Nocturne

“Yea, though I have made my home in the valley of the dead, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy cup of tea and orange crème bikkie succor me,” I murmured to myself giddily as I began the 11th hour of an 8 hour shift.

I wasn’t complaining, work was quiet, cool, sterile. Absent of the living, just the way I liked it.

Finishing up the remainder of my biscuits, I washed my hands, stretched on a fresh pair of opalescent thick green rubber gloves and made my way down the rows of silent bodies shrouded in white hospital linens. My rubber soled shoes muted the sound of my steps, denying the large metal cavern the echo it craved.

Some people think that mortuaries are creepy, but they’re really no more creepy than your average garden patch and I’m no different from any avid boatanist. It’s just that instead of petunias and cabbage, I examine carbon shells as they slowly return to the stuff from which they came.

“Got another one for you, Wednesday,” the intercom on the wall crackled into life, disturbing the silence.

“Ready,” I replied briskly, pressing the little red button. I was always ready for the dead.

I heard the elevator open in the distance, and then the familiar click, clack, crunch of the gurney making its way towards me. One wheel was perpetually stuck, but nobody seemed inclined to fix it. It wasn’t anybody’s job to do so. In a small city hospital, nothing gets done unless it’s somebody’s job. I counted myself lucky that squeaky gurney wheels were about the sum total of my troubles.

It took a moment or two for the orderly, a staunch fellow who never seemed quite at ease down here in the bowels of the hospital, to arrive with the gurney.

“DOA. Jane Doe, cause of death unknown,” he said, his eyes fastened on my face, not because I’m particularly beautiful, but because focusing on the living helps people ignore death, even when it is quite literally being pushed before them just a few inches under their noses.

From the cradle to the grave we walk a tight rope above the abyss, most of us too scared to gaze into the perpetual void that accompanies us every hour. I was not afraid of death anymore, merely curious. Steve, on the other hand, still had his eyes tightly shut to his own mortality.

“Cause of death unknown? This one still has a trachea, I suppose,” I jested.

He shuddered, not seeing the joke. Recent weeks had seen a run of DOA’s, poor souls who never had a chance against whatever killed them. They came in bled out through gaping throat wounds that put me in mind of a dog attack, but dog attacks were rarely so precise.

The newspapers were full of the stories of course, and rumors were flying about the city. Nobody walked home alone in the dark anymore, except me of course, I feared the grip of the mundane far more than I feared the remote risk of a madman.

“Thanks Steve,” I dismissed the orderly. He rushed away, releived to be rid of the gurney and its cargo, but I, I was as thrilled as a little child getting a new puppy. Each new arrival down here was special. It was always more exciting when the cause of death was unknown. It was then that I took the chance to put on my detective hat and solve the mystery of the dearly departed’s demise.

With customary efficiency, I rolled the gurney to the center of the room where a broad table, bright lights and a tray of mortuary medical instuments awaited their latest guest. After locking the gurney wheels in place, I drew back the sheet to prepare the body for transfer to the examination table.

As the sheet came down, a face of rare beauty was revealed and instantly I was struck with a twinge of sadness. That was unusual for me. I was desensitized to most forms of death. Young and old, male and female, it came to us all.

I knew the moment I laid eyes on the woman that she was somehow different.She posessed such clear beauty that even though she lay perfectly still, her lips tinged light blue, it seemed as though she might yet be alive. Unlike most corpses, which could only be described as soulless shells, this woman still seemed somehow present.

I continued my preparations, drawing the sheer sheet down and off her body entirely. She was dressed tastefully, though oddly, in a long black gown and velvet cloak. Her attire matched her classical beauty, and her classically styled hair which cascaded in dark waves around her face and down to her shoulders. She lay there, perfect as a life sized china doll, and for the first time in a long time, I hesistated before disrobing a corpse. Usually they came down already naked, or perhaps wearing a hospital gown, but because this woman had been found on the streets, she’d been brought to me as she was when she died, fully clothed.

“Pardon me, madam, but this is unfortunately necessary if we are to determine what caused your passing,” I murmured under my breath politely, gazing at her face a little longer. Though she wore no discernable expression, I could swear that there was a smile burgeoning under those high cheekbones and playing about her pale lips.

I began by unfastening her cloak. It slid smoothly off her neck and fell back onto the gurney with the delicious heavy liquid sound that only well made velvet makes. Her gown was buttoned right up under her throat, and I noted that my fingers trembled as I began to unbutton it, feeling terribly as if I were intruding on some great lady’s person.

I disctracted myself from my impudent task by trying to place the woman’s age. Her body was slim, but strong, and her skin showed no obvious signs of aging, yet I did not get the sense that she was young. Even in death, an aura of gravitas hung about her, an intangiable weight that ususally comes only with great age.

As her dress opened gradually, I discovered that her underwear was just as Victorian as the rest of her attire. I’d expected the usual department store lingerie under her dress, but instead I found thick petticoats, and, judging by the firm resiliant layer that ran down her ribs, a corset as well.

I gingerly continued unbuttoning the gown, revealing a thick ivory lace undergarment that befuddled me entirely. It seemed like something that should have been in a museum, too thick and heavy to be made of any modern material, and slightly yellowed around the edges to boot, as if it had seen centuries of sunlight.

“Wednesday!”

I jumped when the intercom spluttered into life again and whirled around, glaring at it for having the temerity to interrupt us. Stalking over to it, I jabbed the little red button.

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got two more DOA’s, sans trachea.”

“Send them down.”

I frowned to myself as I turned back towards the gurney. More corpses without tracheas. Two in one night. At first there had been only a few isolated cases, weeks apart at a time. Whoever, or whatever was doing this was clearly becoming emboldened and picking up the pace. Now was not the time to give into the hysteria that was gripping the town however, I had a job to do. I pushed the thoughts from my mind, and decided to return my attention to the task at hand.

“I apologize for the interruption, my la…” I began the sentence charmingly, lifting my eyes to the gurney. I did not finish the sentence, instead I choked on my words.

She was gone.

The dead don’t usually get up and wander around of their own accord. But somehow, this one had. The only thing left on the gurney, the only thing that convinced me that I wasn’t mad and imagining beautiful dead woman was the fact that the velvet cloak was still there, pooled luxuriantly on the white linen.

I glanced around the room, but the brightly lit sterile surfaces held no clues. There were no dark corners to hide in here, no places to go. She had simply demateralized, if that were possible. I knew it wasn’t.

This was strange. Too strange. Fingers of fear began to creep at my spine and prickle along the back of my neck. Fortunately, before I could panic, I heard the familiar sound of the elevator doors sliding open and the clattering of gurneys entering the hall. I’d never been so glad to receive two throatless corpses in my life, and I rushed to the doors to greet the orderlies, thrilled to see that one of them was a friend.

“Here you go Wednesday,” Brent winked at me. He was a tall, lanky fellow who wore his dark hair long and drawn back in a pony tail. Unlike most of the staff, Brent embraced death as much as I did and he didn’t regard me as a dark pariah to be avoided. He considered my quirks charming and we’d occasionally get together and have a drink in the nearby bar after work. He knew me well enough to spot the unfamiliar pale, haunted look on my face immediately.

“You okay Wends? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said, reaching out with a warm hand to squeeze my shoulder comfortingly.

“Yeah, it’s just, you know…” I explained lamely.

He laughed. “Work getting you down? Let’s stow these babies and go out for a drink. It’s almost midnight, you’re well overdue to clock off.”

He was right of course, I was a compulsive over-worker, and with the recent volume of dead people coming into our little hospital, I’d been working almost day and night. No wonder I was tired and confused and seeing dead people where there were none.

I agreed, and Brent helped me stow the two bodies in the cooled wall chambers whilst the other orderly fled as quickly as possible. I didn’t blame the guy. Even I wasn’t in the mood to examine two fresh gaping throat wounds.

“This is nice, is this new?”

I turned around to see that Brent had picked up the cloak and was looking at it admiringly.

“Well, uh, yeah, it’s mine,” I lied, not even knowing why I was lying. It simply slipped out of my mouth smooth as silk.

“Well, put it on, and let’s get out of here,” he said, holding it out for me in gentlemanly fashion.

I turned my back to him, and sighed softly as he placed it over my shoulders. It hung almost to my feet, but not quite, and wrapped around me like a warm embrace. I wished it truly was mine, it felt so good.

“It suits you,” he noted with approval. Brent had never made any secret of his penchant for ladies of the gothic persuasion, and although I tend towards the casual, he’d spent the bulk of the time we’d known each other trying to convince me that I was secretly a goth underneath it all. I smiled wanly at him, not wanting to encourage his advances. Brent was a friend, that was all. I didn’t need a boyfriend and I certainly didn’t want one. I’d determined long ago that I would end my days as a spinster, and I was going the right way about it.

Chatting idly about matters of no importance whatsoever, Brent and I left the hospital and walked the few blocks to the bar in the cool night air. If I’d have worn my pea coat, I would have shivered the whole way, but once I raised the hood over my head, I found that the cloak kept me warm from head to toe.

Our path took us through the old part of the city, the part that had been there for hundreds and hundreds of years, the part where modernity with its fast food chains and all night liquor stores did not dare tred.

Nocturne Falls was one of the first cities settled by the French as they made their way into the New World, and though it is now largely forgotten in favor of larger, wilder cities like New Orleans, it has never lost its historical heritage. In many ways, life has stood still in Nocturne Falls, so named for the river that runs through the middle of the city only to be interrupted by the large falls that thunder off the cliffs a few miles outside the city limits.

The waterfall was the closest thing Nocturne Falls had to a tourist attraction. Something about the deep, dark forest that surrounded it created an eerie atmosphere, and unsurprisingly it was the subject of many local legends. Some said that in the rushing and wailing of the falls you could hear the cries of souls lost when they were swept down river, or jumped because of a broken heart, or more sinisterly, were thrown off. But not every apparition was content to merely wail, and there was more than one tale of a foolhardy explorer being tempted over the cliff by the demons of the falls.

The base of Nocturne Falls is ringed with jagged rocks. People who go over the edge never show up in one piece, if there is any evidence left of them at all. Best case scenario, their clothing washes up on the beaches down-river weeks later. Worst case scenario, no sign of them is ever found. Like many wild places, Nocturne Falls had gained a reputation as being place of supersition and ldarkness. The latest killings fed into that idea, and more than one old biddy had espoused the possibility that it was a demon murdering unfortunate citizens. It was an idea I found laughable of course, it was undoubtedly a man, or at a stretch, some wild beast.

I thought of the falls as we walked towards the bar, there was a queer rushing in my ears and I felt slightly dizzy, as if I were no longer in the same reality I had started my day in. I told myself that I was just tired, that it was normal to feel some dissasociation after a day of staring at corpses.

Bringing myself back to the present moment, I noted the way that the tall stone buildings felt solid and comforting, as did the promise of good wine and good cheer in the bar up ahead.

The road, cobbled with stones, was lit with wrought iron lamps, and I mused to myselft, as I had mused many times before, that on a good night in Nocturne Falls, one could be transported magically to any time in the past 500 years and not know it. I loved the city for its timeless quality, and killings or no killings, I would not easily be persuaded to leave it.

“My lady,” Brent said, opening the bar door with a sweeping gesture and unwittingly repeating the very same words I had spoken earlier that night.

“Thank you kindly,” I bobbed into a curtsey, playing along. He grinned and followed in behind me.

The bar was the same as it always was, a faux English tavern complete with ye olde stonework, a wooden bar and buxom wenches in cleavage tops pushing beer about the place. There were fewer customers than usual, plenty of people were staying home with the doors barred these days, waiting for the police to track down the killer that stalked our city.

“Find us a table, I’ll get the first round,” Brent said.

Finding a table wasn’t difficult given that the bar wasn’t remotely close to being at full capacity. A few groups sat about here and there, mostly professionals. I saw a few fellow doctors from the hospital and waved. They returned my wave, took in my velvet cloak with mocking eyes and immediately dived into a huddle of gossip.

I found a table near the back of the room, where the shadows were slightly deeper and where I wouldn’t be subjected to so much casual scrutiny. Brent brought the drinks over, a lite beer for him, a whiskey and coke for me. The usual.

“So, you had a rough night, huh,” he comiserated, taking a draught of his beer.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “How was your shift?” I didn’t want to talk about the goings-on in the morgue. People already thought I was strange, I didn’t need Brent spreading rumors at work that confirmed their suspicions.

“Long. Tiring. Filthy,” he winked with good humor, the day already washing off him like water off a duck’s back. I envied him his easy disposition. The gothically inclined are known for moping and whining a great deal, but Brent never engaged in that sort of behavior.

“Are you still applying for school in the fall?”

“Yeah, here’s hoping I get in. Can’t be an orderly all my life.”

“Daddy will be so pleased that you’re finally becoming a doctor,” I teased him.

He laughed. “He will be. He’s always been so judgemental, but I think he’ll be really happy now I’m finally fitting in with his world view…”

As Brent prattled on, purging his daddy issues, I allowed my gaze to drift around the bar, taking stock of my surroundings. It was one of the few lessons I’d learned from a self defense lesson taken years ago. ‘Always be aware of your surroundings. Always know where your exit is and have a back-up if it is blocked,’ the instructor with the bushy eyebrows had growled at us, a green group of teenage girls more concerned with make up and boys than in keeping ourselves safe.

Safety is the concern of those who know they’re mortal. Back then, my mortality was merely a concept. Nowadays, after having handled thousands of dead bodies, it was a solid truth, and though I couldn’t fight to save myself, I at least tried to know where the exits were. I picked the front doors as my primary exit, and the small door that led out to the back alley as my back-up.

Once I had picked my exits, I turned my attention to the others in the bar. For the most part they were the typical early morning crowd of hospital shift workers, drowning their sorrows. I was about to resign my attention back to the horrors of Brent’s childhood when a stranger caught my eye. Sitting at the bar, drinking a deep amber liquid out of a crystal tumbler, he looked as if he’d just stepped out of an oil painting. He wore a clasically simple suit, the sort of suit made for people who want to fit in. But this man would never simply fit in, I thought to myself as I found myseld appreciating the set of his strong, square jaw and, as my eyes rose up his face, looking into deep, wide eyes that returned my gaze blatantly. I averted my gaze politely, but something niggled at the back of my mind. There was something familiar about him.

When I looked back, he was still looking at me, rather he was staring at me with a mildly displeased expression. A crease marred his smooth forehead, and he ran a pale hand through the curly dark hair that fell to his collar in a gesture of what could have been frustration. I realised then that I had seen his face before, just an hour earlier on the lady who had performed the post mortem disappearing act. If one were not male and the other female, I could have sworn that they were the same person. There was the same pale skin, the same high cheekbones, the wide eyes, the aquline nose.

A chill ran through me and my mouth dropped open in shock. Seeing my obvious surprise, the man smiled pleasantly, raised his glass to me from across the room, and I felt my concern melt away in its radiance. Like a moth to a flame, like a snake to its charmer, I was drawn to him.

“Wednesday? Are you even listening?” Brent broke in.

The spell was broken and I turned back to my drinking buddy. “Yeah, sorry, I just… I just thought I saw someone I knew,” I explained.

“Really? Who?”

“That guy,” I turned and pointed, but the seat was empty. The tumbler remained behind however, a thin layer of liquid amber taunting me.

Brent was looking at me quizzically.

“I guess he left,” I explained lamely.

“Bummer.” Brent didn’t sound very empathetic, instead he sounded a little annoyed.

All of a sudden, I felt tired. It had been a very, very long day and I didn’t need Brent pouting at me because I wasn’t giving him my full attention.

“I think I’m going to go home, Brent.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll call you a cab.”

“My apartment is five minutes from here,” I reminded him as he reached for his cellphone.

“Yeah, and I’ve been shuttling throatless people around all day, so please, do us both a favor and just take a cab,” he said, sounding as exasperated as I felt.

I didn’t have the strength to argue with him, so I sat there sullenly, my cloak still wrapped around me as he called a cab and finished his drink. It didn’t take long for the cab to arrrive, and ever the gentleman, Brent ushered me right to the door.

“Make sure you get some rest, you look like hell,” he winked at me before shutting the door.

I made a rude gesture at him, and watched him laugh as I was swept away into the dark night.

Something dark is stalking the river city of Nocturne Falls, something that kills ruthlessly and mercilessly.

As if it weren’t enough trouble dealing with hordes of throat-less corpses, pathologist Wednesday Jones, a woman with a penchant for the dead and a disdain for normal human relationships, finds her world turned upside down when the charming, handsome, and not quite human Deyton Aschcroft threatens to sweep her off her feet.

As the population of Nocturne Falls begins to dwindle, Wednesday’s very life and humanity are threatened. Can Deyton save her? Or will Wednesday refuse to bow to his misogynistic demands and be empowered right out of her humanity?