AUTOPSY
2,350 feet below the surface
“There’s a body down here,” Milo shouted to the others, trying to keep the adrenaline-fueled warble from his voice. The back of his shoulders and head hurt; he’d jolted himself back six feet and into a boulder after first encountering the desiccated corpse.
“A what?” Joanne shouted from above, her voice distant and echoing. “I can barely hear you—did you say you found a body?”
Sucking in a long, slow breath, Milo closed his eyes for a moment, willing the shock to subside in his twitching limbs. Opening them again, he slowly scanned the entire room from end to end. No other ghoulish surprises revealed themselves—but he did catch glimpses of metal and cloth fragments half-buried in the muddy floor. Milo forced himself to look again at the cadaver, illuminating the hollow-eyed mummy in harsh yellow light. The instinctual fear began to fade, replaced by an increasing sense of curiosity. Before he knew it, Milo had shifted back to his hands and knees and approached the body with careful consideration, swiveling his head up and around to take in all angles. Stones jostled from the other end of the chamber as the others approached. His attention diverted, Milo let the body once again disappear into pure, unspoiled darkness.
Joanne emerged from a small, angular crevice in the far wall. As the cave guide stopped to survey the room, Bridget pushed her way past, rushing to Milo’s side.
“Are you okay?” she asked, patting at his arms and legs, checking for broken bones or bloody patches. It was all he could do to not pull himself away—her touch felt electric.
Dale emerged last. “Milo!” he exclaimed. “We’re going to have to put a bell on you—that was quite a tumble.”
“I’m okay, really.” Milo gave them a wry smile. “I hit a slick section on the way over the bridge, slid off the edge. The only thing damaged is my pride.”
“Not exactly,” corrected Joanne, frowning as she surveyed the chaotic, muddy trail where Milo had tumbled. The fragile calcite straws had taken the worst of it, hundreds snapped like twigs and scattered in every direction. Milo reddened as he looked at the scene. She was right, of course; in one clumsy moment he’d irreparably wrecked an ancient natural formation.
“I’m really sorry,” said Milo.
“Oh, leave him alone,” said Dale. “There’s a whole cave of that stuff.”
Joanne issued a stifled harrumph. “I suppose it does happen on occasion—better than breaking your neck. So where is this body?”
Milo didn’t answer but simply swiveled his head toward the corner of the chamber, illuminating the pale, dry skin of the corpse. The figure leaned upright against the wall, impossibly thin from the mummification process. Its skeletal hands were palms-up, knees to chest, head angled with a mouth yawning open like a silent scream.
“Good lord!” said Dale, taken aback. “You weren’t kidding!”
Neither Bridget nor Joanne gasped, but instead intently stared at the body from a distance.
“It’s quite ghastly,” admitted Joanne. “But I suppose we ought to look around a bit, make sure we’re not trampling a larger archaeological site.”
“Way ahead of you,” said Dale, slowly making his way around the room-sized chamber. Milo joined him and the pair quickly began to identify other evidence—fabric scraps, rusty nails, even a stick of rotten wood.
“It was a camp,” concluded Bridget as she picked up the surviving half of a corroded tent peg.
Milo wondered if the camp had been washed away by a flood—being on higher ground, the mummy could have survived unscathed.
“Should I have the next team retrieve the body?” asked Dale. “Take him home for identification and a proper burial?”
Joanne cleared her throat. “A recovery is certainly within the realm of possibility,” she said. “But it won’t be a pretty process—they’d likely have to break him—or her—into pieces for the smaller passages.”
“At least he’s dried out,” mused Dale. “That’ll make it a lot easier. Let’s table this for now; I’d like to get Duck on the radio first.”
As the rest waited, Dale grabbed his walkie-talkie and tried to reach Duck. No response came, and the device didn’t so much as crackle with interference.
“There’s too much rock,” said Joanne. “You’ll never reach him from here.”
“Let’s get a little closer and try again,” said Dale, gesturing for the cave guide to follow him back into the crevice passageway. “Joanne—come with me. Milo and Bridget, you can probably hang tight, we’ll be back presently.”
Dale and Joanne disappeared, leaving Milo and Bridget in silence.
“Guess it’s just you and me,” he said.
Bridget just nodded. A pause fell between them. “Did you know we’ve been awake and active for nineteen straight hours?” she finally said.
“No. I guess I haven’t kept track. I don’t even feel tired.”
“It’s the darkness,” said Bridget. “Disrupts the circadian rhythms. Without outside regulation, cavers find their cycles elongating . . . they’ll work for days without rest, then sleep for twelve, eighteen, even twenty-four hours straight.”
“That’s actually pretty cool.”
“Yeah.” Bridget sighed. “But it comes with a price. Weakened immune system, reduced mental acuity, even auditory and visual hallucinations over time.”
“I suppose you’ll have to keep an eye on that, Doc. I’ll let you know if I start hearing voices.”
Bridget chuckled as she fished a digital camera and latex gloves out of her backpack.
“Document everything,” she ordered, handing him the compact Nikon as she turned back toward the mummy. “May as well do a little investigation while we’re waiting. We’ll keep it basic—anthropological autopsies are not my specialty—but best get a rudimentary examination done before Joanne and Dale start sawing the poor thing to pieces.”
With that, the doctor shuffled over toward the body, gingerly touching the face and appendages as she learned in for a closer look. She gently pressed the figure’s skeletal knees apart, aiming her light down the exposed belly to the crotch.
“Well,” said Bridget. “He’s naked. And he’s definitely male. Remarkable state of preservation; likely due to the consistent temperature and humidity.”
“Was he stripped postmortem?” asked Milo.
“Hard to say,” mused Bridget, shaking her head. “Could be any number of reasons why we found him in this state. Maybe he burned his clothes for the light, or maybe someone needed his clothes more than he did. Could have even been paradoxical disrobing . . . in the final stages of hypothermia, victims oftentimes strip themselves naked and burrow. Let’s see if I can find cause of death.”
Bridget gently pressed against the chest, pelvis, spine, and skull of the naked mummy, probing for clues.
“Ah,” she said, finding a soft spot on the side of the skull, where dry, peeling skin covered a baseball-sized lattice of shattered bone.
“His head was caved in,” said Milo, observing as her gloved fingers sank into the spongy wound.
“It would appear so,” said Bridget. “But I can’t tell much more . . . could have been an accident or violence. I don’t see any defensive wounds on the arms.”
“It’s definitely not Lord DeWar,” asserted Milo.
“I agree,” said Bridget, eyeing him quizzically. “But what makes you so sure?”
“The chin,” said Milo, pointing at the yawning lower jawline. “DeWar had a very prominent chin. The rest of the proportions are all wrong as well. Maybe one of his men?”
“Probably not—take a closer look at the eyes,” said Bridget, using a pen to probe the depth of the empty socket. Milo made a mental note to bag the pen at the earliest opportunity; Bridget had a bad habit of chewing on the ends.
“What am I looking for?” asked Milo.
“The skin is withered, but you can still see the epicanthic fold,” answered Bridget. “But he doesn’t appear to have any Khoisan or Malagasy features. If I were to make an educated guess, I’d say this man was likely Asian.”
Milo rocked back and forth on his heels in consideration. “To the best of my knowledge, there were no Asian men in Lord DeWar’s party,” he said, frowning. “A few Europeans and a number of African porters, that’s it. Can you date the body?”
“He’s definitely not black or European, and I can’t date the body with what I have on hand,” said Bridget. “Mummies are tricky that way, and I think we’ve already reached the limits of my ad hoc autopsy.”
As Milo mentally processed the new information, Bridget retrieved the Nikon and continued taking photos. Silence fell between them again, leaving Milo feeling more than a little useless.
“It’s hard for me to see you again,” Bridget finally said, punctuating the stillness. She didn’t look at him when she said it, didn’t even put the camera down.
“Then why did you vouch for me?” asked Milo, finally uttering the question that had plagued his thoughts for hours. “Would I be here without you?”
“No,” Bridget answered after a long silence. “But when I found out that Lord Riley DeWar was the subject of Dale’s next expedition, I insisted he bring you onboard as the group historian. I know what DeWar meant to you, how he almost wrecked your career.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I don’t know. I just wanted to keep things professional; I don’t want you to think you owe me anything. We’ve put each other through enough shit already. But I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t give you a second chance at finding DeWar.”
A heavy wave of guilt passed over Milo. He didn’t know what to say. The silence turned long, too long.
It’s hard for me to see you again.
She’d dropped the weight on him as though she’d carried it since their last goodbyes so many years previous. She clearly still cared about him despite everything he’d done. He most certainly cared for her, and no amount of time could truly erase their shared history, volatile as it was.
Another wave of repressed guilt washed over him. He’d hurt her before, and his very presence was hurting her again. It was unfair—he’d been in a position of power, her classroom instructor. Any of the comforting thoughts he’d clung to—that she initiated, that they’d desperately loved each other—was just crass self-justification. At the end of day, she was not the better for having him in her life.
“Thank you,” Milo finally whispered. “And I’m sorry—sorry for everything.”
Before she could respond, footsteps and light echoed from the passageway as the returning party crossed the natural bridge above. Soon Charlie and Isabelle emerged from the crevice, followed by Dale, Joanne, and Logan.
“They were easy to find,” announced Dale. “They were already on their way down the anthill.”
“Whoa,” said Charlie as he caught a glimpse of the body for the first time. “That guy is gnarly.”
Joanne chuckled and moved to the back of the group, stooping down to probe at the metallic objects and cloth scattered across the floor, examining them one by one.
“What’s the verdict?” asked Dale excitedly. “Have we found our missing man?”
“It’s not DeWar,” announced Bridget, wiping under an eye with one hand. “But I can’t tell much more at this point.”
“Why this room?” mused Dale. “I see no water sources, no shelter, and it would have been easy to find a way out, even in the dark.”
“Maybe the sheltering instinct,” said Logan. “Every animal tries to find a hole to curl up in when it knows it’s going to die.”
“At least it’s not a complete waste of time,” said Isabelle, though clearly unhappy. She trained her camera on the body. “That . . . thing . . . could make for some decent footage, but we’d probably have to blur the face for basic cable.”
“I could pose with it.” Charlie scratched at his prickly stubble in consideration. “Bridget—hand over the camera, I’m going to act like I’m photographing the find.”
Bridget just rolled her eyes and refused to move or hand Charlie the Nikon.
“It’s likely not a member of his party either,” added Milo. “I hope this isn’t a disappointment.”
Dale thought for a moment before responding. “But you perceive, my boy,” he finally quoted, “that it is not so, and that facts, as usual, are very stubborn things.”
“Overruling all theories,” added Logan, finishing the quote.
“To imagine that the English felt Jules Verne best reserved for children,” said Dale with a smile.
Logan returned the smile as the camera turned toward him. “I prefer this one: Enough! When science has spoken, one can only remain silent thereafter!”
Everybody visibly cringed. Logan had practically yelled out the line. Unembarrassed, Logan beamed with pride much longer than was appropriate.
“I think I found something,” said Joanne, standing with a shiny disk-shaped object in her hand.
“Toss it here,” said Logan. Joanne threw it to him, and the geologist caught it.
“What it is?” asked Dale.
Before answering, Dr. Logan Flowers wiped it on his pants and tapped it against his helmet to listen to the sound.
“Its aluminum,” said Logan. “And I’m pretty sure it’s a coin.”
“Can you still read it?” asked Dale.
“Yeah,” said Logan, nodding as he scraped the last bit of grime from the glinting object.
“A coin?” repeated Charlie, confused.
“Definitely Japanese,” added Logan.
“That cannot be right,” said Dale.
“I think it’s a wartime coin,” said Logan, continuing to examine the shiny object. “It’s dated 1938.”
Baffled silence fell upon the group as they tried to make sense of the evidence, to come up with any other explanation than the obvious. Milo started to speak but cut himself off.
“Did we just find a lost Japanese caver?” demanded Dale.