P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

Not the Detroit badge he once wanted.

Not the Miami-Dade badge he could have had.

Joe. .

My God. Joe.

For an instant, he could see her. Hear her. Touch her. Then she was gone, her face fading as quickly as it had come. He was going to die and he had never told her things. Never told her that one thing.

He lifted the wallet back to his face, his numb fingers clumsily flipping the plastic sleeves to find her picture, but he couldn’t remember which was hers and he couldn’t see them, not even if he held it right in front of his eyes.

He groped in the dark for the flashlight, struggling to angle it toward the open wallet. He clicked it on.

Nothing happened. The batteries were dead.

Somewhere in the darkness, a baby was crying. It wasn’t an angry cry so much as an exhausted one, the tiny voice breaking with each gulp of air, like babies did when they still had hope someone would come to them.

No. Not a baby. It was the woman.

He knew that. She was dying now. He could hear it in her voice, feel it in the air because the air was so cold.

Ives had abandoned her, leaving her alone in the darkness to die. Leaving them both to die.

The crying stopped. He waited, hoping he would hear it again but praying he didn’t, praying now that she would die so she wouldn’t hurt anymore. So he couldn’t hear her anymore.

What time was it? He took out his pocketknife and started picking at the watch’s crystal, thinking if he could pry it off he could feel the hands and know. It would be the only thing he might be able to know.

Images were playing on the dark screen of his mind, images of what Ives had done to her. Ripping out her insides with some piece of metal. Then burning her. He could smell the cigarette smoke now, too. Sometimes it was just around the corner. Other times, it was a faint whiff that disappeared as quick as it had come, like the smoke had inside E Building.

He went back to working the crystal. Finally it popped free, and he heard it hit the concrete floor. Carefully, he put his fingers on the exposed watch face, trying to feel the hands without moving them. But his fingers were numb, so he blew on them a few times before trying again.

Two-twenty. In the morning?

He put the pocketknife away and he started to walk. He walked slowly now because without the flashlight, he couldn’t see where he was going. He walked slowly now because he knew she wouldn’t be there. He didn’t call to her. His throat was raw from his own shouts that were never answered.

The echoing whimpers grew softer, like a baby crying itself out before sleep.

Like an apple baby. .

Louis stopped. Where had that come from? The apple babies weren’t down here. They were in orchards and cider mills and baskets that were taken away in apple trucks. Right, Charlie, right.

The crying sounded now like it was underwater and he closed his eyes again, wishing her dead. Wishing the baby dead.

“Stop!” he screamed.

Silence. It settled around him like a thick black blanket. And he welcomed it.

He pressed his forehead against the cold tile. He was losing it. He had to stay focused. But on what?

Ives. . Seraphin. Stay with what you know is real.

But what did he know? Everything was one black tangle in his mind. What did he know?

That Seraphin knew Ives raped patients. No, more than that, she let it happen. She condoned it.

Why? Why? Think! Therapy. . she was using rape as some perverse sexual therapy?

The tile was cold and wet beneath his forehead, but he didn’t lift his head. Didn’t even open his eyes because it was almost like he could see now with them closed.

Ives. . Seraphin.

Why did she give him those other three suspects?

Why did she let Ives leave Hidden Lake? Why did she set a rapist free?

A sound. Whimpering. He opened his eyes. No, it was his mind playing tricks. There was no crying anymore.

He shut his eyes. Stay focused on what is real!

Babies. . they were real. Charlie had seen one, and he believed him.

Women patients locked away in isolation. Why? Pregnant from the rapes? Charlie saw babies. But where did the babies go? Maybe they weren’t normal because of all the drugs. Maybe they were aborted, their remains cremated and abandoned with all the others in the mortuary? Or. . or taken away in baskets so no one would see?

Claudia?

She had been isolated. Did she have a baby? Where was it? Where was Claudia?

In the dark, her face came to him, the face in the photograph from her patient file. Claudia’s face came to him and it was as real as his own thoughts.

His fingers were shaking as he touched the tiny hands on the watch face. Three. . and six. Three-thirty? He stuck his hands back under his armpits. He hadn’t moved in the last hour. He was still huddled on the floor, knees pulled in against the cold. He couldn’t feel his feet anymore.

It was so quiet now. No crying, no sounds at all.

No one was coming.

He took the pen from his pocket and felt along on the tile for a smooth spot.

What to write? And to who?

He had things he needed to say, things he had never said. To Phillip. And Kyla. To his sister and his brother. To a little boy named Ben. To Mel and to Sam Dodie and to Jesse. . Jesse. God, he couldn’t even remember his last name.

His fingers were so cold he could barely grip the pen. And worse, he was starting to feel sleepy.

Stay awake. .

He turned back to the wall, uncapping the pen.

He didn’t know what to say to her .

They never had to say much to each other. And it didn’t seem right now, especially now, to write something Joe would know was fake. There was something about her that kept him strong and he didn’t want not to be strong here. It was important what he wrote to her now. It would be what she would remember after all else was gone.

He turned slowly, his fingers finding the wall. He tried to spit on it but he had no saliva, so he just wiped it with his sleeve. Then in slow, careful strokes, he moved the pen across the tile.

JOE

He set the pen on the floor and closed his eyes.

Screaming. His eyes jerked open and he struggled to get up, bracing himself on the wall and wincing at the pain in his frozen feet.

No, not a scream. It was a scraping sound. He started down the tunnel toward the sound, limping, swaying from wall to wall. Another scrape, louder now.

It was the doors. Had to be the doors.

He tried to go faster, but each step sent stabs of pain shooting up his legs. The tunnel seemed to be growing colder. He hit an intersection and kept going. And then, suddenly, the air started to change. There was something different in it now, something colder and sharper.

More water. And the crunch of glass under his feet. No, ice.

And the air. It was cold. So fucking cold. And so. . so fresh. He kept following it.

He stopped. In the black void ahead, he could see something. He squinted, afraid his mind was deceiving him again.

There was something there. A glimmer of gray. . a faint cast of light and he knew what it was. The doors. The metal doors were open and the air he was feeling was coming from the opening by the lift.

The doors were open.

He stumbled to them, pressing his hands against the rusty surface. Then he felt his way along the concrete wall, his feet slipping on the water, the air getting colder and clearer.

The lift came into view, blue in the shaft of moonlight. A shadowy iron square, frosted with ice, shimmering at the end of the tunnel.

And next to it, a ladder.

He staggered to it. He fell off the first step of the ladder and he had to concentrate to make his foot stay on the rung. He grabbed the sides and pulled himself up, first one step, then another. And finally he was above-ground.