Chapter 5 : The First Autopsies
The makeshift morgue was a study in improvised functionality. Deputy Davis had done his best with limited resources, hauling in examination tables from the local meat plant and setting up work lights powered by a generator from the mine. The temperature held steady at thirty-six degrees—not ideal, but cold enough to slow decomposition.
"I know it's not ideal," Nate said as he flipped the switches, flooding the space with harsh white light. "But..."
"It'll work," Carl assured him, setting down his medical bag and surveying the scene.
The ten bodies lay on gurneys covered with white sheets, arranged in two rough groups. Carl could see immediately that Davis and his team had started the preliminary work—boots and outer clothing removed and their personal items catalogued. But they'd stopped there, unwilling to proceed with the one body that lay separate from the others.
"I told my deputies to give you a head start with the clothes," Nate explained. "In fact, they only got as far as the boots, I'm afraid."
Carl nodded, pulling on latex gloves. After four decades of examining the dead, the ritual was automatic—gloves, apron, instruments laid out in precise order. The familiarity was comforting in this strange environment.
"All except this guy," Nate continued, gesturing toward the isolated gurney. "No one wanted to touch him."
Carl approached the separate body and pulled back the sheet. Even with his extensive experience, he had to suppress a grimace.
The corpse was in an advanced state of decay despite the relatively short time since death. The flesh had taken on a grayish, mottled appearance, and there was an unusual odor—not the typical smell of decomposition, but something else.
"Fucking animal," Nate spat, his voice thick with disgust.
Carl studied the remains more carefully. This had to be Joe Allen—or Eddie Sykes, or whatever name he had been using. The body showed signs of massive trauma, presumably from the explosion, but there were other anomalies that Carl couldn't immediately explain.
"I'm having crazy thoughts with this thing, Carl."
"Let it lie, Nate. You need to go sleep."
Nate ran a hand through his graying hair, exhaustion evident in every line of his body. "Yeah. Maybe you're right. I don't know. I just didn't want to leave you with this."
Carl could see the reluctance in his friend's eyes. After everything Nate had been through—the disappearances, the hunt, the explosion—leaving Carl alone with the bodies felt like abandonment.
"Are you sure you're up to this?"
"Take off the badge and lie down," Carl repeated gently. "I'll be lucky to get through more than just a few of them tonight. I'll press you into service in the morning."
"Okay. Good night."
The door closed behind Nate with a soft click, leaving Carl alone with the dead. He stood for a moment in the silence, broken only by the hum of the generator and the buzz of the work lights.
Ten men had died violently, leaving behind families, friends, unfinished business. It was his job to give them dignity in death and to uncover the truth of their final moments.
Carl activated his portable tape recorder and set it on the examination table.
"This is Dr. Carl Winters, reporting pathologist for the Montague County Coroner's Office, recording my preliminary remarks on the ten decedents of the Braddock Fork Mine incident."
He paused, looking around the makeshift morgue. Something about the atmosphere felt oppressive, though he couldn't pinpoint exactly what. The bodies lay still under their sheets, but there was an undercurrent of unease that made his skin crawl.
"This recording's for you alone, Nate. My typed report will serve as the official record."
Carl approached the main cluster of bodies, consulting the preliminary identification tags that Davis had attached. "The main cluster of decedents was uncovered 30 yards from suspect Allen. Decedents Jackson and Brady were found proximate to Allen. A man named Miller was found alone between the two groups."
He selected Miller's body for his first examination. If bomb fragments were present anywhere, logic suggested they would be found in the victim who lay between the two groups—potentially closest to the blast center.
"If any of the bodies contain bomb fragments, it would be this one. I'll start with Miller."
The process of moving Miller's body to the examination table was more difficult than usual. Carl's strength wasn't what it had been six months ago, and the dead weight seemed to resist his efforts. Finally, breathing heavily, he managed to position the corpse properly.
As he worked, Carl found himself humming softly—an old habit that helped him maintain focus during difficult procedures. The melody that came to mind was "Catch a Falling Star," a Perry Como tune that had been popular when he first started practicing medicine.
"I apologize for the indignity, my friend," he murmured to Miller's corpse as he began the external examination. "If it's any comfort, I'm right behind you."
The words came out without conscious thought, a reflection of his recent diagnosis. Death no longer seemed like an abstract concept but a fellow traveler walking alongside him.
Miller's external examination revealed signs consistent with crush asphyxiation—dirt under the fingernails from clawing at debris, blood-tinged mucus that would have been expressed during his final agony. It was a horrible way to die, but at least it was explicable. Human. Normal, if death could ever be called normal.
"Me again, Nate," Carl said into the recorder as he prepared for the internal examination. "Despite autolysis and putrefaction, I see signs not inconsistent with asphyxial death. I'll also examine him internally to establish a baseline. If I see anything anomalous on the other externals, well, we'll cross that bridge if we come to it."
The Y-incision was routine, the familiar process of opening the thoracic cavity to examine the internal organs. What he found there was reassuring in its normalcy—lungs showing subpleural hemorrhaging consistent with extreme blunt force trauma, the right side of the heart distended with dark blood.
"The lungs exhibit subpleural ecchymosis consistent with extreme blunt force trauma, probably from the explosion. The right half of the heart is distended and engorged with dark blood, along with the right coronary artery."
Carl weighed the organs on the improvised scale that Davis had provided, noting the measurements for his report. Everything was exactly what he would expect from a victim of mine collapse and crush asphyxiation.
"This is good, Nate. I see signs of respiratory distress, concussive trauma, but nothing says 'bomb' to me, nothing to prevent a finding of death by crush asphyxiation. Nothing for Waddleton to salivate over."
As he closed Miller's body and moved to the next examination table, Carl felt a moment of satisfaction. At least one family would receive their death benefits without insurance company interference. It wasn't much, but it was something.
The next body was Walter Lou Jackson, identified from Nate's crime scene photos as one of the victims found near Allen. Carl's external examination immediately revealed something troubling—a small but deep wound at the bottom of Jackson's sternum.
"New external, Nate. One Walter Lou Jackson. Per your photos, Jackson was unearthed next to Allen."
Carl studied the wound more carefully. It was precise, surgical in its placement, and seemed to curve through the diaphragm toward the heart region. This wasn't blast trauma or crush injury—this was something else entirely.
"Nate, I keep thinking... What if the explosion wasn't a botched escape attempt? What if that sphere wasn't a bomb? What if the sphere's destruction was Allen's actual aim? Not escape?"
The thought had been nagging at him since Nate had described the sequence of events. If Allen was trying to escape, why had he gone deeper into the mine instead of toward an exit? Why had he destroyed the sphere that seemed so important to him?
Carl made the decision to examine Jackson internally, though something about the prospect filled him with dread. As he made the initial incision, he found himself humming again, the melody providing a relief to his growing unease.
What he discovered inside Jackson's body defied medical explanation. The wound track did indeed lead to the heart, but the heart itself was wrong. Shrunken, abnormally pale, and most disturbing of all—completely drained of blood.
"I found a small wound at the bottom of Jackson's sternum. It's deep. Seems to curve through the diaphragm... toward the heart."
Carl stared at the bloodless organ in his hands, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing. In forty years of practice, he had never encountered anything like this. The heart looked mummified, dessicated, as if every drop of blood had been extracted somehow.
"The track of the wound does lead to the heart. The lungs and heart are shrunken and abnormally pale. It is completely drained of blood."
His hands were trembling slightly as he set the organ aside and moved to examine Brady's body. If Jackson's condition was some kind of anomaly, Brady should be normal. But even as he made the first incision, Carl suspected what he would find.
Brady's organs were in the same condition—shrunken, pale and bloodless. Two victims, both found near Allen, both drained of blood through precise wounds.
"There's no blood in Brady either."
Carl stepped back from the examination table, his mind racing. Three bodies examined, two of them showing evidence of something that went beyond normal murder. The precision of the blood drainage suggested some kind of instrument usage, but the thoroughness was impossible by any normal standard.
"Jackson, Brady... Allen."
He looked toward the isolated gurney where Allen's corpse lay under its sheet. Whatever had happened in that mine, Allen was at the center of it. And if Carl's growing suspicion was correct, the blood missing from Jackson and Brady might very well be found in Allen's stomach.
The generator hummed in the background, the work lights casting harsh shadows across the makeshift morgue. Outside, the mountain wind whistled through the gaps in the building's walls, creating an atmospheric soundtrack to Carl's investigation.
As he prepared to approach Allen's body, Carl couldn't shake the feeling that he was about to cross a line from which there would be no return. Miller's death had been tragic but explaianble. Jackson and Brady's condition was disturbing but still within the realm of human pathology, however extreme.
But Allen... Allen represented something else entirely. And Carl was beginning to suspect that examining Joe Allen would reveal truths that no medical textbook had prepared him for.
"I'm thinking crazy thoughts, Nate," he said quietly into the recorder. "I'm thinking... I wonder if all that blood's in Allen's stomach. I'll examine him."
The decision made, Carl approached the isolated gurney with the measured steps of a man walking toward his destiny.