#if um...you are able to deal with decomposition its worth a look

[changelingsandothernonsense]

weird urge to info dump on ice mummies and polar burials.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

A Brainful Process || Morgan &Rio

@3starsquinn

Cemetery field trip!

(Contains: zombie and animal gore)

Cemeteries were safer to visit in Morgan’s idle house than the woods. In cemeteries, most of the company was resting six feet under, and those that weren’t had a tendency to wave at Morgan as she walked by, content to leave her alone, one still soul to another. Some even warned her when it was better to turn back home. There’s a girl with the stake that comes by around now, a ghost might say. Or, we don’t like you that much. Cemeteries were safer, yes, and yet somehow tonight Morgan still found herself tackled to the ground, wrestling with a one legged zombie who, for all her wild hunger, really knew how to use her strength to her advantage. “Uh--a little help, maybe?” She called, appealing to one of the spirits nearby. “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it,” the old man said, and drifted off to watch her struggle somewhere else. “Okay, okay, ok--ow!” The zombie woman bit into her shoulder, moaning with hunger. Morgan kicked, trying to knock her off balance enough to shift the weight between them like Mina had taught her, but it was a lot harder when the opponent didn’t have much of a mind for sensing pain. Morgan set her jaw and lashed out to struggle with the zombie woman again. “We got this,” she grunted. “You’re gonna be fine, you just gotta stop trying to eat me!”

Cemeteries had scared Orion far before he knew ghosts and spirits existed. He supposed he always knew they were real. Growing up learning about werewolves and Fae made pretty much anything believable. If his parents had bothered telling him about Santa, Rio might still think he was real. But he had always thought of ghosts in the more creepypasta YouTube sense. That they haunted others. They were crazy stories that made things colder and flipped on lights. Not the kind that possessed other humans and drained their life force. But ever since Rio had learned about the Dybbuks and other evil spirits, Rio hadn’t been able to get them off his mind. Rio began pulling books about ghosts and spirits. The more he read, the more intrigued he became with some of the accounts of sightings. Winston and Ricky must have really gotten to Rio. Without even realizing it, on his way home that night he was taking a detour and heading towards the cemetery. For no other reason than pure stupidity, if Rio had to guess. Once he was within range however, he started hearing voices. The hairs on his arms stood straight up and he immediately began shaking. At least, until he realized that the voices weren’t ghosts or spirits but a person. A person that sounded like they were in danger. Rio picked up his pace, beginning to job before breaking into a sprint towards the cemetery, stopping only when he finally spotted the source of the voice, a woman being attacked by another. “Hey!” Rio yelled, trying to sound more dangerous than he actually was, “Let her go!” Rio began moving towards the two slowly, freezing when he finally realized who the victim of the evening was, “Professor?”

The sound of another voice made Morgan’s dead body go stiff. Fuck. The last thing she needed was human company, or some hunter about to stumble upon a two-for-one deal. “W-we’re fine!” She grunted, finally grappling the zombie woman to the ground and pinning her down. “She’s--she’s just---uh--” Morgan struggled for a good lie. The woman was in literal pieces, her skin sagging off her bones and pockets of bare muscle spreading bursts of dark, grotesque color. And the person was coming closer. “Having an attack! Nothing to see here--Rio?”

Morgan saw him through the edge of her vision and didn’t know whether to be relieved or agitated. She hadn’t told Rio the ‘sudden loss in her family’ that explained away two weeks worth of missed classes had been her own. She hadn’t told any of her students. Funny enough, that still wasn’t a conversation she felt like having. But there wasn’t going to be any fooling him. He was too much of a supernatural scholar to not see the obvious, at least when it came to the woman thrashing and groaning under her. “Hey!” She said brightly, panic tight in her smile. “How weird and amazing to run into you here! I’m fine, she’s fine, we’re both fine right now, completely. But you should really stay back and um, maybe grab some rope? And some fresh brains?” She was convinced, maybe falsely, that she had enough confidence to sell everything she was saying without the need for questions. Then the zombie woman rocked against her weight and threw her off, driven by the pull of fresh meat.

For a long moment, Orion just stood from a distance and stared at Morgan and the woman clawing at her. This didn’t make any sense. Why was Morgan being so casual right now? Was this some sort of fever dream brought on by the lack of sleep? “Uh” Rio hummed, drawing it out for far longer than any of them needed. “Both fine. Right.” He realized, maybe many beats too late, that he had still not moved from his spot. Until now, he had stared at the sight as if it was a horror scene in a movie. “Brains?” Rio asked, touching at his head instinctively before realizing that Morgan probably had a rope and brains here. Because this was a zombie. A zombie. A ZOMBIE? It took this long for the fear to finally rush into Rio’s body and he immediately started fidgeting, the usual skin crawling feeling worming its way through his body. “Oh my god. A zombie! I’ve never met a zombie! I’m going to do something now.” Rio spoke aloud, as if that was going to finally motivate his body to follow the commands. Apparently it worked, his feet finally inching across the grass and towards the two. “What do you want me to do with these things once I have them?”

Morgan’s thin smile fractured with dismay. As much as she was relieved Rio wasn’t some guns a blazing hunter trying to get more goo for their collection. But she didn’t know if this was really the time for scholarly curiosity either. Maybe more like run and take action time. Move faster NOW time. Morgan dove for the zombie again, tackling her to the ground and pressing down with all her weight. She looked up at Rio, pleading for his help. She could keep the zombie pinned down for now, but she wouldn’t be able to help the dead woman with just her hands alone. And, shit--of course Rio wouldn’t have anything on him. He wasn’t Kaden, for crying out loud. Morgan looked around them, mind racing to keep up, to stay ahead of any panic. Maybe this was the time for scholarly curiosity. “The plan!” She said, forcing as much confidence into her bright voice as possible. “The plan is you...find something that will do instead of rope. Um...your belt! And uuh…” She looked around her with dismay. “My belt!” It was a lot daintier, meant for her small waist as decoration rather than supporting any weight. “And we are going to bind the zombie as tightly as we can. Because, fun fact: zombies have a much higher pain threshold than humans! Whatever would hurt for you won’t hurt for them, so that’s not something to worry about when they’re...like this.” She swallowed thickly and forced another smile as the zombie rocked and struggled under her. “When her limbes are secure, we’ll get her some of the food from my bag--” what was supposed to have been her lunch, “--and give her some of that. And then...more, probaby. From...somewhere else. I’m not...actually sure from where yet, but--fun zombie fact 2: decomposition and ‘rabid’ behavior is a symptom of starvation and not, necessarily, the zombie’s natural state! With sustainable access to food, your average zombie isn’t much different than a human, by outward appearances anyway.” Now if they could work on this together without Rio wondering too hard about how she knew all this, it might actually be easy. Or at least, not hard.

Okay, obviously it was clear that Morgan was preoccupied right now. Trying to hold back the woman- er uh the zombie from munching on either of them. Ignoring the swelling excitement as well as the far more palpable fear that was building inside of him, Orion tried to put aside any jitters and listen to Morgan’s instructions. He was lucky he had worn jeans today instead of the usual joggers or track pants, and that he was embarrassingly skinny for his age and height, so any pair of jeans that he wore usually required a belt. He pulled the belt free, hooking his pinky around a belt loop to avoid his jeans dropping. God, that would be embarrassing. “Okay uh- my belt is good. And your belt is uh- still attached to you.” Rio called, still standing a few feet back. He was not incredibly comfortable with the idea of undoing his teacher’s belt, but he supposed there were… strange circumstances.

“This is great!” Rio tried remaining positive, his voice cracking at the end of his sentence. Although Rio greatly appreciated the information on Zombies, a species he had not done much study on. He was familiar with a couple of culture’s depiction of zombies in their own lore, but from what Morgan was describing, they differed quite a bit. “I am very happy to help and I am totally going to keep my cool during this time.” Rio said aloud, probably trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Morgan. He slowly inched towards them, holding his arms out with his belt gripped tightly in both hands. “Do uh- you want me to do this? Or you? Is the whole thing about a zombie bite still true?”

Jeepers, this was going to be tricky. The zombie woman was beginning to thrash, dragging her and Morgan across the ground inch by inch. The closer Rio got, the more she wriggled her head, gnashing her rotting teeth. Morgan shifted position, pressing her knee down into the woman’s back. This was really not very seemly, but she couldn’t think of another way that would keep the zombie from hurting anyone long enough to feed properly. “We got this, we got this,” she murmured, still racing for ideas. “We got this!” She declared. ���You are doing a great job, Rio! Just grab her legs and I’ll get the arms, and we’ll bind them up together. No worries!” She grabbed one of the zombie’s arms, then the other, wrestling against the woman’s frustration. “But, uh, yeah, about the bite. Fun fact, that’s--fuck!” The zombie woman’s teeth bit into her hand, grazing the cuff she used to hide her real scar. Morgan finished wrangling the arms with a grimace and whipped off her belt to fasten her arms together so the wrists would come more easily. “The bite thing is real,” she said, looking down at the wound in her hand. “But don’t freak out, Rio, okay? It doesn’t matter if she bites me, it’s you I’m worried about. Uh, get her wrists and ankles together?”

Orion could do this. He could totally do this. He did not love the idea of grabbing onto this woman, zombie or no. But Morgan seemed convinced that she would not feel the pain and that they were not going to harm her. That was what Rio wanted right? What was some tying and gagging if it meant helping her and others not get hurt? That was totally something that Rio could get behind. Grabbing onto her legs was surprisingly easy. Hunter strength and all made wrangling the woman’s legs surprisingly easy. At least, until the zombie bit Morgan. Rio dropped the legs immediately and began screaming his head off. At that moment, he wasn’t sure what was happening. Would Morgan turn into a zombie? How fast was the process? Was there something he could do to stop it? Rio had seen some zombie shows. How they amputated the body part that had been bitten to stop the spread. Even the idea made Rio light headed. He definitely couldn’t do that. Finally, Rio contained himself again, grappling the legs again and holding them. What the heck did Morgan mean that she wasn’t worried about herself? Was she immune to the bite somehow? “I- I don’t- uhhhhh” Rio’s brain broke for a moment, but he forced himself out of the slump. Grabbing onto the woman’s wrists and easily pulling them back to meet the ankles and wrapping his belt around them. “Oh god- Oh god. I hate this. I’m really bad at this. I think I’m going to puke. Are you okay???”

“Rio! You cannot puke on this woman!” Morgan shrieked. Oh dear. This wasn’t calm. This was the opposite of calm. Could she breathe? Was that ever going to work again? She missed the time when all she had to do was tell herself to breathe and her body would start to right itself back into something right and normal. But the quiet was too great and there was too much happening at once. “I’m fine! I’m not even bleeding!” Mostly because she didn’t have any circulation. “Just--just hold her steady and don’t turn into a zombie!” She scrambled over to her bag and prised open a tupperware full of brains, a blend, as it happened, but even a smidgen of person in there probably wasn’t going to get this woman back to normal. They’d have to take her somewhere better, or get better to her. Morgan stuck the tupperware under the woman’s nose and watched, grimacing, as she moaned and wrangled herself closer to fit as much of it in her mouth as possible. Morgan sat back and deflated. That would keep her busy for, what, five minutes? “I’m sorry,” she said. “I am fine though. I’m…” Morgan shook her head and sid off the cuff, showing Rio her old scar, a perfect oval in the shape of Remmy’s mouth. “I’m already bitten and dead, Rio. Say, you didn’t happen to bring a car here, did you?”

“I’m not going to puke on her!” Orion yelled back, unsure why he was even still yelling. Stress. He totally blamed stress. He needed to calm down. Take a chill pill or something. That was all thrown out the window when Morgan tried to reassure him by letting him know that she wasn’t bleeding. “How are you not bleeding?” Rio was right back to freaking out now. But Morgan seemed more together than Rio was. She was in the right state of mind to fish out something from her bag and give it to the tied up woman. “Is that… brains?” Rio asked, the most calm he had been since showing up here. He examined the mush curiously. Everything seemingly clicked into place when Morgan showed off what looked like an old, already healed scar. She was dead? “You’re… a zombie?” Rio muttered aloud, needing to hear the words to actually begin processing it. A moment of fear passed through him as he considered that Rio had just willingly walked into being part of their midnight snack. But he pushed the thought away quickly. That couldn’t be. This was his professor. They had talked about books and the supernatural together. “Woah. You’re nothing like the old Haitian story of zombies.” His head tilted curiously as he examined his teacher to try to pick out any defining details. By all accounts, she looked human to him. “Hmm… interesting.” Rio nodded, and then grimaced at the next question, “About that… I don’t really have a car right now. It belongs to my parents and I’m not really talking to them right now and- y’know what? It’s a whole thing. Clearly we have other things going on right now. Maybe I can call my friend Blanche. Or one of my roommates! Maybe they can help us? Or uh… Where are we taking her anyways?”

“Wow, kid, that’s really one heck of a compliment,” Morgan deadpanned. “But...yes. I got hurt really bad and I died. Two months ago now. That’s why I missed so much school towards the end of the semester. I died, Rio.” She looked down at the woman gnashing her teeth at the brain bits in the tupperware. “But I have people who help take care of me. I can stay fed easily. I have a home. I have a girlfriend that loves me. I even have magic pills for my new zombie physiology that help manage all the depression I’ve got over dying. I don’t know which of those this woman is missing, but whatever it is, she’s still a person. She’s as much of a person as I am. Does that make sense?” She looked at him earnestly. Rio was a good kid. Rio didn’t believe in hurting people. He had to get it. Maybe it was hard to see the woman in her own right. Even Morgan couldn’t do that. She didn’t know her name or if she was happy before she died or how long she had been dragging herself out of bed. She could only see her pain. She had to be in so much pain to have sunk this far. The days of starving had to have been excruciating. With this kind of decay, maybe it was even weeks. “I was thinking of getting her to the butcher’s, but I don’t know if their stock will be enough for her. It’s worth a shot, if we can keep her from getting noticed. “Unless you wanna do a run? You got venmo, Rio?” She asked. The brains were almost gone, and of the two of them, Rio was the one most in danger. And this wasn’t his problem, now that she was mostly subdued. “You don’t have to, you know. I can take this from here.”

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say at this moment. Clearly, Orion had no idea what he was doing. He had grown up knowing about the supernatural. He loved learning about them and yet despite this he still had just barely scratched the surface. He knew nothing about Zombies, or real zombies at least. “Wow. I’m uh- sorry? That doesn’t sound like a good thing. But you don’t look dead.” Rio tried, he didn’t think that helped redeem him. “Okay that was probably a bad thing to say too. But despite all that… I’m really glad that you have a good support system, y’know? That must have been a really difficult thing to go through and… well I’m really glad things seem okay now. At least, hopefully everything’s okay.” And Morgan seemed dead set on helping this woman right now. And though the woman tied up seemed a little… murdery right now, Rio believed that with some help she could end up like Morgan seemed now. Completely put together. “I believe you. And I’m in. Let’s help her. Uh- I can run somewhere and get stuff… I don’t know what to get. But tell me and I’ll figure something out.”

“Well, you can tell that to my necrosis whenever I wait too long to eat my wheaties.” Morgan mumbled. You can test my pulse too, if you want.” She held out her hand, the bite standing out as a heavy shadow on her pale skin. “And no, you don’t need to be sorry--” But Rio was. He was just a kid doing his best with problems way bigger than himself. “But thank you. I know you mean it well.” She stared at the woman writhing in front of them again. She could see, too clearly now, what hunters did. A raving thing, a disaster they needed to triage before it got out of hand, a monster… “I can venmo you. A hundred dollars so should be able to buy out the brains at the butcher shop, whatever other weird organs they’ve got. That’s a start.” And while he was out she could maybe scrounge up a deer. They wandered through near dusk in little clusters, and it was the time of year when fauns were left to hide in the tall grass while mothers hunted. If she was quick and lucky, she’d be able to nab one for this woman to have. And maybe then, maybe if they were lucky, she could be okay. Morgan wrenched a hand through her hair and took out her phone to send the money over.

Orion laughed, happy that despite the horrible events that had clearly befallen his teacher without him even knowing about it, she could maintain some level of humor. “Don’t worry. I believe you. It’s uh- definitely not my first rodeo with the supernatural.” Even if he didn’t quite understand, he did believe. “Um right. I got it. Give me…” Rio paused, checking his phone for the time, “Twenty minutes. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

One of the good things about being a hunter? Superhuman endurance. Rio was definitely not in shape, but he could run for a while without having to stop. From here, he was pretty sure that it would be more efficient to get a car. If he could run home and borrow Ricky’s truck then he could get to the butcher shop and back without too much trouble. So he ran towards their house as fast as he possibly could, not letting anything distract him.

It worried Morgan how much animals still trusted her. The faun was too scared of the moaning woman six yards ahead to move. Morgan was able to settle down near it, still as death, and when it came over to sniff her out of curiosity, she took its neck and snapped it. The head dangled limp from the body like a toy that had lost all its stuffing. She carried it back to the woman and did not have to wait for her to wriggle and strain against her bonds trying to eat it. Morgan took out a knife and sliced the creature open neatly so she didn’t have to fight. Then she walked away enough yards so the smell of it wouldn’t compel her to steal a starving woman’s meal and licked blood and skin from her hands.

When Rio finally returned, Morgan was perched atop a large cross marker, stained with blood for all that she’d tried to keep herself clean. “Just unwrap everything for her and drop it where she can reach,” she called. “And then, you know, come over here so you don’t get bitten.”

Buying brains from a butcher was perhaps the most uncomfortable Orion had ever been. Despite this incredibly odd request, the butcher didn’t seem to think much of it at all. Which could only mean that this was not an uncommon request that he received. Which probably implied that Morgan and this woman were not the only zombies in town. It hadn’t occurred until now that Morgan could have been the one that turned this woman. But no. His Professor wouldn’t do that. Not unless she had to for some reason. Right?

Rio drove back to Morgan mostly in silence. He hated driving the truck. He didn’t trust himself with a big car. Plus he could barely see while driving the thing and hated ruining Ricky’s seat and mirror placement. But desperate times. Rio parked and hopped out, extending his arm so he could hold the brains at a distance from himself. “I’m here!” Rio yelled out, stopping when he noticed that Morgan had blood all over her shirt. Oh no. “What happened? Are you okay?” Rio asked. Despite this, maybe because he was too trusting just as Athena had always insulted him with, he followed Morgan’s instructions. Unwrapping the brains and tossing it to the tied up woman before hopping away and standing close to his professor. He could smell the blood that stained her. It was fresh.

“It’s okay, Rio,” Morgan said. “What do you think I’m gonna do, die again?” She smirked. A beat later, maybe too late, she wondered if that was maybe a bad joke. Rio knew about the supernatural, but maybe not about death. He hadn’t studied zombies before in his big secret library. He barely seemed comfortable with hauling brains and organs over from the butcher. Morgan sighed with a grimace and tried again. “I killed a faun for her. I didn’t think that was something you needed to be around to see. Brains sustain zombies best, but freshly dead meat is…” Her stomach grumbled, twisting. “Like candy on Halloween. You can’t not have any.” She looked down at him, still clinging to her perch. Her fingers had worn notches into the rock, worrying at the grain to keep from breaking off Bambi’s leg and going to town herself. “It’s just how we’re made,” she said quietly. “When the mother comes back to see if her faun is still around, I’ll try to get her too, if our friend isn’t back to herself yet.” She hesitated a moment, wondering if they had crossed into over sharing territory, if this was already too much for one troubled kid to bear in one night. “You don’t have to watch, or be around for any of that,” she said. “This is just another Tuesday for me, but it was a lot to get used to. It still is. You’ve been a big help, though. If all this turns out okay, it’s gonna be because of you. Because you cared.” She cleared her throat awkwardly. “You uh...you can ask me questions, if you have any. I know all this is...strange. And lived experience can tell you certain things a book can’t.” She offered him a smile, her fear weighing on her softness. Please don’t think less of me for this.

Orion laughed nervously. Was that Morgan being offended? Or Morgan making a joke. A few seconds later and Morgan smirked at Rio, hopefully confirming that it had been a joke instead. “A faun.” Rio repeated, mostly to himself. He was still processing. Rio appreciated the information. He was taking mental notes, making sure to remember all of the information that he was learning about zombies. Maybe he would head back to the building tomorrow, start digging through his books for some information on the undead. The whole thing seemed like Alain’s side, but Rio knew better than to trust a hunter’s point of view when it came to the supernatural. Rio knew from personal experience that those teachings were biased. “I don’t- I usually don’t do that well around blood. But uh- I don’t want to make you do this stuff by yourself.” Morgan opened the board for questions. And boy, did Rio have questions. Way more questions than he possibly knew how to order and ask. “I- I have questions. But right now seems like the wrong time, y’know? With her… in the state she is in.” He sighed. Just another person in this town that has been through some awful experience that Rio wasn’t able to help prevent.

Morgan nodded and watched the woman eat. It might’ve been faster to let her have her hands back, but Morgan remembered the complete haze around her mind when she woke into her feeding frenzy. She hadn’t even known her own name, much less ‘eating people bad.’ If the wrong person had been in the room, she probably would’ve done everything she could to tear them to bits. “Anyone tell you lately what a good kid you are?” She asked. It was a rhetorical question, but she hoped nonetheless that someone was encouraging his generosity. Even if he could probably stand to get less squeamish. In time, the groans of the woman changed. Morgan gestured for Rio to stay back and made her way slowly over.

There was hardly anything left of the faun, but just enough that Morgan couldn’t stop herself from reaching into its ruined skull and scooping out its small black eyes and the thin tissue of its cheek muscle to munch on. She knelt down near the woman, still working the flesh in her mouth. “Hey,” she said, gently as she could with her mouth half full. “Can you talk? Are you good now?” The woman groaned and dashed herself into the red stained grass, angling her mouth for the rest of the faun. “Okay! Not feeling the impulse control. That’s okay! But I’m gonna need like...one intelligible word before you get this carcass.”

“Mmmhh. Aaarr...oh..k-kay.”

Blessed universe she was okay.

Morgan went around and loosened her bonds enough for her to wriggle free and stepped back as she held the faun and the scraps of flesh she hadn’t devoured yet as if they were all the treasure in the world. “You...shouldn’t...have done this,” she panted.

“I don’t see why not, Morgan replied. “What’s your name?”

The woman sucked the last remnants of life from the faun’s ribs and reached for a scattering of brain bits to shove into her mouth. “Ashley,” she said at last. “I didn’t--” She paused to swallow. As she wiped the mess from her chin she caught sight of the blood and mess on her hands, matching Morgan’s and then some.  “I didn’t ask for any of this,” she said through gritted teeth. “Not any of this, you idiots.” And then she was sprinting downhill, stumbling and falling over her own feet but never stopping, the dead animal still tucked in her arms. Morgan reached for her, but caught only the edge of her torn hiking vest. It fell right off, like it had been waiting to all along.

“It hurts sometimes, being like this, Rio,” she said, hanging her head as Ashley disappeared from sight. “Even when you have everything you need, it can still hurt.” There wasn’t any point in tracking her down again, not when Rio could get hurt, and he had done so much already. She willed herself to look up and gave him the saddest apologetic smile. “Sorry you got sucked into this. What were you up to before anyway?”

Orion felt the heat burning his cheeks as the blush came on. Good kid. They weren’t unfamiliar words, not anymore. But they still warmed him each time he heard them. He supposed being starved for acceptance and praise did that to a kid. “Uh- I get told that more so recently than ever before. But uh- Thank you.” Whether or not she was expecting an answer, Rio thought it would be rude to just not thank her for the compliment.

Over time, Rio witnessed first hand how the almost primal hunger seemed to die down from the woman. Slowly, her eating became less frantic and more of that of a human that had not eaten in days. Morgan was fearless, strolling right up to her. Though he supposed death probably helped to quell many of the fears that Rio felt right now.

The zombie- Ashley- seemed confused. Scared, even. And despite what the two had done to help her, Ashley took off the moment she was comprehensive and scurried off down the hill, leaving Rio and Morgan by themselves. And all of that fear and anguish that Rio could see in Ashley’s face, must have been similar to what Morgan had been through. Her words were raw, her smile doing nothing to mask the sadness or pain present in her voice.  This was her life now. Something she was forced to deal with in order to stay alive. Or re-alive, which wasn’t actually a word but would have to apply for this situation. “You helped her. Even though she couldn’t see it right now… you just protected people from potentially getting hurt. And you protected her from making a terrible mistake. That’s… incredible.” Rio breathed, realizing only now that he had been holding his breath the entire time. “I was just at the old Scribe building, heading home for the night when I heard the noises outside the cemetery.”

“Stars, I hope so,” Morgan sighed. She didn’t feel like she had done much. She had hoped to at least talk to someone else like her for a little longer, to ask what she really needed to get by for longer than a day or two. Who did she have? How had she starved so badly? All she had to go on was one torn up hiking vest and a name. She pushed the thought of Ashley to the back of her mind. Maybe she could put out a call online or ask the ghosts in the cemetery to keep an eye out, just in case she turned up here again or...something. But for now she was as good as lost.

Morgan exhaled. Without the need for air, her body retained most of its tension from the past hour until she worked consciously at it, slumping and rolling her neck and shoulders and arms. “You helped too, Rio. I wouldn’t have been able to manage her by myself. Come on,” she urged gently. She held out an arm, beckoning him close, imagining a one armed hug to calm his nerves. Then she saw the blood on her hands and thought better on it. She let it fall limp at her side and wiped it down on her skirt. “I appreciate that you tried. That counts for something.  Let’s get you home, okay?”

[radiojamming]

HISTORY WITH DJ: Franklin Expedition Mummies

So you’re on a jolly good vacation up in the Arctic, right? Because that’s your ideal vacation and nothing makes you happier than miles and miles of ice, loose gravel, ice, snow, polar bears, more ice, and the occasional seal carcass. You’re in your fun vacation boat, happily bobbing your way over by Cape Riley in Nunavut. “Beechey Island!” says your handy-dandy map, and that sounds oh-so fun because it must have a nice beach! A misspelled but otherwise fun beach! Turns out, you’re late to the party and a couple guys have been chilling there for awhile.

“GET YOUR OWN GRAVEL PATCH, SHITLORD!” they call from beyond the grave.

The thing is, not only would 2/4 of these guys probably not hesitate to call you a shitlord because they were a couple youngin’s and memes would probably be hilarious to them but, uh

they’re still

kinda fresh.

By that, I mean 3/4 guys were buried in 1846, and as far as we know, since 1986, they still look pretty good! Or, in the phrasing of one memorable article, one in particular looked “more cold and sleepy than dead”. 

And these three-outta-four are the famous Franklin Expedition mummies. (We won’t be talking about number four. He hopped in later and intruded on their cool permafrost party.)

Now, I won’t be posting any pictures of the mummies specifically, because they can be very disturbing and I remember the first time I saw them, I about hit the ceiling because I didn’t expect it. However, I’ll be describing them in detail and putting some other pictures in. You’re free to look them up at your own discretion, though. But again, fair warning, THEY ARE DEAD AND A FEW OF THEM LOOK THE PART. They were thawed out of the ice and they certainly look like it.

So let me introduce you to the three fabulous young men hanging out underground at the moment, and some background on them.

Much credit first to Kristina Gehrmann for making these gents look so darn lively! Her art’s awesome! (Also woof, Mister Hartnellllll~)

The Beechey Island trio were all part of the infamous lost Franklin expedition launched in May of 1845. Britain sent out two now-famous ships, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, to ply northern Canada for the Northwest Passage. Shit hit the fan awful fast, though, and there’s a reason it’s called a lost expedition. Like, uh, no one came back. People probably ate people. It was a bad time. And the three guys up there were the lucky ones.

Introducing:

JOHN SHAW TORRINGTON - AGE 20; OCCUPATION: PETTY OFFICER, LEAD STOKER (HMS TERROR)

Torrington, the younger half of the Johns, is kind of the face of the expedition, mostly because he was the first person who was exhumed. Dr. Owen Beattie, a forensic anthropologist from the University of Alberta, decided to exhume him in 1984 in an attempt to figure out what the heck went way wrong in the expedition. Now, his team knew they were probably going to find something interesting, considering the gents had been refrigerated in permafrost for a century and some change. They just didn’t know that all the guys would look as fresh as daisies in forensic-land when they pried the lids open. And Torrington was the supreme surprise.

With an expression kind of like :O, he had both eyes open (and he looked kind of ticked, like someone woke him up from a nap), blue patches on his face from the blanket that had been placed over his head (not frostbite), all of his clothes on, and a fun little piece of fabric tied around his head so he wouldn’t get the ol’ skeleton-scream face going. Aside from being tied up like a Christmas present, Torrington just looked exhausted, and more like the guys on the HMS Terror had pranked him than dying of horrible causes.

We don’t actually know much about his life, but we do know he was the lead stoker (fireman) on the HMS Terror, servicing its repurposed locomotive engine. Like the other two, he certainly had tuberculosis and pneumonia. The troubling part was, his hands weren’t very calloused, suggesting he had only worked for a short time and had been down for the count longer than he’d been on for it. Even though it had only been about seven months since they had left England, it was pretty clear Torrington had been sick for awhile already. He died on New Years’ Day at the age of 20.

Some interesting things about him:

-He was a petty officer at age 20! Go Torrington, go! -The gold-looking things around his head are wood shavings, but have often been confused for his hair. There is some light brown/blond hairs sticking out from under the fabric tying his jaw shut, but it was probably short. -He, unlike John #2 and William, had his pants on. No word back yet on why that is. -He’s the only body to not have a Bible verse on his headstone. No word back yet on that either. -We do know he was from Manchester, and had enough family to have living relatives now. (The anthropology team asked them for permission to exhume him.) -He probably smoked, judging by the state of his already whacked-out lungs. -People around the world were so fascinated by him that Iron Maiden, Margaret Atwood, Sheenagh Pugh, and a ton of others have written songs, poems, and stories about him. Most of it was owed to the fact that of the three mummies, he was the most intact and lively-looking. Some people seem to have crushes on him, too. I don’t blame them. -Torrington’s eyes were most likely light blue! They were hardly discolored and were probably very accurate to when he was alive.

WILLIAM BRAINE - AGE 32; OCCUPATION: PRIVATE, ROYAL MARINE (HMS EREBUS)

Out of all the guys in the permafrost, we probably know the least about William Braine, and he seems to have drawn the crap lot as far as health and state of his body. He was the last to be exhumed in the following 1986 expedition, after Hartnell was exhumed. But, for sake of following the picture up top, we’ll talk about him before Hartnell. 

William died, as the others did, of tuberculosis and pneumonia. Unfortunately for him, he seemed to have had to deal with it far longer than the other two. By the time he died in April of 1846, his TB had advanced enough to contort his spine, which would have been hella painful. He was extremely sick at the end, and chances are, he had been sick for most of the trip into Nunavut. The other sucky part was that his body had clearly been laid out for awhile before he was buried, and the crew seemed less prepared for him than they had been for the first two. He was kind of haphazardly shoved into his coffin, with one arm having to be tucked under his body because he was a big guy. He also, like Hartnell, had no pants on. Huh.

Some signs of him waiting on ice (pff) before being buried were that he showed more signs of decomposition than the other two. His lips had already receded (Torrington and Hartnell had dehydrated lips like most mummies), he showed discoloration, and there are signs that something had been, um, gnawing on him before he was buried. Ew. Again, there’s very few details about his life, which is kind of sad considering he was the oldest of the three. But here’s a few interesting tidbits! -He was buried with a red handkerchief over his face, and there’s been some suggestion that the handkerchief was a possession of his that he may have prized. -He had some rocking facial hair when they found him. Sweet muttonchops, Will. -Like I said, he was a big guy. There’s plenty of signs that they had some difficulty getting him into his coffin successfully. He even had a squashed nose because the lid of the coffin pressed against it all that time.  -He was buried deeper in the permafrost than John #1 and John #2, and no one knows why. He was also buried at an angle. This is strange because getting through permafrost is extremely difficult with shovels and pickaxes. Some have suggested that the crew knew someone else was going to die while they were on Beechey Island and had more time to make the last grave. -He has no descendants or relatives that we know of, and never married or had children of his own.  -Braine was right around 88 lbs. at death and was severely emaciated. Yikes. D:

And now, for the one I know the most about!

JOHN HARTNELL - AGE 25; OCCUPATION: ABLE-BODIED SEAMAN (HMS EREBUS)

Now of all the mummies buried on Beechey Island, I find John Hartnell the most interesting, and probably the most tragic. (I’m actually writing a book on him, so there’s that.)

Poor John Hartnell had it rough from childhood. His dad was a shipwright in Gillingham, Kent, and when he died, it seemed that John was the one to look after his mother and four younger siblings. Records show that at one point, he was a shoemaker before he was a sailor, and he had a Crown debt to pay off that today would be worth $13,000. It may have been back taxes or a loan, and it may have been inherited from his dead father. Either way, John eventually got coaxed to joining the Navy by his younger brother, Thomas, who had been in for awhile. The Hartnell brothers were apparently close anyway, as they were written on the 1841 census as being the same age despite being two years apart. Mathematically, on an able-bodied seaman’s pay, if the two of them served three years apiece on the Erebus, they’d be able to pay off $12,000 of the debt. So off John went, first on the HMS Volage, then on the Erebus with his younger brother in tow.

Based on the state of his grave, John Hartnell was a well-liked kind of guy. First, he was outstandingly tall for 1846, clocking in at a whopping 5′11″ 1/2 based on the admiralty records of the Volage. He had striking black hair (Thomas was a redhead) and hazel eyes, and judging by the face in the grave, he was pretty handsome to boot. He advanced quickly to becoming an able seaman, and based on the state of his shoulder bones in an x-ray, seemed to have taken to it enough to get whacked around a few times. When he died, his shipmates took extreme care with him. A pillow was sewn and stuffed with woodchips to cushion his head, a blanket was placed under his body and another was wrapped around him as a shroud, he was buried in three different shirts, and a wool watchcap was put on his head. All in all, he was very snug when they found him. Unlike William Braine, his casket was fitted to his body, so no stuffing him in was required despite how tall he was. Tape and paint made fake handles on the casket to give it a more refined appearance.

We know his little brother was with him when he died, as John’s body was clad in a shirt with ‘T.H. 1844′ sewn onto the shirttail, suggesting Thomas gave him his shirt. This may have been part of the reason why he was so cared for, but it’s also clear the crew cared about him quite a bit.

Poor John didn’t stand a chance, really. Samples taken have shown that not only did he die of tuberculosis and pneumonia like Torrington and Braine, but he also had a severe zinc deficiency. His stomach and intestinal contents were empty and he weighed under 100 lbs. at death, suggesting he was refusing to eat at the end and had severe muscle wasting. He was probably hallucinating and utterly feverish as well, and a theory poses that he, as well as the other crewmembers, may have also had lead poisoning. All of this points to a pretty gnarly end.

His body ended up being like the Christmas present of the entire exhumation project. First, when they took his hat off (to which I’d be pissed because he looked comfy as hell in there anyway), he still had all of his hair. It was pitch black and still styled and combed under his hat. He was also missing an eye and had a gouge in his right arm from an exhumation attempt in the 1850s. By the time they dug up Hartnell in 1986, his expression kind of looked like, “YEAH HI, PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE I AM EXHAUSTED.”

Second surprise was that, after disrobing him (poor guy), he had already been autopsied before. Not only that, but the Y incision was reversed, all his organs were upside-down, and his ribs and sternum were flip-flopped too. This made the radiographers hella confused, and at first they thought it may have been the doing of the surgeon on board the Erebus. Turns out, it was probably the wonky exhumation attempt that stole his eye. In short, they hecked up Hartnell bad, and he deserved better. But his body told Dr. Beattie and his team plenty, and they snugged him right back up and reburied him on June 21st, 1986.

Fun facts, because I know way too much about this guy:

-His eyes were hazel, according to his records on the Volage. However, on his body, Dr. Beattie thought they looked more green. -He had impacted first molars in his jaw, but otherwise, had all of his teeth. Weird, considering able-bodied seaman got whacked in the face/head more than anyone else. -The 1850s exhumation also stole the nameplate off his casket as a souvenir. Like they didn’t do enough to him. -Because of his Crown debt, the Hartnells back in England weren’t given his Arctic service medal after his death. It wasn’t given to anyone until 1986. -There’s signs that not only did the crew dress him up nicely (still no pants, tho), but his hair had been combed and someone had cleaned his nails. His hands were also put in a funerary position, unlike Torrington and Braine.  -Brian Spenceley, a physics professor from Lakehead, went with Dr. Beattie on the expedition, as Brian was a living relative of Hartnell and a descendant of his younger brother, Charles. One thing he immediately recognized was the ‘Hartnell nose’. If you do look up pictures of him, you’ll know it immediately. -Hartnell also had some facial hair along his jaw, but was otherwise pretty clean-shaven. -He was so well-preserved otherwise (even though there’s evidence that there was a little bit of delay burying him) that he had full flexion in his joints and tendons like an unconscious living person. Doctors and scientists had no trouble undressing him or turning his head and moving his arms for scans and examination. -He seems to be more of the face of the expedition than Torrington. If you look up the mummies, chances are that Hartnell is the first person you see. He’s recognizable for his nose, his black hair, and his extremely ‘I’m so done’ expression. -No kids, no marriages. His brother was the same. :( (I woulda married him in a heartbeat.)

Now there’s about a million theories as to what happened to all of them. Lead-poisoning is a chief one of Beattie’s due to the canned food onboard being soldered with lead. Really, it just seems like the Franklin expedition was a Murphy’s Law situation.