Passage Graves

by Madyson Rush

  The man tittered. “I need the names of your team as well as their credentials, sir.”

  Thatcher and Lee kept at Hummer’s heels as he started toward the tents. Thatcher spoke quickly, trying to satisfy the NCEC officer who trailed behind them. “I’m Dr. Brynne Thatcher, NATO Intelligence, a forensic pathologist. This is Strategic Director Hummer.”

  The NCEC officer searched his digital clipboard.

  “That’s Dr. Lee, Assistant Director of the Security Consul, and Dr. Marek and his tech team: Golke, Donovan, and…bloody hell...” She snapped her fingers, trying to remember.

  “Bailey.” Bailey scowled.

  The officer lowered his digital clipboard, confused. “You’re with what agency?”

  “NATO,” she answered.

  “NATO?”

  Hummer wasted no time. “Thanks for preparing the area. Discontinue all first responder activity and vacate the premises.”

  The man dropped his clipboard.

  “NATO has no authority over this incident site.” The NCEC officer grabbed Hummer by the elbow. “This is a CBRN emergency. Stenness is a Level 5, Class 6.2, 606.”

  Hummer raised an eyebrow. The NCEC categorized whatever killed these people as a biological infectious substance. They were either a million miles off target or they’d found contamination.

  Thatcher bit her lip. Let it be the latter.

  Hummer scanned the area with a look of satisfaction. “We’ll keep the tents, but Lee, I want our lab up and running with a one-way link to NCEC’s intel.” He turned to Thatcher. “I want you in the morgue. Lee will get you whatever you need. The others can help—”

  “Excuse me!” the officer interrupted.

  “And for Chrissake!” Hummer thumbed at the man sputtering behind him. “Find someone other than this plonker to give us a tour of the place.”

  ****

  Thatcher walked through the morgue behind Hummer and the NCEC’s highest-ranking onsite pathologist. Six rows of gurneys lined both sides of the chilled and pressurized tent. “What is the death toll?” she asked.

  “Forty-seven.” The pathologist’s voice was muffled by the heavy PVC of his sealed hazmat helmet. “I’ve only had time to autopsy a few bodies. We sent tissue samples to the lab, but the onsite facility is limited. I’d wager they’ll find nothing substantial.”

  Thatcher bent over one of the cadavers. The body showed no signs of infection. A few burst blood vessels crested the man’s pale skin. She met Hummer’s eyes. He had to be thinking the same thing: subsonic trauma. Sound was a remarkable weapon. It destroyed indiscriminately, leaving almost no signature upon its victims.

  “We set up a security peri

  meter around the village,” the pathologist continued. “We hope that whatever caused this disaster will be contained.”

  They exited the morgue and headed into another tent marked QUARANTINE. Inside, the walls were protected with extra layers of insulated foam and plastic.

  “Decontamination stations?” Thatcher asked.

  The site safety plan called for five exclusion rooms, but they weren’t needed.”

  The room was filled with gurneys and equipment, but empty of people.

  “Since we haven’t identified or isolated the source,” the pathologist said, “I advise you keep protective gear on at all times.”

  “Any guesses as to what caused this?” Thatcher was curious about his diagnosis.

  “Off the record?”

  “Sure.”

  He shrugged. “An infectious agent. I’d say an Ebola-related filovirus or a mutated strain of hemorrhagic fever.” He paused for a moment looking thoroughly confused. “None of the bodies show any cutaneous manifestations, though. There’s blood loss at all orifices, though mostly the nose and ears, and massive internal bleeding. The severity of subarachnoid hemorrhaging is bizarre.”

  Hummer looked to Thatcher for a translation.

  “Blood surrounding the brain,” she said. “Usually from an aneurysm or traumatic injury.” Hummer didn’t care about the fine nuances of forensic medicine. All that mattered was these were signs of lethal noise.

  “It still doesn’t make sense.” The pathologist shook his head. “The death rate is much too high for a virus. It’s unprecedented, actually. The Sudan outbreak only had a 22% survival rate.”

  Thatcher feigned bewilderment. Acoustic trauma of this magnitude would result in a 100% fatality rate. No questions asked. If her team was responsible, there would be no survivors. End of story.

  The pathologist shook his head, perplexed. “You need to see this.”

  He led them to the back of the room and stopped near a large sliding door. It looked more like an elevator than an entrance into a sealed decontamination area.

  “There’s a lift?” she asked.

  “We stumbled upon an abandoned uranium mine while taking soil samples.” He slid aside the panel door and revealed an elevated metal cage suspended from wires. “It was constructed during WWII. The mine was retired and apparently forgotten.”

  He gestured for them to get onboard. Thatcher was hesitant. The rickety machine looked well past its prime.

  “We fixed the drive motor. It’s a counter-weighted hoisting system with mechanical brakes,” the pathologist insisted. “We reinforced the guide rails. The lift is a bit precarious—especially the cage—but it does the job. There’s a pneumatic rope break system, lighting, and a fully contained airlock system below.”

  “Why’d you go through all this trouble?” she asked.

  His face lit up beneath his mask. He was charged about something. “I’ll show you.” He stepped inside. The three of them barely fit. “Hold onto the rail,” he said. “The drop is a good thirty-three feet down.” He pressed a button on the inside of the cage. “One push down, two pushes up.”

  Thatcher shook her head utterly confused. Why would they need a bunker three stories below ground?

  The car rocked side to side as they lowered into the dark. The floor was made of a see-through metal grate. Thatcher had no problem with heights, but it was disconcerting to drop into nothingness. When they reached the floor, the lift came to a hard stop. The tunnel walls were cracked, exposing the aged brick and mortar. Six feet ahead was the first airlock door.

  The pathologist opened the gate.

  “I’d like you to meet the lone survivor,” he said.

  Thatcher’s gaze shifted to Hummer. She must have heard him wrong.

  Hummer looked sick. “Survivor?”

  Chapter 12

  SUNDAY 6:30 p.m.

  Stenness, Orkney Island, Scotland

  Thatcher flinched as the airlock door slid shut behind her. She faced the man crouched in the corner and took a few steps forward.

  Unshaven, staring blankly at the floor, the survivor looked like he’d been to hell and back. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair disheveled.

  How could one man survive?

  She looked closely at his face, his ears and neck. There were no signs of trauma. At least no physical trauma, nothing related to subsonic noise. His knee was bandaged. He had stitches on his cheek. From what she understood, these were all injuries sustained after the fact.

  “David Hyden?” Her voice sounded inhuman through the hazardous materials suit.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.

  She squatted down, trying to meet his eyes. The body gear was too bulky.

  “This is crap,” she said. Sliding open the neckline lock, she pulled the helmet off her head.

  Behind her, the NCEC pathologist pounded on the glass door.

  Thatcher ignored him and brushed her hair away from her face. “Dr. Hyden?” This time she met his eyes. “A simple hello will do.”

  “‘Hello.’” David’s monotone complemented his reclusive glare.

  “I’m Dr. Brynne Thatcher, a NATO Researcher and pathologist.” She opened his file. “I read through your report of the Stenness events. I can’t say it was entirely helpful.”

&
nbsp; “I told you people everything I know,” he murmured. “I’m not sick. I’m not going to get sick.”

  “That’s the problem.” She studied his body again for any evidence of exposure—not a single burst capillary. “You’re the anomaly.”

  “I need to get back to Aberdeen,” he said. “My class meets Monday.”

  “That’s a bit unimportant, don’t you think? Especially after such an interesting turn of events?”

  “Interesting?” He didn’t appreciate her choice of words.

  “I find the facts rather remarkable.” She shuffled through his paperwork. “One, Stenness was a healthy, very much alive town. Two, it was visited by you. And three, every man, woman, and child is now dead—except for you. You’re a scientist, Dr. Hyden. What’s the catalyst here?”

  David stared down at the floor. “I didn’t kill them, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “Explain to me why you’re the only survivor?”

  He didn’t respond.

  She looked back at the door. She knew Hummer was listening. “Can you describe your location last night?”

  “McLeod’s Bed’n’Breakfast. On the north end of town.”

  “Where was your room in relation to the town?”

  David looked up at her with mild interest. “I was on the second floor, facing east.”

  “Was anyone with you?”

  “Marta. Her room was directly below mine. She was in bed…when I found her.”

  “You were alone upstairs?”

  “No.”

  During the debriefing, the pathologist insisted David had been alone. “There was someone else in your room?” she asked.

  “My dog,” he said. “But you’d know that if you’d actually read the report.”

  Thatcher opened his file and found a photograph of the deceased dog. She chewed on her bottom lip. She had hoped the location of his room might somehow explain why he was unaffected by the noise. Perhaps something had deflected the low frequency sound waves. But if the dog died in the same room…?

  David surviving was unexplainable.

  She shut the file.

  Although puzzling, he was far from contagious. All the other evidence pointed directly at Sonja. Hummer had no doubt. From this point on, David’s presence would only impede their investigation.

  She stood up. “Well, I appreciate your cooperation. I’ll be in contact if I need to question you any further. Please don’t leave the country without authorization.”

  David looked up at her, blinking in disbelief.

  Thatcher offered him a warm smile. “I’ve given you a clean bill of health. Go back to Aberdeen, doctor.”

  David’s knees made a cracking noise as he got up. He cringed from the pain and hobbled behind her to the airlock door.

  “I’d like to have my dog,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?” Thatcher was caught off guard by the request.

  “Darwin. I’d like to take her with me. Bury her.”

  She couldn’t help but pity him. Imagine what he’d been through, waking up to find everyone dead. “I wish I could help you,” she said, “but everything has to stay in the area. That’s protocol.”

  The first airlock door slid open and they stepped inside. Fans kicked on overhead, cleansing them of microbes and bacteria.

  “Can I ask what you were doing in Stenness?” she asked.

  “Studying Maeshowe,” he spoke softly.

  She shook her head, unfamiliar with the term.

  “It’s a passage grave, an ancient megalithic ruin—like Stonehenge. But Maeshowe is a mound.”

  “Hyden?” She knew she recognized the name. “I read your work on the Dead Sea Scrolls. How they may prove the existence of a resurrected Christ.”

  “That was my father.” David frowned. “I research legitimate subjects.”

  She tried to loosen him with a smile. “You don’t find biblical archeology interesting?”

  “No.”

  The fans clicked off and the doors slid open. Hummer and Bailey were waiting outside, standing in the underground corridor that led to the elevator. The last NCEC convoy had left the area, so everyone had removed their hazmat gear.

  “Show him out, Golke,” Hummer said to Bailey.

  Bailey scowled. He wouldn’t dare correct the Director on his name. He steered David toward the elevator.

  David turned back. “Dr. Thatcher, how do you know it wasn’t me who killed these people?”

  “I don’t…” She wished she could give him peace of mind. Something to calm survivor’s guilt. Especially since this was probably her team’s fault. “I’m sorry.”

  The elevator door shut and ascended toward the surface.

  Before the lift disappeared, Hummer was barking orders. “Reexamine the bodies. I want to know how the hell we did this.”

  Chapter 13

  SUNDAY 7:15 p.m.

  Orkney Island, Scotland

  David drove away from Stenness as fast as he could, trying to ignore the void in Darwin’s empty seat. The Jeep’s top cover had been removed during the investigation. He didn’t bother to replace it, even if it meant being exposed to the elements.

  Stinging raindrops pricked his face. The smell of wet grass and decomposing sheep was thick in the air. Rain clouds sank over the grasslands blending into gray fog too dense to rise above the atmosphere. It hovered over the village like a plume of pollution, trapping the heavy, unbearable stench that seemed imprinted inside his nose as a rancid, inescapable memory.

  The Jeep powered up the incline that led out of the valley.

  Even though the dead were far behind, he could smell them, feel them, and hear their silence. He stared at his rearview mirror until finally, the rain clouds submerged Stenness, and the barrage of white tents disappeared.

  The world was too quiet.

  He fumbled with the radio, finding static and then the voices of BBC news. “…Scottish village of Stenness is in a state of disaster after an unknown biological toxin took the lives of 47 civilian—”

  He flipped off the radio, his hands trembling.

  They didn’t even have the story right. There was no biological toxin. There was only him. And he was cause enough. Everyone he cared about died. Images of death bombarded his mind—Darwin, Marta, the young neighbor girl—three more lifeless faces joining the others who made his throat crack and his chest heave.

  He glanced at the rearview mirror again and was startled to see who stared back at him. It was a dead man, a ghost, comatose with empty, soulless eyes. Himself, the lone survivor. He envisioned the revolver back in his Aberdeen apartment, tucked under a phonebook in his kitchen junk drawer. Its black rubber grip stretched taut over the metal stock waiting for a tight embrace. The click of the hammer sounded in his mind. The barrel’s sultry eye stared back at him, promising a smoky kiss. Could that kill the lone survivor?

  Would the paramedics shake their heads as they hauled his body away? Like the emergency crew who found him in Stenness, would they say, “God, what horror!”

  A moan consumed him.

  Rain pounded his face.

  He gritted his teeth. A monster of crystallized emotion was imprisoned deep within him. Stress had weakened the bars of its cage. Self-control was simply mind over matter—the matter being nothing more than chemical responses, motor neurons firing in his brain. He could control this. He could feel nothing.

  Chapter 14

  SUNDAY 9:48 p.m.

  Stenness, Orkney Island, Scotland

  Florescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a bluish hue over Darwin. Thatcher snapped on rubber gloves and adjusted her goggles. She bit her lip and made the initial Y-incision, cutting carefully across the shoulders to the mid-chest and then down the abdominal region. The scalpel sliced easily through the chilled skin, making a clean cut. She placed the tool on the medical tray and reached for the rib cutters, noticing Hummer outside the Plexiglas partition with Lee.

  Brilliant, an audience.

&nbs
p; She severed the cartilage between the ribs and breastbone. Exerting too much pressure, she accidentally sliced through to the chest cavity. “Sorry,” she whispered to the dog. She was hoping to cause as little damage as possible so David could get her back for burial.

  Outside the room, Hummer folded his arms. His stoicism in the face of all this devastation was unnerving. He was certain this was their fault. Yet he seemed impervious to any guilt. In her gut, she knew better. After spending most of her teen years with him, she learned the only way he expressed emotion was by severe acid reflux. Judging by his subtle grimace, the Stenness situation was causing the worst heartburn known to mankind.

  Thatcher steadied her hand and removed the rib section to examine the chest organs. Thousands of tiny hemorrhages plagued the tissue.

  “There are microlesions on the lungs and heart,” she spoke into the voice recorder. Bending over Darwin’s head, she examined her ears with an otoscope. Dried blood obstructed her view of the tiny, fragile inner organs. Thatcher removed the coagulation with tweezers and looked back inside the ear. “Severe perforation of the tympanic membrane and blood drainage throughout the auditory canal.”

  The shattered remains of the middle-ear bones hung loosely out of place behind the ruptured tissue. “Mid-ear bones are fractured. The cochlea is a battered mess.”

  Organ microlesions, traumatized ear bones. That was two for three. The possibility of vindicating her team and making sense out of one man surviving looked grim. She cut an incision across the head and then opened the skull vault with a vibrating saw. She removed the cartilage, unveiling the brain.

  Taking a tiny cross-section of the tissue, she placed the sample on a glass slide, clipped it under the microscope, and looked through the ocular piece.

  It looked exactly like the birds.

  “The brain cross section shows cavitation bubbles, severe inflammation, nerve irritation, and necrosis within the neuralgia cells.”

  She slumped in a chair and rubbed her stinging eyes.

  “Let’s be sure,” she whispered to herself.