All Souls' Day

Dr. Khalid Mohammad sat on the windowsill and took another look through the chart of the ICU patient he had first seen in the George Washington University Hospital emergency room late Halloween night. The patient was still listed as John Doe. Beaten senseless with baseball bats at a Southwest metro station, he had only emerged from the coma a day and a half later. "John Doe" still had total amnesia, and nobody had yet identified him. Dr. Mohammad looked up again at the patient, who was sleeping deeply and having an out-of-body experience. Outside in the hallway, nurse Consuela Arroyo felt the disturbed spirit pass over her, provoking goose bumps on her neck. She made the sign of the cross and looked around. It was a gentle spirit, like the ones she used to feel when she was in nursing school back in the Philippines. She felt so many bad spirits in this city that it was a relief to feel a gentle spirit nearby. Still, she knew it was wrong--a soul that was not where it should be.

Downtown at the Cathedral, Coast Guard officer Marcos Vasquez was attending the All Souls' Day mass, knowing his mother would call him at 8 p.m. and ask him if he did. He even went early and lit a candle for his deceased father, and the officer he had seen killed four years earlier in Florida. He usually didn't believe this stuff, but he was hypnotized by the glow of the candles and felt for a minute that his father's soul was near him. According to his mother, Marcos's father was surely in purgatory, and they would have to pray for a long time to get him out.

Over in Georgetown, Dubious McGinty was attending All Souls' Day mass at Holy Trinity. He didn't like going to mass very often, but this was the most important one of the year because he had so many dead people to pray for, and most of those souls were probably not where they should be. He climbed slowly up to the balcony where he would feel less claustrophobic, like when he was in his abandoned watchman's quarters in the drawbridge. He had brought a trash bag full of empty plastic bottles to fill with holy water on the way out. He knew it wouldn't be enough to kill Ardua, but he needed to purify his home every now and then. The Georgetown undergrad behind him wrinkled her nose and moved to another pew, wishing he wasn't here.