Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #11 February 2015 | Page 57

Lazy smoke slowly disperses in the air as I exhale
and throw the cigarette butt into the garbage bin.
The night is cold, making the smell bitterer, as if
it were a knife cutting into flesh. I suppress the
urge to light up again and start walking. I pass the
street light that blinks in agony to work a bit longer,
and a small plaque on the building wall that reads
‘Morgue’ shines ominously in the surrounding darkness. The door is heavy but I am used to handling
it—I open it just wide enough to enter without being
pushed by it or having my fingers pinched.
The door closes behind me with the quiet clap of
two metallic surfaces slowly meeting each other as
the spring brings them in place. I take a familiar,
semi-dark staircase to the basement which must be
the only well-lit place in this part of the building,
because Doc needs light for work. The government
likes to economise where they can, and it takes a lot
of paperwork to get a new set of light bulbs down
here. Despite all that I’ve never seen a single one of
them blink.
Doc looks up from where he is stitching up a body.
His mask is still on, and he indicates he is almost
ready—it won’t take a minute—as he lifts his index
finger in the air. I nod and stay back by the scales
used to weigh the organs. They have smudges of
blood in the cups, and it looks like paint of vinous
colour, gleaming in the bright light. I hate watching
a body being sewn back after it has been turned inside out. Something in the movement of the surgical
needle through skin and the hiss of the thread makes
me uneasy. Corpses look too much like puppets
then. Puppets have no free will.
“This is the sixth victim with the same symptoms,
Detective-Inspector,” Doc tells me, taking off his
mask, glasses, and gloves. They have blood all over
them, but blood doesn’t disturb me. Blood is just a

red liquid.
“Send the samples to the lab, please. There must be
something to tie them together.”
Doc puts his instruments into the sink and switches
the water on. It angrily hisses against the metal.
“There is no possible way their blood could have
clotted like that. There isn’t a mark on their body, no
injections, nothing in the stomach contents or the
lungs,” he muses, and I frown. We have been over
this before. This is just a boring repetition of events.
I’d say déjà vu, but déjà vu is an illusion, and the
corpses aren’t. And I have reports to prove to me just
how real they are. I’ve already had a talk with the
department head about this case.
“The lab analysed the blood. They say the clotting
was natural, caused by being heated up to 100 degrees Celsius, not to a virus or poison.” I’ve grown
tranquil to these facts. They cause no emotion in me.
I’ve been working on this case for two weeks now.
There can be no emotion left towards it, only indifference.
“There are no scorch marks on the body,” Doc repeats and looks at me expectantly as if telling me to
solve this case once and for all.
I open my mouth to respond, but I don’t really know
what to tell him. This case is really becoming a pain,
and I would gladly get it off my hands rather than
solve it. There’s nothing I can tell Doc that hasn’t
already been said. My phone chirps; the incoming
message saves me from the necessity of answering.
“Excuse me,” I mutter, turning around and taking
several steps to read the message in relative privacy.
The message is short. Lab technicians ask me to drop

PAGE 57