Plague of the Dead (3 page)

    Dr. Mayer had seen these types of wounds before. In Europe, they might be associated with a stabbing wound from a stiletto or other thin, cylindrical blade. Here in Africa, there were certain rural tribes which used a lightweight hunting spear. He didn’t know what they were called or how they were made, only that they were of a thin, flexible wood that reminded him of the branches of weeping willows. Occasionally he would get a case where a tribesman had been speared on accident while hunting-or intentionally by a rival tribe. The wounds he saw on his current subject were identical.

    This presented Dr. Mayer with a riddle within a riddle. This man had been stabbed and shot after he was killed-but Klaus Mayer knew for a fact that the police here in Mombasa went better armed than their rural counterparts. They had no such spears to stab this man with. And why would they even want to after they had already killed him?

    The answer was simple enough, though it still made little sense: this man had been attacked by tribesmen after he was dead, and then had somehow found his way to the airfield, caused trouble and had been gunned down-all while already being dead.

    “There must be some rational explanation,” Dr. Mayer said. He looked over at the tape recorder and realized he had broken his continuity. “Located small puncture wounds in the chest of the first subject that appear to have been caused by a stabbing weapon, not a firearm. These wounds are also post-mortem. I cannot explain how these wounds occurred.”

    Dr. Mayer was already thoroughly frustrated and he hadn’t even begun the meat of the autopsy procedure.

    Hopefully some of the other bodies would shed some light on the matter.

2234 hrs

    Dr. Mayer had completed three of his six autopsies. He still felt discouraged. He had found similar post-mortem wounds on two more of the attackers. Some were gunshot wounds, others inflicted by spear. He’d moved on to one of the dead security guards, hoping that maybe one of the victims of the attack would have some new evidence for him.

    “Fourth subject is male, early to mid-thirties, in good condition. No noticeable identifying marks.”

    Dr. Mayer examined the guard’s wounds. As he did, his eyes grew wide. These guards were wearing the uniforms of the airfield security details. Obviously the crime in question was the murder of these two men by the other four that had been brought in with them. The method of the murder, however, was grisly and revealing.

    “Cause of death seems to be loss of blood, or shock trauma. Too early to tell. Wounds are apparent in the neck, shoulders, and forearms. Subject appears to have attempted to defend himself from the attack that killed him. Wound patterns are similar to those found on three previous subjects. They appear to be bites.”

    Dr. Mayer rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and took another look. He rose to his feet, walked over to the desk and lifted the telephone from the cradle. He dialed.

    “It’s Dr. Mayer down in the morgue,” he said. “Are my x-rays ready yet?”

    He listened.

    “Good. Could you have someone send them down as soon as possible?” A moment passed. “As soon as possible, I said. The police want their autopsy reports.”

    
And I want them too,
he thought.

    He hung up the phone and returned to the stool by the autopsy table. Using a small camera and a tape measure, he took the dimensions of the bite marks on the security guard’s shoulder. There was one very clear imprint he focused on, simple blackened tooth marks in a nearly perfect bite pattern. He was planning on using those marks to verify his hypothesis.

    As he was jotting the measurements onto a legal pad with his ballpoint pen, the attending nurse pushed open the swinging morgue doors and handed him two thick manila envelopes. He thanked her before she left, then unwound the string from the tab of the folders. He got up and shuffled over to the wall, pulling the black and gray x-rays from the envelope. He popped them onto a dark screen. He chose one from both folders, and then dropped the envelopes into one of his voluminous coat pockets.

    Dr. Mayer ripped the sheet of measurements from the legal pad and stuck those to the screen as well before turning on the light behind it. It flickered to life after a few seconds. He leaned over it, comparing the x-rays of the attacker’s jaws to the bite marks on the guard’s shoulder.

    He mumbled to himself, scratching figures and notes onto his pad as he looked back and forth at the images, recording the width of both jaws, the shape of the teeth, and which teeth were missing or damaged.

    “
Looks close
,” he commented, eyes darting back and forth between the photos and the notepad sheet. “Could be human. Maybe the final subject has the correct jaws.”

    Behind him, the arm of the security guard seemed to shift. Dr. Mayer glanced at the table, but the body was motionless. He went back to his x-rays.

    “
Wait
,” he said, pulling one of the x-rays loose. He laid it out on the desk and plucked the notepad sheet down. He carefully compared a slight gap between the left canine mark on the guard with one on the x-ray. “They match. They match!”

    The guard on the autopsy table had slowly turned his head away from Dr. Mayer. His eyes were now open, but glazed and lifeless. Dr. Mayer still sat with his back to the table as he looked at the papers in his hands with a furrowed brow.

    The guard slowly and silently pulled himself upright. He sat for a moment and tilted his head back to look up at the light hanging overhead. It was the fixture in the light that was shorting; it flickered on and off, bathing the guard’s face in a kind of greenish quasi-strobe. He seemed captivated by it.

    Then Dr. Mayer clicked his ballpoint pen. The soft noise caused the guard to turn his head in that direction. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. He managed a sound like a sigh.

    Dr. Mayer had come to the only possible solution: the guards had been bitten to death by their attackers, the four unidentified men. Those same men were (if the evidence was correct) already dead at the time they bit the guards. If he was any less rational a man than he was, Dr. Mayer would have cracked right there. He reasoned that there was simply some small piece of evidence he had missed that would allow him a nice, logical, safe conclusion to give the police-and himself. After all, there was absolutely no such thing as the
undead
.

    That was when he heard the sigh behind him.

    Dr. Mayer felt a shiver run down his spine and was tempted to look over his shoulder. He chuckled to himself suddenly, brushing the feeling aside and delving deeper into his notes, looking for that missing clue. Surely the sound was nothing more than the morgue cooling system kicking on, that was all. His imagination was getting the better of him.

    As Dr. Mayer chuckled, the guard slid off the autopsy table and landed awkwardly on his feet. If the good doctor had remained silent, he would have heard the soft slap of flesh against ceramic tile when the guard hit the floor.

    The guard took one careful, lurching step forward. His toe tag skittered along the tiled floor.

    This time, Dr. Mayer
did
turn around.

    His eyes widened and he fell back onto his desk, knocking the cup of pens and pencils over. They scattered. The x-rays and folders were pushed off as well as Dr. Mayer scrabbled.

    The guard was right behind him. Dr. Mayer felt hands grip his arm and neck and pull him back onto the desk. He saw the glowering visage of the dead guard scowling down at him.

    Dr. Mayer screamed.

    
This isn’t possible! The dead can’t live! They’re dead! They’re DEAD!

    The guard scratched at Dr. Mayer, leaving angry red marks down both arms. The guard wrapped his teeth around one of Dr. Mayer’s hands and bit down. Dr. Mayer screamed again, kicking furiously. The doors to the morgue burst open and the nurse that had brought him the x-rays earlier dashed in once more. However, she took one look at the scene within and turned on her heels, fleeing and screaming for help.

    “Don’t leave me here!” Dr. Mayer called out.

    The guard perching over him seemed to growl in response, a deep guttural groan issuing from the slashed remains of his neck.

    The doors to the morgue swung shut, and Dr. Mayer had one more chance to scream before his voice was cut off. The fluorescent light above continued to hum and flicker, creaking slightly from side to side.

PART TWO: SMOLDER

    
START INTERCEPT_

    
ADDITIONAL DATA INCOMING_

    
ADDITIONAL DATA INCOMING_

    
INTERCEPT COMPLETE_

Cairo

December 21, 2006

1734 hrs_

    CAIRO BURNED.

    The fire spread through sixteen city blocks in a few short hours, consuming building after building. The conflagration had begun when an army convoy fuel tanker headed south towards Lake Victoria had gone through the road, breaking into a sewer pipe buried too shallow beneath the pavement. Main battle tanks had gone before it, treads chewing the road to pieces, and made the route treacherous. The tanker’s caps had broken loose and petrol had washed across the highway.

    Soldiers immediately blocked off the section of road near the spill and began cleanup, but a spark had ignited the vaporous fuel emissions and the area went up in a white-hot flash. The buildings nearest the spill site had caught fire first, and prevailing winds had carried the blaze across the city blocks. Hundreds, maybe thousands, were lost and presumed dead. Thousands more were injured.

    Rebecca Hall wiped sweat from her brow, taking a moment to breathe. The twenty-two-year-old volunteer wore a dirty, stained t-shirt and had a band strapped around her arm that bore the Red Cross symbol. She had been bringing water to the burn victims for nine hours, offering words of comfort, cleaning wounds, and injecting painkillers into those who needed it most. She was exhausted. Her patients got water, but she didn’t think to drink any herself.