A/N: The horrors of owning a kitten.  Excuse any typos in this chapter; it will be entirely the kitten's fault.  Wait, that's what spell-checker is for, right?  Yeah!

Kalevispetke- I wish you a happy and prosperous journey.  May the winds of luck fill your sails and send you to a happy destination.  (Gah, I sound like a fortune cookie, don't I?)

PUREvenom- 'Tis her style.  And furthermore, I respect any woman who can do the job Kira does while wearing a skirt.  And pumps, for that matter.

Yes, I know the last two chapters sounded like SotL.  It was purely unintentional, I assure you.  I would have posted a disclaimer if it was intentional.  Sorry for the confusion ^_^;;;  Speaking of disclaimers, Dr. Jaina Proudmoore is not mine.  She belongs to the people who made Warcraft 3.  (Bloody brilliant game, Warcraft 3.)  But considering she was an archmage in that game and a clinic director here, I s'pose that's allowed.  If not, then fuu on you.

Merci to all who have reviewed so far!  I owe you much thanks and many favors!  ^_^

Cheers,
~Rumer ("KITTEN!  STOP BITING MY BOOKBAG!  ARGH!!!")

Autopsy Report: Chapter Nine

Silence filled the Audi as I floored it down the interstate.  Not that that was a bad thing; I had other things to worry about.  Like how in the Hell Harry's prediction came true.  It's been scientifically proven that crazy people all aren't insane; quite the contrary, they can be absolutely brilliant.  I decided that Harry was a good example of this theory.  He just had some sort of weird hallucination and just for telling people what he saw, he was thrown in the looney bin.  Still, if he'd come to me about Silent Hill being a hell on earth, I'd have told him he was crazy too.  Well, if that happened before I went there.  Now I'd agree with him.  Maybe not to the extreme, but I'd agree on Silent Hill being a pretty hellacious place.  Who wouldn't?

I decided not to dwell on the fact that Harry Mason was an eccentric and that I'd have to dissect his daughter in about an hour, so I popped in a CD.  The song that came on was Hybrid's "If I Survive".  I smiled to myself; it seemed fitting for this particular song to be playing.  The techno beat swayed my worries and soon I forgot all about what I was soon gonna have to face.  Sadly, the feeling of euphoria proved to be temporary when I got within a block from the clinic.  Oh yeah, I was supposed to do some actual work today.  Not the most savory work ever, but then, it was my choice.  No use complaining about it.  The only other children I had had to perform autopsies on were the kids who were poisoned by their parents during the whole Hale Bop Apocalypse incident.  That wasn't fun at all, considering how innocent the kids were.  I'd sworn to divvy whatever kids I was asked to do to other people, like Dr. Lecter.  That man has an iron constitution.  Well, so do I, but he just didn't have a soft spot for children.  Did that make him an ogre?  Naw.

I pulled in the parking lot and turned off the ignition.  Looking out the window, I was immediately met with the familiar flash of ambulance lights.  Yup, my work was waiting.  Without wasting another moment by thinking how I really didn't want to do this, I stepped out of the car and walked briskly past the ambulance and two police cars and entered the building.  I liked the clinic; there was no little bell or buzz that announced a new possible client.  It was a nearly unanimous vote when it came to that little matter.  It didn't make any difference; the second I walked through the door I was immediately attacked by several doctors and a cop.  Three of the doctors I knew nearly personally: Dr. Lecter, Dr. M'ai Ling, and cute little Rook.  The other doctor that met me was none other than my superior, Dr. Jaina Pridemoore.  The police officer was identified to be Bruce Drake by the little black nametag pinned on his shirt, and a gold-plated, five-pointed star badge proclaimed him to be the sheriff of this fine county.  Ooh, all the important people are here!  Lucky, lucky me.  Not really.

"Well, Dr. Devereaux," began Jaina, "you seem to have been busy these past few weeks, haven't you?"  From the tone of her voice, she sounded almost accusing.

"Yes, ma'am, I suppose I have been," I stated plainly. "considering that every body that I've received has come from Silent Hill, and that they all died horrible deaths."  Jaina nodded and motioned to Sheriff Drake.

"Yes, we've picked up on that.  That's why we opted to get a few police officers involved.  This is Sheriff Bruce Drake, hailing from Silent Hill itself.  He's kept tabs on all the missing people in the past year and all the bodies found matched precisely."  She flipped her hand over so it now pointed at Dr. Ling.  "Dr. Ling has been most cooperative, what with all the bodies coming through her care.  However, we're still unsure about what exactly is going on."  Sheriff Drake stepped forward.

"Ma'am, Dr. Lecter has told us that you went to question Harry Mason today."  I nodded in return.

"I have a tape of the session.  If you'd like to listen, be my guest."  I pulled a small tape recorder from my blazer pocket.  Jaina took it.  No, snatched would have been a better word.  Jaina snapped open the recorder and took out the mini-cassette inside.  She handed the cassette to Sheriff Drake and handed the recorder back to me.  Note to self: Dr. Pridemoore owes me a mini-cassette.

"Thank you.  We've been studying your reports to the letter, and hopefully this will help."  Jaina motioned to the sheriff and Dr. Ling, and they shuffled off.  Back into the clouds, away from us mere mortals.  Pfft.  Can we say, 'spoilt brat', children?

I turned to Dr. Lecter and Rook.  They seemed grave.  Even Rook wasn't his usual spunky self, and that meant something was really wrong.

"Shit, Kira, the whole place is on edge," Dr. Lecter said in a gravelly voice.  "Since this kid came in, people are getting scared.  It's pretty clear that this isn't any coincidence or fluke."  I nodded.

"A fluke.  Yeah right," I said indignantly.  "Like it's a fluke that everyone I've dissected have," I ticked them off on my fingers, "One, all come from merry old Silent Hill; Two, they've all had drugs in their system, White Claudia to be exact; Three, they all went missing at the same time a while back; and Four, they didn't have the happiest deaths I've had the pleasure to see.  I'm actually starting to believe what Harry said."

Dr. Lecter's eyes widened a bit.  "Mason?  What did he say?"

I shrugged.  "He told me that he went to Silent Hill with his daughter, got in a car crash, went looking for her, went through hell, and never saw her again.  Your typical family vacation.  And when he tried to report it, they threw him in the nuthouse.  So, needless to say, he's not just a misunderstood little boy who just needs a hug.  From what I see, something's horribly wrong with that town."

Dr. Lecter's eyes narrowed.  "Hmm.  Was that all he said?"

"That's about it, except it was worded a bit differently."

"Listen to me.  This is getting to be way more than anything we'd thought possible, so what I suggest you do is this.  Go to the morgue and do your autopsy.  Go straight home afterwards."

I silently cheered.  Home, yay!

"Tomorrow I want you to go back to Harry and question him again.  What he told you today wasn't enough."

The cheering in my head stopped.

"Again?"  I shivered.  I didn't like asylums, especially Kipling.  Bit of a torture den for the mind, if you ask me.

"Again.  And I don't want you back in until you get something else that is a little more solid by way of evidence."

I nodded reluctantly.  "Fine.  But I want a real vacation when I get done.  No interruptions.  I want to get out of state for a while; I don't want cellphone calls at two in the morning telling me to get down to the clinic.  I think we both agree I've been through enough hell for a time.  Do we have a deal?"  I raised an eyebrow.  I could drive a hard bargain at times, and right now was no exception.

Dr. Lecter looked defeated.  "Fine.  Deal.  Just get it done.  I'll leave you alone for your whole vacation.  Scout's honor."  He raised three fingers in the scout salute.  Gods, he was a scout?  That was a bit hard to picture.

"Thanks.  I assume Rook's gonna be my little helper on this one?"  I cuffed Rook hard on the shoulders, making him jump.

"You got it.  Get going, Devereaux."  Dr. Lecter sauntered off.

I assumed an evil grin and turned to Rook.  "Ready, Rookie?  This isn't gonna be pretty, from what I hear."

"You heard right."  Rook turned slightly green.  "I've seen her."

"Well, let's be off, shall we?  Don't want to keep a client waiting, do we?"  I trotted down the hall.  I could hear Rook lagging along behind, obviously not too keen to go back to the morgue.  Who could really blame him?  I certainly couldn't.  Forensic pathologists and Forensic toxicologists are two entirely different things.  The only similarity is that they both deal with the corpse in question.  In different viewpoints, certainly.  But my viewpoint was a bit more aggressive.  Aggressiveness pays off big time in this business, and you either had it or you didn't.  I had it.  Rook, the poor boy, didn't.  I prayed for his soul every night.  Come to think of it, mine too.  You can never be too careful.  And when it comes to souls, it's no exception.

***

I snapped a pair of surgical gloves and flung on a lab coat over my snappy skirt/blazer set.  It's been proven that it's bad to get blood on a suit set.  The dry cleaner people ask questions, and it's a hell of a time trying to explain how your best white blouse got spattered with blood.  If you go with the old ketchup excuse, they don't believe you.  Brzz, wrong answer.  That's what those nifty do-it-yourself dry-cleaning sets are for.  It keeps nosy people from wondering.  And most nosy people have a hell of an imagination.

The morgue itself had been empty except for the more fearless of the interns.  I had shooed them off, promising them all a very verbal letter to their deans if they didn't keep their noses out of other people's business.  Now it was just Rook and myself, and Rook seemed none too eager to get started.  Poor baby.  But a baby nonetheless, so I decided to go easy.

"Okay, Rook," I said in a smooth voice, "Let's just go by the book, right down the list.  I don't want to prolong this any more than what's absolutely necessary."  I could tell he agreed by a bit of the color returning to his pale face.  I nodded.  "Okay then.  Let's have a look at her, shall we?"  I opened the freezer marked Mason, Cheryl and pulled out the body-laden gurney.

If I hadn't seen worse before, I'd have thrown up on the spot.  Truth be told, that's what happened when I saw worse.  This just made me a bit queasy.  Cheryl was about 4'3", normal height for the typical eight-year old girl.  A bit more plump than most, but not fat.  Baby fat if anything.  She had at one point had short black hair and dark eyes.  Her skin had once been extremely pale.  Her hair now was extremely singed, eyes now filled with blood.  She almost looked possessed.  The skin…the skin had been extremely burned.  If there was anything beyond 3rd degree burns, she had the worst there could be.  The worst injuries were on her left side.  It reminded me of a picture I had seen where a Siamese twin baby had been ripped completely in half, separating the two children.  That was a corpse.  Her left side looked ripped apart, just like the Siamese twin.  Well, she had remnants of her left arm and leg, but mere scraps at most.  Fragmented bone.  Slivers of muscle.  She looked like someone had shoved her through a tree chipper, but only on the left side.  Twisted flesh, every inch of it.  I suppressed a shudder and turned to Rook.

"You weren't kidding, kiddo."  I shook my head.  "Shall we get started?"  Rook nodded weakly.  I picked a probe, scalpel, and a pair of forceps from a tray set up near the gurney.  "Where was she found?"

Rook's voice sounded squeaky, like a mouse.  How cute.  "In the West Garage on Toluca Lake.  A boat garage for the resort."

I made a midsagittal incision from the bend in the neck to the xiphoid process on the sternum.  "Any toxicology?  I was told you already got the sample."

"A drug, White Claudia."

"Thought so."  I made several transverse incisions at the top and bottom of the previous incision.  "She was the daughter of Harry Mason.  Any other history?"

"None that we know.  The average eight-year old child, except…"  Rook faltered.

I stopped cutting and turned to face him.  "Except?"

"A while ago she suffered severe burns from a house fire.  She recovered miraculously, but since then she's had immunities to flame."

I turned back to Cheryl and resumed cutting.  "A pyromaniac?  Firebug?  Is that what you're telling me?"

"That's right.  There has been evidence of several incidents dealing with fire that had been noted when the Mason's home was searched, so this is the reason."

"Huh.  Most firebugs die from spontaneous combustion, so this might be the case.  That's odd…are you filling out the report, Rook?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good."  I grasped one side of the incision with the forceps and pulled gently.  The flesh wouldn't move.  Odd.  "Rook, can you grab another set of forceps and help me?  Cheryl seems to be a bit modest about revealing her insides."  Rook did as he was told and latched on to the other side of the cut.  We both pulled.  The chest cavity began to reveal itself.

I knew something was wrong when smoke came swirling out of the opening.

The second we opened the chest cavity, we were both enveloped in a flash of flame.  I jumped back, crying out in alarm.  I could hear Rook doing the same, except not as gracefully.  I saw him on his rump on the floor, cowering.  The flame receded, and I edged forward again.  When I looked into the chest cavity, there wasn't much left to see.  Ash everywhere.  Only ash and a few blackened pieces of bone that were once ribs and spine.

Spine…

Part of the spine was missing.  I took a probe and poked around for a bit until what my probe hit was anything but skin.  It was canvas.

The gurney.

I removed the probe and took a step back.  I knew where this was headed.  I knew precisely what had happened.  I saw it before.

Alessa's back.

A gaping hole, like something had ripped out of her back.  The same.  Except Cheryl's left side was mangled as well.  I studied Cheryl's frozen face.  Then something dawned on me.

She looked an awful lot like Alessa.

A totally unheard of, ridiculous idea flashed through my mind.  What if  they were one and the same person, but somehow had something rip out her back and were then separated?

Ridiculous.

I looked at Cheryl and remembered Alessa.  Something was wrong with her right side, now that I thought of it.  A little bit deformed, but I'd written it off as a birth defect gone wrong because of the burns.

So much for a totally unheard of, ridiculous idea.

~~~

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