Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation by M. R. Sellars

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,