SO COLD (18+) currently editing

Chapter 23

CHARACTER VIEWS DO NOT REPRESENT MY OWN. Please be civil in the comment section.
                  
Someone must've come in to identify the body. A long-time friend waking up in the early hours of the soggy morning, daring to hope for the hopeless future, greyed and bleakly stumbling in through the doors of the morgue. Heart sinking as they met with the coroner who had done this a thousand times before, smile overused and worn. I thought to how they'd react: Shivering from the chilled blasts of air from the air-conditioner, gearing up to refuse to identify the body as Jess until the sheet pulled back and her still bruised face was imprinted in their mind, on the insides of their eyelids every time they squeezed their eyes shut, forever and always. She'd lay there on a cold slab of metal and they'd almost expect her to break into a grin and announce it was all a big stupid joke. But time would pass, and Jess would still be deathly still, her face slack, lifeless. Maybe their voice would break: Yes, that's her, that's Jess.

My phone hummed, vibrated against the cheap wooden table, insistent like the 5 a.m., early-rising birds. I waited for the call to end but then it rang again, pressing, like a sign of doomsday; answer the fúcking call! "Hell-"

"Get Irvin out of that flat now!" James hurried and hung up. 

"-O?" I dropped the vowel on a high, questioning note.

I stared down at my phone until the screen light dimmed, my mind busy with unpleasant theories, and then I shifted back to yesterday's memory: The room blurred, shadowy and murky, the TV blinked, switching off, and the sofas filled with the memory of impatient men, knuckles popping, low murmurs, just waiting for Irvin to return. Anxiety skittered up my spine like baby spiders, long and nimbly, nestling in the small hairs of the back of my neck. I dashed up the stairs, burst into the bedroom and shook Irvin awake, hysterically, desperately, slapping his face. "Wake, dammit!" The air shifted, compressed in lungs, going stale. A clock ticked, ominous, purposeful, like the angel of death was somewhere in the room, leaning against the doorway, swathed in a coal-black, silky cloak, holding a solid gold pocket watch, manically cackling.

His fate was in the lap of the gods, tragic and woeful, and the gods wanted his head, the hanging was impending, promised like the day, unforgiving as the crimes of a mass murderer. The death squad was coming, axes hanging over their shoulder, brutish faces, gleaming greedy eyes, thorny horns pushing through helmets of dark, unruly hair... I realised I had just described Cole, duplicated him by hundreds, a fantasised army, my mind a worrier, going into overdrive, exaggerating.

He pestered for an explanation, bewildered, half snuggled in a trance, his eyes sticky with sleep. Daniel woke too, lifting his chest up from the oily bed sheets, peering, unsurely quizzical. "What's going on!?"

"Go back to sleep."

Irvin managed to snatch his trainers before I trapped his fingers behind the bedroom door. He latched on to my wrist as we got to the last step and said. "OK, spill. Tell me what's going-"

"Jess is dead. You-"

A fist hammered on the front door. Daniel appeared at the top of the stairs, insistent. "What the hell is going on?" he was loading a pistol, faltering when he heard Cole's ill-tempered yell to open the door. His eyes flew around as if some clue was hidden, a Where's Wally game, a search for answers. He trusted Cole but his friends were scurrying on hushed footsteps, afraid. I could almost see the red and green wire, like delirious cursed enemies, reaching to embrace each other, copper wires entwining, sparking, in his head, looking for last piece of the puzzle to complete the picture.

Irvin looked helplessly at me, I held out a hand to Daniel; the universal stop sign, mouthing to Irvin: "Hide."

He scampered up the stairs soundlessly, squirrel like. Daniel gazed after him, one foot still in mid-air, inches away from the next step, his mouth slightly ajar. "Hold on, I'm coming!" I squawked, bustling about, clattering, making noise to give the misconception I was clumsy and butterfingered, dropping the keys for the third time and cursing. The crowd wasn't waiting, angry, buzzing about, and demanding entrance.