Andrea Lepri - The Last Christmas On Earth

"Professor," said James, approaching him, but he ignored him as he did before in the garden.

"Professor ..." he repeated in a louder voice without being able to earn the attention of his son, who seemed to be on a different planet again. Then he reached out his hand to his son's shoulder to shake him out of that sort of trance, but as he was about to touch him the boy turned and looked at him in a way he had never looked before.

"Harry, you're scaring me ..." he murmured, taking a step back.

"It's not like that!" He shouted angrily, then he got ahead giving his father a push that made him fall backward, and went to sit at his desk, where he started to look at the photos on some open books.

James got up and took courage, grabbed the back of the swivel chair and turned it towards him.

"Dad," Harry shouted in dismay.

"If this is a joke, you scared the hell out of me!" James rebuked him. A moment later, a stabbing pain forced him to kneel on the floor, holding his temples. The boy looked at him as if he had not understood the meaning of his father's words, and then he frowned at the area where his father was in pain. James sat on the ground with his shoulders resting on the edge of the bed, closing his eyelids, because he could no longer even keep his eyes open.

"Here it is," said Harry, kneeling in front of him.

"... what ... what ..." James started to answer, but he couldn't finish the sentence because the pain was so intense that it even prevented him from speaking.

"Your migraine," Harry replied seriously. He grabbed his father's wrists and gently stretched his arms at his sides, then brought his palms an inch away from his father's temples and began to whisper something.

"Harry, what are you doing?" James tried to oppose, opening his eyes, but Harry ran his hand over his father's eyelids to close them again and began to murmur his litany again. After a few moments, James felt his head get very hot and the pain increased in intensity until it reached its climax, but only for a moment, immediately afterward he had the sensation that his son was literally pulling it out of his head. He relaxed and over two minutes he felt as good as he had never experienced before. After the treatment, Harry traced incomprehensible signs in the air with his hands, then returned to sit in his chair and made a happy expression for having managed to heal him.

"How ... how did you do it?" James asked him when he finally found the courage. Harry answered him by spreading his arms and he shook his head, resigned himself to not understanding anything anymore.

"Who was here with you?" He questioned then, pointing to the open window.

"... no one, who should have been here?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes ... I think so ... I don't ... I don't know, I don't remember."

"Did you destroy the plastic?"

Harry nodded, then put his hands behind his back and started looking at his shoes, waiting for the well-deserved reproach.

"But why ..." his father simply asked him.

"They tricked you, that model is fake. The Room of the Sun and that of Knowledge in the Sphinx are missing, and then the Chamber of the Zed is missing in the pyramid of Cheops »Harry explained to him leaving him for the umpteenth time with his mouth open. James appealed to all his inner strengths to be able to not lose patience, in a few hours his son had made him take a series of terrible fears as well as having destroyed a pair of two-hundred-dollar glasses and a three-hundred-dollar model without count the fishing rod still to be recovered. He waited a few moments; when he was sure he would be able to support the rest of the conversation without exploding, he asked him the question.

"But how can you say that?"

"I ... I know it and that's it!" Harry answered with a hint of presumption in his voice, then looked again at the confusion that reigned in the bedroom and made a displeased expression. "Dad, what's going on?" He stammered, running to take refuge in his arms for protection, and James felt helpless.

"Sorry I'm late," Larry said as he entered Helen's office. He was gasping and his belly still bobbed because of the run. He had a hem of his shirt out of his pants and was sweating profusely. Helen replied with a shrug, continuing to scratch her little finger, he wiped his neck with a handkerchief and adjusted his thinning hair in a kind of comb-over.

"Hey, what happened to your finger?" He then asked troubled, now the first phalanx was almost completely peeled and the outer surface was so livid that it seemed as if it would begin to crumble any minute now.

"I have no idea, but it's nothing serious... I think it's mycosis or psoriasis caused by stress or something like that. It started to bother me last night," she replied nervously. She was full of problems, but all of them seemed to notice only his stupid finger.

"It will be as you say a small thing, but in your place, I would put a plaster on it. This environment is very dusty and it certainly won't help you heal."

"Thanks for the advice, I'll do it later."

"Well. Why did you call me?"

"You'll see it in a minute, I hope you haven't had lunch or that you've already digested it," she said standing up.

"I don't understand," said Larry, perplexed.

"We're going to take some samples from a couple of fresh autopsy corpses," Helen explained to him as she started walking down the hallway leading to the morgue.

"Wait a minute," the chemist replied, stopping in the middle of the corridor.

"You know that for these matters we need the authorization of the judge, right?" He said taking advantage of the pause to take off his shirt, although the air conditioning was at full power, he had not yet managed to stop sweating and the fabric was annoyingly stuck to the skin. Helen nodded.

"And if the corpses are fresh from the autopsy that authorization you haven't got yet, isn't it?" He insisted. From behind the glass door of the office, Joe, who was struggling with his computer research, leaned forward to look at them. Apparently, Larry had spoken too loudly, Helen looked sheepishly at Joe and he replied with a half-smile and then turned back to his stuff. Helen took Larry by the arm and dragged him to a corner where no one would see or hear them.

"Those corpses have something strange, probably that something is the only clue we have about their death and I am convinced that you are the only person who can figure it out."

"Are you crazy? Have you forgotten that I work in a paper mill?"

"And have you forgotten that this is not the first time you are consulting us?"

"You're right," he agreed, "but I've never seen a dead body so close. It would be better if you entrusted yourself to a professional ... and then you could at least wait for the judge's authorization, what's all this haste?"

"I fear the clue may vanish before the sheets are ready ..."

"But, what's it about?"

"You'll see it with your own eyes."

"What if someone finds it out?"

"I will take all the responsibility."

"Does this mean I will work for free?" Larry guessed slightly disappointed. Helen replied with a forced smile and he looked at her indecisively. "All right," he said after a moment, continuing to walk, "but I only do it because you're my favorite sheriff!"

Helen made him sit in an empty room next to the morgue and went to make sure no one was there, then went back to call him and when they were inside she bolted the door from inside.

"Is it really necessary?" The man asked uncertainly.

"It's better if nobody knows we're here," she said, and Larry nodded unconvinced.

"You will not like what you see," she told him to prepare him, arriving in front of the cold rooms.

"Don't worry, my stomach has never betrayed me," he assured her, hoping that it wouldn't be the first time. "But let's see to hurry, I don't like this place," he added. Helen took the drawers that contained the corpses out of the cold room and removed the sheets, fixing Larry's eyes.