Free Devil's Playground by D. P. Lyle Page A

colors assaulted her. The office exploded with deep reds, brilliant yellows, and greens and oranges and blues and hues she had never seen before. Everywhere she looked were colors within colors, swirling, blending to create new tones. Streaks of crimson lightning arched across the room before entwining into a rotating ball, so brilliant it hurt her eyes.
    Yet, she could not look away.
    At first, she sensed no fear, but rather confusion, bewilderment, even fascination. The fiery ball gyrated around the room before settling over and melting into the evidence room door. Somewhere inside, apprehension arose, telling her to back away, run out the door. But, the crimson door held her, drew her toward it.
    Using her key, she twisted open its lock and entered the windowless room. She flipped on the bare ceiling bulb and the room burst into color. Six-foot high metal shelves along the wall to her left held three rows of cardboard boxes, which now emitted more hues than the sixty-four-color Crayola box she had gotten for her tenth birthday.
    One box, which glowed a deep blood red, captured her and she seemed to float toward it. She lifted its lid, removed a sealed plastic evidence bag, and dropped it into her purse. Replacing the lid, she squared the box with its neighbors, and left the room, locking the door once again.
    She stepped outside into a world of dazzling colors and headed for the post office. People, people she knew but could not remember how she knew them or who they were, greeted her as they passed. She could only nod, unable to form a coherent response.
    When she reached the post office, now a bright canary yellow, she did not go inside, but rather skirted the building to the rear parking lot. The asphalt shimmered like a silver lake. Bolts of black and gold lightning rippled across its surface.
    Near the back door, a large cobalt blue air conditioner compressor squatted silently against the rear of the yellow building. She retrieved the plastic bag from her purse and turned it over in her hands, inspecting it, marveling at its bright crimson glow. She slid it between the compressor and the wall, making sure it was not easily visible to anyone who might walk by.
    As she returned to the front of the building, the world faded to its original colors--gray sky, black asphalt street, red brick post office. She stopped in mid-stride, looked around, up and down the street, then at the entrance to the building. How did she get here? She didn’t remember the half block walk from her office. Had she already been inside the post office? She fumbled through her purse until she found the bundle of letters. 
    A surge of dread gripped her. This is what had happened to her mother when she entered her sixties as Thelma had two years earlier. Forgetting, getting lost, repeating tasks she had already completed, until she slowly forgot who she was, who Thelma was. Was this how it began? Was she to suffer her mother’s fate? Who would care for her?
    She attempted to push her fears into the corner of her mind, but was only marginally successful.
    She hurried up the steps and into the post office. After stamping and mailing the letters, she removed the mail from the department’s mailbox, then headed toward Starbucks. By the time she returned to her office and finished her muffin and coffee, her headache had disappeared.
    *
    Sam sat on a stool in the corner of the autopsy room as Dr. Ralph Klingler finished the post-mortem exam of Juan Rodriguez. The room was cold so she wore her leather jacket, zipped to her neck. Ralph, apparently accustomed to the chill, wore short-sleeved surgical scrubs and thin latex gloves.
    The only light came from a ceiling lamp over his head, which cast a circle of illumination over Juan’s partially dissected body and shadows everywhere else. Thankfully, her sense of smell dulled with each passing minute. At least she could no longer taste the morgue’s formalin infused air. No longer had to consciously