Chris Carter: Gallery of the Dead

As a consequence of over forty hours of exposure, even at low temperatures, the thin muscle layer that sat between her facial bone structure and her skin had darkened into an odd shade of brown, as if it had been lightly scorched by fire. Her nose cartilage was still in place, but the eyelids and lips were gone, completely exposing her gums, teeth, jawbone, skullcap and ocular cavity. Her eyes hadn’t been removed by her killer, but they weren’t there anymore either. Most of the vitreous humor — the transparent jelly-like tissue filling the eyeball behind the lens — had dried up. As a result, Linda Parker’s eyes had deflated and practically disappeared into their sockets.

‘Have you moved her yet?’ Hunter asked.

‘No, not yet,’ White replied. ‘I was waiting for you guys to get here so you could see the body in situ, because here’s the catch — if you look closely, it doesn’t look like the killer skinned her completely.’

Hunter took a step back, tilting his head to one side.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It seems like there’s still a patch of skin left on her back.’

Garcia joined Hunter. ‘That’s odd. Why would the killer skin most of her body, but leave a patch on her back?’

‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ White said, walking around to the other side of the bed. ‘You guys want to give me a hand?’ White asked Hunter and Garcia.

‘Sure.’

The photographer got out of the way, moving over to the other end of the room.

‘Let’s just bring her up into a sitting position as much as we can,’ White said, nodding at Hunter and Garcia, who nodded back. ‘On three... one, two, three.’

As they brought the body up from the bed, Hunter, Garcia and White all angled their heads to one side to have a look at the victim’s back.

As the patch of skin finally came into view, they all froze.

‘Jesus!’ White said. ‘What the hell is this?’

Still bare of clothes, the man took a seat at his dressing table and studied his reflection in the three-way vanity mirror for a moment, checking his profile from both angles.

He loved the strange sensation he got every time he was about to start his transformation. It was a complicated feeling that not even he could properly explain, but it bizarrely filled him with a sense of accomplishment merged with something he could only describe as mind-numbing ecstasy.

The man savored that sensation for an extra full minute, allowing it to run through his body like blood running through his veins.

Elated, the man smiled at himself.

He knew that he could make himself look however he pleased. He could change the shape of his nose, the color of his eyes, the fullness of his cheekbones, the angle of his chin, the thickness of his lips, the contour of his ears, the quality of his teeth... it didn’t matter. The man’s knowledge of how to mold foam prosthetics coupled with his makeup expertise was second to none. Better yet, if he combined all that with just a few electronic gadgets, he could even change the sound and the strength of his voice, like he’d done before.

The man sat back on his chair and regarded the photo he had pinned to the top right-hand corner of his mirror. He had absolutely no idea who the man on it was. The picture had come from a random stock-photos website, but the person on it had a very interesting look about him — round nose, low cheekbones, full lips, blue eyes, and angled eyebrows that gave his whole face a somewhat sad look. For some reason the man liked that. The person’s skin color was also a shade darker than the man’s own.

The man had already molded several pieces of foam prosthetics to match the person’s nose, lips and cheekbones, and as he applied a thin layer of special adhesive to one of the pieces, he began to imagine what that person would be like in real life — how he would talk, walk, smile, laugh... Would his voice be soft and subdued, strong and authoritative, or a combination of both?

How about his personality? the man wondered. Would he be outgoing, talkative, shy, introvert, funny, serious, intellectual? The possibilities were endless, and that thoroughly excited him. He loved the creation process of every new person he became. He loved it because there was no one better at it than he was. But the physical transformation, together with the personality conception, was only part of the fun. The real excitement, the real creative process would come later, for the man was undoubtedly an artist.

Hunter, Garcia and White were all surprised to see that a perfectly shaped, straight-edged patch of skin still remained attached to Linda Parker’s back. In fact, the patch covered the whole of her back, from left to right side and from a couple of centimeters below her shoulders all the way down to the top of her buttocks, but the surprises didn’t end there. Despite all the dried blood that covered most of that skin patch, all three of them could clearly see that something had been hastily carved into it, rupturing the skin and cutting into her flesh.

‘What the actual fuck?’ Garcia whispered as he squinted at the marks.

‘Tommy,’ White called, gesturing for the forensics photographer to join them. ‘You need to come get this.’

Tommy looked back at White as if saying, There’s more to this freakshow?

‘Now,’ White urged him.

Adjusting his glasses, Tommy walked around to the left side of the bed.

‘Oh, man!’ he said, shaking his head one more time. ‘This just ain’t right.’

The carvings to the victim’s back looked like an odd combination of symbols and letters, forming four distinct horizontal lines. Those symbols and letters had been crudely carved using only straight lines, no curves.

It took the photographer a couple of seconds to recompose himself before he began clicking away. Despite the blinding brightness of his camera flash exploding from behind them, Hunter’s attention never faltered.

As his gaze moved from letter to symbol and from straight line to straight line, a new shiver began at the core of Hunter’s soul, gaining momentum like a rocket.

‘Is this some sort of Devil-worship language or some bullshit like that?’ Garcia again.

Hunter slowly shook his head at his partner.

‘Well, it’s definitely not English,’ White replied.

‘Maybe it’s alien,’ the photographer offered. ‘It would be easier to believe that than that another human being was capable of doing all this.’

‘No.’ Hunter finally broke his silence, his voice plain. ‘It’s Latin.’

‘Latin?’

Both Garcia and the photographer frowned at Hunter before their attention returned to the markings on the victim’s back. They re-studied them for another long moment.

White also didn’t look so sure.

‘I don’t see it, Robert,’ he said, tilting his head from one side to the other. ‘And my Latin isn’t bad at all.’

‘If this is Latin,’ Garcia asked, ‘what do these symbols mean?’

‘They aren’t symbols,’ Hunter replied, but he could easily see how his partner, or anyone else, would’ve mistaken some of the carved letters for symbols. ‘It’s just the careless way in which the letters were drawn.’

Neither Garcia nor White seemed to follow.

‘Do you guys have her?’ Hunter asked. ‘Can I free my hands?’

‘Yeah, we’ve got her,’ White replied.

Hunter let go of the body.

Garcia and White kept her in place.

‘These cuts to her skin,’ Hunter began, indicating as he clarified. ‘These lines used to form the letters, were made by what look like quick slashes from some sort of blade.’ He reenacted the movement with his hand, his index finger sticking out.