Cursing their carelessness with the body, a gloved Swigart slipped on spilled brown ooze from the leg, quickly salvaged his footing, and then recovered the runaway leg to carry it up behind them, shouting, “Damn it, Bowman, take better care!”
“I’m not a damn undertaker, boss!” Even as he said this, David wondered if there could be egg sacs laid inside the corpse he carried.
It could not be soon enough for the men to rid themselves of the body, and soon it was in Navy parlance a ‘managed task’. “We should’ve used the service elevator at mid-ships,” complained Bowman who was looking ill since Alandale’s leg had sheared off, increasing the unpleasant odor rising from the discolored corpse.
“If Cookie got wind of us using his service elevator, he’d be as mad as Ahab’s whale,” Swigart tried joking when he again saw the brackish liquid seeping out of the wound where the leg had come off at the knee.
“Yeah, I can hear him now, said David, mimicking the cook—“Damnit, the elevator’s for two things only—supplies in, slop out.”
They laughed together at this even as they hefted Alandale’s inert form across the deck and into a hatchway leading them into the bio lab, past the lab itself and to a wall unit—the freezer compartment on board for the collection of biological specimens. Kelly had led the way, and now she held the door wide for them.
Lena Gambio passed along her baggie of fingers in alongside Alandale corpse laid along the floor of the walk-in freezer. Swigart added the errant leg and foot even as the cameras rolled.
“Wait till Woods Hole asks you for biological specimens now, Dr. Irvin,” Lena said, trying to make light of this awful moment.
Craig Powers and his cameraman continued shooting, Powers creating a running narrative that he would edit together later.
David felt a wave of surreal emotions engulf him. Alandale not yet cold in his icy coffin, his severed leg and fingers a mocking sight; still, it was either laugh or cry at such moments, and the laughter escaping others, he knew vented a truckload of pent up emotions. However, Lou Swigart was like stone, not joining in on the ‘merriment’ although he’d opened it earlier with his remarks about Cookie’s elevator.
Kelly commented, “Thank God you clowns didn’t begin your comedy routine in front of Forbes.”
Bowman said, “Always wanted to do stand up, and with these cameras in my face, I think it’s my chance.”
The camera caught the odd juxtaposition of the petrified body, now technically in three pieces, as the door to the specimen freezer closed on Alandale’s remains.
David snatched off the surgical gloves and unceremoniously tossed them into the nearby medical waste bin. He then waited as the others filed out, until only he and Kelly remained in the bio lab. “You know,” he said, “Alandale’s body could be riddled with those eggs you were talking about.”
“No—I don’t think so. The brackish ooze, remember? From Declan’s journal, I’ve learned this is the remnant of egg sacs gone bad—dead, aborted if you will.”
“Ahh… no need to worry then.”
David’s sarcasm made Kelly wince, a look of utter sadness coming over her. “He was such a wonderful old gentleman, Alandale. What’s happened to him, and I fear this man Ford, David… it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Brace yourself; it will only get worse.”
SEVENTEEN
“My God… my God, Declan, what’re you trying to do?” asked Thomas Coogan as his best friend, Declan Irvin, using long-handled bone cutters, severed McAffey’s spine with a single snap.
“There!” Declan announced, a look of satisfaction passing as quickly as it had arrived. “I was… .was afraid for a moment we’d have to turn him over and open him up from the posterior.”
Declan seems a natural at this, thought Ransom, while Thomas appears queasy, but who am I to talk? Ransom felt on the verge of losing his last meal. While Alastair had been to countless autopsies and inquests back in Chicago, none were anything like this; nothing so putrid smelling as the gases emanating from McAffey’s leathery corpse.
“I’ve seen a lot of things in my sixty some odd years on the planet, lads, but never what’s been done to these men. It leaves me speechless.”
“Why’s it necessary, Declan,” pressed Thomas again, looking over his glasses, “to-to sever the spine?”
Declan answered not with words but by holding the end of the severed section of the spinal cord up to their eyes. “What’s missing from this picture? Thomas, what do you see? Answer me.”
“Dry as bone inside—not a drop of spinal fluid… .”
“As I suspected—somehow the spinal fluid and even the bone marrow… it’s just gone, but by what power?”
“Why take a man’s spinal fluid?” asked Thomas.
Declan shook his head. “Somehow this thing robs a man of every ounce of fluid in the body.”
“But down to a man’s spine!”
“Empty as a beer keg,” agreed Ransom, eyes wide.
“All of it gone, but how? Sucked from the bones do you think?” If Thomas had looked unnerved before, he looked doubly so now.
“Thomas, hold yourself together, man. We have two more bodies to open up.”
“To what bloody end? We damn well know the others’ll be identical to McAffey, Declan.”
“We can’t know that unless we put eyes on it.”
“It’s bloody obvious they suffered the same fate.”
Ransom held back to allow the young doctors to settle this.
Declan got nose to nose with his friend. “And suppose O’Toole lived longer than McAffey, and your uncle even longer? Suppose it’s obvious one of them had put up a better fight than did McAffey?”
“We’d be well informed to know as much, yes.” Thomas stepped back half a foot.
“If that’s so, Tommie, we have to determine how the one may’ve fought it off, don’t you see?”
“To affect a cure, of course… I realize but are we up to it, Declan? I mean, we’re just a couple of medical students at best.”
“We’re up to it.”
“It’s not as if we’re the best equipped for the job!”
“Dr. B and the dean surely are not up to it, Thomas, and so If not us, then by God who will step into the breach?”
Ransom placed his bear-like paw onto Thomas’ shoulder to steady the young man. Thomas looked from Declan to Ransom and nodded. “All right. All right but we may well be doomed before we’ve begun; there isn’t the time.”
“Close up Mr. McAffey for me then, Thomas, and I’ll start on O’Toole, unless you wish to do the honors.” Declan held up the scalpel for Thomas, but he declined it.
“Perhaps I’ll… I’ll open up Uncle Anton.” Thomas held a quivering chin high, his eyes challenging now.
“That’s not going to be easy, Thomas. Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything—not a single bloody thing. Are you?”
“To be honest, no!” Declan saw his gritted teeth reflected in Thomas’ glasses.
“All right, give it to me.” Thomas held his hand out for the scalpel that Declan had earlier offered. “I’ll do O’Toole and leave Uncle Anton in your hands.”
“Well played, Thomas.” Declan reached for a scalpel that Thomas had laid out for his own use, and he handed it to Thomas.