Walking After Midnight (3 page)

In any case, it was time to go home. Thank God.

Pulling the door open, she could not resist casting a last, scared glance at the battered corpse. The light spilling in from the hall was uncertain, but what she thought she saw in that one quick look was this: The dead man’s right leg moved.

Her eyes were already darting away when her brain registered what she had seen. Her head snapped around in a classic double take. Transfixed, she watched as the dead man’s knee lifted a good three inches off the embalming table before dropping back into its original position with a soft thud.

The hair rose on the back of Summer’s neck.

3

Who ya gonna call?
The refrain, with its endless punchline, pounded hysterically through her brain as she fled. Summer had almost reached the front door and safety when it occurred to her that she could not just abandon a corpse that did not seem to be quite dead. Tales of the Undead aside (and every sane thought she still possessed assured her that such stories were pure hokum), there were two possible explanations for what she had seen: some sort of bizarre after-death reaction – a muscle spasm, perhaps? – or the man was really not dead. Someone – an ambulance attendant, an ER physician, who knew? – had been too quick to write him off.

Her first impulse was to say tough luck and good-bye.

Her second was to dial 911.

Her third, and most rational, was to call Mike Chaney at home and tell him to come take a look at his newest corpse for himself.

But even as she headed toward Chaney’s private office – the first door to the right of the main entrance – to use the phone, Summer hesitated. To call her biggest client at two on a Sunday morning was not a thing to be done lightly. Likewise, summoning police and ambulance attendants to said client’s poshest funeral home was an action she would be wise to think over first. In the latter case, the publicity that almost certainly would be generated was not the kind that Harmon Brothers would welcome. In the former case, Mike Chaney would probably think she was a nut.

The honor and reputation of Daisy Fresh – to say nothing of Harmon Brothers’ monthly check – were once again on the line.

She
needed
that money.

Of course, if the man was really not dead, preserving what was left of his life had to be her primary concern. Harmon Brothers would certainly thank her for calling such a slip-up to their attention.

But how likely was it that someone had made such a mistake?

Not very, Summer conceded gloomily, and dropped her hand in the act of reaching for the knob to Mike Chaney’s office door. For just an instant, she gazed longingly at the imposing double doors of the front entrance. Her vacuum cleaner waited beside it; her bucket of supplies was there, along with her purse. How easy it would be to tell herself that what she had seen was strictly her imagination, or even a normal after-death reaction, and just go out that door and drive home and forget this night had ever happened! So easy – and with every atom of her being she longed to take the easy way out.

But what if the man really was alive? She had read of cases where victims are pronounced dead and all but buried before their vitality is discovered. Suppose he died alone in there on that table during what was left of the night, or (hideous thought) was killed in the morning via premature embalming, all because she was too much of a coward to follow up on what she had seen?

One way or another, without her intervention his eventual fate was all but certain. If he wasn’t already, by this time tomorrow he was going to be just one more corpse.

Unless she did something. She had eliminated all the possibilities. All except one. Shuddering, Summer realized what she had to do.

Check out that thrice-damned corpse for herself before taking any further action.

Shit.

She would rather – far rather – be headed to another Bruce Lee retrospective than do what she was about to do. The comparison wasn’t one she made lightly; the previous weekend had been spent in precisely that way. The man she was seeing, knowing she was something of a movie buff and being a big fan of karate movies himself, had treated her to a day and a night at a Nashville art cinema featuring Bruce Lee in all his various incarnations. By the end of the eight hours she had spent listening to Lee scream „Aiiee-yaw!“ every five seconds, she’d had the headache to end all headaches – and the sneaking suspicion that her romance with the well-off dentist was doomed.
He
had enjoyed every excruciating minute, clenching his fist and grunting „yes!“ whenever Bruce Lee kicked bad-guy ass – again. Her friend’s plan for this weekend had included a Chuck Norris festival. Summer had pleaded work.

As usual, her sins had caught up with her. Having lied and said she had to work Saturday, she had ended up doing just that.

Whatever heavenly Being was in charge of these things was up there laughing at her now, no doubt. Standing outside the closed embalming room door trying to calm her thudding heart, Summer could almost hear the otherworldly snickers as the Being proclaimed that her current dilemma served her right.

Aside from the muted roar of the air-conditioning, the funeral home was deathly – no, bad choice of a word –
utterly
still.

She would rather sit through ten Bruce Lee festivals than go back in there again.

May you be doomed to spend eternity with your ghou-lies, she cursed a mental image of a maniacally grinning Stephen King, and swung open the door. Light from the hall in which she remained firmly planted – she had made sure to turn on the light again, and to hell with Harmon Brothers’ restrictions – illuminated a narrow walkway into the dark room.

Redrum, redrum…

Stop that, Summer ordered herself. Ignoring her speeding pulse, hand firmly holding open the self-closing door, she took two steps forward and forced her eyes to focus on the now motionless corpse. The light did not quite touch where he lay on the table, pushed close against the wall. The body was shrouded – bad word again –
cloaked
in shadow. But she could make out the pertinent details: short black hair; battered, swollen face, eyelids closed, liberally streaked with what looked like blood; bruised left shoulder, with a thick wedge of black hair perhaps concealing more bruising on his chest; in any case, said chest exhibited none of the rising and falling that signals life; strong-looking, muscular torso; pale, limp genitals nestled in more black hair; immobile –
immobile
– limbs. Of course the man was dead. Of course he was.

One thing he was not was one of the Undead. He was not going to rise up from that table and come after her, soulless eyes staring, arms outstretched to grab…

Ghostbusters!

If this turned out to be some kind of
Candid Camera-ish
setup, she would be very, very thankful, Summer thought.

She would even be ready to laugh at the joke herself. Ha, ha.

Please, God. Please.

But no Allen Funt clone appeared, and she could detect no camera hidden behind a potted palm. In fact, there was no potted palm. There was only herself and – the dead man.

Summer shuddered.

She was going to have to step farther inside that room, turn on the overhead light, and actually touch the corpse before she was one hundred percent positive he was dead. However much she hated facing the knowledge, she knew herself well enough to recognize the truth.

Overkill – no, another badly chosen word –
obsessive thoroughness
was one of her major faults.

If this was a bad dream, she was ready to wake up. If it was a practical joke, she was ready for the punch line.

If it was her real life, she was putting God on notice right now that she was tired of being the butt of heavenly humor.

After thirty-six years, enough was enough.

The corpse still hadn’t moved. Except for the hum of the air-conditioning, the silence stretched endlessly. She could almost hear her vacuum cleaner calling to her from beside the front door.

If there’s something strange…

Gritting her teeth. Summer took firm hold both of her by now almost nonexistent courage and her wildly burgeoning imagination. Slimer was not going to come barreling out of the ductwork; Cujo was not going to bound through the hall. All she had to do was check the guy’s pulse. Three minutes, max, and she would be out the front door.

Sliding her left foot out of her sneaker, she wedged its rubber-soled toe under the corner of the door. If she stepped toward the light switch and the door swung shut, she might only be left in the near-dark for a couple of seconds – but that was all it would take for her body to dissolve into Jell-O. In the morning, Harmon Brothers’ employees would find a quivering mass of human flesh in a puddle on the floor.
Whatever do you suppose happened that night to send Summer McAfee to the looney bin?
would become one of the hot questions of Murfreesboro’s summer.

Door wedged, Summer stepped away, turned on the light, and took a deep breath as the bright fluorescent fixture banished all atmosphere-producing shadows. There, that wasn’t so bad. Was it?

Glancing at the corpse, Summer answered her own question. Yes, it was. But there was no help for it, so she might as well get it over with. Grimly she headed toward the dead man.

It helped if she didn’t quite look at him.

There were drawers beneath the metal table on which he lay, she discovered as she approached. Long, narrow drawers built into the table, which would be easy to overlook if they were closed. One of the drawers was ajar. Inside, Summer saw the gleam of instruments aligned on a green cloth napkin. Embalming tools, of course. She tried not to think of the use to which they were routinely put as she stopped a good two feet away from her target.

Oh, God. She couldn’t do this. She simply could not bring herself to touch the thing that lay there. The very idea made her want to wet her pants.

One touch. If his flesh was cold, that would be good enough. If he was cold, he would have to be dead. Wouldn’t he? Of course he would.

Screwing up her nerve, Summer reached out to gingerly place a forefinger on his arm. His flesh
was
cold…

His hand closed around her wrist in a move so fast that Summer didn’t even see it coming. One second she was touching him, and the next she was staggering off balance, jerked forward by a cold, dead hand. She gasped as the battered, bloody corpse came up off the embalming table at her like a vision out of Stephen King’s worst nightmare.

Then she shrieked. The hand locked around her wrist tightened cruelly as he spun her around and twisted her arm behind her back. A chilled, hairy forearm clamped around her neck. He was immensely strong, and his body was cold, cold. The smell of death – rotting flesh? formaldehyde? – enveloped her as he did.

Another shriek ripped out of her lungs. The arm around her neck tightened with vicious purpose, cutting off sound and air in one swift clench.

„Scream again and I’ll break your goddamned neck,“ the dead man growled in her ear. It was only then that Summer fully realized that the erstwhile corpse was not dead at all. He was very much alive, with homicidal intent.

The Undead could not have been worse.

She was on tiptoe, bent so far backward that her spine threatened to crack, dangling from the V of his elbow that entrapped her throat. The arm that he held twisted behind her back ached. Lack of air was making her light-headed. She was conscious of two sounds: her own terrified heart pounding in her ears, and the harsh rasp of his breathing.

„Don’t hurt me.
Please.“ The plea forced its way out of her crushed throat. The words were hoarse, barely audible even to herself. If he heard, it made no appreciable difference in the cruelty of his grip.

„How many others?“ The arm around her throat tightened, strangling her. Instinctively her free hand rose to claw at it.

„You’re choking me!“ It was a desperate little gasp.

„Scratch me and I’ll break your damned fingers.“

Her clutching fingers stilled and flattened on his cold flesh. Funny, he still felt dead.

Terror washed over Summer in waves. She couldn’t decide which was worse, a dead attacker or a live one.

„How many others?“ Urgency roughened his voice, underlined the little shake he gave her.

„Please – I can’t breathe.“ Summer tugged on the arm around her neck. To her relief, the chokehold eased. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

„Answer me.“

„Wh-what?“

„How many others are there?“

Dear God, what was he talking about? Was he deranged? Impossible to believe that this was really happening to
her.

„I – I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, you’ve obviously been in an accident, or – or something. You need medical attention . .“

„Don’t play stupid with me. How many others are there?“

The chokehold tightened again. Forced to an
en pointe
position the likes of which she had not attempted since fourth-grade ballet, Summer clung to his forearm with her free hand to keep from being hanged, and despaired.