My Brother's Keeper Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The call came over my pager; multiple burns with severe injuries, with an unknown number of fatalities, coming in quick. Everyone in emergency jumped to their jobs, pulling needed items from closets and bins to be as ready as anyone can be.

“Two on calls called in for back up, ETA 20 minutes.” The first of a series of ambulances to arrive carries four burn victims all critical and urgent. Security arrived and police set up barricade just outside the doors. “Something big must have happened.” Shaw the O.R. tech whispered in-between getting everything together.

“Or to someone important.” Four more emergency vehicles in succession fly in with lights turning and sirens blaring, people jumping from them and grabbing for the doors even before they had come to complete stop. I was to busy for the next hour and half to see much more than the people we working on. Luckily the two on-calls were there far quicker than expected; we definitely needed every working hand we could get a-hold of right now.

Two of the victims were rushed in and quarantined immediately, complete with guards posted at the doors. Despite the disinfectant and air conditioning, the smell of burning flesh permeated the OR. They grabbed me as I helped bring the second patient in. They had me just sit with one of the patients to monitor life signs after initial triage. The machines would make an alarm if something happened

to the patient, but in all the confusion right now it might well be missed.

Through the closed curtains on the other side I could hear as they rushed around. I caught a glimpse of the staff trying to put out the flames that still were alive and eating away at the unconscious victim. Flames that should not feed on the flesh of its victims seemed to use them for fuel without regard for what was impossibility. There was nothing there to burn but still the flames smoldered on the patient’s arms and legs. The doctors tried everything they could but nothing seemed to be put out the sickly smelling, unnaturally colored flames out until everything had been tried. The smell was enough to make you loose it. Some of us did from the sound of it. The staff finally stood back as blankets were used to smother the flames to no avail. Then the flames simply vanished. From one second to the next they were simply gone. The after effects were hideous. The burns smelled with the sickening odor of long dead human flesh. Sores surrounded the burns, purple and green welts with broken oozing cracks across the victim’s skin, the sores seeping viscous yellow fluid, slowly dripping off of appendage and body. The smoke seems to be bothering my eyes; they seem to be a bit blurry all of a sudden. I can only pray they were dead.

Five total came through the doors and went straight to the morgue. One appeared dead from a heart attack, four of something that looked much worse. Some of us here new the ambulance driver and sneaked a look at the bodies. Wished I hadn't. They were as bad or worse than the live ones. I saw just one body, burned beyond recognition. But the body wasn't in one piece. Something had torn it apart piece by piece; the head attached to the body by just the tattered the remnants of what should have been a neck. It will take dental records to know if it was anyone we know or if it’s someone else’s friends.



After a long night, all was said and done. They used life flight helicopters for two of the worst burn victims, sent to other facilities but it appeared they were going to survive. There must have been some kind of push on for the results the Coroner and crew were downstairs in the morgue at 4 in the morning, doing their work. I got called in to do the grunt work and assist.

Two police were at the door of the morgue checking ID card as I walked up top the doors. One of them looked closely at my id before letting allowing me inside. The second turned the key mounted on the walls and the doors opened by them selves with a whoosh of air scented with bleach and disinfectants. Two more policemen at the door to the examination room followed with more id checks. Inside the sheriff and police chief stood with coffee in hands waiting for something.

“These were two of my men, in an ambulance with a restrained suspect, under guard, how could the suspect get loose, overpower to guards and do the damage that was done in just a few seconds? The mayor wants an answer.

I want an answer. Their families want an answer, what do you mean there isn't any answer? How do you explain that to someone?” “You did not send a complete body in to be examined. We can't pull much blood from the victims to see if there was some kind of freak accident that disabled them before the attack. If the suspect had somehow smuggled something in and used it to disable them before the attack. We are probably never going to know. The one body we have in a nearly complete shape has been disemboweled, burned to a crisp and not a drop of blood in it! We are just guessing as to who or what it is until we get a fingerprint from files. What kind of test can I do on it on hand that will give me any kind of meaning-full results? The tissue are going to the forensic labs in Atlanta, they will do the test and send us the results. You get to wait two to three weeks. Period. Nothing is going to hurry them up.”

A lab tech stuck her head through the door approaching the Coroner (as I was entering in to the examination room) and said to the Coroner worriedly, “Doctor, one of the victims is missing!”

"Crap. Now what?" The Coroner grumbled tiredly. “Are you sure? How the heck….”

As he followed the aid back in the direction and doors the aid had just walked through. Muffled yelling drifted back through the doors. I stood back out the way, as it seemed the best thing right now, at least from my perspective.

“Get everyone in here right now; I want those security tapes pulled and someone looking at them! Now would be real nice!”

The aid gestured in my direction. “This isn’t going to do much good, but go check every drawer, closet window and box in the place, even if it’s too small and find that body. If nothing else just look like you’re looking until someone tells you to stop. I’m going to do the same. Idiots.” Shaking his head negatively. “Got me?”

Security, police and employee alike searched every square inch above and below the floor tile and found nothing. No one had gotten in or out without an id check, let alone anyone with a body. The search turned up nothing but a broken
ceiling tile in a rear storeroom behind the stairs.

“Lets try again, the autopsy was complete, but for what?” the coroner asked the Doctor.

“The samples didn’t match up. The blood sample I pulled was from living tissue. I went to double check with the lab and verify the control numbers with batch. Everything matched up.”

“So this patient was alive now!” the coroner slapped his head with his hand, shaking his head with a not so subtle groan.

“No, unless someone has figured out how to live without a heart beat and no respiration and an empty chest cavity!”

“Eviscerated?”

The doctor nodded “The strangest thing happened, the nurse who was assisting had a cross hanging from a necklace, the chain broke, it fell off.”

“Yes?”

“Well when it fell, it fell onto the body.”

“Yes?”

“The body it moved out of the way, the cross fell on to the empty spot on the table.”

“So?”

“Nothing, it just seemed odd is all.”

“You’ve never had a body move before?”

“Yes, but, well, then when I washing my hands there was a little blood on it….”

“Yes?”

“Well the blood on my glove it moved away from the running water.”

“So, water would run off your hand when you tilted it down to run under the faucet wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, but the blood, it well, it ran up my hand, away from the running water, not down.”

The Doctor just stared at him blankly. “An optical illusion, it did run down, not up. Do you have anything of substance to add to this conversation?” He sighed again. “So far we have a missing corpse with no life signs that no one
saw leave the room and it didn’t just get up and walk away! Everyone in this city including the Police Chief, Mayor, The Coroner, Director of services and the hospital Senior Physician are waiting upstairs, just for the results all of this!" Waving hands in the air. "We now have nothing! Is everyone trying to get me fired or is this just a happy coincidence?” He sat down heavily on the leather couch behind him.

“The minimum amount of blood left in the body, it may have effected the test. The first testsresults came back odd,they showed a zero red blood cell count in the victim’s sample.”

“How is that possible? Sample too small? Contaminated? Anyone? Anyone? Even better, a body that had little less than two minutes, and wham it’s totally gutted and drained, not a of blood inside. How is that possible in two minutes? And, at the same two other people are killed in what looks to be the same way, at the same time! Even with the major tissue loss it should have had

more blood inside them, am I wrong people? Then, to top it off, every bit of evidence appears to have just disappeared!”

“One more thing, the blood sample itself has disappeared, not the container, just the sample inside with the container still sealed.”

“And?”

“Well, when I was washing some of the fluid from the sample off my hands, went to run water over my hands in the sink, the blood well…”

“Yes?”

“Well it ran off.”

“ That would not be unusual, blood would run off your hand when you tilted your hand down towards the sink.”

“Not down my hand, but up and away from it. Something else, when one of the assistants was bending over the corpse, prepping it, a silver cross fell out of their pocket. Well, the corpse jumped out of the way.”

“Haven’t you had corpses move before? Then what is the problem?”

“Night of the living dead.” Someone murmured.

“What?! Night of the living dead, what is that?”

“Old movie, zombies, remade a couple of years ago. Good flick.”

“Get out if you can’t be constructive. Anything else? Who wants to write this up for me? Anyone?” Not a single offer came from anyone. “Meeting adjourned until 0600 hours. Someone had better come up with a body and an explanation before then or we are all unemployed!”

A brief faint smell of disinfectant drifted by on an impossible breeze.