The Last Christmas On Earth

"Nothing, I was wondering about something else" she lied. "What happened to them?"

"I don't know yet, for now, I just looked shortly, but the visual analysis showed no trauma whatsoever. When you feel ready we will proceed to the autopsy".

"...We?"

"Of course, I said we".

"And what makes you think I'm going to assist you during the autopsy?" She said, puzzled.

"My assistant is sick and you know better than me that the necrological exam cannot be done alone. You will only have to pass me the surgical instruments, it won't be the first time, isn't it?"

"Unfortunately not, it won't be" she replied disgusted, moving the still half-full glass of reddish liquid away, "and I can guarantee you that this is not the kind of experience I love to do".

"I get it," the doctor commented gravely. "Can I?" He added afterward with a raspy voice pointing at the juice; if he had waited another minute without drinking he would have fallen, choked by Helen's sandwich. She nodded, thinking that from his hunger he seemed to have just returned from jogging rather than about to do an autopsy. Then she wondered, tall and thin as he was, how could he eat all that food. He chugged the juice in one gulp, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up.

"Are you ready?" He urged her with a burlesque smile.

"I'm ready, but I don't understand what's so funny about this," Helen said, annoyed by his attitude.

"Nothing, what should be funny about doing an autopsy?" He agreed. "I'll show the way," he added then, heading toward the morgue with his lazy step while continuing to smile.

James hardly woke up, he felt like his head had been pierced by a million carpenter's nails, and it took him several minutes to get the room around him to stop. At first, that discomfort had almost bothered him, then he thought it was probably caused by the stress accumulated during the previous days and by the fact he had not rested enough, so he decided not to worry too much. The noise of the shower informed him that the bathroom was occupied by his wife, so he decided to swallow a couple of aspirins to recover and then he would come down to make coffee; as to wash and get dressed he would think later. When Eve made her appearance in the kitchen door, fully dressed and wearing a fine green pea jacket over her forearm, James had just poured coffee into the cups.

"It's still hot," he said, inviting her to sit down with a broad wave of his hand.

"I'm sorry, but I'm late."

"Don't you think it would be better if you stay with us today?" He said, disappointed.

"And you think I wouldn't want it?"

"Yeah ... but you could at least wait for Harry to wake up, you know how much he wants to greet you."

"I can't delay a minute longer, today it will be a busy day and Adam asked me to go as soon as possible."

"But why, isn't he able to work alone?" James let it slip in response.

"Are you willing to argue this morning too?" Eve fought back by throwing her eyes to the sky. James shrugged, looked down at the cup and slowly turned the spoon to melt the sugar.

"I just thought Harry would have wanted you here with us this morning, but apparently your job is more important. As always."

"Enough, I don't want to face the same subjects every day," she said, raising her arms as to surrender.

"Don't forget to warn the Scouts that Harry is not going to the camp today, otherwise they will send the bus to pick him up and they will charge us for the voyage," she added, heading towards the door.

"I'll do it," said James.

"I'll be back at five o'clock," Eve announced going out; she was already in the garden when she thought something and turned back.

"Sometimes I think you should show a little more gratitude toward Dr. Parker, in all these years he has always been close to us!" she scolded James, leaning out the door.

"I couldn't agree with you more, he has often been so close to us that I can't tell if you're more attached to work or to him ... sometimes I even wonder if I shouldn't be jealous," said James almost whispering, as if he was talking more to himself than to her. "If you asked me to take him on holiday with us to Egypt, I probably wouldn't be surprised at all," he finally declared.

Eve replied with a surprised expression that to James it seemed "you just read my mind, I was going to propose it", and he straightened up on the stool. An indecipherable flash crossed the clear eyes of the woman. "Don't be ridiculous!" She replied firmly afterward, then slammed the door and as every day called Toby to take him with her. James thought that after all, it was better that way, after what happened the previous night he didn't want the dog to buzz around the boy not until he wouldn't have understood something more. He decided that after drinking his coffee in peace he would prepare breakfast and wake him up, then he would take him for a walk with the intent to distract him and maybe to buy him a new pair of glasses. As soon as Eve's car sound faded far away, James heard a dull thump approaching, then threw the empty cup into the sink and interested he ran out. Instantly recognized the helicopter, it was a dark Black Hawk, and there was no number or a text or any other sign of identification. It was slowly flying over his house at a height of about thirty yards while a man, wrapped in a tight black suit, with a hood and strange glasses, was leaning out of one door clutching what looked like a camera.

James thought that whoever he was certainly wasn't making a documentary, so he ran inside home to get the binoculars to watch him better. The operator continued to fathom the area below until he realized he was framed in James's binoculars, then abruptly pulled back and closed the sliding door, a moment later the helicopter turned and moved away until it disappeared behind the treetops, as fast as it had arrived. James scratched his head confused, then his eyes fell on the garden and the sight of the conditions in which it had been reduced hit him like a fist in the face. In the previous two days, focused on more important matters, he had not realized the damage caused by the trampling of all these pairs of feet. He went down the stairs and approached the flowerbeds, unable to believe that it was true; not a single plant had remained healthy. He began to count a rough estimate of the damage, but an unexpected voice behind him frightened him.

"Mr. Robinson?" A boy asked; he wore a white and yellow Fedex bodice and held a bulky package in his hands. The wind was slowly dispersing the dust raised on the path by the van. Concerned as he was for his violets, James had not even heard it approaching.

"Yes ...?" He asked doubtfully, wondering what the package could contain, then he remembered that a few weeks earlier he had ordered a scale reproduction of the Giza Plateau by Internet for his son. He considered a blessing the fact that he had arrived that very day because to cheer up Harry there could have been nothing better in the world, he was sure he would have been much happier spending the morning building the plastic rather than going for a walk. He would have seized the opportunity attempting to resurrect his beloved flowerbeds; as to the new glasses, they would have thought later about it.

Stevenson turned off his mini recorder and threw it angrily onto his desk, lowered his mask around his neck and pulled off his latex gloves. "Nothing at all, damn it!" He said, taking off his medical cap to uncover his almost bald head.

"... Nothing at all?" Helen echoed.

"Not even a shred of evidence! All I can say is that my first impressions were confirmed and that the death occurred about thirty-six hours ago, but the victims show no cause of death."

"So?"

"I don't know, it's the first time something like this has happened to me," he said, almost ashamed of having to make such an admission.

"There is always the toxicological examination," offered Helen hopefully.

"It will not give us any result."

"How can you be so sure?"

"While you were staring at the ceiling trying not to vomit," the Coroner explained, pointing to some test tubes, "I tested the fabrics with the most common substances without getting any results. It remains only to analyze the samples taken with some reagents a little more particular, but I am sure that nothing good will appear."

"So what are we going to do now?" Asked Helen distressed, the investigation was certainly not starting well.

"I really don't know what to do, let me think. There is no evidence to suggest that they may have committed suicide or may have been drugged or intoxicated, or killed. They look too relaxed, not even a contracted nerve. Then they should be in full Rigor Mortis, and instead, they seem to be sleeping, rather than being dead. Do you know how many corpses I have analyzed in over thirty years ?" He added then indignantly, noticing Helen's perplexed look.

"And you have no other evidence? For example, if they had or had not yet "copulated"?"

"Whether or not they did it is irrelevant to what we're looking for. It's like if those two had died without a real reason, as if their souls had waited to fall asleep and fly away, all at once. In sync."

She eyed him with her eyebrows raised as if he was raving.

"You don't believe me, eh? And then, let's hear what happened to these guys."

"All right, let's listen to your absurd theory!" Helen challenged him, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You know what's a hairdryer, don't you? You take it, you turn it on, and when you finish using it, you unplug it and in the end, you put it back in the drawer. The same thing happened to these two. They died out of the blue, as if something or someone had suddenly pulled their thorns out, you know? And the exact same thing happened to their car."

"Now what has their car to do with it?" Asked Helen, always more and more confused.

"When I arrived where they were found to carry out the preliminary inspection, the mechanic who went to pick it up was swearing badly. He tried in every way to start their car but failed; the car is new and the engine is perfect, but it won't start."

"Maybe because of a hole they broke some electrical wires, or it was flooded," Helen suggested, but the Coroner shook his head. "The guy had the laptop with him for the self-diagnosis, he connected it to the control unit and it said everything was working perfectly. Simply, the car didn't want to know how to start."

"Strange indeed," Helen said.

"And furthermore, the control unit said the last time the car was off more or less at the same time when those two kicked the bucket," he concluded.

Helen looked at him pissed-off because of his disrespectful way of expressing those two poor people's deaths.

"The only thing that could explain this fact is that those two were hit by an electric field, that had the wave frequency necessary to simultaneously blow their hearts and the control unit of their car, but I just can't imagine what might have produced a similar situation in the middle of a forest," concluded Stevenson.

"I have never heard such an absurd theory," the woman considered after thinking for a moment, then began to wander thoughtfully around the room looking at her feet going back and forth. When she raised her head looking for Stevenson to ask him a question, she saw him with his forefinger resting on the "on" button of the pod coffee maker.

"Don't do it," she told him, but he was already pressing the button and a moment later all the lights went out.

"What is going on now?"

"The machine is short-circuited, every time it is turned on it blows the current to the entire compartment."

"Then why don't you get rid of it?" Stevenson asked, annoyed.

"The fact it has the plug disconnected doesn't mean nothing to you? And then I would love to know how you can think of having a coffee just five minutes after having gutted two bodies, you still have the bloody coat on," she replied disgusted, turning with her arm outstretched toward the corpses. Something about those bodies caught her attention and came closer to watch them better.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"Be quiet."

"Tell me what the hell is going on?" Stevenson insisted.

"That blue fluorescence they have on their foreheads and arms ... do you see it?"

"It is really strange ... is it radiation?" He proposed.

"I wouldn't say," she replied, shaking her head doubtfully.

"It looks rather like a powder that has adhered to the skin, so fine that it penetrates the pores and gets trapped inside ... I found something similar even on Harry's bike."

"Harry?"

"Yes, James's son."

"Your James?"

"Is it possible that even in moments like these you have to start joking?" She scolded him, pushing him.

"Ok, sorry ... but then what is it?"

"You should tell me, you are the doctor, aren't you?"

Dr. Parker was deeply demoralized, despite his systematic attempts over the whole range of possible frequencies he had failed to restore the radio link that had been interrupted for a long time. He insisted day after day, trying and trying again, but his messages had always received as response the usual "bip", absolutely meaningless. He hypothesized that this silence could not have been due to a simple failure of the receiving station, because it had lasted for too long; it was rather as if no one was at the other end of the line. He came to the conclusion that, regardless of the cause, that trouble was not needed, at least not at that very moment and after another vain attempt, he switched off the device nervously. Establishing the link and keeping it alive over time had cost him years of hard work and experiments, and now, that the radio link had dissolved, he felt like a newborn abandoned on the stairs of a church. He wondered if it was necessary to inform Eve about it, but knowing that she would not take it well, he decided that for the moment he would not tell her anything. After all, he still had a few days left to try and get things back in order and hoped that sooner or later he would make it.

Thinking of Eve, he looked at his watch and found out that, as usual, she was late; soon the first patients of the day would have arrived and she could not brief him on developments before a couple of hours. And that long awaiting would have torn him inside because he was impatient to know if everything had gone according to plan.

Considering that there were still ten minutes left before the first appointment, he placed his finger on the power button of the device, uncertain whether to make another attempt or not, but when he was about to press it, someone knocked forcefully on the door. He looked at the monitor connected to the camera installed on the door and immediately recognized Mrs. Murphy, her appearance was unmistakable due to the red. smudged lipstick and to the platinum, blonde hair covered in part by the shawl. The old lady stood at the door and holding her Miao in her arms. She had thoughtfully wrapped it in a Scottish-style cover and was cuddling it as if it was a child. Dr. Parker slammed his foot angrily on the ground. Although he had explained to her several times that he was not a veterinarian, the woman had taken the bad habit of bringing the cat to the clinic at least once a week, and in one way or another, she always managed to force him to visit her cat.

James set the table and placed toasted bread, jam, spreadable butter, hot milk and orange juice on top, then went upstairs to call Harry.

"Professor, are you awake?" He asked quietly as he entered the room. He was convinced that he was still in bed, but his son was already washed and dressed, and like every morning he was placed in front of the telescope pointed at the Constellation of Orion. "Good morning, daddy," he greeted him smiling as if nothing had happened. Apparently, the events of the previous 48 hours had not left the slightest trace and James was happy.

"... I'm sorry but, can you see anything during the day?"

"No, I don't see anything ... but it doesn't cost anything to try, does it?" The boy answered making his own the phrase that his father so many times had used to convince him to try something when a challenge seemed terribly difficult.

"You're right," James confirmed, returning his smile.

Harry got up and applied the cover to the telescope lenses, then put on his glasses and adjusted his bangs.

"Apparently, we'll have to go and choose new glasses later," said James.

"I think so ... and then we should also go and get back the fishing gear," the boy replied guilty.

"Agree, but first we will face the most important things. We can go back to the fishing rod in the afternoon, you can be sure that no one will steal it from you. We need to buy new glasses, but first I suggest you to run downstairs because breakfast and a nice surprise are waiting for you!"

"A surprise? What is it? " Harry questioned him, starting to hop from one foot to the other as he always did when he was excited.

"Slow down Professor, if I tell you now what kind of surprise would it be? You'll see it when the time comes, now let's go down," James replied, putting his arm around Harry's shoulders.

Harry showed an unusual appetite and James considered it a good sign, at the end of the breakfast the boy smiled at him satisfied and looked at him intrigued.

"What are you staring at?" His father asked him, pretending he had already forgotten the promise he had made to him. He frowned.

"It's right there," James said, amused, pointing to the room, "go see it. I finish washing dishes and I'll join you."

The boy excited ran to open the parcel covered with an anonymous yellow paper, discarded it and at the sight of its contents exploded in a shout of joy.

"... I don't believe it!" He exclaimed excitedly continuing to lift the pieces to examine them one by one against the light.

"It's all transparent, so even from the outside you can study the inside of the pyramids and the Sphinx," James explained to him sitting at his side, and the boy rushed to embrace his father so strong that he almost choked him.

"Hey, watch your arm or we'll have to go back to the doctor."

"Thanks, Dad," said Harry, moved.

"I knew you would like it," said James satisfied.

"Will you help me assembling it?" The boy asked hopefully.

"You know I don't have the knack for it, it takes too much patience. And then the professor of Egyptology in this house is you. That's what we are gonna do: now you get to work and I go to fix up the garden, you should see how bad violets are reduced. If I can't fix it in time I don't really know where we will put the Christmas tree this year. As soon as you finish you'll call me and I'll come to admire your work, then we will go for the glasses ... agree?" Proposed James.

"All right," Harry replied absently after almost a minute, his words were coming from far away because he had already begun to arrange all the pieces neatly on the floor.

"Then I go," James concluded without getting any answer. Harry was already completely absorbed in his new task.

Helen and the Coroner were seated facing each other in her office, she continued to examine the photographs taken that morning where the corpses were discovered, perplexedly. She was very sure of having checked that area personally during Harry's research and, like her, many other people, some even accompanied by dogs, had been in that part of the wood.

She kept telling herself that at least the latter should have noticed something; how was it possible that no one had noticed a pink convertible Cadillac with two people on board? It was true that the research had taken place in the middle of the night, but it had been a fairly bright night and what's more, the area was not very thick.

"I have a really nice tiger by the tail, I don't envy you at all!" Stevenson said just to break the silence, he had finished his task and was waiting for Helen to dismiss him because he had many other matters to deal with that day. She continued to scan the photos without answering, so he took an aluminum foil from inside his jacket and started to open it.

"Yeah, just a nice tiger. I don't even know where to start!" Helen answered after a moment. "Do you think that ..." she took his eyes off the pictures and as she saw the Coroner she stopped horrified, because he had just snapped a sandwich filled with roast beef and green sauce, and a trickle of reddish liquid had slipped down his chin to ooze on his shirt.

"What?" He said innocently.

"This is too much!" She snapped up.

"But why? What's wrong?" He protested.

"Get out! Get out of this room immediately!" Helen snarled, grabbing him by the jacket and pulling him out of the chair with force, dragged him to the entrance and thrust him out.

"Females shouldn't do certain jobs," Stevenson said with his mouth still full from behind the door.

"I don't want to see you or hear you anymore," she said furiously.

"Anyway, if I were you, I'd try first to track down the caller," the doctor shouted as he moved away, then started mumbling his sandwich again, wondering what he'd done that was so terrible. Helen let her shoulders slide down the door, holding her breath, struggling against her stomach to not give up to gagging. She managed not to vomit by a whisker; as soon as the crisis had passed she opened the window searching for some fresh and clean air because she was sweating cold. She let a few minutes go by, when she judged that her stomach had completely subsided she returned to her desk and pressed the intercom button.

"Yes, boss," Cindy answered from the switchboard.

"I want everyone in the meeting room within twenty minutes," she ordered while continuing to rub her little finger against the rough fabric of the side pocket of her trousers because she felt again it pricking intensely.

"But Sheriff, the agents are almost all out," Cindy objected.

"I don't give a damn, tell them we have bigger fish to fry and to let whatever they're doing go."

"All right, boss, I'll do my best."

Helen hung up and took the report written by the agent Mario Benelli, who had been the first to arrive at the dumpsite. She sighed and read it again for the tenth time, continuing to scratch his finger more and more furiously.

James immediately realized that it would take weeks for the garden to get back on its feet. Although in those days of December the climate was practically the same as in the summer, there were no ideal conditions for gardening. In fact, lately the wind was blowing mainly from the sea, making the air too salty, as well as hot and humid, and from day to night, there were really consistent temperature changes. At least two-thirds of the plants he had already checked up had definitely gone, he looked doubtfully at the few that he had mercifully splinted the trunk and judged that if he managed to make half of them survive, it would be a true miracle. He was thinking resignedly that year he would have to find a different location for the fir tree when suddenly he felt an intense gaze pointed at the back of his neck. An alarm bell rang in some remote corner of his consciousness giving him a shiver down his spine. Looking at the ground he spotted the shadow of the person silently appearing behind him, the blood shuffled in his veins because his arm was suspended in mid-air just above his head, ready to hit him with his own spade. James promptly rushed forward with a somersault to get out of the path of the spade and jumped to face the enemy, but instead, astonished he found Harry. The boy was staring at him with a piercing gaze, but completely blank. James had the impression that he was into a kind of trance. A slight tremor shook his lower lip, a thin trickle of blood had come out of his right nostril and was dripping onto the yellow t-shirt.

"Harry ..." he tried to call him gently, but he kept staring at him.