Midnight Surrender: A Paranormal Romance Anthology

by Abel, Charlotte

  “We’ve got a Jane Doe listed in the local section of the Pittsburgh Tribune - Review. It says they pulled the body from the Allegheny last Wednesday.” Jedd raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

  “Yeah, that certainly sounds like Shy’s signature work. Where is the body now?”

  I had to ask. We were going to have to investigate the remains.

  “It’s at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.”

  Jedd looked doubtful about our ability to successfully break into a university hospital morgue. I sympathized.

  “Look at this.” Something caught my attention as I flipped the page. “Alley Cat Killings Taper Off.” I read the name of the article aloud.

  “Vagrants…” Jedd peered over my shoulder to get a better look at the article. “It would seem the Alley Cat Killer was on a murderous spree for a few days and then suddenly quit.” Jedd’s suspicious eyebrow returned. “The killings stopped just about the same time the Allegheny began surfacing corpses.”

  Jedd was echoing my exact thoughts.

  “This was no Alley Cat Killer… this was a Daeva.” I looked at Jedd and the concern in his steely blues showed me he’d come to the same conclusion. “Let’s make a visit to the morgue,” I added reluctantly.

  Jedd nodded his dread.

  The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center...

  “This place is huge!” Jedd repeated my thoughts as we stepped inside of the large hospital.

  “Well, lucky for us, hospital morgues are always in the basement. Let’s find an elevator,” I said and we trudged off into the nooks and crannies of the medical center.

  After a few short minutes we spotted an orderly pushing an empty cart intended for soiled laundry. It was just rounding the corner.

  “…that way,” Jedd insisted. “The cart had clean sheets and supplies on it. They keep all of that kind of stuff in the basement.”

  We whisked ourselves around the corner and at the end of the hallway an elevator awaited us. Before I knew it we were on the elevator pressing the button that would take us to the basement.

  “That was easy enough.” Jedd grinned with pride.

  Then the elevator beeped and dictated a digital message requesting a clearance code.

  “You were saying…” I laughed. Jedd’s shoulders slumped forward. “OK, plan B. All multiple level buildings have stairways to satisfy fire code mandates. What do you say we take the elevator down as far as we can, get off and try to find the stairwell?” I suggested.

  “It’s something… why not.”

  Jedd pressed the button to the first floor, the elevator doors closed and we began our descent.

  “The stairwell has got to be somewhere close by,” Jedd said as the elevator doors slid open and we made our way out into the abandoned lobby. “Here… but the door requires a code. Damn!”

  Just as Jedd spotted the stairwell I spied a supply closet which was momentarily void of orderlies.

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  I grabbed Jedd by the elbow and pulled him into the supply closet and shut the door behind us.

  “Liv, do you really think this is the time for a make-out session?” Jedd teased.

  “Keep dreaming…” I pretended to be annoyed by the thought of a make-out session with Jedd but I know my cheeks were flushed scarlet. Jedd’s rush of muffled giggles clarified my fears. I pulled a set of scrubs off the shelf and handed them to him. “Put these on. We are now officially hospital orderlies on laundry duty to the morgue.”

  After I put on my scrubs I grabbed a large stack of crisp, white linens and shoved them into Jedd’s arms. Next, I grabbed a pile for myself and toted Jedd out of the supply closet before temptation overwhelmed me. This was no time to be over powered by my own hormones.

  “Now what… the door is still locked,” Jedd complained in frustration.

  “Have a little faith. I bet we won’t wait five minutes before someone comes out of that door. Hospitals are crazy busy…”

  The door to the stairwell flew open as I was in mid-sentence. I winked at Jedd and this time he blushed. Huh, how about that?

  “…you two! Are you taking those sheets down to the morgue?” shouted a pair of tired and frustrated, assuming eyes.

  Jedd’s eyes looked as if they would pop out of his eye sockets as the forty-something female orderly looked us over.

  “He’s new...” I explained and elbowed Jedd in the ribs.

  “Oh… uh… uhm, yes mam…” Jedd staggered over his words.

  I’m sure the orderly thought he was an idiot.

  “Well, hurry along! They need more sheets!” she chided us as she held the stairwell door open for us to enter.

  Without another word we darted down the stairwell.

  “How lucky was that?” Jedd breathed.

  “Ye have little faith.” I smiled.

  Jedd rolled his eyes.

  The relaxed and triumphant moment was over when I came to a door labeled with a silver plate inscribed with the word, morgue.

  “Here goes nothing,” Jedd barely whispered as we entered the expansively cold and sterile room.

  Silver metal tables scattered the floor and white ceramic counter tops and wooden cabinets lined three of the four walls. The fourth wall was floor to ceiling, sparkling steel. What looked like over sized file cabinet drawers dotted the surface. I looked to Jedd and gestured toward the temporary caskets.

  “Start feeling for dark allures… Spiriter,” I instructed Jedd dryly.

  “Shell… far left corner… third drawer from the bottom,” Jedd spoke solemnly.

  “You can sense their energy from all the way over here?”

  We hadn’t even begun to cross the room yet. He is really gifted. I stared at him for a long moment. Eventually, he just shrugged. He didn’t like this part of his gift any more than I did. We made our way to the body in question, opened the drawer and pulled back the sheet. Sure enough, we were looking at a naked pair of female feet with a tag tied around one big toe. It read, Jane Doe in careful cursive script. We were about to replace the sheet and close the drawer when a strange squeaking sound startled us.

  “Grrnt, sorry to alarm you two…” It was Gert’s voice echoing from below.

  I looked down and spied a glowing drain grate. The grate magically lifted away from the floor and lowered itself to the side of the opening. In a flash Gert, Nort, Runt, Mo and Snert popped into view.

  “Grrnt, your Daeva’s been here, alright. Grrnt, he’s left shells scattered up and down the water’s edge of the Allegheny. Grrnt, it’s only a matter of time before they surface on the embankment,” Gert explained.

  “One already has,” I said and Jedd gestured toward poor Jane Doe.

  Gert and his brothers bowed their heads in a moment of silence before Gert continued his report.

  “Grrnt, the Gnomes in the Allegheny area do not believe the Daeva is still here. Grrnt, they believe he is gone.”

  “Why? I mean, what makes them suspect he is gone?” Jedd questioned.

  He didn’t believe Shy was still here, nor did I. The newspaper story about the Alley Cat Killer flashed into memory.

  “Grrnt, the dark allures are weakened and the physical bodies of the shells are three to four days expired.” This time Nort chimed in.

  “That’s kind of what we were thinking.” I nodded feeling defeated.

  Jedd pulled the folded newspaper article from his pocket and handed it to Gert. The Gnomes curved their heads around the document for a brief moment before looking at each other and scowling. Gert handed the paper back to Jedd.

  “Grrnt, this is your Daeva,” Gert reemphasized.

  Gert cocked his head to the side oddly and quickly just as we heard voices and laughter in the hallway. Before I could panic, the Gnomes magically vanished down the drain, the grate was replaced, the sheet was spread over the victim and the drawer was securely closed… and Jedd and I were standing at the opposite side of the room in front of an open linen cabinet restocking
the clean white folded sheets. In the same instant the orderly woman from the stairwell entered the room.

  “Very good! Now, we need towels on the third floor,” she barked at us.

  Jedd and I closed the cabinet door and sped out of the room. When we finally reemerged in the elevator lobby on the first floor I took a deep breath and relaxed.

  “Whoa, that was so cool! Can I take Gert to school with me when I forget to do my home work? I bet I could fit him in my duffel bag,” Jedd said half joking, half serious.

  We yanked off the scrubs we had layered ourselves with earlier, nearly tripping over them as we darted for the exit. We must have looked like two mental patients fleeing the psyche ward with tear streaked faces accompanied by hysterical bursts of laughter. We hadn’t yet decided if we should be relieved or terrified.

  The evidence...

  The evidence in Cincinnati and Nashville proved to be much the same as Pittsburgh. It had been two days since Jedd and I had any sleep so I decided we should hunker down in the tunnels for some shut eye before moving on to Memphis. The Gnomes adapted their plans as well. They decided they would push forward and scout out as many of the remaining cities as possible. It was decided that if they turned up any significant leads or evidence of Shy’s presence in any given city we would return to the place in question together after Jedd and I were fully rested.

  “This reminds me of when we used to put up a tent in your backyard and camp out for the night when we were kids.”

  Jedd smiled at me from the other side of the narrow tunnel. We were nestled in our sleeping bags with only a dim flashlight to illuminate the space between us.

  “Sleeping in a dark, musty and dank hole in the ground reminds you of our camping adventures from when we were little?” I asked with chagrin.

  Jedd laughed nervously. “Well, sort of… you look a lot different now. You’re much… taller.”

  Taller… he was going to say something else and changed his mind, but what?

  “Jedd, why are you here? Why do you want to be a part of this? Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a noble gesture, but I don’t understand why you want to take responsibility for something that isn’t your problem.”

  I had to be very careful how I worded my questions. Jedd is very sensitive to this topic and I didn’t want to have a fight with him. I just wanted to understand his part in this.

  “I’m not being noble, that’s for sure. I’m being entirely selfish,” he whispered so low I could barely hear him. I waited for him to continue, his words confused me. “This is my problem, Liv! Can’t you see that?” he pleaded with me to understand. I didn’t. “It’s you! It’s about you…” he exploded in frustration. Then he rolled over and turned his back to me. “I want to help you. I want to know that you’re safe. Is that so hard to understand?” His voice was meek and shallow again.

  Several moments of silence passed and I didn’t know what to say. So, I just whispered, “Thanks Jedd.” How lame…

  He turned his face toward mine and very wryly smiled, “You’re welcome…” and we both laughed and fell into slumber land.

  Rise and shine...

  It felt like I’d only been sleeping for minutes when I felt Gert’s short stubby fingers jostling my shoulder. I forced my eyes open to take a peek at my watch. It was two o’ clock in the morning. Jedd and I had been asleep for nearly six hours in the tunnels below Memphis, TN.

  “What? What’s going on?” I heard Jedd mutter in a sleepy voice.

  Nort and Mo were attempting to pull him out of his slumber.

  “Grrnt! The Daeva! Grrnt! It’s the Daeva!” Gert ranted.

  “What about Shy? Where is he Gert?”

  My mind was crystal clear and my sleepy demeanor vanished as I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag and pushed myself up off of the dirty ground.

  “Grrnt… he’s right above us! Your Daeva has made himself a pack of Aengels and they’re terrorizing the streets of Memphis right now!” Gert snarled. “Grrnt, we must go and kill the Daeva… now!” he ordered.

  With his last commandment we were bound above the ground into the dark wee morning hours of an empty street in sleeping Memphis.

  As we rounded the corner of an abandoned warehouse, Shy’s most popular choice of location for dining, we heard canons of shrill human screams in the distance. They were feeding and we had no time to waste. Tiny Gert strapped a cumbersome Jedd, the only human in our convoy, onto his miniature shoulders and we flashed across the pavement at lightning speed. I thought for sure this would rattle Jedd, but he wasn’t the least bit fazed.

  Nort and Snert kicked in the windows, shattering the glass into itty bitty fragments and alerting Shy and his minions of our arrival. Shy’s eyes grew wide and then narrowed again in hatred. Shy dropped the human shell whose soul he had just devoured and stepped toward us.

  “Would you like to join us for dinner?” Shy smiled directly at me.

  What a pompous ass! His body was radiating with the energy from the human he had just sucked the life out of.

  “Sorry to crash your party, Shy… but it’s time for you to die!” I screamed and plunged toward him with my blaze at the ready.

  My rage was all consuming. It is one thing to observe an empty shell, void of a soul, and entirely another to witness a soul being stolen and consumed by a monster. Just that quick, all hell broke loose. The only saving grace, in their distraction, the Aengels managed to allow the remaining humans to escape. Shy and I stood face to face while Jedd, the Gnomes, and the Aengels paired up for battle. Whoa… what? Jedd! Jedd isn’t supposed to be part of this equation. In my momentary distraction Shy lunged for me but I quickly dodged his blow. I swung the blade as hard as I could, targeting his heart, but he feinted out of the way at the last second. While Shy recollected himself I scanned the run down space for Jedd and spied him near the corner of the room defending himself against two Aengels.

  “Gert!” I screamed bloody murder. “Help Jedd, now!”

  Gert opened a fault line in the old concrete floor and the mother Earth sucked the demonic soul into her belly. In a flash, Gert darted to Jedd’s side. I had to admit Jedd was defending himself quite well. He had taken the blaze I had given him, intended solely for defensive purposes only, and was skillfully skinning Aengels into dust. Just as Jedd killed one Aengel another would thrust itself toward him. Gert was doing his best to dodge the demons away from Jedd, but as soon as he would take one down another would counter the attack. Geesh, how many were there, nine… ten?

  Meanwhile, Shy was back in the game. By this time I was in no mood for fighting fair. I focused all of my strength into my affinity for Earth, I opened up the concrete floor below Shy’s feet and watched him… evaporate into a disgusting, black, misty gas and float away? What the hell? In that instant I heard a blood curling scream from a voice I knew all too well. My heart filled with terror as tears welled up in my eyes. I turned to face my best friend paralyzed in fear. Gert speared the last Aengel only a split second before it finished devouring Jedd’s soul.

  Pesky dreams...

  I bolted up straight from my sleeping bag with tears in my eyes and strangled screams emanating from my throat. When I opened my eyes I found five large round pairs of brown eyes and one set of beautiful steely blues staring back at me.

  “Are you OK, Liv?” Jedd asked hesitantly.

  I slapped him in the face as hard as I could.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again…”

  “What the hell, Liv?” Jedd complained.

  The hurt was sincere in his eyes. I stood up and stalked down the narrow crusty tunnel alone into the darkness. I needed to get as far away from Jedd as I could. What just happened? I leaned against the earthen wall and slid myself down to rest on the muddy floor. I knew I was getting filthier by the minute but I didn’t care. I took in my surroundings. To my right lay the pathway to a labyrinth of tunnels, to my left was a single tunnel leading God knows where, and in front of me was the pathway I’d taken
away from Jedd and the Gnomes. I could hear them whispering in the distance but couldn’t quite make out their words. I knew they were talking about me because I heard my name mentioned several times and something about dream traveling… Was I dream traveling? No, I know what dream traveling feels like and that wasn’t it. Besides, I dream travel to the past not the future. Was that all it was, a bad dream? No, a really, really bad dream.

  Jedd and the Gnomes were still gazing after me with worried expressions. I should go apologize to Jedd and put an ease to their concern of my sudden mental break down. I picked myself up, dusted myself off and retraced my steps back to my sleeping bag. Jedd and the others watched me warily and silently. I suppose it is time to break the ice.

  “Hey…” I said in a small voice. I could feel my embarrassment settling in.

  “Hey,” Jedd whispered back lamely.

  So, it was going to be like that…

  “I’m sorry I slapped you Jedd. I don’t know what came over me. I was really freaked out and… I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” I forced the words out.

  “It’s OK… what were you so freaked out about anyway?”

  I could literally see and feel the tension in Jedd melt away with my apology, which only made me feel guiltier.