The Coroner

The Coroner
    The smell of the dead that day was more overpowering than usual. Morgan wasn’t sure if it was his own recent brush with death or maybe he was just coming down with a cold. The smell of the thawing dead never really got to him before, but today, the stench of the decaying flesh seemed to be too annoying for his nasal passages to withstand. He lifted his left hand from the bone saw, leaving it teetering on the edge of the corpse and gagged his lunch back in, almost decorating the open chest cavity lying before him with a half ingested helping of oatmeal that he forced down a half hour ago. “God damn it,” he muffled, hand still cupping his mouth that was hiding behind the dust mask, bumping the saw into the eviscerated ribcage. It landed with a wet thud sending bits of blood and bone splattering up against his apron like a brilliantly planned explosion of morbid fireworks on the Fourth of July. “Fucking flu!” he aspirated as he reached into the gaping hole to retrieve the saw.

    The overwhelming days work seemed to have been taking a toll on him since the promotion he received a few days ago. Dr. Lee, the previous chief medical examiner, had passed on from a stroke leaving the door wide open for Morgan to take a leaping stride upward on his careers’ totem pole, a sprint that he didn’t think he would have been asked to execute until a few years closer to his own retirement.

    Dr. Lee was a nice enough man to work with, as long as you could wade safely through his many floods of religious rhetoric that he enjoyed to spew while doing what he considered to be the Lords work on the deceased. On the last job he had done with Dr. Lee, Morgan had even been granted the glorious opportunity of witnessing Dr. Lee giving what appeared to be the Lords Prayer to some corpse as he was performing an autopsy a few hours before the good doctor decided to keel over. There were quite a few distinct reasons as to why this particular job should have resounded in his head, but one of those made his stomach turn and further ingrain his disdain for religion all together.

    Morgan decided to get back to his quickly cooling cup of coffee he had left on top of one of the freezer when he noticed Dr. Lee praying over the dead body of a boy, beginning the Lords Prayer. No more than two sips were allowed to saturate his lips before a short man stormed through the double doors leading from the main hallway armed with a glock .45 in one hand and a lengthy, almost completely rusted machete in the other. Before he was able to raise the orange, crusted blade, Morgan’s coffee had already fallen to the floor, spilling all over the booties covering his new Converse sneakers. The man pointed the machete towards Dr. Lee as he quickly approached him, and it sounded as if he was praying as well. Curiosity bent Morgan’s ear, only to be shocked to hear the man saying the same prayer that Dr. Lee was praying; odd thing was that it sounded as if he had picked up where the Doc left off. The man used the machete to usher the Doc away from the boys’ stiff body lying on the table, gently pushing him back as his prayer continued. He moved the machete away from the Doc and replaced its impending threat with the aim from the glock. As the pistols’ cold tip rested against Dr. Lee’s apron, his other hand slowly began to raise the machete above the corpses’ neck as the prayer grew louder. Morgan could not determine the exact reason as to why his feet started to move backwards toward the rear exit; he was either going for help or it was just pure self preservation that started his retreat. He would have preferred the reason to have been the one of nobility, but he knew deep down that it was the latter.

    Morgan was always known to be a runner; any situation that he found himself being threatened in would end with him high tailing it down the road and out of harms way. Even when he was being bullied by some punk that was a lot smaller and weaker than he, he would rather haul ass than stick around and possibly take a few punches. The one time that scarred his psyche pretty well was when he was 13 years old, out on a camping trip with the local Boy Scout Troop, den number 283.

    Morgan’ philosophy was that it was better to be on the giving end pertaining to bullying someone as opposed to the receiving end; The Atomic Wedgy was no laughing matter unless it was someone else’s ass hanging from the fence by their tighty-whiteys. His group of peers in this troop was helmed by a bastard of a kid named Allan Bueller, whose father was the Scout leader. Allan was two years older than Morgan, but was in the same troop due to him being held back a grade or two in school. Allan never really bothered Morgan much because he was always more than willing to go along with his cheep thrills. Mr. Bueller on the other hand was not too keen on Allan’s high-jinks and would make his disapproval publicly known.

    Morgan was walking a trail behind the campground, fighting with the mosquitoes and losing that battle quickly, when he came upon the pond. Up ahead, he saw the gang of miscreants skipping stones across the small pond, so he decided to join in. Before Morgan tossed his first rock, he noticed one of the scouts, Donny, swimming in the middle of the pond, unaware of the upcoming pain. Allan picked up another stone, and cocked one eye in apparent aim, “This one is going to get him, I know it,” as if he had already thrown a few and missed completely. With a sharp jerk of his arm, the stone flew from his palm and made its first skip across the water no more than twenty feet in front of them. With the second skip, Allan’s grin widened, knowing that this one would find its mark. The rock came into contact with the surface of the water twice more before smacking Donny square in the middle of his forehead, immediately splitting a small gash in his head, sending a handful of blood into the rippling water. “What the fuck, you little asshole,” Donny screamed, holding a hand to his fresh wound. All Allan could do was laugh hysterically, along with everyone else on the shore including Morgan. Donny dived under the water, probably making a beeline for the shore in hopes of beating Allan half to death. Al knew what was coming and decided to take off with the other three kids that were with him. Morgan decided to pick up a large rock, bigger than his fist and lob it as far as he could into the water, not thinking it would come anywhere near the injured Donny. The rock soared into the air, arcing its way towards the very spot in the middle of the pond that Donny was last seen. The moment the rock started its descent, Donny’s head popped from out of the water, still treading water in the same spot he was previously in. Morgan didn’t even have a chance to open his mouth; much less utter a sound of warning before the large rock landed solidly on top of Donny’s head. Morgan would always remember the wet crunch of Donny’s head as it split wide open, right down the center. Donny’s head was only above water for a split second there after and then he disappeared into the depths, just as quickly as the rock sank that Morgan had thrown.

    For a small moment, Morgan actually considered jumping in after him, but he knew that he would be blamed for this accident and he would get into a heaping load of trouble. Choosing the low ground, Morgan turned his back on his friend that was probably resting on the pond’s floor by now, and made his way back to camp as if nothing happened. He found his way back to the camp site where the scout master had corralled everyone around the camp fire to make lunch. “Anyone seen Donny,” Mr. Bueller asked as he placed a pot of water on the spit for boiling. Morgan had yet another opportunity to step up to the plate and say something, but one of the other kids piped up and answered. “We were throwing stones out at the pond, when Allan hit Donny in the head,” George said, one of Allans cohorts. You could almost feel the air being divided between father and son, as Mr. Bueller reached over the blazing fire, snatching Allan by his hair and yanking him up and through the flames. Allan only received two open hand smacks across the face before the tears and confession began to roll out of his face. “He was fine after it hit him, he was swimming back to shore, I swear,” his screams the only known defense he had from his fathers discipline, knowing full well not to raise a hand to him in defense. His father dragged him all the way back to the pond by his hair, kicking and screaming as his plump, little body scraped the rocky trail below. We all followed behind, careful to keep our distance from the occasional flying smack that Mr. Bueller was issuing. When the rest of the troop saw his father fall to his knees at the edge of the pond, releasing Allan from his death grip, a feeling of grief began to fill them. Washed up on shore, in front of Mr. Bueller, was Donny’s body, leaking blood from his head like a split open radiator on a scorching day. Morgan had yet another chance to fess up, but he stuck to his ground and kept his mouth shut, as Mr. Bueller did all he could to resuscitate Donny, to no avail; He was already dead.

    Allan was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to Juvenile Hall until his 18th birthday, which was three years away. He couldn’t offer much of a defense due to the fact that there were four other kids, other than Morgan, that witnessed the occurrence. A fourth chance was granted to Morgan when he took the stand, but he stayed strong, and said nothing about the much larger rock he had lobbed after everyone else had left. That was the last time he would ever see Allan Bueller alive. He didn’t know it yet, but he taught himself a strong lesson in self preservation that he would subconsciously abide by for the rest of his life.

    Upon taking his third step towards the exit behind him, Morgan noticed the man now peering at him from the corner of his left eye; his prayer continues on. The man slowly turned towards Morgan, shifting the aim of the pistol towards Morgan, stopping any further movement that Morgan may have been contemplating, in their tracks. Morgan raised his hands in front of him, showing that he was not armed and meaning to display a sign of no intent of harm to the intruder. “Amen,” the man said, firing his gun right at Morgan and lowering the machete down upon the dead boys’ neck with a mighty blow, keeping his gaze on Morgan all the while. Time all of sudden came to a molasses like state, as Morgan watched the small flames spew from the guns muzzle, sending an unseen hunk of iron barreling towards him, followed by the fall of the mans machete, sending sparks flying from the new neck wound as the machete met with the steel table underneath. A nauseous feeling overcame Morgan and he fell to the floor, watching the stars dance around the black haze that was quickly enveloping his vision.

    He awoke, resting on the same floor, to Dr. Lee and his staff hovering over him and the sharp smell of ammonia jabbing its way through his sinuses. The commotion apparently struck a wrong nerve with him and he ended up blacking out and falling to the floor. “You better thank God for that one son,” Dr. Lee exclaimed as he helped Morgan back to his feet, “That bullet came within inches of your head.” Shaking the cobwebs from his head, Morgan answered rather snidely, “If I’m a firm atheist, and I make sure everyone knows it, why would God save me from impending doom?” The Doc had nothing but a sad shake of his head as answer as he shuffled off, clutching his left shoulder. Later that day, Dr. Lee was rushed to the emergency room at the local hospital for a small heart attack that brought on the stroke that would later that night take his life. Morgan may have despised the Docs mythical beliefs in Gods and punishments, but at the same time he hoped that he had led a full life before he passed.

    Morgan, on the other hand, was not one for religious boundaries that kept him from enjoying some of life’s little bits of enjoyment or believing in something that he could not touch or see. He could touch the dead body of a child as it was dropped on his morgues slab for an autopsy to determine whether the four year died from a blunt traumatic wound to her head given to her by her father for misbehaving or a drug overdose from accidentally ingesting her mothers’ not-so-secret stash of cocaine. That, he could belief in and have faith that the world he was living in was quite fucked up. Every time he got the chance to cut into one of these depressing stories, the same question sarcastically rose to his lips, “What kind of God would let this happen”. With that, his disdain for his ex-bosses religion was sustainable and just in his eyes and well worth demeaning at any chance he got which he gladly did throughout most of his adult life.

    “Intern, get your ass in here,” Morgan yelled at the double doors as he pulled the bone saw from the gaping chest of the latest corpse. In shuffled a thin man, of average stature, dressed in scrubs and sporting a litany of jail house tattoos that had obviously been etched in a great deal of pain with some homemade gun made out of a spoon and a guitar string. The dark green tear drop tattoo under his left eye was the sure fire giveaway. In an immediate state of panic due to the strange man sauntering in front of him, eyes wide open, Morgan dropped his dust mask and asked while reaching slowly for the scalpel next to him, “Who are you and where is my regular intern”? The intern eyed his reaching hand quickly, and returned a casually threatening stare back at him. “What, are you going to stab me with that or something Doc,” the intern said pointing at the blade Morgan now had a handle on, causing his knuckles to flush white as he squeezed the thin handle more persistently? “My name is Juan,” the intern offered, pointing to his laminated badge hanging from a lanner around his neck. “I started yesterday,” Juan said walking slowly towards Morgan, still dangling his ID badge in front of him, making sure not to make any sharp moves to spook him into stabbing him in the eye. Morgan snapped the badge from his hand and gave it his best detective like perusal. Morgan let out a breath of self assurance and let the badge fall back to Juan’s chest.

    Morgan released the scalpel back to the table and tore off his latex gloves, extending his hand in a formal hand shake. “My name is Dr. Kent,” Morgan said with a forced smile on his face, not too keen on the fact that some upper level big wig for the city actually looked this guy over and offered him a job working with the dead. As far as Morgan could tell, this guy got early parole for good behavior on a murder conviction and was probably responsible for a few of the stiffs that were brought into this office previously.

    Juan accepted his hand in introduction, noticing Morgan ogling his facial tats. “Oh, I got these when I was a kid,” pointing to the three tear drops lining his upper cheeks, “I ran with the wrong crowd for awhile when I was younger.” Morgan knew full well the true meaning of these particular tattoos; he was either a cold blooded murderer that got away with it, or he was just a plain out liar.

    There were just way too many things lingering about this new intern that Morgan did not like, but then again, he was not in a position of authority to refuse a request of employment that has already been processed by his bosses’ downtown. With reluctance, he decided to check his initial impressions at the door and accept Juan for the job, knowing full well that his acceptance was not needed in this situation.

    “I haven’t been feeling well since that mad man came storming in here,” Morgan offered as he turned back to the slab with the corpse. “Would you like some help with this last one Doc,” Juan asked as he too approached the corpse from the other side of the table, sporting a rather crisp set of scrubs. Placing the bone saw back on the cord hook above the body, Morgan said, “I’d appreciate that. It’s just this blasted head ache that just won’t go away, and now I feel like I’m coming down with the flu.”

    Juan began closing the ribs in wait for Morgan sewing the chest back up, “My dad once said Doc, once things become clear, your aches will subside.” Morgan looked at Juan a bit perplexed as the arced needle began its job, “You have me at a loss. What exactly does that mean?” “I’m not sure what it will mean to you personally. I always figured that was one of those sayings that could very well mean anything, depending upon the person and situation it is applied to. It’ll come to you in time.”

    Juan asked as the last piece of the thread was tucked under the flesh below the ribcage, “So, what’s this guy’s story?” Morgan glanced back at the corpses’ face, “Just some John Doe that was in an altercation with a large knife and apparently lost,” pointing at the stitched up wound running across his throat from ear to ear. He couldn’t help but to continue to stare into this body’s eyes, recognizing some vague sense of déjà vu in those hollow, dry orbs. “Are you sure you didn’t know this guy. You look like you know who he was,” Juan enquired, staring back at Morgan as he tied off the knot in the end of the stitch.

    “I have never seen him before,” Morgan answered with the thought running through his aching mind that he may very well have known him, but he couldn’t quite place the face. Juan moved around the table to the side that Morgan was on, and placed his left hand on the corpse and his right hand on Morgan’s arm, “Maybe I can help you remember.” Before Morgan’s mind could send an involuntary reflex response of yanking his arm from Juan’s grip, his head was filled with a pain that started from the front of his forehead, slowly making its way through his skull and radiating outward from the back of his scalp, like a giant worm gradually eating its way through Morgan’s mind. He tried to close his eyes from the amount of excruciating pain emitting throughout his brain, but he could not; his eyes were in a state of paralysis not allowed to veer away from the slightly familiar face on the slab.

    The room grew dim quickly, replaced by a dark shade of red glimmering off the body and it’s surrounding like a reflection of a large body of water, rippling across the corpse’s stiff face. Snippets of Morgan’s life crossed like a strobe in front of his eyes, as the corpse began to blur into a light colored mist swirling around the table that slowly began to disappear as well. The pain in his head blasted its way out of the back of his head as if the brain eating worm had found a valid exit. The pain was almost unbearable, as the swirling mist began to dissipate back into the same body that was once lying there; this time, the eyes on the corpse were not dry and hollow, they were alive. Upon returning Morgan’s glance, the pain went away as if it were all a dream and never really there. Morgan knew who he was looking at and knew that it could not be possible.

    “Your pain is gone,” Juan asked subtly as he removed his hand from Morgan’s arm. Juan’s voice brought him back out of a state of panic, adding a dose of reality back to his predicament. Morgan was now able to look around and see that he was no longer standing in the morgue. He was surrounded by stone and rock, emitting an enormous amount of heat that made the solid stone appear to dribble around in the air. He could see a small river running not too far in front of him, churning off around the bend down a dark corridor of the cavern at a great rate of speed. There was a small, wooden boat teetering on the edge of the river closest to him, bouncing in the river as the current battered its hull. “Morgan Kent,” a voice asked shyly, raspy as if it were coming from beneath the water, but the sound was way to close to have been from the river. He looked back down to the corpse, to see it still staring at him. “Is that you Kent,” the voice asked again, but this time Morgan knew it came from the corpse, even though the mouth moved a bit out of time with the sound like a badly dubbed foreign film.

    Morgan fell back towards the craggy rock behind him in fear, thinking that he has finally snapped and lost his mind. Strange whispers spilled their way through his ears, confusing him even farther, as they tangled with each other, making it almost impossible to make any one of them out clearly. “Allan Bueller,” Morgan asked, knowing full well that he was aware it was him. Juan kept his distance, smirking casually as he reached into his top scrub pocket and retrieved a cigarette. A small, floating fire appeared in front of Juan’s face, sending an eerie glow around the curvatures of his face. He leaned in with the cigarette in his mouth, igniting it within the floating flame and asked with his first drag, “Do you guys hear those voices?”

    Allan now appeared to be in a state of shock, his facial features contorted from sadness, to anger, back to sadness as it seemed he was able to discern the voices. “He had nothing to do with it,” Allan said, shaking his head and then finally looking back at Morgan with a look of hate and contempt. “You were the one that killed Donny,” he said, standing up from the boulder that his body was laying on top of, “You let me rot in jail for that and you knew it wasn’t me.” Morgan found his grip on one of the rocks he was leaning against to lift himself back to his feet.

    Juan stepped in, continuing to smoke his cigarette, between Allan and Morgan, as if to break up an impending fight. “Your right Allan, your not the one that killed Donny in that lake, but because of your actions that followed that day, you’re here with is,” Juan said, placing one of his hands around Allan’s shoulders to console him. “You killed your father after you were released from jail; that is why you’re here. For the life you took,” Juan said as he led Allan to the boat that was sitting in the river. He looked over Allan’s shoulder and explained to him, “Morgan on the other hand is in a slightly different pickle,” waving his hand behind him as if dismissing Morgan’s presence. With that, Morgan froze where he was standing, unable to move with the exception of his head. He was able to continue looking around through the hot rock that surrounded him, but his appendages were like the solid stone that he was surrounded by. The voices continued to tease his ears with incoherent phrases and words that he could not make sense of.

    “Listen to me you little shit, I know this is not real. I don’t know how you did it, but this is some bad acid trip and when I wake up, I’ll make damn sure that your employment is revoked and you get sent back to whatever solitary hole you crawled out of,” Morgan screamed in discontent, trying to shake himself loose from the invisible prison that his body found itself in. Juan guided Allan into the small, makeshift boat waiting in the river when he replied, “Morgan, my employment is permanent. You can do nothing to revoke that even if you tried.” As Juan turned back around to face Morgan on the other side of the cavern, he answered, “As to the hole that I crawled out of, welcome to it Doc.”

    Allan seemed to be a bit subdued, sitting in the boat as if patiently waiting for it to launch. “Morgan, you are now in my employment. Because of the life you took, you are now one of my many boatmen,” Juan said, as his body began to spasm and contort in an impossible manner. The small flame appeared from out of nowhere again in front of Juan, this time, growing larger in circumference as he walked into it, allowing the scorching heat to engulf him completely. His skin, afire and quickly melting away and slouching towards the floor, began to reveal a being beneath. Stepping out of the fire, two horns popped from his upper forehead, tearing his entire face from its home, leaving the flesh dangling in its entirety from the horns like meat on a hook. Juan was within spitting distance of Morgan when he reached up and tore the hanging face from the horns in one swipe, slinging it casually to the steaming ground. “Bullshit,” Morgan gasped as Juan’s true face came into clarity, revealing the devil himself, “I don’t believe in you.” “Ah, but I believe in you, and maybe one day you will believe,” the devil said continuing to smoke his cigarette.

    “But I can’t be dead. I didn’t die,” Morgan claimed as if pleading with the devil for his life back. The devil leaned in allowing Morgan’s eyes to take in completely the sight of death at which he now found himself immersed in, “Do you recall being shot at recently?” Morgan’s body began to move again, only this time, he had no control of his own movements. The devil began ushering him to the awaiting boat as well. “That bullet missed me completely and I fainted,” Morgan answered, trying to make some logical sense of all of this. With one arm around Morgan and the other holding the cigarette, the devil explained, “That bullet went right through your skull sending your cowardly mind and it’s casing all over the morgue. You died instantly and have been down here attempting to continue your life as if nothing happened.” He stopped short of the boat by about five feet and turned Morgan around to face him. “I usually come on up here when they first arrive, but I found out that your old friend Allan was on his way down shortly, so I figured you would appreciate him being the first to welcome you to your new job.”

    Morgan was about to ask how, when Allan jumped out of the boat, landing at Morgan’s now trembling feet. “You are now one of many Charions. You are my boatman on the River Styx and you will deliver the dead souls to me accordingly,” the devil claimed. Allan stood to his feet, mere inches from Morgan’s face, when he leaned forward and bit a large chunk of flesh from Morgan’s cheek, making him fall in defense to the ground beneath him. Allan jumped on Morgan with an abnormal amount of speed, continuing to rip Morgan’s flesh from his bones. He could do nothing more than scream as his flesh was consumed rather painfully piece by piece. “Your reward for this deed that you will do for all of eternity will be this,” the devil stated, while continuing to drag smoke from the cigarette that didn’t seem to be getting any smaller, “Every soul that comes down, will feast upon your flesh until there is nothing but a mere skeleton left.”
Allan tore and chewed for a bit longer until there was nothing but bone lying there on the ground. Allan wiped the blood and bits of hair from his lips as he climbed back into the boat and took a seat, calmly waiting for his descending ride to begin. Morgan could do nothing by lie there, quivering with a sense of numbness and horror as all of his senses were ingested by Allan. “Stand my boatman and deliver this soul to me and I will restore your flesh to you,” the devil exclaimed. Morgan stood up and stepped into the boat, grasping the oars in one hand, and releasing the rope binding the boat to the shore. The boat began its venture down river when the devil followed up with, “and when your flesh is returned to you, you will come back here to escort the next soul to me. Of course your flesh will be torn from your bones again more times than you will want to know, but hey, who’s counting.”

    The boat turned, dragged along by the current of the river, taking the first turn into oblivion and completely disappearing into the darkness beyond. The devil took one more drag from his never ending cigarette, slid it onto his tongue and with the closing of his mouth, extinguished it along with the small amount of light that was barely keeping the cave lit.