled entreatingly. I was pretty sure she was about to shoot me down with a cutting remark when she did something almost unheard of. Bridget volunteered for secret option number three without being asked.
“How about I take my lunch break, and drive you home? We’ll check the place out together and once we know it’s safe, I’ll come back to work?” she offered without batting an eye. Just when you start to think you know a person…
“That would be great. Do you have enough time to do that?”
“Eh, Ricardo owes me a break. I covered for him last month when his girlfriend showed up on his lunch. Let’s just say they took way more than an hour. It’ll be fine, let me make a call and we can go.”
All of a sudden we had a plan of action, and that coupled with the clean clothes had me feeling better than I had all night. I got the bloody costume bagged up in a mesh bag from the lost and found, and the stretchy booties they had to put over your feet made it almost seem like I was wearing shoes if no one looked too closely.
Before I knew it, we pulled up in front of our apartment, the darkened street completely deserted at the late hour. The apartment was set in a three story row house, each house identical in shape as its neighbor on our street, as far as the eye could see.
The paint colors and trim gave them each their own unique character. Our yellow house with white trim wasn’t particularly nice or run down; it blended in perfectly with its buddies. Our apartment was on the top floor with the bonus of a small roof deck for our own particular use. It made for great stargazing (me) or parties (Bridget) and boasted a terrific view. Being on the third floor was great for privacy, our neighbors below were quiet as churchmice. Not so much fun when lugging groceries up the stairs though.
The place was originally Bridget’s. I moved in about six months before, when I needed a place to stay after giving up my student housing to move in with Trent, a fellow student at CCA. Bridget and I met when we realized we were both dating Trent, and she decided it would be fun to burn all of his stuff on the very day I showed up with my rented U-haul. I’ve never been sure why she took me in that day. I was nothing to her, and she’d never been particularly outwardly generous, but that’s how I knew she had a good heart. She just didn’t like to cop to it very often.
Her fearless demeanor came in handy that night. I don’t think I could have walked into our apartment so boldly, but she strolled right in, flipping on every light switch she came in contact with until the entire apartment blazed with light. Everything seemed harsh and bright to my sensitive eyes, and I fought the urge to turn them all off behind her. Only fear of what might lurk in the shadows kept me from doing it.
When our circuit of the apartment was finished, we stood inside my room, which looked undisturbed except for the covers on my bed. In general I make my bed every morning by force of habit. Whatever had me leaving it in the middle of the night hadn’t given me time to make it before I left.
“Well, it all looks fine to me, the windows are locked up tight, and there’s no sign of anyone jimmying open the front door. Maybe you left the apartment and got jumped out there somewhere?” Bridget shrugged, leaning against the doorframe as I sank onto the edge of the bed.
“Who knows?” It all started to have that surreal, dreamlike quality to it, as if it had happened to someone else.
“I have to get back to work, are you gonna be alright?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll be fine,” I waved away the rare moment of concern on her part. “I’m just going to get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Hey, I’ll tell you what…” She rooted around in her purse for a few minutes, coming up with a hot pink little canister. “If anyone busts in here, hit them with this right in the face and they’ll be all ‘ahhh, my eyes, I’m blind!’ then you can kick them in the balls and make a break for it,” she grinned.
I accepted the miniature sprayer with dubious care, thinking I was more likely to accidentally spray myself with it, the way my luck was going. “Thanks, I’ll hang onto it.”
“Call me if anything weird happens though, I’ll come home. All I need is like one tiny excuse to leave that stupid job.”
“Thanks, Bridge, I really do appreciate you doing this for me,” I gave her a grateful smile and she nodded brusquely.
“Okay cool, whatever. Laters.”
Once she was gone, I changed into a set of my soft, comfy pajamas, noting that I couldn’t find the ones I remembered putting on earlier that night. I also couldn’t find my purse, which meant I’d have to deal with calling the bank in the morning and getting a new driver’s license. Fantastic. Borrowing from Scarlett O’Hara, I decided to worry about it another day. There was already too much pressing in on my mind at the time. It was late, far later than I usually stayed up, and I was so sleepy.
Only I couldn’t bring myself to get into bed and close my eyes.
Resigning myself to the fact that I’d probably end up spending the entire night awake, I curled up on the couch with my soft, plush blanket (the one I got from my sister for Christmas with purple faeries all over it) and picked up a book. I figured I might as well get some assigned reading done and kill two birds with one stone. After finding the perfect sideways position on the couch that afforded me a good look at the front door and the bay window to the street, I settled in to read.
Before too long I noticed a smell in the air… heavy grease from fast food, maybe last night’s dinner, that made my stomach twist with revulsion. It was strong enough to dislodge me from my faerie cocoon and send me into the kitchen to investigate. The smell grew stronger as I got closer to the kitchen and I spotted one of the wrappers tossed carelessly next to the garbage can. Holding my breath, I picked up the wrapper and threw it away, but the smell lingered. Forced to set the garbage can outside, I waited for a few minutes, breathing shallowly through the top of my pajamas, before I risked another sniff. Luckily, the smell gradually faded, only to be replaced with something else… something tantalizing.
Sharp hunger sliced through my middle, and I nearly doubled over at the sensation, clutching the kitchen counter until it faded. All of a sudden I was ravenous, and made a beeline for the fridge, pulling it open a little harder than I’d intended, the bottles rattling from the force of the movement. Rapidly, my eyes scanned the contents, but I couldn??
?t spot what it was that was tempting my senses. Leftover pizza? Too greasy. Cold cuts? Closer… but not quite right. Macaroni and cheese? Ugh… no thanks. What was it?
Before I could dig any deeper, a knock sounded at the front door.