The Body of Edwin Winchester

Th body of Edwin Winchester was found by his maid. She had come to bring him his dinner, one evening, only to find his body stiff and as cold as the snow flecked window panes, letting the only light into the gaudy room. I, of course, was immediately summoned. As the city’s leading medical expert, only I would be called to the bedside of such as man as Edwin Winchester. The maid, no doubt, thought Edwin would have wanted it to be I that knelt beside him, checked his pulse for the last time, and perhaps he would have. But not if he had known the truth.

So it was that my carriage dropped me off in front of the tall mansion Mr. Winchester had so long called home. My poor driver, he was near frozen. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see an icicle hanging from that rather long nose of his. His teeth chattered, but he promised to wait for me. So I entered the home. The maid greeted me immediately upon my entrance and tried to take my coat off me, of which I denied her. She led me to Edwin’s room. It was large and grand, full of gaudy tapestries and gold decorations of which I could scarcely name, nor much cared to.

I knelt beside Edwin’s form on the bed. His skin was pale and frigid to the touch. His eyes were closed, but I opened them with my handkerchief. As expected, both eyes were normal but for a strange and unusual burnt orange haze that hung over them. These were symptoms I knew well, having seen them dozens of times in the last months. The plague that gripped him was of an unknown sort. It worked on different levels and at different paces, but the result was always the same, the limp frigid body and the orange eyes.

“Has he a pulse?” the nurse asked of me from where she sat in the corner, tugging at her apron. No doubt she worried she would take the blame for his fall. I placed my fingers upon Edwin’s wrist in the appropriate spot, and indeed, no pulse there existed.

“No,” I informed her in my calmest voice, “There is no pulse.”

Though she did shrink away into the corner further and clasp at her face, do keep in mind, friend, I said there was no pulse. I didn’t say he was dead.

For a week now I had grown suspicious of this, that, perhaps, having no pulse did not mean death. Do not take me wrongly, for I had reasons to believe this. In my studies of the disease I came to discover that the bodies of the supposedly dead victims did not behave as a dead body should. Rigor Mortis, the stiffening of muscles that occurs hours after death, for example, did not set in to any of the bodies I kept to study. Nor did they begin to compose, not even for days. They seemed, in fact, quite normal, but for the coldness, the limpness, and the inability to move or react. Why, I found, one could toss a man on the ground and he would not so much as twitch his eyes. Yet how could they be dead? And then it occurred to me, a strange, outlandish, but possibly brilliant idea. Perhaps the disease did not kill the host. Perhaps, instead, it simply stopped their bodily functions and instead operated the internal workings of the body on their own terms, preserving the body for longer than it would normally last, letting it survive and thrive within the host even longer. This was quite a revelation for me, I admit. Never had I suspected such a thing could occur. But here, also, there arose another question. If the body were alive, was it still conscious or had it become a vegetable, unmoving, unthinking, but alive. I was inclined not to think the latter. There seemed no reason for the disease to shut down the consciousness, and I couldn’t think of a way it could be done without damaging the brain, which would be essential, still, to the life of the body. In any case, the idea rather appealed to me, being alive, but not unlike the dead.

I had shared none of this knowledge with anyone. I preferred to keep it to myself, concealed in my brain where I alone could examine it.

As it was, I was fairly confident in my hypothesis, and thusly dear Edwin was not dead at all, but alive, listening to our conversation. I feigned an aggrieved expression and the maid was quite fooled by the ruse. She sobbed into her apron, a sight which rather disgusted me.

“There’s no use sitting there crying,” I told her, “The mortician must be fetched. It’s too late.” The woman nodded, believing every lie I fed her, and she left the room. I heard her footsteps descending the steps at such a rapid pace I half expected her to trip.

And now I had, I knew, a time alone with Edwin, before that bumbling nurse returned with the mortician. I knelt, again, beside Edwin and I turned his face towards mine so that I knew his eyes would be staring straight into my own. Through the orange haze, I was probably but a blurry shadow, but I knew he would recognize me, for I knew I would never forget his face, though I should have liked to dearly.

I smiled in his face, and sense of power almost overwhelmed me. I brushed aside a few locks of the curly hair almost obscuring his ear.

“How the tables have turned, dear Edwin,” I whispered into the ear. I paused for but a moment and continued, “I promised you Edwin, did I not? I promised you, and now my promise will be fulfilled.”

I was almost disappointed, at first, because there could be no reaction upon his empty face. But it did comfort me, I think, to imagine what he must have been thinking, trapped there inside of his own little body.

I said little else after that; he had heard what I wanted him to hear. And so for the remainder of our wait I kneeled beside him and reveled in his terror I was sure was there. After what seemed a short time, I could hear footsteps once more. This time, not only entered the maid, but several other men including a few servants and the mortician himself, accompanied by a two typical burly men. For a time, everyone but a few of Edwin’s closest servants was sent from the room. We waited for quite a while, but I was patient; I knew, now, that I had succeeded. Several servants were sent out in this time. They ran about the city, seeking Edwin’s few friends, and several people he knew well and worked with to attend his funeral. In these times it was not the common practice to wait on funerals. A body had to be buried quickly, and the disease with it. After the time had passed we were allowed back in.

The two burly men lifted Edwin from his bed and carried him down the stairs. He was dressed, now, in his best suit with a rather luxurious and over-splendid red cravat that gave him the appearance of bleeding from the throat.

They took him outside and he was quickly carried to the back of a long hearse drawn by four glossy black horses. His coffin awaited him there. It, like everything else about the man was gilded and gaudy. It was made of a sleek black wood covered in a shiny finish. Gold was inlayed along its edges and in elaborate patterns and designs. To top it all off, his name was embossed on the top: Edwin Winchester III.

They laid him in it and arranged his form to make him look peaceful and serene, as if sleeping. This much pleased me for the irony was great. The maid leaned over him, reaching for his face with her fingers. I knew she meant to close his still wide eyes and I was determined to forestall her, so I spoke.

“My dear,” I said, adopting a tone of deepest concern, “I would not do that if I were you.” She halted and looked around at me. She did not need to ask, her eyes said it all. “You see,” I continued, “if one touches the eyes, one might get the disease themselves.” She withdrew her hand with all haste and paled considerably. So it was decided his eyes would remain open.

The hearse set off down the cobblestoned path. I climbed back into my own carriage. My driver had been nursing his frozen fingers, but he abandoned the attempt when I climbed into the back, and we followed the hearse up the hill.

The Cliff Heights cemetery sat perched on the side of a cliff overlooking the sea. In better weather it was a splendid view, and always a dangerous plunge. Only the wealthiest, most important men and women were buried here. I myself already had my lot picked out, right on the edge of the cliff, under a twisted willow tree.

The grave had already been dug; no one had expected Edwin to survive when first he was suspected to have the disease, because no one so far had. A few carriages came up behind us, and out of them stepped a few well dressed men. They, like Edwin and I, were the sort of people who would be buried here when our time came. Edwin would never associate himself with anyone lesser anyways. They clasped expensive coats around them and marched to the gravesite. The snow crunched softly under their feet.

No one was in much a mood to linger so the funeral was short. The mortician stood and said a few words beside the coffin before it was opened for the viewing. The men filed past and cast Edwin sparse glances. But I, I leaned right over his face and stared into his eyes; I would be the last thing he saw. The coffin was closed and lowered into the earth. The two men picked up their spades and began filling in the whole. I watched as each shovel full of dirt was cast over the coffin. I stood there until the coffin was completely covered, long after the rest of the men had taken their leave. I stood there until the hole was filled. I stood there, still, when the mortician and his men left the cliff top. Edwin and I were alone now, and for the first time it was safe to smile.