She must have been scorning herself; an injury to the shoulder forbidding her from moving on her own. I had resorted to carrying her, trusting that the creature that we had blindly followed in here had been alone and I was free from worrying about an attack from behind. Cavendish didn't object to being picked up and set to work on clearing up the mess we had created.
"C29 Cavendish. We have a C3, C28, and C38. I'm requesting both a C27 and C37, with an immediate C30."
The meaning behind her words had passed over my head; I would have to ask Franklin for a decoding guide; I had only heard a few in my brief encounters with the team, but I couldn't help but wonder how on earth they remembered so many. I could try to common-sense some answers just out of what had occurred and how she phrased herself; but even then, that left too many questions.
By the time I had struggled to find a staircase that led us upstairs, the team had already gathered outside, swarming around a grimacing Franklin. As a group of masked men walked past us and into the building his eyes fell on Cavendish and I and I was filled with a sense of dread. I had overlooked how impeding Franklin was; he was standing tall amongst the rest of the team, stoic with glazed-over eyes that had developed into a glare as Cavendish and I had come into his view.
"You're always getting yourself into trouble, Cavendish." He muttered, stepping forward to take her from my arms, an exchange I was happy to conform to. She'd gladly accepted the transfer, her face burying into his chest as his arms wrapped around her legs and back.
"I'd hardly think this to be my fault," I heard her mutter as he walked off with her in his arms. Before I know it, I'm taken hold of by Darwin and Smith, who lead me back into the building, much to my dismay. It was a decision I didn't understand since as soon as we walked back in, I was left to linger on my own at the edge of the scene; watching as the masked men from earlier swarmed the three bodies we left down here.
"Where do you suppose the rest are, Darwin?" Priestley had asked, her gloved hands inspecting the mouth of one of the nurse victims. I couldn't help but wonder what she meant; surely this was enough of a victim pool; I could see evidence of at least three victims in the scene, and The Locality had only reported three missing people.
The team had busied themselves; they'd briefly inspected the scene and instructed the men who had entered first to bring some lighting sources down to ease the process. Each of them had then left to grab some metal boxes that I soon found out to be full of medical supplies and investigation tools; magnifying glasses, tapes, scalpels, gloves, prongs; anything I could possibly expect of only a television drama, seemed to be in at least one person's supplies.
Smith had snuck her way onto the scene after a few minutes and immediately pulled out a large camera from a bag and began to take a variety of pictures; the scene as a whole, the faces and bodies of the two victims, and the pink fluid that had been spilt across the room. I didn't want to consider why it seemed to cover several walls and trailed around the floor.
"What did you mean by the rest?" I asked when the team had settled into their tasks; causing each of them to turn to look at me, the same expression on each of their faces, 'Oh, right, he's here too.'
"There were four missing staff members; three nurses and a janitor. At least that was all we had been given intel on; my tracking ability could only go so far, and this case didn't seem to be within that threshold. Besides the four named staff members, there are no signs of Banks here either. That leaves at least two bodies unaccounted for if the skin graft on the alien's legs accounts for the other nurse or janitor." Smith had explained, replacing the camera in her bag and stepping back from the alien's body to let Darwin take the reins.
"I want them moved into my lab." He had announced after inspecting the body. I hadn't heard it as a command; but the rest of the team did, packing up any equipment they'd brought in with them. The masked men gathered around the bodies, looking amongst each other to coordinate movement.
And all I could think as I watched them do so, was how badly I wanted to go home. I'd never seen such an organised choreography of movement; each person taking a job and performing it perfectly. Whether that be moving the bodies, cleaning up tools or finishing analysing the scene.
I felt a little sad when I realised it just meant they'd had plenty of practice in scenes just like this. They'd spent lots of time around bodies; both human and alien.
At least that's what I was left to presume.
━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━
I felt like a loose cog as I sat on a metal stool, cramped in the corner of the morgue and doing my best not to succumb to the cold.
I had barely expected a word from the team; more in particular Franklin, when they had arrived on the scene at the hospital. I was more than prepared to hand Cavendish over and prepare to go home to Hannah and Timothy, allow the dejection I had felt the past few months to return and soon forget this particular incident had happened at all. However, that was not the case.
The bodies that had been found and, thanks to me, created, in the hospital, were discreetly moved from the basement and into a truck. I had imagined this process would look more... dramatic; and if not that, at least had a stereotypical white van and a team of men in tailored black suits. The reality had been a blood-red truck with a very slap-and-dash housing company advert on either side of it; the only notably off part of the advert being the absence of a phone number for hiring.
Even more disappointingly, the two men at the forefront of this truck looked perfectly harmless, and to an extent, oblivious to the nature of their truck's contents. I must believe that this is not the case, that they were just playing the part very well; a headphone in a single ear each, bopping their heads along to the music and the driver tapping his fingers against the wheel.
And while I had been distracted by the images in front of me, I had been quickly taken by the arm and ushered into the backseat of a car, driven by a figure who refused to turn and look at us. I wasn't sure if Darwin's lingering hand on my wrist was to avoid an escape or simply due to distracted thoughts that blanked out his actions - his eyes had glazed over and his teeth were currently digging into the flesh of his cheek. There was a part of me that wanted to ask why I was being forced to come along on this journey, but the stronger half of me realised that Darwin wasn't likely to answer while in this state.
He had pulled me into the morgue as we entered the base; with the rest of the team disappearing into different unknown rooms. Franklin was holding onto Cavendish tightly as she grumbled up a staircase, clenching onto her arm. Instinctively I wanted to make sure that she would recover from the injury, she seemed the type to continue working whilst in pain, and with this new revelation from the hospital, I could imagine it would become busier for the team. This instinct was crushed by Darwin, who had seen the desire in my eyes and only pulled harder.
The bodies of the victims and the alien itself were placed on three embalming tables that seemed to have risen from the floor. Each of them had been stripped and covered with a white sheet, the clothing of each victim laid out on a table on the east wall of the room. As the doorway closed behind us, I was hit by how frightfully cold the room was; suddenly regretting not wearing the weathering jacket my work often provides us with during outdoor work.
Darwin had pulled a stool from one of the centre tables and placed it in the corner that offered the most coverage of the room; which meant in equal parts I could observe his work, and he could observe me doing so. I wouldn't be able to escape his eye line, even if I had wanted to. This did give me an opportunity to take in my surroundings and decrease my adrenaline levels; I was still reeling from the earlier attack even now.
I focused on the back wall of the room; made of white brick with holes cut out every so often to act as a shelf for common tools; at first glance, this had included an assortment of liquids, hammers, saws and knives. I couldn't keep my concentration for long as I noticed the smell of bleach within the room was overpowering my senses; and with no windows or access to the ventilation system, I had no escape from it.
Darwin had sauntered over to a set of silver lockers on the west wall of the room; they were missable at first glance, blending into the metallic materials the room was built with. Each surface seemed to be made with the intention of ease of cleaning, wipe-down and cold to the touch. Even the stool I had been placed on seemed to live up to that expectation with clean edges and smooth texture. He pulled on a white coat and removed a set of earphones from the pocket of the said jacket; the absence of music suddenly left me vulnerable to boredom.
A set of gloves had been snapped on before he began to examine each body in turn, pressing fingers into flesh, a brandished knife cutting into the skin and allowing access to the contents of ribcage and stomach, and then taking three large needles and extracting fluids from the head, arm and waist. Each of his actions was performed with careful precision, his head lowered to the body level and his hands moving in slow but effective motions; precise and purposeful.
Every so often he would smile in my direction, but it was in a half-cold and distant way; merely an expression that attempted to hide what he must truly feel about the process. The idea of having to cut into someone, dead or alive, had never appealed to me – I knew very early on that the prospect of becoming a medical professional was a slim and unwelcome one. It wasn't the blood, necessarily, but having someone's life in my hands never sat right with me. I think, even without experiencing it, not being able to save someone; through surgery for instance and having to explain to their family that I had failed, would be the most indescribably painful thing to go through.
I believed he would begin the same process for the alien that lay on the third table, which was an assumption based solely on his care and precision with the first two victims. I hadn't expected him to pick up a large saw, and tear through the centre of it; his warm brown eyes garnering a grim expression as he did so.
For some reason I had to tear my eyes away from this one; the pink splatter that had sprayed his clothing and the floor around the body's vicinity was enough to make me feel nauseous. I decided to focus on the two piercings in Darwin's ear; wondering if the small hoops ever caught in the wild black hair that was currently tied behind his head in a knot; it seemed as though it'd be long enough to hit his shoulders and for that reason, a hassle to deal with.
"That doesn't make any sense," He had muttered in a baritone voice that had surprised me enough to make me jump; only recognising how truly silent this room had been as he spoke. He had removed his gloves and sat at the desk in the back of the room, his hands coming up to rest on either side of his chin. I must've missed him leaning over to press the blue button on the wall beside him because I had been made to jump again by the doorway opening and the emergence of the whole team.
"Are you going to share with us or continue to gawk at your screen, genius?" Priestley had barked, coming to stand next to me with arms crossed. Darwin had wasted no time, pulling some information onto the wide television screen that was placed on the wall above him, resting above a platform that ran around the outer edge of the room, lined with a bannister and allowing easy viewing access of morgue-related tasks.
"I decided to examine the genetic makeup of the two bodies and the skin that was being absorbed into the Avvon's skin. Now you might think it's odd that I tested the two nurses but when you refer to all of my guides on the subject then you'll see that...," The gushing of his research had very quickly been interrupted by Franklin clearing his throat; he and Cavendish were stood leaning against the wall nearest the door, sharing small glances as Darwin had spoken.
"Off-topic, Cass." Cavendish grinned, causing his face to flush instantly; I took note that he rambles when he gets excited.
"Oh," His hand had risen to the back of his neck as he turned to look at the television again, hiding his face from us as Franklin and Smith chuckled. "Right. As I was saying, examined the genetic makeup and well, all three bodies are presenting with Banks' DNA. I can't even put it down to the skin the Avvon had been using as that had been a one-hundred-per-cent match to the third nurse, Clarissa Duke."
He had pulled up five images of DNA structure; the two victims, the skin that had been safely torn away, the Avvon, and finally Banks. Despite, clearly, not having the same level of education on the subject as Darwin, even I could notice the similarities in all five strands, duplications of his strands seemed to pop up on the other four. This information didn't seem to translate well for Priestley who had stepped away from me to get closer to the bodies.
"What are you saying, Darwin?" She inquired, almost blank of emotion; only small traces of wet anger being present.
"Well, there's no real explanation as to why Banks has his DNA on all three bodies and all four victims. Especially considering one of those hits matched with the Avvon itself; not just the skin it had attached itself to." He hadn't said it with hostility, it was rather matter-of-factly, if not just a product of pure confusion. Which is why I wasn't surprised when Priestley's reaction to it had caused his confusion to elevate, a physical flinch away from her.
"Darwin," The woman had hissed. The defensiveness I had witnessed before had not been a fluke; she clearly was on a different level of involvement with Banks than the rest of the team, not that I could speculate what kind of difference it really was. He had thought on it for a moment before his brows had furrowed and his arms crossed.
"Don't get defensive on me, Priestley. I'm just telling you what our technology is reading back to me."
Noticing the tension in the room, Smith had come down from the platform; having climbed up to get a good look at the information Darwin had put on the screen. Her arm had gone around Priestley, leading her out of the room, "Come on, sugar. We'll make tea. I don't think this is the conversation for you."
Just before they disappeared from sight, Smith had turned back to shout in our direction, "Darwin, be sure to send me the report, I'll need to start formulating the cover story; people have been reading about these nurses for weeks, it'll take me a while to tighten the loose ends."
He sighed, pointing in her direction with two fingers, "Got it, Smith."
I realised then that I had painted this team wrong; I assumed they were tied together so closely that there was no room for arguments among them. I had forgotten they were also people, and stress amongst people does not linger well in relationships.
druxy (a) - something whole on the outside, but rotten inside