Untitled/ Thanksgiving Part 7
He tossed and turned in his sleep, a frown darkening his face. Once more he dreamt about finding her dead in the coffin "The Digger" had placed her in, a look of horror frozen on her face as she had realized she couldn't get out, she wouldn't make it...
The phone rang, and he woke up immediately, glancing at the alarm clock.
-2:20-
Groaning, he picked up the phone.
"Macy," He mumbled, closing his eyes once more.
"It's-it's me, Garret."
"Jordan? What's wrong? Are you alright?"
"...No...some guy just left a message on my machine...I think he's stalking me."
"Have you called the cops yet?"
"No, I haven't. You were the first person I thought of."
"Well hang up and call the cops, Jordan, and then get your ass over here. Or better yet, I'll come get you."
"No, Garret, I couldn't-"
"If this guy's serious, Jordan -and from the way you sound right now he is- he knows your home phone number, which means he knows where you live...you need to start packing, now. Call the cops, Jordan. I'll be there shortly." Without waiting for a reply, Macy hung up and then began cursing a blue streak. He didn't know what the message was, but he knew Jordan well enough to know that it had to be bad to have gotten her shaken up like this, which was rare. Jordan was pretty much unflappable in even the worst of situations, unless it came to her mother, which was always a sore spot for her.
Getting dressed, he grabbed the keys to his suv and left, practically speeding to his friends house. When he got there, Jordan was waiting for him, a suitcase in her hands.
"All right Garret, all right. I won't argue, as I was planning on doing as you were driving here," Jordan said quietly, as he walked towards the answering machine.
"May I?" She nodded as he hit play and listened to the message.
"You called the police, right?" Garret asked quietly, his face pale as the message ended.
"Yeah...Woody's gonna come over here and check it out." Garrett nodded, reassured that she'd taken his advice.
"Good. Okay, let's go." Jordan nodded and they made the short trek to his vehicle. As soon as the first blast of cold air hit Jordan, she shuddered slightly and was extremely grateful to find that Garret had the heat on in his car full-blast.
"Jordan, you're going to be staying at my place for awhile...no excuses. This fucker, whomever he is, isn't going to get to you."
"I hope not," Jordan mumbled, burrowing into her coat. "That's the last thing I need right now at the moment."
Garret frowned. "Why, did something else happen?"
"Yeah, but...it's nothing. Don't worry about-"
"What happened, Jordan? Tell me."
"This guy recognized me last night as I went to the grocery store," Jordan replied wearily. "He wanted to interview me...said he worked for the Boston Herald and that if I gave him an exclusive it would mean big bucks for all of us."
"Bastard," Garret muttered underneath his breath. He turned his hawkish gaze onto the woman sitting beside him. "So what did you do?"
"I told him no, of course," Jordan said. "He didn't like taking no for an answer, however, but I managed to evade him after that."
"I imagine not," Garret replied quietly. "Anyways, I'm just glad you called me. I'm glad...that you were able to trust me with this."
"Who else would I have been able to talk to?" Jordan said, before clamping her mouth shut. Oops, didn't mean to let that slip.
"What do you mean? You can talk to Lily, Bug, Nigel, your father, Woody..."
"It's different."
"How so?"
"Can we talk about this later? Please?" She stared gloomily out the window. "Right now I just want to..." She trailed off, not finishing her sentence.
"'Just want to' what?" Garret said softly, risking a pitying glance at his friend before turning his attention back onto the road.
"I just want to escape. I don't want to have to worry about my father, about my job, about made for fucking T.V. movies, about some psycho that's fixated on me. I just want it to stop."
"I wish I could do that for you, Jordan...I wish I could make it stop," Garret replied quietly as they came to rest at a stop sign. "But I can't, unless you let me help you."
Jordan didn't reply as they made their way to his house.
"You're right, Garret." She finally replied quietly, throwing up her hands in a mock gesture of surrender. "You're right...all this time I've been acting like a total ass towards you for trying to help me out, and I apologize for that. This whole situation...it just fucking sucks."
"You got that right," Garret replied dryly as they entered his driveway.
After getting themselves inside his home and getting Jordan settled, both ME's decided to call it a night, and as soon as Jordan's head hit her pillow, she was out like a light.
Garret checked in on her ten minutes after she'd fallen asleep, and hearing her light snoring, her smirked to himself.
Finally, some blackmail material to hold over her head the next time I need something, He thought to himself with a shake of his head. With that thought in mind, he went to bed and fell asleep a short while later.
Walking into the ME's Office, he noticed everyone looked rather somber. Some were crying, and others looked as if they were going to kill someone.
Spotting Lily in her office, he walked in, not forgetting to knock.
"Lily, what's going on? Why's everyone look like their being laid off? I mean, I understand this is a morgue, but everyone looks as though someone's gone and died on them or something."
"Garret...that's because...someone did die, last night. We tried to reach you, but..."
"But what? Lily, what's going on? Who died?"
"Garret, there's no easy way to say this, but it was Jordan."
"...You're lying." A rush of anger filled him as she said those words. How dare she, HOW DARE SHE EVEN SAY THAT-
"Garret...Woody hasn't left her side since he brought her in, and that was a couple of hours ago. I'm sorry."
"This is bullshit," Garret replied icily, before marching down towards the morgue, thoughts rushing through his mind. This is a mistake, it isn't her, IT CAN'T BE HER...
When he plowed through the swinging doors, the sound brought Woody to his feet. He looked like hell.
"You brought her in?"
"Garret, I'm sorry, maybe you shouldn't-" Garret shouldered by him and lifted up the sheet in one smooth motion, revealing the face of his most talented ME.
All he could do was stare at the tremendous amount of damage that had been done.
"How do you know it's her?"
"Dental records..." He dropped the sheet back over his friends corpse and turned away. This wasn't right, none of it was right...
"You're right, Garret," The body underneath the sheet said cheerily. "You're dreaming...and unless you want it to continue, you'd better wake your ass up!"
Jerking awake, Garret once again glanced at the clock.
-7:30-
"Much better," Garret groaned as he mentally prepared to face another day of bureaucratic nonsense at the office. After getting dressed, he checked in on Jordan again, who'd never been a morning person. As expected, she was still asleep, and he quietly left for work, not wanting to wake her.
His day went pretty much as planned, until Lily came into his office, looking freaked out.
"Garret, can you come into Jordan's office for a minute? There's something you need to see."
"Sure, no problem...gives me a break from all this paperwork, at any rate." Following her in, the first thing he noticed was the steady sound of something dripping.
Drip
"What the hell..."
Drip
"It's coming from the package on her desk." Lily said softly.
Drip
Walking towards her desk, Garret knew that whatever was in that package wasn't gonna be good.
He was right.
Drip
Blood had formed a small puddle on the desk where it had seeped through the box, and it was sliding as far down the desk as it could go before landing on the floor.
Drip
"Who the hell delivered this?"
"Security said some local delivery service brought it...they didn't get the best description."
"Have them run the tapes, will you?"
"Sure, no problem."
Drip
"I'm going to open this up." Both of them left, and Garret headed back to his own office to grab a pair of gloves and a knife before re-entering Jordan's office where he carefully opened up the box. As soon as he did, the stench of rotting flesh hit his nostrils, and he took a step back, turning his head away.
Christ, that stinks
Drip
Looking into the box made his face pale, and his shaking hand reached in and grabbed a note, which had been thoughtfully wrapped in plastic so the other item wouldn't ruin it.
Drip
"Yeah, there gonna run the tapes, Garret," Lily came back in, looking worriedly at first him, then the box. "What's that?"
"A note..."
"Well? What's it say?"
Drip
"'I'm looking forward to our first meeting together. Hope you are too...this one wasn't and look what happened to her.' Christ." His expression turned into sickened disgust as he looked into the box again.
Drip
"Garret, what's in the box?"
He closed it, and turned towards her, his face pale.
"Some poor woman's head."
Drip