Autopsy Report
It was a beautiful day outside. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and I didn't give a damn. I was too busy with a corpse.
Some job, eh?
Actually, the work's not too bad. My name's Dr. Kira Devereaux. I'm a forensic pathologist at Brahms. One might say THE forensic pathologist at Brahms; turns out I'm the only one here. Oh well. I do my work well, no one really complains. Except for the few overly religious folk who don't want to know how their loved ones died by my rooting around their chest cavity. People are like that. Stupid people, but people just the same.
For the past month and a half, Brahms' neighbor, Silent Hill, has had some weird bodies been found. Since they don't have the sort of technology Brahms has, the bodies have been sent here. And I get to root around through their tissue until I find out what's up. Oh well, at least the pay has boosted a few notches. My ego, too. But something's been sort of bugging me for a while. Ever since a police officer that went over there a couple weeks ago came back crazy, it sort of shook the community here. Another guy was with the cop; mad as a march hare. It's just sort of weird to look at corpses from such a messed up town. There were rumors of drug dealers too, but that's the police's job. I just clean up the mess. Bully for me.
The corpse I was looking at now looked like she was soaked in blood. Sheesh, can't these blood n' gore cases come up with anything less cliché?
I ruffled the pages of the victim's file report. "Hemorrhaging…shock…la dee dah. Name: Lisa Garland…once a nurse at Alchemilla Hospital…special care. Looks like this girl was pretty qualified." I handed the clipboard to my assistant, a young college intern. He looked rather green. I grinned. It was fun to scare the newbies. "Do you want me to open her up, or do you want the honors?" I held out a scalpel.
"No thanks, Doctor…you go right ahead."
I shrugged. "Suit yourself." Adjusting my surgical mask and gloves, I moved to the side of the slab. Making a face, I fanned at my nose; Lisa was beginning to stink.
I did a quick incision right above the collarbone and cringed. The flesh was as tough as leather, not like someone lying saturated with blood. Gritting my teeth, I continued the incision and continued down the torso, making a midsagittal cut directly down to the navel. By this time, I was getting irritated. Dead or not, there's usually a bit of blood when the skin is cut. Still, with the amount of blood on her clothes, I was beginning to think that she'd bled out completely. Who cares that it's impossible? It can still happen. Not.
I resisted the urge to wipe my face. You learn that after you get smeared with dead blood for the first time.
"Rook, be a sweetie and get me a blood sample before I open her up, would you please?" I flashed my assistant my most charming smile.
Rook didn't seem fazed. That was a first. Most people get all starry eyed when I flash that grin. Oh well, he was getting a syringe. Positioning himself across from me, he grasped Lisa's wrist and held it for a moment.
I fought back a snicker. "Er, Rook, I don't think she'll have a pulse."
Rook glared at me, blushed, and inserted the needle in the bend of her arm. He pulled the plunger slowly, and my jaw damn near dropped.
The syringe was full of air.
Okay, maybe she DID bleed out completely.
"O-kay. I've never seen THAT before…" Rook seemed afraid. No, scratch that. He looked somewhere between bed-wetting and a near-death experience.
"Neither have I. Let's open her up and see if we can get anything directly from the heart." I grasped the skin on the edge of the cut with a pair of rat-toothed forceps. Rook did the same, with some effort. "On three. One, two, three." We pulled.
And gasped.
The inside was shriveled and diseased-looking. Every last piece of tissue was mottled and purplish, even brown. The smell was even worse. It came over us in a wave, and my eyes began to water.
"Holy shit…" Rook coughed. "What in the hell happened?"
"We opened up a corpse. Get your blood sample."
"From where?"
He had a point. The heart, or the thing that once was the heart, was a black, almost crispy hunk of meat. It looked like a really short bratwurst that had stayed on the barbie several months too long.
"Well…try."
Rook glared at me, then stuck a newly opened syringe in the right ventricle. Good, it was filling up with some red, cloudy substance. It looked pus-filled. Not the best blood around, but it was a blood sample nonetheless.
"Good. Go take it to the lab. Do what you can; I'll finish up here."
Rook looked relieved as he tromped out of the room. I pulled a white sheet from a stainless steel cabinet and draped in over Lisa Garland's still body. I looked at her frozen brown eyes.
"Girl, you had problems."
***
Twelve hours and three visits to Lisa later, I was sitting in my office trying to finish the autopsy report for the coroner. I still hadn't come up with cause of death; there seemed to be no stabs, blasts, anything that would have made her lose that much blood. My only guess was spontaneous fatal hemorrhaging. Me big heap forensic pathologist; I knew what any bum off the street knew at first sight. Good for me.
The phone rang. I love my phone; it plays the funeral march when it rings. It scares people.
"Hello?"
"Dr. Devereaux?"
"Speaking."
"This is Rook. I finished analyzing that blood sample."
"And?"
"I found leukocytes, disabled platelets, destroyed red blood cells, and some random drugs."
"Come again?"
"The girl was on drugs. White Claudia, if the lab reports are correct. I found only traces, but it was probably enough to wipe out her immune system. No one really knows much about this drug, but I'll tell you one thing. It will give you a hell of a blood problem."
"So the drugs were what caused the hemorrhaging?"
"That's what I think."
"Good. Thanks, Rook. Send me a copy of the report, if you please."
"No problem."
"Ta."
I hung up and rested my head on my hand. My other hand was typing.
'Cause of death: Drug overdose leading to hemorrhaging. Devereaux.'
I dropped the report off at the front office and whistled on the way to my car.
The next morning I was woken up by a very interesting phone call.
~~~
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