15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers) Read online

  I tried to turn my head a little to my right, but my neck was stiff. I heard a few bones cracking with my movements. I saw a huge room with many operating tables. On them, body bags sat undisturbed. I started to freak out.

  I grunted while trying to move again.

  Yet there was still no movement.

  My arms felt fastened to the metal table I was on. I managed to crack my neck into a semi-working manner. I tucked my chin in and attempted to gauge the state of my body. I saw my bare chest. It had severe purple bruising in the middle. I looked a mess. And, to top things off, I was completely naked. I still couldn’t feel a damn thing, though. It was as if I had invisible armor on, shielding me from the elements of earth. I was starting to feel panic rise up in me. If I wasn’t dreaming, then I had some serious questions to ask myself. One of them stuck out in my head more than the others.

  “Have I done drugs since college?” I said out loud. I was surprised to hear my voice. Even though I knew I could talk, something was different about it. It sounded profound. It sounded deep. I never had a manly voice, but now I heard it clearly. It was the loudest my voice had ever sounded.

  “I must be on a bad trip,” I said, coming to the conclusion that I was dreaming, or worse, this was what being dead was like. A clusterfuck of bad trips that resembled a night on LSD.

  “Help!” I finally snapped.

  My body still felt numb, but some feeling was returning to my hands. I moved them a little, doing the equivalent of “jazz hands” on the operating table. Then the door to the big room I was in opened, and a man holding a cup of coffee walked in. At first he didn’t notice me; he just went about his business. He put the cup of joe down on the counter and reached for something. It was a clipboard. He started jotting down something as he walked up to a table a few yards away from mine.

  “What do we have here?” he said, looking down at my neighbor.

  He pulled a sheet back, revealing a female lying still on the metal table. She was naked, just like me. She had some sort of wound to her head.

  “That’s a nasty gash,” the man in the lab coat said as he started humming the tune to CSI.

  “Doooo, daaaaa, do da, do da,” he sang.

  He then did something I was completely surprised by. He reached in for the woman’s right breast and gave it a squeeze.

  “Honk!” he said, laughing loudly.

  He pulled the sheet back over the dead woman and moved up to my table. He was too busy looking at his clipboard to see the expression on my face.

  “You’d better not pull my dick,” I said.

  The guy looked up from his clipboard and dropped it flat on the ground. A deafening clunking sound echoed off the whitewashed walls.

  “Holy shit,” the guy said.

  “Where the hell am I? Is this a dream?” I asked.

  The guy stood there, looking pale and sweaty.

  “Hello? Anybody there?” I said.

  “Um…this can’t be…sorry….” the guy said, scrunching his eyes a few times, blinking profusely.

  “Am I dead?”

  The guy put his hand on my face and started to feel it.

  “You feel warm. Holy moly…YOU’RE NOT DEAD!” the guy screamed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cell phone. He flipped it open and dialled some digits.

  “Hey, Susanne, listen, I know, I won’t forget, but listen…Jesus, JUST LISTEN! I have a stiff down here at the morgue — who isn’t a stiff! He isn’t dead!” the guy said.

  I looked up at him and decided enough was enough. I was getting out of there. This whole LSD trip was starting to, well, trip me out!

  I sat up, balling my fists in anger.

  “Where you going?” the guy on the phone said.

  “I don’t know, but this is freaking me out, so I’m out of here!”

  I tried to get off the operating bed, but I was stiff. My whole body felt sore. It was as if my joints were locked in place. But I managed to click them out of place.

  “He’s moving, Susanne! He’s leaving! What do I do?”

  I got off the metal table and jumped onto the floor. My legs felt fragile, yet strangely strong.

  “It’s been a pleasure, dude,” I said, and walked out of the morgue.

  “HE LEFT, SUSANNE! HE’S GONE!” I heard the guy say as I took the fire exit out of the building and escaped to freedom.

  Four

  My alarm buzzed at 6 p.m. I reached for my side table and swatted at the shrieking black box. The late nights would have to stop soon. I was wasting most of the day in bed nowadays.

  “More sleep,” I mumbled as I attempted to find the snooze button. But to my dismay, I couldn’t find it.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, opening my eyes and grabbing my alarm clock. The digits on the face of the alarm read 6:01 p.m. I pressed the alarm switch, and the buzzing stopped. I looked around my room and noticed the sun hadn’t set yet.

  “I got to lay off the cheese,” I said, thinking that my late night pizza addiction was causing my vivid nightmares.

  I sat up in my bed, the springs underneath me piercing through the sheets a little.

  “Ouch,” I said, trying to rub the feeling back into my legs.

  I always managed to sleep in a peculiar position. Usually it would make my neck stiff and my back ache. Once, I remember waking up to my body half-hanging off my bed, and the surprise of it made me jolt, making me fall face first onto a half-open pizza box. That was another reason to give up the pizzas.

  I yawned a few times and turned my bedside table lamp on. The room took on a light tinge of yellow as the energy-saving bulb flickered a few times.

  “Time for a shower,” I said, getting out of bed and stretching.

  My joints felt just as stiff as they did in that crazy dream I had. I couldn’t believe how dog-tired I felt. It really did feel like I had just run a half-marathon.

  “Stretches at seven,” I said to myself. That ought to fix the “old man” syndrome I was feeling. I could hardly walk at all.

  I walked out of my small bedroom and down my narrow hallway. On the walls on opposite sides were pictures of me running track and some medals that I had framed. It was what I called the “HALL OF LAME.” I scratched my behind as I walked into my bathroom and took a whizz. I must have been dehydrated, because it was like squeezing dust out of a needle. I stood there for a good three minutes attempting to relieve myself, as one does in the morning, only to misfire and realize I didn’t need to piss. So I shrugged in confusion and went to wash my hands. The mirror on the cabinet was askew because the medicine door was half open. I grabbed a few aspirin and chucked them into my mouth. I swigged some water from the faucet and tilted my head back, slapping my neck a few times to help the stuff go down.

  “Wow,” I said, noticing how bad my face looked in the reflection of the mirror. “Someone needs a facelift. Or some sun,” I chuckled.

  I made my way into my open-plan kitchen and got to drinking some milk and making some toast. I switched the TV on and watched some Sponge Bob on Nickelodeon.

  Are you ready, kids?

  "Aye, Aye, Captain."

  “Aye, aye!” I said as I ate my toast and downed some milk.

  Funnily enough, I wasn’t even hungry, but force of habit made me reach for a second helping. I heard my answering machine beep a few times when I was eating, but I didn’t bother getting up to investigate how many messages I had. Usually, once I woke up, there would be a few messages, mostly from my mom; I figured I could do without the worried-parent act today.

  I washed my dish and swigged some more milk from the carton. I was just about to hop into the shower when my house phone rang. I decided to let it go to the answering machine. I turned the channel from cartoons to current affairs. I wanted a little news to start off my late day.

  “Hey, Derrick. I miss you. Man, I wish,” the voice said. At first I didn’t recognize it. And then she spoke again. It was my ex, Rachel. She never called. I was intrigued, so I pulled a chair
up to my phone and sat down, staring at the receiver, waiting for Rachel to continue her message.

  “It’s just, we had so many good times…and now they’re gone…I wish I could have told you how much you meant to me…how much you mean…I love you, baby. Never forget that. Never forget me. One day we’ll see each other again.”

  I was just about to pick up the receiver when the phone went dead. I looked at it in confusion. I noticed the flashing box next to my landline. It read “62 messages.”

  “What the heck?” I said out loud.

  Normally, people would avoid me. I preferred solitude when training and doing my studies. But suddenly I had sixty-two voice messages on my phone that weren’t there the day before. Something was very wrong.

  “Someone died?” I asked myself as I pressed “play.”

  “You have sixty-two messages. First message: 8 a.m., June 16th, 2014.”

  Five

  I sat there, listening to the first couple of messages. The usual suspects were on the other end.

  “Just Dad calling. Made a reservation at Tanoolies tonight. Be there or be square, bub!”

  My dad was usually cringe-worthy on the phone. He always tried to play the cool dad. Sadly, it wasn’t working out for him.

  I reached for the pack of gum beside my phone and started to chew. I was waiting for that damn automated bot to get to the fourth message.

  “Hey, Derrick. Get down to Fred’s tonight. We’re having a pizza fest while watching a Cheers marathon!”

  That was my best friend, Chad. He was always asking me to do things that involved pizza, TV, and beer. Shame I was thinking of axing pizza from my diet!

  “Sixth message, 12 p.m., June 16th, 2014.”

  “Hey, Derrick. Wishing you luck on your pre-marathon run. Half the town will be there.”

  I stopped chewing my gum. It nearly lodged in the back of my throat. I started to breathe heavily.

  “Pre-run? I don’t remember…. Oh…can’t be,” I said.

  I skipped the message and went to the next.

  “Just saw you fly by us.” It was Chad once again. “Looking good, my man. Keep up the great work!” he said.

  Message 8 was when everything came crashing down on me.

  “Oh, God, Derrick. I love you so much….” It was my mom. She was crying. “Please make it,” she said.

  What the hell was happening? Was I going insane?

  And then the TV came into focus behind me. The news came on. I looked at the time. It was 7 p.m. I turned to face the TV when I heard my name coming from the speakers. Suddenly the room became very small, and my chest started to ache.

  “Tributes are pouring in for L.A. County runner Derrick James Smith, who collapsed and died yesterday at a half-marathon. He was twenty-four years old,” the news anchor said.

  I leapt off my seat and ran to the kitchen, pulling up another seat next to my TV. On the TV, there was some footage of a helicopter landing in a nearby park. It then cut to them carting a guy in running gear down the street and into the chopper.

  “No,” I said, looking on in horror. The news channel cut to an interview with some familiar faces. My best friend Chad was crying as the news reporter asked him some questions.

  “Derrick was a great guy. All he ever wanted to do was become a Team USA athlete. He had the core ability to do so…. It was his damn heart…he had plenty of it…but then….” Chad stopped talking and broke into tears. The channel cut to the news anchor, who was staring at the camera. She was a pretty young lady. It looked as if she was moved.

  “A sad day for L.A., and a sadder day for sports. Our condolences to the family of the Olympic hopeful.”

  I got off my chair and felt unsteady. The room was caving in on me. The whole world thought I was dead. But I wasn’t. I was alive. I was in my kitchen. I just ate some toast, goddammit! Dead men don’t eat toast or watch Sponge Bob.

  I could hear my voicemail playing in the background.

  “Rest in peace, buddy,” I heard my head coach say.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” I said, running to my bathroom and checking my image in the mirror. I looked alive. Why was everyone saying I wasn’t? Was the dream real? Did I really die? And why was everyone leaving messages on my house phone? Is that what you’re supposed to do when somebody dies? I mean, I’d seen P.S, I Love You as well, but this was insane!

  I closed the medicine cabinet and noticed the pale look on my face. It was as if the life had been sucked out of me. It was true. I was dead. At least, I looked it.

  “But I’m here. I’m standing right here,” I cried. But I couldn’t. No tears would form. My eyes looked dry and strained. I noticed my chest. It was bruised black and blue. I touched it. I felt ice cold, yet a little warm. Like I had been left out in the sun and got over-ripe. My whole body looked jaundiced. I had a very yellow tinge to my skin.

  “Oh, God,” I said, at a loss for words.

  The first thing that came to my mind was my dream. I died of a heart attack in it. The world around me believed I was dead. The news showed footage of me being carted away in a chopper. I saw my own hand poking out of the sheet they put on top of me. It had a red band around my wrist. The same one I was wearing now.

  “Please be a dream,” I said, slapping myself in the face. Blow after blow, I felt no pain. I punched myself as hard as I could. Still no pain. I pinched myself. No pain.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I screamed.

  I fell to my knees and burrowed my head into the carpet. I was trying to cry, but I couldn’t manage it. Everything human about me was gone. I was a walking shell of my former self. Was I a ghost? Was this really happening?

  I got back up and stared at myself in the mirror. I touched the cabinet. I could still feel and touch. The cabinet felt cold and grainy; its wooden surface felt strange to me. I touched the mirror, leaving a smudge behind.

  “I’m not a ghost,” I said.

  Then something struck me. If I was dead, I wouldn’t have a heartbeat. I wouldn’t have a pulse. I put my index and middle finger on my neck, trying to feel for one. No matter how hard I tried, there was no pulse. I was clinically dead.

  “This can’t be,” I said, realizing how impossible such a feat was. Everybody had a pulse. Everybody living, that was.

  I was a track runner, so finding my pulse was usually easy. At rest, I measured at about fifty beats per minute. Wasn’t fantastic compared to some athletes, but I did have a defect.

  I rushed into my bedroom and went searching for my heart-rate monitor. Every runner has one. It’s one way to track your resting and exerting rates. I put it on my chest and strapped the Velcro on. I turned the gizmo on and pressed “START.”

  The thing beeped a few times, and after a second or two read “ERROR.”

  “Shit, just work, goddammit,” I said, pressing “START” once again.

  It returned another error message. I unstrapped it and flung it at the wall. It broke into shards of plastic and splintered onto the floor.

  I rushed out of my room and went to my phone. I heard the thirteenth message play.

  “Oh, God, I just wanted to hear your voice…I miss you so much,” the voice said, and hung up.

  Another message began to play. By the time I picked up my receiver, I had unplugged the answer machine.

  I dialed 911.

  “911, what’s your emergency?” a bored voice said in my ear.

  “I need a fucking ambulance as soon as possible,” I bellowed into my house phone.

  Six

  The guy on the phone said the paramedics would be with me in three minutes. I stood near the door, waiting for them to knock. But something told me to put some clothes on, so I did. I rushed into my bedroom and put some slacks on. I shoved a vest on and put a hat on my head. It was a baseball cap with my college’s football team’s logo embroidered on it. The irony of me getting dressed when I suspected I was dead wasn’t lost on me.

  “Even in death one needs to look decent,” I muttered to
myself.

  The truth was, I had no other way of dealing with the situation. I couldn’t cry. I tried to, but that hadn’t accomplished anything. My sense of humor was still there, so I figured I’d hold onto the only thing that made me human. So far it was the only thing I still possessed. Everything else was gone. Either I was actually dead, or this was a dream caused by more than stale cheese pizzas and bad beer.

  “Grab my wallet,” I said to myself, reaching for it.

  I figured I’d need I.D. My insurance card was in the back of the wallet. I wondered if this was all real or when the paramedics arrived they would laugh me out of L.A. I’d end up eating out of dumpsters. Become one of those tinfoil-hat guys who swear the CIA locked them up and let aliens rape them.

  I didn’t want to be a nut. Either I was and this was my new life, or something else was at play here. I didn’t know which one I’d prefer, to be honest.

  A nut? Or a dead guy?

  Neither would be nice. My doorbell rang. The ambulance was here.

  I took in a deep breath. It was as if the air I breathed was nonexistent. It was lacking in substance. I felt fine, but breathing wasn’t working. My chest wasn’t inflating, even with the immense panic I was feeling. Without my normal human traits, I found it hard to distinguish my reality. It made walking hard. It made talking weird. I felt very, very strange.

  “Get a grip, Derrick,” I said, taking a few steps toward my front door.

  My feet felt dry, my skin stretched. It was as if any sudden movement I made would create cracks in my skin, making it fall off. I felt like I was wearing a very tight leather jacket whose buttons were close to popping.

  I reached my door and pulled on the door handle. I noticed my pale hands in the morning light. I looked ill. I felt like I was going to vomit, but nothing was going to come out. I coughed a few times.

  “Hello? Anybody there?” a voice behind my door said, knocking a few more times. “It’s the paramedics. Someone called about a medical emergency? If we don’t hear from you within the next minute, we will kick the door down,” the voice added. It belonged to a strong-sounding man. I opened the door to be greeted by that strong-sounding man and a pretty woman. They both looked shocked at what they saw.