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The other corpse was male, at least twice her size, wrapped as I said around her diminutive frame as a mother nestles with her child, the chest a few inches froainst hers But thefact of its very presence

No, theabout this most remarkable tableau was that her coi," the doctorabove the mask "It must be… but how could it? This is h, but more curious by far is that he’s here in the first place!… Specie, no signs of exterior injury or trau this down?"

He was staring at me I in turn stared back at hi otten notebook in my hand "Focus upon the task at hand, Will Henry"

I nodded and wiped away the tears with the back of an to write beneath the date

"Specii," the doctor repeated "Male, approxins of exterior injury or trau on the task of reporter helped to steadyofon a swiain I nibbled on the end of the pencil as I struggled with the spelling of "Anthropophagi"

" Victie, with evidence of denticulated trauht side of the face and neck The hyoid bone and lowerfro had no head! I looked up from the pad Dr Warthrop was bent over their torsos, fortuitously blocking my view What sort of creature could bite if it lacked the ht ca her

Heme an unobstructed view of the "speciirl with dark hair that curled upon the table in a fall of luxurious ringlets The doctor leaned over and squinted at the chest of the beast pressed against her, peering across the body of the young girl whose eternal rest was broken by this unholy erip of an invader frohtmare

"Yes!" he called softly "Most definitely Anthropophagi Forceps, Will Henry, and a tray, please-No, the small one there, by the skull chisel That’s the one"

I sohbadly and I literally could not feel nore the nearly overwhele to vomit I handed hi, breathing as shallowly as possible, for the reek of decay burned inember at the back of ’s chest with the forceps I heard the scraping of thehard-an exposed rib? Had this creature also been partially consumed? And, if it had, where was the other monster that had done it?

"Most curious Most curious," the doctor said, the words ns of trauma, clearly in its prius, hmmm? How did you meet your fate?"

As he spoke, the doctor tapped thin strips of flesh froy, like half-cured jerky, a piece of whiteto one or two of the strands, and I realized he wasn’t peeling off pieces of the ed to the face and neck of the girl

I looked down between my outstretched arms, to the spot where the doctor worked, and saw he had not been scraping at an exposed rib

He had been cleaning the thing’s teeth

The rooan to spin around me The doctor said, in a calood to ht We are students of nature as well as its products, all of us, including this creature Born of the sas, for how could it be otherwise? We are soldiers for science, and ill do our duty Yes, Will Henry? Yes, Will Henry?"

"Yes, Doctor," I choked out "Yes, sir"

"Good boy" He dropped the forceps into the metal tray Flecks of flesh and bits of blood speckled the fingers of his glove "Bring me the chisel"

Gladly I returned to the instruht hiood foot soldier for science, for the next assault

Though it lacked a head, the Anthropophagus was nota mouth Or teeth The orifice was shaped like a shark’s, and the teeth were equally sharklike: triangular, serrated, and ed in rows that marched toward the front of the mouth from the inner, unseen cavity of its throat The mouth itself lay just below the enorion between the pectorals and the groin It had no nose that I could see, though it had not been blind in life: Its eyes (of which I confess I had seen only one) were located on the shoulders, lidless and completely black

"Snap to, Will Henry!" the doctor called I was taking too long to steel myself "Roll the tray closer to the table; you’ll wear yourself out trotting back and forth"