by Dan Wells
‘Everything okay?’ Mom asked.
‘Everything’s fine,’ I said. I walked back to the table and picked up my rag, using it as an excuse to look closer at the cuts in the corpse’s arms.
‘We’re all done with the top,’ said Mom. ‘Help me sit her up so we can do the back.’ I took one shoulder, Mom took the other, and we pulled; rigor mortis had come and gone, and the body moved easily.
‘Uh oh,’ said Mom, freezing in place. The body was halfway sitting, but it was light and hollow and easy to hold up. I looked at Mom’s hand and saw her pressing against the skin of the body’s back. It moved strangely. ‘Tissue gas,’ she said.
Margaret turned and looked warily at Mom. ‘You’re kidding.’
‘Check it out,’ said Mom, and moved her hand again. I peered closer and saw it: the skin moved over the top of the muscle freely, as if it were disconnected. That was bad.
‘The skin is slipping,’ said Mom. ‘The autopsy cleansers must have masked the smell.’ She leaned in close to the back, sniffed, then pulled down her mask and sniffed again. She reeled back in disgust. ‘Oh, that’s horrible. Lay her down again, John.’
We laid the body down, minds racing. Tissue gas was an embalmer’s worst nightmare - a highly infectious form of bacteria that thrived on dead tissue and released a noxious gas inside the body. Smell was usually the easiest way to detect it, but sometimes, as with this body, the smell was buried under other chemicals, and the only way to identify it was the ‘skin-slip’ Mom had found on the back, where interior gas bubbles separated the skin from the muscle. The gas itself was bad enough, because the stink would soon become so foul it would be all but impossible to cover up; that didn’t reflect well on us when people showed up for the viewing. Even worse than the gas though, were the bacteria that made it. Once they got into your workspace, you might never get them out again. If we didn’t put a stop to this right now, every body we embalmed would catch the same bacteria from our tools and table. It could destroy the entire business.
‘Everybody stop and think,’ said Mom. ‘What have we touched?’
‘Rubber gloves,’ said Margaret. ‘A scalpel to cut open the HazMat bag; the trocar.’
‘Just one?’ asked Mom.
‘It was already attached to the vacuum,’ said Margaret. ‘I didn’t even open the drawer with the others.’
‘I touched the Dis-Spray bottle, three rags, the comb, and the shampoo,’ said Mom. ‘John touched a bottle and a rag.’
‘And the door knob,’ I said, ‘and the bathroom door knob.’
‘You didn’t take your gloves off first?’
‘No.’
‘John,’ said Mom, annoyed. ‘Okay, anything else?’
‘I touched the cart,’ said Margaret, ‘and we should disinfect the counters as well, just in case.’
‘And the table, obviously,’ said Mom. ‘Let’s designate an infection zone by Margaret, and put all of our used tools there; we’ll keep the rest of it clean, and when we’re done embalming we can scrub the room till it screams in protest.’
‘And we need to call the police,’ I said.
Mom and Margaret both looked up in surprise. ‘Why?’ asked Mom.
‘This might be important to the investigation.’
‘You don’t think they already know?’ asked Mom. ‘They’ve been studying this body for four days.’
‘Was it in the paperwork?’ I asked.
Mom thought, then glanced at Margaret. ‘He’s right. Ron would have told us if he knew. The bacteria might not have developed yet.’
‘Plus Ron’s got to disinfect his whole lab,’ said Margaret. ‘It won’t do us any good to keep clean if every body he sends us is already infected.’ She tutted. ‘I have half a mind to go clean it myself. I don’t know if I trust Ron to do it right.’
Mom peeled off her gloves, threw them in the trash, then washed her hands with hot soap and water in the sink. She turned off the water, thought a moment, then turned it back on and washed the water handles and soap dispenser as well. When she was certain everything was clean she motioned for me to open the door, so she wouldn’t have to touch anything else in the room, and went to the office to call.
‘Smart thinking, John,’ said Margaret. ‘If they don’t know about the tissue gas, one of the wounds might be a lot older than they think it is. You’ve got a knack for this stuff.’ She turned back to her pile of organs, and I went back to the body.
Tissue gas was most common in bedsores - big, nasty ones on hospital patients, or on old people who never moved for weeks or months at a time. Gangrene was another possible source of the bacteria, and usually showed up in the same types of cases. It was possible that this body could have developed tissue gas in one of those ways if she’d been held in one place for months on end, without being allowed to move, but there was no evidence of that here. Besides, both of those causes would leave massive exterior wounds. Most of hers were small, and any obvious infections had been cleaned away during the autopsy.
There was one other way to get the right kind of bacteria, that didn’t require a big wound. I put my hands under the body’s shoulders and lifted, feeling the skin slide sickly under my fingers. The back was covered with cuts and punctures and burns, just like the rest of the body, but some, as I’d noticed before, were bigger. More misshapen. The Coroner had cleaned the body so well that there were no visible infections, but the shape of the wounds was enough if you knew what you were looking for: a series of wounds similar to the others, but irregular and distorted as if they’d been stretched out of shape. Just like a bedsore, but smaller. There were only a few ways that kind of thing would happen to an ordinary wound, and only one of them would result in tissue gas. Somehow, by accident or by design, these wounds had been infected with human waste.
I peered more closely at the wounds. She might have been kept for days in a cell with no toilet, or some faeces might have been forced into the wounds manually by her attacker. Either way, the cruel, devastating dehumanisation hit me like a wave, pulling me back down into the waking nightmare I’d been in ever since we started on the body.
I was in the embalming room, but I was also in a basement somewhere; I was with Janella Willis the corpse, but I was also with Janella Willis the crying, screaming victim - not just once but a dozen times, a hundred times, all at once, different realities lacing in and out of each other as they howled around me. I was stabbing her, I was burning her, I was breaking her bones. Sometimes I laughed, sometimes I cursed and raged, and other times I was simply there, blank and hollow.
Part of my mind was enjoying the thrill of it, while another part was trying to analyse the possibilities; I tried to shut them both off, desperate to think about anything else, but it was too much. Instead I focused on the analytical side, trying to force myself to turn this into something helpful, hoping there was some way I could learn something or discover something by living through the scenario in my mind. Instead I found myself playing out the same scenarios with Brooke instead, simultaneously thrilled and repulsed by each piercing scream.
No! I refused to let myself sink to that. My eyes were open, but dark daydreams clouded my view and melded with the reality around me. The woman on the table was Brooke, her abdomen sliced wide open. No! Never Brooke! I tried again to push the thoughts away entirely, but again I was too weak. The best I could do was to twist them, to change them into something less intense.
Marci.
Marci was physically beautiful, but she was nothing to me - and that made her easier to bear thinking about. Fantasising about Brooke felt wrong, like I was betraying her directly, but if I did the same for Marci . . . there was nothing to betray. I latched onto the thought - Marci’s shape and her colour, the dark brown of her hair . . . and then there she was on the table. I could breathe easier now.
With my mind under stronger control I realised that I was gripping the table with one hand, steadying myself against it. I needed to get out of there. At that moment, the d
oor opened and Mom came through, sighing, and I put another hand on the table, taking another step towards the door.
I can do this, I thought. I’m leaving a bad situation. I can barely control my own thoughts, but I’m still in command of my actions. Mom said something to Margaret, something about Ron and the phone. I ignored them. I needed to leave.
One more step. I was doing it.
And then the door opened again, and Lauren was standing there - her face bruised, her eyes puffy from damage and tears.
‘What happened?’ Mom cried.
Lauren was whimpering, a lost kitten in a vast and deadly wilderness. Her words were a wrenching knot of terror and confusion. ‘He hit me.’
And then the world shattered, and Mr Monster roared so loud that Mom and Margaret and Lauren could all hear it. They looked at me in shock, and I ran from the room.
Death! Death!
Confusion became rage, and the deep, driving need to kill exploded in a torrent of red-hot emotion. No more waiting - it has to be now! I stumbled through the hall, lost in my own home, until at last I found my way outside and sucked in the fresh air like a drowning man.
Kill him! Make him scream!
NO!
It was still early, but the sun was rising and the town was infused with ghostly half-light. I paused for balance, holding the wall, then walked to my car and turned on the engine. I had to do something. The tyres squealed as I pulled away, and in my mind Curt answered with a squeal of terror. At the corner I forced myself to turn in the opposite direction from his house, my driving wild and erratic, as if my own hands were fighting with me.
I will not kill!
Then what?
I pushed my foot down hard, pressing the pedal all the way to the floor, letting the pure animal thrill of speed wipe the fog away from my mind. When it cleared I slowed down and answered myself.
Fire.
I could feel the need boiling inside of me, a coil of angry tension that shook and struggled like a living thing. Fire would calm it. Fire.
I drove wildly to the old warehouse, sliding to a stop on the gravel outside. As I climbed out of the car, I slammed the door, loving the wrenching crash as the force of it shook the vehicle. There was no one else there, and I stormed inside looking for fuel; I didn’t have my gas can, but there in the middle of the floor were the cans of alcohol-based paint. Picking one up, I splashed the contents across the mattress and the pile of wood I’d built the other day. I then picked up another and threw the whole thing; it bounced off a wall and hit the ground with a thud, spraying its flammable liquid all across the warehouse. I kicked a barrel to knock it over, but it stayed up and I kicked it again, then again and again, feeling a rush of adrenaline as the barrel resisted, resisted, and at last tipped over.
Then I thought of Curt beating Lauren, and I yelled again. It echoed madly in the warehouse, inarticulate and inhuman.
I fumbled in my pocket for a book of matches - the one thing a pyromaniac is never without - and pried a match out of it with trembling hands. I folded the matchbook over backwards, trapping the chemical head between the strike pad and the cardboard, then ripped it violently across. The head popped to life and the match lit, and with it I set fire to the entire book. I felt a thrill as it flared up, my breath growing fast and urgent, and I dropped the ball of flame onto the fuel-soaked mattress. Flames rippled across it instantly, flashing brightly and then dying down as the initial fuel was consumed. Soon the mattress itself was on fire, not just the paint, and I stepped closer. It was beautiful.
The fire spread to other things - the pallets I’d stacked it on, the wooden planks nearby, the splash of paint on the floor. I watched it move from one object to the next, sometimes running, sometimes leaping, always moving and growing and crackling with joy. Was the cat here? I didn’t care - let it burn.
I stayed until it wasn’t safe any more, relishing the release. This was what I wanted! This was power! With fire itself doing my bidding, I was practically a god.
I backed out slowly, watching the flames dance behind the windows. As I stood in the doorway, a flash of movement caught my eye, and I saw the white cat streaking out from a hiding-place towards the open door. I timed its approach and slammed my foot into the doorframe right as it passed, hearing it hiss and cry as my kick pinned it to the wall. I grabbed its tail in my hands and yanked it up angrily, pulling it across and slamming it into the wall. It cried again, desperate, and I windmilled it back into the wall on the other side of the door. It hit with a sickening crunch.
‘Is this what you wanted?’ I was screaming. ‘Is this what you wanted?’ I leaned back and then whipped it forward, hurling the cat into the middle of the jubilant orange flames. It arced through the air and landed sickeningly into a stack of wood. I heard it mewl again, weak and wretched, and then the heat was too much and I backed out of the building completely.
Chapter 12
‘You saw what he did to her. Are you sure there’s nothing you can do?’
It had been two days since Curt had hit Lauren, but Lauren refused to press charges, so the law was powerless to act. Mom had spent the first day yelling - usually over the phone, though we all got our share of her attention - but now she was tired and worn. She continued to call, begging for someone to intervene and save her daughter, but her protests were weak and everyone who could possibly help had already said no.
‘Yes, ma’am, I do understand the law. I sued my husband with that law, so I know it very . . .’ Pause. ‘No, they were not married. Why should that have anything to do with it? Is assault not a crime any more unless you’re married?’
I’d spent the entire time hiding in my room, desperate to get out of the house but scared of being arrested. The warehouse had burned to the ground, and the flames had somehow spread to the surrounding trees; it had taken the Fire Department all day and most of the night to put it out. I’d left the scene before anyone got there, of course, but arson was suspected almost immediately. I was safer inside.
More than the fire, what scared me the most was the cat. I’d killed an animal. I’d never done that before, and it terrified me. I’d broken several of my rules in the past year, but it had always been for a reason. I had decided very rationally that I should stalk Mr Crowley, specifically to help me find a way to stop him from killing. I had attacked his wife as part of a careful plan, because it was the only way to trap him, and I eventually killed him because it was the only way to save the town. These were all delicate, painful decisions, and I’d weighed each one carefully before taking that step and breaking that rule. But the cat - the cat was different. Killing it had been an impulse, an emotional urge, a heat-of-the-moment decision that I was barely aware of until it was over. In all of my previous decisions, I’d chosen to grant Mr Monster power. That day in the warehouse, Mr Monster had taken power for himself.
And if he’d done it once, he could do it again. I dreaded to think where and when it could happen, and what I could possibly do to stop it.
‘Please, my daughter was attacked. She was brutally beaten by a citizen of your community, who’s still out there right now. No, I’m not being unreasonable! May I please speak with your “superior”?’
I sat on the floor of my room, the door locked tight, my body squeezed into the gap between my bed and the wall. I had a pillow pulled down over my head, but I could still hear the shouting.
‘Hello, Agent Forman? This is April Cle—’ Pause. ‘Yes, I know, and I’m sorry to call you again, but—’ Pause. ‘But I’ve already talked to them, and there’s nothing they can do!’ Pause. ‘No, I’ve talked to her too—’ Pause. ‘But there has to be something you can—’
There had been a lot of bugs in that warehouse, I thought. I probably killed them all. Were bugs against the rules? I bet I’ve killed plenty of bugs in my life - there were some dead ones on the windshield of my car, for crying out loud. Was I supposed to feel guilty about all of them? I turned the thought over in my mind, examining it. Bugs we
re probably fine. They didn’t feel anything, and they didn’t care what you did to them, and nobody else cared either, so I might as well do something. That’s practically why they were here in the first place, right? They weren’t doing anything else for us. I should go outside and find one - just one. I wouldn’t even kill it, just pull off a wing or a leg. Just something small. No one would ever notice.
‘Hi, is this the domestic abuse hotline? My name is April, and I live in Clayton—’ Pause. ‘Yes, Clayton County.’ Pause. ‘I know you don’t have an office here, I called long distance to reach you—’ Pause. ‘I’ve already called the police, and they won’t—Yes, I’ll hold.’
I stood up to go outside. I only needed one bug - a tiny one, like a ladybug. There was usually a big pile of ants by one of the cracks in the sidewalk, and I could mush a whole footprintful if I wanted, but that wouldn’t help. There’d be no satisfaction in a quick stomp. I wanted one bug I could spend some time on, and watch what happened as each leg came off. I wanted it to know that it was being hurt by me, by a purposeful mind, and not by some change in the weather.
