Walking After Midnight Page 2

  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 battled 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.

  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 re
frain, 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 ghoulies, 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 w
edged, 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.