Asylum: The Afterlife investigations #1 Read online

  Asylum

  The Afterlife investigations #1

  Ambrose Ibsen

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Thank you for reading!

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by Ambrose Ibsen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  1

  It was raining the morning I saw that kid die.

  Well, not raining, exactly.

  The weather was doing that annoying “mist” thing, loosing little puffs of cold drizzle as though the clouds were packed with spray bottles and I was a disobedient house cat getting sprayed for walking on the kitchen counter.

  I had a jacket on, a thin sweater and dress shirt that matched my khakis, and had worn my good shoes—the leather ones—but by the time I got to campus for my 11:30, odds were it was all going to be soaked through. I'd taken one look out the window that morning, remembered I didn't own an umbrella, and decided to take my chances. The Offerman building where my first class of the day was being taught was a twenty-minute walk from my front door; if I power-walked, maybe I could make it in fifteen.

  With my briefcase in hand, I started down the sidewalk, eyes narrowed to keep out the occasional bursts of mist-fine rain. A line of cars idled at a stoplight as I approached the first intersection, their windows shimmering with moisture. The droplets were so fine that the drivers didn't bother to turn on their wipers.

  The sky overhead was a light grey. There was a sun up there, somewhere, but as I passed beneath a few awnings and chanced a look upward I couldn't see it. The morning forecast had predicted showers off and on throughout the day, with clear skies in the evening. Though we were technically in early spring, recent temperatures were so low that things felt more like late winter. The rain wasn't helping matters. This is what you get for staying in Ohio, I thought. Some friends of mine had recently taken teaching positions at southern universities—in Texas and Florida—and I envied the hell out of them.

  I paused at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, and considered my 11:30 lecture for a moment. We were doing Chaucer in that one. The Canterbury Tales. I'd written out my lecture notes well in advance and had a good idea already of which students were going to bomb the final after the break was up. The material wasn't hard, but most of the students didn't seem to give a damn. My lectures were always half-empty.

  It was my first semester as an adjunct at Moorlake University, and the powers that be had allowed me to teach only a single class. Lit 240—Introduction to Literature had been the only bone they'd thrown me. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I lectured two sections of that class; one at 11:30 and a second at 1:30. The pay for such a minor workload, as can be imagined, was pretty marginal.

  No, that's a euphemism. I couldn't really support myself teaching only a single class and had to do other work on the side in order to meet my rent. Such is the life of an adjunct professor. I held out hope that the university would keep me on during the next semester—that I wouldn't end up on the chopping block due to “budget cuts”, and that they might even let me teach more than a single course. But I wasn't holding my breath.

  The wind sent me a face-full of rain, which I wiped away with a grimace. It was going to be one of those days, I could feel it. That one annoying kid in my 11:30 section was going to be there, sitting in the front row like he always did, and when it came time to talk about the reading he'd ask far too many questions. During my office hours, I'd be forced to hang out with Phil—the tenure-track professor whose office I'd been assigned to share—and he'd ask me in his patronizing way about how things were going, and what I'd do if the university didn't extend my contract another semester. And then, when all of that was over, I'd have to brave the rain again on the walk home, where I'd spend a good chunk of my evening curating responses to the course's online discussion prompts.

  I was deep in my thoughts, making the walk on auto-pilot, when something suddenly distracted me.

  There was a kid standing on the sidewalk just ahead of me. He was tall, kind of heavyset, wearing a pair of black headphones and a blue fleece jacket. Judging by the backpack he had slung over one shoulder, I figured he was a student. I don't know why I paid him any mind; he didn't look out of place, and he didn't spare me so much as a passing glance as I approached. He seemed a little distracted, maybe, bobbing his head to what sounded like pulsing electronic music, but there wasn't anything special about him. I felt like I'd seen clones of this very kid all over campus a million times before.

  What happened next, well, the authorities call it “jay-walking”, if you want to be technical about it. The kid stepped over the curb, crossing the street absent-mindedly, mid-head-bob, just as I passed him.

  Then I heard the screeching of tired brakes.

  The skidding of tires.

  I turned around just in time to see that kid take the front end of a pick-up truck to the chin. Metal pounded flesh; the sound reminded me of a soundbite from a cooking program—Wolfgang Puck tenderizing chicken breasts with a steel mallet.

  The truck hit him square and sent his body skipping down the road like a rock. He was like a rag doll, limbs splaying out and crumpling as they met the pavement. The sounds of his rolling across the ground were terrible to hear, though they were quickly drowned out by the roar of the truck's engine.

  I remember the driver had a goddamned terrible look on his face—real, undoubtable terror at what he'd done—but he hauled ass so quickly after that I didn't even get a chance to glance at his plates. In retrospect, I can't even remember what color the truck was. The vehicle hooked to the left, almost hitting me where I stood, frozen, on the sidewalk, and then punched it through a red light, disappearing into the distance.

  So, there I was, standing on the sidewalk, staring at the kid in the road.

  He wasn't moving.

  The traffic had mysteriously, conveniently thinned to nothing. A few old folks sipping coffee out of paper cups at a nearby cafe gawked and pointed from the windows, but I was the only one out there.

  The only one who could do something.

  I dropped my briefcase and ran out into the street towards him. I wasn't sure what to do at this point; no one ever coaches you on what to do when you see someone get creamed by a truck. I yanked my phone out of my pocket and knelt down beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “H-Hey, kid...”

  He still wasn't moving.

  “You... you all right?” I was stunned, but even as the words left my lips that sounded like a stupid question. “K-Kid?”

  I looked down at my phone
, the screen accumulating a thin veil of mist as I tried—and failed—to unlock it with a jittery swipe. Somehow, despite the violence of the accident, the kid's headphones were still on, sitting askew on his neck. Their edges had been worn down by the asphalt, and through them I could still hear a generic, pulsing bass beat.

  Grasping his shoulder more firmly, I rolled him up onto his side, baring his face to the grey sky.

  And Christ, how I wish I hadn't.

  I could have gone my whole life without ever seeing something like that. The sight of that poor kid's face—or what was left of it—was a real deposit to my nightmare fund. He'd done some skidding prior to landing in the middle of the road, and it'd left the right side of his face completely pulverized. Pebbles and flecks of asphalt were wedged between the raw crevasses of lacerated flesh; a bleeding eye listed lifelessly to one corner; the curvature of his skull had lost some definition where it'd been pounded in, leaving a patch of his black hair damp with blood.

  I think I gasped. Perhaps I groaned. Whatever noise I made at glimpsing his battered countenance, you can be sure it was utterly inappropriate. Two unblinking eyes, one of them streaming red tears, looked up at me blankly as I gave him a careful shake. I spoke to him again, but this time my voice didn't seem like my own. “H-Hey, kid... Hold on...”

  The whitish glow of a headlight damn near blinded me as a motorist approached. The car veered to the right, stopping near the curb, and the driver shouted something from his window. “Hey, you all right? Need me to call an ambulance? What happened?”

  At least, I think that's what he shouted. My ears felt stuffed up, every noise resulting in a disorienting echo. I turned to the driver dumbly, mumbled something in response, and then recoiled as I felt something move against me.

  The kid. He was coming to.

  A sharp, soupy inhalation cut through the cool air, and the kid arched his back. His eyes were still empty, visionless, but he seemed to be aware of what was happening on some level. His lips quivered and his limbs—at least, those that weren't broken at the joints—splayed out across the ground in search of something solid. He shook—not a mere shiver, but a full-on tremor—and a watery groan escaped his throat.

  I knew he was dead, beyond saving, well before the paramedics finally arrived and declared it so. As I held him in my arms, my heart beating so violently I thought I might drop dead beside him, I realized that I'd seen this before. This was what happened to a squirrel or rabbit after making contact with a speeding eighteen-wheeler. He was in his death throes. The body had some electricity left in it, had the slightest bit of pent-up liveliness that it had to expel before it could set about the work of truly dying.

  I don't know how much time passed. It felt like an eternity. That's a cliché that's usually bereft of meaning—people say that sort of thing when they have to do something banal, when they have to wait in line at the DMV—but in this instance, I really felt myself trapped in a moment with no clear end. The kid hitched and spasmed in my arms. I reached for my phone again and tried to dial, but I couldn't even hold onto it. My hand was shaking, and it fell out of my grasp, clattering onto the ground.

  Other people arrived on the scene; I could hear their footfalls as they ran towards us. Some came from their cars, others from nearby buildings.

  But in that final moment, when it was just me and that dying kid in the middle of the street, something happened.

  He spoke to me.

  I wasn't sure what to make of his last words, and simply listened in terrified silence as he rattled them off with calm, uncanny clarity.

  “Can you hear them?” he asked, his body going still.

  Could I hear what, exactly?

  The other people charging onto the scene?

  The sirens blaring in the distance?

  I didn't ask him, couldn't—my voice had retreated so far into my throat that I felt like I'd never be able to speak again. But I wondered what he'd meant, what it was he'd heard in that final moment.

  Even now, I'm still wondering.

  Concerned onlookers dragged me away, asking me what'd happened, what I'd seen. It was pretty clear that I wasn't going to be of any use, though, and they guided me back to the sidewalk where I watched an ambulance and a handful of cop cars pull up. There was chatter from all sides; women crying, people proclaiming the incident a “damn shame”, first responders assessing the situation with their industry jargon.

  I ran a hand through my hair, my wavy locks having caught a good bit of rain, and just stood there, mute. A police officer took me aside, asked me if I'd seen the car that'd done it—the make, the model. Like a toddler trying out a new word, I mumbled “truck” a few times.

  My nerves were fried, and I would be of no use to their investigation. Thankfully, there was a man who'd seen the whole thing go down through a shop window who was better able to articulate the nature of the accident.

  The kid was loaded into the back of the ambulance on a stretcher like a side of beef and the crowd dispersed soon thereafter.

  I wish I could say that was the last I'd seen of him. That kid, along with his cryptic last words, have haunted my dreams off and on ever since. I learned later on, while watching the news, that he'd been an art major. His name had been Will, and he'd been a third year student.

  I can't tell you if they ever caught the driver of that truck; if they didn't, then my worthless ass surely shouldered some of the blame. Had I only been more aware, had I only paid better attention, then maybe I could have given the cops the information they'd needed. A license plate, something.

  When all was said and done, I found myself still standing on the sidewalk, fairly drenched in rain, watching the traffic resume. Something like an hour had passed, and things had seemingly returned to normal. Watching the cars go by, the people returning to their shops and lunches, you'd have thought that nothing at all had happened.

  I gathered my nerves, recovered my briefcase, and took shelter under the awning of a nearby building. Thoughts about my 11:30, about Chaucer, were far from my mind just then, but I did have the wherewithal to email my students and let them know that both sections of the class were going to be cancelled for the day. I was allowed two cancellations per semester before risking disciplinary action and hadn't used a single one up to that point.

  Watching a stranger die in my arms seemed like a damn good reason to cancel classes, to my mind.

  My hands were still shaking as I tapped out the message. It was brief, but I was so rattled that I could barely form a coherent sentence. I sent it, pocketed my phone, and then started the short walk back to my apartment, where I spent the rest of the day in bed, smoking cigarettes in my underwear.

  Most of my Tuesday was spent in bed, too, except that by then I'd burned through an entire carton of Viceroys and didn't have the energy to go out and buy more.

  When Wednesday morning came and I had to make my walk to campus, I set out even earlier than usual, knowing I had some work to catch up on. I locked my door, zipped up my jacket and took off down the sidewalk for the Offerman building.

  I walked there quickly, keeping my head down.

  And as I went, I didn't pay attention to any of the other pedestrians.

  2

  “You had to cancel classes?” asked Phil.

  I nodded.

  Phil's office was small and cluttered. The desk, a wobbly, chipped-up thing, sat flanked by a chair whose height was stuck permanently at Phil's preference. There were a few pictures of his kids—homely by any standard—tacked up to the wall nearest the desk, and the drawers were well-stocked with gum, mints and other confections that he often insisted I help myself to. He kept Costco-sized cartons of gum and mints in his car, too. Probably because one too many people had called him on his eye-watering halitosis over the years.

  Worst of all was the dandruff he left on the back of the chair whenever he got up. Phil was a middle-aged guy, greasy, with the flakiest scalp I'd ever seen. He had a big nose on him, with deep, visibl
e pores, and his lips were perpetually chapped. Though a professor in Moorlake's English department for nearly five years, he hadn't learned in all that time how to dress like a proper teacher. Whether his shirts were always sized too small, or whether his gut simply outpaced his clothes shopping, I couldn't say, but whenever he leaned back I couldn't keep from glimpsing the pale, doughy underside of his beer gut beneath the untucked hem of his dress shirts. He wore vests most days, and unironically attempted to pull off a bowtie, of which he had a drawerful.

  He was supposed to be off to one of his lectures, but always seemed to have time to chat with me before ceding the office. The university didn't have enough room to give a dispensable lecturer like me their own office, and so I'd been assigned to use Phil's. Some intern in the English department had even pasted a little homemade sign to the door, printed out on computer paper, featuring my name. Steven F. Barlow, Adjunct Professor of English. I was a Stephen, not a Steven, but it was close enough.

  Squaring me in his bespectacled sights, Phil leaned forward on his desk, making the whole thing creak. “You cancelled classes?” he asked again. Then, shaking his head, his flake-ridden eyebrows arched. “That's no good, chief. They look at stuff like that... you know, before extending your contract.”

  I set my briefcase down on the floor and plopped into one of the open chairs. I had a good deal of email to catch up on and some discussion board answers to grade. I didn't have time for Phil's bullshit, but forced myself to play nice. “I know. I wish I hadn't had to.”

  “Weren't feeling good, or...?” Phil pulled away, eyeing me narrowly for a minute as though breathing the same air as me might land him with a case of Ebola.

  “Yeah,” I replied. It was easier to lie than to tell him the truth. No, Phil, I watched some student get killed by a truck. He died in my arms. “Feeling better now, though.”

  That, too, was a lie.

  Physically, I was in fine shape. Well, in as fine a shape as a thirty-year-old smoker and bacon enthusiast could hope to be. But mentally, it was a different kettle of fish. Prior to the accident, I'd been feeling burnt out, overly stressed about my position at the university and my precarious financial situation. Now, none of that bothered me much. Fretting over classwork and potential budget cuts at semester's end sounded a whole lot better to me than the depression I felt myself slipping into now. I couldn't sleep without thinking about that dead kid's face; couldn't walk down the street without envisioning each and every car as a student-killing cruise missile. I was getting to be a nervous wreck.