Part 36 (1/2)

Garlich thought he was crazy. But he did not say so, and he would not say so in front of Myer anyway. He did not know Myer. But Garlich knew Roeder. He was a professional to be respected and listened to.

But, and Garlich's eyes swept over the body before him, Jesus Christ.

Myer was running his hands over his face now. He was sweating freely, and his skin had lost all color. He was still with them, although he dearly wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else.

”How... are you defining this?” Garlich quietly asked Roeder.

Roeder smiled weakly. ”Well, that's my question to you. How would you define this? Besides being something unnatural.”

Across the table, Myer giggled. Both Garlich and Roeder looked questioningly at him. Myer stifled it.

Another groan, the softest of sighs, left the area where the mouth would have been if the body had been whole. The sound brought the three men to attention.

”She's been here for two days,” Garlich stated.

Myer nodded with enthusiasm. Garlich studied the way the woman's right hand had been rolled to a pulp. It looked like a purple-black oven mitten made of flesh and bone fragments.

”Is this...” a joke Garlich was about to say, but the expression on Roeder's face was the honest to Christ truth. ”This is...” he gestured with a hand, as if performing a feat of magic. He could not finish his sentence.

”There are brain waves,” Roeder informed him. ”We've determined that much. No pulse. No heartbeat. No breath. No other regular determiners that signify life.”

”Autopsy?”

”We were in the process of performing an autopsy when she started... making noise,” Roeder told him, shrugging his shoulders as he did so. He pointed to a place in the woman's dull, black torso, ”This is where Myer made his first incision, and when she first cried out. We tried again, in the same spot, and the same reaction. That's when we did what tests we could without... causing her much discomfort.”

Myer's hand found his throat. He pulled up a small silver crucifix hanging from a chain and began rubbing it between his fingers. Garlich caught the gesture and chose to ignore it. He built his career on knowing facts. He wasn't ready to start thinking about the undead just yet. He sighed inwardly. He shouldn't even be thinking the thought, but he was no fool... and he had seen enough zombie movies to know what was up.

The three men stood silently then, regarding the animated non-corpse on the examination table. Myers continued to rub his crucifix. Somewhere, coming from the stainless steel sinks, a single drop of water plucked against metal.

”What do you suggest?” Roeder asked, more than willing to follow Garlich's lead.

Garlich thought about it. ”First, morphine,” he said quietly. Then he nodded towards the examiner's table. ”For her, too...”

Chapter 43.

At the same time Roeder was fixing a painkiller drip for the crushed woman in the morgue, other things were developing across the globe. A Jordanian man, accused and convicted of strangling his three children, was led to the prison gallows in the brightness of early morning. Prayers were said, as well as curses, for the soul of Habis Akbar as he was led up the steps, positioned over a metal trapdoor and blindfolded with a black cloth bag. He felt the rope going around his neck, felt it tighten and waited for death, whispering to himself that the afterlife would not be as miserable as the events that drove him to take the lives of his children.

When the lever was thrown and the trapdoor flew open, Habis fell the regulation six feet into emptiness, the rope and his own body weight snapping his neck with little effort. He spun clockwise, and the officials watching noted how the man's legs kicked once, twice and then were still. The execution was quick. Habis's neck broke. His spinal cord severed. They let him hang for several minutes, and in that time, he was deprived of oxygen. His carotid arteries, unable to drain blood, caused cerebral oedema. Under his mask, Habis's eyes bulged and his tongue plunged out. Little blood marks from burst capillaries slowly appeared on his face and eyes. His bladder released, his bowels let loose and the sweet, strong stink of s.h.i.+t flowered the air.

When the prison official lowered him to the ground and released the rope, they removed the mask to see a purple-faced Habis, stretched neck and all, blinking frantically. From his mouth came the growing gush of a soundless scream. The prison officials, taken aback by the blunder, nevertheless were professionals. They quickly masked the criminal, replaced the rope and, rather than carrying the man up the step to the platform once again, simply used a mechanical winch to haul his carca.s.s up until it dangled again, motionlessly, a good foot from the ground.

They hung him for ten minutes this time.

When they removed the mask a second time, the strangulation marks around his neck were ghastly, but not near as frightening as Habis's eyes, bug-eyed and bloodshot from burst capillaries. He blinked at the world and tried very, very hard to scream.

One shaken official did not want to hear that scream. He drew his service revolver and shot Habis at point blank range in the chest.

Habis continued to blink.

The officer shot three more rounds into Habis's chest, exploding it.

Habis made low grunting noises when he should not have.

Sweating now and fully aware that the others were swearing aloud and calling for holy intervention, the officer steeled himself, took careful aim and blew out the back of Habis's head with one shot. Right between the eyes.

He felt his knees tremble when the grunting continued.

Most men fled the room then. The shooting officer and two others remained and gathered around. Composing themselves as best as they could, they removed Habis's ruined body to his final resting place, covering his head so that they did not have to stare at his destroyed face. They buried him in the late afternoon in a desert graveyard for criminals, hurrying away quickly before they could hear the soft grunts of the still-not-dead Habis escaping from the earth-little, pathetic, G.o.d-frightening noises that continued on even as they were throwing the dirt in on him.

The after effects of the sloppy execution were quick. All the men were immediately counselled for the disturbing events of the morning. One man, however, the officer who had shot Habis five times, quietly returned home. He locked himself away in his apartment with his own firearm, and sat before a window overlooking the great city of Amman. It was evening, and the sky was becoming orange at the edges. He lit himself a cigarette, placed his loaded revolver on the table nearby. He thought about his career and life and the gun on the table. He thought about the grunting Habis, and how they buried a man that should have been dead. He thought about that for a long time. And as the sun dropped below the cityscape line, and the day became black, he took longer draws on his cigarette. When he finished it, he lit a new one.

Finally, in the darkness of his room and the glow of the moon, he eyed his weapon on the table. Eventually, with fingers trembling, he touched the gun metal, caressed it.

And took it into his hand.

Chapter 44.

In the blackness of unconsciousness, Tony heard voices speak once in a while, loud and clear. They said nothing important to him, and he would not be able to recall exactly what it was they were talking about, but he heard them, like a child setting his ear to a thick door and listening to big words spoken on the other side. He would hear them twice, and then no more.

Then, he woke up.

It was cold. That was the first sensation he felt. With his chin resting on his chest, he kept his eyes closed as he came to his senses. He sat there, in between two warm bodies of people he did not know, in the rear seat of the car he had once pursued. He did a damage check on himself and noted with satisfaction that nothing else hurt except his head. It felt like there was a nail in his skull, and it was gouging out a message on the inside of his brainpan. Tony cringed and felt the sticky, moistureless, gummy feeling that came with the morning after a night of heavy drinking. He smacked his lips groggily and wished for water.

Then, he realized his mistake.

”Think he's coming around,” said a voice to his left.

”Mhm,” agreed a voice on his right, quick like a PC stereo check.

”I think he's playing now.”

Tony felt someone s.h.i.+ft beside him. A stinging backhand slapped across his face. His eyes went open in reflex, and he raised his fist to protect himself.

He felt something cold at his throat and froze.

”That's right, d.i.c.ksuck,” the voice on the left purred. ”That's right.”

The Minion named Peters turned and stared Tony in the eye. Tony cringed, both from the nail in his head and the steel at his throat. He couldn't remember ever having a knife this close to him. Peters studied him quietly seeing what he was about. Tony saw the back of Death's head between Peters and the giant that had subdued him. The big man was now driving. From what Tony could remember, before being laid out cold on the highway, they weren't in the front seat in the beginning. Why had they changed positions? Why would anyone change positions while driving? To give the lead driver a break?

Jesus and Mary, Tony thought, where were they?

”You just sit there and be good.” Peters winked at the Hanson holding the knife, and Tony felt the blade drop away. ”There's no need for rough s.h.i.+t. We can get that anytime we want. Anytime we want.”