The Essence of Darkness Page 11

  He turned his gaze back to the book. “We’ll know more when I’ve made some progress with the translation.”

  12

  “Special Agent Andrews? This is Supervisor Mullay.”

  “Hello, Boss. I didn’t recognize your voice. You’ve got to admit that we don’t often speak to you on the phone.”

  “You must be aware of the regrettable conclusion to Agent Cooper’s mission, I’m sure.”

  “Yes, it’s unfortunate.”

  “You were relatively close from a professional point of view. So you’re going to take over the St. Marys case. If you have no objections, of course.”

  “That’s fine with me, Boss.”

  “Good. Be ready to take off tomorrow morning. They’ll expect you at the St. Marys forensics department in the afternoon. You’ve followed the case closely, I believe?”

  “As best I could.”

  “If I tell you that three female bodies and a child’s body are in transit to the St. Marys morgue for identification, does that mean anything to you?”

  Andrews stifled a cynical laugh. “Yes, you mean the leftovers from Agent Cooper’s dinner?”

  “Keep your jokes to yourself, Andrews. He was one of our best people.”

  “Sorry—it just slipped out.”

  “This case is gaining importance at the highest level. Don’t ask me why; I have no damned idea. But you’re going to have to do your best to find these kids alive.”

  “I’ll do my best. But what are you doing about Cooper? Who’s going to arrest him?”

  “As strange as it may seem, for the time being, we’re not taking any action. We’re waiting. The order comes from above. Take care of finding those children, Andrews; that’s your mission. Understood?”

  “Understood, Boss.”

  “I am counting on you to keep me personally informed of your progress. I‘ve sent you my contact details as an attachment.”

  “Got it.”

  “Talk to you soon, Andrews.”

  “Talk to you soon, Boss.”

  It was only four p.m., and the cloud-filled sky over St. Marys already seemed close to dusk. Agent Andrews parked his official white Lexus in the hospital parking lot. The morgue was in the basement. He crossed the deserted reception area and got into an elevator, where classical music was playing in contrast to the silence in the hospital. It was a cheesy waltz, possibly Tchaikovsky, he thought, without taking any more interest in it than that. He pressed the “-1” button. In the mirror, his reflection, far from the usual young tiger, seemed to be saying, “Hey, buddy, do you ever sleep?” He had bags under his eyes and drawn features. Usually, the question was more like, “Let’s see, how many charming creatures I will be able to seduce today?” He remembered what Cooper had told him about this town: something’s not right here. The elevator shook heavily when it reached the basement. The door opened with an excruciating metallic screech onto a long corridor lit by neon lights. He followed the arrow pointing to “Forensic Service” until he reached a double door. He paused before entering, adjusted his tie, combed his hair with his fingers, and plastered a relaxed smile on his face.

  He pushed open the door and went inside.

  It was considerably colder than in the corridor. In addition to the morgue being in the basement, this temperature difference was due to the refrigerated boxes lining both sides of the room. Here, there was no waiting room, no office, and certainly not a coffee machine. There were only drawers, built in along the walls, in which people were permanently resting. All but four of them were closed. Covered with white sheets, the four bodies lay in the middle of the vast rectangular room under the stark fluorescent lights. They seemed to be waiting on their respective carts for a hand to uncover them one last time before they returned to the cozy comfort of their ice-cold boxes. A scent of antibacterial sprays was floating in the air, mixed with the smell of cold meat.

  Two men in white coats were waiting at the back, leaning against an autopsy block just used, judging from the blood spills running into the drains. Andrews walked toward them and took out his badge. The first was a guy in his fifties, with thinning white hair, pale gray eyes, and a severe, wrinkled face. The other one was young, most likely an intern, of medium height with short brown hair, a scruffy beard, and a casual outfit under his medical coat: the typical student. They were clearly not Bureau agents, Andrews quickly determined.

  “Special Agent Colin Andrews, and you must be the head of the department,” he said to the older of the two men.

  “Hello. I’m Dr. Remmings, and this is resident intern Bradley Norton.”

  “I was expecting to meet federal colleagues,” Andrews said.

  “Well, it looks like they beat you to it. They came in early this morning—very early, even.”

  “What time was it?”

  “I don’t know the exact time, but it was before eight o’clock, since that’s when I started my shift.”

  “Didn’t they leave anything for me?”

  “Yes, of course. I was just going to give you their autopsy report.”

  He handed him a sealed FBI portfolio.

  “Since you’re here, Doctor, you might as well summarize for me what you learned from these bodies. I assume you did your own analysis?”

  “Absolutely—after the one your forensic colleagues did, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Andrews noted that the federal agents he was supposed to meet had performed the autopsy earlier in the morning. That was unexpected, but he didn’t dwell on it.

  This raised another question.

  “Dr. Remmings, when did the bodies arrive here?”

  “Last night, around ten p.m.”

  “And when did you get word of their arrival?”

  “It must have been eleven p.m. at the latest.”

  The doctor invited Andrews to approach the four gurneys lined up at three-foot intervals. The intern followed them, meticulously recording everything he could in a small notebook.

  The doctor lifted the sheet from the first body he came to.

  “This is Cassandra Owens. She’s twenty-one years old. She died nine days ago.”

  Although he was a seasoned agent, Andrews gagged when the doctor slipped the sheet back, uncovering her completely. Except for a few bruises, her face was almost intact and still looked surprisingly beautiful. Her alabaster features looked like those of a perfect porcelain doll. The causes of her death only started at her chest. The rib cage was open from the sternum to the lower abdomen. The ribs were torn out in some places or shoved in at other places, as if something had torn her apart alive. The internal organs were unraveled, and her belly was just one huge, gaping hole from which foul humors of decaying flesh oozed. Her right arm was severed just below her elbow. Her left leg was torn off; white strands of tendon and shreds of muscle tissue dangled from her hip and stretched across the gurney.

  “The primary cause of death,” the doctor continued, “was evisceration, which caused the heart to stop within seconds. At first glance,” the doctor pointed to the severed forearm, “we see here an incision characteristic of animal dentition. Given how clean the cut is, it could be a bear or a huge wolf. However, although the analysis shows that Cassandra Owens’ forearm was caught in a jaw, our specialists have not yet identified the type of beast to which this jaw could belong. They have just begun their research, and according to them, it may not be an animal bite. The impression of the teeth they were able to reconstruct doesn’t fit with any kind of carnivore normally found in our regions—or with any other, they said.”

  Andrews had only known that Cooper had committed acts of a cannibalistic nature. He had to remain silent about these facts. The doctor’s analysis left him confused.

  “I don’t understand,” Andrews said. “If it wasn’t an animal, then what was the cause of the amputation? Could it have been human?”

  “Human? Definitely not,” the doctor responded. “Technically, her forearm could have been caught in mac
hinery, like that used for industrial logging. Personally, that’s the only other option I can see.”

  The doctor invited him to move on to the body on the next gurney. The silhouette under the sheet didn’t resemble a slim body. It was more the angular contours of a vaguely cubic, indefinable shape. It could have been anything but a human body.

  “I need to warn you, this one has been almost entirely . . .” The doctor paused, looking for the best word.

  “‘Devoured,’ Doctor,” the young intern concluded for him. “That’s the appropriate term.”

  “Very well, Bradley, I’ll leave it to you to present your analysis to Agent Andrews.”

  Visibly embarrassed, the young assistant stepped forward to the shapeless mass and pulled back the sheet that covered it. An unbearable stench of rotting flesh filled the air. The bloody form caused the three men to recoil instinctively. It was no longer a young woman in any way.

  Agent Andrews saw that the intern was able to control his nausea, but he was on the verge of puking.

  “Emily Russel,” he managed to say, “twenty-three years old. Death is due to numerous hemorrhages caused by multiple lacerations and amputations. Head, upper limbs and, in part, lower limbs have been severed or torn off.”

  “Wait a minute,” the agent interrupted. “Where’s her head? Did you keep it?”

  The intern looked at the doctor, not sure how to respond.

  “We received the bodies as you see them,” the doctor said. “Reread your documents; they clearly state that the head is missing.”

  “It was just a question,” Andrews replied.

  “Please continue, Bradley,” the doctor said to his intern.

  “Emily Russel’s death was almost instantaneous; heart failure followed an extremely violent attack by the same animal, this time, probably relentless. Again, DNA elements are missing from genetic samples, so we cannot identify the species of the beast.”

  “If there is one,” the doctor added, not convinced.

  “Very well, let’s move on to the third body, gentlemen,” Andrews continued.

  Again, the shape under the white sheet was no longer a human figure. The doctor uncovered it without waiting. The face was partially intact, but a scratch or a bite had torn away the right side above the jawbone, including the eye. The throat was cut down deep, to the cervical vertebrae, so that the head was only attached to the torso by a thin collar of exposed bone. The rest of the body was also lacerated and eviscerated. Only tendons attached both legs, as well as one of the arms.

  “The identity of this one is unknown,” the doctor said. “She’s probably the same age as the two previous victims. Cause of death was a hemorrhage resulting from the severing of her carotid artery.”

  Agent Andrews consulted his forensic colleagues’ documents. Research was underway to identify her. “One thing was sure: she wasn’t American.”

  “The fourth body, please, Doctor,” asked Agent Andrews, who had exceeded his daily dose of corpses.

  The doctor lifted the white sheet over the body of the nameless young woman and uncovered the form—much smaller and more compact—that lay on the fourth and final gurney.

  It was a reddish mass of flesh and bone soaked in a pool of coagulated blood in a twenty-inch stainless steel surgical tray.

  “Oh my G—” Andrews’ lunch surged from his stomach. He stepped away to get rid of it discreetly.

  He came back adjusting his tie, looking upset.

  “Sorry. Usually, I can take it, but that . . . That’s too much.”

  The two men in gowns nodded in sympathy.

  “This is all that remains of Christopher Elmer,” the doctor said. “This young boy was four years and eight months old. As you probably know, he is one of the five children abducted in our town of St. Marys, which is usually so peaceful.”

  Emotion visibly affected the doctor. He continued after a slight pause.

  “Please excuse me. I know the child’s parents personally. I treated him myself for a bad flu last winter.”

  He took a deep breath and returned to his forensic analysis.

  “Christopher Elmer’s cause of death was not the result of an attack by the same beast, which literally butchered and partially boned him. The child was already dead when the animal devoured him. Evidence of blows from a sharp weapon appear. Seven blows to the heart, in total.”

  “So in your opinion, his death preceded the animal’s attack?” asked Andrews.

  “Yes. There’s no doubt about it.”

  “Therefore, it is possible the beast’s first three victims were involved in the murder of the child,” Andrews hypothesized.

  “Quite possible, indeed,” said the doctor, “because the child sustained stab wounds.”

  The intern nodded in agreement with this theory as well.

  “The three young women could also have been behind the kidnappings,” Andrews deduced. “All right,” he added, “I have everything I need. Oh, I almost forgot, Doctor, I have a separate question. Do the people of St. Marys know that Christopher Elmer’s body was found?”

  “Yes. The city has been in turmoil since Captain Sherman made the news official. The residents are horrified. There have even been riots over the past two nights.”

  “I suppose the families of the children who are still missing are putting pressure on the city’s police forces.”

  “Yes, and on the mayor too, who’s managing this crisis as well as he can. There are rumors that witches kidnapped the little ones. Surely you know the old Pennsylvania stories told by the fire at night?”

  “No, but I’ll check into it. We shouldn’t neglect any lead, even those out of the ordinary. Dr. Remmings, Mr. Norton, we’ll keep each other informed if anything new comes up. Feel free to contact me at this number at any time.”

  The doctor took the agent’s card and slipped it into his white coat. “Okay.”

  “Have a good day, gentlemen,” Andrews said.

  The young intern nodded discreetly.

  “You too,” responded the doctor.

  Andrews turned and headed for the door.

  The doctor called to him just as he was leaving the room. “Agent Andrews?”

  “Yes?”

  “Find the monsters who did this. Somebody’s going to have to answer for these atrocities.”

  “First and foremost, I’m going to try to find the other four children. Hopefully they’re still alive.”

  13

  October 25

  Night was falling over the hills. The sun managed to slip a few furtive rays through the huge cumulus clouds gliding impassively across the sky. Cooper was lying on his back on the ground. After the rains, the woods had that powerful scent, infused with all the strength released by plants that received water, that supreme elixir of life. Cooper took deep breaths of these sweet fragrances that washed over him as the wind blew. The air was so mild that it could have been an early spring evening. He was experiencing a restorative rest. He had eaten copious amounts of chicken wings, rice with vegetables, and had finished his meal with a hearty pizza without leaving any leftovers. He had needed at least that much to recover all the strength he had lost over the past two weeks. But as the night went on, he felt a heavy sensation in his stomach.

  He was still hungry.

  But it wasn’t a hunger he was used to feeling. It was something else. He tried to understand the emptiness that lingered inside him, ran through his arteries, and spread through his veins. Lying down, he continued to look up at the stars that appeared through the clouds, but he no longer saw them. This craving building up inside him drew all his attention, not giving him any peace. He knew where it was coming from. The thing that was hiding inside him was stirring, manifesting its presence by embedding this emptiness in his guts. Even when he was asleep, this force managed to affect his mind. He realized that if he had rested and regained energy, this thing had also benefited. It was gaining ground. He was only a fragile physical shell that would soon give in to its
pressure. He could feel it coming. This thing had the patience of the predator, just like him, but to a degree pushed to its paroxysm . . . This thing was the epitome of predation, with all its reptilian strategy. It knew how to wait. It knew how to possess him, little by little. There was no longer any space within him that it hadn’t penetrated.

  It was watching him.

  None of this was his imagination playing tricks on him—or one of those fabrications the mind produces in a state of intense stress. This being was becoming aware of him.

  The impulse intensified.

  Cooper stood up nervously. Suddenly, lying down while looking at the starry sky had become uncomfortable.

  He stopped struggling.

  Without any resolve and very naturally, he took out his weapon and attached the silencer. He then put on his shoes and set off on the path through the woods.

  He no longer asked himself any questions. That’s just how things were.

  The craving was too strong now.

  He needed flesh.

  Raw and full of hemoglobin.

  Even an animal would satisfy him.

  After all, what was so strange about eating when you were hungry? All people, without exception, satisfied this need. Yet, he felt that this hunger was nothing like the hunger humans felt.

  As Cooper wandered through the hills, he began to feel a new sensation. This one was more pleasant. It was like a purring, a vibration in his neck, filled with warmth—a kind of happiness, to be more precise. Maybe the thing was thanking him for his cooperation. That’s how he interpreted it. Suddenly, a hare stopped in his path. He immediately took aim with his weapon and fired twice. The animal staggered and tried to jump off the path but could only drop to the ground. Cooper threw himself on it and tried to rip its throat open with his teeth, but the fur stopped him. So he took out his knife and sliced opened its belly from top to bottom. The guts gushed out and soaked him with warm blood. He drank directly from the severed arteries, not caring about the brown liquid drenching him as it flowed from all sides. He soon satisfied himself with the hare, stood up, and threw down the twitching carcass. Then he continued his journey, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve.