by Amy Cross
Suddenly he heard a noise from the main room, as if something had been knocked to the floor. Setting the camera down, he hurried back through, but there was nothing to be seen. All the bodies were still in their usual places, and the main door was still shut. Nevertheless, Marlowe knew better than to question his senses, and he was certain that he'd heard something. Walking slowly between the tables, he was looking out for any sign that something unusual had happened. He was very much aware that a lesser mind would be filled with fear, but he reminded himself that he was a man of logic. Finally, he spotted something on the floor, and it took him a moment to realize that his voice recorder had somehow dropped from 2B's table.
"Don't like modern technology, huh?" he said with a smile, as he walked over and rescued the device. He was sure he'd placed it well away from the edge of the table, but he figured he must have made a mistake. Rewinding to the start of the tape, he hit the Play button and listened for a moment.
“Wait here,” he heard himself say, followed by footsteps heading away.
He smiled.
Just as he was about to stop the tape, he heard a faint scraping sound, as if something was moving on the tray itself, getting closer to the recorder. A moment later, he heard a bump on the recording, and the tape stopped.
He paused.
“I'm sure it's nothing,” he muttered, despite the chill that ran up his spine. “Just an acoustic trick.”
Putting the voice recorder in his pocket, he went back through to finish setting up the thermal imaging camera, and he made an extra effort to ensure that there were no more sloppy mistakes.
After working for a few more minutes, he finally had the camera ready. This, he reminded himself, was why it was always better to work alone. No-one to explain things to, no-one to pester him with inane questions; just him, and his equipment, and his subjects, and silence. He knew this preference probably made him seem like a bit of a loner, and he was quite prepared to accept that he was anti-social, but he'd come to accept these aspects of his personality a long time ago, and he was tired of fighting them. At the age of thirty-two, he figured he'd achieved as much emotional development as was likely, and he was happy to just settle for his own company and his own way of doing things. The last thing he needed was disruption. In fact, the last thing he needed was other people at all.
"Hey!" said a voice suddenly.
Almost dropping the camera, Marlowe spun around to find Amanda standing in the doorway, with a faint smile on her lips.
"Sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to startle you. It's just..." She paused for a moment. "Well, I was late leaving work, and when I got to the elevators, I was waiting by myself and I realized..." She paused, as if she was about to say something embarrassing. "Well, I kind of wanted to come and check up on how things are going." She glanced back through to the main room. "So have you come to any conclusions yet?"
"Not really," Marlowe replied, trying to seem calm and collected. For a man who wanted to be alone, and who didn't like company, he had an annoying habit of becoming slightly clumsy whenever Amanda was around. "Just bumbling along, you know? Working methodically and..." He paused, realizing that he was giving a dry and very academic answer. "One of the specimens is particularly interesting," he continued, figuring that it might be fun to share his findings with someone other than Wade. "Do you want to see?"
He spent the next few minutes showing Amanda specimen 2B, and explaining the unusual nature of the cut that had initially severed the head from the body. Although he worried that he was going into too much detail, he reminded himself that he and Amanda shared similar professional backgrounds, which meant that she should have no trouble following his train of thought. It was her intellect, as much as her looks, that attracted him, and he appreciated the opportunity to talk on level terms with a professional equal.
"One thing I've learned," Amanda said eventually, after Marlowe had finished explaining the mysteries surrounding specimen 2B, "is that you can never discount irrationality. Humans sometimes do the weirdest things, for reasons that only make sense in their own minds. Sure, you can figure things out most of the time, but occasionally you'll get totally stumped. It's a good lesson in life, actually. People are weird, and there's nothing any of us can do about it."
"The other fourteen bodies have a substantial number of common traits," Marlowe continued. "This one, however, just seems a little different. The skin is so well-preserved in places, and the traces of hair..." He paused, trying to come up with some kind of explanation. Sure, he'd been telling himself that environmental factors in the burial might have played a part, but in the back of his mind there was a voice that kept nudging him and reminding him that this was unlikely. The mystery excited him, not because he believed in vampires, but because he was certain that there was a rational explanation waiting to be discovered.
"There was a case in South America where a number of Inca burial sites were found to contain well-preserved bodies," Amanda replied. "Have you considered the possibility that herbs were used to create some kind of balm? That's what the Inca were up to."
"There's no comparative tradition in the region," he told her, "and besides, I've already done a cursory examination and I found no traces of any kind of substance. There must be a rational explanation, though. Rule out everything else, and what you're left with, no matter how improbable, is likely to be the truth."
"You want to get a drink and talk it over?" Amanda asked suddenly.
"Get a what?" Marlowe asked, feeling his chest tighten and his blood start to run cold.
"A drink," Amanda continued, a little tentatively. "You know, liquid in a container, poured down the throat?" She waited for a reply. "Just a thought..."
"I had coffee a few minutes ago, actually," Marlowe replied, staring down at the body. Suddenly, in the back of his mind, a dusty part of his consciousness kicked into gear and forced him to look over at Amanda, and he realized he was starting to swear profusely. "You mean... now? As in... outside... somewhere?"
"You're planning to work late," she said, looking a little disappointed. "I'm sorry, it was a crazy idea..."
"No," Marlowe replied, desperately trying to back-peddle, "No, it's not. I mean, I have a lot to do, but -"
Before he could finish, a door opened at the far end of the room and Wade appeared, carrying a large plastic crate.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Marlowe asked, feeling as if his late-night sanctuary was being completely invaded.
"You always said I should show some initiative," Wade replied, placing the crate on a nearby desk, "so I bribed Jerry to let me stay overnight. I thought I could get some work done by myself. Don't take offense, Dr. Marlowe, but I've been thinking about it and I've come to the conclusion that I kind of work better alone, when there's no-one to disturb me. I tend to second-guess myself too much if I think someone's watching. I'm sure I can be more productive if I work like this, although obviously I'll have to go and take a nap in the morning."
"But..." Marlowe started to say, before realizing that somehow, in a twisted, roundabout way, he and Wade were maybe a little more alike than he'd realized. He'd never pegged Wade as someone who could show such dedication, and it was the first time in many years that he felt he'd genuinely been proven wrong about someone.
"I should get going," Amanda said. "Good luck with the -"
"I'll come with you," Marlowe said, deciding to seize the moment.
"You will?" Amanda replied, looking shocked.
"We'll get that drink," he continued, feeling a sense of relief flood through his body. "We'll talk about the Inca and their body preservation methods and anything else you think might be useful." He paused, realizing that he didn't really sound much like himself right now. "I'll see you in the morning," he added as he turned to Wade. "Don't forget to get thermal images of 2B's neck area. I've already set the camera up, so..."
He turned back to Amanda, who had a faint smile on her face. For a moment, Marlowe was overcome with f
ear; he'd spent so long daydreaming about spending time with Amanda away from the museum, he'd neglected to prepare adequately for the possibility that it might actually happen. For a fraction of a second, he felt compelled to cancel the drink, before he realized that it was now or never. Besides, with Wade around, he knew he wouldn't be able to get much work done.
"Come on," Amanda said. "I know a bar just a few streets away. They don't play the music too loud, so we should be able to hear each other."
Glancing at Wade, and seeing the amused look on his face, Marlowe hurried over to the door and grabbed his coat.
"Seeya in the morning," Wade muttered as he pulled some equipment out from one of the crates. It looked as if he was more than capable of getting on with things.
"Don't forget to add some extra iodine to the rinsing solution," Marlowe reminded him as Amanda stepped through the door, "and don't forget to record the glucose levels every three hours, there's a -"
"I won't forget," Wade replied. "Go on. I'll be fine, honestly. I'm looking forward to getting some proper work done."
Marlowe opened his mouth to remind Wade about a few other things, but finally he realized that he was fussing too much. Turning, he saw that Amanda was holding the door open, waiting for him. With a cautious, slightly nervous and embarrassed smile, he followed and they headed toward the elevators.
Six
"Hydrogen diglyceride," Marlowe said, staring down at his glass of wine for a moment. "Could that have somehow got into the groundwater and then seeped into the coffin? If it had pooled in sufficient quantities, it might have absorbed any moisture within the coffin itself."
"Maybe," Amanda replied. "Do you have a water table report for the region where the bodies were found?"
Marlowe shook his head.
"It's definitely possible," Amanda continued, "but unless you've got a full analysis of the soil, it's just guesswork. If you have any contacts out there, you need to get a sample here as soon as possible. I'd be happy to help take a look, if you like. I mean, I don't want to intrude on your work, but I think it could be useful for my own research."
Marlowe stared at her for a moment. The last thing he wanted was to have someone else hovering around while he was working. Then again, Amanda might be different. He felt that they were on the same wavelength, and that they might actually work rather well together.
"Or not," she said, seeing the shocked look on his face. "It's fine -"
"No, I'd be happy to have you help out," Marlowe stammered.
She smiled.
There was an awkward silence. Sitting in the corner of a quiet little basement bar, Marlowe and Amanda were sharing a bottle of wine, although neither of them had actually touched a drop since their brief, slightly forced toast after the bottle was opened. Instead, they'd been engaged in rapt conversation, discussing the details of Marlowe's corpses.
It had already occurred to Marlowe that this wasn't how dates normally went. Most dates involved stilted conversations about simple topics, whereas they'd been talking almost exclusively about water tables and methods of scanning the interiors of dead bodies without disturbing the skin. Then again, Marlowe couldn't be certain that this was a date, and he didn't even know if he wanted it to be a date. He'd never been very good at understanding women, and Amanda seemed particularly inscrutable. Despite his skepticism, however, he couldn't deny that they'd been bumping into one another with increasing frequency over the past few days, and there was a chance that she was interested in more than just a set of old bones.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to think of something to say, something to get rid of the awkwardness.
“Fungus,” Amanda said suddenly.
He stared at her. “I beg your pardon?”
"Fungus,” she continued. “There are types of fungus that form very plain, very smooth joins with one another. Don't be insulted by this suggestion, but the skin you think you've found on this 2B specimen... Could it actually be a fungal growth that just looks like skin? Have you actually tested it yet? Sometimes it's the simplest explanations that we ended up overlooking, and you wouldn't be the first person to get fooled like that."
"It's not fungus," Marlowe replied. "I've already removed a sample. Besides, there's also hair, as well as the fact that some of the skin around the neck wound seemed to have started to heal. How can a body even begin to heal a severed head? It's..." He paused, lost in thought. "There's an explanation somewhere. There's an explanation for everything, but right now..."
"This is when a lesser man would start thinking the unthinkable," Amanda said.
"Such as?"
She shrugged. "Vampires. Werewolves. Monsters in the night."
"A convenient fantasy," Marlowe said. "I'd rather keep digging and find the real answer. All the other bodies are explicable. I can show you what happened to them, how it occurred, and what happened next. 2B, though, is infuriating. It doesn't make any sense. In fact, it flies in the face of reason completely, but that doesn't mean there's something supernatural going on. It just means I haven't seen the problem from the right angle yet."
"Have you thought about doing the most obvious thing?"
Marlowe stared at her.
"Remove the head," she continued with a faint smile. "See what the joins are really like from the inside. I know you can take images and create 3D models, but maybe you should just pull the damn thing off and take a look? Really poke around in there. Get your hands dirty."
"We can't," Marlowe replied. "The Bulgarian government only let us have the bodies if we promised to keep them intact. We're barely even allowed to breathe around them."
"They won't know," she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial hush. "If you do things by the book, you might miss something. You'll end up sending the bodies back at the end of the month, and you won't have got to the bottom of the whole thing. Can you really live with that? After all this work, are you really prepared to send the bodies home when you know there are other things you could try?"
"I can't break the terms of the agreement," Marlowe said. "Besides, I wouldn't learn much by doing something so drastic." He paused for a moment, wondering whether he should mention the other thing that had been bothering him. "There's something else," he said eventually. "This might sound crazy, but you have to remember that I'm certain there's a rational explanation for everything. Still..." His voice trailed off for a moment. "No, forget it. It's ridiculous."
"You can't leave me hanging," Amanda replied. "What's wrong?"
"It's just... I swear, when specimen 2B arrived, its jaw was closed. And then yesterday, I noticed it was open slightly, just a millimeter or two. And today, it seemed to have opened a little more."
"Like it's slowly opening its mouth."
Marlowe smiled awkwardly. "How about that for something out of the ordinary, huh? Obviously there's an explanation. Chemical reactions in the ligaments, maybe, or..." Again, his voice trailed off. "You see how easy it is to let this kind of thing get to you?" he said eventually. "The mind fills in the gap between all sorts of basic observations."
"Either that," Amanda replied with a mischievous grin, "or your specimen 2B is waking up."
Marlowe nodded wearily. Checking his watch, he saw that it was close to midnight. They'd been sat in the bar for an hour and a half, and all they'd done was take a circular route back to the basic facts. So much for any hope of a big breakthrough. On a professional level, the evening had been something of a washout, although he was still enjoying this time alone with Amanda. He always considered himself to be a bit of a loner, but now he was starting to realize that he just needed the right type of people around him.
"So tell me about yourself," Amanda said suddenly.
"What do you mean?" Marlowe asked, shocked by the question.
Staring at him, Amanda bit her lower lip.
"Well," Marlowe replied, "I... You know what I do, right? You know about my background and my -"
"What about away from work?" she continue
d. "I mean, you do have time away from the museum, don't you? Please, don't tell me you live in the basement."
Marlowe paused, feeling as if his mind had suddenly been wiped. "Well," he stammered, "I mean, I, well..."
"I'll tell you what I do," Amanda replied, clearly hoping to guide him through the conversational minefield. "I like going to the cinema. Sometimes with friends, but also by myself. I know it's supposed to be weird to go alone, but sod it, I don't care. It's almost obsessive. I have to go several times a week, even if the only films that are showing are total rubbish. I mean, I never go and see anything twice, but..." She laughed nervously, before taking another, bigger sip from her glass of wine. "Do I sound like a total sad-sack?" she asked eventually.
"Not at all," Marlowe said. "If you want to see a film, why should you wait until -"
"But it's not even like I want to see the individual films," she replied. "I just want to go out. I want to go to the cinema. I want to smell the popcorn." She paused, as a set of sirens roared past the door to the bar, obviously heading to some far-off emergency. "Of course, I suppose it'd be fun to have someone there with me, and the ushers wouldn't give me such pitying stares."
"Don't you have any friends?" Marlowe asked, before realizing that he could have phrased that better. "What I mean is -"
"Not really," she said suddenly. "There. I admitted it. I've never been very good at shallow connections. I look for real, strong friendships. I'd rather have two or three really close friends, instead of -" She stopped speaking for a moment as another siren blasted past. "Sounds like there's a party somewhere," she said nervously. "I'm sorry, this is veering toward some kind of confessional thing, and that's really not what I wanted." She paused, keeping her eyes fixed on him. "I don't know why I mentioned anything," she said eventually. "I just thought, if you wanted to go with me some time..."
"To the cinema?" Marlowe asked, shocked at such a suggestion.
"It was just..." She smiled nervously. "I mean, it was -"
Suddenly there was a muffled buzzing sound, and Amanda reached into her bag for her cellphone. "Sorry," she said, "I've got to take this. It's my research assistant." She raised the phone to her ear. "Hey, Deborah, what's - " There was a pause, and after a moment the color seemed to drain from her face. "What?" she asked, almost knocking her wine glass over as she got up from her stool. "Say that again."
