Blood Hunt

Passage
1

Rest in peace. Like hell. Death was not peace. It led not to Marti, nor to any kind of heaven. . not even to oblivion. Death was not that kind. Death was hell.

It was dreams…nightmares of suffocation and pain, of restless discomfort, of aches impossible to ease, of itches impossible to scratch. It was hallucination invading the void, playing blurrily before half-open eyes unable to focus or follow…imaginary hands on him, patting him, then lights, footsteps, sirens, voices.

Oh, God! Call the watch commandeer.

I didn’t kill him, Officer! I’d never kill no cop, and anyway how could I do that to him? I just took the gun and stuff out of his pockets. Would I show you where the body was if I’d done it?

Garreth?

Easy, Takananda.

Garreth! Oh, God, no!

He hasn’t been dead long; he’s still warm.

Are there loose dogs in this area?

Death was hell, and hell was dreams, but mostly, hell was fear…panic-stricken, frantic. Were all the dead aware? Did they remain that way? Was this to be eternity…lying in twilight and nightmares, throat aching with thirst, body crying for a change of position, mind churning endlessly? Did Marti lie like this in her grave, insane with loneliness, begging for peace, for an end? No, not for her…please, no.

He hated giving up life, but accepted that in the jungle, death was the price of carelessness, of error, and he errored badly. Surrendering life to rejoin Marti would be welcome. He could even accept oblivion. This, though…this limbo? The thought of having to endure it for eternity terrified him.

He screamed…for himself, for Marti, for all the dead trapped sleepless and peaceless and tormented in their graves. He screamed, and because went unvoiced, it echoed and reechoed endlessly down the long, dark, lonely corridors of his mind.

The horror escalated. A sheet over him blocked the vision of his eyes; temperature had become all one to him, unfelt; and the lack of breath prevented him from smelling anything, but he knew he lay in the morgue. He had heard its cold echoes on arriving, had felt them park the gurney, and heard the freezer door close. Now he heard, had lain listening for countless time, the hum of refrigeration units while he dreamed nightmares and wished Lane had thrown him in the bay, too. Better to be fish food than lie in this hated purgatory of cold and steel. He prayed for his parents to be spared seeing him here.

That was when he thought of the autopsy. His heart contracted in fear. What would it be like? How would it feel to lie naked in running water on cold steel, sliced open from neck to hips, shelled out like -

Heart?

His mind held its breath…waiting. Yes, there it was! His heart squeezed again. A slow ripple moved outward from it along his arteries. He felt almost every inch of them. A long pause later, his heart squeezed again, then again…settling into a slow but regular rhythm.

He listened in wonder. If his heart beat, he could not be dead. His body lay leaden, held unmoving on the stainless steel the surface beneath him, but a silent cry of joy banished the darkness inside him. Alive!

He drew a breath…slow, painfully slow, but a breath nonetheless. He swore his breath and heart stopped in that alley. He had felt — how he had felt! — the silence of his body. What miracle caused the heart and lungs to resume function? He could not imagine, and at the moment, overjoyed with the sound and feel of them, he did not give a damn why.

But he remained in a morgue freezer, naked under the sheet. Unless he found a way out, the cold would kill him again. Could he attract attention by pounding on the gurney? Calling out?

He tried, but the weakness that held him motionless the past — how many? — hours persisted. He still could not move. Could not speak.

Could he survive until they came to take him out for the autopsy? He felt less cold now. Perhaps if he kept alert, he could fight off hypothermia.

He wished, though, that he could change position. His body consisted of one continuous, unrelenting ache, stiff from neck to toes. By concentrating and straining, he finally managed to move. Like the first heartbeat and the first breath, it came with agonizing slowness. Still, by persisting, he managed to shift his weight off his buttocks and turn on his side. Not that it helped a great deal. He still felt uncomfortable, but at least the position of the aches changed.

He tried again to call out but managed only a whisper. He would just have to wait for them to come for him.

He fought his way onto his stomach to change the pressure points once more and felt the sheet slide sideways. Slowly, painfully, he managed to turn on his side again and pull the sheet back over him. Little protection from the cold as it was, it was better than lying bare-assed.

He did not sleep, but in spite of himself, he must have dozed because the sound of approaching feet startled him. He never heard the door open. Light blinded him as the sheet came off.

“What clown put this stiff on his side?” a voice demanded.

If he raised upright, would they faint, Garreth wondered. He wished he could find out, but gravity dragged at him, weighting him. He went without resistance as they rolled him on his back again and rearranged the sheet over him.

“Hurry,” another voice said. “This one’s a cop and Thurlow wants to get him posted as soon as possible.”

Garreth worked his hands to the edges of the gurney and clamped his fingers around the rubber bumper. Even if he could not move fast enough to attract their attention and they missed the faint motion of his chest, they could hardly overlook this.

The gurney halted stopped. An attendant pulled off the sheet. Hands took him by the shoulders and legs and pulled…but Garreth’s grip held him on the stretcher.

“What the hell is going on?” snapped the voice of the medical examiner.

“I don’t know, Dr. Thurlow. His hands weren’t like that when we put him on the gurney.”

Now that he had their attention, Garreth forced open his eyes. Half a dozen gasps sounded around him.

He focused on Dr. Edmund Thurlow. “Please.” The whisper rasped up his throat with a plea from his soul. “Get me out of here.”