Lincoln

 

The clump of cells were growing, I could watch it with my very own eyes with my stomach tightening with excitement. It wouldn’t be long. It was just a matter of waiting.

Through the walls, I could make out the rumbling of Berger’s car as he returned. A few minutes later, there was the sound of his heavy boots stomping down the hallway. Panic set in. He couldn’t come down here, couldn’t see what was beneath the sheet.  I waited with baited breath for his footsteps to disappear up the stairs and only let out a sigh of relief when I heard his bedroom door close.

“Thank God.”

I closed the door back over, letting the blue lights flash in my eyes one last time. Then I kissed the glass before bending down and kissing Etta through the sheet. It was cold down here and it was preserving her for a little while but sooner or later I knew I’d have to move her. I thought about her mother with the flies in her mouth and the way her eyes sunk as they decayed. I couldn’t let her end up like that.

Closing the door to the lab over and making sure to lock it, I traipsed back up the stairs on weary feet and entered the kitchen. The ice machine would have to do for now, but the thing was loud as hell. Hopefully Berger was passed out already, preferably with a girl.

As I held a bucket beneath the machine and watched the ice cubes drop to the bottom, I thought about Berger and Miranda. I thought he had the real thing with her. There was a look in his eyes when he mentioned her name that made me think he’d turned a corner, had finally found the one that was going to save him from himself.

“Hey, what you doin’?”

He was standing in the doorway with his boots still spattered in blood. His face was covered in dust and his hands were raw. His leather jacket that he always took so much pride in was dusty with sand and he smelled like beer and decomposition.

“Shit, didn’t see you there.”

“That ice machine sounds like an earthquake,” he said.

He leaned against the doorway and looked into the bucket.

“So what are you doing?”

I shrugged.

“Nothing.”

“Just filling up a bucket with a fuckton of ice at three in the morning. That’s normal.”

“Sure it is.”

He laughed but I could tell he found nothing funny.

“So, I met someone tonight,” he said, sitting down at the table.

“Someone nice I hope.”

“Not really. He was an old guy. Said his granddaughter had died.”

“Bummer,” I said.

“Bummer?”

He looked at me as though he was ready to slap me.

“Anyway, he said the girl had been murdered. Slashed.”

“Oh… that’s terrible.”

“Yeah. It’s really terrible, Bosworth.”

His eyes were penetrating mine as though he was waiting for me to say something but I didn’t know what.

“Old habits die hard, don’t they, doc?”

At last the bucket was filled to the top and I slammed off the machine. It was freezing the side of my leg but I relished the stinging sensation. I closed my eyes as I reveled in the process of actually feeling something.

“Are you okay?” asked Berger.

“Yeah, why?”

“You’ve been rubbing yourself against the ice machine with your eyes shut smiling to yourself for the last couple minutes.”

Wait, was I standing there that long. It had just been a fleeting moment, surely. Not minutes.

“I’m fine.”

“Habits,” he said as he stood back up and made for the stairs. “You’d tell me if you still had them, wouldn’t you?”

I watched him ascend the stairs. What the hell was he talking about?

“Berger, you crazy son of a bitch. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He laughed and shook his head.

“Yeah, I’m crazy.”

His door slammed shut again and I took the bucket back downstairs.

“Etta? Sweetheart I’ve got something to make you feel a bit better.

I dumped the ice into a box and saw that it only covered the surface of the bottom but it was a start. Slowly, I rolled her into my arms and picked her up. She was lighter now and her bones felt brittle. I lowered her down onto the ice, kissing her the whole time.

“There, you’ll stay perfect forever.”

I peeled back the sheet to see the side of her cheek and saw that her skin was a blue. Stroking my fingers across her, I thought about how good she’d feel when she was warm, when she was alive.

Covering her back up, I grabbed the bucket, locked the door again and made my way back upstairs. I needed a whole lot more ice.