Kismet the nerd who flunked gym class in ninth grade.
That’s what I did, all the while listening for any sound that would alert me to the return of the monster who’d brought me there.
I walked on tiptoes through the carnage to the door, unable to avoid wading through puddles of slimy, bloody water, and finally reached the stairs leading up to the light. My stomach had been clenched so tightly I’d barely breathed since I left the coffin. I climbed up the stone steps and shoved the door. It swung open on rusty hinges, making that sound always present in horror movies. Then I stepped out into the sunshine and found myself in the middle of an old graveyard.
I heard sounds of traffic nearby and moved in that direction. I kept glancing behind me to see if it had been a trap, if someone – or something – was going to spring out at me from behind one of the huge gravestones and haul me back into the pit of hell, but I was alone.
Doubtless I must have been quite a sight as I walked out of the ornate cast-iron gates of the graveyard and crossed the parking lot of McDonald’s.
CHAPTER 13
I had no idea where I was.
Another beautiful day in Paradise had got all dressed up and started without me. The sun beamed almost directly overhead, making it about noon. I shielded my eyes with my hand, spun in a slow circle, and searched for the mountains to give me a sense of location. Denver is a consistent distance from various distinctive peaks, and I always got my bearings by checking my position in relation to them, as well as the ever-present downtown skyscrapers.
Turns out I was within walking distance of Devereux’s club. I never knew there was an old graveyard tucked away back behind Fast-Food Row. Well, you know what they say about learning something new every day . . .
High-pitched giggles drew my attention down from the horizon and I found myself gazing at a gaggle of little girls. They all held dripping ice cream cones. As the children surrounded me, one sticky-fingered angel said, ‘You’re funny!’ This caused another wave of gleeful laughter.
‘I’m funny?’
That was apparently hilarious.
Another sweet cherub said, ‘What are you doing in the middle of the parking lot? Are you dancing? What’s all that stuff on you?’
I looked down at myself and saw I was covered in samples of everything I’d found back in the death pit in the graveyard, including dried blood, which stained my hands.
With a gasp, I immediately leaped to the most drastic conclusion: that the blood was mine. I inspected myself, searching for wounds or cuts, anything that would explain the stains, but I found nothing. Since I had no recollection of what’d transpired during the missing hours – and at that moment I wasn’t up for exploring the disgusting possibilities – I gave myself permission to stuff the entire matter deep inside my psychological Do Not Enter zone.
A pretty little brown-eyed tyke ventured a couple of tentative steps in my direction, pointed, and yelled, ‘You smell!’
That was definitely some kind of cosmic cue. Simultaneously, anxious mothers scurried forth from everywhere, retrieved their children and whisked them back to the play area.
‘What did I tell you? Never talk to strangers!’ one mother scolded as she pulled her child away, tossing frightened glances back over her shoulder.
I raised my arm up to my nose and sniffed. Yuck. I did smell. In fact, I smelled worse than horrible. Just like that ghastly place. No wonder the moms had treated me like a carrier of the Black Death. I could only imagine what I looked like.
Wondering if my cell phone had survived the ghastly experience, I retrieved it from my pocket and hit the ‘on’ switch. It was as dead as the bodies in the tomb.
Shit! Perfect.
I fished in my pocket to see if the cash I’d put there the night before had survived my mysterious experience. I pulled out a handful of bills and coins. Even though I could’ve walked to Devereux’s club, the memories of the previous night left a bad taste in my mouth. I had no desire to make a return visit. All I wanted to do was go home, take off the toe-smashing boots and crawl into a hot bath.
I’d just spied an old telephone booth and headed in that direction to call for a cab when a police cruiser pulled into the parking lot and blocked my path. Either I really did look suspicious enough to draw the attention of a passing cop car, or someone in the restaurant had alerted the police to deal with the crazy lady.
Two very young officers exited the car and walked cautiously over to me. One looked like a computer geek and the other a football player. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t what I got.
‘Are you Dr Knight?’ the computer geek asked.
‘How do you know that? I mean, yes.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. No. I’m not all right. I just woke up in a coffin in a graveyard and I’m covered in substances I don’t even want to think about.’
‘Are you wounded?’
‘No. I don’t think so. Not physically, anyway.’
‘Is that your blood on your hands, Dr Knight?’
‘I don’t know.’ I held my hands out and inspected them again. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘An FBI agent working with the Denver PD put out a red flag on you, said you’d gone missing last night. Your photo’s been running on the local TV stations all morning. You must be an important person because we’re not usually allowed to act this fast on a missing-person report. It looks like you’ve had a rough time. If you’ll come with us, we can sort everything out and get you some help.’
He took another step towards me and scrunched up his nose as he approached. ‘Wow. Where did you say you’ve been?’
A quick visual communication passed between them, eye contact so covert that if I hadn’t been trained to notice such things, I’d have missed it. The look said ‘Potential Disturbed Person’. I knew that look well, having shared it with other professionals in various mental health settings. It was a shorthand code for a set of behaviours – behaviours that calmed the patient and encouraged cooperation. While I could understand why they might slide me into that category, I wasn’t willing to assume the role.
I was in no mood to be cooperative or polite. My brain had finally kicked back into gear. Along with the fear and confusion I’d experienced since waking up in one of the levels of Hades, I was also pissed off – pissed off at whoever had dragged me to this place, and pissed off at being manipulated. The officers clearly thought I was hallucinating about waking up in a coffin in a graveyard so I decided to cut to the chase.
I’d been abducted, brought to a maniac’s lair and who knew what else. Now was as good a time as any to take the cops on a tour of Horror Central. I pivoted and trotted back towards the entrance gate to the old graveyard.
‘Hey! Stop! Where are you going?’ the football player yelled.
‘I’m going to show you where I’ve been.’ I called on my last reserves of glucose and sprinted through the gate into ‘Capitol Hill Cemetery, an Historical Landmark’ with the cops close on my heels.
‘Dr Knight! You’ve obviously had some kind of trauma. You’re not thinking clearly. Let us take you downtown. Stop or we’ll have to restrain you.’
‘Restrain me, my ass. You’ll have to catch me first.’
If they were going to assume I was irrational, at least I could add some interesting fuel to the fire. I didn’t like being treated as an incompetent – even if they meant well – and I never had played nicely with authority figures. It occurred to me that the officers might not know the old graveyard was back there either, since it was well hidden. If that were the case, it was little wonder my story sounded even more fantastic than it would’ve anyway.
My run through the graveyard was really quite impressive. I managed to find my way back to the ramshackle mausoleum without falling, being obstructed by the city’s finest or turning an ankle. There was something to be said for adrenalin.