Silent Screams

First Day

I tapped my ID card against the reader by the door to let myself into the pathology department, quietly entering and slipping along the corridor to where my new boss, Leo Dalton's, office was.

I chapped the door frame twice before clutching my hands together in front of my stomach.

"Ye -" the man sighed wearily before looking up and recognising me in the doorway. A smile appeared on his face, and he quickly got to his feet, almost knocking his chair over in his rush. "Samantha, thank the Lord!" He cried as he slung his arms about my shoulders and reeled me in for a tight hug. "We've got three bodies coming in, apparently they unearthed a mass grave in somebodies back yard," Leo's hand flapped in the air as he pulled away, snatching my coat and bag to throw down on his seat, taking my arm and dragging me down the hallway. "Harry!" He called as we passed by a small lab where Harry Cunningham was bent double over a data analysis sheet. The dark-haired man's head shot up. He glanced between Leo and myself, probably noticing how frazzled I was, and rolled his eyes with a fond smile. As Leo continued to drag me along the corridor, I heard Harry racing after us. "How confident are you with post mortems?" Leo asked as he finally slowed down and released me. His back was turned for a moment before he turned and dropped a set of scrubs and an apron into my arms.

"Confident." I quirked a smile at him. His returning one was blinding.

"Excellent! Get changed, we'll meet you in the cutting room." Leo was still smiling brightly as he watched Harry throw a long-suffering glance in my direction and disappear into the men's locker room.

I quickly made my way into the women's, changing into the scrubs and tying on my apron before making my way over to the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the wall opposite the door. I gathered my long brown hair into a high ponytail and tied it off with a rubber band that I'd had around my wrist, examining my reflection for anything that I might not want someone to see. Unfortunately, there was some visible bruising on my neck, a very obvious thumbprint against the dip of my throat, but I had concealer in my purse, so I made quick work of it.

I had quite a few bruises hidden beneath my clothing, all resulting from my parents' abuse. It was my fault, really. I'd run away at the age of eighteen to finish training as a pathologist, escaping their abuse despite having dealt with it for years because my father had tried to sleep with me after getting me drunk. Somehow, between then and my return to town, when I'd turned twenty-two, they'd sobered up and gotten themselves straightened out. They seeked me out, bumping into me at my local grocery store and around town until I agreed to have them over for dinner. They'd seemed nice. They hadn't beaten me or said anything. Then, they lost their house. They fell back into drugs. I took them in because I couldn't stand to see them die on the streets, but all I'd gotten from them since then was pain, heartache, and debt.

I needed this job. The pay would help me clear my debt and theirs. Besides, the people here seemed nice and would be an excellent distraction from what awaited me at home.

I quickly made my way out of the locker room and into the cutting room. It was empty. I moved to the bench and grabbed a pair of gloves, hissing in irritation when I realised that they were latex, but I'd have to deal with my allergy for now until I could get myself some non-latex ones.

"Ah, you work quickly, excellent!" Leo strode into the room, dropping the door on Harry, who walked into it. I turned my head into my shoulder to hide a giggle at the sight.

"Look where you're going, will you, Harry? You could get hurt." Leo chuckled, head turned to watch the other man over his shoulder. Harry faked a scowl as he sauntered across the room to join us.

"Stop dropping doors on me, and maybe I won't get hurt so often." He teased in return. They both grabbed their own pairs of gloves, neither seeming bothered by the latex. Of course, I had to be the difficult one. Though, latex was not, technically, a common allergy. "And you, Sammy," Harry pouted at me. "I saw you giggling. That wasn't very nice."

"On the contrary, it is quite nice to giggle." I retorted, my voice surprisingly steady and calm. It was a rare thing that I got to hear myself sound confident.

"Ha." He offered me a deadpan expression and reached over to nudge my shoulder. I had to look away again to hide a wince of pain. My father's handprints were still marked over both shoulders with dark bruises.

"Alright, kids," Leo stepped up between us, looping his arms around each of us, his elbows resting on our shoulders. "Let's not argue about the merits and demerits of giggling. We have some bodies to attend to." As if he'd been timing it, the doors were pushed open, and some of the lab technicians started rolling in three separate gurneys. "Okay!" He took his arms back and clapped his hands, rubbing them together. "So," he moved toward the smallest bag, clearly a child, eyes flickering to me. "Think you can do this?"

"Of course, sir." I nodded grimly, stepping up next to the body bag as he moved on. The zip tag told me that there was a young male within, describing approximate weight and height. His name was listed as Benjamin Carter. His age, six.

I steeled myself with a single deep inhale before pulling the zipper down. I was taken for a moment by the sight of soft blonde curls wet with mud and flattened slightly from his rough burial. Wide green eyes stared straight up from a face contorted in fear and pain. His skin was filthy. So filthy, in fact, that mud was packed into the gaping wound on his throat. And the gaping wounds in each forearm and thigh.

The wound pattern was oddly familiar to me despite this being my first case as a qualified pathologist. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out where I'd seen it before, a couple minutes of scraping soil samples out of his flesh and taking measurements of his wounds. Then, I figured it out.

"Sir -"

"Leo." Leo interrupted.

"Right," I offered an apologetic hum. "Leo, this will probably sound a little insane but, I've seen these wounds before."

"You have? Where?" He approached my left, having departed from the father's side, Harry joining on my right having left the mother.

"Well, look, they're all clean cuts to major arteries and veins. I've seen hunters do this with animals when they're trying to drain them of blood." I explained, spreading the wounds a little to indicate all of the affected arteries and veins.

"You think a hunter did this?" Harry asked.

"Not necessarily, I'm telling you that somewhere there are three very large, very incriminating puddles of blood. And when those are found, they'll probably find rope with skin fragments and blood on them, too." I moved along the boys' body, nudging Harry to move along with me. I showed them the ligature marks on the wrists and ankles. "With the animals," I flicked my eyes between Leo and Harry. "They drain faster if you hang them upside down, and the blood doesn't spread as far of the front limbs are tied together."