Tomorrow We Die by Shawn Grady Read Free Book Online

lightened with pride. “Jonathan, that is wonderful news. I am so happy for you.” He pulled me in for a hug.
    “Thanks, Doc. I couldn’t wait to tell you. They want me to start with summer school in a month.”
    “A month?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Will you still . . .” He motioned toward my uniform.
    “I don’t know. It’s such a commitment. I don’t think I could keep even per diem hours.”
    Dr. Eli folded his arms and took a deep breath. “Indeed. Well done.”
    “You’ve taught me so much down here.”
    “It might’ve helped on those MCATs, huh? What were you?
    Ninety-fifth percentile?”
    “Ninety-eighth.”
    “Outstanding.”
    “It’ll be a big challenge.” I pocketed my hands. “But, hey, the other reason we’re here is to check up on a patient.”
    “Oh, of course. Here.” He motioned with his hand. “Please, come in.”
    The air smelled of bleach, not quite masking the permeating odor of decay. Bones’s pale complexion turned a shade lighter. As many times as I’d been down there, I still felt blood drain from my head and had to focus on steadying myself. But once we dove into the science, the light-headedness mostly passed.
    “One moment.” Dr. Eli walked back to the crematory oven and shut down the burners. “So, this patient you had . . . ?”
    “His name is Simon Letell.”
    “Ah yes. You’re just in time. He’s next up on the list for autopsies I’d ordered.” Dr. Eli walked to a wall lined with oversized refrigeration drawers. He traced his finger down and tapped on a label. “Here we are.” He opened the drawer and unzipped the black body bag that lay in it. “This look like your guy?”
    Letell had the same vacant stare he’d had when I’d seen him lying outside his motel room. His skin was waxen and pale, with a clear line demarking pooled lividity.
    “Yeah. That’s him. I’m curious about cause of death.”
    “Well, all right.” He clapped his hands together. “This will be fun.” He walked to a small office cubicle, squared off by additional glass walls, and picked up a phone receiver. “Tech assistance for autopsy.”
    The tech transferred Letell’s body onto a flat exam table. Bones and I donned surgical masks and stood off to the side. Dr. Eli stood at the head of the table, spectacles on and secured under his surgical hat, gloved hands in the air like a surgeon. A microphone hung from the ceiling, and periodically he would use a foot pedal to activate it, verbally recording the exam process.
    The tech took a large scalpel and, starting near Letell’s clavicles and extending to his navel, incised a large Y-shaped cut through the layers of skin and adipose tissue. He exposed the sternum, brought out a small circular saw, and wound the cutting blade into high RPMs.
    The tech brought it down on Letell’s breastbone with a high-pitched grinding whine and a cloud of bone dust.
    Dr. Eli made his own incision over the back of the man’s scalp and peeled the skin forward over Letell’s face, revealing the skull beneath. It was still a strange sight – to see a faceless man with a bare skull. The tech moved to the cranium to begin his next cuts.
    Beside me, Bones was as white as a sterile four-by-four dressing.
    Eli studied him. “Thaddeus, are you feeling all right?”
    Bones stared at Letell, the hint of a gyrating wobble to his stance.
    “Remember, son, the body is but a tent.”
    Bones pointed at the stairway and managed, “I’m going to – ”
    “Sure.” I nodded and smiled.
    He took off through the door. Nothing with living people fazed him. But there was something about the dissection of a human body that got to him. Go figure.
    It was times like that when I realized I shared a special bond with Eli. And not just with him, but with Vesalius and Da Vinci and Hippocrates. It was in my makeup to be a physician.
    Eli pulled off the top of Letell’s skull, set it aside on a stainless steel tray, and waved me over. Sliding his hands into the cranium, he