I thought I'd seen everything, but I had no idea what I was going to see in this body.
In my work, the rule is always to be meticulous and to study every organ, every inch of the body. An oversight and you could miss something crucial to understanding the cause of death.
When Detective Mike Dalen called me in the middle of the night to perform an autopsy on this body, I thought it would be just another procedure, but I was terribly wrong.
"Mike, was it really necessary to wake me up in the middle of the night for this? It's 2 a.m., the body's not going anywhere," I told him as we entered the autopsy room where he was already with the body.
"Sorry Jack, chief's orders," he said, massaging the back of his neck.
I looked at the body lying on the table.
A man, white, in his thirties, bald, about 5.9 feet tall. I could see several fresh bullet wounds on his torso. I couldn't figure out why, but something was bothering me at the sight of these wounds.
"He was shot just a few hours ago by two of our guys, but I'll fill you in later. The most important thing is that you examine the body for now," Mike told me.
I remained thoughtful for a few seconds.
The wind and rain were pounding hard against the windows, and the light was flickering from the growing storm outside.
"Mike, come on, I can feel that there is something weird here. You never would have called me in the middle of the night if there wasn't something going on."
He seemed to hesitate.
"Look, take care of the body. It may be nothing. I hope so anyway," he sighed. "If you notice anything or need me, I'm right here in the hall."
"What, you're going to stay there throughout the autopsy?" I asked with surprise.
"Yeah, just a precautionary measure. The chief wants a report as soon as possible," he said, while staring at the body.
I was puzzled.
But there was a body on my autopsy table, and I saw nothing else to do but get to work and discover the answers myself.
The storm outside had picked up, but the lighting remained steady enough to examine it.
I donned my equipment and set to work.
The first thing to do was to drain the body of its blood.
Problem: either there wasn't a single drop left, or my equipment wasn't working.
After checking, I thought he had indeed bled to death somehow, and decided to make the incision in his torso to work him over completely.
As I stood over the body, scalpel in hand, I felt something strange. As if I were about to commit a transgression, a fault. As if something was waiting for me inside that body, and once I'd opened it, I'd never be able to go back.
As I stared at the man's belly, I thought I saw him blink.
I immediately snapped out of my torpor and stared at his face, my heart rate jumping all at once.
"What are you hiding from me?" I whispered.
It might sound odd, but speaking aloud would sometimes ease the tension in the room when I came across a particularly banged-up body.
But conversely, this one seemed in a very good state. Precisely, a little too good when I thought about it. Although the color of the body was strangely dull.
And as I observed the color of his skin, I swore I saw out of the corner of my eye his gaze turn to me and instantly return to its place.
I gasped again and pulled away.
I took a deep breath.
It was past midnight, I'd been awakened after a long day at work, and I hadn't even had time for a cup of coffee. That, coupled with the storm and Mike's strange behavior was probably putting my imagination into overdrive.
You've got to get a grip, man. You've been doing this too long to believe in the undead now.
I stepped back in front of the body and raised the scalpel in front of me.
I closed my eyes for a second, and made the "Y" incision.
I reached the end of it’s lower abdomen, and finished opening the body with the necessary tools.
Every passing second seemed surreal.
I could feel that something was wrong.
And when I looked inside his body, I understood why.
There was nothing there.
Not nothing in the sense of "nothing wrong". Nothing in the sense that the body was entirely empty.
The light bulb above my head flickered.
What the hell?
Still dubious, I grabbed a flashlight and shone it inside. I got my face as close as I could, and shone the light in all directions. There was absolutely nothing, no organs, not even a trace of blood.
I straightened up, and stormed out of the autopsy room.
"Mike, is this a joke?"
He gasped in surprise as I yelled at him.
"Wow, Jake what's going on?"
"Come see what's going on."
He followed me inside, and I indicated the body with my hand.
He looked inside, and unspeakable fear crossed his face.
Then he began to stare inside, and seemed lost in thought. As if looking for an answer to a question I didn't know. Drops of sweat appeared on his face. After a moment, he looked up at me.
"I'm sorry, Jake. I didn't tell you everything."
I joined him over the reclining body.
"Now's a good time then. What the hell is this? A cop joke? How did you even manage to pull this off seriously?"
"It's no joke Jake," he took a long breath to calm himself. "I didn't lie to you about the apparent cause of death. Two of our guys shot him after he tried to attack them last night. They responded to a call from a woman who seemed in absolute panic and was talking about a man, or something, chasing her to the edge of the woods."
Mike stared at the floor with a defeated expression on his face.
"They managed to intervene, but too late. He had already ripped the poor woman open and seemed to be... digging inside her with his hands when they found him. He tried to attack them and they opened fire."
He looked at me again.
"The thing is, when the paramedics arrived. They saw right away that there was something wrong with the body. They said it felt like they'd lifted a dummy instead of a man. It seemed... hollow," and on that last word he stared at the body again.
"Holy shit Mike, and you didn't think it was a good thing to tell me about this before?"
"I didn't want to influence you. After all, they could have made a mistake too."
I looked silently at the body on the autopsy table. It definitely gave off something artificial, as if animated by something other than common human biology.
"Wait," I said suddenly, staring at the body as if I were actually seeing it for the first time.
"You're telling me that, that thing, was shot by bullets."
"Yeah."
I turned my head toward Mike.
"This thing isn't bleeding, and it doesn't have any internal organs. So how can you be sure it's dead?"
And with that, as if it'd been listening to us since we walked into the room, the body on the table began to shake.
We were both in a state of stupefaction, watching this body come back to life before our very eyes. This empty body, without organs, without anything that should make it live.
A moment later, the thing calmly straightened up, and sat down on the autopsy table, torso still open.
Its eyes fell on me, then on Mike. The light kept flickering above us.
And in an artificial voice, devoid of any emotion, it said those words I'd never forget.
"Thank you very much. Now I'm certain of what I was missing."
It leapt forward and Mike stepped between it and me.
He didn't have time to draw his gun and a struggle ensued, but it was a lose-lose for Mike. This thing was incredibly strong and agile, contrary to what its empty shell suggested.
In less than a minute, Mike was inert on the ground, his lifeless eyes darting in my direction.
The body straightened up and began to lean towards me.
I closed my eyes and put my arms in front of me to protect myself.
I waited for a few seconds that seemed like an eternity. And when I finally opened my eyes, expecting to come face to face with this thing, I realized that I was alone in the room.
Mike's body had disappeared with it, leaving a pool of blood as the only evidence of what had happened.
Droplets splashed on my face. And I noticed the window was open.
It had fled with Mike's body.
I stood there for a few minutes, trying to process what had just happened.
I closed the window and called the police about what had happened just a few minutes ago.
But I think it's my responsibility to warn you.
I don’t know what it is, but that thing is out there. And now it has everything it needs to look just like us.
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