Part
9
The
lady takes us to a closed door on the second floor, at the end of the house,
overlooking a patio. Only the Doctor and I enter while the distraught looking housekeeper
retreats downstairs. I am not prepared for the sight I see.
Doctor
Okur is the first to step into the room. As I step beside him the scene comes
into full view. The double pane window is open, overlooking both the back yard
and the great stretch of tree-line in the distance. The light is dim at this
early hour, with the open window facing Westward. Dr. Okur switches on the
overhead light, illuminating the scene.
A
desk, piled with papers, sits against the window sill: blood splattered. Red
gore sprayed across the room, dripping from the ceiling, the light, over the
desk full of papers, splashed on all four walls of the office. The carpet is
soaked.
The corpse of the man lay supine in the center of the room, facing the
ceiling, with a contorted expression of death forced upon his face.
His
eyes are still open. The entrails of Mr. Marouko are missing, mostly. Some of
his intestines have been strewn about the room with the rest of the gore, but
for the most part have been eaten, along with the majority of his vital organs.
Even the heart is missing from the rib-cage.
Flies
buzz in the small office, swarming the raw meat on the floor. The legs, arms, skull, all have long rips in the flesh.
“Sometimes,”
Dr. Okur begins to speak, more out of discomfort rather than to address me.
“Sometimes you have to wear many hats in this profession. Today . . . today we
are investigators.” He finishes his remarks without taking his eyes off of the
dead.
I
begin scanning the room as a reaction to the word ‘investigator.’ I hadn’t
noticed the complete destruction, only the carnage. Picture frames are shattered;
ornaments on the wall have fallen; a standing mirror is broken and the two of
us are standing on the broken bits. I hadn’t noticed.
A
large section of plaster broke off from one of the walls, with a large crack
fissuring from the place of impact, about mid-height. Something else screams at
me from the disarray: claw marks. Claws have scratched the carpet, leaving long
trails of torn rug. A few spots on the walls have similar long streaks. I’ve
never seen such huge scratches, like a bear marking a tree. And fur everywhere.
Clumps of brown curls lay matted in blood while the deceased himself is found
with tufts of hair in both hands.
“What
the hell happened?” I couldn’t, nay still can’t, find words to describe the
horror, the animalistic ferocity, of what I saw. It is terrifying.
Dr. Okur is too occupied in taking
photos with his digital camera to acknowledge me. I don’t even think he hears
me in such a chaotic room.
“Help
me flip the body” is his only response.
I
grab a hold of the legs while the Doctor grabs a hold of the shoulders; with
one quick heave we turn the body over. I can see clear through the abdomen, to
the man’s spine, as we flip his carcass. The floor underneath this poor soul is
stained in blood. I later find out there is something peculiar about this body
which I failed to notice. Having lived in Africa for several years, and
practicing medicine in the bush, Dr. Okur is familiar with animal attacks. He
did not seem as interested in the overall mess as I had, since he has seen
several incidents of big cats trapped in a bedroom. What is most peculiar to
the Doctor about this scene, about this animal attack, is the lack of puncture
marks. What the Doctor later explains to me is the fact that he isn’t too
mystified by the lack of bite marks or puncture wounds on the body, per say,
but specifically puncture wounds to the neck.
“You
see, big cats kill with a single bite. They attack the throat, try to sever the
spinal cord.” Dr. Okur explains to me. “Hyenas will eat their prey alive, from
any piece that comes off in their mouth: like land sharks . . . The little girl didn’t have bite marks
either, but her throat was ripped out—perhaps in the nature of big cat
predation.” He shifts uneasily in his seat, bowing his head for the rest of his
remark. “But what is so peculiar about this case is the lack of a puncture wound to the neck. Mr. Maroukou was alive during
the struggle.”
“What
are we dealing with?”
The
Doctor’s response is low and grave. “A man-eater.”
Anthony Farentino
©Tonyfsketches
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