Page 117 of Grave Matter

I start walking quietly down the stairs, feeling like I want to throw up all over again. Every molecule in my body is frozen in terror, the feeling so palpable that waves of goosebumps constantly wash over my skin.

I’m shaking as I reach the bottom of the stairs, and she turns the handle and opens the door.

The room is dim, with only a light in the corner.

It’s an operating lab, just like the one I saw through the cougar’s eyes.

There are three tables spread out in the middle, all of them empty. Machines beep softly all around us.

And in the corner of the room, where the single light is, is another table.

This one has a body on it.

Clayton.

He’s lying there, strapped to the table. Various machines are hooked up to him: IVs and electrodes and oxygen snake in through his nose. Beside him is a ventilator that is on, the sound of the pump steady, but it isn’t attached to him. There are A-fib paddles beside him too, as if he’d just died of cardiac arrest and someone tried to revive him.

I slowly step forward, fear a knot in my throat, and realize that he’s not dead at all. His chest is rising slightly. The heart monitor shows a very slow and shallow pulse.

I come closer still, staring at him in horror as I realize that he was shot in the chest, a bloody bandage covering the area.

Even worse is when I look at his face.

His eyes are open, not blinking, staring at the ceiling.

At first, it doesn’t look like anything has been done to his head, but then I see the staples along his hairline.

I turn around to look at the ghost, to ask her what I should do.

But the ghost is gone.

The door is closed.

It’s just Clayton and me alone in the room.

Sydney, he says.

I gasp and spin around to see him staring at me.

You came, he says.

But his mouth isn’t moving.

I can hear him in my head.

“What the fuck?” I breathe.

He attempts a smile, but it’s crooked. His eyes start to water.

Suddenly, his face goes blank.

She’s coming, he says.Hide.

“What?”

Hide!

I hear someone starting to thump down the stairs, and I look around wildly for a place to hide. Oh fuck, oh fuck.

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