Just an idea. What if there were other SI units? So I decided that there should be one in Cedar City, Ut. I am learning about forensics, so not sure if what I am talking a bout exists. But it is fun to imagine. Hope you enjoy. It isn't perfect.
My name was Julia McTavish. Yes, I am Scottish by marriage, and I love that fact. I have an unruly Scottsman for a husband. I am the Head of Special Investigations in Cedar City, Utah. It was a recent appointment. We had never had an SI, until series of weirdness had occurred in our sleepy little town. Somewhere, my boss, Dana Brinkerhoff, the "sarge", heard that Chicago had one, and they dealt with the type of wierdness we were having in Cedar City. So, they picked me. It was a very careful selection process. I had joked that the five decayed bodies which showed up in the park was probably a necromancer making his own thriller show. Before that, they had not known who to give the post to. that had been the deciding factor, the word "necromancer." whoopee.
I really had no idea what I was getting into. It had begun with Five dead bodies, former inhabitants of the Cedar City Cemetery, recently dead within the last six months, had shown up in the park Nov 1, 2015. We had identified the bodies, and found the earth disturbed, and what was really creepy, and what brought it to my desk, was that forensics said that they hadn't been dug up, but that something had dug up from underneath. Lovely.
Investigation by excavation and sonogram, showed no tunnels between them, or anywhere else. All five showed something climbing out of them and proceeding due south. A missing and decayed arm ahd been found in front of The Depot Grill-which they asked not to make public. For some reason, they didn't want a decaying limb associated with their restaurant in the minds of potential customers. I got it.
We had few cameras in Cedar City, and on Halloween night we caught more than a few teenagers out past the time they ought to have been roaming the streets. It was time to identify those kids, and find out what they knew. But first, I need to talk to Forensics at the college.
I picked up the phone and dialed the forensics team. Professor Michael MIlltown picked up. We had spoken before. Michael was a serious sort, which suited me fine. I was serious, and then I was sarcastic.
"So...I read the report on the Cemetery. Is it possible that someone first dug into the grave, and then pulled the bodies out, and made a bigger hole doing that. Could it have made it appear that the bodies were coming out?"
Miltown sighed. "Something strange happened there. I've gone over it at least five times. There are toe nail and fingernail marks inside the coffin, the material is ripped, and there is evidence of foot printes, where someone was standing inside the coffin. The reason it is so plain is that some kind of really heavy pressure on bony feet inside the cushion of the coffin. There are no marks of tools being used to open the vault, and the shifting of earth suggests that the top of the vault was lifted from the center more or less, not from the side. the tears in the grass suggest an upheaval, and no where is there a mark of a shovel."
"No fingerprints, right?"
"There are latent fingerprints of the coroner's team, and some unidentified ones. Possibly family members."
"Not likely as they are outraged that their family members were dug up."
"right. But stranger things have happened."
"Not in my experience." I kept wondering what these families had in common other than recently dead relatives.
"Maybe it was a relative."
"All working together with other relatives? It makes no sense."
"Some sort of cult?"
"Possible. I get to look into it. JOy."
"But is is so strange. No footprints. No tire tracks. Not even so much as a bicycle track around these graves. There were tracks around other graves."
"Kids?"
"yeah...ones going round and round. "
"Kids obviously?"
"All I can say for sure is that whoever did this must be familiar with forensics cause he or she did a bang up job. I can't find anything on how they did it, much less when or why."
"Are you saying that we have zombies in Cedar City?"
"If I didn't know better. Yeah. Someone's gone to a lot of trouble for a Halloween prank."
"In your opinion, could all this be faked/"
"It has to be somehow. I mean...zombies? they simply don't exist. It has to be faked."
"Any idea how much time it would take to fake this?"
"It would have to be alot. I'm not even sure how it would be done."
"And then multiply that by five, in one night."
"More than one person, for certain."
"Great. I guess I am going to have see who was out and when. Post a few flyers. talk to a few people."
"Cause no one is out late on Halloween."
"Agh."