Free This Mortal Coil by Logan Thomas Snyder Page B

“Ah, the power of the human brain to adapt, to overcome. Such a magnificent, marvelous instrument; I simply cannot wait to behold what is essentially a carbon copy of mine own.” Dr. Morgenstern allowed himself a moment to savor the prospect, breathing reverently. Then he fired up the bone saw. “Well, no time like the present!”
    Willem’s magnificent, marvelous instrument raced wildly to the shrieking of the bone saw above him. He had been carefully exploring the extent to which he could make his muscles respond throughout Dr. Morgenstern’s unhinged monologue. Unfortunately, this was limited to little more than a twitching toe here, a flex of the finger there. Now he had only precious seconds before Dr. Morgenstern began unscrewing his skullcap.
    It was, in the doctor’s own words, a powerful external stimulus .
    A charge of current shot down Willem’s spine, reanimating the nerve-endings that flowed like tributaries throughout his body. All at once, the life flowed back into his extremities, powered by a torrent of adrenaline and a spark of the divine.
    With the bone saw mere inches from contact with his forehead, his eyes snapped into sudden focus. Dr. Morgenstern froze, his jaw dropping to allow for a gasp that never came. Before he could cry out or protest, Willem seized a No. 10 scalpel from the instrument tray, thrusting up into his throat just beneath the chin. He put every ounce of muscle he could muster behind the strike, the blade passing easily through Morgenstern’s fleshy wattle and the thick mass of his tongue before lodging deep within the soft palate of the mouth. Dr. Morgenstern gurgled and clawed at his throat as he staggered backward. Absent his grip, the saw clattered loudly to the floor, skittering madly and squealing its disapproval as it set about scarring and otherwise pulverizing the room’s immaculate tiling.
    In a vain attempt to sound the alarm, Dr. Morgenstern sidestepped the saw, taking three shuffling steps toward the intercom across the room. What exactly he intended to do with his mouth stuck shut, Willem couldn’t say. Not that it mattered. He barely made it halfway before he collapsed, coming to rest in the pool of blood streaming copiously from both his mouth and throat.
    Willem took quick stock of the situation, coming to three immediate conclusions. The first was that he needed to shut off that fucking bone saw before it attracted unwanted attention. Second, he needed a weapon and something to cover himself. Any of the scalpels close at hand were sufficient to the task, so he contented himself with the longest-handled of them and moved to strip Dr. Morgenstern of his blood-soaked coat. Last, but certainly not least, he needed to find Theresa and the others.
    Or what’s left of them, he thought grimly.
    Things came to a head quickly after he emerged from the room. Standing in the middle of a long corridor, he was unsure which way to proceed until a blood-curdling cry drew him to his left. Willem clutched at the bloodied lapels of his coat with one hand, holding the scalpel before him with the other. He had just taken a tentative step toward the source of the scream when Theresa barreled out of the room and into the hall beside him. She was breathing heavily and streaked with blood, naked as the day she was...
    What are we exactly? he wondered. Born? Hatched? Grown in suspended animation in some luminescent ooze?
    Whatever the case, the effect was shocking, to say the least.
    “Oh, hey, Will,” she said, cocking her head and baring her teeth in a feral smile when she saw him standing there. They were stained crimson along with her lips, chin, and cheeks. She must have come to just in time to tear out the throat of whatever poor bastard had been assigned to examine her. “Hmm. That’s not a bad idea.” Before he could ask what she meant, she disappeared back into the room. She reemerged a moment later, wearing a coat that looked more like it belonged to an especially