Leave the Living (2 page)

Mick woke, shaken that he hadn’t known he was sleeping, as the plane dropped the last few feet and touched the runway, the tires beneath him screaming their protest. The wind howled against the plane’s aluminum hide, clawing for a way to get into the cabin.

Warren airport was two strips of tarmac laid side-by-side and intersected with two other smaller runways, forming a giant hashtag in a clearing set just far enough from the waste water treatment plant so the passengers wouldn’t see the massive block building that filtered the town’s refuse but close enough to notice its stench whenever boarding or disembarking from the aircrafts.

Mick caught the sharp tang of sewer, there and gone, as he climbed out of the plane and funneled along with the other dozen passengers into the high-ceilinged terminal. How long since he’d been here? A year? Two? His father had flown down for Aaron’s seventh birthday last fall. Before that, he couldn’t remember when he’d been up to see him.

“These your bags, sir?”

Mick came out of his trance, his fingers numb from holding the straps of his carryon. The customer service agent pointed at the black suitcase waiting on the stainless-steel baggage claim. “Yes, thanks. Sorry. Do you know when the car rental kiosk opens? I see there’s no one there now.”

The young man in the blue polo smiled. “Sure do. I’m the agent over there too.”

Mick followed him to the desk where he filled out the necessary forms, opting for the SUV instead of the more economical midsize car.

“Smart, I’d say.”

“What’s that?” Mick asked, holding his hand out for the keys.

“Going with the four-wheel drive. They say we’re supposed to get more snow through tonight, a continuous storm.”

“Yeah, better safe than sorry.”

“You from around here?”

“Not anymore,” Mick said, taking the keys from the man’s hand.

The cold air bit harder than it had through the flimsy gateway on the tarmac, and he shivered as he jogged across the drifted parking lot to the Chevy Tahoe encased beneath six inches of snow. After cleaning the vehicle off, his hands buzzing with cold, he headed onto the access road that ran parallel to the long, blowing field of runway.

The town of Warren boasted a population of five thousand according to the green sign outside the city limits. He doubted it was more than three now since the paper mill had closed its doors last spring. The mill was the main employment for the area, carrying the people who didn’t rely on tourists during the summer months. But it was gone now, shuttered and locked, its massive space quiet and still. His father had relayed the news over the phone to him with sadness in his voice. Several of his close friends were moving away, searching beyond Warren’s borders for employment that the little town could no longer provide.

Mick reached out and switched on the radio. A song filtered in through the Bose surround sound, and he couldn’t help but shake his head. The radio was tuned to the only major station in the area, and it was playing a song that the disc jockeys had pumped continuously his senior year in high school. Nothing changed here. He let the familiar waves of memory wash over him and fill him with a melancholy that was separate from the sharp edges of grief. His youth was gone, faded like the workers at the mill.

He flipped the radio off and continued the drive in silence with nothing but the buffeting wind and the crackle of snow beneath his tires for company.

3

Warren appeared through the blowing snow, signified by a single stoplight. The road he was on became the town’s main street, which intersected with Highway 2 running east and west a mile farther on amidst the heart of Warren. But for the most part, the small burg was a straggled and ill-planned mess of cobbled shops and buildings that lined the road he was on. Outlying the stores were neighborhoods, the poor on the left, the less poor on the right. Mick watched the stoplight. It didn’t blink in a metronomic signal like he’d almost expected it to but changed systematically, allowing the cross traffic of a single truck to turn left and head past him out of town. He waited, watching the road, snow swirling in delicate eddies as if he were not on blacktop but at the bottom of some frigid river.

A single honk sounded from behind, and he glanced in the rearview seeing nothing but the intimidating grin of an eighteen-wheeler’s grille. The light was green, and he pulled forward, leaving the big truck in a flurry of snow.

Warren swept by him on either side, and he noted several more C
LOSED
signs on business doors than there had been the last time he visited. The town was dying, gasping its last breaths. And somewhere in the back of his mind, he vowed never to return here once everything was in order and his father was buried.

The sheriff’s office was a squat building made of weather-stained brownstone attached to city hall on the corner of the only major intersection in the town. It sat beside its larger counterpart like an ugly afterthought. A single cruiser idled beside the curb, a haze of exhaust blooming in the freezing air.

Mick hurried to the duel swinging doors through the weather, instantly chilled. He cursed himself for not bringing his heaviest coat and flexed his fingers within his pockets to keep them limber.

The reception area of the building was as hospitable as its outer shell. Faded beige carpet and matching walls led up to a chipped Formica counter with Plexiglas set above it, a hole cut in its middle that framed a young deputy’s face. He was clean-shaven with weary eyes that spoke of the end of a shift not far off.

“Help you?”

“Yeah. My name is Mickey Bannon. My father is—was David Bannon. He died yesterday in an accident.”

“Oh, gotcha. Why don’t you have a seat. I’ll send out the sheriff.”

Mick nodded and turned to sit in one of the threadbare seats near the doors. But before he could, an entrance to the right of the counter clacked open, and a man wearing standard browns of the department stepped into the reception area. He was short and squat, but his posture suggested his body was powerful rather than flabby. He moved with assurance across the distance between them, his mouth framed by a dark mustache pulled downward in a frown.

“Mickey, I’m Sheriff Reed. We spoke on the phone last night. Very sorry for your loss, son. I knew your father fairly well. He was a good man,” Reed said, extending a hand for Mick to grasp.

They shook, and Mick tried to smile. “Thank you.”

“You got here sooner than I’d thought. Must’ve flown out right away.”

“I did. I didn’t want to wait any longer than need be.”

“I hear you. Sad business and nasty weather.” The sheriff contemplated him with deep-set eyes, not blinking, just staring.

“So what do I need to do?” Mick finally asked, feeling himself squirm internally under the other man’s piercing gaze.

“Well, I apologize, but you’ll have to identify the body.”

“I was hoping my uncle had done that already.”

“You mean Gary?”

“Yes.”

“I asked him, but he was, well, not up to it, so to speak.”

“Drunk?”

“Afraid so.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. Okay, where do I need to go?”

“Warren Medical. You just tell them your name, and they’ll take you through the steps.”

Mick breathed out and closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping.

“Like I said, I’m very sorry, son. Just a freak accident. Logging gets someone almost every year around here.”

“You’re sure that’s how it happened? A tree fell on him?”

“Appears so. Kenny James, the mailman for your dad’s area, saw his four-wheeler on the side of the road two days ago. When it was in the same spot yesterday, he went looking for him. Barely found tracks in the snow that had fallen overnight. They led in to where your dad was cutting some dead trees. Looks like the top of one broke free while he was sawing it and…” Reed paused, his constant frown deepening.

“I understand. The funny thing is, I tried to convince him last year to switch to a gas furnace instead of wood.” Mick looked at his hands, smooth and unblemished. “But it’s not funny at all.”

“He went quick, of that you can be assured,” Reed said, putting a hand on Mick’s shoulder. “I know it’s not much comfort, but I’ve seen some mighty bad things in my tenure, mighty bad. People can suffer something fierce when they leave the living, but your father didn’t.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.”

“You’re welcome. Now, are you staying in town here? Did anyone come with you?”

“No, I came by myself.”

“Okay, your father had you and a Cambri listed as emergency contacts.”

“My wife—ex-wife.”

“I see. Planning on staying for a time?”

“As long as I need to.”

Reed stuck his hand out again for Mick to shake.

“Like I said, very sorry, son. You call and ask for me if you need anything. And be careful going out to your dad’s place. That’s a long way out, and the snow’s just gonna keep falling, if you go by what they say on the TV.”

“Thanks, and will do.”

Mick left the station and stood in the blowing cold. The air numbed his face in a matter of minutes, its touch searching out every gap and hole in his clothing. The street was empty, save for the curling snow and a hunched man holding a grocery bag in one gloved hand. A mongrel dog followed behind him, its dark head down as if searching for something the man may have dropped.

Mick climbed into the SUV and got the heat going, not realizing he was shivering until the warmth began to thaw him out. He guided the Tahoe onto the street, following it west until he caught sight of the large, blue H directing him to take a left.

4

Warren Medical was a one-level structure, designed to look modern and failing miserably. Its teak wood and glass interspersions appeared mismatched, and the polished brass trim that ran around all the doors and windows made the building look like something out of a steampunk’s nightmare.

The inside corridor was empty and quiet as Mick paced toward the main desk, his feet padding silently on the carpeted floor. A matronly woman with stacked gray hair ten inches high greeted him as he approached the desk. The smile quickly left her face after he asked her where he could find the morgue. She sent him to the far right of the waiting room where another epic hallway stretched almost to a point beyond sight. His father had always said, if there was an emergency, take him to the neighboring town for treatment because he would die in transit from the front door to the operating room in this hospital. But now he was here, somewhere in the building anyway, against his wishes, cold and dead, no longer able to crack jokes, snowshoe, or hunt deer as he had all his life.

The strength went out of Mick’s legs halfway down the hall.

To his fortune, a wooden bench was within a half step, and he slumped onto it, crumpling as if shot. He was going to identify his father’s body, in this building, within minutes. He put his hands to his face but couldn’t stand the way they trembled, so he took them away, allowing any passersby a look at his tear-streaked face. He had only seen his father cry twice: once when he’d left for college in Chicago, his dad hugging him hard beside his car, and once the night Aaron was born, after they learned he would never walk on his own.

“Sir, are you okay?”

Mick raised his head to look into the pretty face of a young nurse who had stopped in front of him, her hands on a wheeled cart before her.

“I’m sorry. Yes, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Can I help you with something?”

“No, thank you. I’m just…” He stood, wiping his face with a sleeve of his coat. “…I’m…no, thank you.”

He left her standing in the hall and was glad when he saw the sign signifying an exit to the stairs.

Mick pushed through the doors and onto a concrete landing, the stairway dropping into the lowest level of the structure lit by harsh fluorescent light. Metal banisters guarded the open air in between the staircases, and the space echoed with his steps as he started down. It was cold, and he breathed out, testing to see if his exhalation would appear in a frozen haze before him. It didn’t. He moved downward, and all at once, he felt as if he were descending into the maw of some malignant beast burrowed up from the dark bowels of the earth to camouflage itself here in the basement of the hospital. He imagined its teeth were the treads he stepped on, its black tongue hidden somewhere below.

He shook his head, trying to whisk away the horrid thought that made gooseflesh run the length of his spine.

The lights dimmed, flickering with a short buzz, and then went out.

Mick froze, his foot dangling over the next step. The darkness was complete in its totality. Swimming afterimages left by the light danced before his eyes like capering spirit energy dissipating into some unseen dimension. His foot hovered over open air, and he pulled it back, sure that if he stepped down, there would be nothing there. He would fall into darkness, only the rushing wind in his ears and the sound of his own scream to accompany the plummet.