Post-Mortems and Taxidermy

“I take it you’ve done some post-mortems in your studies?”

“Uh, yes I have, Sir,” he paused as he pulled the latex gloves over his hands. “I also had an uncle who taught me how to do taxidermy,”

“Taxidermy, hey? Where’d you get those animals from?”

He held back his answer, watching the mortician speak into the recorder, starting the procedure.

“Five twenty-four pm. John Doe. Prints will be taken before the internal examination. Externally we have clear signs of trauma. Multiple clean slices across the torso and arms.”

Lifting the deceased’s right arm, he turned it in his hands, “Signs of bruising, premortem. Potential DNA under the fingernails shows our young gentleman fought back,”

Picking up the paper and ink pad, the man carefully took the victim’s prints. “So, we were saying?”

“My Uncle, he likes to hunt every other weekend or so,”

The scalpel pressed into the flesh, effortlessly carving through the skin as he pulled down, creating the ‘Y’ shaped cut.

“You ever been with him?”

“Yeah, once or twice, I’m not great but I’m getting the hang of it,” he smiled to himself as he recalled the memories, “We stay at a cabin he built a couple of years back, he likes to keep it old fashioned, you know? Instead of lamps and lights, we have a fireplace and candles.

“We like to keep one in each window either side of the door, gives the corners a nice glow while we have a book and the fireplace going,”

“It sounds strange, but while this,” he gestures to the corpse, “is my job, I couldn’t imagine doing the same on an animal,”

“Who said anything about animals?”

He looked to the apprentice, mortified by his calm stare. His body tense until the young adult burst into laughter.

“I’m sorry,” he said, through his now calming laugh, “I couldn’t resist,”

Darkness. The sound of lights and power shutting down echoed through the corridor.

“What’s going on?!” the apprentice panicked.

“Give it a moment, the backup power should kick in shortly,”

“Does this happen often?”

The older man hesitated, “No, I cannot say it does,” he turns to the recorder, pressing the button, “Five thirty-two pm, power outage puts a delay on progressing,”

They waited in the darkness. Their breathing the only noise amongst the silence.

“Wishing we had those candles from your cabin right now,” the mortician chuckled, hiding his concern at the failed backup generator.

“If you want to check, I don’t mind staying with the body. You do know the building better than I do,”

“Only if you’re sure,” he pulled the gloves from his hands, throwing them in the disposal as he pulled his phone from his pocket. “It’s only a few corridors from here, I’ll be back shortly,”

The glow of the phone's torch gave him a short view ahead. The silence of the usually busy building became deafening. He was never bothered about staying later to work until now.

Passing security, he stopped. Pushing the door open, he viewed the empty room.

The monitors gave no light to the room, their system down from the outage.

“Dammit,” he whispered to himself.

Turning back, he made his way to the assistant, only hoping the security guard was looking into the power.

Standing outside the door, he paused at the mumbling voices. Turning the torch off, he did his best to listen.

“Temporary stitch is fine,” more mumbles and footsteps, “he’ll look great in the collection,”

Reality kicked in. John Doe was being stolen. The shiver ran over his skin, his heart heavily beating.

Unlocking his phone, his fingers tapped over the screen to text his boss. Praying she could do something from home.

“What do we have here?”

Looking up, he could barely make out the features of the man.

“Who the hell are you?”

The man smiled, grabbing him by the collar to throw him into the room. He watched the mortician smash into the cupboards, falling to the floor in pain.

“You know my nephew,” his footsteps echoed against the cold floor, “And somebody disrupted our hunt,”

His eyes widened, daring to look to the table.

“You killed that man,”

“But of course,” he smiled, picking up the closest scalpel, “We have to hunt before we work on them. My boy here, he mastered stitching up the animals quickly, so we got to move back to the fun stuff,

“The real animals,”

The blade nicked his neck. A bead of blood appearing as the blade pushed back, cutting deeper.

The pain, the sharpness of the marks. The feeling of his blood flowing from his body, trickling down his neck. Black spots travelled over his vision, leaving the man enveloped within the darkness of death.

A whisper. “You’ll make a fine addition,”

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