He started talking immediately, before the dispatcher had said a word:
'My name's Miles Huerdeen. I'm at 1264 Monterey Street, Los Angeles, and my dad is dead. I just came home and found him. He had a stroke and was incapacitated, but now he's walking around the bedroom, and I need someone to come over and take care of him.' He was aware of how ridiculous he sounded, and he knew as soon as he said it that he should have kept that part quiet, let the paramedics find out for themselves when they arrived, but he was obviously more freaked than he'd thought, because he had a need to get the information out, he wanted to explain what was really going on.
He wanted someone else to know.
Besides, the police needed to decide how to handle his father, whether to take him to a hospital or the morgue.
The dispatcher was confused. 'Your father had a stroke?
'No, he died!'
'I thought you said he was walking.'
'He is!'
The voice took on a stiff authoritarian formality. 'Mr. Huerdeen--'
'He's dead, I told you! And he's still walking around the room!'
'Mr. Huerdeen, I suggest you take a walk. We don't have time for these games. Thank you
'This isn't a game, goddammit!'
'Then, I suggest you take advantage of our referral service to find the mental health clinic nearest your home. I will connect you.' There was an abrupt click, and then a recorded voice came on the line, informing him that if he was thinking about suicide, he should press the number one. If he was suffering from spousal abuse... He hung up the phone, chastising himself for not taking the dispatcher's name. He could not hear it from here, but in his mind he heard the sound of boot heels on wood, and for the first time the creepiness of it all hit home. Father or not, he was alone in the house with a dead mana zombie
--and his first priority was to find someone to help him do something about it. He thought for a moment, then reached for his personal phone book. He dialed his friend Ralph Barger, who worked at the county coroner's office.. Ralph would know how to handle this.
Luckily for him, Ralph was in, and Miles explained the situation as calmly and rationally as he could. His friend did not interrupt and did not treat him as though he were crazy or drunk but took him seriously and wrote down the address and promised to be there with a wagon and a couple of assistants within the half hour.
After hanging up, Miles called Graham. He might need a lawyer on this.
He had no idea what was happening here, but it was doubtlessly unprecedented, and that always meant tangling with the law. The attorney, for once, did not have to be paged but actually answered his phone,
and as soon as Miles explained the situation, he promised to be right over.
'You're not pulling my leg, are you? This is on the level?'
'On the level.'
'Holy shit. I have to see this for myself.'
'Then, get your ass over here.'
Miles considered calling Hal, getting some of the other detectives in on this, but decided against it. At let for now.
He hung up the phone, looked around the darkened house. Where was Audra? he wondered. Had she just run off?
Or had his father killed her?
It was clear by now that she had not called the police or any authorities if she had, they had treated her information the same way they had treated his. Had she simply abandoned her post and rushed home or to the hospice agency? Or had something happened to her, and was her body still in the house? She must have been the one who had barricaded his father's door, so he most likely hadn't been able to do anything to her, but the truth was that Miles was way out of his depth here. For all he knew, his father was possessed by some malevolent spirit or demon that had also done away with the nurse.
He needed to search the house.
He was a lot more leery about leaving the living room than he had been before. Night had fallen, and though. he'd turned on a few of the lights, most of the house was still in darkness. Logically, he knew that his father had died when it was still light outside. Audra had probably taken off sometime this afternoon.
But the fact that she did not appear to have called anyone indicated the possibility that she had never left at all.
He looked down the pirtially lighted hallway at the moved barricade, feeling a chill creep up his back.
Maybe he should wait until Ralph and the coroner's men arrived.
No. If there was a chance that the nurse was still in the house, that something had happened to her and he could help, he needed to find her.
If
He took a quick peek into the kitchen, flipping on the lights. Nothing.
He went back down the hall, looked into the bathroom, the closet, his office. All empty.
The door to his father's room was still open, and he could not help looking in. Bob was still walking around the room, dead, naked, wearing cowboy boots. His father turned, and Miles saw the unseeing eyes in that unmov thing face, and he looked away, hurrying down the hall to check out the last room, his own bedroom.
He was prepared for the worst--the nurse's body, eviscerated on his bed, torn in half like Montgomery Jonesbut when he turned on the light there was nothing. Thank
God. The master bathroom too was empty, and he at least had the satisfaction of knowing that Audra had escaped the house. Leaving the lights on, walked back to his father's room, standing there for a second, watching. He could still feel the cold sponginess of that skin against his hands, and he realized that though this body was moving, animated, he did not consider it his father. It was a shell, energized but empty, and whatever spark or essence had been Bob, it was gone.
He returned to the living room, turned on the television to provide some noise and give the house some sense of life and waited. Ralph and two other men from the coroner's office arrived first, around twenty minutes later, and Graham arrived soon after. Both of his friends, and the coroner's
e assistants, were visibly shaken by the sight of Bob pacing the periphery of his room. Ralph asked a series of rapid-fire questions as he put on gloves and a surgical mask: When did he have the stroke? What was the extent of the brain damage? Was he sure Bob was dead?
Miles gave a quick rundown of his father's recent medical history, described the way he had come home and found the barricaded door and the abandoned house.
Covered and protected, Ralph and his assistants walked into the bedroom. The two men held his father while Ralph injected the body with some sort of drug, sticking the needle in his upper arm because that portion of his body showed no attempt at movement. The moment he was through, he backed away. The two men continued to hold him, visibly straining against the forward motion of Bob's still moving feet.
A few seconds later, his father slumped forward. Ralph took over from one of the men, a young husky intern named Murdock, and held Bob up until the assistant returned with a gurney. Ralph helped lay the body down, then let the other two men strap it in.
'What was that you gave him?' Miles asked. 'It's a very powerful muscle relaxant.' 'Is he... dead?'
Ralph nodded, the expression on his face one of extreme weariness. 'Oh, yes. He's dead.'
'What do you think happened?'
His friend shrugged. 'I don't know.'
'You ever seen anything like this?'
Ralph shook his head. 'I have to admit, I haven't.'
Miles looked back at Graham. 'Keep this out of the Weekly World News.'
'Tell it to your doctor friend. If there are any leaks, they'll come from the coroner's office, not me.'
