An Approximation of Thunder

Detective O’Rourke strolled down an eroding hallway, the shadows hemmed in sulfurous orange while stark-white LEDs splayed across the wall to her right. Smoking inside hadn't been legal in twenty years, but the building was a rotting shell, so an ember hung a few inches below her fingertips, trailing ghostly smoke. Her hair was in a tight bun, a long gray coat hung open on her shoulders.

Ahead flashlight beams danced out of a doorway, the mumbling of duty cops echoing down the corridor. O’Rourke drug her cigarette on the wall, leaving a streak of black ash before letting it fall. She turned into the doorway, a remnant of smoke trailed behind.  The smell of stale ash and rotting paper was replaced by something sterile, one cop flashed his light out the window onto the opposite rooftop, the other thumbed through dusty papers sitting atop a rusted desk.

A naked, pale body lay on the floor.

O’Rourke cleared her throat, the cops spun surprised. The officer by the window pointed his flashlight into the Detective's eyes. “Oh shit,” he called, lowering the beam, “Sorry. You snuck up on us.” Both the deputies stood up a bit straighter.

“Who found him?” O’Rourke asked, glancing at the body before crossing to the window, looking down to the street.

The other one answered, “A couple of kids from the docks playing hide and seek.” They stumbled in, saw the body, and ran home. Mom called, we came down to check it out, found this.”

O’Rourke surveyed the room. The building had been a school back in the sixties but when businesses moved in, the school became obsolete, it was used for storage before being outright abandoned over a decade ago. The fourth floor remained unconverted, a time capsule covered in dust, disturbed by whoever had abandoned the body, or the children who found it…

City light shone in, illuminating the corpse. A man, lying face up, arms akimbo and legs together, naked. The body is oriented perfectly, head facing east, feet west. O’Rourke donned a rubber glove and turned the body on one shoulder, examining the back. There was no bruising or blood.  She thought she heard voices down the hallway, someone yelling angrily.

She looked up, “those kids still here?”

“Nah, told ‘em to beat it. Thought I saw them running home.” The deputy gestured toward the street.

She’d expected to find the burst blue capillaries of livor mortis on the backside but there was no sign of blood pooling, just unblemished, smooth skin.

O’Rourke shoed the officers out of the room, “let the M.E. know we’re bringing in an 11-44. No known cause of death. I'll take care of Yellow Blanket.”

“Thank god, I've got a wicked headache” one of the deputies said, slipping out the door. A flash lit up the wall, lightning?

She waited for thunder that never came.

The detective walked back down the hall, her footfalls echoing off marble walls, down empty corridors. She descended the steps, emerging into the main hall where high ceilings disappeared in shadows, long corridors melted into void. A sense of anticipation crackled under her skin.

O’Rourke was starting to get hot and nauseous. She stepped outside and let the cool air rouse her from a confused haze. There was something wrong with the body, what little evidence there was didn’t add up.

The M.E. team arrived in a squat black van. O’Rourke lit a cigarette as they ascended the stone steps, disappearing into the empty building. In the distance she heard the thrum of a gigantic broken gong, an approximation of thunder, and worried it heralded more than a storm.

The black van rolled slowly through empty streets, deep red light bled into the morning sky, the body in the back already dead.

Raymond was getting tired, but happy to be wrapping up his shift. The headache that had started in that creepy old school was becoming a migraine. He smelled something like bleach and worried there had been a spill in the back. Neither of the med techs had said a word after loading the guy in, they were never this quiet.

In the back Carol and Ryan were both sick to their stomachs, feverish, drifting in and out of consciousness as jarring pain shot up their spines. The black body bag on the gurney was slowly rocking back and forth as the ambulance wound through town.

In the cab the radio played…” refugees continue to flood that port, causing chaos down by the docks. Lack of any infrastructure…” the reporter announced, placing blame on everyone from refugees to the UN.

In the back Carol had memories of playing with a son yet to be born. Ryan was naked, sweating profusely and tearing at his hair. Both oblivious to the other's anguish. Raymond pulled into the hospital lot and backed up to the loading bay.

On the radio, someone argued an esoteric counterpoint -” the refugees bring the coming of another age. Ushering in a strange birth, an ever crimson sky. Our local leaders-” Raymond switched the radio off and stepped outside.

Crystal blue fluorescents cast the dock in a sterile pallor.

Raymond walked to the back of the ambulance, found it odd the doors were still closed. He knocked twice before grabbing the handle and pulling them open. A smell poured out so potent he passed out before his body hit the ground, saved from seeing what Carol and Ryan had done to each other in those last minutes.

The mutilation had led to death, but their bodies defied anything of the sort. The vessels stumbled out of the van, pulled out the gurney, and wheeled it inside.

Dr. Vicki Kenlaw was nearing the end of her shift. The sun was just beginning to rise, burning off the low gray clouds hanging over the bay. She enjoyed the night shift - it afforded privacy and peace in the otherwise hectic atmosphere, and anyone in the medical field would tell you hospitals got interesting at night.

A BUZZ rang harshly, and a red light glowed on the wall.

She finished her cup of lukewarm coffee in a single gulp, looked at the clock - two hours until she was off. Plenty of time to wrap up whoever was downstairs. She walked through a near empty intake lobby, then down a set of access stairs. She scanned her ID, strode down a short hallway, past the vacant office and into the cooler. She opened a wide door, not bothering with a jacket - acclimated to the cold after years of disassembling the dead.

The freezer was the size of a small conference room; ten coffin size doors lined the walls. Opposite her was another, larger door which opened onto the dock. She noted a faint smell of anise and chlorine.

The room was empty - she was used to meeting at least one person from the ME Response unit to facilitate intake, the team must have been in a hurry.

Her attention was drawn to the slick black body bag laying on a gurney in the center of the room. A yellow intake form and pink carbon copy of the police report hung from a clipboard on its side. The driver had signed the intake form and checked all the appropriate boxes.  She let the chart dangle and wheeled the corpse, bag and all, into the examining room.

The sound of fans circulating frigid air suddenly seemed too loud.

Vicki donned protective gear then reached forward and opened the bag. Her sense perception was off, the chemical smell much stronger now.

In the bag was a very pale Caucasian male; bald, medium build, overall healthy in appearance. The police report read “John Doe”, found under odd circumstances - no cause of death. The intake report proved even stranger. On the first page, the initial boxes were checked, but on the second was written only a sequence of numbers that ran off the page. Instead of a signature she found scribbled, geometric symbols.

Vicki began the initial examination.

Sound was amplified and colors became more vivid as she tugged at eyelids and skin, examining the body for external signs of death. Annoyed and angry at a lack of progress she started to make tiny mistakes, treating the body with an uncharacteristic irreverence. Drawing more blood than necessary.

Fluorescent lights sterilized the proceeding, washing the dismemberment clean. The bleach white skin of the body and walls of the room added even more contrast to the crimson pool beginning to spread on the floor. The body's nail beds were clean, teeth pearly white - though its flesh was now a mangled mess. She found no signs indicating external injury as cause of death.

The room was getting hot.

Vicki placed a palm on her forehead, steadied herself. Her husband was there, again? Then gone. The family dog lay splayed on the operating table. Vicki looked up at the clock. Twenty minutes had passed. Was that all, or had it been hours?

She began the internal examination by slicing the body from the base of the neck to the groin, the cut a mess of false starts and ugly tears. She began to ignore protocol, getting aggressive with the flesh. She thought of her lousy cheating husband, her dumb pregnant daughter. Vicki gouged with the rib shears attempting to open the chest cavity, extreme resistance forced her to resort to the bone saw.

In the end her skull was throbbing, and meat lay scattered on the floor in a wide pool of blood. The chest a jigsaw of cuts of slices, the musculature carelessly rended. What smelled like ammonia poured from the body.

Vicki stepped back, felt tension ratcheting up her spine, her pulse slamming inside her forehead. She removed the breastplate and could barely breathe, the smell was overpowering, as if she'd been doused in bleach.

Trying to catch her breath she stumbled, coughing and foaming, driven by a simmering rage to approach the body, look inside. She slipped on the blood and fell forward toward the table. When the open chest cavity came into view, she saw a dreadful and perverse imitation of human anatomy.

Her legs buckled under her weight, vision went blurry-

-Her husband screamed at their daughter while the house burned around them. Behind, a black thunderhead billowed miles into the sky.

Vicki dropped like a doll, blacking out as her head connected with the sharp steel corner of the examination table. The halogen lights flickered but remained on, filling the room with an incessant hum.

Under a crimson sky Detective O’Rourke canvassed the neighborhood, struggling to decipher answers in broken English, repeating questions to half lucid addicts, trying her best to put together some sort of narrative from the night before. Usually, when people were found dead in this part of town, it was for a reason.

This morning the streets felt about to burst with otherworldly tension-

There was no denying that trouble trickled in with the refugees, but O’Rourke didn't blame them. The gangs were already established, and Euro war refugees provided the most abundant source of revenue and desperation. The local government lacked the resources to engage with the flood, and the Feds who had placed them weren't much more than absentee landlords, either way, Rooskiville, the unofficial name of this little enclave, was a mess.

Little came of O’Rourke’s early morning questions concerning “John Doe”. There had to be something more going on. His appearance, where the body was found, the circumstances, it didn't add up.

Her head was throbbing, and a tightening pain ran up her spine, odd half memories kept interjecting themselves into her consciousness…her mother and sister cackling around a massive fire, her father weeping at the foot of a black tower.

The sun was rising too slowly.

People were beginning to emerge from their multistory apartment buildings - children ran by in packs shrieking, strange music played from windows and foreign smells of stewing vegetables and frying dough filled the air.

The bodegas and shops were opening, so she decided to pay some visits. She had developed a few relationships down here and hoped they would let on if there was anything up.

The laundry mat and greasy spoon didn't yield any results, but the owner of the corner bodega had a few interesting things to say. He'd closed well after midnight, and on his way home claimed to have seen bright flashing lights in the sky, but no thunder. He got sick, said there was an odd smell, like the chemicals in his mop closet.  He also mentioned a few locals, all parishioners of the local orthodox temple, had come to stock up on pantry staples the night before. A few of them, older folks, were mumbling about some “epiphany” then hurrying out, full bags hanging from their arms.

O’Rourke left exhausted and confused. She was headed back to her car, then to the morgue for the coroner's report. She started to sweat, felt nauseous. A sharp pain was growing just above the bridge of her nose-

-then the streets were full of craters, trenches deep with mud, the sky full of smoke-

“They had all been parishioners…” the manager had said. Melody turned off main, deciding on one final stop. All the leads on the naked man's identity had come up empty, the bodega owner’s report interesting but unrelated. There were no missing persons matching the dead man's description. She’d bothered everyone else in “The Wharf”, why not Sergio.

Melody turned south. Behind her, refugees and shop owners shouted and jeered in a foreign language, a pan crashed to the asphalt, a woman screamed.

Detective O’Rourke had been to the church once with her dad, a few times working Harbor Patrol. More than once she'd been told to speak with “The Father of the Bay” regarding some of the stranger crimes she’d investigated.

The current temple was only a few hundred years old, but it had been built on the foundation of an older church, itself constructed atop a native holy site. It now served as an outpost of a fringe orthodox sect. The priest did double duty as caretaker and holy man, barely treading water with the help of the Historic Building Fund. He was very active in the displaced community and would hopefully offer insights into the body's origin.

The now synagogue is a few stories tall, atop an arched dome of brick is surrounded by tall spires leafed in flaking gold. The large temple is dwarfed by the shell of an empty high rise still under construction. Melody walked up the steps and pushed open an ornately carved door of old and heavy wood, stepping inside, the door swung shut behind with a low thud.

O’Rourke was in a large shadowy hall lit by rows of candles reflecting off polished pews and the low glow of purple stained glass. There was a sharp smell of incense that led to a coughing fit, she pulled out a napkin to cover her mouth and when she pulled it away it found it covered in blood and speckled with and alarming black phlegm.

Her headache abated, like a drunk coming off a bad hangover.

The Vice Cleric of the Bay Harbor Orthodox Temple appeared from an alcove to her left. He shuffled toward her, raised his hands and said, “Be well in this house, Melody O’Rourke.” He put his hands on each of her shoulders, his pockmarked skin accentuated by the violet light. Smiling, he bowed his head and said, “it is good to see you.”

Melody responded with a casual embrace, always surprised he remembered her name, “good to see you, Sergei.”

He turned without a word and disappeared down a hall into shadows.

She followed the priest through dark stone corridors narrow enough to incite her claustrophobia, the walls were damp to the touch, the air here thicker with incense. She ducked as he walked through an arched doorway into a cramped office with ancient stone walls. Then came a sudden clarity, as if the incense had pushed the clouds from her mind. The throbbing in her head had been subsiding since she’d entered the church.

Red sunlight beamed through a small window behind the holy man, casting strange shadows on dripping rock walls. Behind her, old bookcases were piled high with old tomes, adding rustic disorder to the room.

The cleric removed his miter, revealing greying black hair, matted and sweaty underneath. “I fear I know why you are here inspector.” He spoke with a subtle accent, looking at O’Rourke with tired eyes.

She cut to the chase, “someone found a body last night, in an abandoned building a few blocks from here, naked and no sign of death.”

At that last bit the priest’s lips pursed, eyes tightening.

After a long pause he looked up at O’Rourke.

“I know of many types of men. Some who pass through this world as ghosts, others who linger. Not many come as a storm. I've heard talk of this storm coming, a wailing of people across the sea. This man is the tearing of thunder - before the dog comes, it bays outside the fence.”

“What the hell does that mean?” she asked. Even with clarity from her headache the priest's religious speak made little sense. Sergio leered and leaned forward across the desk, speaking in hushed tones, as if telling a secret.

“Semargl, the dog at the end. He’s been on a leash, bound by their devotion to Orya. Now, many have lost their homes, it fades…” Sergie’s eyes went wide, and a shout suddenly erupted from his humble diaphragm… “He will swallow the earth, free of his chains and hungry for life!”

O’Rourke pushed her chair back. The priest stopped his sudden outburst as soon as he'd started.

“What does that mean?” Melody wanted an answer that made some sort of sense.

The holy man exhaled, looking exhausted, then leaned back, staring at the wall behind Melody. Quietly he uttered, “It is death, judgment. In the end all our questions, our search for meaning lead to him. That which devours…”

O’Rourke walked out of the synagogue defeated, no closer to an answer than when she’d arrived. The sweet smell of incense faded, and her headache came back, roaring. The detective didn't notice the sky, still set in a sunrise of blood red, black clouds massing on the horizon. Sirens roared in all directions.

Jeff Trainer pulled into the parking lot behind the hospital, noticing an ambulance backed up to receiving as he walked inside, an early sign of a busy day. The sky overhead was the color of blooming poppy, the clouds behind smears of rust and cinnabar. His head was already pounding, and he hadn't slept well - he wasn’t looking forward to the next ten hours.

The static dawn sky was affecting his focus; it was as if the sun was refusing to rise.

His drive in had been chaotic - random fires, broken store windows, car accidents on the freeway. He wondered if there had been another riot in the night, no matter who started it, the blame would find itself at the foot of people torn from their homes.

Jeff had only been hired a few months back, right out of school. It was the kind of job that had plenty of responsibility and little reward. A steppingstone, he was always reminding himself. Coroner’s assistant was an unpopular role with anyone not interested in mortuary science - people don't like the dead bodies, Jeff found it all fascinating.

The intake shift had its advantages. The office was quiet and there wasn't anyone to deal with for at least the first hour. Jeff walked in and followed his usual routine, turning on the lights, booting up computers, unlocking doors.

Vicki would be in the back, wrapping up for the night.

Jeff liked Vicki, she had always treated him like a normal person. If he was being honest, despite her age he had kind of a thing for her. She was fit and witty, quirky enough to tickle his nerdy sensibilities.

He was busy cataloging the previous day's intake records when he heard the sound of metal clang in the back. Worried Vicki needed some help he stood just as the double doors leading to the examining room swung open.

Jeff smelled something sharp, as if the entire hallway had been doused in surfactant. He was surprised to see Vicki walking out of the well-lit hallway, her face fading in and out, becoming different versions of itself, her white jacket morphing to something resembling a caul.

Jeff started, “Vicki, what happ-” then slipped and hit the ground. The last thing he remembered was Vicki’s silhouette changing shape, growing.

-Dinginging

The metallic bell of the hospital's phone rang in a dream of fire and soot. Jeff awoke slumped on the floor, his stomach in a painful knot, head hammering.

He opened his eyes, after a few seconds his blurred vision coalesced into the image of the ceiling, a moment later he realized he was lying on his back in the office. He rested his weight on an elbow and sat up - nothing felt broken, but an examination of his head revealed a big lump behind his right ear.

His memory came back slowly.

Vicki—was it, Vicki?—had come walking out of the double doors, but then she had changed. He looked down and saw blood on his shirt, it was slowly dripping from his nose. His head was throbbing, and the damned phone wouldn't stop ringing.

Why had he passed out - there had been a noise in the back, a spill? Had Vicki been running away from chemicals?

-Dinginging

Jeff struggled to his feet angrily, yanking the receiver out of its cradle.

“Harbor City Municipal Hospital-” Jeff paused, noticed he was slurring.

The voice on the other end ignored the slurs, “I've been calling for the last five minutes! There’s a body that came in a few hours ago. I'm pulling in the lot now and coming in to talk with the M.E., please let them know I’m headed in?”

Jeff looked back at the door, “That may be a problem.”

“What do you mean, problem?” the woman responded, annoyed.

“Im…Im not sure. Something happened in the back. I passed out,” Jeff said.

“Stay where you are, I'll be right there,” the voice assured him.

“Okay,” Jeff answered, placing the receiver on the desk. He sat in a daze, the next few minutes passing in an instant.

O’Rourke could hear it over the phone; the kid was in shock.

Whatever she had sensed in that neighborhood had spread, chaos was everywhere - brawls erupting on sidewalks, columns of smoke rising on the horizon, police band channels a mess of shouting and interference. Melody navigated numerous accidents while trying to get through to the station. When she pulled into the hospital admin lot and noticed the attending ambulance from the school was still parked in receiving.

The lobby of the hospital had devolved into chaos - any evidence of a queue had turned into a mob, shouting curses at the attendants, who themselves were responding in turn with foul retorts. Others aimlessly rolled carts with mangled, bleeding bodies.

Melody pushed through the crowd, following signs to the morgue.

Her footsteps echoed as she marched down another dark, empty hallway, halogen lights casting deep shadows along the walls.

Up ahead a tall, thin woman in a white coat turned the corner. From a distance Melody could make out the woman’s black horn rimmed glasses. As she approached Melody's head started to pound. She felt a wet trickle under her nose, a drip on her shirt. A sense of menace coursed through her.

Each time the woman passed through the shadows left by the light her face seemed to change, rendering new iterations with each shift - for a moment Melody was sure the face was her own. Then the woman smiled wide, her teeth shining ruby red, chunks of flesh hanging from her teeth. Before Melody could scream or run, comprehend what the hell was happening, she passed out.

Melody awoke to that familiar, sterile smell.

It took her a moment to gather herself; she struggled to stand. She fumbled down the hallway, turned the corner and swung open the doors to the morgue. Stumbling through she found a scrawny clerk, standing bewildered behind a desk. His face was covered in blood and purple bruises.

The place smelled acrid, felt too hot.

“I'm the one who called,” Melody said, exhaling and nauseous. “What the hell happened here?”

Jeff explained what he'd seen and heard before passing out. The clash of metal, the opening doors, the morning M.E. emerging from the back, then changing. Jeff was worried that Vicki could still be back there, maybe he hadn't seen her…maybe it had been the chemicals.

Jeff’s was an obscure story that defied reality but made threads of sense the more Melody mulled the fibers over in her head. After a minute she collected herself and asked Jeff to lead her down the hallway.

The pair approached a door halfway down the hall, a red sign that read “Examination Room'' hung above the frame stenciled in bold black letters.

Jeff pulled the latch, and the door swung open, condensed vapors poured into the hallway, the halogen light inside filtered by a thick red liquid dripping from the plastic. Jeff and Melody shared a nervous look, equal witnesses to the gore.

She pushed back the plastic sheeting. The smell of an overly chlorinated pool assailed her nostrils; still warm blood dripped onto her shoulders. Around the room were scattered pieces; part of a leg with a black heel still on, a torn finger still wearing a wedding ring, broken black horn rimmed glasses…

The frames were snapped but recognizable, the cracked lens reflecting a perverse kaleidoscope of the room. Melody remembered the hallway, the woman that kept changing.

She threw up.

Jeff stood outside the room, calling to see if she was ok.

“I’m fine”, Melody responded, wiping the bile off her mouth and fighting a waxing headache. The rest of the room was a grizzly and unsettling scene, covered in viscera now cold enough frost was starting to build.

The body from the abandoned school was gone, risen, the top of the examination table bare reflective steel. O’Rourke began to shiver, shaking uncontrollably. Jeff peeled back the curtain and gasped at the scene.

“What is happening?” O’Rourke called, her tremors only interrupted by the effort it took to scream. She tried to calm down when Jeff entered the room. He was staring intently at the walls, mesmerized by the unrecognizable symbols.  None of it was written in English, but Jeff started to read.

He growled the words through gritted teeth while Melody mumbled “I saw her leave…I saw him…” under her breath, over and over.

“Sum are...smare killed?” Jeff was speaking in stops and starts. Then Melody remembered what the Rabbi had said, chilled at the realization

She corrected Jeff through chattering teeth, “Semargl…”