Ghost Dance: Excerpt

Excerpt - Fugue Macabre: Ghost Dance

Tabatha turned away and was met with a solid wall of cold, dry flesh. She panicked for a moment, looking around to see if anyone had seen.

“Oh, hell. Where did you come from?”

His head tilted to one side as if trying to understand her question. His arm lifted, and he pointed toward an open cooler drawer. The long, crudely sewn autopsy incisions glared against white skin. He was young, probably not more than twenty-three or twenty-four. In life he had been strong and healthy, good looking.

Damn, she hated when they showed up like this. She always felt sorry for them. Their lives were cut short too early, too violently. They were confused by what had happened. Most didn’t even know they were dead. Years of dealing with this type of situation had not lessened her concern for them. She still wanted to put them at ease; to help them accept what had happened to them and make their transitions go quickly.

“What’s your name?”

“Francis Wade.” His voice escaped in a shaky rasp.

“Well, Francis, you have to go back. You’re dead.”

He glanced down at his nakedness and then at her. “Dead?”

Tabatha looked into his eyes and saw nothing but death’s black void. His soul gone, only an empty shell remained. She took him by the hand and led him to the cooler. The cold of his skin ran a chill up her spine. “Lie down, Francis.”

He did as she said.

“Go to sleep and wake only when God calls you.”

Before turning to leave, she watched his face immobilize into a lifeless mask. Closing the drawer, she turned. Her heart fell to her feet when she saw Bobbie standing next to the other body-draped gurney.

Though she tried to appear nonchalant, standing with arms crossed, leaning against the morgue entry, her expression was almost comical, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. “I knew it. Damn, Tabatha, the rumors are true, aren’t they?”