Rawpocalypse

10 - Unholy

The electric smell of ozone tainted the noisy air as a trolley rumbled through the narrow streets of Oslo, throwing sparks from the overhead cable that powered it.

Hanna Ekman buttoned her Sunday jacket that had stubbornly blown open by the warm midday breeze. The pub across the street waited for her like a demon, the church sermon still fresh in her ears. Her friends were gathered inside, most well on their way to a Monday morning hangover, their last hoorah before the long holiday weekend drew to a close.

Cars flashed by in both directions as she blankly waited for an opening to cross. A newspaper dispenser caught her gaze, yellow against the stone wall. A warning sign?

She squinted toward the unreadable headline, certain a message told her to go home and avert eternal damnation. She turned, eyeing her side of the street. A short distance away, a vendor peddled magazines and the daily paper.

Drawn like a magnet, she strolled along the brick sidewalk to the newsstand. An unfamiliar face covered the front page. Beside the smiling young man with crooked teeth, the headline eluded her limited Norwegian, but the name Tipton Doak told her what she needed to know.

Thursday seemed a lifetime ago, when she had stormed away from Dr. Haugen. Tomorrow rushed at her, promising the difficult task of facing her colleague as though it had never happened.

A whisper nagged at her analytical brain. She turned to the ragged peddler. "Excuse me, can you translate this article for me."

The old man smiled, extending his hand. "Ya, for ten kroner."

She dug out a five bit coin and handed it over. "Keep the paper. I just want to know what it says."

"What do ya wanna know?"

"What do they say killed him?"

The man shook his head in disbelief. "Poop Poisoning."

"Thank you," she said, turning swiftly, not in the direction of the pub, but toward the morgue.

* * *

Hanna flipped on the lights in the mortuary lab, kicking the tight pumps from her aching feet. With bare soles, she stepped across the cold tile floor, surveying the deserted room. He rubber gloves were gone, and so was Tipton Doak. An empty table sat waiting for its next corpse, polished to a gleam by the attentive staff. The sparkling tools of Dr. Haugen's trade lay uniformly lined across blue paper atop a wheeled cart.

She turned to the microscope, the source of her humiliation. She stepped toward it, curious if the cleaning technicians had properly discarded the slide she had so unprofessionally abandoned. She flipped the switch on the machine and pressed her eyes to lenses. Nothing but blackness filled the view. She cycled the switch and tried again. Nothing!

Checking the light source, she squealed inadvertently. A mass of meaty flesh puffed from the slide tray like a rubber racquetball pressed almost flat.

She hastily snapped on a pair of examining gloves and prodded the bulbous blob with a fingertip. It gave subtly, much like the growth within Tipton Doak's abdomen. She rushed to the exam cart and returned with a scalpel. Hesitantly, she inched the blade toward the meaty object, nervous that a single prick might pop it like a balloon.

She dropped the blade to table with a clatter. Dr. Haugen should be the one to take the sample.

Fearing the mess would be removed by morning, she drew out her phone and snapped several pictures. The glaring two dimensional images didn't do justice to the growth's horrid obscenity, so she scratched a message onto a yellow sticky note and affixed it to the side of the scope. Do not destroy specimen.

Moments later, she stood at the steel vaults, searching for the door that concealed Tipton's remains.

"Ah, there you are," she said, sidestepping to the one labeled C-6.

She tugged on the metal latch-handle, but it didn't budge. "Umph," she grunted, trying harder.

"Darn you, Haugen," she shouted. "You locked me out."

Her eyes drew to the empty hole where a padlock could have been inserted. "Sorry," she told the air. "I guess you didn't."

She grasped the handle with both hands and strained until her face was hot and her fingers screamed. It wouldn't budge.

"Fine," she said stubbornly, flexing her aching hands. Her eyes scanned the room and found the door to the utility closet. Before long, she faced the sealed latch once more, a mop handle in her grip. She poked one end of the wooden rod beneath the latch and pried, bending the mop to inches of it snapping point. With a sudden give, the latch flipped back with a crack. She yanked the mop from the latch, beaming with accomplishment. "Hah."

The steel door hung ajar by a fraction of an inch, the last click of the latch holding it from swinging freely.

Hanna tipped the latch past its tooth-hold. The door sprang open wildly like a jack-in-the-box. A huge blob of foul smelling meat bulged from the square opening.

Hanna's eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she dropped, darkness enveloping her before she hit the floor.