From Above

By Ezra Barany The dripping blood on the plastic mat was the only sound in Senator Charles Dunbars home office. Dressed in a pin-striped suit, Dunbars large corpse sat in a rolling chair with the plastic mat underneath. The way his body lay outstretched, arms dangling at his sides and head tilted back, caused the chair to lean, much like a dentists chair. His open, hazel eyes and gaping mouth was his response to the weapon that punctured the base of his skull, travelled through the brain, and exited just above his forehead. A Kindle ebook reader he recently held had fallen to the floor, but otherwise the rest of the room the bookshelves, the powered off iMac, the paperclips all was in order. When CSI finished taking crime scene photos, the detective in charge gave the medical examiner, Jake Stinson, the okay to examine Dunbars body. Ten minutes passed before the detective asked Jake about his findings. My precursory examination of rigor in the eyelids, neck, and lower jaw shows TOD to be about seven pm, four hours ago. COD is clearly the puncture to the head and through the brain, but the weapon is still unknown at this point. The vics a senator, for chrissake, and weve got squat. Not a single fingerprint or footprint. I need to know the weapon, Jake. And I need it tonight. Cant. My favorite show is on tonight, is what Jake wanted to say. Instead he replied, You got it. The ME had Dunbars body taken to the morgue. The morgue was a room of metal. Alone at last, Jake photographed the body from head to toe, front and back. Taking off the vics clothes was no simple matter, the senator wasnt a fat man, but he was tall and muscular. Still heavy. Once Dunbar was naked, Jake photographed his entire body once more. Jake looked at the time. Dammit, he wanted to get home! He had three hours before NCIS was on. He just adored that Ducky character. Who wouldnt? And if Jake had a coworker who looked anything like the actress who played Abby? Heavens! Hed take her on the autopsy table and squeeze her breasts to the music of her voice singing, Oh, Jake! Oh, Jake! After weighing the body at 274 pounds, measuring the body at 6 4, and doing a complete set of X-rays, Jake examined the head. The eyes were closed because Jake had closed them before getting the body in the ambulance. The face looked peaceful, as if all the chaos Dunbar experienced moments ago was an unimportant memory. Jake turned the head to the side and examined the base of the skull. He inserted a gloved finger in the back of the senators head, feeling the damage that the occipital bone had sustained. He noticed four edges made by the weapon in the bone, indicating that the weapon was neither thin as a knife would be nor cylindrical as a screwdriver or other tool with a round circumference. This instrument, probably metal, must have been cubic. Jake cleaned the wound at the base of the skull to get a better look at the bone. He could see with a magnifying glass and measuring tape that the top and bottom of the four edges measured two inches whereas the side edges measured nearly three.

Confusing. If all four sides of the weapon were the same width, as he thought, then the weapon must have been thrust diagonally into the base of the skull thereby creating the effect that the lesions side edges were longer than the top and bottom edges. But had the weapon truly been thrust diagonally, it would have exited the mouth or nasal cavity. Jake turned to the wound at the top of Dunbars head hoping it would answer his questions. The lesion in the frontal bone was a perfect square, as if the weapon had been thrust from the lower jaw up through the brains frontal lobe. Each side measured almost half an inch. What kind of weapon goes in one way and comes out at an almost 90 degree angle? And then it hit him. Jake went to the computer, snapped off his plastic gloves, and continued his report. He typed, Based on the location and shape of the wounds, the weapon is cubic on one end and comes to a sharp point at the other. The weapon is probably made of metal and has an arc to it, causing it to enter the head horizontal to the ground and exit the head vertically, like a large hook. Jake glanced at his watch. Thirty minutes before seeing Ducky and the luscious Abby again. He could make it. He reread his words to make sure they made sense. Satisfied, he turned in his chair to stand but his eyes noticed a Kindle on the floor beside the computers hard drive tower. Though Jake had handled a Kindle before, he didnt know of anyone who owned one. He picked up the Kindle and turned it on. The black and white screen displayed the beginning of a short story. Clicking through the pages, Jake didnt recognize the story. He glanced at his watch again. There was time. He started to read the story from the beginning and was amused by the murder mystery. But as he noticed the similarities between the mysterious death in the story and the senators death, a hollow opened deep within his gut. No. Not similarities. Identical descriptions of the bodys wounds. And then there were the other words. Smaller ones. Jakes sinking feeling churned into a feeling of something forbidden, a violation. A presence. Was someone behind him? A chill ran to the base of his skull as he turned in his seat to see who it was. Standing upside-down from the ceiling, an icy figure hooded in an Eskimos pelt held a pick-ax. Upside-down as though gravity pulled in the opposite direction for him. The invaders feet were planted on the ceiling and the head hung towards the floor. Jake couldnt move. Just stared while the stranger swung the pick-ax into the top of Jakes neck. As the ax struck through his head, Jakes final thoughts were of the bones, muscles, and glands that were being punctured. That split second wasted on attempting to imagine pale one his anatomy as he felt the tool rupture through him. The force of the pick-ax hooking into his head lifted Jakes entire body an inch off his chair. Jake died quickly and the ax stuck out the top back of his head. Crimson colors pale one i talking to yu trickled onto his white lab coat and floor. When the upside-down stranger began to pull out the ax, the colors started pouring. The ax pulled out completely and Jakes body can reed my words? to the floor. The stranger watched collapsed do yu undrstand yu ar the only one who

for a moment. His frost-covered hands holding the ax. At last the hooded upside-down figure walked along the ceiling, having to step over the doorways lintel to exit the room. Jakes blood-pool caressed the floor tiles it is time for storee shut off as it stretched across the room. It extended underneath the table that held Dunbars body and
there. now it only is me and yu. now only yu see words. it only is me and yu. cold me talking to yu.

i talking to yu. my words and storee is off. other ones can see storee but not my

no one can know i am. i stop all ones who know i am. i make pale ones stop move. i tuch hard with ax and pale ones stop move. i tuch hard with ax after i show my words. like doctor. i show my words to doctor and tuch him hard with ax. doctor drips out red milk like other pale ones. they always drip out the red when i make them stop move.

and now yu know i am. the knowing i am is not good. i show yu my words. i show how i make yu stop move.

i will come from the upstai rs. i will come from t he upstairs.