Heather Graham - The Dead Room

“Silly Rebel,” he said softly, as he had so many times when she was growing up. “You have to stay here. You can’t go yet.”

“Who’s going to stop me, Matt Connolly?” she demanded. “You?”

“It’s not your time,” he said. “Leslie, there are things you need to do. You are not to follow the light,” he said firmly.

“Hey, are you holding out on me?” she demanded lightly, looking around and seeing people getting up and moving single-file toward the light. “Matt, I’m with you. We’re together. I have to get in line.”

“We’re all in line, in a way, from day one,” he said very softly. “But not you, not now. You have to stay here. Some things are meant to be.”

“Some things are meant to be?” she whispered.

“Some things are meant to be,” he said firmly.

He squeezed her hand, and heat shot through her.

Then it felt as if she were jolted. As if they were interrupted.

“Hey!” a deep voice called. “This one is alive!”

It was as if she were watching a movie, but she was in it. There was a horrible scent in the air, as if something were burning. People were everywhere, running, shouting.

There had been an explosion, she thought. Someone had screamed something about gas, and then a blast had seemed to rock the world. Yes! She could remember it now, the feeling of being lifted, of flying…slamming hard against a wall. But…she wasn’t lying against a wall.

She was looking down on a scene of absolute chaos. And she was in it. She was lying in a row of sleeping people. She couldn’t recognize any of them. Matt…where was Matt? Emergency personnel were moving purposefully through the chaos, imposing order. The newly painted walls of the room were blackened and scorched. There had been a blast and a fire. Everything pointed to it.

And she hurt! Oh, God, she ached everywhere, she thought, back in her body, no longer looking down on the carnage. The scent of charred wood…worse, the scent of charred flesh, filled her nostrils.

Because the people she was aligned with were not sleeping.

They were dead.

She could see the open, glazed eyes of the woman beside her. Suddenly she realized that a man was hunkered down by her side. And it wasn’t Matt.

“This one is alive!” the man yelled.

Of course I’m alive, she thought.

There was sudden confusion. People rushing over to her. More shouting.

“Quick, or we’ll lose her! Her pulse is fading.”

More people started rushing around her.

“Clear!”

There was a fire in her chest.

Every bone in her body seemed to be in raw agony. She knew she needed to open her eyes, to take a breath.

She blinked. The lights blazing all around her were the false and neon glitter of night.

“We’ve got her! She’s back.”

Then she was being lifted onto something soft and flat. She was dimly aware that someone was talking to the man at her side. Her vision of the scene around her suddenly seemed acute and agonizing.

There were four bodies against the wall. And one of them was Matt.

Then there was no light, no confusion. Just the horrible knowledge.

Matt was dead.

She started to scream….

“Calm down,” a medic said. “Please…You’re alive, and we want to keep you that way.”

Alive? Then Matt…

“Please, you’ve got to help Matt. He’s alive. I was just talking to him. You’ve got to help him!”

She saw the distress in the medic’s eyes.

“I’m so sorry…”

She was in the midst of hell on earth, she realized.

Matt…

She was vaguely aware of a needle in her arm.

Then there was only darkness.

One year later

Leslie paused for a minute, looking skyward. What a beautiful evening it was. The sky couldn’t have been a lovelier shade of violet. But then, the countryside in northern Virginia was some of the most beautiful in the world.

More so than ever before, at least to her.

In the past year, she had come to appreciate such simple thing as the colors of life. It had been such a strange year, filled with vividly conflicting emotions. The touch of the sun, the color of a dawn, seemed more intense than ever. The anguish of learning to live alone still interrupted the newfound beauty. Life had become doubly precious, except that she felt it was such an incredible gift that it should be shared…yet she was alive and Matt was dead.

The setting sun was beautiful, and the night breeze sweet and soft. With that thought in mind, she closed her eyes and felt the waning brush of day against her cheeks. The warmth was wonderful.

She sighed, then returned to work. She needed to hurry. The light would be gone soon.

Painstakingly, bit by bit, she brushed away the dust covering the recently revealed area. She removed the last few specks, and then…

Yes!

She continued to brush away the dirt from the skull fragment in the crevice, feeling a sense of jubilation. She couldn’t be certain, of course, not absolutely, but it looked like they had discovered the old St. Mathias graveyard that Professor David Laymon had been certain was here. She eyed the skull for size and shape. Bones weren’t her specialty. She knew objects, fabrics, even architecture, all the things that made up life, backward and forward. She knew bones only because she had come across them in her work so often.

The fragments of calico by the skull hinted at a type of hair decoration that fit perfectly with Laymon’s belief that this section of the graveyard had been reserved for indentured servants, slaves and those who were simply too poor to pay for anything better.

“Brad!”

“Yeah?”

Brad Verdun, her good friend and colleague, was busy working a few yards away. As she waited for his attention, she took her tweezers and carefully collected the bits of fabric she had discovered; a lab analysis would verify her thoughts, she was certain, but every little shred needed to be preserved.

“Brad!”

“Yeah, yeah.” At last he dusted his hands and rose, then walked to where she was working. He swore softly, shaking his head. “You were right. Again.” He stared at her a little skeptically. “If I didn’t know you so well, I just might agree with everyone else that you’re psychic.”

She smiled a little uneasily. “You would have chosen the same spot yourself,” she assured him.

“Yeah, eventually.” He looked across the work site, staring at the professor, who was down on his hands and knees about fifty yards away. “Well, princess of the past, announce your discovery. Give the old boy his thrill for the night.”

“You tell him.”

“You found the bones.”

“We work together,” she said modestly. “You were just a few feet away.”

“You made the discovery.”

“We came as a team, a package deal,” she reminded him stubbornly.

“I won’t take your credit.”

“I want you to take the credit! Please?”

He sighed deeply. “All right, all right. I’ll bring him over. But I won’t lie.”

“You’re not lying if you say we found it as a team,” she insisted.

He stared at her for a moment, then touched the top of her head with gentle affection. “Okay. You want to stay out of the limelight, kiddo, I’ll do my best to help you. For a while, anyway.” Like a brother, he stroked her cheek, giving her an encouraging smile.

“Thanks,” she murmured softly.

“You’re going to be okay. You’re coming along just great,” he said.

She nodded, looking down.

Was she? A year had gone by. She functioned, yes, but she continued to hurt every day. Work was good. Friends were good.

Nights were torture.

And life itself…

Was definitely different. That difference had become clear while she’d still been in the hospital after the explosion. If she hadn’t happened to pick up a magazine and seen the article on Adam Harrison and Harrison Investigations…