Separate, p.5
Separate, page 5
The good news was that Wade’s tale matched his emails closely. Zeb watched for consistency for the same reason police did. Consistency indicated truth. His tale might not be possible, but as far as Wade knew, it honestly described what had happened. Dividing facts from miseducated suppositions was Zeb’s job. He was an academic centrifuge.
Zeb’s scalp tingled. Focus, he reminded himself. Stay even. Now’s not the time for exhilaration. Listen, make sure he fully answers every question. Don’t get ahead of yourself. “What happened once the emergency crews arrived?”
“That’s where things get fuzzy.” Wade flexed his hands. “They injected me with something to calm me down, and then they put me on these meds. When my head cleared, no one would hear me out. That’s when I looked online and found your website.”
“Your message made my day. Most of what I get are hoaxes not even worth replying to. Anyway, when did you hear what happened to the others who were hurt, the two that were crushed?”
“After I first emailed you. I didn’t get the full story until company reps talked to me. I think everyone was intentionally hiding it before then to keep me calm. I told the reps what I’d seen. They didn’t believe me. They’re doing an investigation now, probing my records for drug use. They’re trying to blame me. Maybe they’ll tie it to my pneumonia and say I came back too soon. I don’t know.”
Wade fidgeted and gazed at his hands. “I’ve worked there for years, so I knew old-timers like Jeff. The others were new. I hadn’t even met those two yet, and that other guy, I saw that guy lose his hand. I still don’t know his name. And then he’s on the ground, and his blood’s all over me—”
“Yes, they haven’t released his name to protect his privacy. Speaking of which,” Zeb said, hoping a segue would settle Wade down, “will you sign a release so I can get your medical records?”
“Why not? The company already has them. I won’t have real privacy again for a while.” Wade paused. “I know they saw me. The ghosts. Dr. Elmir, am I safe?”
Ah, human nature, worrying about improbable dangers like lightning strikes rather than threats in front of us. Zeb had a response prepared. “Yes. Spirits do not and cannot hunt people. Even if they were capable of it, it would be like trying to track and hunt one specific duck among all the other ducks in a flock. Do not worry. You are safe.”
14
Boone Hales grumbled, “This is the one where the daughter wants to wear a mermaid dress, but her mom wants her to wear her grandmother’s dress, and then she starts crying about how it’s her wedding. I’m sure you’ve seen this episode because I’ve seen it.”
“It’s a best-of show. We’ve only seen some of it.”
“Do we need to see all of it?”
“Shhh!”
He nagged, but Taryn knew her dad liked this series about melodramatic fiancées and their overwrought kin. He never asked her outright to stop and watch it later, despite it being recorded on their DVR. She was pretty sure he’d teared up during the episode when the bride’s father cried upon seeing his daughter in the perfect alabaster gown. This series was vicarious entertainment for both of them; Taryn hadn’t married yet.
“By the way, Dad.”
“What?” He didn’t turn away from the TV.
“I almost forgot, I got a call the day before yesterday. A researcher’s coming to look into that accident at the plant. I told him about the museum, so he’ll probably stop by soon.”
“I’m ready whenever. It’s quiet this time of year—no school trips, so any time’s fine. How is that going, anyway?”
“What?”
“The investigation. Do they know what happened yet?”
“No, the final report isn’t finished. Most likely it was all caused by one guy. They’re triple-checking every detail to satisfy OSHA. Herbie wants the plant to reopen soon, which means making sure the report covers all the bases. He thinks if the plant doesn’t reopen quickly, there’s no chance he’ll get reelected.”
“He’s right. Whenever something goes wrong around here, the mayor gets the blame. That’s how Herbie got elected in the first place, remember? Everyone was mad at Shultz because we got three feet of snow on Christmas. Hmph,” Boone grunted resentfully. “Hey, you’d look good in this one. It’s sort of like what your mom wore, with pleats.”
“I don’t like pleats.”
“What’s wrong with pleats? I won’t buy pants without pleats. Except jeans.”
“He asked about previous accidents, so if you have records of any, you may want to pull them to save time.”
“Who?”
“The researcher. He wants to see if there’s a history of accidents here, in Milton. Have there been others?”
“At the plant? No, first since it’s opened, I think. There were probably some during the mill days. I’ll check the archives. None could have been too bad.”
If you don’t know about it, no one does, Taryn mused proudly. Between his historical knowledge and personal connections, her father usually knew more about what was going on than she did, even though she worked for the mayor. He sometimes sounded anxious to get her out of the house, especially since she’d passed her thirtieth birthday, but she valued their time together and wasn’t in a rush to get married, or move out, or find a potential suitor in the first place.
“What about this one, Taryn? It’s asymmetrically left-handed. That’s a good dress for a Hale.”
“When I eventually go dress shopping, handedness won’t be among my criteria.”
15
Na yawned without covering her mouth and stretched her arms in the early-evening sunlight. A pickup truck passed her on the street. People are rude, life is rude; who cares if anyone sees my uvula. She yawned again.
She had slept in extravagantly after spending much of the previous night meandering the nearby school campus, contemplatively gazing up at stars she couldn’t see from home. Upon waking, she hastily escaped the hotel’s confinement. She needed to be out on Milton’s sidewalks, near movement, to think clearly and plan. Forget the interviews and data collection; those could be done later. As Na saw it, her two duties for the day were to relax and get ready for midnight. Both required a measure of peaceful roaming far from Dr. Elmir’s ego and the self-satisfied expression he’d be wearing after visiting his star witness.
Thankfully, Dr. Elmir’s distaste for her investigative stance likely meant that he’d be relieved rather than nosy when she didn’t show up for their dinner tonight. She could shop and plan in solitude. Indeed, the evening hours passed with no contact from her professor, and she steeled herself for the task ahead.
Vandals had kept away from the ruined estate, letting the dentist’s fallen house and relatively intact office cabin decay naturally. Her destination stood behind and to the left of the house. In the bright afternoon, the house had bristled menacingly on its abandoned property, spines of broken wood poking the air like an urchin. Nightfall now obscured the hazards. Na intended to approach from the left side of the yard and loop toward the cabin, staying safely away from the house in case she lost her bearings in the darkness.
At last. It was almost eleven and dark enough to be called the middle of the night. She had killed sufficient time. Nearly everything was already stowed in her backpack. In final preparation, she cleared her smartphone’s history to free memory, confirmed its settings, and slid it into her pocket. Recording at the highest quality possible, it should capture the lumberjack well enough to prove that ghosts could be aggressive. If recording meant taking a risk, so be it. Infuriating as he could be, Dr. Elmir understood things she didn’t. She needed him on her side.
And anyway, Sompob had survived his encounter, and he was caught by surprise. She wouldn’t be. Holding up a trusty new flashlight purchased from a locally owned, sells-everything-plus-gifts-for-nearly-forgotten-birthdays pharmacy, Na crossed the vacant road to the lot she had watched for the better half of a day.
Matted, gnarled weeds covered what had been a lawn. She had to slog through; no trail was visible. She lifted her feet high and plunged them blindly into the deep grass ahead as if tramping through snow. The dry stalks bent into points as she walked, needling her pant legs and scratching her skin. The pricks conjured images of biting, stinging creatures crawling underneath her clothes. If her foot struck a nest of rats or spiders . . .
She fought off the visions and continued marching.
Many stars twinkled above, but the world was dark. The crescent moon supplied little to no luminescence. Indistinguishable silhouettes surrounded her. She began to question the wisdom of tracing the left side of the yard for the sake of avoiding the depressed house. The yard bordered new-growth woods, which could be hiding anything: a rabid buck, wild dogs, tall men in heavy rubber gear. Na slowed her pace and listened between the loud mashing of her own steps. An intermittent breeze stirred the weeds like breathing. She suddenly realized the oddness of hoping to be alone while venturing toward a haunted cabin. There might be safety in numbers, but at the moment, one felt safer than three or four.
The cabin waited. Its entrance faced the woods, possibly for privacy or better natural lighting. Glass remaining in the shattered front window glinted in the flashlight’s soft beam. Na veered toward it, leaving the uncertainty of the woods behind. She saw a patch of flattened weeds by the door, likely where drunk teenagers paused to debate the wisdom of entering a derelict building.
Upon reaching the patch, she chose to do the same and cautiously surveyed the cabin. Built of hewn logs, it was just large enough for two or three small rooms. The entrance was open and unobstructed. The door itself, missing its knob, lay on the ground across the threshold. Between the broken door and shattered window, nature had free access to the cabin’s interior. Hidden nests of creatures sprang back to Na’s mind.
“Hello?” she called out shyly. Na listened and shined the flashlight around. As before, she heard only rustling from the breeze—no scurrying. Satisfied she could proceed safely, Na stepped inside.
The first room was tiny and empty. It could have held three chairs and probably served as the reception area. Dried leaf skeletons, bits of wood, and other debris littered the gray floor. Many of the boards were cracked. Standing on the fallen door, she put one foot on the floor, testing her weight. The boards didn’t give. She stepped off into the center of the room and looked up. Three absent roof planks allowed a partial view of the sky.
Webbing with desiccated insect husks filled every joint and corner of the interlocking logs that made up the walls. The exam room, Na’s goal, had to be through the narrow doorway to her left. Na imagined patients sitting here ninety years ago, listening to others gagging and gurgling before it was their turn. There wouldn’t have been whirs from air-conditioning or sleepy background music to mellow the mood.
In contrast to the empty reception area, the large exam room was a mess. It was about six meters long, five meters wide, and metal utensils were everywhere, reflecting the flashlight’s beam into the shadows. Scattered trays and bowls and toppled shelving blocked Na’s progress. Smaller instruments, mostly ancient dentistry tools, cluttered the room as well. Na found probes, scrapers, forceps, and saws, all with twisted prongs. Her stomach squirmed. Not for an instant did she consider picking one up.
What remained of the examination chair stood in the center of the room. A pedestal affixed to the floor propped up its frame. It looked less like a recliner and more like an adult-sized high chair, with wooden panels attached to cast iron. Some of the panels had molded and rotted, exposing metal bolts. She couldn’t imagine herself sitting in it voluntarily, now or a hundred years ago.
According to the story, the bloodstain had to be near the chair, which was encircled by metal junk. Rather than raising a clamor by shoving the shelving, Na chose to disturb the scene as little as possible. The shelving forced her to sidle to her right. She carefully brushed instruments aside with her foot to avoid clanging them against one another. Passing an intact window, she shined her flashlight outward. She couldn’t see much. Sticker bushes had grown up that side of the cabin, completely blocking her view.
Rounding the toppled shelving and nearing the chair, Na discovered the dental drill. It too had been knocked over. Its likely history of agony, coupled with the surrounding darkness, gave her a primal reaction. Her stomach squirmed again. The drill comprised a simple foot pedal with a wheel and wires for spinning the drill. Its wires had broken, and the actual drill, the part used on patients, was missing. Looking more closely, she saw the wheel was bent as if someone had stomped on it. Na realized it could have been the guilt-ridden dentist himself who had trashed the room and destroyed the drill. She couldn’t fathom his level of despair, and she hoped she never would.
Standing next to the chair now, she visually explored the vicinity. Where are you hiding? Junk covered the floor on this side of the room too. Na feared that attempting to move things around would accidentally summon the lumberjack. Most of the floor was the same old gray color as the rest of the cabin. Discolored wood surrounded the chair’s base, but the rusty hue seemed to come from the chair itself.
It occurred to Na that she didn’t know how large of a stain to look for. The story was unclear. Should she search for a pool or spattered droplets? Perhaps most of the blood had dripped down the man’s body, onto the chair, and then onto the floor. On second thought, he probably grabbed his neck, sat up, and fell forward as he died. His blood, then, the stain, would be in front of the seat.
Na assumed the bloodstain would be dark brown, but “brown” didn’t have the narrative impact she wanted. According to Wikipedia, the color of dried blood, the color of lifelessness, was carmine. “I’m stepping on the carmine stain” sounded much more dramatic.
There. There, a faded splotch, the curve of a pool’s edge, expanded out from under a large steel tray. That had to be the stain. Just enough was showing to step on it without removing the tray.
Na wasn’t ready yet. She surveyed the room again to plan the quickest route out. Once the lumberjack appeared, he would likely come at her. Na needed enough space to dodge his lunge and get away, or she could end up worse than Sompob. She was alone; there were no neighbors nearby to investigate any shrieks or loud thumps she might make while in the lumberjack’s grasp.
In front of her was the stain, then the metal shelving, and then the doorway she had come from. Behind her, a windowless wall held cupboards hanging over a counter with a built-in sink. The sink’s drainpipe led straight down into the ground beneath. Its simplicity caught her attention. The pipe didn’t have a trap. She guessed it emptied directly onto the dirt below, creating a muddy, gooey mix of mold, spit, plaque, and bits of teeth blackened from decay.
“Moving on,” she mumbled. That wall joined with the shorter wall, also windowless, which in turn joined the wall with the intact window obstructed by stickers. The only easy way out was the path she had followed in. “Okay.”
She reviewed her plan. She would start recording, step on the stain, wait, then run back around the shelves and out the door. It wasn’t the quickest route, but she had already cleared the path, so there was no danger of tripping. She simply had to stay calm. “One swing,” she said. “Capture one swing and run. Don’t run too soon, don’t run too late, don’t panic.”
Clearing her throat to shake any nervousness from her voice, Na lifted her cell phone and flashlight and began recording, sweeping the room as she narrated. “I’m in the dentist’s office. There are cupboards lining the walls, and in the center is the chair where a man, a lumberjack, died. Here, on the floor in front of me, you can see his blood. I’m going to summon him now. I’m stepping on the carmine stain . . .”
Anticipation sensitized every nerve in Na’s skin. At once, she felt the weight of the backpack on her shoulders, the seam of her socks along her toes, tangled lashes in the corners of her eyes, and the constriction of her bra across her chest.
Silence.
Where is he? Something swirled her hair gently, blowing a few strands into her eyelashes. She spun and took a step backward, catching the metal tray’s edge and sending it clanging against the floor like a cymbal. Standing on the dead man’s blood, she spun again, and back again, guarding both sides.
As she twisted on the spot, turning back and forth, she ground into a crack between the aged boards; the wood split, and her small foot plunged through. She gasped and immediately pulled up with all her strength, splintering the boards, freeing herself, and losing her balance. She stumbled back and slipped on the tray, flailing her arms and tossing her phone as she fell. Metal crashed like thunder as she tumbled onto the shelving, snapping a thin support bar under her weight. The bar’s sharp tip slid into her upper right arm, piercing her triceps all the way through.
Dazed and numb from the fall, Na felt something wet on her skin and checked her arm with the light. She screamed at the metal goring her flesh and, without thinking, roughly pulled her arm free.
There was a lot of blood pouring out. She needed help. Na concentrated to gather her thoughts. I need my phone.
The glowing screen revealed its location at the base of the wall near the door. She climbed out of the wreckage noisily, picked up her phone, and pocketed it. She stumbled out into the night, holding the flashlight in her right hand and squeezing the now throbbing wound with her left. She didn’t feel well. This wasn’t just a cut. So thirsty. Have to get to the road. She lost strength with each stamp back through the tangled weeds. The land grew darker and colder.
Reaching the road at last, Na called 911. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. Everything fogged. It was hard to think. The flashlight’s bright glare hurt her eyes. She turned the light off and plopped down on the ground, gripping her bleeding arm as tightly as she could.
