Circle 1. Patient, part 1

"So what's so special about this one?" Francesca asked.

"Just a dating discrepancy," Lewis looked up from his iPad, 'Where we found it, Professor Kratz said it was only a couple of decades old, but carbon dating put it between twelve and fifteen hundred."

"You called me out because facts disagreed with Bernard?"

"Doctor McKinley and I ran models of decay based on the predicted microclimate of the cave. If it had been there for more than eighteen years, there'd be only bones. Based on local weather records, its soft tissues shouldn't have lasted six -"

"So re-run your carbon tests."

"We already did. You did, actually - samples 89b and 89f. And the pollen tallied."

"Twelve to fifteen hundred years, Band 1. It couldn't have been moved?"

"It was under a fairly hefty rock that looked like it had been there a fair while."

Francesca frowned.

"How far into the cave? Four metres into the cold zone?"

"It wasn't in the cold zone."

"You did take into account the seasonal flux, didn't you? In the dry, the cold zone retreats up to eight metres in several of the caves. The mosses only extend through the permanently wet zone - you need to examine the alga, too -"

"Sorry I'm late, Francesca, one of my permits needed renewal, and this place..." Greene walked in as loudly and as late as usual, with the exact same excuse as she'd used for every other examination of every other body. 

"What's with the sheets, Al?" 

Francesca stared at Lewis. She'd never heard him refer to anyone by their first name before, let alone an abbreviation. Even the undergraduates were 'Sir'.  He'd probably spent around two hundred hours in a small, windowless lab with her last year, and she still wasn't certain he knew her first name. He'd met Dr. Greene only three weeks ago and already she was 'Al'. 

"Oh, that. A couple of the undergraduates were a little liberal with their cleaning of a trolley; our guy got splashed - no real damage, don't worry - and I thought it best to take a precaution. Here we are; number eighty-nine."

Greene rolled the plastic sheet back off the body. Francesca glanced around for an undergraduate to shudder at the reveal; there were none, today. Bernard and Carol had gone to the village dig to examine the history of the settlement, and presumably the entertainment value of the two of them bickering was too great for the students to pass up. 

 The body wasn't all that unsightly, as bodies went. The head was unusual - the chipped white teeth were fully visible, protruding from shrivelled remains of gums, but there were still small flaps of lips visible. The ears were torn to the point that one of them was hardly there, but near the entrance of a cave, it was astounding the scavengers hadn't taken more. Even the eyes - although little more than black discs sunken into their sockets - were still there.

"No head trauma." Francesca noted.

"No," Greene agreed, lifting the head and feeling behind it, "None significant, at any rate. The real fun happened to the poor abdomen, here -"

"How many of them are like this?" Francesca asked.

"Pardon?"

"Carol said they all had head traumas, as though this was some sort of periodical sacrifice, or mass execution - this one doesn't. But he fits into one of the bands."

"He's also mummified when he should have disintegrated. He's a catch, alright," Greene laid a series of X-ray prints over the mummy's chest, "Here's his really neat trick, though."

Francesca looked.

"What?"

"Look at the ribs," Lewis pointed, unhelpfully, at the photographs. Francesca sighed.

"Greene?"

"He suffered a massive crushing injury to the chest at some point in his life," Alison pointed to the unnatural 

angles most of the ribs lay out, "The sort where you cough up your lungs and die."

"So someone died in a cave in." Francesca frowned, "Was there anything about the way that he was covered that could have preserved him in this way?"

"You did hear what I said, didn't you?"

"Massive crushing injury. Seems straightforward enough -"

"At some point in his life," Greene pointed to the bones, "not the end. You see these calluses here," she indicated a bubbling lump where a rib bent at an unnatural angle, "and again, here," she pointed to the bulb at the end of a snapped collarbone, "He healed."

Francesca paused.

"I'm not seeing any secondary fractures."

"No."

"So these injuries are consistent with the rock Bernard found him under?"

"Yes."

"He healed while pinned in place by the rock? Over what sort of period?"

Greene hesitated.

"It looks like a good three years, at least."

Francesca stared at her closely. Greene was clearly not comfortable with what she'd just said, but seemed to believe it to be true.

"Someone cared for him for three years or more while he was held in place by the rock?"

"I'm not sure how," Greene took the photographs off the body and indicated the cavity the rock had left, "I can't imagine that many of his organs survived the rock landing on him."

"What killed him, though?" Francesca asked.

"Nothing conclusive. There are a few punctures that look like they may be stab wounds, but they're surrounded by scar tissue. Something's also taken a bite out of his neck  - but again, scar tissue suggests he survived that for an extended period."

"What if it was lowered, slowly?" Lewis asked, "As if it were some sort of torture ritual? All the other victims are uniform, as though it was a ritual of some sort - perhaps this was, too?"

"It's my firm belief that there's no non-fatal way to crush a man's thorax this thoroughly, no matter how slowly you do it," said Greene, "although it's worth noting that this body challenges that belief somewhat, "If you'd both glove up, I think it's time to open him up."

Francesca had been wearing gloves since before Greene got there. She waved her nitrile-blue hands above the table, and Greene nodded her approval. Francesca paused.

"This discolouration around the left shoulder - was that from the undergraduates?"

"Most of the left side, from just below the ear to a few inches above the knee, got splashed. Once he's dried out, the discolouration should fade -"

"It looks fresher," Francesca's fingers hesitated millimetres from the brown leather, "significantly fresher. May I?"

Greene nodded, and Francesca pressed her fingers against the ancient skin.

"Remarkable," she prodded the hard, stretched surface of the right shoulder, and then the softer, giving flesh of the left, "It could almost be alive."

Greene laughed, and began drawing a line for the incision. Francesca paid little attention - her eyes were upon the faint memories of capillaries under the skin of the shoulder. She watched her finger push the surprisingly flexible skin in over a centimetre, and as let go, she froze to see the white circle that her finger had left; her heart threatened to stop beating when colour crept back in.

"I've never - Greene, this tissue preservation is incredible! Even within the caves, I've never seen anything this intact."

"Do you remember the man they found in the permafrost near Barrow, back in '07?" Greene paused with an ugly knife inches from the corpse's collapsed abdomen.

"Read about it, never saw him."

"It was how I got into this. We thought he'd been down there a month, maybe two. We took fingerprints, for Christ's sake."

"You were the pathologist on Barrow Man?" Francesca glanced at Greene as Lewis adjusted settings on his camcorder, "I knew I'd heard your name before Carol mentioned you. Lewis, could I borrow that for a moment?"

Lewis leaned across the body with the camcorder in an outstretched left arm, and with a yelp, pulled it back.

"Ow," he rubbed his forearm, "Well, that will teach me to lean across dead bodies." He walked around, and handed Francesca the camera, "Do you have a plaster, Al?"

"First Aid jit's by the door," Greene pointed, and put her knife down, "what's so riveting around there, Professor?"  

"This tissue," Francesca's fingers traced the tendons in the hand, "It's - I'm sure I must be imagining it, but see for yourself."

Greene looked. She took off her goggles, put on the reading glasses, leaned in very close and looked again.

"It's intact on a cellular level," she breathed, and poked it. Colour disappeared and returned as though blood was still flowing, "It's impossible."

"Its teeth are also very sharp," Lewis called across the room, "I've broken into the antiseptic, just in case, Al."

The two doctors ignored him.

"Do you have an atomiser?" Francesca asked.

"You want to wet the whole thing?"

"Just patches. To see."

Greene hurried over to her office, and Francesca peered at the misshapen fingers of the hand. There were fingerprints there, certainly. She ran a finger along a tendon that protruded from the exposed wrist, and the index finger moved with it.

"It's still flexible," she gushed. She trained the camcorder on the hand of the body, and pinched the tendon again. She laughed giddily, and realised that, as a professor of nearly forty, she should be more level-headed about this.

And then the finger moved again.

She stared. The only logical explanation was that, in the excitement, she'd imagined it. But then it twitched a second time, and the thumb moved this time, too.

She had disturbed the tendon, and it was settling back down again. Like a guitar string plucked once. That was all.

She wrapped her fingers around the wrist to stop the twitching, and felt the tendon shift beneath the skin.

She stepped back slowly, and called for Greene.

"I'm just washing plant food out," came the response, "I don't think we want it to go mouldy."

Francesca didn't reply, but stared up and down the body. The fingers weren't twitching, now, but something seemed out of place.

The mouth. It had been open, she was sure, as though gasping for just one final breath as the rock squeezed the life out from it.

It was closed now. Francesca stared at it, and rewound Lewis's footage.

And the mouth was open. She wasn't mad. The mouth had been open.

"Greene!" Francesca called again, a little more urgently, "come here!"

"What is it, Professor?" Lewis had finally managed to win his battle with the plaster, and padded over in his usual helpful manner.

"Its mouth," Francesca pointed at the frame frozen in the video, "It was open when we came in."

"It's still open," Lewis pointed at the cadaver.  The mouth hung agape, as it did in the frame.

"No, it wasn't - just now it was closed, I'm telling you -" Francesca skipped to the end of the video and began looking back for a frame of the closed mouth, "Greene!"

"I'm here," said Greene, walking out of the office, "What's the emergency?"

"I don't think it's dead."

"It's a thousand years old, Francesca, what else could it be?"

"Look!" Francesca pointed at the body's left hand as the index finger arched backwards until straight, "It moved!"

She was aware that Lewis and Greene were staring at her, rather than the hand, and breathed deeply, "Sorry. I got a bit overexcited. But if you'd just look at this frame here," she held out the camcorder, "You'll see that its mouth was closed. Whereas when we came in, it was open -"

She was interrupted by Greene's scream as the mouth snapped shut.

 "Something's interfering with the tendons," Lewis suggested calmly, "A beetle, perhaps."

"The tendons should be dried spaghetti in a body like this," Greene put a hand to her chest, "Well, Crikey. That's some preservation for you right there."

"A beetle," Francesca exhaled slowly. Of course. She could picture it, now - those few decomposers that had found the body would be well into their larval development at this stage in the dry season, big enough to push against the rehydrated tendons as they burrowed through the ancient flesh. To think, she'd got so worked up over a few beetles in a corpse. She had to hope that neither Lewis nor Greene shared the story with Carol, or she could expect years of merciless taunts.

The jaw was settling back into its original position, and Greene broke the tension in the room by spraying Francesca with the atomiser.

"I can't imagine where the undergraduates learned their impropriety from," Francesca noted. Greene laughed, and pushed past Lewis.

"Seeing as the left side's already been splashed quite extensively, I'm going to spray down one side. It's about four hours since the , so if Francesca wants to take Lewis to the nurse to have that scratch cleaned up, and we'll regroup here at about, say, half-three?"

 

***

"Sorry I'm late, Professor, one of my permits was due a renewal, and in this place -"

"You're actually on time," Francesca glanced at her watch, "And you are aware that Carol's paying a gentleman by the name of Jameson a small fortunes to keep on top of all the permits, aren't you?"

Greene waved it aside, and pushed open the door to the laboratory.

"Where's Lewis?"

"He went to the bathroom. Shall we look?"

Greene wove between the tables until they reached number 89, lying just as she'd left it.

"It's odd," she noted.

"What is?" Francesca peered through the plastic sheet.

"It moved so much while we were here, and yet the sheet hasn't shifted an inch in the four hours we've been gone."

"It only started moving after I touched it," Francesca noted, "presumably once we'd left, any larvae in there settled back down. Like jumping beans."

Greene nodded, and peeled the sheet back from the head. The body convulsed violently, and the sheet fell to the floor.

"Holy crap," Greene put a hand on her chest as she stood back, "Beetles, just beetles."

"How's it looking?" Lewis had returned.

"Lively," Greene answered, and glanced at Francesca. The Professor was silent, her face inscrutable, "Quite lively. You can see how quickly it's responded to the moisture," she indicated, from a distance, the sides of the head and neck, "We can see some more detail in the neck wound, now, and this single laceration to the shoulder looks like it was made by some sort of axe, perhaps. there's so much scar tissue it's difficult to be sure."

"Lewis, could I see your arm?" Francesca spoke distractedly. Lewis, held out his left arm, and Francesca peeled back the dressing the nurse had put over the wound."

"That's a little more than a scratch, Lewis," Greene looked over, "You do have some wonderful accidents."

There were two curved welts under Lewis' forearm. Francesca's fingers hovered over them as though she wasn't certain they were real.

"A bite from a dead man," Lewis laughed uncomfortably after a couple of moments., "It sounds like a bad omen."

Francesca stared at his arm for several long seconds of silence, and crossed over to the body.

"This wound to the neck," Francesca pointed, "how was that done?"

"It looks like a bite of some sort," Greene looked, "tore a hole in the trachea, looks like it snagged a jugular, too."

"What sort of bite?"

Greene peered.

"This really isn't my area of expertise, Professor. Carol would be much better set to identify this."

 "It's blunt, isn't it? Four incisors, two canines, and just a hint of premolars."

"It looks like an ape," Lewis supplied, craning his neck as he stuck the dressing back down.

"There are no apes resident to this island," said Greene, "perhaps a baboon, though - they are known to scavenge at bodies -"

"If it was a baboon, you'd see much deeper grooves for the canines," Lewis pointed, and the dressing flapped loose again, "and the lower marks would be more angled, almost doglike."

"There's one ape resident to these islands," said Francesca.

It was absurd. Francesca had to know that, Greene was sure, but there she was, an internationally respected professor, saying -

"You're not going to say that this man's throat was ripped out by another person."

"What sort of body can survive having its throat ripped out, its ribcage crushed, and several sharp instruments  thrust through it? Its trachea is wide open, Greene, and you're saying it scarred. And then this -" She tapped the body's cheek, and its jaws snapped shut around the air, "You're saying is beetles? If we have even a lick of sense between us all, we'll make it like the others, or better yet, burn it."

"Lewis, would you give us a moment?" Greene asked the doctorate. Lewis obligingly made his way to the door, and Greene turned to Francesca.

"You saw it convulse," said Francesca, "it's not beetles, and you know that. You have to know that."

"What you're suggesting is ludicrous," said Greene,  as quietly as she could manage, "and if you have any care for your own reputation as a scientist, you'll keep such suggestions to yourself until you have concrete proof -"

"How could I possibly need any more proof? The only way someone could not die with these injuries is if they were already dead."

"What about a tissue mutation?" Greene gesticulated wildly, "What if the cells survived in some sort of cold anaerobic state? Some sort of sustained glycolytic metabolism -"

"Do you honestly believe that a random mutation kept some poor bastard alive for a millennium despite horrific injuries, and it's just a coincidence that nearly two hundred other bodies found within five kilometres all have, in addition to a plethora of horrific injuries, massive and fatal injuries to the head?"

"This is specious," Greene snapped, "Do you know that I was excited to work with you? The great Dr van Dein, a bastion of hard science in the sea of archaelogical speculation. And here you are making fantastical claims out of a George Romero film - frankly, I'm disappointed."

Francesca stood, quietly, for a few moments, and then nodded.

"I'm sorry. I'm being irrational. Would you mind terribly if we call it a day, here?"

Greene put a hand on her shoulder and patted it lightly.

"Not at all. Lewis and I will take our notes and then lock this one safely away in a drawer. Just in case."

Francesca nodded, and left the room. Greene breathed out deeply, looked over at the body. There was a little redness on its yellow teeth, where Lewis had caught his arm earlier. It wasn't difficult to see where Francesca was coming from, but the very notion of it was so puerile that it was offensive.

She stared into the ancient face, and her gaze settled on the eye-socket. The shrivelled black disc that had occupied the bottom had swollen since the atomizer, and the shrivelled strings of muscle that once held it in place looked pinker than they had. one of them twitched as her hand moved in front of the face, and the jaws moved weakly.

The idea of it was just too ridiculous to entertain.