Alexander Death(12)

“Not me,” Heather said. “I want to know who this guy is, how he got these corpses walking, and why. What did he accomplish? Did he give any clue about his motivation?”

“Only the Devil knows the Devil's true intentions,” Corinthius said. The county medical examniner nodded along with him, but the dean gave a small, derisive snort.

“He did say something about destroying the world, didn't he?” Steve asked.

“That's not what he said,” Corinthius replied.

“He did! I remember! 'Death and destruction to the world.' Something like that.”

“He said, 'I am Death, destroyer of worlds,'” Corinthius said.

“What does that mean?” Steve asked.

“It's from Hindu mythology,” Heather said. “But the quote comes from Robert Oppenheimer. He said that when he detonated the first atomic bomb. He was talking about himself. 'I am become Death.'”

“Sounds like the Devil to me,” Corinthius said.

“Hell yeah it does,” Steve said. “I don't believe in God, but I'm starting to believe in Satan.”

“If we could step back from the theology a moment,” the dean said. “It's clear that, at bottom, this will turn out to be some sort of hoax. The bodies must have been manipulated in some way. Like puppets. They must have been rigged.”

“If he rigged them, it was too fast to see,” Corinthius said. “All he did was brush his hand over each one.”

“Then perhaps they were rigged before he arrived,” the dean said.

“Nobody was in or out of here last night,” Cornelius said. “We keep a visitor's log.”

“Then perhaps they had inside help for their prank. From someone young and immature, with access to the morgue.” The dean gave Steve a hard look, and the green-haired boy scowled back at him.

“I didn't do nothing, man!” Steve said.

“I would say it bears further investigating,” the dean said.

“They didn't show any sign of rigging when we found 'em,” the medical examiner said. “No cables, no ropes, nothing. If you're saying somebody slipped in here, rigged up them corpses with some kind of high-tech remote control, ran 'em through the streets, and stripped all signs of the rigging before any police showed up—well, damn, that's pretty thorough.”

“It's also the only logical explanation,” the dean said.

“For which there is absolutely no evidence,” Heather said.

“What do you expect me to say?” the dean snapped at Heather. “You want me to believe their crazy story about zombies and...and necromancy?”

“We should take their observations for what they are,” Heather said. “These men saw what they saw. We may not have an explanation yet, but any explanation needs to be based on evidence. Not on conjecture.”

“Conjecture? Have you never heard of a working hypothesis?” the dean asked.

“That would need to be based on some kind of evidence, too,” Heather said. “This looks supernatural on the surface, but don't be so eager to dismiss the supernatural that you rush into the first plausible idea. If we're going to be scientific, we must be comfortable letting the unknown remain unknown until we learn something concrete.”

The dean sighed. “At least this happened in the middle of a riot. I won't even need to put out a press release explaining things.”

“But we have to figure out what really happened,” Heather said. She looked above the autopsy table, where the overhead lighting fixtures had been ripped away. “We found them with the metal bars from the lighting mounts. And brooms, mops and other blunt objects. Each one also carried a full-size cadaver pouch. What do you suppose those were for?”

“Maybe they were like to-go bags,” Steve said. “So someone could pack them up and ship them.”

“That's stupid,” the dean said.

“At least it's a thought,” Heather said. “But the bodies were abandoned, with no sign of the...” Heather wanted to say zombie master, but stopped herself. “The perpetrator. Either they served his purpose, or he changed his plans.”

“It was one hell of a riot in the streets last night,” Corinthius said. “Seems to me he wanted to push his way through the crowd. Beat his way, if he had to.”

Heather nodded, thinking this over. “And what about the body bags?”

Nobody had any ideas to offer.

“Can we arrive at any consensus?” the dean asked. “At least for the public? There may be inquiries.”

“Spin isn't my department,” Heather said. “I find facts. It's up to other people distort them for political reasons.”