Free Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre by Paula Guran Page B

“They’ve got plenty of experts in there.”
    He grabbed his keys off the table.
    “Now let’s go check on that girl.”
    And that’s what we did.
    Walking into that hospital room with Jane Doe taped on the door, it was almost like seeing her for the first time. The night I’d rescued her was a blur, and there were really only two things I remembered about her—her eyes, which were wide and terrified. And the trail of bloody burns the bikers had left on her body with those road flares, as if they’d wanted to leave her with a set of brands that marked a trail of pain she’d never forget.
    Ben had already called an ambulance by the time I got her out of
    the lake. We carried her up the access road and met the paramedics where we’d blocked the road with the police cruiser. Maybe two
    minutes later, the ambulance doors closed and she was gone. That
    was the last we saw of her until the hospital visit.
    A couple days rest had done her some good. She actually smiled at
    us as we came through the door. We talked for a while, just chit-chat.
    Nice day . . . nice room . . . oh, you’ve got a great view here . . . and look at that little birdbath out on the patio. That’s nice. I was surprised to find how pretty she was. Especially her eyes. They were dark pools, deep brown, and they shone beneath long bangs that were the same color.
    Ben asked her some questions. He was patient. He had to be,
    because she really didn’t have any answers. After a while she said,
    “I’m sorry I can’t be more help. I’m still kind of tired. The doctors say things might be better after I get some rest.”
    NORMAN PARTRIDGE [67]
    “Okay,” Ben said. “You take care of yourself. If there’s anything
    you think of, just give us a call.” He handed her his card. “Anything you need, too. We’ll be right here if you need us.”
    After that, there wasn’t much else for Ben to say.
    But she had something to say, and she looked at me when she
    said it.
    “They tell me you saved my life, and I remember that.”
    I nodded.
    “It’s the one thing I do remember. I didn’t forget you.”
    She stared at me.
    “I won’t ever forget you.”
    She didn’t blink. I was about to say something stupid, like I was
    just doing my job, but then she said something else.
    Something I’ll never forget.
    Her eyes were bright pools beneath those dark bangs as she spoke.
    “I tell myself there are other things I’ll remember,” she said. “Right now I’m waiting for them, like I was waiting for you. Underwater.”
    And maybe that’s the way it was. I didn’t know. There was a lot we didn’t know about the young woman in the hospital room with Jane Doe on the door. Some of the hospital staffers thought she knew more than she was saying. Not so much the doctors, but a couple of the nurses definitely felt that way. One of them even said the girl was in on the dope deal, and that she was just putting on an act until she could get free and clear. Ben and I didn’t buy any of that, and for one simple reason—our Jane Doe just didn’t act like any biker chick we’d ever seen.
    The doctors weren’t much help. One dealt the amnesia card on the table; another wouldn’t even use the word. He said that diagnosis was out of his league. And, who knew, it could have been that foul-mouthed biker wasn’t far off the mark. Maybe the young woman was
    some cast-off flower child, left by the side of the road after a literal and figurative bad trip of epic proportions. Or maybe the bikers had snatched her off some college campus, dosed her up and kept her that way until she couldn’t even see straight. We could have speculated until the wheels came off, but no amount of guessing was going to
    get us to the truth.
    [68] THE MUMMY'S HEART
    Me, I found another answer. It came in a dream . . . or it might
    have been a nightmare. I wasn’t sure which.
    It was 1963 again. That same Halloween night. I was a kid all over again, battling a mummy, trying to save a