Hey, it’s Ben again. Max thought it was best that I send the update today since, well, he didn’t want to have to re-live the autopsy of the girls all over again. With all of my medical training I can detach myself to a point but I can appreciate and understand what it must have been like for him in that room today.

Once we were all assembled in the spa (I know it seems like it’s the last place one might want to perform such a task but we needed tables and drainage and well it was the only places that had both in easy reach and it was on the same circuit as the dining room so it had light), Captain Kanelstrand looked at the group and made sure that each one of us knew that none of us had any responsibility to be there. Besides the captain, Caroline and myself, the group also included Max, Doug (the NYPD Detective), and Haley. Haley’s family had run a mortuary since she was a child so she’d grown up around corpses all of her life and had gone into the business after high school. At this point, any expertise with the ‘normal’ dead was welcome. Silence was our acceptance to the task at hand.

We started with Jess, the younger of the two girls. No real reason. We just had to start somewhere. We did a thorough examination of her body in the clothes that she was found in looking for any evidence knowing of course that she could have been contaminated from the bilge water, from the people who had found her, and from the monster. We’d only spent about half an hour examining her body and already we were exhausted. It was going to be a long day.

The time had come to remove her clothing and again the captain reminded everyone that no one needed to be here if they didn’t think they could handle the situation. Our need to find answers for these young girls outweighed any squeamishness that any of us might have been feeling at this point. We needed to stop the monster as soon as possible. Once we got down to her skin, we looked for more evidence. It was obvious though (well from what Doug said) that she hadn’t been redressed or anything so we didn’t think there would be any evidence but we still looked. The positive thing was that there was no evidence of sexual assault of any kind. At least Georgia’s mind could be put at ease at least a small amount. Once the body had been washed, deep purple marks around Jess’ neck became very apparent. They had been somewhat hidden under the filth of the oil and fluids from the bilge water and we hadn’t been able to clearly see them before. From the size and shape, the only conclusion that we could draw was that the monster had used his hands to likely kill her prior to putting her into the bilge compartment. There was only one way to be certain of that fact. We had to see if she had any water in her lungs. Water in her lungs would mean that she drowned. No water means she was dead prior to being placed in the bilge compartment. The autopsy showed the absence of water in the lungs. Young Jess had met her fate before the darkness of that dirty, fetid water.

After covering the reassembled Jess with a sheet, we moved onto Kalla and repeated the painstaking routine all over again. We scoured her body for evidence just as we had with Jess and found nothing out of the ordinary. Once we removed her clothing and had washed her body, we could see some evidence that she had sustained some serious blows around the time of her death. It was hard to tell if they were from the struggle in their room or delivered at some point after. The main difference between the two girls at this point was that Kalla did not have the same deep purple marks around her neck. Instead she had a huge goose egg sized bump on her left temple. During the autopsy, we found her lungs full of the contaminated water of the bilge. It was horrible to know that such a sweet young girl had to die in such a cruel way.

With the autopsies finished, the six of us gathered in one of the outer spa rooms to go over what we had found. Both girls had died in different ways so it could either mean that there were two monsters aboard the ship working together or one girl had been knocked out while the other was strangled. It was terrible either way. We should not have to deal with this kind of horror while the Undead walked the Earth.

But evil will exist no matter what is going on in the world. That is just fact.

Captain Kanelstrand had decided to make the results of the autopsies public to an extent. His thoughts on the matter were sound. While he wanted to give Georgia some privacy, he also didn’t want the gossip to get too out of hand. There are always going to be nosey parkers in any group of people and by getting everyone together all at the same time, you control the information that is out there. Hopefully that would control the rumour mill as well. Personally I don’t have that much hope in what is left of humanity but I know what the captain is trying to do.

At the meeting, the issue was raised about leaving. Captain Kanelstrand listened to the fears of those expressing them and told them that they had every right to be afraid and every right to leave if that was what they wanted. The only thing that he asked for was some time to find the person responsible for the murders.

In the end, the decision belongs to the individual. People will make their choices; I just hope that no one else goes missing in the meantime. That would only fracture our group even more.

The Next Day