Chapter Three – Faith

 

I’d barely slept in two days, to the point where Veronica was commenting on it. Not in a nasty way or anything. Almost the exact opposite, in fact. More like a concerned hen.

“Honey,” she’d said this morning as she stood in the doorway of our old farmhouse’s aging kitchen, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed in front of her, “you need to chill out. You’re acting like it’s still finals week.”

I’d ignored her then and just returned to my coffee, which I was desperately in need of after staying up half the night researching cattle mutilations, of all things.

For whatever reason, I couldn’t get the image of the flayed hog from my mind. I knew it sounded cliché to say it was there every time I closed my eyes, but what else did you say when an image of something appeared in your mind every time your eyelids dropped? And, since I couldn’t sleep, I’d just turned to my passion: reading.

Not just any reading, though. Forums dedicated to this kind of thing. Places where people posted photos of the dead animals they’d found, or wrote about conspiracies of government helicopters they claimed to have seen over empty pastures in the dead of night, of UFOs and floating balls of light spotted as they flitted among herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. And, of course, cults of the Satan-worshiping variety. Because what else was there?

But, as I sat there at my work computer that evening, picture after picture after picture of recent cattle mutilations scrolling by on the screen, I couldn’t help but think two things: firstly, there were more of these than I’d ever imagined. I’d always thought it was some kind of random, weird appearance that occurred once every few years. And, secondly, none of these really looked the same as what Eb Shook and Dr. Lawrence had unveiled to me several days before.

Most of the pictures I’d found were, admittedly, pretty tame compared to what had been inflicted on me in the examination room. Just their eyes and genitals were missing, their bellies cut out and the guts spilled on the pasture.

Not like that poor hog.

That had been something else.

And the fact that I was able to say to myself, “You know, these aren’t that bad,” really said something else entirely about what was in the morgue’s refrigerated storage unit. Under any normal circumstance, these images on the internet would be considered horrific by me and anyone else with a shred of sanity.

But hey! At least I wasn’t camped out on some online dating website! Right?

What I really wanted, though, was to speak to Dr. Lawrence about this whole thing. After all, I was beginning to doubt all sorts of things about life, about what was possible and impossible. I mean, what could do a thing like this? I didn’t buy the government conspiracies thing for a moment. I’d gone to college, had experienced bureaucracy at its finest. They could barely keep my billing straight, and you wanted me to believe they could keep over four decades of experimentation on animals secret? Besides, why would they be stealing ranchers’ cattle?

And the UFO thing? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I believed there was other life out there. But why would they be studying cows, of all things? And always the same parts? The guts, the eyes, the genitals? Come on, aliens, find a new tune.

No, I was personally leaning towards coyotes or something else. Or, of course, chupacabras. Couldn’t discount the Mexican goat suckers.

But the doctor, unfortunately, was locked up in his office. Had been ever since he’d come into work this morning. Not that I minded terribly. Normally, we’d just work in companionable silence, but at least his door would be open. At least this way, I could tell if he was sneaking up on me to check the computer screen over my shoulder.

But all day? I’d barely heard a peep from him at all. Just him giving me a curt “good morning” on the way through to his office, cup of coffee in hand.

The office door chimed as I was mulling over the pictures of rotting cattle corpses like some edgy sixteen-year-old, and heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway as the visitor stepped inside from the small gravel parking lot.

I didn’t even glance up from the computer, I was so absorbed in the forums. Like it was a train wreck I was slowly watching over and over, with no chance to tear my eyes away. “Be right with you.”

More footsteps coming into the office, stopping near my desk. Whoever was there didn’t speak for a long moment, but when he finally did, his voice was deep and smooth. Like the waters of a lake on a still summer day. “I know it’s late, but I’m looking for a Dr. Lawrence,” he said. “Any chance he’s in still?”

Maybe it was his cool blue eyes, the color of a hot Texas day. Or his strong jaw with just a dusting of a blond beard across his chin. Or that broad, muscular chest. But I was suddenly dumbstruck as I looked up at the visitor.

“Huh?” I so articulately asked.

“Dr. Lawrence?” he repeated.

A little flush began to rise to my cheeks as I realized I was still incapable of speech. This guy, this man right in front of me—why did I have to meet him here of all places? With no makeup, with just some ratty clothes I didn’t mind smelling like corpse and disinfectant? With huge bags under my eyes that showcased my long nights looking up pictures of eviscerated cattle?

Why, universe? Why?

“Hi, I’m Sam Fitzgerald, a reporter with the Tyler Gazette,” he continued, that little smile still on his lips as his eyes stayed unflinchingly on mine. “Was wondering if the doctor was in. Wanted to talk to him about some background on a story I’ve been working on.”

And a reporter, too? I mean, not that he looked like any reporter I’d ever seen, with the tattoos just barely visible on the back of his right hand, or arms and shoulders like that. But, geez, if he was what they looked like in Tyler, think of what they might look like in the rest of the country! Maybe I should have gone with a journalism degree instead of just English?

Behind me, I still couldn’t hear anything from Dr. Lawrence’s office. Normally, he’d be right up to the front whenever we actually got a visitor, especially since they were so few and far between. But, instead, he was sitting like a bump on a log.

“He, uh,” I said, jerking my thumb back over my shoulder like an idiot as I stared up at the hunk in front of me, “he’s back there.”

“Should I just go in?” he asked, his tone light and conversational.

“What? Oh, no.” I rose to my feet, my knees shaky and nervous under the sexy reporter’s gaze, and began to back away from him, my lips not sure if they should frown or grin from ear to ear. “No, let me, um, go get him for you.”

“I’ll just stay right here,” he replied, smiling a sexy little half-smile, the kind that just perked up his thin cheeks on one side, but traveled all the way up to those sparkling blue eyes of his, with their half-lidded gaze.

“Sure,” I said, still backing away, “let me get him.” I jolted a little when my butt stopped me against the office door, then promptly turned around and grabbed the doorknob. I pushed inside without even knocking first.

I stopped in my tracks as the door swung open, then backed up a step. Dr. Lawrence was just seated there, staring at the wall, his mouth open, his eyes as vacant as a fresh corpse’s.

What the hell? The little old medical examiner was always working, it seemed like. Either he was filling out paperwork, or puttering around the examination room, or filing stuff away. To the point where I almost worried about a man his age taking on such a heavy workload.

I’d never seen him doing nothing before. And especially not like this!

Thoughts of sexy Sam in the next room were gone. Vanished.

“Dr. Lawrence?” I asked tentatively as I took a step into the room. “Are you okay, sir?”

His mouth slowly closed, his teeth coming together with a soft, but audible, click of bone against bone. As they did, his eyes seemed to come alive again, like someone had accidentally flicked off a switch inside his head and only just now realized Dr. Lawrence needed to be left on. His watery orbs slowly danced around the room, tried to find focus, before settling on me.

“Yes, Faith?” he asked as he turned to face me. “How can I help you?”

Stunned and a little put off by this bizarre display, I didn’t reply at first. I just stood there, one hand on the doorframe, and the other on the doorknob.

“Faith?” Dr. Lawrence asked again, his voice sounding perfectly normal. “Can I help you?”

Realizing I was just standing there, I just fluttered my eyelids and took a deep breath. “Sorry,” I said. “You have a visitor.”

“A visitor?” He glanced over at the intake schedule he kept next to his computer screen. “We don’t have anything scheduled for today.”

“Says he’s some kind of reporter, sir. Want me to send him in?”

Dr. Lawrence gave me a weird look. “A reporter? For me? That’s strange, don’t you think?”

I just shrugged, still uncertain whether or not the doctor was fine. I eyed him a little more closely, trying to judge if he was all right.

“Well,” the old medical examiner said with that little, lighthearted smile I was so familiar with, “why don’t you just go ahead and send him in, then, Faith? Let’s see what kind of questions he has for me.”

I paused for a moment, considered whether or not I should ask him about what I’d just seen. Try to find out if maybe there was a medical condition I wasn’t familiar with that he was suffering from. Some kind of sickness I could help him with, or should know about.

But, as he rose from behind the desk, he seemed fine. Like it had just been a small blip on the radar of life. Like he’d just spaced out for a moment.

Or maybe it had just been me? Maybe my lack of sleep over the last few days was just getting worse and worse, building over time like a river behind a dam, and I was at the point where I was seeing things?

No, looking at him now, I knew it was me. Had to be. If there’d been something wrong, I would have still been able to see some kind of evidence of it.

Wouldn’t I?

“Well, go on, Faith. Show the man in, would you?”

I nodded. “Sure thing, sir.” I backed out of the office, flashing the reporter a nervous smile as I turned to face him. Even after the little weirdness with the doctor, he was still as sexy as all get-out.

“He ready?” Sam asked.

“Sure is,” I said as I stepped aside.

The reporter came through, and something about the way he moved just reminded me of a predator. It was kind of scary. But in a good way. I could practically see his muscles flexing beneath his slacks and long-sleeved shirt as he walked past me, the smell of his manly scent, like a combination of some sort of motor oil and a spicy incense, filling my nose. All thoughts of Dr. Lawrence’s little episode were shoved right out of my head.

I don’t know if the heater suddenly kicked on, or if it was just me, but I felt a sudden flush of heat in my cheeks again as the reporter paused. “Thanks again,” Sam said under his breath, and then, before I could reply, he was inside my boss’s office and shutting the door behind him.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, fighting the urge to just stand there and fan my face. “Wow.” Now that was what a real man was like. Handsome, strong, and polite. Too bad he was just passing through town.

At least, that’s what I thought. Because, as I stood there by my boss’s office door, I heard Sam begin to ask Dr. Lawrence a series of questions.

And, for the first time in my six months at the county morgue, I heard my boss begin to lie.