easier if I did.
I had her locket around my neck for safekeeping. It tingled
where it touched my skin. What was I doing, getting mixed up with someone like
her? Already, I knew that it could end only one way.
I came up from the sewer like a hopeful monster, and checked
the parking lot.
Just the security guard at the front desk, and a few
orderlies cleaning up. The medical examiner liked to go home early.
I had Occam’s litmus kit he developed; any infected blood
would turn the paper black. The only thing left to do was go to the place where
they kept the dead bodies. At least, I hoped they were dead.
I had cultivated a persona. Doctor L.
Doctor L was a forensic fellow who had spent time at the
Sorbonne and Cambridge, and had traveled extensively, lecturing at Harvard and
La Jolla. He came and went at odd hours. Someone or other had seen fit to allow
him to wander the pathology labs at will.
“He is interested in all forms of death,” they said. The
interns gossiped that he must be a ghost. But a few had seen Doctor L,
sometimes, wandering the halls. He was very pale. His eyes were dark, almost
black, and he looked hungry, like he would eat you, if you disturbed him. He
never talked to anybody. That was another thing, Doctor L was completely
antisocial, but very brilliant.
“Don’t ever bother him,” they said.
Doctor L entered through the front doors, strolling, for all
to see, without a care in the world, in a grey V-neck casual T-shirt and jeans,
wearing a pair of sneakers.
He looked like he had just made a million bucks selling oil
futures or something. He was way too
young to be a doctor.
He smiled at the desk clerk and signed in. The orderlies,
and everyone, had never seen him so relaxed. Usually he had a look so serious
upon his face that it froze any would-be conversationalists. This guy was
just––there was something about him... They couldn’t quite put
their fingers on it.
You realize , said
Stalker Boy, that soon you won’t just
have opportunities like this. That this period of your life is finite. That you
are growing up. Or else––well...
I signed in and went down the hall to the elevators to go
get a look at the stiffs. No one bothered me. It was the smart move on their
parts.
Moretti had supplied me with the autopsy reports of the
previous victims, all of whom were being tentatively attributed to the nasty
serial killer Rome had roaming its streets. Peter
Panico.
I had to make sure these bodies didn’t have any infectious diseases the pathology lab was unprepared
for. That meant taking blood samples and testing them against the litmus Occam
had prepared.
There were six cadavers in all, wrapped in white sheets. The
medical examiner was probably waiting for the morning before he processed them.
I went to corpse number one, removed the cap on the syringe,
and stuck it in. Blood stopped moving when someone died––the heart no
longer beat.
This blood had already begun to degrade.
The autolytic effects were such that the erythrocytes were
on self-destruct. The blood because of the hemolysis was see-through. I made a
note of it.
The same for the next one. Both cadavers tested negative for
the Suck.
Same with the third. I was halfway through them, discarding
needles in biological waste containers. None of the bodies had any of the
telltale marks of being bitten by vampires.
Now for number four. I paused with the needle.
“I’ll be,” I said.
The blood had given me an idea. If the virus was spreading
to red blood cells, taking them over, destroying them–– No, it was
converting them. It wasn’t necrosis. And it wasn’t decomposition. It has to be changing the
blood––reconstituting it.
We had never done a postmortem on one of the infected rats.
Never thought to study it. Occam and I had been too busy destroying the
carriers.
We incinerated the rats.
I bet their hearts
pump. I bet when the Suck attacks the nervous system, it does something to the
circulatory system.
I had her locket around my neck for safekeeping. It tingled
where it touched my skin. What was I doing, getting mixed up with someone like
her? Already, I knew that it could end only one way.
I came up from the sewer like a hopeful monster, and checked
the parking lot.
Just the security guard at the front desk, and a few
orderlies cleaning up. The medical examiner liked to go home early.
I had Occam’s litmus kit he developed; any infected blood
would turn the paper black. The only thing left to do was go to the place where
they kept the dead bodies. At least, I hoped they were dead.
I had cultivated a persona. Doctor L.
Doctor L was a forensic fellow who had spent time at the
Sorbonne and Cambridge, and had traveled extensively, lecturing at Harvard and
La Jolla. He came and went at odd hours. Someone or other had seen fit to allow
him to wander the pathology labs at will.
“He is interested in all forms of death,” they said. The
interns gossiped that he must be a ghost. But a few had seen Doctor L,
sometimes, wandering the halls. He was very pale. His eyes were dark, almost
black, and he looked hungry, like he would eat you, if you disturbed him. He
never talked to anybody. That was another thing, Doctor L was completely
antisocial, but very brilliant.
“Don’t ever bother him,” they said.
Doctor L entered through the front doors, strolling, for all
to see, without a care in the world, in a grey V-neck casual T-shirt and jeans,
wearing a pair of sneakers.
He looked like he had just made a million bucks selling oil
futures or something. He was way too
young to be a doctor.
He smiled at the desk clerk and signed in. The orderlies,
and everyone, had never seen him so relaxed. Usually he had a look so serious
upon his face that it froze any would-be conversationalists. This guy was
just––there was something about him... They couldn’t quite put
their fingers on it.
You realize , said
Stalker Boy, that soon you won’t just
have opportunities like this. That this period of your life is finite. That you
are growing up. Or else––well...
I signed in and went down the hall to the elevators to go
get a look at the stiffs. No one bothered me. It was the smart move on their
parts.
Moretti had supplied me with the autopsy reports of the
previous victims, all of whom were being tentatively attributed to the nasty
serial killer Rome had roaming its streets. Peter
Panico.
I had to make sure these bodies didn’t have any infectious diseases the pathology lab was unprepared
for. That meant taking blood samples and testing them against the litmus Occam
had prepared.
There were six cadavers in all, wrapped in white sheets. The
medical examiner was probably waiting for the morning before he processed them.
I went to corpse number one, removed the cap on the syringe,
and stuck it in. Blood stopped moving when someone died––the heart no
longer beat.
This blood had already begun to degrade.
The autolytic effects were such that the erythrocytes were
on self-destruct. The blood because of the hemolysis was see-through. I made a
note of it.
The same for the next one. Both cadavers tested negative for
the Suck.
Same with the third. I was halfway through them, discarding
needles in biological waste containers. None of the bodies had any of the
telltale marks of being bitten by vampires.
Now for number four. I paused with the needle.
“I’ll be,” I said.
The blood had given me an idea. If the virus was spreading
to red blood cells, taking them over, destroying them–– No, it was
converting them. It wasn’t necrosis. And it wasn’t decomposition. It has to be changing the
blood––reconstituting it.
We had never done a postmortem on one of the infected rats.
Never thought to study it. Occam and I had been too busy destroying the
carriers.
We incinerated the rats.
I bet their hearts
pump. I bet when the Suck attacks the nervous system, it does something to the
circulatory system.
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