Helix: Plague of Ghouls Read Online Free PDF Page B

lying chest down, and the neck was nothing but a bloody, boneless tube of loose skin.
    In that moment, Two-Trees swore he’d never stuff another turkey.
    “Where’s the head?” Two-Trees asked. His voice was half an octave too high.
    “That’s the only part unaccounted for,” Buckle replied. With the flashlight, he pointed at the bundle in the far left corner. “Remains of the left leg. Right leg is there by your foot. Pelvis over there.”
    The intestines had been strung out behind the torso, as if they’d either been teased out when the pelvis and hips were removed, or as if the victim had left them behind while he crawled.
    “Sex of the victim?”
    “Male, we figure. Jury’s out.”
    “Age? Wallet, license, library card, any identifying marks?”
    “He wasn’t a child, that’s all we know. With this amount of damage, I couldn’t hazard a guess at his age. We needed either you or the medical examiner to weigh in on it. And speaking of weighing in . . .” Buckle brought him over to the pelvic dump site. While he and Two-Trees stayed a good distance away, the technician followed her own tracks step for step, then lifted the stained sheet for them. The lump under the sheet wasn’t much more than a mash-up of torn denim, flecks of tissue, and the corner of a hip bone. “Check out the belt.”
    “What do you mean?”
    The victim had been wearing jeans with a long, worn belt the colour and texture of boiled steak.
    “Without removing it from the body, I’d have to say that thing is almost six feet long,” Buckle said. “We’ll find out more as soon as the medical examiner gives us the go ahead to move the body, but I’ve gotta say, this boy had a hell of a girth.”
    “Least of his worries now,” Two-Trees replied. “But what’s your point?”
    “If he had a sixty-inch girth . . .” Buckle shrugged. “Where is it?”
    Two-Trees nodded. “Any word yet on animal tracks?”
    “You’re thinking animals could do this?” Buckle’s lean face cracked into a dubious smile. “In Halo County?”
    The police and media claimed animals were responsible for the mayhem at Pritchard Park too.
    Two-Trees was deadpan. “A bear is an animal, so are dogs and foxes, so are wild boar, so is man . . . So yeah, an animal did it. But tracks could narrow it down to phylum and family.”
    “ . . . Sorry, down to what?”
    “What tracks did you find?” Two-Trees asked.
    “There were feet all over that scene, clawed and shod—half of them belonging to the Halo County detachment. And I do mean those tracks were everywhere. We’ve done a search of a 200-square-metre perimeter and lost count of the tracks. Clean ran out of evidence markers.”
    “But you did find animal tracks?”
    “Some scratch marks, some small paw prints—probably coyotes or raccoons or something.”
    “Did you find any evidence of . . . gnawing?”
    Buckle raised his hands. “I’m not the ME. Ask him. But if I were to offer a wild-ass guess . . . ?” Buckle frowned. “If we weighed all his . . . his leftovers . . . I doubt we could come up with enough to fill out a sixty-six inch waist band. So where’d the meat go?”
    “Animals,” Two-Trees said. He reclaimed his umbrella and stepped outside the tent. The storm was now a sullen, steady rain. “A lot of them.” He opened his umbrella.
    “You leaving?” Buckle asked. “So soon?”
    “Just when it got interesting? Hell no. But for one, I have to defer to the medical examiner. For two, I left my phone in the car. I’ll call my assistant, tell her I’m going to be here for a couple of days. Listen, it’s been a while since I’ve been in town. Can you recommend a decent hotel?”
    “Decent as in ‘not sleeping in biker body hair?’ My advice is if you’re on the clock and if you’re submitting an expense report, go with the Howard Johnson. Right downtown, four blocks from the OPP detachment, free breakfast, free Wi-Fi. All the comforts of home.”
    Two-Trees