Discovery of Death (2 page)

He sat there and recognized what he had been inside: a coffin. He looked around. Other coffins lined the floor along with his in a square, each inset in the walls made of black rock, some coated in mud, others not. One coffin sat in the middle of the room.

His insides split in two: one half wanted to run screaming and get away from this place; the other sensed its warmth, an atmosphere of home. It was wrong. It was right.

Fatigue rushed over him and he laid back down and closed his eyes. Immediately, discomfort set in and he sat up and hopped out of the coffin.

The others all around him were still closed. Were there people inside there, too?

Are they dead? I’m not. Sleeping? Seems right.
“Wait. No. Not right. Maybe. Sleeping.” It was difficult to think straight.

The footsteps above returned and he wanted to see if perhaps whomever they belonged to could help him. Using the footsteps as a guide, he listened as they traveled over the rocky ceiling and followed their sound out of the cave and into a shallow-staired tunnel. The stairs led up and the footsteps slowly transformed from coming from above him to coming from parallel to him, when he finally reached the top of the stairwell to a stone door.

Unable to see a handle, he placed his palms on the jagged stone, trying to find something to use as one. There was none. Leaning into it, he focused his weight on his palms, pressed, and tried sliding the door. It moved to the side and revealed a small room no bigger than a closet, the walls on either side composed of marble-encased coffins, inset in shallow marble shelves.

Not bothering to read the writing above the graves, he headed straight for the main door. This one was iron and had a handle. He pressed down on it. After a loud clunk, the door unlatched and opened.

Fading sunlight streamed in and his hands immediately burst in flames.

“
Ahhhh,” he yelled and buried his hands beneath his armpits, extinguishing them. Part of the light touched his toes, but didn’t seem to bother them through his running shoes.

He checked his hands. Deep red blotches dotted his skin, some as large as coins, others mere pinpricks. Hands shaking, the pain from the burns began to dissipate and the blotches on his skin began to shrink then altogether disappear.

“
Whoa . . .” he said despite instinctively knowing there was nothing special about what he saw.

Carefully, he reached for the handle and again the fading sunlight licked his skin and sent a stream of fire across it. With a yelp, he shook his hand off, getting rid of the flame.

He looked himself over. He wore a jean jacket, white T-shirt and blue jeans. He slid his hand in the cuff of his jacket, covering it, then used the covered hand to reach forward and close the door. When it closed, he sat on the floor, not wanting to go back downstairs, but also unable to go outside.

Sun.
It was more an image in his mind than a word—yellow, spherical, fiery—and the image brought a foreboding sense of danger. Why the notion was coming to him now and not before, he didn’t know, but it also provided an epiphany: the sun was dangerous.

Moon.
Another image, the white, bright and perfect sphere of space rock in the sky. Safety. Protection. Freedom.

He would wait until the moon came.

“
It comes at night,” he said, assuring himself there was a time set aside for him to go outside and get help.

Sitting there, legs drawn up to his chest, focusing was difficult. His head was full, but he had a hard time deciphering what that
fullness
was. It was like waking up with brain fog and time was needed to start seeing clearly.

Somewhere in that jumble was the answer to why he was here. He obviously knew what certain things were: coffins, sun, moon, shoes, jacket. But there was more there that he couldn’t quite tap into just yet. A name was one of them. He knew what a name was, but didn’t know what
his
name was. At the same time, he knew the significance of a name and the history and identity it brought. Without one . . . he was free and unfettered by having nothing attached to himself, but he was also lost and without an anchor to help give him purpose.

A name was more than just a word. A name was the connecting point of all facets of life: soul, past, present, future. Actions, words, feelings. Thoughts, abilities, desires.

He needed a name.

He needed it to be dark.

2

E
ver since Zach
Mohansen went missing, Rose Jordan didn’t give too much thought to her appearance anymore. She remembered what it was like a few months ago—back when Zach was still around—how she’d be sure to take a shower every morning before school, curl her long brown hair into loose ringlets, and apply just enough makeup to highlight her lips and bright hazel eyes. Every outfit was selected with care, usually something white, as Zach once said that every time he saw her wearing white she reminded him of an angel.

There was so much excitement in those days. She’d barely have the desire to eat breakfast, her heart beating with such eagerness to see him that it chased her appetite away. She remembered her friend, Stephanie, once telling her that it’s usually the first three or four months of a relationship that was—as she put it—“hot and heavy,” the thrill of being with someone you really liked always new, something you never quite got used to.

It was like that with Zach. That boy seemed to appear out of thin air. Not literally, of course, as he’d gone to school with her since as far back as she could remember, but she never gave him much thought. He didn’t have many friends, and those he did have weren’t what she’d call popular or even cool. They seemed to be the kind of guys that were friends simply because there wasn’t anyone else to be friends with. Whatever works, she supposed, but she knew it was that kind of shallowness that had kept her from him for so long.

Zach was special, a kind of hidden astonishment. Growing up, he was tall and gangly, with too much brown hair in a mess of waves atop his head, and acne that made one cringe at first glance. It was the summer before tenth grade that everything changed. Zach went home at the end of the school year like everyone else. He didn’t even attend the junior high prom. Rose thought she overheard somewhere he’d been sick, though she suspected he never really felt like he would fit in and so avoided the party altogether.

But it was that summer that changed everything.

Zach came to school on the first day after the break, and Rose, who had been searching the halls for her first class, stopped in her tracks when she saw him. He hadn’t looked her way. He didn’t have to. Something about him gripped her. At the time, she didn’t know who he was. He stood there in the hallway, a small white slip of paper in one hand, a stack of books in the other, his eyes glued to the piece of paper. It was like fireworks went off in her chest and she was immediately captivated by this guy with the cute brown locks that sat in a loose tussle on his head, a clear complexion, and a slender but muscular build beneath his black T-shirt and blue jeans. It was only upon further inspection did she realize who he was. Immediately, her cheeks flushed and she forced herself to look away and continue searching for her class. When she passed him in the hallway, she couldn’t help but look up and steal another glance. Zach looked her way, gave her a soft smile, and continued on.

Rose had stopped in her tracks again, unable to fully wrap her head around why she was drawn to him.

He wasn’t the boy she once knew anymore.

♦ ♦ ♦

Rose came down the stairs for breakfast, her heart aching. Getting over Zach’s vanishing act was something she was still trying to deal with.

Her father sat at the table, scanning the newspaper, his dark eyes even more prominent these days thanks to his graying hair that seemed to take on another hint of silver every morning.

“
Morning, pumpkin,” he said, and flipped the page.

“
Hi,” she said softly and sat down across from him, wondering when he would stop calling her that silly pet name. Not only was it uncool, but she found it demeaning. A constant reminder of how he refused to see the woman she was growing up to be.

If the Jordan household was known for anything, it was routine. Her bowl and spoon were already set before her on the table, the box of cereal to her right, the milk to her left.

She glanced to the empty seat near the window. Zach had sat there the few times he had come for dinner. She could still see him sitting there now, a ghost of good times past.

Her father bent down the top half of the newspaper and gazed past it. “Better hurry. Don’t want to be late.”

“
Yeah,” she said and stood up.

“
Not going to eat?”

“
Not very hungry this morning.”

“
Got to have something. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and all that.”

She nodded. “Where’s Mom?”

“
Had an early showing. I’m catching up with her shortly after some paperwork.”

“
You guys are going to be busy today, right?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question. Her parents owned their own real estate business and were busy every day. Weekends were optional the same way relaxing evenings were.

“
Got to meet some people around five. Depends how it goes. Hope to be home just after six.”

Rose went to the fridge and pulled out the lunch she had made the night before. As she went past her father to the door beyond, she noticed a cut along his jawline.

“
You okay?” she asked.

“
Hm?” He bent the paper down again.

“
You got—” She ran her index finger along the side of her jaw.

“
Oh, that,” he said and put a hand over it. “It’s nothing. Cut myself something fierce shaving.”

“
You might want to put a band-
aid on it. Looks pretty deep.”

He pulled his hand away and checked his palm. “It’s not bleeding; I should be all right.” He set the paper down with his other hand. “Sure you don’t want anything? You need to eat, Rose.”

“
I know.”

Her dad’s eyes slightly glazed over. He already knew why she wasn’t hungry. They’d already talked about it. All he told her was, “You got to hang in there. Things will be fine in the end. Boys come and go.”

The words never gave her comfort, and the last comment infuriated her, but she knew he meant well.

“
See you later,” she said.

“
Have a good day.”

“
You, too.”

Rose headed out the door and walked slowly to the bus stop.

3

R
ed flower petals
floated past his vision and despite the darkness of the crypt, they were as vivid as bolts of lightning across a black sky. There was meaning in flowers, he knew, though the knowledge of such was more an
impression
than actual fact.

Tired, the young man’s eyes aching for sleep, he wasn’t sure if sleep would even come. Not here. Not like this. He was back downstairs. Despite the gloom of the underground tomb feeling like home, a part of him recognized this wasn’t a place for sleep, at least not the kind that was temporary.

He stood, and instinctively raised his arms to stretch. Instead, his muscles didn’t budge as they were already loose and teeming with life.

The dark took on a new shape, one where each shadow grew darker, black as pitch, the surrounding areas growing to a rich gray. Suddenly, all became clear and he could see his surroundings perfectly.

The coffin across from him was made of stone, rich and ornate carvings decorating its lid and sides. They were pictures of men and women in robes, all with long flowing hair, each person entangled in passionate embraces. However, where he expected their lips to meet in a kiss, instead the heads were nestled in the crook of the other’s neck, as if seeking intimacy there instead.

He drew close to the coffin and touched its lid. Its stone should be cold, he felt, but was instead luke warm to the touch, borderline
without
any temperature at all.

Other coffins lined the room, one on each side along with the one in the middle: five total. All were as beautiful as the one before him, all bearing similar markings as the one he had his fingers upon now.

He pulled his hand away and started to walk around the coffin in the center of the room, searching for a name.

There was none.

He took a deep breath and looked at his hands. They stood out bright and gray against the monochrome of his vision.

“
I am dead,” he said, though not of his own will. It was more a blurting out of a thought than anything else.

The coffin lid in front of him moved, stone grinding on stone as it slid along the box it covered.