Not exactly one of the guys, at least not anymore. Not quite a man about the town, not quite anymore. Maybe nice guys actually do finish last, he looked almost like he was asleep, but it doesn't explain the complete bad boy with a face in a permanent smirk laying lifeless across the entire room from him. Even in death he seemed defiant and cruel, with tattoos glaring all over his torso. Unlike the other who had small chiseled features and a gentle brow with hair neatly parted to one side and bright blue lips almost forming a smile. Actually, neither of them could finish anything anymore. Both were dead in the very same room, the downstairs morgue at Georgia's General Hospital. The autopsy was yet to begin. Introductions are now in order. Two very young men, nine years apart in age had both died simultaneously. The man with the faded tattoos was thirty-four year old Harry Stetsonberg, the younger man next to him was Quinton Casey Delano. Dr. Larry picked his clipboard up and walked over to Quinton. Quinton Casey, "QC" for short as he was affectionately known to others was the first thing he wrote down in a small dashed--off space on his chart. He looked the corpse over, momentarily jealous, because had a more trusting relaxed face and seemed downright handsome. Almost as if he was telling him, "I'm all right Things will get better for you." Larry's mouth twitched into a small smile. It was a sad smile all the same. The only thing he could deduce was this was not a suicide. Over on the dash drawer attached to the metal table where QC was laying down, there was a ziploc bag with a sparse amount of his belongings, containing, one expensive watch, a picture of his wife and two little kids, a wedding band/ring and an insurance card for the hospital. Off in his own world, he was unaware that his partner, Dr. Timothy was not having the same experience. Larry looked down at the man's torso and picked up his scalpel ready to make the y-shaped incision. Meanwhile, Timothy walked over to the young man laying on the stone slab. His hardened facial features and grimace told him that this was not a nice person, and likely, he probably never was. It was a shame that he was still young though, and maybe he could have turned his life around if given the chance. He looked him up and down, trying to determine if rigor mortis had already set in. He noticed that Harry had a divet in his chest as it was also barrel shaped. He turned his attention to the drawer above Harry's head and saw an insurance card, a chain necklace and a digital watch. No wedding band, no pictures and probably no kids of any kind. He picked up his scalpel and eyed the man's chest. "So what happened then?" Timothy called across the room to Larry. "Time in the morgue and filling out the autopsy paperwork will tell." replied Larry. "Were they related in anyway at all? Did they interact together?" "It's hard to tell. They were picked up in the same college about just a couple hours from one another, but at different locations, kind of like one upstairs the other was downstairs, and then they just--" Larry snapped his fingers to indicate both of the students expired. He sniffed at Harry's fingers. "Male, Caucasian, smoker." he observed, as he checked a spot on his clipboard. Then he looked at the insurance cards next to his hospital file. "Let's see, Mr. Harry Stetsonberg, parents, deceased, older brother Ronald Stetsonberg; status; deceased aged twenty-seven. " "Hey Larry, it may be a little harder to find this guy's next of kin than I originally thought." Timothy admitted. Timothy stopped talking and began to slowly make the incision. Meanwhile, Larry looked over at QC's card and read contact in case of emergency or death information out loud. "You seem like you were a very loved guy," He said out loud as he also began to make an inscison into QC's chest. When he got the chest opened to full capacity and saw the ribcage with the lungs--the lungs were pink and filled with almost two quarts of water, there was little to no need to cut further, but a good mortician knows to be precise. "He's drowning, like a dry drowning. He had pneumonia viral pneumonia!" Larry yelled out loud as he filled in cause of death. Meanwhile, Tim opened up Harry's chest, to find the smell almost overpowering the whole morgue! His lungs were pitch black and shriveled like briquette charcoal, and his sternum was half-melted causing the divets and his heart was almost black as well. Cigarettes, ashtray, smoke, all of that wafted from Harry's open chest to the other side of the room.
"Hey Tim! I can smell him from all the way over here! You want to do something about that?" "You know it's funny Larry." Timothy called back to him. "Harry Stetsonberg died of a lung infection too. It was smoking related, so it's not that coincidental, oh yes sir. He brought this on himself. He did it to himself. Lungs painted black and heart has shrunken. Tissue, damaged beyond repair. You know, even if he was still alive, it would be too late to reverse any of the damages if he'd quit smoking he was too far gone already. He reached the point of no return, obviously, this is not the condition caused by secondhand smoke. He smoked recently. I smelt his fingers, still warm, still smell like burnt tobacco." "So what are you saying?" "Cause of death, undiagnosed lung cancer caused by a smoking related illness. How long do you think he was walking around like this?" "Who knows and who cares? What age do you think he started smoking? Eight?" "Smells like it." Larry sighed and drew the sheet over Quinton's entire body and head. Snatching up the ziploc he walked over Timothy. "I almost don't want to show you this," he explained. He handed the bag over to Timothy. Sighing heavily, Tim opened the bag and pulled out the family photo. "Cute kids." He was upset knowing that for the rest of their lives they would be without a father, and in the picture his wife was stunning, he knew for a fact that the late Quinton Casey didn't need to be present in the photo to know they loved each other and the kids a little too much. He looked over at the medical card with the man's information listings. "In case of emergency, please contact wife, Heather Amanda Delano. Dependents: Two children, Bethany and Gregory." He slipped the card back into the ziploc while making an observation aloud. "Bethany appears to be two whole years younger than Gregory. She'll never know her father, but from what anyone says, they'll probably tell her he was a very kind man." He then picked up the ziploc laying by Harry's head it was so lightweight he just tossed it over to him. Timothy opened up the ziploc and looked inside having the complete opposite reaction as when the two saw Quinton Delano's information. "Doesn't seem like he was too loved at all. Even though everybody did deserve somebody. Well I told you earlier it would be hard to find his friends now wouldn't it?" "The saddest thing to all of this I guess," Larry mentioned, "Is that the smoker lived longer than the nonsmoker by nine whole years." "Well just how loved were these men in life?" "Are you thinking what I'm thinking." Timothy nodded. "There's two funeral homes across the street from us right?" Larry nodded. "Great. We book the funerals on the same day. You officate the funeral on the left, I'll do the one on the right. He went over to storage and pulled out two walkie talkies, that were shaped like headsets, then, after putting the sheet over Harry took a break a break from the autopsys.
They took their walkie talkies and the clipboards and went over to the funeral homes in order to see if they could get reception and talk to one another there. In an incredible stroke of luck, they could. They could hear each other crystal clear with only a little bit of static on either end. They decided to hold both funerals at the exact same time as well, promising open casket celebration and open for all to mourn--come in as they pleased. Later that night, Larry contacted Heather Delano and told her about the arrangements and she agreed to them. She even helped him to pick out a suit that her husband could be buried in. They even put ads in the paper.
It took a couple of days, but Tim was finally able to contact a cousin of The Late Harry Stestsonberg, from a cousin came two different aunts and two uncles related by marriage whom all agreed to attend. The funerals were a bit more than they bargained for. Were the boys on the slabs allowed to attend and see? Yes they were, for the present time, they were sliced into two sets of twins so that both could see each other be buried. Just as Timothy predicted, only seven people showed up to Harry's service and the only other person there was a man who spent time with Harry in prison.
Meanwhile, in the land of the dead, Harry walked along the buildings of the city, the bricks of the buildings were shining right through his transparent form. The living walked right through him without so much as a slight breeze or small shiver as a result. "The living and the dead really are not meant to interact at all." He said out loud not to anyone in particular. Just talking to himself as usual. Then he noticed a discarded pack of unopened cigarettes on the ground in front of him. Expecting things would start to pick up for him, the new ghost that he was, Harry bent down to pick it up. To his dismay, his fingers went straight through the pack. He tried again, and again, and again. Around the corner, Quinton slowly materialized. He didn't seem to mind that people were walking right through him, he scarcely remembered being there, but earlier, he had attempted to eat a pulled pork sandwhich but the first thing that caught his eye now was his fellow deceadent knelt down on the concrete trying desperately to pick up a pack of smokes. He placed his hand down hard on Harry's shoulder to get his attention. "Don't Harry." "Ah Quinton. I haven't seen you since our funerals. But dead or alive, you'd think I'd at least be allowed to smoke. I mean, how do you think I got like this in the first place? Besides, once you light it, nobody can place where the smell's coming from." "You're right, they can't but if it makes you feel any better, I just spent at least an hour trying to pick up and eat a discarded pork sandwich." "What we need to find is find out how the hell we got here, speaking of hell, what's keeping us here, if we clearly aren't alive?" Quinton Casey Delano helped Harry Stetsonberg up to his feet. No sooner was he standing than a woman walked out from one of the downtown shops and picked up the pack of cigarettes. "Hey Dammit! Shit!" Harry shouted almost lunging towards her. "Don't worry, don't go after her. She'll be where we are soon enough, with a nice hole in her throat." Harry nodded amused at the thought. He stood and looked over at the other ghost as the living walked right through both of them over and over again. "I just thought of something." He said with a slight smirk. "What?" "Well, they can't talk to us and we can't talk to them. They can't see us but we can see them right?" "Right" "In that case, someone has to be familiar with us sooner or later, now I knew a girl quite briefly, named Marisol. Have you ever met any girls named Marisol?" "No not that I recall." No sooner had he spoken those words, than both Harry and Quinton found themselves in an unfamiliar house--the living room/kitchen arrangements. Quinton looked upwards towards a window and immediately got startled and jumped back. "What the hell are those?!" He demanded. "Bullet holes." Harry answered barely looking up. "Okay, but listen to me--is it possible to creep a ghost out? I'm starting to forget the string of time length and physics." "I've been involved with robberies before, I had priors, I know what bullet holes look like," bragged Harry. "Okay then, what are bullet holes doing there? Why is that window all shot out?" Instead of getting an answer from Harry, someone else, an unfamiliar male's voice filled that question. "You know what, I wonder the same thing myself, practically for all eternity. Hey Scott! We got company!" Startled slightly, both Harry and QC turned around, and faced the teenager who was as transparent as them. "I'm Jim. This is my younger brother Scott." Scott floated in next to them, appearing to stand right next to his brother. "We don't get a lot of company around here." Jim explained. "No we don't." Agreed Scott--"Who are these new guy--ghosts?" "I'm Harry, and this is QC." "Good to meet you." Harry and QC then just stood there in a wooden silence and looked both of the other ghosts up and down. This went on for a good five minutes until QC broke their silence. "How long have you guys lived with Marisol?" He asked. "We didn't." Explained Jim, well, not while we were alive anyways. We were already dead--I mean murdered before she and her family moved in. Near as I can tell, we're only allowed to communicate and talk to other ghosts we can't touch everything, but we can touch some things that the living own--that's for us to figure out and we can only interact with those who know Marisol and her family, or anyone she's had over who's ever been inside this haunted house." "You're everyone who ever cared about anything aren't you!" Snapped Scott. "Damn it Jim! It feels like we were just home alone yesterday! You're nineteen years old, and I am sixteen for the rest of eternity! The rest of oblivion, just because some goddamn impatient cops got the wrong address for a noise disturbance and came in guns drawn shooting to kill!" After his brother's rant, Jim just stood there looking expressionless as his brother's exasperated irritated expression began to fade. He slowly turned and faced the other two ghosts by the window. "Are either of you guys familiar with what happens when police prototype goes wrong?" "I'm not, but Harry is. I'd say he's used to it." Harry nodded and just shrugged as a response. Meanwhile, a young woman whom both of them were familiar with in their past lives sauntered in. She paid no attention to either one of them and went straight to the refrigerator to get a can of soda. "Here she comes." Harry said aloud. No need to whisper, because he'd figured out she was alive by the fact she didn't acknowledge them by name, and just went about looking through cookbooks talking to herself and periodically taking a sip of soda. "That's Marisol all right, and she looks like she's going to be okay," Quinton said optimistically. "Then if we're not here because of her, who the hell are we here for? And why are there bullet holes going in through the kitchen window?" Harry demanded. No sooner had he spoken than Scott gave him the answer. "You know, I've been asking myself that same thing since it happens, and I guess I'll have to ask it for all eternity! We don't get a lot of company around here!" Jim also repeated a warning from earlier's introductions. "You're only allowed to contact people that both of you were familiar with in life, and you're not allowed to talk to them! If a living does spot and recognize a dead person, that living person will die very soon!" As the young man's voice went from conversation to rant, both Harry and Quinton stopped what they were doing and turned around and left. No sooner had they both gone from the house living the very much alive Marisol alone, that they ended up on a corner street looking at two very beautiful women about Marisol's current age talking out loud to each other. Harry recognized one of them as Amanda, a young woman whom had rejected his offer to become an on again off again girlfriend or a sex toy as they are reffered to and QC recognized the other girl as Marisa, someone whom he'd grown up with and lived right next door. The two were in a conversation and it shifted. "I just don't believe it Amanda," Marisa ranted showing Amanda the newspaper's obituary section. I grew up with him, I can't believe I'll never see QC again. His wife Heather used to mention that he didn't even like loud music--rock and roll, he was an opera lover and concerts in the park kind of man." "Show me that article again." Said Amanda. She gave it to her, and Amanda soon said, "Oh my God Marisa, you aren't the only one who lost someone recently. Harry Stetsonberg just died of pneumonia the same day," Amanda showed Marisa the picture. "He asked me over and over again if I'd like to date him, I said no, I ended up hearing about his death through the grapevine. It's like you regret things you never said to someone, but he's missed his chance for happiness with someone else." QC and Harry looked over and nodded at each other, at least they knew they were both still relevant. They eavesdropped on the conversation as long as they could until the two women walked away. "Well Jim said we were only allowed to reach out to people we both knew in life, not necessarily the same person that both of us knew, we should keep an eye on those two girls, they might be the ones we're here for." Said Harry. "What do you think we should do now?" Quinton asked looking sadly at Harry. For once, Harry finally showed some sensitivity and understanding for someone else. "Well look, for starters," He said letting out a long sigh, "I can't really help you out with your children, but if it makes you feel any better about anything, they seem lovely, and to haunt them will take on new meaning, you can lovingly gaze at them from the clouds when the time comes. Tomorrow morning I am going to look for my brother and see if he's with our parents and whether or not he's happy being dead. But I want you with me. It's too difficult without you now that we've traveled around the astral/celestial planes so much, I want you there to make for a smoother transition, support and friendship. I didn't have a lot of friends in life--as you saw during my funeral, and you're the most sincere person I ever met." "So we weren't here for Marisol, were we?" Harry asked. Quinton Casey shook his head no. "She's really someone we just both knew in life, but not on a mutual basis." Quinton Casey nodded his head yes. "I'll ask you again!" Shouted Quinton, suddenly realizing that the pair of ghosts that they are had traded places. He started to cry vigourously rubbing his hand over his eyes. Harry leaned over and stuck his arm over Quinton's shoulder and lightly squeezed it in a half-assed attempt of comfort. "Goddamn it man," he whispered "I don't know okay?" The two of them then walked away into the shadows mutually deciding to pick up again the next day. It was clear they were in purgatory, one destined for heaven the other for hell, but the unfinished business between the two of them was their real mystery.
Submitted August 12, 2017 at 02:39AM by sweetjiji http://ift.tt/2vWVhYf creepypasta
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