But there was more to the mess than a busted skull, dried blood, and a nasty smell.
"I believe this is more your line of work than mine," he said to Stacy, but before he let her get close, he poked the corpse with the barrel of his gun, just to be sure.
Stacy pulled out her flashlight and knelt next to the beaten body.
The carcass belonged to what had once been a Polynesian woman, maybe in her late fifties or perhaps early sixties. While her clothes had been badly torn, it seemed she wore an outfit that belonged to either a housekeeper or perhaps an attendant here at the health club.
"Look, here, she was attacked at some point," Dr. Stacy said as she shined her light close to what was clearly a bite mark on the woman's neck, just below what remained of her left ear. The racquet that had obviously been used to pummel her had inflicted damage all along that side of her skull.
Stacy turned and grabbed Gant's KA-BAR knife from his utility belt. She then used the tip to pry at the woman's dead skin, particularly around the bite area.
At first Gant thought the flashlight had caused some sort of optical illusion, but the more Dr. Stacy peeled away at the skin, the more he realized it was no illusion.
There was some kind of white bulb lodged along her neck, bulging from beneath the skin near the wound. That bulb had also suffered damage from the racquet. It made him think of a popped zit.
"This is messed up," Stacy said. "There are strands or something, like vines, sprouting out from here. Sort of like, I don't know, a spider web or some kind of netting. I've never seen anything like this."
"I noticed some of them had bulges, almost like growths. Maybe that could be a weak spot? But you are the medical doctor, right? You tell me."
"I think I've told you about a hundred times, no. I trained as a physician's assistant and in advanced first-aid training, so don't worry, I can patch up bullet wounds if it comes to that. Well … sort of. But what I'm seeing here, Major, doesn't have anything to do with typical medicine."
She ran the flashlight over the dead body and used the knife to poke and prod. The dead woman's fingernails were all but gone, seemingly ground into a bloody mess by clawing. Massive amounts of red stained her gaping jaw, and what remained of her uniform was splattered with blood, most likely someone else's.
"Here, check this out," Stacy said, drawing his attention to the woman's left forearm, where a wound had been inflicted by something sharp. There was no way to tell if that wound had occurred before or after her transformation from victim into aggressor, but whatever had done the damage had been more potent than a tennis racquet. Most likely a big knife or other bladed object, judging by how the skin had been sliced open.
Beneath that wound he saw what he expected: dried blood, damaged tissue, and a glimpse of what might have been bone. He also saw something very much unexpected: more of those white strands, apparently running the whole length of her arm.
"Whatever that thing is that's on her neck, it's got these tendrils or whatever going down her arm." Stacy considered for a moment. "Hang on a sec."
She switched her examination from the arm to the eyes, pushing an eyelid open.
As he watched, Gant felt a pang of respect for the newest member of his team. He did not see fear or hesitation in her, despite the grotesque and unusual nature of this body. It seemed to Major Gant that Dr. Stacy was, in fact, putting aside the emotion and working the problem.
If she can do this, here, right now, then maybe she is a lot more ready than I give her credit for.
"Yep, that explains that," she said, and she held open an eyelid with her fingers while shining the light at the pasty white orbs therein.
He said, "Just like the ones that attacked us. What caused them to turn white?"
"I don't think they did. That's some kind of mesh coating the eyes. Probably more of those vines or stands or whatever that is on her arm. It looks like they poked their way through her skull and into her optic nerve and the whole eye."
"Wait a second. What are you saying? This is some sort of parasitic infection?"
"I'm not saying anything." She stood and handed him back his knife, which he accepted but was careful not to let touch anything other than the sheath. "I told you before, we'll need to do a real dissection of one of these, well, things."
Major Gant did not like it when people avoided questions.
"I will ask you again, Dr. Stacy, does this look like a parasite of some kind?"
She huffed and guessed, "It could be, sure. You saw what I saw. Some kind of mass lodged on her body. Strands, vines, nerves, a bundle of somethings stretching out from that mass and seemingly winding their way through the corpse. Now, there could be more of those masses somewhere inside, or it could be something that formed post mortem. But yes, from what I can see, there is a foreign organism in the body that has — for lack of a better word — infected the entire person. It appears to me that that organism is itself no longer living. It was damaged by whatever crushed in this woman's skull."
"You mean that tennis racquet?"
"If this were a game of Clue, I would bet the marbles on Colonel Mustard in the health club with a tennis racquet, but that's just a best guess."
"Sometimes, Dr. Stacy, we have to go with our best guesses. I do not foresee the opportunity for an autopsy on any of the bodies in the near future. Not with our friends sweeping the island."
"This is the part where I suggest you call for help, but I won't bother since I know you'll just blow it off."
He sighed.
"Actually, I was thinking that the time has come. Problem is, I do not know how we can make contact if outgoing transmissions are electronically blocked, and I am not entirely sure that help is even close to being on the way. A lot will depend on whether Wells managed to send a message."
"So you could say I was right the first time."
"I, um, no, I would not say that," Gant replied. "The situation has changed."
"Sure it has. We're in deeper than we were before and if we had called then …" she smiled to clearly demonstrate that she yanked his chain in good humor.
"Then the cavalry would be flying in now with John Wayne and Rambo to help save the day," he said and returned her smile despite understanding that — since he knew General Friez so well — the cavalry might be a B-1 Bomber with a tactical nuke meant to sterilize the entire island with little concern for the team.
Sometimes calling for help just causes more trouble.
It seemed that Dr. Stacy's examination of the body — and hence her contribution — gave her new energy and confidence. She reached for and turned the knob on the office door while saying, "We should look around and see what else we can find."
He put it together a moment too late.
The line of debris indicating a struggle and pursuit that led to this body.
The broken tennis racquet next to the immobilized zombie.
The closed office door.
Dr. Stacy opened the door to the manager's office and was attacked. As Gant expected, the body wore a tennis outfit, no doubt a brand name certain to impress a doubles partner.
The wound where the Polynesian staff member had bit the player was visible on the arm: a three-inch chunk of flesh removed by a good chomp, probably the last thing the attacker had done before the middle-aged man had struck a fatal blow with his racquet. Of course he had not known the blow was fatal and so he had withdrawn into the office and closed the door, hoping it would hold while he tended to his wound.
The door had held. His body had not.
It grabbed for her shoulders, pushing her backwards out into the main hall.
Gant saw pasty-white eyes again, this time locked on Dr. Stacy. He saw its mouth stretch wide open and its near-perfect teeth snap as they tried to clamp down on her arms and then her face in a series of frantic — almost panicked — lunges.