Zombologist Book 1 Zombie Hunters (Zomboligist Series) (13 page)

“Very well. Some sort of pandemic virus you say? Well then,
I will get my ‘pompous ass’ out of bed, and meet you there. She is being held in
the Altoona morgue. I am very curious to meet you and to find out what you think
you may know.”

****

Dave Davis hung up the phone. Damn crackpots. Except Dr.
Jones was a well known and famous crackpot.

I’ve heard everything now
, he thought as he pulled
on his trousers. His enormous overhanging belly proved to be a challenge as he
buckled his belt, lifting rolls and trying to pull it tight enough. He always
bought pants to big in case he grew more.

Davis threw on his shirt, socks and shoes, grabbed a light
jacket and headed out the door. He could be there in 5 minutes, he knew there
was no rush but he wanted to get another look at the body before yoo-hoo lady
arrived.

He wondered why a famous Doctor, crackpot or not, wanted to
see a body that had lain dead for over half a century. But, he had to admit, for
a dead body she was unusually well preserved. Yes, his interest was piqued
whether he wanted to admit it or not.

Davis made a left just down the block from his house and
then took a hard right right after that. He loved the new I-99, getting to work
now only took 5 minutes instead of 15. And, this late at night there was no
traffic either.

At the end of a long driveway the morgue came into view. A
square shaped building with only a few windows loomed over a well manicured lawn
that extended to a city block of wooded area lined with jogging trails. The
entrance lights were bright and cast long shadows of scraggly hairy arms from
the troves of elm that surrounded the building.

Davis parked quickly and with quick jerky steps common to
short overweight persons, stepped his way inside the doorway to the morgue. Bob
Tilley was on duty tonight. With the dead, there was never a ‘slow’ night that’s
for sure. Altoona Regional Hospital was just wheeling in 2 from their body truck
as Davis headed down to the autopsy rooms.

“Working late Dave?” Bob sat at the reception desk, feet
propped up, peeking out over the newspaper.

“Yeah, when Jana Jones gets here, send her down to autopsy
room 16, okay Bob? Oh, that’s Dr. Jana Jones.”

“Roger that Dave.” Bob said with a wink. “How ‘bout those
Steelers, huh?” Receiving no answer, Bob shook the paper open and with a shake
of his head, buried his nose in it.

****

Jana hung up the phone. “Game on.” She said to Dillon.

“Let’s go.”

They chose the SUV and drove the 10 miles down Bulls Creek
to the interstate. They stopped at a quick shop on the way to gear up on coffee.
They knew it would be a long night.

Both were bone tired but neither would mention that to the
other. Their relationship centered on positive inflections and pure energy. They
both hoped that coffee would have some effect on them but when push came to
shove, they were driven by pure adrenaline.

 “What fascinates you about this woman found in the cave?
We already know that she was infected by the virus. Why do you want to see her?
Shouldn’t we get to the hospital instead and start the containment there?”

Dillon was met by silence. This was so unlike her. She was
keeping something from him, he could sense it. He tried again. “Why are you so
interested in this woman?”

“Just a hunch.”

Dillon knew her better than that.

“What fascinates you about this woman found in the cave?
Let me in Jana.”

“Remember how I told you about how I came in
the society
?”
She waited for his acknowledgment before she continued, “What I never mentioned
was that right before we were rescued; Dad threw mom into the back of the pickup
and took her somewhere. He wanted to keep her safe, get her there before she
turned. I fell asleep during the ride but he woke me…. to let me know that he’d
be right back. He said if he wasn’t back within a few hours to drive to my
aunt’s house in Maryland. He handed me the shotgun right before he grabbed mama
out of the back of the pickup.

“I will never forget how she looked in the moonlight. Dad
carried her like a sack of potatoes thrown over his shoulders; her arms were
dangling over his back. That was the last time I saw her.”

Dillon could hear the strain and pain evident in every word
she spoke. But what she said next blew him out of the water.

“We were in Trout Creek State Park.”

“Trout Creek? Where they found the woman? Good God Jana! So
this woman? This woman might be your mother?” Dillon didn’t even try to hide the
surprise and horror from his voice. They had worked together to long for him to
even try.

Her gaze was focused straight ahead, her facial muscles
tight, “Yes. It might be.”

****

Dave Davis opened the door to autopsy room 16 and turned on
the light. He could see faint traces of his breath coming out in plumes before
him. He was out of breath from walking the short distance from the elevator to
morgue 16. He callously chided himself for not dieting.

The room temperature had been lowered to keep the body from
warming to fast and turning into a puddle of mush. Davis shivered.

When a body encased in ice melts too fast it literally
turns into a pool of mush and Davis didn’t want that to happen before he could
find cause of death. The steamer worked fantastically, just as it had on the
frozen man they had found in the lake. Still there was a puddle of water on the
floor surrounding the table.

At the base of the autopsy table was a steel table on
wheels. On it sat the usual instruments, bone cutters, chisels, forceps,
scissors, assorted knives, trays, fluid containers, saws and blades and the
 ‘tagging and bagging’ equipment.

Attached to the north end of the wall was a tape recorder
and the microphone extended over the autopsy table by flex metal. When he was
doing the actual autopsy he would pull the microphone close and speak into it as
he worked.

Dave Davis gazed over to the mystery woman.

She was laid in the position she had been found when she
was in the cave, but instead of upright, she was now on her side. She had been
found in a partially frozen sitting position. Basically she either sat down or
was placed that way then died. Over several decades the natural dripping water
encased her in an ice tomb.

She was still wearing her bra and panties, hands and feet
not yet bagged. The lab techs had painstakingly removed her outer dress, careful
not to rip any flesh away. They would later have the job of taking DNA samples
and search for any trace evidence that may be handy if Davis finds that a murder
had been committed.

“So lady, what is your secret? Why is one particular
Koo-Koo lady so interested in you?” Davis said as he walked over to her sliding
the instrument table to the center of the room.

Davis wanted to see what was so special about this one.
 Her death was a mystery to him and there was nothing he enjoyed more than a
mystery, a great big puzzle waiting to be put together, piece by piece.

He looked her over more closely. He didn’t see any physical
evidence that jumped out at his naked eye screaming at him the cause of death.
One of the physical injuries that he immediately saw was the huge chunk of flesh
missing just below her shoulder. The missing flesh looked ‘torn or ripped’ from
her body. Unusual.

Her ankle looked like it was gnawed upon. And then there
was the torn dress that she was wearing when they found her. Unless she bled to
death it was not the type of injury that would indicate case of death or that a
murder had been committed. Upon closer inspection Davis also found multiple bite
marks on her wrist and calf. Some animal had ripped chunks out of her, yes, but
it was nothing that looked so severe that it would be the cause of death.

The wounds must be post mortem. Perhaps a wild animal had
wondered into the lower level of the cave where she had been found. Perhaps she
had been wounded then found the cave, hid and couldn’t find her way out again.
Though dehydration wasn’t apparent. As a matter of observance, the flesh didn’t
look dried out at all, or rotted as one would expect from the thawing then
refreezing of water that was common inside the ice caves of the area.

Again, unusual.

Davis wasn’t one to guess but his mind was in the process
of trying to sort out how she could have ended up in the cave in the middle of
the woods, and more importantly, why? Why would she pick a cave to hide in, or
did someone put her there to hide a crime?

Davis’s wheels were beginning to churn.

He took a leg and tried to straighten it out thinking it
would be impossible but surprisingly it unbent smoothly. He straightened the
other leg.

As he usually did when he was alone with a corpse, Davis
began talking out loud as he examined the body.

“Female, no state of apparent decay. Unusual.” Davis gloved
his hands and took a look at the ankles, lifting and rolling each in front of
his eyes. “Left ankle shows signs of bite marks possible dog or small coyote,
will take imprints in the morning. Right ankle no sign of disturbance, feet and
nails are fairly clean, will scrape in the morning for possible evidence. “

Then a thought hit him. Was she wearing shoes when they
brought her in? Davis turned and looked for any folder that might have been
brought in with her. He didn’t see any. He began to speak again, “Note to self,
see if she had any shoes when they found her. There is no sign of walking
through the woods for any length of time in her bare feet, no cuts, thorns or
sign of trauma on her feet. May be a clue.”

He ran his hands over her bare legs turning them this way
and that looking for anything unusual. He covered her torso area seeing nothing
unusual.

It was then that he realized that she emitted no foul odor.
“Weird lady, you should be stinking to high heaven about now.”

Looking at her arms he noticed raised welts, like she
scratched and scrapped herself on some twigs on a walk through the woods. “This
isn’t right. You lady shouldn’t be this pristine. You haven’t been in that cave
that long have you? You may dress funny but no, no, no. You’re too fresh.”

He then examined the ripped flesh just below her shoulder.
Still purple, a bit of swollen flesh. And that’s when it hit him, the smell.
There was a smell; a foul odor was seeping from the wound. Pulling his glasses
from his pocket, He bent to take a closer look. Definitely a bite wound. “Oh
my.” He said as he bent closer. The bite wound looked fresh, and the size and
shape suggested to him that it was a human bite.

Had she been fighting with someone and it turned physical?
He looked at her nails. Low cut, looked like she was one that knew hard work. He
could see several fingers that had dirt under the nails. He turned and pulled a
drawer open taking out the fingernail kit.
She should have been bagged and
tagged at the scene
, he thought angrily.

He began to dig the debris out from under her nails. Once
he finished he put plastic bags over her hands to protect anything else that may
be on her hands. If there was any flesh under those nails the guys in the lab
would find it.

He put the evidence bags on the table and turned back to
the woman on the table. He touched her breast. “36?” Davis chuckled. This was
his favorite part of the job, playing with the bodies.

“Let’s see if there are any signs of rape shall we?”

He adjusted her legs and changed gloves.

“No apparent bruising”, he said out loud. He brushed some
ice away from her opening and inserted several fingers. Her muscles clenched
down tight on his stubby little fingers inserted in her vagina.

 “What the hell?” Reflex took over and he moved backwards
falling into the metal table standing in the center of the room, behind him. The
wheels began to roll as his weight fell on it and down he went.

Davis sat up rubbing the back of his head. He had been
working with dead bodies for forty years and not one had ever had a muscle spasm
like that.  Hell, his ex-wife had never had a spasm that hard.

Sometimes he had bodies that sat up on the autopsy table, a
complete normal reflex from the muscles. He’s had a few first year interns run
screaming through the hallways when the dead sits up.

But that dead body shouldn’t have any spasms.

She’s been dead to long.

As a matter of fact, that body should be in advance stages
of decay.

He looked up. The body hadn’t moved. Davis got to his feet
and with his heart beating in his ears, he moved closer to the body. His
trembling hand reached out and touched her neck to check for a pulse.

He knew he was being ridicules.

None.

Nothing.

He didn’t realize he was holding his breath. His bull dog
face frowning in concentration, he knew it was impossible to even think such a
thing but he didn’t imagine her muscle tighten on his fingers.