Haven-Resurrection
An Omen of Things to Come
Paige had just finished bundling James in his coat when Nathan heard his phone ring. He glanced at it, seeing it was Dwight, and answered.
"Yeah, Dwight," he began. "You and Lizzie got your hatches all battened down?" he asked.
"Lizzie's with McHugh. Nate, you need to get down here to the morgue. Now," Dwight got out.
"What's the matter? They ID that body?"
"Yeah-we know who it is." There was a pause, and then: "It's Duke, Nathan."
"Duke?" Nathan whispered. "His casket washed ashore?"
"Yeah. That ain't all, Nate."
"What else?" Nathan got out, his voice strained, and Paige looked at him curiously.
"I don't wanna get into this on the phone; I need to go see about Gloria, she passed out."
"Well, wait, what?"
"Just get here, pronto," Dwight finished, and hung up.
"Paige, I-I gotta go," Nathan blurted, pulling his jacket back on. "Something's come up at Haven PD, I gotta get down there."
"In this weather?" she asked, seeing the slashes of rain pouring across the driveway.
"Duty calls," Nathan said feebly, and Paige gave him a stern look, but softened, and drew him away from Lincoln and Vicky.
"I heard you say your friend Duke's name," she told him softly. "What happened?"
"His body's washed ashore," Nathan replied and Paige looked sympathetic.
"I'm sorry about that," she said.
"So am I. Dwight's being very insistent that there is something that I need to see, so I have to go. Stay here with Lincoln and Vicky. You'll be safer here than you would at our place," he half-grinned.
"All right. Be careful on those roads," she told him. "Call me when you get there."
"I will, promise." Nathan kissed her, lingering with his face next to hers for a moment.
"I love you, Nathan," Paige whispered in his ear; and just for the slightest moment, it sounded as though Paige hadn't said it-but Audrey.
He looked back at her, but saw only the woman he'd come to know as Paige smiling at him.
"I love you too," he answered, and getting one final kiss, waded his way back out to the Bronco, and set out for Haven PD.
Gloria slugged back the shot from the whiskey she kept in her desk drawer, where she was seated. Dwight had carted her into her office after she'd fainted. She was a little put out with herself-it wasn't the first weird thing she'd ever seen-but that was just a little more than she'd been expecting.
"I needed a bracer," she muttered.
"That's your third bracer," Dwight noted, draining the last of the liquor in his own glass. He started to reach for the bottle, but Gloria was too quick for him.
Stan was pacing, anxious and agitated.
"Is-is that normal?" he goggled. "What-why-" he dropped his voice to a whisper-"why is he like that?"
"You're from this town and you're asking me," Gloria cracked, pouring herself a fourth bracer. "And for the record, NO, that is not normal."
Dwight cast a nervous eye toward the outstretched morgue drawer, where Duke's body lay, still enshrouded in its body bag.
"Troubles are supposed to be gone, Nathan said so," Dwight said stubbornly.
"It could be any number of logical reasons," Gloria protested.
"Name one."
"It could be that his casket was in an underwater cold pocket, and it kept him partially frozen," Gloria began.
"That's as bad as Vince and Dave's gas leaks," Dwight grumbled. "Underwater cold pocket," he repeated, frowning at his empty glass. "Nathan's gonna freak."
"Well, whatever the reason, we need to get Duke in the fridge, or decomp is going set in quick," Gloria answered, and getting up a little unsteadily, she pushed the morgue drawer closed, her hands resting on the handle.
They heard a beep at the door, and Nathan entered, soaked to the skin.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Better give him a shot of that stuff before it's all gone," Gloria said.
"I don't want a drink, I want answers. You said Duke washed ashore," Nathan began. He spotted the opened casket, and saw that it was empty. "What'd you do with him?"
"He's in here," Gloria said. "But I want you to prepare yourself, Nathan."
Nathan drew a deep breath. He knew Duke's remains would probably be little more than a gooey skeleton at this stage, and he nodded, waiting.
"I'm ready," he said in a low voice.
"No, I don't think you are. But here goes," Gloria told him. She opened the drawer, and slowly unzipped the body bag.
Nathan audibly gasped, staggering back.
Before him on the table, Duke laid stretched out, his hair and clothes wet, but his body seemed to be fully intact. He was a sort of grayish color; otherwise, it didn't appear that any form of decomposition had taken place, despite his having been submerged underwater for almost a year. After a few moments of stunned silence, Nathan found his voice.
"He-he look-he looks-"
"He looks like he did the day we put him in there," Gloria finished for him.
"Why-how?"
"Right now, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he was situated in an arctic current, which would have helped to keep him preserved to a degree-but not like this," she continued, and smiled slightly. "Unless this miraculous incorruptibility means he's some sort of saint."
"A saint," Nathan said dubiously.
"Many things come to mind when I think about Duke Crocker," Dwight put in. "Saint is not among them."
"You got a better explanation?" Gloria quizzed, peering over her glasses.
"There's only one other one," Nathan answered, reflexively rubbing his hands on his jacket, relieved he could still feel the action. "It could be a Trouble."
"Troubles are gone, Nate," Dwight snipped. "The Armory pulled all the Troubles out of everyone."
"But Duke had died before that happened," Nathan went on, thinking. "I remember he told us that the Troubles he collected would die along with him. What if they-the aether in his body-didn't-and just went-dormant, somehow?"
"I'll run a test on him to see if he still has the DNA marker for Troubles tomorrow," Gloria promised. She looked tearful a moment. "It sounds silly-but I did check him for vitals. However he may look, dormant Troubles or not-he is still dead, Nathan."
Nathan gazed back down to the drawer. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he felt the familiar ache in his heart, knowing Duke was lying here because of him; and he gently touched his face. He felt cold, but not clammy or slimy as he might have thought he would feel. Nathan could still make out the bruises around Duke's neck where he'd held onto him, smothering the life from his friend, and he felt tears pricking at his eyes as he remembered the second worst day of his life.
"We'll put him to rest again after the storm, Nathan," Gloria told him, a gentle hand on his arm, and Nathan nodded. "Go on back home to Paige and the baby."
"So long as you ride with me," Nathan warned gently. He could see she was more than a little tipsy. But given the circumstances, he couldn't really blame her.
"Well, you'll have to take mine, because I'm too old to try climbing up in that thing you drive," Gloria shot back, and Nathan suppressed a grin. He gazed at Duke one last time and then helped Gloria close the drawer once more.
Dwight and Stan followed them out to the parking lot.
"I'm gonna make one more round and then head home," Stan called to Nathan over the wind. Dwight waved to them before he drove off in his pickup.
"Be careful out there," Nathan answered, and escorted Gloria into her car.
After he returned Gloria home, the weather had gotten even worse. The rain was coming down so hard now visibility was practically nil, and Gloria fetched blankets from her linen cupboard.
"Looks like you guys are staying the night," she told them.
"Oh, we don't want to put you to any trouble—" Paige protested, and Nathan winced at the word.
"You don't need to take that baby out in this weather," Gloria waved off Paige's protests, and Nathan had to agree.
A huge peal of thunder resounded, hard enough to shake the house, and a brilliant bolt of lightning flashed, bright enough to temporarily light up the night sky, and then darkness, as the lights blinked twice, and then went out.
"I'll go get the generator fired up," Lincoln said as Paige and Gloria soothed the fussy toddlers. "Surprised the lights have lasted as long as they did in this magilla."
Paige looked nervously out the window at the storm, and Nathan put a reassuring arm around her shoulders. She seemed unusually tense.
"Afraid of the storm?" he asked.
"A little," she replied. "It just-reminds me of something."
"What?" Nathan asked, unable to help himself.
"I don't know. A-dream I once had. It's stupid," she shrugged.
"It was just a dream, right? Dreams can't hurt you," Nathan fibbed, thinking back on the time when Carrie's Dream Trouble had wreaked havoc in Haven. Those days are over. But if they are, then how do I explain Duke?
"It was a weird dream, that's for sure," Paige went on. "You were in it."
"I was?" Nathan laughed, pecking her cheek. "What was I doing?"
"We were at a party-you and me and some other people. I don't know who any of them were," Paige began. "And-your friend Duke was there too. We were all stranded on a desert island."
Nathan's smile slipped. He knew it had to be the day's stress playing on his nerves, but it sounded as though Paige was describing what had happened on Carpenter's Knot, when they'd thrown Audrey a surprise birthday party-and ended up being trapped on the island with a person with a Chameleon Trouble.
Nathan looked at her intensely.
Are Audrey's memories-bleeding through? he wondered. Audrey?
In a darkened Haven PD, lit only by the emergency lights, rookie patrolman Danny Kendall swung his flashlight down the hall towards the morgue as the thunder rumbled overhead, making him jump.
He'd heard an unidentified noise earlier, and had figured out that it was coming from the direction of the morgue. Danny thought about all the horror movies he'd seen involving thunderstorms and dark spooky places, and he sighed, exasperated with himself.
"Quit being such a dweeb," he scolded himself. "Nobody in there's gonna get you, Kendall," he scoffed, peering through the doors, and stepped inside the room, sweeping the flashlight beam around. Everything seemed normal. He then turned to leave when he heard a bump behind him.
Danny stopped in place; and working up every ounce of courage, turned around to see who-or what-was behind him, and froze when the flashlight beam made contact with what had made the noise.
And he screamed.