Chapter 23 The Architecture of Decay
Duke leaned on the wall outside the morgue, dragging on the cigarette dangling from his lips, eyes half lidded as he exhaled slowly, as if trying to push the weight of the night out with the smoke that curled into the cold air.
He replayed his memories from the alley a few nights ago and the hospital when he and Mitch first met Noah Ware trying to find a link between the two events and that of today.
Noah ware and his roommate had successfully become people of interest in this case but statement differences won’t necessarily make them the main suspects as there’s no known motive or evidence that points to murder.
Wait what is his roommate’s name again?
“You do know that you are not allowed to smoke around here right?” Tom spoke up, stepping out of the building.
Duke turned to him and smiled apologetically before stubbing out the cigarette with his foot “Sorry, are you starting the autopsy? Let’s go in then.”
The morgue was a sanctuary of silence, a stark, clinical vault where the only rhythm was the hum of the ventilation system and the rhythmic, metallic clack of Tom’s surgical instruments against the stainless steel tray.
Duke stood at the foot of the table, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes fixed on the pale, motionless form of Leo Mendoza.
Leo Mendoza lay on the table. On the outside, he looked like any other student who had fallen asleep. He was clean shaven, his skin clear and unblemished, his expression one of eerie neutrality.
But Duke knew better. He had seen the “clean” corpse in the alleyway, and had seen the rot and confusion it brought after an autopsy. He was bracing for the truth of what lay beneath the mask.
“Starting the Y incision” Tom announced. His voice was flat, practiced. A defense mechanism against the horrors he witnessed daily.
He sliced. The scalpel glided through the skin as if it were parchment, sliding with an unnatural ease. There was no resistance, no grit of connective tissue.
And then, the first anomaly struck: there was no blood.
Not a single drop of crimson stained the sterile steel.
Instead, a thick, translucent fluid oozed from the incision. A vicious, greenish slime that smelled faintly of ozone, stagnant water and ancient dust. It coated the metal table, swirling in iridescent oil slick patterns.
Duke stepped closer, his jaw tightening. “Still no blood?”
“None” Tom murmured, his brow furrowing as he pulled back the skin flaps with a pair of retractors. The silence in the room deepened, becoming heavy and suffocating.
Duke gasped.
Underneath the pristine, unblemished skin of Leo’s chest, the fascia wasn’t muscle and tissue.
It was a canvas.
Deep, jagged symbols were carved directly into the inner lining of the skin, perfectly mirrored on both sides of the chest.
They looked like fresh, third degree burns, scorched into the meat with a surgical, mathematical precision that defied human ability. The lines of the symbols seemed to pulse under the harsh fluorescent lights, a sickening, rhythmic movement that made the room spin.
“What the hell is that?” Duke whispered, his hand going to his hoister instinctively, as if he could shoot the horror away.
“It’s not tissue” Tom whispered, his voice trembling. He reached out with a pair of forceps to expose the thoracic cavity.
As the chest cavity yawned open, both men recoiled. The smell hit them then, a wave of putrid, cloying decay that felt hot against their faces, despite the morgue’s sub zero temperature.
The lungs were not lungs; they were blackened, shriveled husks, unrecognisable as human organs. But worse were the bite marks.
Great, irregular gouges were torn out of the heart, the liver and the diaphragm, as if something had fed on him from the inside out.
Scattered within the blackened, liquefied remains of the organs were maggots. They were curled in the crevices, not squirming, but calcified, frozen in time as if they had died the exact second they were born.
“Time of death?” Duke asked, his voice sounding like dry gravel.
Tom moved to pick up a lung, but the organ disintegrated into a foul smelling sludge under his touch.
“Impossible to determine” Tom said, his hands finally shaking. “The exterior looks like he died an hour ago. The interior looks like he’s been dead for months, maybe years. The decay is localized, Duke. It’s accelerated in the organs and non-existent in the skin. It’s an impossibility”
“Cause of death?”
“Unable to identify” Tom said his face pale. “Everything is just… eaten. It… it’s just like-”
Just like the body from the alley.
Duke felt a cold sweat break out along his spine. He reached for his notepad, but before he could jot down a word, the heavy double doors of the morgue swung open.
“Detective!” a voice shouted from the hallway. A young patrol officer, breathless and panicked. “Detective, I tried to stop him, but-”
The doors shoved open completely, slamming against the wall with a deafening thud.
Mitch strode in, his eyes were wide, bloodshot and frantic, darting around the room with an intensity that bordered on manic. He didn’t look at Duke. He didn’t look at the officer. He locked onto the body on the table.
“Mitch, get the hell out of here” Duke roared, stepping between his former partner and the table, blocking the view. “This is a secured scene. You’re over the line.”
Mitch ignored him. He was vibrating, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. He moved towards the table with predatory, shuffling gait, his face twisted into an expression of horrifying, ecstatic recognition.
“Look at it, Duke” Mitch hissed, his voice cracking. He pointed a trembling finger at the symbols etched into the chest. “Look at the geometry of the rot. I told you. I told you the city was bleeding out and you wouldn’t listen. You called me a paranoid fool, but look at the canvas! He wasn’t killed by a person. He was used as a vessel. Cursed, just like me.”
“Mitch, shut up!” Duke grabbed his shoulder, trying to physically turn him away. “You are not supposed to be here. You are compromised.”
Mitch spun around, his face inches from Duke’s. The excitement in his eyes was replaced by hallow, chilling pity. “You’re looking at the symptoms, Duke, but you’re blind to the disease. You want to save the city? You want to bring order back?” Mitch let out a sharp, jagged laugh that sounded like breaking glass. “You won’t believe me when I tell you what it is. You couldn’t handle the truth even if I carved it into your skin like it was carved into his.”
Mitch backed away, his gaze never leaving the grotesque cavity of the corpse. “It’s starting, Duke and you are just standing there playing with a scalpel.”
With a final, frantic look at the ruined lungs, Mitch turned and bolted out of the morgue, leaving the air heavy and suffocating in his wake. Duke stood frozen, the silence of the morgue rushing back in, louder than before.
In a windowless space, a hooded figure walked into the room. They turned on the light and approached a board of some sort on the wall.
They took a newspaper clipping and attached it to the board. He circled the name “Leo” and dragged a line to a photo of Noah and a faceless, blurry photo.
He stared at the board for a while before pulling out his phone.
“Hello”… “No, I haven’t been caught. It’s all going just as we planned”