Jump The Worlds

Story 5: Morgue Hauntings

A Note: I think I'll be writing in this world sooner rather than later. Yep. But this was fun and...if the muse hits I'll be writing a follow up to this!

Thank you for reading!

He could still remember the first day that he walked into the morgue that would become his career.

Like most morgues, it had been shiny clean, all sleekness and modern lines. It had been updated by the city for the simple fact that if the police department and the politicians wanted crimes to be solved, it had to be updated. Before he had joined the staff, the morgue had been moved to a temporary site in the still up and running original building that held their precinct, opening up the morgue there for a short time.

But that day it had smelled sterile: a kind of burning scent that one got used to while they worked, stringent and sharp. But it had started to be softened by the special blend of herbs that were burnt in a special holder in his co-examiners office, the man who had been his boss at one time.

The scent of cleaner or the herbs couldn't cover up the smell of death. Not completely. That special mix of decay and sadness and grief that mixed and lingered even after they had cleaned the entire morgue again. His boss had been a tall male who had been working in a funeral home before he got his degree and then job.

He knew bodies that came in all forms. He knew how to fill in the holes and how to dig them out without damaging the holes. He could spot a gunshot wound from an airgun wound after two seconds and a magnifying glass. He could tell you if someone had smoked from a young age or if they had never drank a day in their lives.

His co-examiner, Matt, had only been twenty-nine at the time and been the head of the morgue. Now at thirty-six he was still running the morgue.

It was while he was writing reports that Matt called out for him. "Yo, Benjamin, you got a moment?" came Matt's question. Looking up, Benjamin frowned and looked at his friend as he looked at what could only be a request considering the heading on the paper. He sighed, figuring that it was probably another request from one of the local covens to 'purge the evil that lingered' in their morgue. They had been doing that for the last year and it was starting to annoy both of them along with the guy upstairs who had to take the request each time it came in.

Said request was always filed the day after they had rejected it which they tended to do after a week, the absolute most time they could wait to answer something like it. It was starting to get tedious.

Matt shoved a hand through his red-brown hair as the younger male stood and came to poke his head through the door between their offices. He noticed that the other man had stuck a pencil in his hair to hold it back in a bun while a pen sat behind his ear, a smear of ink on one cheek. "Are your pens fighting back while you're doing paperwork again?" he asked.

Benjamin groaned, head dropping down in defeat, nodding before he lifted his head and walked into the room with a pout. He ignored the woman who had to be a grandmother with her age as she sat in one corner of Matt's office. She was happily showing off her power to manipulate a pair of knitting needles and yarn to knit something new. For a pretty new spirit, she had some oomph to her abilities in using physical items. "Yeah," he huffed. He dropped down into the chair in front of Matt's desk. "Is that a new request from the coven?" he asked, pointing to the paper.

Matt snorted as he dropped the paper. "Yeah. They're marking them 'urgent' now," he said. Benjamin groaned while the spirit snorted, shaking her head.

"I swear, such stupidity that you have to deal with with these new coven leaders," she stated. Benjamin stared at her with thoughtful eyes.

"Remind me to update your file with the fact that you might have been a possible coven member," he told her, watching as she nodded. She didn't actually remember much of her living life; no spirit actually did when they ended ups tuck. They had bits and pieces of her life, but apparently the little old lady had her own secrets, including her name. They still called her 'Nessa' since that was who she had come in as. But as to her true name, the key to unlock her memories, was still unknown. "Anyways, what are they saying this time?"

Mat snorted as he handed over the request, Benjamin taking it with a frown. He rolled his shoulders as his boss pulled out a bag of herbs and specialized oil mix, putting both of them into the holder that held the embers from the last batch. As they caught and smoldered, smoke starting to waft up, he read over the rest with a thoughtful huff.

The request pretty much the same thing that it had always said every time before. The coven wanted to cleanse out a great evil from the morgue before it could spread outwards and corrupt the police, and possibly further outwards. They didn't say what kind of great evil they were supposed to be cleansing, but it shouldn't be there and needed to be cleansed soon. Benjamin sighed and slumped, tapping the paper on his leg.

"Tell me, do you think that they're one of those covens that have a skewed sense of what is okay and what isn't?" he asked after a moment. Matt shrugged. "I mean, I keep getting these looks whenever I'm out to buy condoms and lube by some of the members."

"You haven't called any of the other covens yet?" Matt asked. Benjamin gave him a look before looking to the wall length window that was between their offices towards his desk. On it was several files, a laptop with a half finished report opened, and three different reports already printed out and waiting for him to stick them into the right files. "Right. Car crash two weeks ago, a serial murder with possible multiple subjects, and the usual death's that cross our tables." He rubbed at his face as he looked at his own pile of files. "What do ya want to do with them?" he asked.

Benjamin shrugged, blowing a piece of blond hair that had escaped from his makeshift bun out of his eyes. "Not a fuckin' clue." He slumped down in his chair and rested his cheek against his curled hand, watching as Nessa clicked her way through a new line on whatever she was making. "I don't think that I want them in here any time soon. You could probably request that they submit more information. At least until I can talk to some of our contacts."

"Speak with the Rarvin Coven," Nessa said, looking at them over the edge of her square glasses with a small smile on her lips. Benjamin sighed and snagged Matt's pen along with some scrap paper, writing down the two new clues that she had been able to give them.

"I'll contact them tomorrow," he promised as he stood up with a soft groan. He stretched out his back before heading to his office with the paper in his hand. Nessa simply smiled, glad that the bits and pieces that were starting to come to her could help the two young men. They were so sweet and denying that they were very attracted to each other, but she didn't think that they would last much longer. Love did power the world after all while hate destroyed it.

Matt sighed and looked over his desk, pulling the last file that he had been working on over to him. He would send the request later but he did have his own paperwork that he had to finish off after all. They would just have to wait for their decision again after all.

But if they were wasting his time, he was going to call the one who kept putting in the requests and show them the inside of his morgue drawers. Before he mangled them and dropped their bodies into the incinerator. He was beyond done with such idiots.