Page 6 of The Undead

Wise words, but my eyes kept returning to that drawer, the one that filed Julio’s girlfriend. D for Dead. I was looking over Adam’s shoulder at it, just staring blankly—then staring in earnest.

Adam wasn’t there. I was looking at myself. He wasn’t in the reflection at all.

I felt my stomach slowly start to fell, as if the floor had fallen out from under me in one huge block. My skin tingled and tightened, all over my body, and for the briefest second I had the feeling that I was going to simply black out and deny what my eyes told me. Because my eyes had to be wrong.

Adam was blocking me—butnotin reflection. Adam Radburn didn’t show up at all.

Not possible. Not possible. Not—

“Mike?” he asked, concerned, and turned to look over his shoulder. I lifted my right hand and pointed—

Adam turned—

His eyes—

Darkness.

My face was cold. I gasped and tried to sit up, but my muscles refused to obey me. My cheek was pressed against the cold floor of the morgue.

“Don’t move, Michael,” Adam said softly above me, and I felt myself carefully rolled over. As the room spun, Adam came into view. He leaned over me, larger than life, and touched his fingers to my throat.

Gold. I flinched.

“Easy,” he murmured, and smiled. “You blacked out, man. Too long since gross anatomy. Don’t worry. I think you’re okay. I caught you before you hit the tile too hard. You may be a little woozy, though.”

“What—I—passed out?” My tongue didn’t seem to be working properly. Adam grabbed me and pulled me up into a sitting position. The room kept spinning, but he held me in place until it steadied.

“TKO. I guess this means your mud-wrestling career goes down the tubes.” Adam grinned, but I didn’t smile back. “It’s okay, Michael, really. I wish I had a dime for every person that folded in here. You know that big cop, Yaskowitz? Got his first good look at a ten-day floater, and he was gone, man, flat on the floor.”

Sickness grabbed me again, and I doubled over in Adam’s embrace; I felt his left hand smooth my hair in a strangely maternal gesture, and then he pulled me up and to my feet.

“Deep breaths. Here. Sit.” Adam deposited me into a chair—I was in the cubicle again, no memory of the steps taken to get there—and then he shoved a cup of coffee into my shaking hands. “Drink. It’s swill, but it’ll steady you.”

“God, I’m sorry. I guess I’m just wasted.” Well, it was one explanation, but it didn’t satisfy me. Adam just looked back at me, waiting for—something. I glanced at my watch, and a weird electric current ran through my nerves.

Jesus Christ, I’d been passed out for at least twenty minutes, Imusthave been. Hadn’t I?

“Drink. Don’t think about it,” Adam urged me. I drained the cup and set it aside. “Do you feel up to going home, or do you want me to drive you?”

“No,” I said instantly, instinctively. I stood up, bracing myself against the desk. My knees were still weak, but getting firmer. “No, Adam, thanks. Thanks for everything, but I need to—to walk. Get some air.”

“If you’re sure,” he said doubtfully, and walked me to the door. As we paused there, he offered me his hand. I took it. His skin felt cool and dry; that in combination with the white sterility of the room and his pallor gave me the disturbing illusion of shaking hands with a corpse. “Sleep. You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I replied vaguely. He crossed his arms across his chest. I looked past him, remembering that odd flash of something, that absence of reflection where reflection should have been …

Adam was a solid image in the morgue drawers, as real as I was. Hallucinations. I was getting really screwed up.

“Something wrong?” Adam asked me, looking over his shoulder. I hesitated, watching his reflection, then shook my head. “Then I’ve got to get back to work. Go straight home, Mike. And be careful.”

I pushed through the double doors. As I called the elevator, I had a flash of gut-deep knowledge. Ihadlost those minutes. Somethinghadhappened.

Maybe the night air would help me remember.

All right, so it wasn’t the smartest idea in the world, jogging home after having a bizarre fugue like that, but there wasn’t a thing in the world I could do about it. I wanted to run. Ineededto run—and I’m not a jogger. The only time I run is when someone chases me.

And my body, my heart, my soul, told me to run like hell.

I started out at a jog, crossed the parking lot, and speeded up as I hit the sidewalk past the park. I hadn’t warmed up properly. The muscles in my calves and my thighs protested loudly at the abuse, but I kept running, and running, going faster and faster even though the only sound was my labored breathing and the slap of my running shoes on concrete.

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