The Body Farm; Part Three

Content Advisory: This serial started with a post on the 22nd August. Contains scenes of horror and language some people may find disturbing.

The Body Farm

Part Three

Back in the security booth, four people watched as the dead made a meal of the dead. Only, on closer inspection, they didn’t appear to be eating Lenny. Instead they tore holes in his flesh with their fingers and teeth; ripping, gouging, tearing. The man was a mess of red. Blood covered every part of his skin.

In unison, the things stopped the attack and surrounded him, leaning over the body.

Eleanor frowned and craned her neck closer to the screen. Something white whipped out of the living dead, lashing and slithering into Lenny’s wounds.

“What the hell is that?” said Robert.

“I don’t know,” said Eleanor. “Can we zoom in the cameras?” she directed the question at the older of the security guards. “Get a better shot?”

“Sure.” Jimmy tapped some keys on the computer and the lens of the security camera zoomed.

Even on high focus, they only saw a blur of white movement between the bodies.

“We need to know what we’re dealing with,” said Eleanor.

Robert cocked his head, “What are you thinking?”

“If we can get one on the table, I’ll be able to take a look.”

Kyle rounded on her. “Are you fucking joking?”

“Knowledge is power. If we know what we’re up against, we might be able to understand their weaknesses.”

The young man stared at her, his eyes wide. “You’re insane.”

“No, I’m not. I’m a scientist and I’m doing my job.”

“Well I’m not going anywhere near one of those things.”

“Fine, you stay hiding in here. See how long you last if they figure out a way to get in.”

As though on cue, the lights above flickered again.

On screen, Lenny began to get to his feet.

“Oh shit,” breathed Robert.                

Lenny stumbled, wobbly, like a drunk trying to find his balance.

“Are you sure he’s dead,” asked Jimmy.

Eleanor didn’t grace his question with an answer. Half of Lenny’s face had been torn from his skull. Flaps of skin hung from his arms and legs. Blood coated his skin and there was a dark slick across the floor he’d so meticulously cleaned.

His body jerked, his limbs lifting and realigning, like a puppet settling into position. Beside him, the other bodies lined up, closing around him.

Together, almost acting as one, they headed down the corridor.

They walked off camera, the people in the security office losing sight.

Jimmy frantically tapped the computer keys again, switching security cameras. The small group of the dead had moved further along the corridor, reaching the door at the end—the one leading to the control center. The swipe card to open the room still hung from Lenny’s belt. The corpse pulled the card on its retractable cord and swiped the lock. The red light switched to green.

“Oh shit, how do they know what to do?” said Robert.

Eleanor shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“They’re going to cut the power,” Kyle whined, panic heightening the tone of his voice

“Yeah, but we’ve got back up generators,” said Jimmy.

Eleanor chewed her lower lip. “It’ll be long enough to let some of their friends from outside in.”

Kyle stared around at each of them. “This is insane. You mean those dead people—those fucking zombies!—are intelligent? They understand technology and they have some kind of way of communicating, like telepathy?”

“It might be telepathy,” said Eleanor, biting down her impatience, “but I suspect it’s more like an insect colony, where each member has a job to do. They look like they’re working together, but really they’re just acting instinctively.”

Kyle scowled, “They sure look fucking intelligent to me.”

Eleanor shook her head, her eyes still trained on the screen. “They can’t be; they’re dead. Whatever has happened doesn’t change the fact that those people are dead. I had one of them lying on my slab only an hour ago.”

On screen, the things disappeared inside the control room. Each of the living froze, breath held in anticipation. The lights flickered once again and suddenly they were plunged into darkness.

Somewhere in the confined space, what sounded like a woman screamed, though Eleanor was pretty sure she hadn’t made the sound.

Kyle gibbered, “Oh God, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

“Pull yourself together, Kyle,” she hissed.

The warmth of Robert’s hand closed over her own. Having his solid presence there gave her strength. The thought of being here alone, with only Jimmy and Kyle for company made her want to crumble inside.

“What do we do?” Robert whispered.

Eleanor answered, “We wait.”

In the cocoon of darkness, Eleanor’s imagination ran riot. In the distance came the clicking of doors opening, the sound of dead feet pounding on the linoleum.

Come on, come on, come on, she willed the generator to get going.

Suddenly the lights came back on, not as bright as before, dimmed to reduce the amount of power used. They all blinked in the illumination, their eyes growing accustomed to the light.

 Eleanor froze.

One of the dead things walked past the security booth’s window, a slow steady gait. The living corpse was small, probably only five-feet-five when it had been alive, but now, in death, it was shrunken and hunched. The level of decomposition made it impossible to tell if the thing had been male or female, but the filthy remains of a red dress hung from its emaciated frame.

Someone gave a thin whine of fear but the thing didn’t hear—if it could hear at all. Its ears had all but rotted away, as had the rest of its face. There was no way this thing could see where it was going.

So how do they know where they’re going? Eleanor wondered.

Still, the thing seemed to be alone.

“Now’s our chance,” she hissed at the men. “Just grab a limb each and wrestled it into the nearest lab. Oh, and try not to get bitten.”

Before any of them had a chance to respond, Eleanor swiped her keycard to open the door and ran out into the corridor.

The men glanced at each other, “Oh shit,” said Jimmy.

They followed close behind.

Eleanor grabbed the thing’s wrist, her fingers closing around its cold, slick flesh. A shriek of rage emitted from its throat and it spun around to face her. She struggled to keep hold, its flesh pulling away from the bone in a spongy mass. Then the men were upon it, grabbing arms and legs. The thing snapped and snarled, whipping its hideous head around, trying to tear a hole in one of its captors.

“In there!” Eleanor yelled, jerking her head toward the lab door beside them.

Things moved beneath Eleanor’s palm, something strong and musculature. She resisted the urge to pull away, already knowing this whole thing was completely wrong.

Robert grabbed the things ankle, pulling it off balance. The creature sprawled on its back, writhing and squirming in blind fury. “Come on!” yelled Robert, one hand wrapped around its ankle, the other around its wrist.

“Get it into the lab and lock the God-damn door.”

Jimmy jumped in and took hold of the other ankle. Kyle stood in the doorway of the security booth, his face pale, trembling.

Eleanor called out to him as they wrestled the creature into the lab, “You coming, Kyle. Or are you staying out here by yourself?”

The young man hesitated, “Oh fuck,” he swore, and chased them into the lab.

Eleanor and the two men slammed the twisting, shrieking corpse onto the cold silver of the table. A tray of dissecting tools sat by the stainless steel sink.

“Hold it down,” Eleanor yelled above the screaming. She couldn’t do anything while the thing fought. Her brain whirred, her scientific mind trying to overcome the part of her that screamed, ‘run!’

I need to stop it moving. I’ll never be able to learn anything like this.

Trying not to think about what she was doing, Eleanor grabbed the scalpel from the tray.

“Flip it over, and then hold it as still as you can,” she instructed the two men.

Robert shot her a look that said, ‘Are you joking?’ But the set of his jaw highlighted his determination and between him and Jimmy, they managed to flip the thing onto its stomach and then held the fighting corpse down on the table.

Eleanor stepped in, scalpel in hand. She pressed the cool metal against the back of the thing’s neck. Using her anatomical knowledge, she pressed the blade down, skillfully finding the joint between the corpse’s vertebrate, slicing down. Because of the state of the things decomposition, the flesh was soft and mushy, easy to cut.

It shrieked in rage.

“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Kyle. “Its friends are going to hear and come running.”

“Shut up, Kyle,” snapped Robert. “You’re not exactly helping.”

With a final push, Eleanor severed the spinal column. The screaming stopped but the body still writhed and squirmed, like a snake after its head had been cut off.

Breathing hard, Eleanor took a moment to compose herself before stepping back to the table. In a long stroke, she sliced the flesh of the thing’s arm, exposing the bone.

“Look at this,” she said.             

White worms, a matter of only a few millimeters in width wrapped around the bones of the corpse. As she watched, the worms contracted and then spread again, changing in both width and length.

As they moved, the corpse’s limbs spasmed.

She glanced up at Robert, “What does that remind you of?”

“Tendons,” Robert answered immediately. “They look like tendons.”

“It would explain how these corpses are moving when they’re so badly decomposed. These things are acting as a new skeletal muscle.”

“What the hell are they?” asked Jimmy, peering over Eleanor’s shoulder.

“You ever heard of one creature controlling another’s behavior or appearance?” she asked. “It’s common in insects and viruses. Take rabies, for example. The virus is transmitted in saliva so it makes it victim drool, have a propensity to bite, and is terrified of water, which might wash the virus away. And that’s just one example; I could tell you numerous which are even more fantastical.”

“So are you saying these things have taken over the bodies?”

“It sure as hell looks that way. I don’t know if these worms are the mature creature or if they’re just the larvae.”

“Jesus,” exclaimed Robert. “It’s no worm I’ve ever seen before.”

“Sometimes insect pupa can survive below ground for many, many years. Only when the circumstances are exactly right will they spawn.”

“If that’s right,” Robert continued, “how did they get inside the bodies in the building?”

“All the bodies were outside at some point, right? Buried in the ground in some way. I suspect those still in the morgue, the ones that haven’t been buried yet, are still as good as dead… at least until they come into contact with the infected bodies.”

“But how do they know what they’re doing?” asked Jimmy. “When they infected Lenny, he got right up and headed to the control room.”

“When I cut the spinal cord, the movement changed. These things must be making some kind of contact with whatever brain is left and feeding into it somehow. Perhaps because Lenny was only just dead, they fed into his surviving brain and tapped into his intelligence.”

A strange squawk of laughter came from Kyle. “So you’re saying the more people they kill and infect, the more intelligent they’ll become?”

With a sinking stomach, Eleanor said, “It’s possible.”

“Christ.”

“We need to figure out what to do,” said Robert. “We’re surrounded by the dead here. At least outside of the walls, there are others living.”

“What about the calls we placed?” said Jimmy. “They didn’t exactly install confidence that things are going great in the outside world either.”

Eleanor shook her head. “No, but at least we’d stand a chance. If we wait in here, it’s only a matter of time. We’ll never be able to kill them all; if they can even be killed.”

“They’re surrounding us,” said Kyle. “How the hell are we supposed to get out?”

Jimmy glanced up. “What about vent shafts? They could take us up onto the roof.”

“Yeah,” said Kyle. “And what do we do when we get there?”

The older man scowled at him. “I don’t know yet. You got any better suggestions?”

From down the corridor came the sound of feet hitting the linoleum. Shrieks rage accompanied the approaching footsteps.

Eleanor shot a glance at Robert. “I don’t think we’ve got time to argue…”

~*~

The Body Farm will continue next month...

Like what you've read? Marissa Farrar's short story collection, Where the Dead Live, is available to buy from Amazon for only $0.99.


If you would like to catch up on any of our posts or get a preview of the rest of this month's stories, you can purchase the eBook, Digital Digest, Volume 1, from Amazon and Barnes & Noble for only $0.99!

Marissa Farrar

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Copyright © 2011 Marissa Farrar. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. No portion of this work may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

The Body Farm; Part Two

Content Advisory: Contains scenes of violence and horror some may find disturbing. This serial started on the 08/22/11.

The Body Farm

Part Two

They burst into the building, slamming the doors behind them, the automatic locks clicking into place.

Bernie slammed into the glass pane, clawing and grasping at the window.

The two doctors backed away, trembling, their eyes wide with shock.

“What the hell…” Eleanor breathed.

Another body came running toward them—one Eleanor didn’t recognize. Yet still it seemed to be filled with such fury and hate, focused on getting to them.

                                    

“What the hell is going on?” demanded Robert.

Eleanor’s heart raced. This wasn’t possible. This simply couldn’t be possible.

 She’d seen people she knew were dead, run and move like the living.

They were surrounded. On every side of them the acre of enclosure was filled with almost a hundred bodies. Were they all like this? Had they all come back? Mentally, she scanned what she had seen. On their crazed run back to the building, she’d barely had a chance to think about it, but now she looked back she could see it in her head. Almost all of the graves had been disturbed.

“Do you think it’s all of them?” Robert asked, picking her thoughts out of her head.

“I don’t know. Jesus, I hope not.”

More bodies slammed against the glass. An elderly woman; her face little more than holes with scraps of skin, her long white hair clinging to her scalp. A middle-aged man, not long dead, his face and hands bloated with gases.

They tore at the locked door, bashing their rotten fists and mouths against the glass panels, leaving smears of dirt and putrid flesh. The doors were strong, purposefully designed to keep out intruders, and they didn’t budge under the onslaught.

Robert’s fingers wrapped around her forearm, his digits digging into her flesh. He dragged her down the corridor, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight, her neck craning backward, watching the things tear at the glass, their rotten faces pressed up against the glass.

“Come on!” Robert yelled, yanking on her arm, snatching back her attention.

On autopilot, their feet slapped against the linoleum floor as they raced down the corridor to Eleanor’s office and lab. Bursting through the door, Eleanor slammed it shut behind them and used her key card to lock it.

Panting, she pressed her back against the door. “What the fuck?” she said, staring at Robert, her eyes wide. All the blood had drained from Robert’s face, his skin as ashen as one of the corpses.

“I must be dreaming,” she said. “Please God, let me wake up. I must have fallen asleep at the slab and this is all just…”

Her thought of work sent her eyes skittering across her lab, to the mortuary table where, only thirty minutes earlier, she’d been working on a corpse.

The silver surface lay empty.

“Where the hell is Janet?” she blurted.

Robert spun around, “Who?”

“The woman I was working on when you came in to tell me about the disturbances. She’s gone.”

His eyes focused on the empty table and widened as the implication of her words sank in. “Holy shit! Where is she?”

Both the office and the lab only held the two doctors. Where ever the corpse was, it wasn’t in the room with them.

“You know what this means. Assuming someone hasn’t moved her—which from the scene outside is fairly likely—then she…”

“Has moved herself,” Eleanor finished.

“What do we do? The same thing might have happened to all of the cadavers. This place might be riddled with them.”

“We need to lock ourselves in here and hope whatever is going on out there will end.”

“No,” said Robert, shaking his head. “We’re blind in here. We need to get to the security office. They’ve got cameras all over this place. At least then we’ll know what we’re up against.”

“So we need to go back out there?”

“Only to the security office. It’s three corridors down. We can make it”

“Oh, God,” she said, nausea washing over her. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. Can’t we just hide in here and wait for someone to come and rescue us.”

“Yeah?” he said. “And what if no one is coming?”

They stared at each other.

“Okay,” she relented. “Let’s do it.”

Using her key card once again, Eleanor opened the door. Cautiously, she poked her head out into the corridor. All was quiet. There was no sign of any bodies.

Light-footed, the doctors ran down the corridor. Every muscle was tensed for attack, but none came. The silence around them was almost too quiet, as though something were waiting.

Where are all the dead bodies, Eleanor thought. There were at least two in the building; no doubt more had been stored overnight in the mortuary. What were they doing? Grouping? Trying to figure out a way to let the others in?

“I don’t like this,” she hissed. “It’s too quiet.”

They reached the office booth. Glass windows were embedded either side of a black door. A silver panel with touch buttons allowed access to those who had both the key and the code.

Inside, the two security men huddled together. An older man, Jimmy, had his arms around a younger guy in his early twenties, Kyle. Kyle’s dyed black hair stuck up from his head as he peered at them through the glass.

Robert yanked on the handle but the door didn’t budge. The two men stared at him, bug-eyed, clinging to each other.

“Hey!” Robert smacked his palms on the window. “Let us in!”

“How do we know you’re not contaminated?” Jimmy shouted at them, his voice sounding muffled through the barrier. “You’ve been out there with them, we saw you.”

“Jesus, don’t be so ridiculous. We’re fine. We need to find out what’s going on. We’re the scientists. If anyone is going to figure this thing out, it’s us.”

“No way!” yelled Kyle. “You could have those things out there with you.”

“Let us in, you assholes!” Eleanor beat her fists against the solid door. The possibility of attack lurked at her back, knowing there were bodies still missing in the building, that they could come racing down the corridor at any minute. “You want to die in there like trapped rats, or do you want to do something about this whole shit heap?”

The two men glanced at each other. “Okay, do it,” said Jimmy.

Kyle stepped forward and disappeared from view as he swiped his security card. On the outside of the door, the red light flashed green and the two scientists imploded through the door, slamming it shut behind them.

“We need to get hold of someone—the police, the military,” said Robert.

“We’ve already tried,” said Jimmy. “It’s just an automated answering service.”

Eleanor turned on him, her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? Who did you try?”

Kyle answered in a rush, “Everyone. We tried every number we have. No one is answering”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is,” said Jimmy, handing her the phone. “Try for yourself.”

Eleanor’s gaze flicked to Robert, who nodded in encouragement. With her heart in her throat, she dialed 911. Robert leaned in close to hear.

‘I’m sorry, but your call cannot be taken. We advise you to stay in your homes at this time and keep all of your doors and windows locked. Help will be with you shortly.’

She hung up. “What the hell sort of emergency response is that!”

Robert was pale-faced. “It’s not just here. Whatever has happened to our dead has happen on the outside as well.”

“So what are you saying? “ Jimmy said. “That we’re stuck here? That no one is going to help us?”

“It sure sounds like it,” she said.

Numerous small security monitors made up most of the back wall behind them. In synchronization, they all turned, their eyes trained on the screens.

On each one, the dead ran at speed—no shuffling gait of rigor-mortis ridden corpses—they had purpose. Numerous corpses, in various states of decomposition, with clothing hanging in tatters from their limbs, ran. Flesh peeled like old paint from their bones. Yet none stumbled or limped. Whatever state the bodies were in, they moved with the unnerving grace and speed of an athlete.

In every small square of the monitors, the dead ran toward them, toward the cameras.

“They’re all coming to the building,” Eleanor said. “They know we’re in here.”

“Shut up, that’s crazy,” said Kyle. “How can they possibly know we’re here?”

“A couple of the others saw us,” said Eleanor. “Maybe they have a way of communicating with each other.”

Robert shook his head, “This whole thing is crazy.”

                       

“This is your fault!” Kyle yelled, his face drawn, dark circles beneath his boggling eyes. “If you hadn’t come in here, we’d be safe!”

 “So what,” Robert said, rounding on him. “You’d just hide out here and hope they went away?”

“At least they wouldn’t know anyone was in here.”

“Shut up, Kyle,” said Jimmy. “This isn’t their fault.”

“No?” he counter argued. “How do we know it wasn’t some freaky experiment these scientists have been carrying out that have made this happen?”

“Jesus, Kyle,” said Eleanor. “We study decomposition, we study insect life. How the hell could we make something like this happen?”

“How should I know? You’re the ones with your big fancy educations, looking down on the rest of us.”

Robert put out a hand. “This isn’t helping anyone. Kyle, believe me, if we understood anything that was happening here, we would say so.”

Eleanor pulled herself together and tapped one of the screens. “We need to pull ourselves together and think about this rationally. We know they’re outside and they want in. But what’s happened to the bodies in the building? The one I was working on was missing and I’d bet any money that yours is as well, Robert.” She turned to Jimmy. “Can you pull up the internal cameras?”

“Sure,” he said, flicking a switch.

Images of empty corridors and rooms filled the screens.

“Where are you, you fuckers,” Eleanor said under her breath.

Around them, the lights flickered and all of them glanced up.

“Why doesn’t that fill me with confidence,” said Robert.

“Keep going,” Eleanor said, making a winding motion with two fingers, “There’s got to be places we’re not seeing.”

“There are blind spots in the building,” said Jimmy. “But the corpses wouldn’t know that.”

“It’s not like they’re hiding. We’ll find them.”

“There!” Robert said, poking his finger at one of the screens.

A body, tall and hunched with a head of grey hair, shuffled across the screen, a mop held in one hand, a silver industrial bucket in the other.

Eleanor frowned, leaning in closer. “What the hell…”

“That guy’s not dead,” said Robert.

“No,” said Jimmy. “That’s Lenny, the janitor.”

“Shit!” swore Eleanor.  “I never thought other people might be in here. He’s just carrying on like normal. Doesn’t he know what’s going on?”

Jimmy gave a shrug. “Why would he? He’s down in the basement. He hasn’t been outside and he sure as hell doesn’t have any cameras.”

“We need to contact him!” Eleanor said, panic rising her tone. “Warn him! Those things might be down there with him and he’s got no idea. God knows what they’d do to him.”

 “Which corridor is this?” Robert squinted at the screen. “Look!” he tapped at the right hand corner. “Correct me if I’m wrong but that looks like a phone.”

Eleanor leaned in. The distinctive rectangular shape of one of the center’s phones was attached to the wall near the figure.

“He’s right,” she said, turning her head to Jimmy. “Can we locate it and call?”

“Of course.” Jimmy pulled his seat toward him and sank down. His fingers tapped the keyboard of the computer. He picked up the phone and dialed an extension number, then handed the receiver to Eleanor.

On camera, Lenny’s head jerked toward the direction of the phone and he stopped his mopping. He shook his head and went back to his work.

“Pick up the phone Lenny, damn it!” Eleanor willed. But Lenny made no motion to go to the ringing phone so she hung up and tried again.

This time he threw down the mop and stalked up to the phone.

“Yes?” his gruff voice came down the receiver.

“Lenny, my name is Eleanor Armitage, I’m one of the scientists here. I need you to come up to security right away.” She saw the alarm on his face as he stared up at the nearest camera. “You’re not in any trouble, but something has happened and I…”

His head swung away, his attention snatched away by something they couldn’t see.

Suddenly, the bodies rushed him.

Even on the black and white, low resolution screen, Eleanor recognized Janet. Her mouth stretched wide open, and though she couldn’t hear the ear-piercing shriek emitted from her throat, she could tell both from the open maw and the expression on Lenny’s face that the scream was the same as she’d heard outside.

Janet hit Lenny with force, his arms pin-wheeling as he tried to keep his balance. From off screen, another body raced at him.

Teeth sank into his neck, ripping away a chunk of flesh. Blood poured down his chest, a dark apron on the screen.

In the security booth, four people watched the silent movie in mesmerized horror.

Like frenzied animals, they clawed Lenny apart, biting, tearing, ravaging. Dark splatters of blood hit the freshly mopped floor, strips of flesh dangling from his bones.

Lenny slumped to the floor, no longer recognizable as something that had once been human. The things surrounding him stood, straightening up, surveying the destruction and fully in control.

“How long?” Eleanor whispered.

Robert turned to her, “Until what?”

“Until Lenny joins them…”

~*~

The Body Farm will continue 9/8/2011

Like what you've read? Marissa Farrar's short story collection, Where the Dead Live, is available to buy from Amazon for only $0.99.

If you would like to catch up on any of our posts or get a preview of the rest of this month's stories, you can purchase the eBook, Digital Digest, Volume 1, from Amazon and Barnes & Noble for only $0.99!

Marissa Farrar

~Facebook ~Twitter~  Blog~

Copyright © 2011 Marissa Farrar. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. No portion of this work may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

The Body Farm; Part One

Content Advisory: This is an on-going serial and contains scenes of horror.

The Body Farm

Part One

Doctor Eleanor Armitage bent over her latest project, a cadaver she’d come to think of, somewhat affectionately, as Janet.

She was under no illusions that people found her job to be macabre. That she spent her days surrounded by the dead would have been understood had she been a funeral director or even a forensic pathologist but as soon as the words ‘forensic entomologist’ left her lips, people’s eyes glazed over. They might take the time to ask what the job involved, but by the time she explained that she studied the life cycles of insects on bodies in various states of decomposition, she knew she’d lost them.

Her profession wasn’t something you brought to dinner parties.

Eleanor turned away for a bite of her sandwich and turned back to her work. Janet was unusual because she’d been young when she died—only twenty-eight—and a female. Most of the bodies donated to the Forensic Anthropology Center were old, having been in the medical profession their whole lives. When people spent the whole of their lives in science, they didn’t want to give it up, even in death.

“Hey, Eleanor,” a male voice said from behind. “You sure got strange dinner company.”

With a smile, Eleanor glanced back over her shoulder. Her colleague, Robert Dane, stood in the doorway, his hands shoved in the pockets of his white medical coat.

“I like that she listens,” she said, tucking some of the strands of blonde hair escaping from her braid behind her ear. “Some of my dates these days won’t let me get a word in.”

Robert laughed but the sound contained little enthusiasm. His face straightened and he pushed his wire-rimmed glasses higher up his face. “Look, I’m sorry but this isn’t a social visit. I needed to let you know about something.”

She raised her eyebrows, expectantly.

“It seems we’ve had some kind of disturbance with Oliver and Tom,” he said, referring to two cadavers—one buried in a shallow grave, the other wrapped in tarpaulin and covered with foliage.

A frown furrowed lines in her normally smooth brow. “What sort of disturbance?”

“I just did a round of the grounds and both bodies have been exposed.”

“How the hell would that happen?” she said, anger heating her voice. Any changes in the way the bodies were buried would ruin the experiments. They didn’t have enough corpses to allow them to go to waste because of sloppy workmanship.

“I’ve no idea but they’re both completely exposed to the air.”

“Shit,” she said, pushing back her chair and standing up. Studying insect activity on decomposing corpses was one of the main parts of her job and the bodies being exposed to air and light would disrupt the life cycles of many creatures. In many cases, an almost exact time of death could be given based purely at which stage a particular pupae or larva were in their development.

While many of the other scientists in the center studied the remains to discover the body’s identity and analyze any trauma found on the bones, Eleanor specialized solely in insects.

“Have you informed security,” she asked, walking toward him.

“Of course, but they said there’d been no sign of any unreported persons on the premises. They’re going through the security cameras now to see if they can spot anything.”

“Okay,” she said, reaching his side. “Let’s go see what damage has been done.”

Together, they walked out of the lab and down the corridor. Using the identity card attached to her belt, she swiped through the security doors.

                                                        

Outside, the last of the day’s sun bled into the horizon, painting the sky a dusty red. Either side of the path, bodies at different stages of decomposition had been placed in various positions and situations to allow nature to take its course. One was dumped in a trashcan, another wrapped in tarpaulin and lain in a shallow grave, another merely covered with leaves and other foliage.

“Why are you here so late, Robert?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a date on a Saturday night?”

“Sure I do. Only my date is a bit like yours—she died seven months ago.”

Eleanor laughed, “You want to be careful who you say things like that to. People might get the wrong idea.”

“Who cares,” he shrugged. “As long as the right person gets the right idea.”

They locked eyes for a moment and Eleanor looked away, flustered. She had a rule not to date colleagues, but since she was always working, it ended up that she didn’t date anyone. Now on the wrong side of thirty, she’d come to the conclusion that she’d married her job.

At first glace, the two scientists could have been taking an evening stroll through the woods. A small path led between the trees, thick with foliage. Heavy shadow dappled the ground.

Only the high bricked wall surrounding the enclosure, topped with razor sharp barbed wire, and the presence of the high security building at its center gave any clue that this wasn’t simply a protected area of woodland—that, and the numerous shallow graves dotted around.

They stopped beside the graves.

Eleanor smoothed back her hair, “Damn it.”

Oliver was a fifty-six year old male in a state of early decomposition. His clothes hung in tatters from his body. The white flesh of his stomach, arms and feet was exposed, dirt peppering the skin. The hand lay upward, the fingers curled toward the sky.

The sweet scent of rotting flesh filled the air, but the scientist remained unaffected; the smell of decay surrounded them most of the time. The face of the cadaver had decayed, bloated, almost unrecognizable to anyone who might have known him. Bugs skittered across the flesh, a multi-jointed millipede—legs flowing like water—rippled across the face and disappeared inside the mouth.

But the black plastic bag he’d been wrapped in was discarded on the ground at his feet.

“Someone is obviously trying to mess with the experiments,” said Eleanor. “There’s no other sign of disturbance except for him being uncovered. What about the other one?”

Together they crossed to the other side of the path.

Tom—another older male—still slumped in his shallow grave but the two feet of dirt he’d been buried in lay scattered around the body.

“Who the hell would do this?” Eleanor asked. “It must be someone who works here. A trespasser would never be able to move the bodies to this extent and not be noticed. Christ, they look like they just stood up and shook themselves off.”

Robert ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to say. How would someone have come in here and disturbed the bodies without being seen.” He paused, considering something. “Why would someone do such a thing?”

“There are plenty of freaks around. This place isn’t as much of a secret as we think. People are sick enough to want to mess around with the bodies.”

“I don’t know, Eleanor,” he said, turning a circle, his hand locked in his hair. “This just feels…” He tailed off, his eyes focused on something in the near distance.

“What is it?” Eleanor asked. “What’s wrong?”

But Robert didn’t answer. Instead, he strode off down the path, stopping twenty feet away. “Look at this!”

Eleanor ran with a gentle jog toward him. Where a body should have been buried, there was now only a six foot deep, gaping hole. Fresh dirt spilled from the empty grave, but there was no sign of a body.

“Where’s Bernie?” she said.

Robert shook his head. “This is impossible. Nothing had touched this site when I was here twenty minutes ago. There’s no way someone could have got in, unburied him and totted the body away in that time. Especially as I’d gone straight from here to security. They’re watching the cameras, they’d have spotted someone digging.”

“So someone is working on him then. Maybe you just didn’t notice?”

“No. I’d have noticed. I checked everything else was how it should be because of the other two. There’s no way I didn’t notice.”

“I don’t know what to say, Robert. I mean, Bernie didn’t just push his way out of the ground, so someone’s taken him.”

He shook his head, “This is nuts.”

“So what do we do?” she asked. “Cover the other bodies back up and try and preserve as much of the experiment as possible?”

“The experiments are null and void now. We’ll have to start again. And I don’t think we should touch anything. Whoever has been messing with them might have left some evidence. We wouldn’t want to disturb it.”

The pair turned away and walked back to where the two uncovered cadavers lay.

Eleanor crouched down, her keen eyes searching the area and body for anything that might help forensics—a thread of material not matching the body’s clothing, a shoe-print in the mud.

She scoured the pale, rotting skin, the finger nails filled with dirt, searching for clues.

The hand twitched, fingers curling inward, little shocks of spasms jolting through the members.

“Shit!” Eleanor jumped back. “What the hell was that?”

Robert’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know. An electrical charge?”

He’s been dead over a year; you really think there are any synapses firing?”

“Of course not. But it moved…”

 “Must be insect activity then,” she said, leaning in closer.

The hand jerked, lifting right off the ground for a second before falling back down.

“Holy crap,” exclaimed Robert. In front of them, the hand twisted and jerked. The rest of the body lay still and impassive, the eyes missing, filled in only by dirt and the cases of long dead bugs.

“There is no way that’s caused by insects.”

A crashing through the undergrowth—twigs cracking and tree branches snapping, leaves being torn away—snatched away their attention. Both doctors looked up. Whatever headed in their direction, it was big, and they both knew no big animals were in the enclosure—they couldn’t have the wildlife making meals of the corpses.

Eleanor slowly got to her feet, her eyes trained on the bushes. Unconsciously, she reached out to Robert, her fingers grasping his broad forearm.

An ear piercing shriek of rage reached their ears and Bernie rushed out of the bushes. A fat man when he’d died, his flesh hung off his bones in flaps. His lips had long been eaten by bugs but his mouth stretched wide open as he screamed, revealing tombstone teeth and a fat, bloated tongue. He rushed at them, his arms outstretched and his eye sockets empty and blind.

The dead were alive.

Eleanor stood for the briefest of moments, her brain trying to comprehend what her eyes were seeing. But then a hand grabbed hers, yanking her out of her reverie.

“Run!” Robert yelled, pulling her along. “Fucking run!”

Eleanor burst into motion.

With the thing screaming behind them, its speed incredible for a person who had been dead several years, her feet slammed against the concrete path. Her breath ripped in and out of her lungs and Eleanor glanced back over her shoulder. The creature was gaining.

 Either side, other graves rippled and shifted, bodies moved, exposed limbs twitching. The lid on a trashcan where another body had been placed slammed up and down, as whatever was inside struggled to get out.

Together Eleanor and Robert collided with the entrance to the secure facility.

Frantically, Eleanor swiped her card to get access to the building. The led light showed red, red, red.

“Come on you fucker!” she swore and the green light flicked on and the door buzzed open.

~*~

The Body Farm will continue tomorrow...

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Marissa Farrar

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Copyright © 2011 Marissa Farrar. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. No portion of this work may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.