win out. As was his nature, he was using his physical stature as an intimidation tactic; or trying to at least. Doctor Sanders appeared totally unfazed.
“So what are you gonna do about it, Rowan?” Debbie Schaeffer whispers softly into my ear.
The sudden return of the disembodied voice took me by surprise. I had been fully under the impression that any link with the other side had been completely severed the moment the medical examiner had interrupted us. Obviously, I was wrong.
“Look,” Ben told the M.E., “I’m sorry. Let’s just work this out, okay?”
She met his challenge with one of her own. “If you want to work this out, you can start by telling me what is really going on here.”
Ben’s hand shot up to smooth back his hair and came to rest on his neck as his fingers began to work at a knot of tension. “It’s not as bad as it looks, okay?” he appealed.
“Just tell me what’s going on, and I’ll decide that for myself.”
“Just let them have their little tiff,” Debbie Schaeffer whispers into my ear again. “I’ve got something to show you.”
I feel the touch of icy fingers against my palm, followed by them intertwining with my own. The frigid grasp of death encircles my hand, and I feel its frost creep upward along my arm.
I looked down at my hand the moment the sensation took hold. There was nothing to see, but the chilled feeling was definitely there.
“Look, Doc, you’ve seen the stuff that Rowan does, right?” My friend was starting into his explanation.
“I’ve been witness to one or two of Mister Gant’s episodes, yes,” Doctor Sanders answered. “Is that what this is all about?”
“Come on, Rowan. You need to look at this.” Debbie Schaeffer is pulling me by the hand.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Ben affirmed.
“Is there a particular reason it needed to be done in the middle of the night?”
I glanced over to Felicity and saw that her attention was focused fully upon the exchange between Ben and Doctor Sanders. Consciously, I wanted to tell her what was happening. The recent revelation I’d reached regarding my own ability to ground and center once again brought forth the acid tang of fear on the back of my tongue. I knew that no matter how much I verbally denied it, my current state left me open and vulnerable. It wouldn’t take very much at all to get me into deep trouble-potentially fatal deep trouble. My mouth opened as I started to voice the concern, but before any sound escaped I felt my hand squeezed and heard a rush echo inside my skull.
“Shhhhhh! Don’t tell anyone. Just come with me and look. You need to see this.”
I closed my mouth and looked over the tableau again. My friend had his back to us and his large frame was positioned such that he was almost completely blocking the slight medical examiner from my view. I could only assume that I was just as obscured from her sight.
I could feel something tugging at my hand, and when I looked, my arm was actually moving. I tried to stop its progress, but the spirit of Debbie Schaeffer was fully in charge, and her strength came from sources beyond this plane of existence. I was no match for her. I closed my eyes and desperately fought to achieve a solid ground. It was the only way I could think of to regain control over my own body.
“Come on, Rowan. They aren’t watching. You really, really need to see this. Trust me.”
“It was a judgment call,” Ben told the M.E. “Maybe it wasn’t the best one I’ve made, but those are the breaks.”
“You’re pretty good for that, aren’t you?”
“Come on, Doc. There ain’t a need ta’ make this personal.”
“Then what about the chanting Johnathan heard?” she fired off another question. “What was that all about? I don’t recall chanting being a part of Mister Gant’s episodes.”
“I think maybe he didn’t really understand what he heard.”
“What did he hear then?”
“Felicity here said a prayer, that’s all.”
“COME ON, ROWAN! Don’t you trust me?”
I started to appeal to my wife for help, only to find the words caught painfully in my throat. Instinctively I reached for her with my free hand, but grasped nothing more than a handful of cold air. I opened my eyes and became suddenly aware that I was no longer standing next to her. Without any realization whatsoever, I had moved several steps away and now found myself positioned in front of the wall bearing the cold storage drawers. Directly before me on a rectangle of stainless steel was a temporary label annotated with a case number and the name. The number meant nothing to me, but the name was all too familiar-Lawson, Paige.
The disembodied voice of Debbie Schaeffer echoes with the insistence of an excited five-year-old. “Go on, open it. You really, really, really need to see this, Rowan!”
I stood there completely dumbfounded for a moment. The pit of my stomach was churning in a way vastly different from what had been brought on by the stench of decay. The acrid boil that was happening down there now was one of pure, unadulterated fear. I had felt such things before, and with even greater intensity, but what was most disturbing about this instance was that this fear was my own-no one else’s.
I watched on helplessly as my hand moved of another’s volition, guided by an invisible though firm and icy grip. As my fingers drew closer to the handle of the drawer, I fought to cry out for help. Still, my voice caught in my throat, and I managed nothing more than a weak, raspy gurgle that went unheard.
“I said SHHHHHHHH!” Debbie Schaeffer admonishes me. “You have to trust me.”
“A prayer,” Doctor Sanders stated flatly, her tone betraying her lack of belief in what she’d just been told.
“Open it, Rowan. Open it.”
My hand moved in a jerking parody of a mechanical appendage as it was forced to grasp the handle and then tug the latch open. A second later I was sliding the drawer smoothly outward on the heavy-duty rollers amidst their mild roar of friction.
In an instant I was face to face with the pallid remains of Paige Lawson, and still my hand moved, guided by an invisible but wholly distinguishable force. My arm literally vibrated as I struggled against Debbie Schaeffer’s ethereal control. My palm hovered mere inches above the chilled corpse of the young woman.
“Touch her, Rowan. You REALLY, REALLY, REALLY need to see this!”
“Is there a particular…” Doctor Sanders started to continue her interrogation only to be interrupted by the sound of the opening drawer. “MISTER GANT! JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!”
The sharpness of the medical examiner’s demand shattered the delicate pane of the trance like a baseball hitting a plate glass window. Unfortunately, it was too late.
Debbie Schaeffer’s ghostly form drove my hand downward, bringing my latex sheathed palm against Paige Lawson’s cold flesh.
Colors flashed in a riot of sparks, blooming to the absolute pinnacle of saturation then bleaching to dull shades of grey. An otherworldly electricity coursed through my body on a never ending quest to jangle every nerve, seeking out and destroying anything in its path. Light flickered before my eyes and then drained away in a chaotic whirlpool of luminescence, bleeding red then black.
A rapid burn ripped its way along the side of my neck.
Blinding pain erupted inward from the side of my skull and wrapped around to repeat the assault.
My chest tightened and spasmed as I felt the breath chased from my lungs.
My own words mixed with those of Doctor Sanders as the catch in my throat opened wide to release the escaping air in the form of a tortured scream, “HELP ME!”
CHAPTER 10
I had never really paid that much attention to acoustic ceiling tiles. Actually, I had never really had a reason to do so. At this particular moment in my life, however, the random pattern of decorative holes punched into their dull surfaces was occupying my full and undivided attention. I quickly discovered that if you stare at them long enough, the randomness of the indentations would become less and less chaotic. With little more than a spoonful of
