The Exam

It was just after dawn when Ramoos walked into the morgue. The attendant was just finishing up his exam of the now separated bundle of hearts. "Human...?" asked Ramoos. "Yeah..." he replied with a kind of guttural drawl. "How long were they there?", asked Ramoos. "Well, we're still looking at that, there seems to be some chemical preservative in these...parts." "Formalin?" "No, we're looking into that as well as we can..." "Any indication of how long these have been in the ground?" "Again, we're still looking at that. The preservative or preservatives appear to have slowed down the decay and aging of these remains. Could be weeks, could be months." "Years?" "Up to a year, I'd say." "You don't have much for me, do you? How about race, age, gender?" "That's a mix. There's definitely a child present and four adults. Two male, two female. Race, we don't know...yet."

Ramoos responded "Child..." under his breath. "Yeah, a kid." "Bastards..." "How was this...this...atrocity done?" "Well, a couple look like they were removed after death. Come over and look at these." Ramoos followed the attendant over to the exam table. "These three - you see the cut marks - were probably removed from an already deceased person, including the kid." The attendant continued, "Now see these two here, the arteries and aortas appear to be ripped. They appear to have been removed while the victims were still living..."

Ramoos just looked at the last two hearts and whispered "How...? Why...?" The attendant just stood - frozen - looking down.

A Bundle

Detective Ramoos pulled up to the scene where the emergency call had come from. There was a patrol car and an ambulance on the scene. In the background he could see some of the crew were on their knees, retching their guts out. He walked up to the one standing officer and asked "What the hell is it"? Not speaking, eyes wide open in terror and disgust. The officer took him over to the black bag. Ramoos asked, "Aren't you going to open it?". The officer just slowly shook his head back and forth several times. Then he turned away and retched. "Christ," muttered Ramoos. He then bent over the thing and pulled the zipper. The stench made him choke. He put his left hand to his mouth and nose. It was a bundle of dried out hearts. They appeared to be human, or human like. They looked dried out and covered with brown earth. They had all been severed at the major arteries. Some looked like they had been torn. They had been loosely tied together with a thin vine that he did not recognize. The vine appeared to be old, brown and somewhat dried and tough. He briefly felt a wave of nausea and coughed into his hand.

One of the EMT's had stopped retching. Ramoos approached him and asked if he was doing any better. The EMT said he felt a little better. But he wasn't going to forget this. "We'll get you therapy if you need it". "Thanks, but I think I'll be all right", responded the EMT.

"Pretty shitty find, isn't it?", asked Ramoos. "I have seen worse...but not lately", said the EMT. "Do you think that these are human remains?, asked Ramoos. "Definitely", responded the EMT. "How long do you think they've been here?", asked Ramoos. "I don't know...it could be weeks, months even, they look like they might have been, well preserved..."