“What about dental records?” he asked. “I can run a check against missing persons… ’Course she might not have been reported yet.”
“I finished shooting those films just before you arrived. We’ll get them processed as soon as possible.”
I was keeping my distance from the autopsy table-visibly at least. My breathing was thready and thin. I stood transfixed by the process as each passing moment drew me further inward; every second that ticked by was bringing me that much closer to the horror the young woman had faced. The events of the day were exacting their toll. I was tired, both mentally and physically.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was becoming convinced I could hear her screaming.
“There was an odd residue in her mouth.” The M.E. had taken a scalpel from the tray, working as she spoke. “I took a sample for the lab. I’m not quite sure what it is but it appeared to be synthetic. Like plastic.”
A bright flash of the young woman’s torture stabbed into my grey matter like a blunt arrow. Ravenous tendrils of yellow-orange flame raked across her flesh, hungrily rending it from her bones. An anguished scream fought to tear free from her throat, only to be detained by the soggy mass that filled her mouth; denied exit by the tightly stretched fabric that had once been an article of her clothing. A pitiful nasal whine was all she could manage as tears rolled down her cheeks and vaporized steamily in the intensifying heat.
I blinked away the talon of agony that raked through my brain and cleared my throat. I could still feel the thick gag in my own mouth.
“It IS plastic,” I volunteered in a quiet, scratchy voice. “Nylon. He gagged her with her own pantyhose so she couldn’t scream. They probably melted in the heat.”
The sound of Ben scribbling in his notebook filled the silence that followed my comment.
Doctor Sanders held the scalpel in mid-air above the young woman’s chest and stared back at me, unblinking. “I’ll mention that to the lab,” she finally said.
This wasn’t the first time she had experienced one of my ethereal revelations, and she definitely wasn’t the skeptic she had once been. On the other hand, she certainly wasn’t as used to them as Ben, and I understood that at times the intimacy of my visions could be somewhat disturbing.
Turning back to the job at hand, almost painfully oblivious to our presence, she proceeded to make a Y-shaped incision in the trunk of the body. She first carefully forced the blade through the cauterized skin then into what remained of the softer flesh beneath. With three smooth strokes, she exhibited skill gained by years in the profession and it became instantly apparent to me why Ben called her “the best of the best.”
The arms of the Y curved upward below the breasts and to the shoulders. The tail extended downward to the pubic area. With the deep incision made, still using the scalpel, she proceeded to peel back the burned tissues and muscle. She displayed nowhere near the cold, unfeeling demeanor of the M.E. we had met in this room earlier in the day. However, her professional detachment was evident as she pulled the “chest flap” upward to expose the front of the ribcage.
In a fleeting thought, I was reminded of what a perverted killer had done to his victims those few months ago. Mercilessly skinning each of them for a purpose I was happier not knowing. One primary difference was that his victims had been among the living and conscious when he began cutting.
“In case you are interested, Mister Gant, what I am preparing to do is remove the chest plate. This will allow me to extract the internal organs in one block. This is something we medical examiners refer to as the ‘Rokitansky Method.’”
She glanced quickly over at my motionless form before proceeding. The scalpel clattered noisily against the metal tray where she dropped it. Then she wrapped her gloved hand, smeared with blood, around a somewhat larger device.
“I’m not exactly sure how you do what it is that you do, Mister Gant.” She had returned her attention to the corpse as she spoke to me. “Or, how it is that you know the things you know…but, if it would help at all, please feel free to come closer. Just don’t touch anything.”
I didn’t move. My eyes were still fixed in the direction of the autopsy table even though the clarity of focus had long since fled. The macabre scene had taken on the blurred, grainy appearance of a poorly received image on an old television. Colors were hastily blooming and collapsing-bleeding into one another in a palette gone berserk as rushing noises filled my ears. Doctor Sanders continued speaking for the recorder, and her words became thick mouthfuls of gibberish joining with the mutated cadence of the background music. My vision tunneled and fire danced across my skin as I realized too late what was happening.
The angry, high-pitched cry of a Stryker saw meeting bone neatly pierced the roaring in my ears. Physical reality spun uncontrollably into formless void as I joined with the young woman on the metal table. Her recent pain was no longer confined solely to somewhere in the back of my thoughts.
Everywhere in my mind, I heard her screaming.
My mouth tastes tinny.
Metallic.
Electric.
Blistered.
Raw.
My chest is shrieking in protest. I can feel my flesh being smoothly peeled back, as though I am being violently wrenched inside out. With each passing second, I become aware of more nerve endings being delivered naked and screaming into the cold antiseptic air.
“Why is she doing that?” a weeping feminine voice asks.
I search through slitted eyes while gritting my teeth against the pain.
I try to turn and suddenly I find myself slowly spinning.
Twisting lazily on an unfelt breeze.
Floating.
“Why is she doing that to me?” the voice asks again.
“Where are you?” I ask as I continue to turn lethargically in a formless void.
I can see no one.
I can see nothing.
“Who are you?” I call out through my agony.
“Why is she cutting me like that?” The voice is beyond weeping. She is sobbing now. Her words break off in hard bewildered pieces between each breath, tumbling forth and shattering in my ears, “Haven’t I been through enough?”
A violent sensation, making agony seem a mere discomfort, bites into my side, gnashing at my bones with countless glittering metal teeth.
My body stiffens.
A tortured cry fills the void.
An angry crimson wail explodes inside my skull.
I’m falling.
Spiraling downward.
Faster.
Faster.
I crash into nothing and splinter into a thousand obsidian shards reflecting the inky darkness. Absorbing and smothering all that is light.
“Mister Gant?” Doctor Sanders’ voice mimics itself in a grotesque parody of speech, casually piercing the ethereal veil. “Did you want to come closer?”
Gradually, I open my eyes.
The black formless void still envelops me.
I can’t see.
Where am I?
Who am I?
Something is tightly stretched across my mouth.
Between my teeth.
It bites into the corners of my lips, abrading them roughly before continuing its constriction around my head.
My mouth tastes of plastic.
Of sweat.
Of blood.
I cannot speak.
I cannot scream.
I can only cry.
“Mister Gant?”
I’m nude.
I’m cold.
I cannot move.
My arms are extended above me, and something rigidly encircles my wrists. I can feel my flesh being torn. I can feel the trickles of my own blood running along my skin from the wounds, mixing with sweat and forming rivulets from the headwaters of my pain.