The Order of The Covenant

Chapter 7: Johnathan Blair - Dead Tell All

The Order of The Covenant

Chapter 7

Johnathan Blair - Dead Tell All

The blue glare reflected on the lenses of Johnathan Blair's thick framed black glasses. He continued to work through his lunch hour, documenting the last cadaver he received. Though he had been busier the past few months, he didn't really mind. Being that he is what some may call socially awkward, he's perfectly fine with being by himself. He also finds it hard to deal with people since he has an abessive compulsive nature to the point that people think of him as a germaphobe. Where as other people take a certain personal pride in things like their hair, jawline, or physic, his happens to be personal space and boundaries. Being that he is very meticulous and OCD by nature, he takes great pride in working at the New York Presbyterian Hospital morgue.

Truth is, he had always felt his center of gravity pull him towards the strange and unusual. Understandably, it may sound weird to one when first mentioned, but to him he felt a since of calm. The intellectual challenges it presented, but for the deeper connection it offered him with the human body. His fascination with the intricate workings of anatomy and the delicate balance between life and mortality propelled him forward in his quest for understanding. It was this insatiable curiosity that caused him to engulf himself with his obsession. Before he knew it, he had simply surrounded himself in what he later felt was more of a hobby than a profession. People have always said do what you love and turn your passion into a paycheck. Where as other business may come and go, the death business was always here to stay. Job security was the last thing he ever worried about.

The sound of the double doors bashed open as Cody stormed through. " Hey freak."

People on the other hand... always got under his skin.

" Got another cold one." Cody was one of the many nurses on staff. " Looks like another hottie gone to waste. Couldn't be any more than twenty-five. Such a good age too. A little experience but not to high of a body count." Cody slugged Johnathan on the back of his shoulder causing his glasses to fall down the bridge of his nose.

His solitude was disturbed as Cody, with his penchant for crass humor, barged in into the room with a female cadaver in tow. Cody's irreverent laughter echoed through the air as he made crude jokes about the lifeless body. Dr. Blair's chiseled face tightened with disapproval, his gaze piercing through the layers of Cody's callousness. While they shared a workplace, their values and approaches to their profession couldn't be more different. Dr. Blair viewed every cadaver as a vessel of knowledge and respect, a silent teacher of the secrets held within. Cody, on the other hand, treated death as an opportunity for tasteless jokes, displaying a lack of reverence. Of all the nurses, Cody was the most loathsome and his least preferred. Other than his crud humor, he most painstaking laugh imaginable.

Suppressing his annoyance, Dr. Blair maintained his composure. He has found that it was best to refrain from speaking to him and carrying on a conversation so that he would quickly leave. Seeing that the new cadaver was from the prison, he was most anxious to get started. Johnathan spun in his chair and began to prep the table.

" So ya ever, you know..." Cody made a hole with his left hand and shoved the index of his other hand in and out of it. Dr. Blair gave him a long cold stare. " Well, I'll leave you to it. Freak."

He waited till he exited the morgue. His obnoxious voice faded in the background. He was able to finally hear himself think again. Dr. Blair visually examined the canvas of ink that was displayed in front of him. The cadaver was covered in tattoos. He then transferred the body over to the examining table and pulled out the recorder from his smock pocket as he began his voice log and read the patient's chart.

" Patient, age 27. Height 5'2". Weight 115 lbs. Protrusion of the hips and rigged vertical lines on her nails, signs of poor diet. Her body covered in tattoos. The charts reads that she was an inmate of the Bedford Hills Correction Facility. Blood tests and toxicity levels show drug use. Heroin." Johnathan rotated her arms and looked at the inner elbows, between her toes, and even under her nails. No signs of fresh track marks." Johnathan grabbed his smalls tray of tools and wheeled it closer to him and the table. As he pulled up and sat on the sterile metal stool, he kept looking at the tattoos. Something seemed off. Not that they were professional, but he has seen prison tattoos even look better than these.

" Going to make the initial incision." He placed the recorder on the trey of tools and got to work. Taking the scapple, he made the 'Y' shaped incision from the left and right clavicle to the center of her chest over the sternum and a straight line down the center of her torso. Its when he began to peel the skin back when he noticed something peculiar. The tattoos normally bleed through the layers of epidermis before reaching the bloodstream to prevent blood poisoning. Thusly, they begin to fade on the way down through the skin. However, when he pilled back the skin, these tattoos were clearly more visible on the inside that what they were on the outside. In fact, he would almost believe that these were done from the inside but that's not possible. Not only were they more visible, the writing was done in some other language but the formatting and symbols were almost done in a systematic format. Not random pictures collogued together. The words, if you could call it that, were written in two columns in a near perfect straight line.

As he leaned back, he fixed his glasses on the bridge of his nose and folded his arms. Locks of his black curls hung down in front of him. His face took a certain distinct intensity when he focused. It was as if he could almost hear the whispers of the cadaver, urging him to delve deeper. The strange markings that adorned her body. A sense of purpose washed over him, fueling his research and igniting a fire within that he couldn't ignore.

Johnathan went to a drawer that he had labeled camera, and pulled out a polaroid and began to document it. He took and scanned a few of the images in to the computer and began to see what he could find and what he found was even more of an enigma. The obsession grew as his curiosity sent him in a downward spiral at neck-breaking speed in a rabbit hole. Suttle words, rumors of, and half spoken truths of ancient texts.

Johnathan Blair finished his shift and headed home. A few documents just so happened to have found their way into his satchel. He made it to his apartment building, checked his mail, went up the four flight of stairs, and waved at his neighbor as they returned home after walking their dog.

Nothing bet finally being at home and taking his shoes off and finally relaxing. But tonight, things were different. He dropped of the mail at the table and hung his keys on the skeleton hand that jutted out from the wall. He then rushed into the kitchen where he quickly made a drink. An industrial thirties goth themed with a touch of apothecary vibe. Vintage small medical jars and vials labeled with the names of spices were placed in what appeared to be a small witchy cabinet. On top were placed some herbs that hung to dry. He grabbed some that were still fresh and rubbed around the brim of his glass, then hung it back by the twine. He then reached in the freezer for a certain oversized cube that he used in his short crystal baller glass and gave a heavy pour till it just ran even with the top of the ice cube.

He then retired for the night in the Livingroom in his favorite chair. Surrounded by his framed pictures of older medical photos, oddities in glass showcases, and medical tools that dated back to the 1800's that now seem barbaric. He felt at peace surrounded by his profession. He pulled his satchel close and began to lay everything out next to him on the side table. He then picked up his remote and turned on the ornately framed flatscreen over his fireplace. The screen changed from an old oil painting to the home screen of his pc that was plugged in. With his portable keyboard, he accessed the internet and began to search things on the symbols and what texts he managed to muster out of the photos. As he pieced together the fragments, patterns emerged - A disturbing pattern with a mysterious string of deaths. Johnathan's heart quickened, a mix of fascination and horror gripping him. Each individual who had possessed or owned one of these books had met a gruesome and untimely demise, their deaths leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions.

Articles mentioning the victim found in their study, their body contorted in an unnatural position, surrounded by torn pages from the very book they had possessed. It was as if the words had come to life, twisting the victim's body in a grotesque dance of agony.

Another unfortunate soul was discovered in a state of extreme decay, their body withered and desiccated as it life had been drained from them. No explanation could be found for the rapid decomposition in any of the reports, leaving

investigators baffled and disturbed.

It wasn't till he found pictures that were leaked by a certain reporter that chills ran down his spine. What he saw defied any and everything we grew to understand. He double clicked the picture enlarged the picture on his monitor and couldn't believe what he was seeing.

A third victim was found contorted and twisted. Completely mangled in such a fashion that he his spine was twisted to the point it snapped and jutted out. His arm wrapped around his torso. His foot was lodged in his mouth. His eye's bulged out of his sockets.

And that wasn't even the hardest thing to believe.

The man was suspended in air when the police stepped in to find him. The photographer caught taking the picture was in the mirror's reflection. A Victorian gothic mirror that once hung over the very fireplace Johnathan's monitor hangs from today. His living room very much the same.

Johnathan moved the keyboard from his lap and grabbed his glass of whiskey and finished it. The glass gave a loud thud as he put it down. His other hand over his mouth.

Disbelief.

Puzzled.

Hunted.

He couldn't even begin to grasp the bazar and unsettling mysteries that only seem to make him question more. Like quicksand, subtle at first and then dangerously, the seductively sinister forces has him in its gravity, drawing him in. His newfound enigma had plunged him into a darkness from which he wasn't sure to escape.

Would there be answers?

Was there anyone alive to question?

With a trembling hand, Johnathan Blair reached out for the decanter and poured another glass.

The volume of the New York streets ripped and roared at Johnathan's ear drums. From the piercing horn of the taxi cabs to the kids shouting as they passed him by under the scaffolding. Johnathan got a late start and rushed to the train station. He shielded his eyes from the sun as he crossed the street. He couldn't remember the last time he had ever felt so terribly hungover. It was later than usual before he decided to turnover for the night and had perhaps one to many glasses of brandy.

He shuffled down the stairs cautiously with one hand firmly around his satchel and the other around the handrail. A man brushed against him as they rushed down and passed through the roller bars. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and continued on. He shuffled his coat and satchel in hand to pull his wallet out. He was normally more poise and organized than this in the morning. By now he would have stopped by the café where he normally got his half-caf soy misto, but this morning, he would have to settle for a pot at the breakroom.

He made it onto the train and rushed to a seat in hopes the world would stop spinning. His files spilled halfway out before he caught them. He let out a big sigh as he tried to center himself. He pulled up his phone and figured he would distract himself by doing a little more research. He had looked up the mysterious Lady Tanaka, now he wanted to know more about the books that she went out of her way to collect for over a century. They were never in one hand for to long which made it hard for anyone to translate them. Except for one in particular. A woman by the name of Kathy Moore. A Museum curator that displayed a set of antiquities from across the world. She had a doctorates in history, religion and theology, and fluent in several languages. She had a husband that was an archeologist. The two made a dynamic pair he thought. She was the only person who seemed to have studied the book for, what could be considerably, an extensive time. Relatively speaking. Well, longer than anyone else.

Johnathan's stop was drawing near. He pulled the strap to his leather satchel over his shoulder and made his way off the cart. Once he made it to the hospital, he took the elevator down and walked to the morgue. There he placed his white smock on and placed his things into the locker.

" Morning freak. Got another cold one for ya."

Johnathan ignored him and decided to pull up the new cadaver's charts and look them over. Another female inmate from Bedford Hills. Cody didn't bother to stick around for his distasteful jokes. Perhaps it was another drunken late night for him as well. He even left the sheet pulled completely over her. Either way, he wasn't complaining. He pushed the gurney over to the table and pulled the sheet back. Johnathan stood there. It was something to view pictures that were only described in a Steven Kings' novel, but the horrific sight before him, to see it in person. Now he could understand why Cody had nothing to say about the cadaver or bothered to stick around. He was mortified.

The body of a thirty-three year old woman appeared to be over a hundred. He skin and flesh past any postmortem phase he had ever scene. She looked like something that was found deep in a tomb, discovered after decades. Her skin shriveled and black. Every bone visible in dimension. Her arms stuck in a rigor mortis pose, crisscrossed in front of her. Her face turned to the side as her jaw was slack.

Johnathan briefly went to pose, stopped, and looked around him, then went back to posing like the corps. He felt the sense of one trying to guard themselves. Her face was fixed as if she tried to turn away from whatever it was. Her hands placed in front to protect, or shield herself from something or someone.

Now that was out of the way.

He went to place her on the table and pulled the steel tray closer. He grabbed the digital recorder from his smock pocket and laid it on the steel tray as he recorded his discoveries. A sound popped from the far side of the room. He looked over his should to make sure it wasn't Cody with another cadaver or trying to scare him. The room was completely empty other than him... and the cadaver. With scapple in hand, he centered himself and went to start the incision. Then he heard it again. He looked at the doors and there was no movement. He went to put the scapple down and walked over to the swing doors to find the hallway vacant. No Cody in sight.

He turned to find the cadaver standing in front of him. It's eyes sunken in the back of it's skull. The putrid stench of decay gusted from her mouth as she strained to say, " Mortuus est ad omnia."

Johnathan fell through the double doors and on to the floor. He retreated and shuffled to his feet as she stalked towards him as she repeated it over and over again. " Mortuus est ad omnia."

He ran for the elevator as he continuously looked over his shoulder. Her skeleton figure moved in a jagged motion as the lights flickered in and out. With every strobe of the light, her contorted body got closer. Franticly he pressed the button. The elevator sounded. The doors slowly slid open to his dismay. A woman stood unclothed covered in tattoo. Her clavicle surgically cut in a 'Y' and stitched up. Her head c****d to the side. Her eyes fogged over as her hair fell over her face. Her hands slowly reached for her chest. Nails dug into the sutures. The petrified corps behind him wrapped one arm around his torso and the other grabbed him by the top of his head, it's fingers pulled at the tops of his eyelids. The woman in the elevator said, " Mortuus est ad omnia." and ripped herself open.