CHAPTER 4

Dean checked the darkened morgue halls one last time. Not because he had heard a noise—only an eerie silence seemed to fill the deadened air—but because he had to be absolutely positive that when he round the corner he would not run into a doctor, member of the staff or even a cleaner. Before arrival, Dean had snatched a doctor's coat from the trunk of his car, along with a stolen id tag that was now pinned on the material that covered his chest. He disliked wearing the bulky white jackets, but unfortunately for him he had to. If someone were to find him wondering the halls he would have a much harder time explaining who and why he was there without the uniform rather than with one.

Even though it went along with the job, he didn't like morgues. He was certain that it wasn't just him, but they seemed to have a creepy vibe about them. Dean felt comfortable in cemeteries, even at night, so he knew that it wasn't the dead body part that freaked him out. It was something else. And besides knowing that there's a killer on the loose doesn't exactly help matters, Dean thought to himself. He flinched; remembering that Sam was out there at that very moment, alone. He knew that the kid could handle himself in a fight, but they still didn't know what they were dealing with yet. Dean had his suspicions were human rather than the other, but he couldn't know for certain until he did more digging. And that was why he was at the morgue. Despite how unbelievably uncomfortable he felt in morgues, he had to examine the corpse. Just like a doctor or detective would do he had to search for wounds, missing body parts—Dean flinched uncomfortably at that thought—and anything else that may determine the cause of death. Unlike a doctor of detective he had also had to check for occult symbols, sulfur and anything else that fell under the same 'miscellaneous and largely funky' category.

When he reached the large double doors, that he knew led the spacious room where they kept the corpses that either still needed to be examined or that had but still needed to be claimed, Dean waited a few minutes before storming in. Once those few minutes had passed, he tried the lock."Son of a bitch," Dean muttered. He reached into his jeans pocket and fished for a paperclip—that ever since he had been handcuffed to a police officers car two years ago—which he kept on him. Due to the silence even the gentlest of sounds would be stridently heard. Dean frowned when the usual soft click, which gave him the indication that the lock had been successfully picked, had sounded like a fog horn. He gritted his teeth nervously. I hope no one heard that, he silently prayed before watchfully pressing his way through the double doors.

Due to the loud noises he had already made, from now on he wanted to draw as little attention to his break in as possible; so Dean decided to leave the main lights off. The spacious room was silent, and would be pitch black if it weren't for the glittering reflections from the steel trays. Dean shifted uncomfortably in his stance. If he had thought the morgue halls had freaked him out, it was nothing compared to how he was feeling at that moment. Morgues, Dean thought with yet another shudder. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a tiny flashlight—just so that he could actually see what he was looking at. He moved hastily and hesitantly toward the center of the room; toward several long steel tables that were covered with graying sheets.

He hesitated before lifting the first sheet. Dean was never usually squeamish when it came to dead corpses, but after reading what the report had said about the state of the victim's body he was feeling mighty uncomfortable. I'm glad Sam's not here, he thankfully thought. If Sam were there he would make fun of Dean for sure. Dean scowled at the idea but he knew when his brother made comments he never actually meant anything by them. It was just like when Dean made sarcastic comments…although most had to truth to them, on some level.

After several long minutes of hesitation, Dean finally lifted the sheet up just enough to reveal the identity of the corpse that lay on the cold metal table underneath. Well. "Unless this Bethany chick was an extreme Britney Spears fan, I doubt this is her," he muttered as he stared down at the colourless face of a middle-aged, bald, and double-chinned man. He briskly placed the sheet back down and then swiftly moved on to the next table.

This time, before even lifting the sheet fully, Dean checked the details on the tag that was tied loosely around the each of the corpse's right toes. "Bingo!" He moved over to the front of what was the fourth table. He could several deep breaths of the chilling night air. He felt nervous, because unlike the other sheets this seemed to be stained in dried blood. Dean crinkled his nose. He knew that whatever was waiting for him, underneath the covers, would not be an appealing sight.

Veronica Cammenti had taken up a job at the town morgue—not only because she had wanted to earn enough money so that she could finish college, but also because her dream involved becoming a medical surgeon and according to almost all her professors it was a great way to earn experience, even if it wasn't in the desired field of the medical area that she hoped to one day pursue. Granted she did not make much money there, and not only did the place give her the creeps but it had the habit of scaring off most her friends and potential boyfriends. Veronica knew she was attractive. Her thick chocolate hair with natural caramel highlights got her a lot of attention, her Italian features, and her slender frame. Never in her entire life had she had a problem finding a boyfriend, but now, the fact that she worked the night shifts in a morgue had caused her love life and social life to suffer. Veronica let out a heavy sigh. Well, she thought rather calmly. I guess one can not expect to have everything in life.

Brains came before beauty: was what her mother had stated when Veronica at sixteen had insisted that she wanted to drop out of school to pursue her then-dream of becoming a model. But for Veronica family came first, and her parents had told her that they wanted her to pursue a career that would see her past the age of twenty-five.

One would rarely ever expect to find a young woman like Veronica Cammenti to be spending a large amount of her free time—that really could have been spent partying—in the library, but she had an over five thousand word essay due tomorrow and, like everything, she had left the research and typing until the night before.

When she left the library, a chilling breeze had spring up, Veronica shivered. She walked along the long and deserted pathways. Veronica kept glancing around her; nervously looking from one direction to the other. Each time she heard so much as the snap of a twig or the rustle of tree branches it caused her skin to crawl. She shivered once again, although this time it was due to the eerie silence that surrounded her. Veronica wrapped her arms around her slim waist more for comfort rather than warmth.

Veronica wrinkled her nose. Since leaving the library an awful odor had followed her. At first she had thought it was her, but after spraying almost an entire can of deodorant on her she had known that it was something. It smelt like something died either that when someone opened a fridge and was greeted with the stench of expired meat. Veronica cringed. It reminded her of the appalling reek dead people smelled of after their bodies had decayed for a week or so. It was awful, and again Veronica trusted the smell was not her own.

She turned another corner. Her heart beat steadily increased when her eyes caught sight of the cemetery that had supposedly been there before any buildings had been built. Veronica shuddered. She had hugged herself so firm now that her long manicured fingernails dug painfully in the flesh on her sides. She winced, but still did not release her grip. Veronica could deal with the numb pain, and at least it kept her from thinking about that creepy-as cemetery. Whoever had thought it had been a great idea to build a college campus on top of someone's gravesite was an idiot. She doubted that hadn't even seen a single horror film in their lives. The mention of horror films brought her back to her own situation at that moment; walking alone at night, and passing a graveyard. "Stop being stupid," she told herself firmly. "This isn't a movie. It's reality." Besides the only characters that seemed to get hacked up those movies was the typical naïve blonde while running for her dear life in red lingerie.

So consumed in her own thoughts and fears, Veronica didn't even hear anyone walk up behind her.

"Cold?" the stranger asked.

Heart pounding, she turned to see a stranger staring back at her. She squinted her eyes; trying to make out their face. But it hadn't been much use; as their face was not even visible under a black hooded jacket they had chose it wear. Veronica stared at the stranger whose entire outfit was made up of nothing but black; black jumper, jeans, shoes, and probably black hair and eyeliner—though those last two had been just a guess. Geez who died, she thought ironically. From the build of the stranger, and the deep voice as a dead giveaway, he appeared to be male.

Veronica hadn't even answered the stranger's question, though he didn't seem to mind. She had stopped walking. She stood facing him, and her nose immediately crinkled again when the stranger came closer. At least now I know where that reek had come from, she thought. Wait a minute.

"You've been following me?" she snapped, her eyes glared.

Even though she could not see his face Veronica knew the guy was grinning. "Do you want my jacket?" he asked, not even listening to a single word she had just said.

Veronica scowled. "No," she retorted harshly. "What I want is for you to leave me alone. And I've got two tips for you: don't follow people, and the gothic look not doing your complexion any favors." Before Veronica had a chance to turn on her Jimmy Choo heels and get the heck out of there, the stranger had reached forward and clasped her wrist firmly in his grip.

She gritted her teeth. "What kind of a freak are you?" she shrilled. She pulled her wrist successfully out of the stranger's hold.

The stranger chuckled. "Funny," he said dryly. "As I seem to recall you said the exact same thing to me only—let's see—a week ago."

Veronica furrowed her brow. She didn't know what he was talking about. She had never laid eyes on this guy in her life. Even though she could not see his face she would have remembered his eerily 'stalk-me-much' ways and voice. Veronica seemed to have a knack at remembering people she tried to avoid, if possible. There was something about the stranger that deeply unsettled her. The way he talked in a hush whisper and every word seemed somewhat rehearsed. The way he slowly and carefully edged around her—like a shark that was about ready to take its prey—caused her skin to crawl.

"You know what? I have to go. It's been really nice to…err…meet you," she told him.

Fury flashed in his eyes and his nostrils began to flare. He stared at her in the deepest loathing, though Veronica had no idea what she had done to make him hate her so much.

"Go. I think not," he injected coldly. "You're going to stay here. In fact you're going to stay here for eternity under this very earth. Your flesh will rot, your bones will snap, and the earth's creatures will feast on your intestines."

She didn't know what he meant, but she understood that she needed to do something to protect himself. She began to inch away from him. "Listen, I've got to go." Her tone had been full of nothing but fear.

Again, he was grinning—she was certain of it. The stranger laughed cruelly. "You're not going anywhere, princess," he began, coming toward her as she kept moving away. "It's not just you. It's all of you. You think you can all ignore me, treat me as if I'm nothing more than squished insect between your toes. I hate you, the lot of you. And killing you, carving you up, is going to bring me so much joy."

Veronica opened her mouth to scream, but no words had seemed to come out. The stranger struck her hard in the jaw, knocking her to the ground. She groaned the instant her body had made firm contact with the cement. Veronica looked tearfully up at the stranger. A pleading looked was etched into her eyes and features. "Please," she begged. "I didn't do anything." "How can you do…" she began, but her voice trailed off. The stranger now had his pallid fingers fastened around the dark handle of a butcher's knife. "Don't do this." She cried. "Please. You don't want to do this."

The knife's blade shun brightly in the moonlight. She wanted to scream when she saw the blade coming at her. But her throat and body were paralyzed by fear. The stranger sneered. "Say your prayers, you uptight whore…"

Veronica screamed, though it wasn't due to the knife. The sound of a gun being fired had startled both her, and the stranger. He cried out in pain, gripping firmly onto his now bleeding shoulder. He glanced around to see where the shot had been fired from—as did she—and then took off sprinting in the other direction. Her heart hammered against her chest. "Thank you," she breathed, relieved.

"Are you okay," a young man's voice asked her.

She nodded. She looked up and saw kind light brown eyes staring caringly back at her. The young man offered her a hand, but she hesitated. She had trusted one to many strangers tonight. "I'm fine, thank you," she replied, and began to stand on her own. When she was back on two feet her eyes immediately trailed to what the young man was holding—a handgun. She gasped. "You're not…are you…you're not with that guy, are you." Veronica desperately hoped not, because this guy was hot. She gazed from his tall and buff physic, to his dark brown hair, and finally back to those sympathetic brown eyes.

"I'm not," the young man reassured her, along with a grin. "I just…" he trailed off, and glanced quickly at the gun he was still holding. "I'm a police officer."

Veronica breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank god," she muttered. "And here I was thinking our law enforcement was utterly useless."

"Did you know that man?"

Veronica shook her head. "No. He said he knew me, though. He mentioned something about how I did something, how we all did something. I don't know if it was just rambling…but the guy was serious nut case."

The young man nodded as if to indicate that he understood. She could tell that he wanted to run off after the stranger by the way he kept glancing back in the direction the killer had taken off in. "Listen. I'll walk you back to your dorm just to make sure you're safe," he offered. "And word of the wise; don't go venturing out here by yourself at night. It's not safe, ever."

Veronica nodded in response. "Thanks." She felt relieved that he had saved her life and offered to walk her home, but despite how cute he was—after those few terrifying moments with that stranger—Veronica doubted that she could never trust anyone, ever again.