Fantastic Women

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Silence. Not only the lack of grinding mechanical noise, but complete silence. For the first time since she’d been old enough to notice, her own mind was eerily quiet. Beth shook her head. She heard her short brown hair shifting, the low voices of other people in the conference room behind her, the tick of the cooling scanner, but nothing else. She even heard her own heart beating faster with every second.

Beth pulled off the gloves and grabbed her jacket, then darted out the side door before Tina or anyone else could stop her. She had to get some fresh air, even if it was well below freezing. She’d been working too long, as usual. Being stuck in a closet-sized room full of dusty and moldy boxes was getting to her.

She leaned against the red brick building, staring past the fire hall next door at the gray mountains dotted with dark green pine trees soaring all around the town. The only sounds in this sheltered alley were a few cars passing on the street and tree limbs creaking in the bitterly cold wind. Her hearing was fine, even sharper than normal.

In fact, Beth heard a low hum now, like an amplifier turned up too loud. That had almost drowned out the music before, but only when she was too tired or getting sick. Maybe it was time to knock off for the day. One of the best parts of freelancing in her hometown for a change was being able to go home at three if she needed to.

As she got closer to the archives room back inside, meaning to put everything away, shut down, and get out of there, Beth slowed. She turned her head from side to side, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. A woman’s voice, low and sorrowful, getting louder with every step she took. That didn’t make sense with the strict policy about radios or music players, but Beth heard it all the same.

She glanced around the empty meeting room. All the office doors were closed and the metal folding chairs were stacked up against the walls. Beth shook her head and stepped into the archives room.

The voice split into many, all singing a dirge Beth had never heard before. She didn’t recognize the language either. Some sort of European, maybe, hard to place. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, but it was set to silent. The computer didn’t have speakers, and she didn’t see any kind of intercom.

The singing shifted to an old-time funeral, clear even without hearing the words.

“That’s enough for you today,” Beth said under her breath. She picked up the last negative she’d scanned without bothering with the gloves, not worried about fingerprints for the moment.

Beth almost dropped the piece of glass when the singing got much louder. She carefully put it back down, and the noise level decreased. Beth raised the huge scanning lamp and held the image under it. A group of people sat and stood on a small hillside, all staring solemnly at the unseen camera. Long gowns for women and dark suits for men, hair in braids or buns, and elaborate hats, all from around the turn of the last century. Exactly like all the other photos she’d seen over the past few weeks. The freshly filled grave in the middle explained why everyone wore their Sunday best.

The singing died down for a few seconds, then they launched into one Beth did recognize. “Rock of Ages,” but the words were oddly accented, hard to pick out. She caught herself trying to figure out where the singers had come from. The nationality of the mourners was the least of Beth’s problems.

She packed up and shut down, relieved when putting the slide in the box on the floor muffled the singing. Beth would have felt a lot better if it had stopped altogether. She tapped her fingernails on the metal doorframe, contemplating asking Tina if she heard anything. Trying to imagine the response whichever way it went put an end to that idea. Beth closed the door and walked away slowly, the song getting fainter with every step. Even when she got in her car and turned on her own music, the strange voices never did disappear.