Wolf Angel, Mark Hobson [best free ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗

She contemplated switching on her computer and typing up some reports, as there was a huge backlog of paperwork to be finished. But she was too exhausted, and perturbed by the day’s events. Instead she crossed to the small cot made up in the corner of the room and lowered herself onto the thin mattress with a sigh.

Sitting there with her hands covering her face, she gently massaged at the dull ache building up behind her eyes, hoping it was just a tension headache and not the first signs of a migraine.

Back in the main room her assistant was just finishing cleaning up the dissecting equipment and replacing them into their correct drawers and racks.

Into one tray went the abdominal scissors and the bone shears and the spinal column saw, while on the wall hooks went the bone mallet and the post-mortem hammer and the skull breaker. All cleaned with disinfectant solution and now spotless. Then he plugged in the small hand-held 120V autopsy saw which needed recharging, before turning to the bone sectional saw – his favourite piece of equipment.

This was essentially the same as the meat-slicers found in most butcher’s shops, but the cutting blades had tiny high-powered water jets that enabled them to cut straight through thick bone, slicing off very thin slivers. It was a very neat tool, and was ridiculously expensive, but boy was it a pain to clean up. Every tiny scrap of flesh and bone and meat had to be picked out by hand and by brush, as even the most microscopic sliver of flesh could get stuck in the saw’s blades and foul it up. Nevertheless it needed to be done and the young assistant went about the task with meticulous care.

When he was done he switched the machine on and turned it up to full speed, enjoying the gentle hum and buzz and watching the sharp steel blades spin around in a blur just inches from his hand. Satisfied that it was all in good working order, he switched off and carried it across to the storage unit.

It was as he was bending over and sliding it into place that he heard a noise. A rattling sound, coming from behind him.

Still hunched over he turned his head to look back over his shoulder, but there was nothing amiss. Nothing had fallen over or rolled onto the floor, everything was just as it should be. He turned back and locked the cupboard door, then straightened up. There was just one more job and then he was done.

He wheeled the autopsy table across to the freezer units against the far wall, and flipped over the elevation surface, and tucked it up against the wall, all stored away neat and tidy.

The sound came again, louder this time. Definitely something rattling, like a clinking noise, and something sliding as well. What the heck was it? He stood there and looked around the room, trying to pinpoint its source.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement in his peripheral vison and turned to look. Lined up against the wall on their gurneys were the body bags containing the remains of the gunmen killed yesterday, zipped up and awaiting further tests. But as he looked, one of them moved slightly.

He stared, thinking he was seeing things. Then it happened again, the bad moving and flexing and part of it bulging outwards, and there was that damn queer rattling noise again, coming from inside the bag.

Unable to tear his eyes away, and so petrified at what was happening that he remained frozen and rooted to the spot, he watched as slowly the zipper was pushed down from the inside, the metal fastener sliding further and further.

It paused briefly, and then a long, narrow bony finger poked out of the small gap and continued pushing the zipper, opening the body bag wider and wider.

The blood-curdling scream jolted Prisha’s already shaky heart, sending a spasm of dread through her entire body.

She came to her feet so fast that she stumbled and nearly lost her balance. Then she grabbed the door handle and rushed out into the corridor.

The lights were off. She didn’t remember turning them off, but she saw that the main room where the bodies were kept was in darkness too, so she assumed her assistant had finished his tasks and gone home.

Yet if that was the case then who was it she’d heard screaming?

As she thought this there was more commotion, the sound of smashing and banging, coming down the corridor, as though there was a struggle going on. Prisha hurried forward.

Throwing open the plastic swing doors of the morgue, she reached out and flicked on the bank of light switches on the wall, and the darkness in the room flickered to white as the fluorescent bulbs stuttered into life.

In that half-second, as the blackness and whiteness flashed back and forth, she saw something that stopped her breath. A terrifying sight that was instantly ingrained on her brain.

A figure, standing there and looking at her. All twisted and out of shape. Made of bones.

It was deformed, as though some of the bones were in the wrong place or not there at all. Some of the ribcage was gone, as was one of the lower arm bones. The spine was all disjointed and twisted to the side like someone with a terrible back injury, and the skull was tilted sideways. Worse of all was the jaw, which had slipped down so it looked all lopsided, like someone who had been punched by a boxer.

Prisha stood totally still as the flickering boneman shambled towards her.

“So what happened then?” Pieter asked, dreading hearing her answer.

“Nothing. The lights came on, and the figure was gone. Whoever, or rather whatever, it was had disappeared. It was only there for a split-second, and then the next instant it wasn’t.”

She pointed across the room. “All that was here was that pile of bones over on the floor .”

Prisha seemed to visibly