NOVEL NEXT Chapter 37: Black Something, Having the Shape of a Finger
The next morning, the ship seemed to have arrived off the coast of the fishing village.
Dr. Fernando noticed that the sound of the engine had stopped and the view from the island from the cabin hadn’t changed.
When he went out on a deck where the sea breeze was blowing, he found soldiers pulling out rubber boats and equipment and preparing to go ashore.
[This…… doesn’t look like the place in the photo though.]
Fernando looked around, but all he could see was a white sandy beach and palm trees.
[Are we going to land here? I don’t see any villages nearby……]
According to a soldier who happened to be nearby and answered his question, the plan was to land a short distance away, build a base camp and then for the village.
[After all, there’s a possibility that the information is a trap and we might be attacked.]
The soldier’s expression as he answered him was stern.
He must have been thinking that they were in enemy territory.
Dr. Fernando later learned that he was a member of the Navy’s Elite Special Forces unit called SBS, the Special Boat Squadron.
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Dr. Fernando volunteered to join the scouting party.
The captain of the unit was reluctant to accept it, but he convinced him that “he was the only one who could medically verify the condition of the corpse”.
The soldiers were amateurs when it came to infectious diseases.
He did give a lecture on board just in case, but he still isn’t sure how well that would work in the field.
[First of all, I want all the scouts to wear these.]
Valuable full-body protective suits, N95 masks, latex gloves, and boots that he had gathered from the university hospital.
He found it difficult to procure them though, as there are only a few of them in all of Sri Lanka, so they now only have 8 sets of them in total.
In addition, sample collection equipment and firearms must also be carried by military personnel.
Since it would be impractical to walk through a jungle in full protective gear under the blazing sun, they decided the group to split into three rubber boats and move ashore along the coast.
After crossing a small sandbar, the village finally came into view.
And there, they also saw corpses lying on the beach.
The information in that photo was indeed true.
[……They’re all black.]
Dr. Fernando muttered to himself as he saw those bodies.
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Before landing, the team members again checked each other’s full-body protective suits.
If the air tightness of their equipment is breached, they wouldn’t be allowed to land.
With a splash, the soldiers landed on the shallow sandy beach, and with well-trained movements, they spread out and moved to take precautionary actions around the perimeter.
Meanwhile, Dr. Fernando carefully made his way to a nearby black corpse.
The corpse, a large man wearing a crude T-shirt, was lying face-down, with his face not in view.
His right hand is clutching on the sand, as if he had just died.
[They don’t stink.]
If the information they received is correct, these corpses should have been dead for several weeks.
Since the corpses had been left under the hot sun without being buried for all that time, Dr. Fernando was prepared to arrive at corpses that were in a terrible state of decomposition.
The N95 mask they brought certainly was a high-performance mask, but even after looking at all of the corpses, the decomposition doesn’t appear to have progressed at all.
Is it possible that some conditions happened to coincide and the decomposition didn’t progress?
Or perhaps, could it be that these corpses had actually survived until very recently, and the corpse in the photograph was a different one from these?
As Dr. Fernando pondered about this, he came to the conclusion that there might be other survivors in the village.
Having this in mind, Dr. Fernando called the Captain on the radio and received an immediate response.
[What’s the matter?]
[I think the corpses are too fresh. The decomposition hasn’t progressed. There may be survivors in the village.]
[Understood. What should we do?]
The Captain was quick to make his judgment.
Dr. Fernando, feeling reassured, issued a request and a warning.
[Call out loudly and ask if there are any survivors. However, don’t touch anything in the village.]
[Understood. There are Tamils in our unit. I will have them call out in Tamil.]
[Please do so.]
Half an hour later, five more black corpses were found in the village, bringing the total to eight, including the corpses on the beach.
As Dr. Fernando collected samples from around the village, he laid the corpses on the beach for a full-body examination and noticed several oddities.
[……None of these corpses had decomposed.]
[Yeah. There are also not many of these. If the list is correct, there must have been 30 people living in the village. Judging from the number of houses, there certainly should have been at least that many.]
[The age and gender of the corpses also seemed to be one-sided. The corpses here are only middle-aged men. Where did all the women, children and elderly go?]
[……They may have made them escape? Or perhaps, they may be hiding somewhere.]
[Hiding? Where in the world would they hide……]
[These small northern villages were sometimes used as rebel strongholds. In such cases, the women, children and elderly who couldn’t fight in the village would flee to a shelter and wait for the men to return. Sometimes, they would even hide for weeks……]
The Captain glared sharply through the thick jungle behind the village.
[In that case, it will be impossible to find them right now. Let’s go back to base camp.]
[I suppose you’re right. We can’t go into the jungle with these god-awful clothes on. Well, I guess it’s a good thing you won’t be bitten by insects with this thing on.]
The Captain pleasantly laughed after insulting his full-body protective suit.
[So, what about these corpses?]
[It pains me to say this, but we will need to leave them as they are. The camp doesn’t have the facilities to keep such a large number of bodies sterilized. We will analyze the samples first.]
They can’t just bring the corpses and risk their camp from being infected.
At that moment, someone shouted “Uwaahhh!” over the radio.
[What’s the matter!?]
[No, I just felt like a corpse grabbed my leg……. It was just my imagination!]
[I think it’s that so-called rigor mortis. The rest of the team should check their boots. Check the rest of your clothing for holes too!]
The Captain has all members of the team cross-check the airtightness of their full-body protective suits again.
[All clear. No holes found!]
[Alright! Be careful!]
[My apologies!]
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The man who had caused that ruckus breathed a sigh of relief and thanked his lucky stars that the surface of his book was only blackened in what seemed to be a finger.