Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviewed (and mailed) asking for more chapters: they're the reason you're reading this. At this rate, though, the story might well be complete in, say, 2010. :o)
***4***
Jesse stumbled out of bed, heart racing, but the image of the murdered man, at once white and dead and whole and alive, remained. His legs tangled in the sheets and he fell. The hard cold floor jolting the memory away and for a second, he was elsewhere, on another floor. He could feel the dirt digging into his skin and there was a burnt, acrid smell.
And then the sensations vanished and for a moment, Jesse lay there, trying to make sense of where he was.
The hospital…
And it was 2002. 1998 was a lifetime ago. A whole millennia ago; nothing could hurt him now.
He grabbed the bed and hauled himself up. His legs felt jelly-like and he sank back down on the bed. His mouth was dry and the silence of the hospital room was almost unreal.
Memories…
That's what Mark thought was happening to him and as much as Jesse wanted to argue with that hypothesis, he knew as doctor that the diagnosis was a valid one. He knew something of the mechanics of traumatic amnesia and regained memory, from his student days, but advanced psychiatrics was hardly his specialty. What he did remember was that emerging memory, as with most medicine, it all boiled down to the individual. Some people regained their memory slowly, sometimes quickly and it was rarely neither coherent nor linear. But you were lucky to regain all your memories.
Of course, in his case, he knew he would have been lucky to not remember at all.
Jesse got back under the covers and lay down. He put his head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. Then he turned onto his side and closed his eyes.
***
Steve looked over his father's shoulder as Mark read the release forms for the body of the John Doe. It didn't look any different. There was nothing to suggest it wasn't official. It was signed and dated and would probably had been filed and forgotten about by now if they had not been interested in the corpse.
"Guy had all the credentials." The orderly was saying, obviously not prepared to take the blame from losing the body. "How was I supposed to know?"
Steve looked at him. "Did you see the vehicle? Do you remember the license plate?"
"Ordinary black meat locker." The guy shrugged. "Same old, same old. I seen so many of 'em. Didn't take a proper look, you know?"
"Can you at least give us a description of the man who signed this form?"
"Short, I guess. In his fifties, maybe. Hard to tell." The orderly shrugged again, not caring. "It's probably just a mix-up. I mean, who'd want the dead bum?"
Amanda nailed him with her eyes. "Is that what you going to tell his family?"
The orderly looked shamefaced.
"He does have a point though." Steve said. "Why would someone steal a corpse?"
Mark frowned, glancing up from the form to consider his son's question.
Amanda looked at them both. "Maybe there was something on the body they didn't want us to find?"
Steve's shoulders tensed. "They?"
Mark turned to his son, understanding dawning on his face. "Isn't it obvious?" He asked. "Paris Pharmaceuticals. They probably thought taking the body would never be noticed."
"But they figured without Jesse remembering." Amanda added. "The question is, what were they trying to hide?"
***
There was light. Harsh green and then even harsher white, and sometimes…sometimes it was soft yellow. But that was rare, and there was warmth then.
Jesse stared up at the ceiling of Community General but in his mind's eye, all he really saw was the light. The memory had nothing else, but it frightened him.
White light around him, hurting his eyes, hurting his ears…
His ears? No, not the light: the noise was hurting his ears. A single high pitch sound that went on and on and on and it didn't matter if he covered his ears with his hands and screwed his eyes up tight, he could still hear the noise and the light pierced right though his eyelids.
"Need a doc, Doc?"
The words echoed through his head and a face loomed in his mind and he knew there would be pain, so much pain.
Jesse cried out.
***
Steve, Mark and Amanda stood around the doctor's lounge table which was completely covered by files and documents. The orderly stood self consciously by the doorway. Steve had insisted on his presence, so he could ask the orderly any questions they might think of.
Steve sorted through the police file he had in front of him, trying to see if there was any correlation between that, Amanda's autopsy report and the signed release form for the John Doe which was also on the table.
Something fluttered to the floor as he arranged the folders contents in a line for Mark and Amanda to view. The orderly made himself useful and bent down to pick it up. It was a mug-shot photo.
The orderly straightened up. "This is him." He said.
"What?"
"The guy who took the body." He held out the picture to Steve. "I'd put money on it."
They all looked at what he held out.
The photo showed the grim face of Quinn Trask.
To be continued…