Teaser: Unedited from The Hollowers Part II

On the stainless steel table lay what was left of Jerry Nilan. The empty eye sockets seemed to stare at something and a wide toothy grin stretched across the skin covering his bones. They knew it was skin, yet it appeared mummified over the bones. All the tendons and muscles were gone. Just this dried, brittle skin, stretched across the bone of his head, those empty eye sockets, wide nostrils, and that horrible grin.

Even Doctor Smelter, a veteran of autopsy felt chilled just looking at Jerry. The V-shaped cut he had made across the rib-cage of the corpse, now closed gave no secrets to the cause of death. In fact, it made everything that much worse. Doctor Smelter, still spry in his old age, turned to his tall, thin assistance and said.

http://www.amazon.com/Hollowers-Patricia-Moran-ebook/dp/B00EO13AZS/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415571055&sr=1-12&keywords=marta+moran+bishop

“Charles, I just don’t get it. What could possibly have drained all the fluids and tissue from Jerry? Why even his eyes are missing and yet, he has the biggest grin, from ear to ear on what I suppose we would call a face. This is probably the eeriest body I've ever had in autopsy.”

“It sure is spooking me out sir, I mean how he can have died happy? Wouldn't whatever did this to him have been insanely and horribly painful?”

“One would think so! Perhaps, you hit the nail on the head though Charles, he went insane from the agony. But, what could it have been? I don’t know of any disease or creature that could have done this and so far we aren’t finding anything.”

“There’s not even an organ left in his body is there?” Charles asked.

“None that I have found. Why I couldn't even find a small puncture wound or an incision in his body that could have been used to remove them either. He is just a bag of bones with a thin layer of that horrid, dried, brittle skin covering the bones. Whatever it was even removed his muscle and sinew. It’s simply worst thing I have ever seen.”

“Do you think it would be so bad without the grin sir?”

“Well, it would still be awful, but you are right the grin makes it all that much worse. What do we know about this Jerry fellow?”