Chapter 19
The Whisper Aid is a very safe tool. In three years of field use, it has shown no adverse effects on operators.
—Methods of Modern Ghost Hunting: A Tactical Guide to Containing and Vanquishing the Dead by Donald Dellman
The hospital entrance is teeming with people: nurses rushing through automatic doors, visitors clutching gift bags, patients being wheeled toward waiting cars.
As we make our way across the lobby, DJ pulls out an old-timey ear trumpet roughly the size of my closed fist with a skinny tube running from the end.
“The tube plugs into the earpiece,” DJ says, showing me how to attach the tube to a clear port on the earpiece. “Then you aim the cone at the body, and the device amplifies the sound, like a hearing aid.”
“It’s not exactly low profile.”
“No.” She heads toward the elevator bank and presses the button. “And it has to be close to the body to work, which makes this challenging.”
The elevator doors open almost immediately, and we step inside with a tired-looking nurse clutching a coffee cup. I watch the floor numbers tick down, trying to process everything.
“Wait, so—” I keep my voice low. “Why can you hear death echoes but not talk to ghosts?”
DJ glances at the nurse, who’s staring at her phone, then leans closer to me.
“Death echoes are residual energy. They’re basically recordings left behind on bodies—like ectoplasm but made of sound instead of slime.
All of us can hear them—with the right tool—just like all of us can see and feel ectoplasm. ”
I wonder if normal people can see ectoplasm. What would they think it was? Aloe gel? Frozen hand sanitizer? Congealed lube?
The nurse gets off on the second floor. DJ straightens, shifting from friendly to all-business.
“Okay—game time,” she says. “From here on, I do all the talking. If someone addresses you, answer as briefly as possible. Student researchers are expected to be somewhat socially awkward, so silence works in our favor.”
“Bold of you to assume I’m not socially awkward myself.”
“Good thing you’re not yourself right now.”
True. I used to love acting in middle school for exactly this reason—getting to be someone else for a couple of hours, maybe someone who was better at making friends than I was, and someone other people wanted around.
But this is completely different. There’s no script to what we’re doing now, and very real consequences if we mess this up.
My palms are sweating, and I rub them on the front of my skirt as we step out into a hallway.
The smell of bodily fluid lingers despite heavy disinfectant.
DJ’s heels click against the linoleum with this confident rhythm that makes me straighten my shoulders and try to match her stride instead of tiptoeing like I’m afraid of waking the dead.
Which, given where we’re going, might be a reasonable concern.
A set of double doors looms ahead with MORGUE stenciled across them in no-nonsense block letters. In an office next to it, a white woman with steel-gray hair twisted into a bun hunches over a computer.
DJ knocks. “Excuse me?”
The woman looks up.
DJ waves. “Hi. We’re here to watch the autopsy of the two homicide victims who came in three days ago.”
“Nobody told me about any research team.”
“Really?” DJ asks. “Richard Rossi from our department would have sent you an email. Should be in your inbox.”
The woman makes an irritated sound and clicks through her computer with the enthusiasm of someone forced to troubleshoot their printer.
Sure enough, she finds it and makes a phone call.
In a couple of minutes, a guy in scrubs appears and leads us through a series of hallways that all look the same.
He hands us disposable gowns, masks, and gloves, giving us a very stern lecture about not touching anything before leading us to an autopsy room.
A petite Japanese woman stands near two examination tables, already covered head to toe in blue disposable material. Her dark eyes assess us over her mask as we enter.
“Dr. Kimura,” our escort says. “Research students here to observe.”
I step forward, but Dr. Kimura’s voice cuts across the room before my foot hits the ground. “Behind the yellow line.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, shuffling backward.
Dr. Kimura pulls back the first sheet, revealing a pale man with light brown hair and closed eyes. Greg. It feels strange to see him in person after seeing him in so much detail during the team meeting. Almost like a sad version of seeing a celebrity in real life.
I wonder if that’s how people feel when they recognize me.
I knew people go still when they die, but nothing prepares you for how still they become. Dr. Kimura confirms he’s dead with an EKG, which seems redundant given the circumstances, but I guess it’s good to be thorough when you’re about to cut someone open.
Dr. Kimura slices from the shoulders to the center of the chest, then down the middle in a Y-shape. The sound is wet like tearing fabric.
I swallow hard against the acid burning the back of my throat.
Some stranger in scrubs laid my family out on tables like this one, and they would’ve made the same cuts and pulled back the skin in the same way.
I can almost feel the scalpel digging into my own chest, the cold bite of metal finding bone.
I reach for the dog tags, but they are so deeply buried under layers of disposable material that I can’t get to them. Cold sweat beads along my hairline, my pulse hammering against my throat like it’s trying to punch its way out.
Stop it. You’re okay.
“Evidence of ante-mortem amputation of the right pinky finger,” Dr. Kimura dictates into the microphone hanging above the table.
I glance at DJ, whose eyes have gone wide behind her mask.
Dr. Kimura looks bored. I wonder how many bodies it took before she stopped seeing bodies as people and started seeing them as meat and bone to be inventoried, before she could talk about severed fingers without her voice shaking.
I move closer to DJ, trying to barely move my lips as I ask her, “How are you going to get closer?”
“I’m trying to figure that out.”
I scan the room, looking for anything that might help. I can’t let us leave here without something to show for it.
I can hear something… not exactly a sound, but more like a vibration, like that hearing test I used to do at the pediatrician, when the tone was so high-pitched I could feel it more than hear it.
Wait.
Could it be a death echo? Could the ability to talk to ghosts allow me to hear death echoes better than DJ can?
Maybe this is the one useful thing I can do for these people. I’m not smart like Benji or Zoey. I can’t fight ghosts, at least not yet. But I can listen.
I take a step over the yellow line.
DJ’s arm shoots out, blocking me. She doesn’t even look at me, just keeps her eyes on Dr. Kimura.
I lean in close enough to her that my shoulder presses against hers, keeping my voice barely above a breath. “I can hear something. Coming from the bodies.”
DJ’s head turns just slightly. “Hear what?”
“Scratching.”
The word comes out way louder than I meant it to. Dr. Kimura’s head snaps up, her eyes pinning me like a bug to a board. I hold up my hand in an apology.
Only once she has returned to her work do I practically press my mouth against DJ’s ear. “Let me try using the cone.”
“What? No way.”
“I’ll be subtle.”
“You just announced to the entire room that you’re itchy. I wouldn’t call that subtle, and, besides, it won’t work from this far away.”
“Can I just try?”
Maybe it’s the desperation in my voice, but DJ reluctantly slips the cone into my waiting hand.
I pretend to adjust my hair as I feel around my ear with the tube, locate the port on the earpiece, and plug it in.
Every tiny sound amplifies in the room. The clinking of medical instruments echoes like pots and pans clanging together.
The scalpel cutting into flesh turns into squelching and ripping that makes goosebumps rise on my arms.
I pretend I’m stretching my arm and aim the listening cone at the bodies, straining my ears until my head pounds with the effort, and focusing on the two bodies laid out in front of us. I’m about to give up when it hits me: a voice so close it could be whispering directly in my ear.
I’m so sorry.
Something clamps down on my front tooth and yanks.
The pain is so immediate that I can’t even scream. Every nerve ending in my mouth burns as metal scrapes against my gums, grinding against bone. I gasp, sucking air through my teeth, and slap my hand over my mouth as my tooth is ripped out of my gum.
This is Greg’s pain. It’s not my pain.
Except it absolutely fucking is.
I turn away from the table and yank down my mask, reaching into my mouth with a gloved hand. My fingers probe, expecting a gaping hole or blood or something, but my teeth are all intact.
Another wave of pain hits me like a sledgehammer, and I bite down on my fingers to keep from making a noise.
DO IT ALREADY!
There’s no space between Greg and me. Someone’s screaming inside my head, and I can’t tell who. I’m Greg, and I’m me, and the pain is so bad my legs are going to give out.
DJ’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Eden?”
I pull the mask back up with shaking hands, trying to focus on anything but the taste of copper that isn’t really in my mouth. Another tooth gets yanked out, and I buckle over.
A different voice cuts through. This one is calm and conversational.
You may begin.
Something sharp pinches my pinky. I glance down at my hand, seeing nothing but feeling the blades digging in hard, finding the joint, applying pressure until—
The bone breaks. I can feel the stump pulsing hot blood that isn’t there.
“Eden?” DJ’s in front of me now, both hands gripping my shoulders, her face swimming in and out of focus. “Eden, what’s happening?”
I try to tell her, but all that comes out is this strangled gargling sound.
“What’s wrong with her?” Dr. Kimura’s voice cuts through the fog, but nothing feels real compared to the pain.
Need a ride?
Those words couldn’t be from the trial, but the voice is the same: the same cadence, the same helpful tone masking something rotten underneath.
“I’m sorry,” DJ says. “She’s not feeling well.”
“You need to leave.”
Someone takes my arm, but DJ steps between us, her voice hardening in a way I’ve never heard before. “Get your hand off her.”
The brass cone slips from my fingers and hits the floor with a ping that echoes through the room. The second it leaves my hand, the pain eases.
“What’s that?” the guy who escorted us here demands, gesturing at the cone.
“My lucky charm,” DJ says. “Clearly, it’s broken.”
DJ scoops it off the floor and wraps her other hand around mine, already pulling me toward the door.
My legs wobble as DJ drags me along. The ceiling panels of light blur together as I stumble after her through endless doorways until we burst into the parking lot.
The air is sharp and clean and feels so good I could cry.
I spot the van through the blur of tears I’m fighting back, but I only make it a couple of steps before my legs give out.
Asphalt shreds through the first layer of skin on my knees, but the feeling is dull compared to the pain still throbbing in my mouth.
I shove the pain down as far as I can get it. Pain is information.
“Jesus Christ.” Griffin appears out of nowhere, sliding an arm under mine, and guides me to the open back door of the van.
I try to pull away, determined to handle this myself, but my body stages a rebellion and I end up leaning into him harder than before. I practically collapse into the van, my scraped knees stinging.
I rip the mask off my face and remove the hair net. My hair tumbles down around my shoulders. So much for all that hairspray.
Griffin crouches in front of me. “What the hell happened in there?”
“I heard him.”
“Who?”
“Game Master.” I can barely keep my drooping eyelids open. “I felt Greg’s pain.”
DJ stares at me like I’ve announced I can speak fluent dolphin. “The Whisper Aid only amplifies sounds. You shouldn’t feel any pain.”
I want to ask questions, but my brain feels like it’s been put through a blender, and every word I try to form dissolves before it reaches my mouth.
I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth, willing the taste of copper to disappear.
I lock my elbows against the van door, refusing to let myself slump even though there’s an alarm in my head screaming at me to lie down.
“I talked to a ghost yesterday,” I say. “Maybe that’s why?”
“You can talk to them?” DJ’s voice pitches up. “Like, have actual conversations?”
I nod, gripping the lip of the van door as the world tilts sideways.
DJ’s mouth opens and closes. “Okay, but—Eden, that’s not possible. Only Nico can do that—and even he’s never experienced anything like what just happened to you.”
Why can’t Nico do this? What’s he going to say when he finds out I can?
I close my eyes, trying to sort through the borrowed memories. The teeth… the… pliers. I touch my pinky finger, remembering the sensation of metal finding bone.
Wait.
My eyes snap open, and I sit up so fast that black spots dance across my vision. “Greg had his finger cut off.”
DJ nods. “I don’t think the teeth pulling was the only trial.”
He’s escalating. Didn’t Nico say the ghosts only have the bad parts left? It would make sense that the Game Master has gotten worse after death. What will that mean for the next couple he grabs?
But there’s something else. Something tickling the edge of my memory.
“He offered them a ride,” I say, putting the pieces together. “That’s how he kidnapped them.”
“Why would two grown men take a ride with a total stranger?” Griffin asks.
“Taxi,” I say, glancing between DJ and Griffin. “I think the Game Master was driving a taxi.”