Question # 24

Noah’s brain didn't happen to show up in Caraway Hall with the rest of his body that day, the most important one, the day of his final.

A good thing it was open book.

Still, he wished he hadn't stayed up so late drinking and playing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. It was hard enough taking an exam on a full night's sleep with his ADHD.

The scratching pencils, erasers rubbing, pages flipping—were all bad enough, but the steady tick of the old brass clock above the dry-erase board were altogether unbearable. They pounded hard against his hungover nerves.

Three-part discussion questions were the instructor’s choice of pain this time throughout most of the exam--Noah was about to get a bad case of writer’s cramp.

This is a bloody psychological experiment disguised as a final! he thought to himself.

By the time Noah reached Question Twenty-Four, his attention span had flatlined—with absolutely no pulse, reflexes, or next of kin.

He was hanging on by a thread on ninety percent caffeine, ten percent regret, and zero percent coherent thought and yet still determined to get this one question right.

He needed the extra credit if he wanted to pass the semester. And this would add a good forty points to his final average.

Not only that but getting it right would give him the chance to see an adventure beyond the classroom. He just wasn't sure what kind it would be. Dr. Sistrunk hadn't been so clear about that.

The question required some thought, but he knew he could get it once the pounding in his head stopped.

Question 24:

Determine at least four likely causes of death under the following conditions*:

A deceased female body is found in a locked greenhouse under these conditions:

--NO signs of forced entry.

--Blunt force head trauma

--No skin beneath the fingernails.

--Broken watch. Time on face: 2:13 a.m.

--Found near the body:

--Second set of footprints in the soil—larger than the victims

--Copper coin embossed with the Rathmore University Crest.

* Hint: Not all causes have to be murder.

Noah blinked as he flipped back through endless pages of the textbook and his neatly scribbled notes from recent lectures. The rest of the test had been predictable—classic textbook. But this one question felt more real.

No forced entry, the coin, the time. What could he make of it? He thought about it and began to write. As he did, a few possible reasons came to him. He hoped he'd thought of the right ones.

Across the room, a fellow classmate named Janine sat very still, looking at her page, but not at all puzzled. Though he didn't know her well, her haunting gray-green eyes and the way she dressed in layered neutrals gave her a timeless, yet unassuming look.

Her fingers trembled faintly as her hand hovered above her paper.

But she wasn’t reading.

An image of the crime was already forming in her mind sharp as a real memory. She could envision a greenhouse dripping with condensation, a girl lying motionless under a tangle of spider plants, the faint smell of blood and copper and crushed basil.

She began to write.

……………………………………………………………………….......

When the exam ended, Noah handed in his paper to Dr. Sistrunk with a quiet nod on his way out. As always, the instructor offered not the slightest insight into his emotions.

As Noah stepped outside the exit, the quad was shimmering with a cold drizzle. A couple of female students chattered under umbrellas. As they moved toward their vehicles, they began to melt away like shadows into the haze. His own vehicle, a 1999 Dodge Ram beckoned him in the distance. He was all too eager to be home.

By nightfall, Noah found the envelope he was hoping for, tucked into the frame of his dormitory door. It was sealed with red wax marked with the Rathmore crest.

No name on the outside. No sender.

Just the invitation.

“Question correctly answered.

Come at Midnight to the old mortuary at the back of the campus. Bring no one.”

For a moment, Noah considered backing out. He was awfully tired. But then he remembered the rumors surrounding the old mortuary, and the thrill of being in a place no one had stepped foot in for decades. Some said that people could hear whispering voices through the old ventilation ducts after midnight. There was even a story about a former instructor, Rathmore’s first mortuary science chair. They say he died at his desk in the mortuary office, but they could still see his lamp on at night from time to time. So, there was no way he could miss a chance to find out if any of it was more than just hype.

So, at midnight, Noah arrived to find a few others already waiting. The mortuary was at the edge of campus where the streetlamps gave up and the fog began.

The ivy had grown too thick to be removed, but the gate was open.

Two other students stood a little past it.

One was a bright blonde girl with black nail polish and a worn leather journal—Silva, who sat a few seats from him in class. She was extremely smart, and standoffish most of the time. Her near-black irises made it hard to distinguish her pupils, even in bright daylight, and she rarely looked at him or anyone else. But to his surprise, she lifted one of her thick black eyebrows and smiled. It seemed that she approved of him now that he was part of this select group.

The other was a wiry boy, Elijah, who had jet black hair and wore slightly crooked glasses. He must have had Sistrunk on a different period or course. Anyway, the way Elijah kept glancing at the corners of the room as if expecting them to move caused a grin to spread across Noah's lips. All it would take would be a flickering light or a creaky door—and that guy would run. In fact, Noah could think of several other gags he could accomplish that would go over well given the situation. This was going to be a fun group as long as he could pull his pranks.

His thoughts were interrupted by a fourth figure who stepped in behind him. Janine. He wasn't surprised to see that she, too, got the question right.

“So, you got the envelope, too.”

She gave a small nod in Noah’s direction, and they all made their way into the mortuary.

The corridor walls were tiled halfway up in grimed ceramic, originally white, now aged to the color of bone. Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzzed, but never all at once. One always flickered or dimmed entirely, as if staging a protest against their continued existence.

The tiled floor bore faint drag marks—carts, stretchers, or something else—etched into the grout like grimy footprints. Doors along the hall were unmarked, some sealed, others cracked open to reveal rooms of metal cabinetry, gutted gurneys, and ancient examination tools half-covered with dusty tarps. The scent was clinical, but decayed, much like old antiseptic struggling to cover rot that no longer had a source.

Their eyes darted in all directions before finally settling on the center slab that was covered in a white sheet.

Noah noted that when they’d stepped inside, the air had become heavier.

Just then, the door slammed shut behind them. Most of them jumped, startled.

From the shadows stepped a figure—hooded, robed, the voice warbled, as if it had passed through a thick pane of glass before reaching them.

“You are all here. And so is the body for you to examine.”

The figure lifted the white sheet from the body as they looked on. Beneath it lay a young woman—pale, bruised at the temple.

“Solve what lies before you. The answers are not in any textbook.

The figure melted back into the shadows without saying another word.

Silva was the first to recover her composure. She pulled on gloves and headed for the slab.

Elijah followed, then circled the body, muttering about wrist fractures. Noah approached, then leaned in, noting the copper coin at the victim’s side—Rathmore crest, just like question 24.

Janine stood perfectly still. The motion seemed almost necessary for her. She closed her eyes. No one there knew she need not even touch the body. In her mind, she was there—two nights ago. Rain on the greenhouse glass. A whispered argument. The sound of something metal cracking bone. A struggle. A coin spinning. The moment the watch shattered.

She gasped softly. But when Noah looked at her, she just shook her head and pretended to examine the coin.

“Look,” Elijah said suddenly. “There’s something embedded in the neck tissue. Metal.”

It was a tag. A sliver.

And numbers…

Coordinates.

Scanning her leather journal, Silva flipped to a map.

“That’s an unused wing of the library. Basement level. But…”

“There’s no basement,” Noah finished.

“Right,” Silva answered.

Janine spoke softly, eyes wide.

“No, there is. It’s just not on the plans anymore.”

They both stared at her.

She’d opened her mouth and inserted her foot.

“Local lore,” she added quickly. “I read it somewhere.”

Out of the shadows, the hooded figure returned. It was enough to make them jump again, but they didn’t.

“You have seen enough. You’ve all been marked.”

Noah wondered what “marked” meant, but the figure didn’t explain. Instead, each student was handed a slip of paper.

“The Vault always remembers.

You will return.”

Immediately afterward, the lights all went out at once. Noah pulled out a flashlight.

“Always be prepared,” he chuckled, and led the group out.

At dawn, Noah stood in the quad again, cold and uncertain, but he wasn’t alone.

Janine lingered nearby, watching the highest tower of the library, where a light flickered—and then went dark.

Noah turned to her. “How did you know about the basement?”

She hesitated. “I… just had a feeling.”

She looked away before he could ask more—He noticed her fingers twitching.

She was clearly afraid or maybe it was a natural tic of some kind. Did she already know of the place’s secrets and long-forgotten mysteries? Somehow, he sensed she did, though he wasn't sure how anyone could really know anything about the place and its secrets this soon.

Rathmore hoped to teach them to uncover the truth, but no one warned them that some students were already haunted by it.

Maybe she was one of them.

Or maybe she was part of the mystery, herself. He could tell Janine knew more than she was letting on.

The mortuary was full of restless spirits. Did she have some insight the rest of them didn't or did her hands tremble because she was involved more than anyone knew?

Either way, she was a part of the group, and thus, his partner in crime so to speak. Maybe they'd make some headway tonight they could share with the others later.

Above the doorway, the tarnished plaque read:

“Mortuis Loqui Permittatur,”

which is Latin for “Let the dead be allowed to speak.”

A chill went up Noah's spine. He hadn't noticed the plaque during the first visit. Was it new?

Looking back at Janine, he couldn't help but wonder if she might be the one most haunted by the truth, whatever it was.

Gesturing with his hand for her to go in front of him he aimed his flashlight at the entrance and said,

"After you, mi lady," and both of them chuckled.

As they entered the old mortuary again, this time just the two of them, he wondered what mysteries the place was yet to reveal to them both.

This definitely wasn’t going to be a dull project.