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kadavernagh · 6 months

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Hitchhikers || Regan & Eleanor

TIMING: Current LOCATION: The morgue at the ME's Office PARTIES: Eleanor and Regan SUMMARY: Eleanor is in research mode for her novel, and she's thrilled to be invited to watch Regan conduct an autopsy so she can write an accurate medical examiner. Regan is pleased to have a curious mind to engage. But the autopsy turns out far more horrifying than Eleanor ever thought it would when things get squiggly, which is great for a horror novel, right?

After rejecting two autopsy viewing requests from people whose reasoning was “I just wanna see,” it was a refreshing change of pace to be welcoming in an author today. An author who cared about doing her due diligence to represent Regan’s profession.

When Marcy alerted her to the visitor, Regan was quick to offer her usual brisk greeting. The winter coat lacked professionalism but she would make up for it in every other way. “Dr. Kavanagh. I assume you’re Eleanor. If you’re ready, follow me.” She guided Eleanor toward the door, carded them in, and led her down the long hallway that terminated in the autopsy suite. “Did you have that breakfast we discussed?”

Death greeted her as the doors swung open, tugging her closer. Whatever had happened with Beau the other day wasn’t a constant. Right now, the death was a familiar comfort and light touch; a far cry from the smothering weight it had become before. It would need to stay that way. Yesterday she had been forced to retreat into her office in the middle of an autopsy, crushed by her surroundings, yet electrified. She couldn’t escape it, even there. Glass still needed to be swept up.

Today would need to be more favorable. Regan pointed over to the personal protective equipment and wriggled into a lab coat herself – two sizes too big so as to fit over the coat. She turned to Eleanor, explaining. “Take notes if you wish. While I haven’t made a determination yet, I selected a decedent whose death seems to be of an accidental manner. Your novel likely involves homicide, but I don’t want to bring you in on an autopsy for an ongoing investigation.” She picked up the clipboard by the autopsy table, where the cadaver was waiting patiently, already washed and ready. The body’s short, freshly-washed mop of curly hair was drying on her scalp and without contesting muscles, gravity was not kind to her face, aging the woman considerably. “I suppose I should acquaint the two of you, too. This was Martha Williams, 41 years old, Caucasian, five-foot-seven. She was found by the bushes in front of her home a couple of days ago. When I went to the scene, her state was consistent with a post-mortem interval of one to two hours. But one must never be closed off to other possibilities.” She looked between the very dead woman and the very live one. “Any questions before we begin? The waste bin is in the corner. Do not stop me if you have to vomit.”

Although Eleanor had been a nervous wreck after being offered what she considered to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, she had made sure to get a good night’s rest and, per instructions, successfully put down a good hearty breakfast. She’d always believed in doing extensive research whenever writing about subjects she wasn’t familiar with but had never been granted with such an honor before - she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.

Upon her arrival at the medical examiner’s office she was immediately made aware of the lack of living people around and while Eleanor knew full well what to expect in advance, it still gave her an eerie feeling. It wasn’t like being around the undead: they could communicate with her whereas the bodies that filled the morgue had been reduced to place holders, evidence of people who had passed onto the great unknown. More than anything the utter silence of it all caused a shiver to run down her spine.

“Yes! Hi! I had a great breakfast, thank you.” Eleanor had reached out her hand for a shake but let it drop and immediately fell into step behind Doctor Kavanagh. From their short exchange online Eleanor had picked up that the other didn’t engage in lengthy conversation so she didn’t take the clipped sentences and monotone words as an insult. She was there to be professional, not to visit a friend at their place of work, so she followed silently, her eyes wide and her ears open. She’d also tried to get a read on the pale woman and was happy to find that she seemed relaxed and mellow, moreso when they entered the actual autopsy suite. Eleanor sighed and mentally thanked the doctor for her stable mood - there would be no battling her abilities, just pleasant note taking as she had planned.

Eleanor wanted to ask about the winter coat but decided against it and obediently pulled on her own lab coat. Surely if Doctor Kavanagh wanted to explain her fashion choices she would, and if she didn’t it had absolutely no effect on why they were there in the first place. She nodded, her notepad and pen already out and scribbling furiously as the other spoke. Her eyes roamed over the body in front of her and that same shiver ran down her spine - she wasn’t frightened, it was just strange. “Yes, how were you able to determine how long she’d been dead?” Eleanor eyed the trashcan and the corners of her mouth turned up in a small smile. “I think I’ll be alright, but I’ll be careful not to bother you if I do prove to be weaker than I believe.” Returning to her notepad she asked one more question, “What about the scene makes you believe the cause of death to be accidental?”

Eleanor’s chipper attitude was bothersome, but Regan approved of her professionalism. She had clearly come ready to take notes, and if someone was going to watch an autopsy – the most intimate medical procedure one could receive, Regan thought – the observer should be getting value out of it. And Eleanor was already asking questions. Good. “We have different tools to determine PMI, depending on what stage of decomposition is occurring. In this case, rigor mortis had not even begun when the body was found, and a neighbor confirmed that she had a brief conversation with the woman only a few hours earlier. We also use body temperature. Bodies cool at a predictable rate… though influenced by many factors.” Regan reached down and wiped a couple of blow fly eggs off the woman’s cheek. The freezer had rendered them invalid, but they clung to her skin even through the bath. “Insects help, too. The flies had just found her.” Admirable little things. They were quick.

If Regan could smile, she might have. “I’ll show you.”

With practiced hands, she rolled the body into a prone position, revealing what had been invisible from their previous perspective. In the upper right quadrant of the woman’s back there was a large hole – too big to be from a bullet, and the margins were flush with blood. Regan had already stuck a ruler into the hole earlier, needing to make an early assessment of the situation. She went four inches deep before a rub pushed against the ruler, halting its progress. She suspected whatever had tunneled into the woman had gone straight into her heart. Around the hole was a series of smaller holes and places where the skin was raised and irritated concentric to, what looked like, pinhole-sized bug bites. “I could be wrong, of course, but this is suggestive of an animal. You can tell from blood that this occurred ante-mortem – that is, before death – and when the cause of death is animal-related, insect envenomation, or similar, the manner is classified as accidental.” She looked down at the holes. “Had a person done this, I would expect overt signs of a struggle. Is that what happens in your novel?”

“That said, we still must be thorough. Everyone gets a complete autopsy. Not only in case initial impressions are wrong, but because we may find something else that could be important to the family. Even beyond the decedent. Many findings have a genetic component.” It made sense to start with the woman’s back, considering everything was currently served in front of them like a feast-filled dinner plate. “I will be dictating my notes today, which will be to your benefit.” She pressed the START button on the recorder. After speaking a brief overview of the patient’s demographics and findings at the scene, she attempted to document what they were seeing. "A deep, well-defined cavity is situated in the dorsal upper right quadrant, approximately 4 inches in depth and two inches in diameter. Consistent with a traumatic or penetrating injury, suspected from an animal, with clean edges and no evidence of irregular tearing or avulsion. Upon examination, the depth of the cavity is noted to extend beyond the subcutaneous tissue, reaching into the underlying musculature." She turned to Eleanor. “When we open her, we will be able to know precisely how deep it goes.” Regan continued, next describing the smaller surrounding wounds. “What do these look like to you?”

Eleanor hardly had time to look up from her notes when Regan started to throw information at her left and right and her hand flew across the notepad as she tried to keep up, her tongue poked out past her lips in concentration. She hadn’t even had time to truly feel intimidated, though she was sure that would come at some point, because she’d been immediately tossed into the thick of it. While her hand continued to scribble messily she looked up when Regan rolled the body over and sucked in a quick breath while her eyebrows knitted together. What could have possibly made that hole? She’d wanted to ask, but there would be no point since that was the reason they were there, to find out what exactly had happened.

“Since you mentioned you could tell from the blood whether an injury occurred before or after death, how soon after one dies does blood flow stop entirely? And is it true that you can tell what position a person was in when they died by the amount of blood pooled into a certain area of their body?” Eleanor was certainly out of her comfort zone and thought it best to ask as many questions as she could since up to the point her main form of information on the subject had been true crime podcasts and TV shows. She wanted to know the truth from someone who actually worked in the field and didn’t just make content for the masses. She nodded in response to Regan’s question. “Yes, in my novel there will be signs of struggle - wounds on the hands, among other things, to show that the victims attempted to defend themselves.” She was glad to hear that the notes would be recorded because it meant that Regan would be sure to thoroughly explain everything for the recorder, if not for Eleanor herself.

Something about the way the phrase “when we open her” sounded made Eleanor’s hand pause for a brief moment before she went back to scribbling down her notes. It amazed her how calm Regan was and had to remind herself that this was something she probably did nearly every day, the shock had more than likely worn off long ago. She glanced at the doctor for a brief moment as though making sure it was alright for her to approach the table and took a long, close look at the wounds on the corpse’s back. “They look to me like bite marks. So, would whatever did this have gone inside of her or just taken a couple chunks out?” She was sure she knew the answer but, again, wanted to be thorough.

After the tumultuous couple of weeks Regan was having, Eleanor’s questions were music to her ears. They reignited her sense of professionalism and expertise when she was not feeling as though she understood much of anything at all. She wasn’t sure what the right way forward was – staying or leaving – or if she could have any semblance of a say on the matter. But death, she knew; death, she could speak on. “Blood flow stops immediately, technically, but it takes about fifteen to twenty minutes for that to become physically apparent. You’re referring to a process called livor mortis. When the blood stops flowing, it moves toward gravity-dependent regions of the body, causing a sort of… redfish-blue coloring of the skin. This is said to become “fixed” after about 6 to 8 hours, and can be informative for both post-mortem interval and how the body was positioned.” Regan gave the decedent’s back an amiable tap. “You won’t be seeing any livor here. She wasn’t left out long enough, and the freezer spared her most of it. But she was found prone, like this, and her shirt was full of holes. Much like her back.”

She noticed Eleanor seemed to hesitate for a moment. She was doing well. Many could not tolerate this much. But that jolt of a pause spoke to her nerves, or thoughts. Regan was pleased that Eleanor was able to quickly regain her focus, keeping it where it ought to be. “I also believe them to be bite marks.” And her question was a good one. The smaller marks were not very deep – it looked more like an animal had been sampling the skin, or had decided there were too many obstacles in those locations – the scapulae, or the spine, for instance. The large hole in the middle, though, was clearly an entrance wound. The way the skin peeled inward was indicative of that. And much like a gunshot wound, Regan would have expected more of a stellate pattern had something come out there instead. “I don’t see a clear exit wound. But it could have come out the same hole it created to go in.” And if not… well, Regan wasn’t sure what they’d find inside of this woman. But whatever it was, her fingers itched with anticipation. She nodded toward Eleanor as if to say they were done back here, and then carefully rolled the decedent back into a supine position. For a second, she felt something. Like some force inside of the body resisting the movement. Pushing against her hands. Regan denied the thought; it made no sense.

What other opportunities could she provide Eleanor? If it was for the good of this book, for the good of scientific accuracy and literacy among the fiction-loving general public… a thought occurred to her. Regan reached for the dead woman’s hand; the fingers were stiff but not set in rigor. “Have you ever touched a decedent before?” She asked Eleanor, her eyes inviting. It was obvious why she was asking. “Only if you want, and only her hand.”

“Livor mortis…” Eleanor repeated under her breath as she hastily paraphrased the doctor's informative words. There was another wave of satisfaction that came from Regan, though not much of anything else, and it kept the empath focused and ready to learn more - there were no sudden changes in mood, no overwhelming feelings of sadness or anxiety. Regan, she realized, was just as easy to be around as the undead. “Have there been any other deaths that were common to this, or is this the first to have these kinds of wounds?” In her novel the medical examiners would notice a trend when it came to the victims’ wounds so it made sense to her to ask if the strange holes in the woman’s clothes and back had ever been seen before. Eleanor felt the doubt behind Regan’s words more than heard them. She didn’t like the idea of whatever had burrowed into the woman still being inside of her, but because she didn’t want to make her host regret allowing her to witness the autopsy she kept her concerns to herself and simply nodded along as Regan spoke.

Once again Eleanor was pulled from her notes and stared straight at Regan with wide eyes. “No, never.” She remembered vividly that awful funeral she’d been forced to go to for a relative of one of her foster families. She’d never met the man, didn’t know anything about him except for the things people said about him during the service, but she’d been told she had to be in attendance because her babysitter had canceled. Already terrified, she had had a panic attack upon viewing the body since it was her first time seeing a dead body and her first time not being able to get a read on someone. She was fine with observing from a few feet away but could she honestly handle physically touching the cold hand in front of her?

Of course she could if it meant being able to obtain accurate information for her novel. As she nodded she reached out with the hand that still clutched her pen and, ignoring the way it shook, lightly brushed her fingers along the back of the woman’s cold, dead flesh. Curiosity gripped her then, stronger than it’d been before, and her mouth pulled down at the corners as she made to hold the woman’s hand. Had she imagined it or had the body reacted to her touch? But that wasn’t possible, of course, the woman had been found dead, not to mention had been living in a freezer for the past couple of hours.

“Did you see -” Eleanor started to ask but was cut off by another convulsion. She immediately pulled back, her eyes fixed on the supposedly dead woman. “Tell me you saw it too.”

“I haven’t had any other decedents with wounds quite like this, though it’s possible Dr. Rickers – the other forensic pathologist here – has. I expect he would have told me, though. He tells me… everything.” Far too much. “Communication is important; it can be the only way we notice patterns. They’re… unusual wounds. Not the strangest I’ve seen, not even close, but they demand answers.” Regan presumed Eleanor had a good reason for asking about that, whether simple curiosity or a literary purpose. Either way, she would continue to entertain questions. Eleanor has been exceptionally polite in how she asked, never objectifying the body she was learning from or making rude remarks about Regan’s profession. Like calling her a coroner. The woman had seemingly done enough research to know not to do that. She was, all things considered, a model attendee. And Regan was interested in seeing how she would fair with the invitation she’d extended.

Everyone responded differently to touching death, even seeing it, whether it was a bird that flew into their window or their grandmother’s wake. Regan had observed people shy away, averting their eyes like death was the ugliest thing one could possibly look in the face. Others had childlike curiosity, understanding very clearly that the cadaver before them was no longer a person, and what remained was something worthy of both fascination and respect. Others yet simply voided their stomach. Eleanor was affected in some way, but Regan couldn’t tell if her reluctance was born out of some innate fear or distaste of death, or the humbling that inevitably came with confronting it so plainly. Regan believed that no one should be seeing a loved one as their first dead body. To be able to separate death from grief pulled back the veil, and allowed people to understand that it was not something to be feared. Too often it was entangled with a sense of loss.

But as Eleanor reached for the dead woman’s hand, something… rippled inside of the cadaver. Regan’s eyes snapped to her torso, where it seemed like the skin had shuddered. It was still now, like nothing happened. Had Eleanor somehow managed to do that when she’d made contact? Had it been in the way she’d gripped her hand? She seemed just as surprised, if not more. Regan swallowed back her uncertainty, knowing she was the authority here. For multiple reasons. “I saw it.” Despite the cool composure in her voice, her eyes widened and she found herself straightening up, readying herself for something. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen a cadaver seem to move. Though past incidents could be explained by her asfís bháis, this was also witnessed by Eleanor. So… maybe it was the first time. “Sometimes cadavers become so bloated, the gas – it can make noise, cause some motion. But…” …But the cadaver in question had not yet reached the bloat stage of decomposition.

With a sickening squelching sound, something long exploded out of the dead woman’s stomach. Scraps of skin flew across the room, coagulated blood spattered across Regan’s face shield, and a hissing, snapping noise filled the room. For a second, she wondered if she had done this. It was in line with – but no, they weren’t alone. She quickly noticed the writing creature on the floor, snaking closer and closer to their feet. It had a perfectly round jaw set with rows of serrated teeth, attached to a long, fleshy, pink body that was covered in bits of viscera. The shade reminded Regan of Teagan’s skin. Eugh. Regan’s slow heart quickened when she realized they needed to do something. This had obviously been the cause of those wounds. And right now, it seemed more interested in the two of them than going back to snack on her decedent.

“Behind me,” Regan said, though she didn’t exactly have a plan. Screaming was out. But – right, she had everything she needed right here. Her eyes flashed to the table. Of course. Her hand darted down and her fingers frantically clenched onto the bone saw’s handle.

By that point Eleanor was taking notes so quickly that her hand was a blur as it raced across her notepad. She was overjoyed by the amount of unrestricted information that Regan shared and admired the woman even more for the amount of work that she did, but the admittance that the wounds the Williams woman had sustained weren’t nearly as strange as others that had come through the morgue stumped her for a moment. She wondered what could possibly be stranger than bite marks around an open wound that appeared to have been burrowed in. It certainly wasn’t anything that she’d ever heard of before but, then again, she didn’t spend a whole lot of time around or inspecting dead bodies.

Gas, right. Regan was the expert, she literally did this every day, but still Eleanor couldn’t stop herself from thinking that something wasn’t right. Gas was a perfectly acceptable excuse, especially since she herself had no way of actually identifying whatever had caused the strange ripple, so for a brief moment she simply nodded and tried to bury her head in her notes again, trying to convince herself that she’d just witnessed something unsettling but completely normal. Honestly, what were the odds that something not normal would happen on the day that she’d been promised a thorough walk through of the autopsy process? Eleanor believed that she had some really bad luck but it couldn’t have been that bad.

She hardly had time to react to the awful noise that filled the room because of the explosion that accompanied it. Letting out a bloodcurdling scream, Eleanor dropped her notepad and pen and held her arms up over her head in a failed attempt to protect herself from the blood and skin. “Can gas do that?” She dropped her arms to try and get a glimpse at the state of the body but her eyes went straight to a large worm-like creature on the ground that had started to move toward them. For a split second that felt like an hour she wanted to simply drop onto the ground right where she was in a dead faint, but the realization that that would put her closer to the creature’s teeth kept her upright. Regan’s voice helped clear the fog that had started to fill her mind and Eleanor responded immediately, jumping behind the other woman without a second thought; she noticed immediately how Regan had been stirred from the dead-like state she’d been in since they’d met. “What the hell is that thing? It’s just been sitting inside of her this whole time?!” Again, she was by no means an expert, but she thought that a giant flesh-eating worm would have been pretty hard to miss and the thought that they’d been so close to it the entire time made her sick to her stomach.

“That wasn’t a very impressive scream, you kn–” The snapping of the worm’s jaws cut Regan off and reminded her that her scream queen status was not the most pressing matter right now. The bone saw was tight in her hands and the worm writhed across the floor with carnivorous intent, swerving a trail through the decedent’s splattered blood and flesh. It didn’t have eyes – at least from what Regan could see – but nonetheless seemed to be angling itself toward them, like it otherwise sensed them. She would not let it harm Eleanor. The woman was under her supervision right now. And she preferred her patients dead on arrival. “It’s a– I mean, it looks like a worm.” That was obvious. Eleanor probably hoped Regan knew a little more than that. But it wasn’t like her patients were full of worms that sprung out in the middle of an autopsy.

Her lungs banged with a sensation of fullness, of panic. Something crying to come out. One look at Eleanor’s giant eyes and trembling bones was all it took for her to gulp it back down and remind herself to be stone. She was as dead as Williams, or at least she needed to strive to be, and Williams, in death,was not subjected to such shameful emotion. Regan would not be either. Why should she fear a worm? It was a worm. And she was a force of nature. In a swift motion, Regan lunged forward, the saw making a clean slice through the center of the creature before it could jump at her or squirm out of the way. She allowed herself a moment of victory; it warmed her, and she looked to Eleanor with satisfaction that was only absent a smile.

Both halves of the worm squirmed, a clear fluid spurting across the floor. But then they turned, both of them, the motion catching Regan’s eyes again. And where there should have been a clear bisection, the worm’s layers of flesh and innards visible, there was instead another row of glistening teeth. “Lámhaigh.” Regan muttered. This was the first time a bone saw had ever caused a problem for her. She was filled with the dreadful realization that it would only create further problem if she tried that again. Was this some sort of replication? She scanned the room dizzyingly, looking for a solution. Her scared companion would be no help. This was not what she had signed up for. Maybe next time Regan should add the possibility of this happening to those autopsy attendance consent forms. “Okay, forget the saw,” Regan said, setting it frantically aside. She didn’t even want to tempt herself to take another swipe at it. “The bag! Can you get the body bag?” It was off to the side, closer to Eleanor, and the two worms were rounding on both of them like a pair of hunting wolves. “You have to reach it. Move. I do not want to autopsy you yet. So stop being a scared thing and help yourself.”

Had she not been more terrified than she’d probably ever been in her life Eleanor might have spent more time questioning Regan’s judgment toward her scream, but since an alien-looking worm was inching its way toward the two of them she decided that it could wait until they weren’t about to be devoured by a creature from the most twisted of nightmares. “You’ve never seen this before?!” She wasn’t sure what kind of response she’d expected, but it didn’t make her feel better to know that this wasn’t something the other had experience dealing with. How the hell do you always find yourself in the middle of these kinds of situations? It was a question she’d found herself asking a lot recently. When Regan lunged forward Eleanor closed her eyes tightly, not wanting to witness a murder firsthand. When she opened them again she was surprised to find the medical examiner in one piece but the worm in two.

“Are you crazy?” It was the first thing Eleanor could think to yell until she realized that Regan’s quick, although foolish, thinking had probably saved their lives or at the very least allowed them a few extra minutes. “You’re crazy but kinda amazing.” But the feeling of terror bubbled up inside of her again as she realized that the fight was not over - the two halves didn’t seem ready to give up just yet. “M-move?” That was the last thing she wanted to do. Whenever it came to fight or flight she’d always defaulted to the third and most pathetic of the responses in her opinion: freeze. Her mouth went dry and her heart beat so quickly in her chest that she thought she might actually be in danger of a heart attack. “I really don’t think I can…” She managed to tear her eyes away from the worm and located the body bag, pleased to find that it wasn’t nearly as far away from her as she’d thought, but she’d still have to risk moving from where she’d firmly planted her feet. Eleanor shook her head quickly and wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. This wasn’t the kind of thing she did, she wasn’t someone who could just muster up the courage to face off with something from a horror novel -

A horror novel! Wasn’t that the whole reason she was there? She needed inspiration and, in a terrible turn of events, she’d found herself in a horror novel. What would the main character of her story do? She sure as hell wouldn’t cower in the corner and hope that whenever the monster eventually got to her it wouldn’t prolong the process and save her from feeling too much pain. She’d get the damn body bag and follow any other orders thrown her way. Without thinking, otherwise she might convince herself again not to do it, Eleanor reached for the bag and missed by inches, stumbled, then reached again and found purchase, yanking it roughly so that she could return to her position behind Regan. She shoved it into the doctor’s arms and tried to stop herself from hyperventilating. “Please tell me… you have a plan… an actual plan.”

The worms twisted, still leaking fluid all over the shiny floor, and Regan didn’t wait to wait around to learn what they would do when they reached them. Maybe they couldn’t do anything. Or maybe they’d bore through flesh and muscle and bone, burrowing inside just as they had with Williams. So Eleanor needed to move. But the woman was looking to Regan to know what to do. And as clueless as Regan felt about this situation, she was determined to earn that status and recognition. If Eleanor thought her competent enough to handle even this – and she was right – then by Fates, she needed to step up.

She frowned. She was not crazy. But the compliment was acceptable and now did not seem like the proper time to argue. “The plan is to put the bag over the worms and get rid of it before they chew through it. Sound sufficient?” Regan wasn’t sure it was. She also wasn’t completely sure she wanted to get rid of it. Actually, she had another thought about that. Amazingly, Eleanor listened. Regan must have done something right. The body bag was shoved into her hands with a loud crinkle, and she realized that it was now on her to do what needed to be done. No further help from Eleanor, then. That was fine. Regan’s lungs tightened and she tried to summon the cool composure she knew she needed. What was a worm, anyway? Nothing. It was nothing, yet it dared to interrupt an autopsy. Any remnants of fear twisted into disdain, and Regan pounced before she could second guess.

She ended up on the floor. The bag was successfully slammed over both worms, but one of them was sticking out from under the edge, writhing and far stronger than it looked, like it was made only of muscle. Regan buckled at the force but didn’t let herself get thrown off. She slapped the tail end of the creature and through what was probably dumb luck alone, it worked to get it stuffed into the bag. Now she had them both trapped. But the opening was against the floor. It was like trapping a spider under a glass, right? If she could just… in one swift motion, Regan swooped the bag to the side, and she could feel the two masses tumbling down to the bottom. She clenched the neck of the bag with her fist, and gave Eleanor a startled, incredulous look. It worked?

For now.

Two violently wriggling worms pushed against the bag in her hands, and she wasn’t sure they had very long. She managed to clumsily tie it shut. “Open the fridge door! The empty one that Williams was in.” She pointed to the right section. Eleanor better not pontificate about this. “If you do not open it, you might as well tell me your medical history now so I can start writing your autopsy file in my head.” There. With a deep hiss, the door opened and Regan had never been so glad to see a completely empty compartment before. What was usually a disappointment was now to their benefit.

In, with a thud, went the animated bag. Eleanor wasted no time closing the fridge, which was good. Learning.

Regan immediately twisted the thermostat down as low as it went. “If the cold doesn’t kill them, I will.” A glance to the gleaming set of tools by the table, and the bone saw she did not get to use today. She realized her breath was catching in her throat and her heart was pounding. Now, she could feel panic receding even if she hadn’t allowed herself to feel the actual panic. Regan swallowed, looking from the closed fridge to Eleanor. “They’re not, um, all… like that, you know. For your book.”

Eleanor had a lot of concerns regarding Regan’s plan, most of all how they were going to carry it out without losing a limb or two, but because she didn’t want to annoy the doctor with her questioning she decided to remain silent and nod along. Anyhow, she was distracted by the almost tangible shift in atmosphere as Regan apparently simply decided that she would no longer be fearful of the things in front of them - it was like nothing the empath had ever witnessed before and it left her confused, impressed, and in awe all at the same time. Swaying nervously on her feet, Eleanor tried to tap into Regan’s confidence thinking that even if it was fabricated it was better than being scared out of her mind and of no help whatsoever.

She forced herself to watch the entire struggle and silently swore that if things looked as though they weren’t going in Regan’s favor that she would jump in and do… something, but she wouldn’t just stand there and let the person who’d given her such an amazing opportunity get brutally mauled by an alien-thing. But as it turned out Regan was a lot better at wrangling the worms underneath the body bag than apparently even she’d anticipated. Keeping her promise of acting and not speaking, and Regan’s threat of immediate death at the forefront of her mind, she quickly followed her orders of opening the fridge, everything moving too quickly for her to fully process it in the moment, and slammed the door shut with all of her body weight.

Her back still against the fridge and her breathing ragged, Eleanor slowly slid down to the floor. She focused all of her attention on trying to get her hands to stop shaking, then her legs, her shoulders… “How the hell - why does this kind of stuff happen to me? Am I really that big a magnet for trouble?” She let out a choked laugh, somewhere between impressed and annoyed that the only thing Regan seemed to really be concerned about was how her autopsies might be portrayed in a fictional novel. “I’ll take your word for it. I think I’ve had my fill for the time being. But I am very concerned because where did they come from? Are there more?! How are you not just a little more freaked out?” She tried to take a moment to rest but gave up on trying to get her breathing back under control. “What’re you gonna do with those things? I’m sure it’s not lost on you, but we almost just died - you’re not serious about trying to kill them yourself, are you?”

With the danger (probably) passed and self-preservation instincts being quelled, Eleanor was overcome with the type of full body panic Regan herself had once been prone to (no – that was someone else). She looked down at Eleanor, her gloved hand itching to reach out, but it did not. The whole display was embarrassing – for Eleanor – and Regan felt pangs of something meant to be long-forgotten. “You? You think this happened because you were here?” She raised a brow. Humans were terrible at understanding that the universe did not work in such a way. Most banshees would handwave it by saying it happened because it was fated to happen. Regan chalked this one up to a random present from the universe. Wrong place, wrong time. Though Williams was even worse off than Eleanor in that respect. “This town has a way of bringing out the most unfortunate of experiences. By staying here, you resign yourself to that. Consider this one of them.” She ushered Eleanor up and away from the door so she could drag a desk in front of it (with some difficulty). “Just, uh, to be safe,” she explained, grunting as it pushed in front of the door.

Where there was one, there might be more. This seemed like something to ask Kaden about, if she could tolerate it. Right now, though, she did not need Eleanor telling the entire town that the worms were taking over. She realized that, to Eleanor, this had been a life-or-death experience. Oh. She had been primarily concerned with her decedents (and, fine, Eleanor), barely even considering the potential for her own death. “We were not going to die.” But she also knew all too well how quickly the tides could change. And despite her confidence, she could feel her own muscles relaxing. They had been pulled more tense than she’d realized. “I don’t get freaked ou–”

There was a hollow thwap as something thrashed against the metal door of the refrigerator… from the inside. Regan’s spine stiffened, and she forced her expression to calm before it contradicted what she had almost just said. “I - don’t worry about how. But when I kill it and understand it, I will preserve a cross section for you. You have earned it. You must come back for another autopsy, though. They are not… this hasn’t happened before. It will not again.” Probably.

Another thwap.

She needed Eleanor gone before the worms managed to escape. And also before she could actually proceed with worm-icide… or attempt to. In the meantime, Williams was decomposing on the table. And Eleanor continued to display a hive-inducing amount of emotions. “These old fridges, you know, they – um, why don’t you go write up what you’ve learned before you forget it?” Regan gave Eleanor a gentle nudge toward the door that left no room for interpretation; she was being dismissed. “Except for the worms. Leave those out. No need to include them in your story. Oh, but be sure to sign out with Marcy at the front desk before you leave. She has coupons for therapy sessions.”

#c eleanor #writing

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