Story 1245: Hide in the Morgue

The morgue was colder than death.

Juno staggered inside, head still ringing from the Siblings' silent scream. Blood crusted under her nose, and her ears throbbed with ghost echoes of that psychic broadcast. Shade locked the door behind them and slid a rusted steel gurney in front of it.

“Won’t hold for long,” he muttered. “We need to vanish.”

“Into where?” Juno groaned, glancing around. “We’re in a room full of corpses.”

Shade walked to one of the open drawers.

“Exactly.”

He pulled the tray out with a screech of metal. The body on it—decomposed, unrecognizable—slid slightly.

Juno recoiled. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s the only way they won’t feel us,” he said. “They don’t see. They sense. Motion, breath, fear. If we stay still… we become part of the cold.”

He opened the adjacent drawer.

Empty.

Juno hesitated. Then climbed in.

The drawer slid shut with a metallic clang.

Darkness swallowed her.