Walking After Midnight (2 page)

Summer winced, but of course there was no one to hear and be disturbed by the noise. As it died away, silence once again reigned.

It was probably the silence that was getting to her, she decided, giving her the feeling that a thousand unseen ears were listening and a thousand unseen eyes were watching everything she did.

„I can’t get nooo…“
This time the song was hardly more than a breath of sound, pure bravado really, and quickly abandoned. Unable to shake the uneasiness that gripped her, Summer gave up on the Stones. Perhaps such unreverent music in a funeral home was stirring up the spirit world….

How ridiculous! She was a thirty-six-year-old grown woman who had proven, time and again, that she could more than handle whatever life threw at her. Having survived the death of a parent, a failed first career, and a hideous five-year marriage, there was little left that could scare her. One thing was sure: She was
not
afraid of no ghosts.

Or was she?

If there’s something strange /  in your neighborhood
…

The theme from
Ghostbusters
brought a flickering smile to Summer’s face as it popped into her mind. Maybe she should sing it for courage. But she didn’t think it would help – and besides, her contract with Harmon Brothers specified that Daisy Fresh employees were required to behave with dignity on the premises at all times. Her cleaning crew was not even allowed to bring a radio to this job, and she would not have invoked the Stones if she hadn’t been so thoroughly demoralized by various stray sounds that in bright daylight would have seemed like less than nothing.

Summer’s smile twisted into a wry grin as her mind painted an almost irresistible picture of herself: There she was, five feet eight inches of well-padded, slighdy-over-the-hill woman, looking mousy as heck in the neat black polyester pants and tucked-in white nylon shirt that was Daisy Fresh’s uniform. Hazel eyes flashing, sweat-dampened strands of dark brown hair straggling loose from an off-center, precarious bun, yellow scrub bucket in hand, she was prancing through the funeral home toward the exit, punching the air with her fist and bellowing
„Who ya gonna call…?“
at the top of her lungs.

Not a very dignified finale even in her imagination, she had to admit. But cheering. Very cheering.

Grimacing – scrubbing a tile floor on all fours was hard on the knees – Summer got to her feet, placed a hand in the small of her back, and stretched. Peeling the rubber gloves from her hands, she dropped them into the bucket and frowned down at her stubby nails in disgust. She had once had the most beautiful hands…. But that was long ago, and her life was much better now even if her hands were not. How important were manicured nails in the whole scheme of life, anyway?

Reaching for her supplies, she forgot about her hands. She had only to drape the paper Daisy Fresh banners over the toilet lids, gather up her belongings, and go.

Her obligation to Harmon Brothers would be fulfilled, and the knowledge made her feel good. Not that she would have settled for anything less. Reliability was the company byword. Daisy Fresh always cleaned, and cleaned well, exactly where, when, and how the contract specified. That was why she was still in business after six years, when so many small janitorial services failed to last as many months.

Securing the last banner, Summer picked up her bucket of supplies and headed toward the door. Pausing with her hand on the knob, she gave the rest room one final, satisfied glance. Two-tone gray tile sparkled. Silver fittings gleamed. The mirror was spotless. On the shelf over the sink, a small glass vase held the single fresh daisy that was the company’s signature note. By morning, the Lysol fumes would have died away to a pleasantly fresh scent, and the bathroom, like the rest of the building, would look and smell pristine.

And Daisy Fresh could chalk up another satisfied client.

Genuinely smiling this time, Summer pulled open the door, flicked on the light switch on the wall outside, turned off the bathroom light, and stepped out into the solemn hush of the hall.

Thick gray carpet muffled her footsteps as she walked the length of the narrow hall that ran along the back of the building, perpendicular to the larger center hall off which the viewing rooms opened. The rest rooms were along the back hall to the left, the embalming room along the same hall to the right. A rear door affording easy access to the overflow parking lot bisected the long back wall. A single glance assured Summer that it was still securely locked. Of course.

It was her policy –
company
policy – to require employees to make a last, walk-through inspection of all jobs, to insure against faux pas such as forgotten dustcloths or lights left on. Harmon Brothers in particular was very strict about lights. The building was always dark when Daisy Fresh entered, and Mike Chaney, the general manager, had stressed that lights were to be turned on strictly as needed, to save on costs.

Tonight Summer had followed standard procedure, though she’d been sorely tempted not to. Beyond the hall in which she stood the building was as dark and quiet as a vast, echoing cave. The silence was broken only by the low hum of the air-conditioning. Knowing Harmon Brothers’ penchant for cutting costs, she was vaguely surprised that the unit was kept running overnight. Nighttime July temperatures in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which was nestled into the base of the Smoky Mountains, averaged around seventy-two degrees – not typical air-conditioner weather.

But then, given the nature of Harmon Brothers’ business…

Summer considered the effect of heat on dead bodies, shuddered, and quickly switched her mental focus to the few things that remained to be done before she could leave. Far be it from her to question Harmon Brothers’ decision to run the air-conditioning twenty-four hours a day.

The light in the back hall was the only illumination in the building. She would turn on the huge chandelier in the center hall (fortunately, the switch was by the front door), then return to douse the back hall light. Retracing her steps might take just a little longer, but the alternative – just flicking off one switch and hurrying to turn on the next – was clearly unworkable.

Call her a coward, but not for anything on earth did she intend to plunge herself into pitch-darkness in the bowels of that funeral home.

Who ya gonna call…?
Summer mentally shooed the ridiculous song away as she headed toward the front door.

The intermittent creaking that had been preying on her nerves since she had arrived had stopped, Summer noted as she flicked on the chandelier’s switch and set her bucket down beside her purse and the vacuum cleaner that already waited by the front door. Maybe that was why the air-conditioning seemed abnormally loud. The unit’s previous gentle hum now had more the quality of a menacing growl. In her mind’s eye, she envisioned the unit’s metal casing taking on the form of a fanged gray beast, and the ominous sound it emitted building to a full-throated roar as the beast grew….

Too many Stephen King movies, she decided with a grimace as she hurried to turn off the back hall light. To comply with Daisy Fresh’s final inspection policy, she forced herself to glance in each open doorway as she passed it. No forgotten dustcloths, no squeegees, no wads of paper towels. Just immaculately cleaned viewing rooms redolent with the scent of the floral tributes that surrounded the earthly remains of departed loved ones, who were dressed in their best and displayed in elegant satin-lined caskets.

What if they were to rise up out of their coffins and converge on her? What if they hadn’t been ready to die, or were displeased with the prospect of being buried on the morrow, and decided to take a grisly vengeance on the one living mortal within their reach? What if she had somehow stepped into a nineties version of
Night of the Living Dead,
and was about to become a featured player?

Really
too many Stephen King movies, Summer scolded herself. She was going to have to put a lid on her imagination before she conjured up an ax-wielding maniac out of thin air. Or a slobbering, rabid St. Bernard, or…

Ghostbusters!

Summer was almost running as she reached the light switch in the back hall and turned it off. That done, she had only to unlock the front door, turn off the chandelier, dart outside, lock the door again, and the job was finished.

Whew.

She hadn’t realized she was so easily unnerved, but the atmosphere of the place was really getting to her. The air-conditioning was sounding louder than ever, almost as if it
were
building to some kind of deadly climax. If she listened hard – or even if she didn’t – she could almost make out a rythmic
redrum, redrum… .

No more Stephen King movies as long as she lived, she vowed, moving back toward the center hall. Reaching the intersection of the halls, she glanced to the right – and felt her stomach sink clear down to the soles of her neatly tied canvas Keds.

Though the metal door was closed, she could see, through the narrow frosted-glass panel at its top, that she had accidentally left the light on in the embalming room.

Every nerve ending she possessed cried out for her to leave it. If Mike Chaney complained, she could apologize for the oversight and promise it would never happen again. The repercussions would be minimal. Harmon Brothers would not cancel her contract over such a tiny misdemeanor.

But Daisy Fresh was her baby, painstakingly rebuilt on the ashes of her former life. Daisy Fresh would never leave a light burning all night, when they had been specifically requested not to do so. For the honor of Daisy Fresh – and for the sake of the substantial monthly check that arrived as regularly as clockwork from Harmon Brothers – she was going to turn off that damned light.

Damn it.

Gritting her teeth, Summer headed toward the embalming room, impartially showering curses on her unreliable cleaning crew and Stephen King and light switches in general as she went.

At least the body in the embalming room was under a sheet. She wouldn’t actually have to see it. Fortifying herself with that thought, Summer swung open the metal door and glanced around for the light switch. Common sense dictated that it should be right beside the door.

Her peripheral vision registered the sheet-covered corpse reposing on a wheeled metal table pushed against the wall, then skittered away to focus desperately on the gleaming steel of the twin sinks, the spotless countertops, the freshly mopped floor. If she could do nothing else well in life, she thought with a spurt of satisfaction, she could clean.

How was that for a talent?

The switch was a good two feet farther to the left than any consideration of logic dictated it should be. Stepping inside the room as the door swung shut behind her, Summer reached for it.

Her gaze, free to roam now that the switch was located, lighted on the metal table’s twin. It was pushed up against the wall opposite the first table, the wall through which she had just entered via the door.

There was a naked man sprawled face-up on the table.

A naked
dead
man.

Shock widened her eyes. Her mouth gaped. This particular corpse hadn’t been in here when she had cleaned. Had it? Could she possibly have overlooked such a thing?

Not possibly. No way. There was not even the remotest chance that she could have. The unadorned corpse, almost obscene in its grim testimony to death’s indignities, filled her vision, her mind, her senses, with horror.

Even from where she stood, some six feet away, she could see the bruises, the awful trauma to the body’s face and chest. An accident victim, no doubt. Had he been brought in while she cleaned?

It was the only explanation. The creaks she had heard must have been real. Someone – an ambulance crew, a team of morticians working for Harmon Brothers, she didn’t really know how these things were handled – had brought in a freshly deceased body while she had scrubbed on, all unknowing.

Summer’s knees shook. Her stomach churned. Coming face-to-face with death in its rawest, crudest form ripped away the last of her courage. She couldn’t even pretend not to be scared out of her wits.

But she could go home. And fire her worthless Saturday night work crew. And make sure she had a backup work crew on call at all times just to prevent such a situation from arising in the future.

Never again was she going to put herself in the position of having to clean a funeral home alone in the middle of the night.

Rationally she knew that there really wasn’t anything to be afraid of. When all was said and done, the battered body was
dead.
Except for in her overwrought imagination, it couldn’t harm her.

Doing her best to compose her shattered nerves, Summer flicked off the switch. Light, softened and muted from the frosting on the glass panel, still filtered in from the hall as she had known it would. She was already at the door, one hand on the knob, when she heard it: a slight slithering sound, as if something in the room behind her had moved.

For the space of a couple of heartbeats, Summer literally froze with fear. Visions of the Undead rose to dance in her brain, only to be sternly batded back by common sense. She had imagined the sound, of course. When she really listened, silence, echoing, stretching silence, was all that met her straining ears.