Chapter 2 - The Doom Of The Hollow - Wednesday 28th October, 21 Days Before Doomsday
The tape recorder was switched on. “The time is twenty-three hundred hours on Wednesday twenty-eighth of October. The victim’s name is Jerry London. Attending pathologist is Tabatha Gray.”
Tabatha Gray took off her thin-rimmed glasses. The elastic from her face mask was too tight around her ears and adjusted it to a more comfortable position before putting her glasses back on. She leaned over the body.
“The victim is late thirties and was found with his partner in the town of Warrington, Cheshire on the morning of the twenty-seventh. Suspected homicide. The body upon visual examination is, for want of a better word, desiccated. The loss of fluid and condition of the skin is consistent with a body over forty-five days old, however, according to the evidence so far, the victim was alive several days ago.”
Tabatha stood up straight and put her hands on her hips. She paused and looked at the grey lifeless body in front of her. Its skin was dry and wrinkled, its features were dull and gaunt. She idly wondered how a body could reach such a state in such little time, if the evidence was correct of course. At this moment there wasn’t any reason to doubt it, not unless the autopsy was going to prove otherwise. Of course she only had someone else's word that the body was only twenty-four hours old. The forensic officer at the scene had surmised just over a month, a synopsis Tabatha agreed with. But with all suspicious deaths the autopsy was being pushed to the front of the queue, if dead people could form a queue, she thought. She picked up the Dictaphone on the side of the steel table and pressed stop. The click of the contraption echoed around the large room. The sound waves reverberating across the cold, sterile metal of the furniture and jarred against the large ceramic tiles. Tabatha frowned and pressed rewind on the Dictaphone, "bloody thing", she said to herself realising she had spooled back too far. After four attempts, using trial and error, she finally found her last recorded entry.
It had been an irritating day so far. Nothing had gone completely wrong, but the accumulation of a lot of niggling happenings had started to twist her nerves. The old lady in front of her at the checkout who seemed to have a coupon for everything in her trolley; the letter on her mat telling her the road tax was due and the flat battery on her iPod all helped caused her skin to prickle. The powerless iPod also meant her digital Dictaphone was dead. Its battery was charged via USB connection on her laptop in a similar way to her iPod but if you don't switch the damn laptop on, she thought, how is anything supposed to work? For the first time since she upgraded to a digital recorder, Tabatha was using her 'stone age' tape recorder. She hated it. It was large, cumbersome and the squealing of the tape every time she fast forwarded or rewound hurt her ears. The echo of the bland room only seemed to amplify the squeal causing her to wince and her spine to shudder. She pressed record.
"Jerry London was found at the same scene as Judy Harrington whose body is in a similar condition, however that remains in cold storage. I will continue visual inspection of the body." Tabatha leaned forward and, without touching, closely inspected the remains. "The skin is pulled tight across the chest and face giving it a grey pigment, in fact without any moisture it almost has a transparency to it. The eyes seem to have imploded as if sucked in through their sockets. The hair looks brittle and dry. According to the victim’s profile he had black hair, but this has a brown tint to it." Tabatha adjusted her position. "Around the neck are three lesions." She held a finger just above the three holes. "Each lesion is approximately the diameter of a finger and placed in a way that a thumb and two fingers could easily…" Tabatha stopped. There was a noise. A brief shuffle, feet possibly, she thought. It happened again, only louder. She looked around the room. She was alone. The large clock above the double doors ticked to twenty-three minutes past twelve. Another shuffle, just outside the double doors. Tabatha waited several seconds before standing upright. She slowly made her way to the double doors, pausing once when the shuffling sound appeared again. It wasn't as loud this time so she walked forward, outstretched her arm and grabbed the handle of the double doors.
The stench of disinfectant made her eyes water as the cool air of the corridor breezed past her. As she wiped away the tears she saw a cleaner at the other end of the corridor with headphones on, mop in hand and nodding in time with the silence. Tabatha tutted to herself and immediately felt the tension fall from her shoulders. She wasn't easily spooked. She was used to working unsociable hours, it was part of the job. There had been many occasions when she had to stay in the hospital over night and listen to the building’s creaks and moans. It never usually bothered her, but she knew the body on the steel table, the desiccated man, was something that un-nerved her. It didn't fit into the rules she'd learned about human decomposition. She turned around and looked at the remains of Jerry London. She shook her head and smirked at her own gullibility before walking back to the body. She puffed her cheeks out in irritation as she noticed the Dictaphone was still recording. The snap of the stop button echoed once more and she pressed rewind. But as the tape spun, there was more than just silence emanating from the small speaker. She pressed stop and clicked play. As the tape spooled she could hear the faint click of her own footsteps. She pushed the volume wheel up to eight. The hiss of the tape began to grate on her ear drums, but there was something else besides the sound of her shoes on cold tile. She eased the volume up to maximum, the white noise caused her left eye to twitch. As a droplet of water rolled down her cheek she could hear it. Underneath the footsteps and the hiss was a deep, monotone sound, a word repeated over and over as if uttered in slow motion.
“Conventaroo, conventaroo, conventaroo, conventaroo, conventaroo.”
The wooden door opened on the third attempt and the figure entered the darkened room. It stretched out its arm above its head and fumbled the light switch until the inadequate wattage of the bulb emitted its desperate glow. The figure’s small frame was overshadowed by the boxes piled high on each side and furniture left to rot away in the damp. The smell was foul. The figure placed its hand over its mouth. It walked deeper into the room, further into the dark shadows where the glow of the light had almost given up. It knew it was here, it saw it enter. It took one last step before crouching down onto the cold concrete floor. It took its hand from its mouth and uttered a single sentence.
“Hello, what’s your name?”
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"I found some wonderful descriptive lines and the chapter where one character re-visits 'The Eyes' was a standout 'squeaky bum' moment."
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