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http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/99141888674/theyve-buried-seven-bodies-since-the-incident-in-july
They’ve buried seven bodies since
the incident in July.
Seven.
I can’t even bring myself to
imagine how that has affected seven families. They’ve lost their income
providers. They worked at the company branch because it paid the best wages.
Big wages for big risks.
And clearly it was a big
risk.
The scientists had extra
precautions. They were more valuable to the company. More expensive to train so
they looked after them. They lived on the site. It was convenient, that was
all. The townspeople did all the other jobs; deliveries, cleaning, transport
and security.
The first death was a security
guard. Stabbed trying to stop someone breaking in the company said. That was
probably their first clue that the company was different. A ram raid; where
they drove the car through the security gate... that might have been
predictable, but a person sneaking up and cutting someone’s throat? That
was different. Or maybe the person was breaking out and took some stuff with
them? But why?
And then the second death. A
delivery van was hit by a truck. The driver was killed. Broken neck. It
was categorised as an automobile accident. It was only later that people
thought that maybe it wasn’t an accident. The van rolled and it was such a mess
that it was hard to work out if anything was missing. But after the earlier
robbery, people wondered. The company was generous with compensation. It wasn’t
their fault but they paid up, and people were pleased by that.
The third was a suicide. She was a
secretary. But she started to get anxious. And then she started to get a little
bit over the top. She talked of conspiracies and secrets and government spies.
She waved badly photocopied letters at people. Nobody believed her and as they
refused to listen, she got more frantic about trying to talk to them. The
company laid her off, and paid for therapy for her but no one was surprised
when she was found hung in her home. A few people asked how a woman with her
wrists bruised from being tied, managed to hang herself. The ropes were missing
and the coroner recorded death by her own hand.
The fourth was a baby born with
hideous deformities. Both parents worked there. Tragic, people whispered. And
then they whispered some more. They started counting. Four deaths.
I worked at the library and I
started to see more people searching the archives. More people looking for
answers in alternative places. We all started to wait for the next death.
Then came the accident at the lab.
That was number five. The company admitted to one death but some people
whispered that they had seen more bodies than that. A young teen was skating
nearby and he told everyone that he had seen a truckload of bodies; all wrapped
in blue plastic bags. I heard him telling his friend at the library, as I was
stacking books in the next aisle. He also said the people who touched the
bodies were dressed in full containment gear. His friend scoffed at him and
said that it didn’t matter what he said, nobody would trust him, but I believed
him. Pity I couldn’t tell him before he disappeared. He didn’t count as a death
because nobody really cared about him going missing and there was no corpse to
be found.
I started trying to find out who
owned the company. Who were the directors? Who did I write to if I wanted to
tell them what was happening? Maybe they didn’t know? I did a few company
searches and they just kept leading to other companies.
The sixth death was a delivery
guy, a courier who dropped one of the small refrigerated containers that the
product was shipped in. The container inside looked unbroken and he just picked
it up and put it back on the carved space it was designed to fit into. He
didn’t tell anyone about the accident as he didn’t think of it as an accident.
He died within three days; covered in lesions that looked like the plague. Or
at least how I imagined the plague looked. He talked to me and I sent the
photos to a friend I knew who was a journalist and he spoke to his editor about
it and they started an investigation of their own.
Crossing the road, two days later,
I heard the motor revving and I saw the car accelerating towards me. I had time
to think the seventh death is me before the car mowed me down.
They’ve buried seven bodies since
the incident in July but maybe I told enough people to get the truth out.
Maybe...
~~~~
© AM Gray 2014
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