CHAPTER 9

The door of Marshall’s office is unlocked, but I can’t get in. I turn the doorknob and still the door results almost impossible to move. It’s like something is weighting against it, something big, something heavy. I push it harder and there’s this muffled, dragging sound coming from inside the room. I lick my dry lips and push again with my shoulder, even harder this time, and I hear something plopping heavily and disorderly on the floor, clearing my way a little more.

And that’s when the blood freezes inside my veins. That’s when I realize that something is really wrong. That’s when the door really starts opening, little by little, and the stink hits my nostrils like a train in full run.

I know that stink. I’d recognize it everywhere. I’ve got it all over me so many times that I just can’t count them. That stink. It makes your eyes weep, it makes your stomach turn, it makes your head spin, it makes your hands sweat, it makes your face grow pale all of a sudden.

It’s the unmistakable stink of death, of rot and I swallow hard and my heart sinks somewhere and I just can’t feel it anymore, and at the same time it’s all I hear, that furious heartbeat growing louder and louder and louder and louder inside my ears.

The door opens enough for my head to peep inside the room and I see his feet. I see his black shoes, I see the grey fabric of his pants. The tip of his lopsided shoes pointing at the ceiling and I can’t catch my breath anymore.

And I feel sorry for him but I have to push the door harder, harder, I have to be violent and aggressive if I want to get in, and I have to get in because I need to see it. I need to see him. And all I think is I’m sorry buddy, I am so very sorry my friend, I am so sorry.

And so I push the door with my shoulder and it opens wide with a curt noise, and Marshall’s body slides on the floor a little more with a creeping, horrid sound. A watery, slack, flaccid, goose-bumping sound.