The medical examiner’s annex stood behind the main hospital complex, connected by a covered walkway that smelled of disinfectant and rain.
It had been decommissioned three years earlier when the city consolidated services. Since then, it had housed only old equipment and a backlog of boxed records slated for long-term storage.
The Archive flagged it not for any dramatic event, but for an accounting discrepancy. An internal audit had found one too many autopsy reports in the system—an extra file number, no corresponding entry in the death registry, no matching body tagged in the refrigeration logs.
The file, when printed, had my initials on the top.
That is why they sent me.
The annex interior was cooler than the outside air. The overhead fluorescents flickered reluctantly to life when I threw the breaker. Tile floors, white walls gone slightly yellow where time had outpaced cleaning. A row of steel doors along one side led to the body storage units.
I went first to the records room.
Metal shelving filled the space, each unit holding bankers’ boxes labeled with date ranges and case numbers. The extra file—ME-10-22-AX—should have been among the most recent.
I found its box on the third shelf, second row from the back.
Inside, nestled between more mundane paperwork, a single manila folder lay on top, its tab marked in thick black pen:
FINCH, H. – ME-10-22-AX
The handwriting was neat, the letters distinct. I did not recognize it.
I set the folder on the nearest table and opened it.
The first page was a standard intake sheet. Most of the fields had been filled in.
NAME: FINCH, HALLOWAY SEX: M AGE: 43 HEIGHT: 180 cm WEIGHT: 76 kg
Those values matched my own with uncomfortable precision.
The next field:
DATE OF BIRTH: [ ]
left blank.
DATE / TIME OF DEATH: 2025-12-19 / 22:22
I checked my watch.
It was 14:06 on that same date.
The report continued in the usual format.
CASE SUMMARY: Subject found in [REDACTED] under circumstances inconsistent with accidental or natural death. No external trauma sufficient to explain cessation of vital signs. Internal findings suggest systemic interference at multiple scales.
Several lines had been blacked out with marker, but the strokes were inconsistent, as if added by different hands at different times. In places, the ink had been so heavily applied that the paper puckered.
EXTERNAL EXAMINATION: The body is that of a well-nourished adult male appearing his stated age, identified as Halloway Finch via personal effects and prior photographic record. Rigor mortis is present but resolving. Livor mortis is posterior, non-blanching. No significant external injuries beyond minor contusions to right wrist and left temple.
I glanced at my wrist.
A faint bruise had formed there last week where I had bumped into a table. It was still yellowing at the edges.
The report’s attached photographs were grainy black-and-white prints clipped to the corners of the page. In each, the subject lay on a metal autopsy table, draped modestly, features blurred by the reproduction quality.
The angles were such that I could not see his face clearly.
The wrist bruise was visible.
INTERNAL EXAMINATION: The thoracic and abdominal cavities are entered via standard Y-shaped incision. No gross abnormalities of organ placement. Heart weight within normal limits. Coronary arteries patent. Lungs show scattered areas of petechial hemorrhage without clear focal origin.
Then, lower on the page:
Note: Despite the absence of obstructive pathology, there is evidence that the subject’s tissues have been exposed to non-localized stress inconsistent with known physical mechanisms. At a microscopic level, cellular structures display signs of repeated compression and release, as though subjected to fluctuating pressure fields not accounted for by standard physiology.
In the margin, in smaller handwriting:
Same as previous. Interference pattern identical.
There was no cross-reference to explain what “previous” meant.
The toxicology section was mostly blank.
TOXICOLOGY: Samples taken. Pending analysis.
Beneath that, someone had later added:
Results inconclusive. No exogenous substances detected. Endogenous markers inconsistent with baseline human ranges. See attached.
There were no attachments in the folder.
The final page of the report contained the official conclusion.
CAUSE OF DEATH: Undetermined. MANNER OF DEATH: Undetermined.
And then, in a different pen, added later between lines:
Provisional classification: Exposure to anomaly consistent with prior Finch cases.
Cases.
Plural.
I slowed down.
I paged back through the folder, looking for any indexing information that might link to other files. In the top corner of the intake sheet, faintly impressed into the paper as if someone had written on a sheet above it, I saw:
ME-06-22-FN ME-09-22-FX
The pattern of numbers suggested dates. 06/22. 09/22. Both with suffixes starting with F.
Finch.
On the inside back cover of the folder, someone had taped a small envelope.
No label.
Inside, a single photograph.
This one was clearer than the others: a close-up of the subject’s face. The angle was slightly off-center, as if the photographer had been standing to the side of the table, hesitant to get too close.
The resemblance was… imprecise. Familiar enough to unsettle. Unfamiliar enough to permit doubt.
I held the photograph next to my own reflection in the gloss of the stainless steel table.
The bruise at the subject’s wrist was identical to mine.
Down to the shape.
Down to the slight, darker crescent along its upper edge.
I set the photo down and checked my wrist again, absurdly half expecting the bruise to have darkened in the intervening seconds.
It had not.
The refrigeration unit doors hummed softly when I approached them. Their digital displays were dark, but the interior fans still spun with a slow, persistent whine, cycling air that no longer needed cooling.
Each door bore a plastic sleeve for a tag indicating the occupant within. Most were empty.
On the door marked with the case number corresponding to my file—ME-10-22-AX—someone had inserted a card.
NAME: FINCH, H. STATUS: RELEASED
No date.
No forwarding information.
I opened the door.
The unit was empty.
There was no trace of prior occupancy. No condensation, no staining on the stainless steel, no lingering chemical odor. It was as clean as if it had never been used.
The air inside was marginally colder than the room outside, but not by much.
I closed the door.
The status on the tag did not change.
There was an audio component to the report, according to the Archive’s digital index: a dictation file associated with the case, recorded by the examiner at the time of autopsy.
I found the corresponding handheld recorder in a drawer in the office, its battery long dead. When I connected it to my own equipment, the file directory populated with a list of case numbers.
The one tagged ME-10-22-AX had a runtime of 10 minutes and 22 seconds.
I played it.
The first few minutes were routine: the examiner’s voice describing the body, measurements, identifying marks. The tone was practiced, detached.
At 03:11, there was a pause.
When the dictation resumed, the timbre of the voice had changed. Still the same speaker, but strained, as if he were forcing the words through clenched teeth.
“Subject is… the similarity is noted. We have seen this pattern now in three instances. Finch. Always Finch. If this reaches anyone outside the annex, recommend immediate review of all prior unexplained deaths with matching anomalies.”
A rustle of cloth. A clink of metal.
“It is unclear whether we are dealing with multiple individuals or repeated presentations of the same one.”
Silence.
A faint, irregular tapping, as if a finger were striking the microphone housing in thought.
At 09:59, the examiner’s voice returned, softer.
“Time of death recorded as 22:22. I do not know from whose perspective we are measuring.”
The last few seconds of the recording were low-frequency noise.
Overlaying it, almost inaudible unless you knew to listen, a second voice whispered a single word.
It sounded like my own voice.
The word was:
“Again.”
I returned the folder to its box and resealed it.
On my way out of the annex, I passed the intake ledger near the door, a physical book where case numbers had been handwritten as bodies arrived over the years.
Most lines were faded.
At the bottom of the last page, below the entry for ME-10-22-AX, a new line had been added in faint, fresh ink.
ME-12-22-FH — Pending
The date column beside it was blank.
The name field had not yet been filled in.
There was just enough space for six or seven letters, depending on the hand that would write them.
I closed the ledger.
Outside, the sky had begun to darken earlier than the forecast suggested. My watch read 14:37.
In the reflection of the annex door’s glass, for a moment, I thought I saw the outline of a body on a table behind me where none should have been.
It was gone when I turned.
[End of recovered material]