The Shamrock Killer

Chapter Fifteen: You

The first thing I noticed was that I could see in the dark. Really well, actually. I blinked my eyes numerous times, and I could make out the long narrow hallway in front of me, the closed doors to the reception rooms branching off on either side, the variety of peaceful pictures plastered on the walls, and I could see the door at the end, opened, beckoning me with its sinister, gaping entrance.

Of course, the light from the big windows on either side of the front door helped. But this new ability was different and certainly not unwelcome. Not in this foreign, yet not unfamiliar, place of death. 

I tilted my head and slowly gazed around my surroundings like a hound on a blood trail. Now more than ever I could smell the underlying cloying scent of flowers and decay that clung to the heavy curtains and the armchairs lining the hallway. It was so heavy I felt like I could taste it on my tongue.

My hand crept from my side and urged my body over to one of the reception doors. I hesitated on the brink of disaster. Something else was inside the room, I could feel. It was a benign presence though, not a dangerous one and I couldn't see the harm in taking a quick look. 

I silently padded over to the door, put my hand on the doorknob, and remembered. This was the room Grandpa's body had laid in visitation. 

Sadness flooded over my body as I remembered the pain of his passing. Opening this door would be like opening a wound.

But I did it anyway.

I opened the door quickly, grateful for the oiled hinges. I gasped.

Several bright lights swam towards me, pulling me inside the room and twisting up and down my body. I was frozen in shock and my mouth felt heavy and numb. The hairs up and down my arms stood up straight.

The light was blinding, and I closed my eyes, easing the sharp pain. I felt extremely dizzy and blindly lunged for anything. Thankfully, I found a chair and sank into it.

In my mind I felt the orbs speaking to each other and their chattering was giving me a headache. I clutched my head in my hands and hissed, "Quiet!" 

They fell silent and receded. It was bitterly cold in this room, the blinds were closed, and the forgotten flowers had wilted from where they had been left. 

I let my head thump back onto wall and gingerly opened my eyes only to close them a second later. It was still very, very bright. But surprisingly, my headache was just lingering on my consciousness not driving a cement truck around my cranium. 

I jumped as a wave of cold spread over me. I needed to move, and fast. The dead wanted me to stay but I knew that the longer I did, the more I became like them.

I moved from the chair to the door in one fluid moment. I blinked, as this gracefulness was entirely new to me. The old Maureen would have probably tripped into something, fell, and cracked her head open.

I looked back into the room as I turned the doorknob to leave. I wanted to stay but I wanted to leave as well. The orbs spun and drifted in merry little circles and their chattering rose. I knew it was time to go.

I silently wondered as I stepped back into the hall if one of those orbs had been Grandpa's presence, or whatever was left of him back here on earth. 

I sealed off the door and I was alone again in the hallway. I crept along the wall closer to the door at the far end. 

There was something else there too. I tilted my head like a cat and narrowed my eyes. I could sense someone's presence. Someone....definitely alive. No, make that two. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth as a red haze washed over me. The heightened taste for blood was new too, I noted off-hand. I felt the need find the killer and put my hands around their neck. Then I would squeeze.