Dawn of the dead

Posted on 08 Nov 2014 @ 12:22am by Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Commander Andreus Kohl

1,297 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 5, Holodeck 2
Timeline: MD -10, 2100 hours

[ON]

Leaning over a corpse and staring into its abdomen, it was a typical day for Dr. Carrie Ross. As a coroner in London, she was often busy. Still, it could be worse; one of her friends from medical school had ended up in the military and had been shipped off to South Africa to do his bit for King and country. The Boers had been acting up again, and Lord Kitchener and thousands of Tommies had been sent to sort things out.

She had seen a lot in her time as coroner, and this case was a little more curious than most. Careful not to spill its contents, she delicately removed the stomach from the corpse. As she poured its contents into a beaker for further testing, she heard the door to her lab open behind her. After placing the stomach on the tray, she pulled off her gloves and pushed herself backwards, turning to face her guest. "Inspector?" she asked, looking up at him from her chair.

"Miss Ross, hullo," came the reply from Inspector Alistair Quick. The report from his black boots snapped with each step he took towards the corpse. Quick was dressed in the navy blue uniform of his police profession, the long jacket cinched with a thick black belt and studded with gold buttons. Stepping into the presence of a young lady, Quick doffed his tall black hat and nodded at Ross with his slicked back head of honey-brown hair. Leaning in close to the cut open corpse, Quick asked, "What have we here?"

"It's Doctor Ross, inspector," replied Tuula, who was thoroughly immersing herself in the role. With a striped puffy blouse and long grey dress, she certainly looked the part. With the exception of her hair, that is. Turquoise highlights were rather uncommon in the Victorian era, but Tuula had not had time to change it. "Cause of death is indeterminate at the moment. The body does show signs of a fever prior to death, but I'm not sure yet what caused it. Also, judging by some of the bruises on his body and defensive wounds on his hands, it looks like he had been in a scuffle not long before his death, but none of his injuries are serious enough to cause death." Tuula carefully raised the arm of the body; fortunately rigor mortis had not yet set in. "And take a look at this," she said, her voice betraying a certain curiousity and fascination with the medical mystery in front of her. "Bite marks on his forearm."

"Bite marks?" Andreus Kohl echoed. Despite the costume, he was less consumed by his character of Police Inspector Quick, as his nurse training encouraged him to examine the body for himself. Kohl leaned over the corpse, examined a couple of bruises with manual palpation, and then he walked around to the other side to see the mysterious wound. "Bite marks from what manner of animal?" he asked.

"Not animal," replied Tuula. "Human."

"Human??" said Kohl. There was a blend of intrigue and amusement in his tone. He looked over at Tuula with bright eyes and a raising eyebrow. "What can you tell me about the assailant by the bitemarks?" Kohl asked, as he straightened up and moved towards Tuula.

"Adult male, a missing incisor, nothing too out of the ordinary. Though a bite on the forearm is obviously not enough to kill a man." As Dr. Ross held the arm in front of her for a closer look, she heard a groan. "Inspector Quick, is something you ate disagreeing with you?" she asked, not raising her eyes from the strange bite mark.

"...No." Kohl shook his head with furrowed brow. After he rubbed his stomach --as if he could check with his fingertips-- Kohl remarked, "Are you questioning my constitution?"

"Well, someone is groaning and it surely isn't this guy. I have his stomach sitting on a tray beside me." Dr. Ross was so intently focused on the bite mark, oblivious to the outside world, when she heard the groaning again. "Seriously, Inspector Quick, you should be careful what you eat."

The bite pattern that so-fascinated the young doctor drew Kohl's gaze as well. When Tuula spoke to the groaning sound again, Kohl narrowed his eyes on her. "Tuula, is this an aspect of cultural propriety?" Kohl asked in a stage-whisper. "A lady can never admit her own bodily functions?"

"Inspector Quick!" exclaimed Tuula, shocked at the accusation. As she looked up at him, she felt a cold hand grip her on the arm. She turned and looked in horror at the man on the autopsy table. Somehow, he was still alive. She froze in horror as the man tried to pull her arm in closer for a bite.

With both hands, Andreus Kohl took hold Tuula's wooden chair by its back, and he twisted his body to swing her chair away from the dead man's hand. He grunted in frustration, though, when the dead man's grip proved stronger than his own.

With the dead man about to bite her on the arm, Tuula did the only thing she could think of. She balled her hand up into a fist and punched the man as hard as she could, right between the eyes. The man did nothing to block the punch; either he didn't see it coming or he was too deep in whatever state he was in to notice. But in spite of being punched in the face, the man didn't release his death grip on Tuula's arm. "Inspector!" she called out for help as she reached for a nearby scalpel.

Instinctively, Kohl reached for his tricorder. His hand patted at his right hip. His initial reaction was to study the creature. If he could learn why the dead man was capable of moving, he supposed, he could devise a way to make it stop. Of course, has police costume didn't come equipped with a twenty-fourth century tricorder. Rather, his hand found the truncheon hanging from his belt.

Kohl popped the truncheon from his belt loop, and he swung it down on the dead man's forearm. Impact came with a satisfying crack.

Tuula pushed herself away from the living corpse and tried to back away from the scene. "Keep him away from me," she muttered to Kohl as the dead man stood up from the examination table.

"Step back, man!" declared Kohl in his most commanding timbre. After squaring his shoulders, Kohl moved towards the lumbering dead man, but he managed to do so without getting any appreciably closer. Kohl extended his right arm to its limit, and he used his truncheon to jab the dead man in the chest. The dead man offered no reaction to Kohl's attack, except for his spleen falling out of the wound in his chest. Kohl went on, "Now just step back! Do y'hear?"

"This can't be happening!" shouted Dr. Ross, hiding behind Inspector Quick as the man approached. "He was dead... I'm sure of it!"

Changing his tactic, Kohl raised his truncheon above his shoulder level and he swung it at the lumbering dead man's head. Kohl hit him twice and then backpeddled, because that didn't stop the man either. "Assuming the autopsy would have killed him," Kohl asked, "are you certainly sure he was dead before you began?"

"I'm positive!" exclaimed Tuula. "Making a mistake like that is impossible; there were no signs of life at all!"

"And what do you cal these?!" Kohl shouted back.

"I don't know, some kind of Living Dead?!"


[OFF]

Inspector Alistair Quick (aka Lieutenant Andreus Kohl)
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Dr. Carrie Ross (aka Lieutenant (J.G.) Tuula Voutilainen, M.D.)
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed