The Neuropathology Of Zombies (14 page)

I lifted the head upwards, using the skull as a bowl to hold the autolyzed tissue in place, and cut through the thick dural membranes. Green chunks of brain slipped out and plopped on the table.
The brainstem passes through a large hole in the base of skull called the foramen magnum and becomes the spinal cord; currently, this was the only area where the brain was still attached to the Driftwood’s body. I slipped the scalpel deep into the foramen and cut the spinal cord, and freed the brain.
I tried to handle the delicate bundle of nerves as little as possible, I tilted the head downwards, slowly pouring the cerebral contents into a metal basin; the partially liquid human control center spread like a blob across the bottom of the pan.
I placed the brain on a scale, it weighed 1100 grams. That was a bit small, but I didn’t concern myself with it, it’s normal for the brain to weigh less as it autolyzes. Under normal circumstances, I would have let the brain fix in formaldehyde for three weeks so that it would become firm, and easy to cut. I didn’t have the luxury of that kind of time in this situation.
“Cutting this brain is going to be like trying to cut soup. But, I think I can find a few of the key areas I need to look at,” I said.
I tilted the pan and carefully spilt the brain on to a white plastic kitchen cutting board next to the sink. I cut the brainstem and the cerebellum off together. The brainstem was still firm and seemed well preserved, the cerebellum was soft, and dribbled down the brainstem like melting ice cream down a cone. I set the hindbrain to the side for the moment.
The two deflated cerebral hemispheres sat on the cutting board surrounded by a puddle of gray slime. Black sludge seeped from the gunshot wounds that passed in and out of the brain. I pulled a long knife across the cerebral surface, chopping off the tips of the frontal lobes. I continued cutting the brain until it had been reduced to a series of one-half inch slices. I arranged the pieces from front to back and closely inspected each one.
“The outside layer of grey matter, the cortex, is starting to crumble away, but some areas are better preserved than others. See, the frontal lobe is toast, it’s just goo. This is the area of the brain responsible for personality, emotions, some impulse control, problem solving and social behavior. I don’t think there is much left of it,” I said.
“Some parts of the parietal lobe, this part here behind the frontal lobe, are partially preserved. The parietal lobe is where you integrate sensation and perception. It also helps create the spacial map of the world around us. The motor neurons are also located here. This is interesting, usually when the brain decomposes, it does so uniformly, here we have rotting parts and not-rotting parts.
“The temporal lobe, the bit sticking out under the parietal lobe, is also gone, just mush. This region of the brain is responsible for auditory processing, verbal processing and memory.
“The rear part, the occipital lobe, is also in pretty good shape. This section of brain processes visual information.”
Once I had made my way around the cortex, I examined the deep structures of the brain. First, there were the basal ganglia, a dense collection of neurons that play a major role in controlling movement.
“The basal ganglia are partially preserved, too. So are some of their projections to areas of the cortex,” I said. “There are some areas out around the basal ganglia that are full of holes, gas holes created by bacteria as they digest the brain, it’s called ‘Swiss cheese brain’.”
The white matter connecting the basal ganglia to the more preserved regions of the cortex was firm and appeared to be in perfect condition. Other areas, such as the limbic system, a collection of structures responsible for memory, fear, and behavior, were also in bad shape.
I picked up the hindbrain, bits of the cerebellum dripped onto the steel counter top as it moved to the cutting board. I started to slice it into one-half inch pieces.
“This is the cerebellum, I think it looks a bit like cauliflower, it controls balance. It’s complete mush,” I said.
I felt resistance from the brainstem as I passed the knife through the tissue, it was nearly pristine.
“It’s odd, the brainstem is intact. Look, you can still see all the white matter tracts, the crossing fibers in the pons, the ascending motor fibers, all the groups of neurons that control movement in the face, it’s all intact. This is fascinating. This region of the brain is also where consciousness originates, and its normal looking,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.
I placed several samples of the brain into tissue cassettes for histology and a large hunk in a plastic cup for bacterial and viral cultures.
After the head was empty, I removed the eyes. The orbital plates of the skull are paper-thin layers of nearly transparent bone that sit just behind the eyebrows. I struck the delicate area of the skull with a small metal mallet. It fractured instantly. I plucked the tiny fragments of bone off the top of the eyes with a pair of forceps, revealing the glistening white globe of the eye. The entire process was remarkable similar to peeling the shell off a hardboiled egg. I cut the eyes from the sockets and plunked them into a jar of formaldehyde.
My curiosity regarding how these creatures were able to ambulate, apparently without the use of the heart and lungs, was peaking. How did they move? How did the rotting brain influence movement and the senses? To help answer these questions I decided to take a closer look at the musculature. I raised the scalpel and slid it down the entire length of the arm, from the shoulder to the palm of the hand. I used the knife to strip the limb of flesh. The strands muscle were supple and pale pink, a contrast to the dark purple coloring of the decomposing heart.
“The muscles are soft and starting to breakdown, but they’re not nearly as decomposed as some of the other muscles, like the heart and the muscles around the ribs. I don’t understand that,” I said.
I cut parallel incisions through the arm exposing bright red and pink bundles of muscle. The severed ends of the incised deep nerves dangled from the slices like strands of spaghetti.
I shook my head, “The inner portion is even better preserved, and the nerves are still intact.”
I took several pieces of muscle and nerve to look at under the microscope.
“I better get some spinal cord, too,” I said, picking up the saw and pushing the ‘power on’ button. The room filled with a high-pitched mechanical roar. I sunk the whirling blade into the vertebral bones lumped in the center of the vacant torso. I lifted off the tops of the vertebrae in one piece, leaving the white strip of spinal cord exposed in the bony gutter. I clipped the nerve trunks coming off the cord where they exited under the protective covering of the ribs, and pulled the cord upwards; it was like trying to pull toothpaste out of the tube.
The autopsy was complete. I searched around the morgue and found a box of body bags. I placed one on the empty gurney next to the autopsy table and unzipped it. The eviscerated carcass slid easily across the table and on to the stretcher. I closed the black vinyl body bag over the front of the cadaver and pulled the zipper along the edge, sealing it shut.
I rolled the gurney over to one of the corners of the room. “Let’s wait to put him in the cooler, he can rest here until tomorrow. I don’t think we need to worry about the smell offending anyone walking down the hall,” I laughed.
I rinsed the autopsy table with a hose attached to the underside. All the deco juice and decomposed slime circled around the drain before disappearing, pieces of tissue clung to the thin wires of the drain; I picked them out and dropped them in the trash.
Once the room was clean I removed my protective gear. The front of the coverall suit was streaked with black stains from where I had wiped my hands. I was covered in sweat. I carefully placed the garments in the trash, trying not to get any blood, or whatever it was coursing through the Driftwood’s arteries, on me. I still didn’t know how this disease was transmitted, I wasn’t taking any chances.
I labeled the jars holding the tissue samples with the word “Island Autopsy” and the year, and the number 1, identifying the case as the first autopsy so we could keep track of it in the lab.
I sat in the corner of the autopsy suite with my feet resting on a chair across from me. The cold bottled water tasted amazing. The room was quiet and I wondered if the Marines were in shock after watching the gruesome postmortem examination.
I broke the silence, “I don’t like needles. I pass out every time someone gives me a shot. When I have to have my tuberculosis skin test, or my flu shot, they have to lay me down. I passed out once during my wife’s labor,” I continued as I took a large gulp of water. “Bam, hit the ground. The sad part was, there was no blood! It was during her epidural. The anesthesiologist was nice, and told me not to worry about it, and said that it happened to all kinds of dads. I said ‘yeah, but dads who are pathologists?’ he said a very curt and soft ‘no’, like he was ashamed for me! It was a riot. I promised myself that I would never make fun of anyone who passed out at an autopsy again; and I haven’t. And I’ve seen them drop like flies, especially the big police officers!”
The sound of laugher filled the room and I saw the life come back into their eyes. It’s hard for anyone to see a human body gutted and dissected, these men were tough, but they were still in touch with their humanity.
The empty water bottle clanked into the bottom of the metal trash can next to my chair. I stood up and donned another biohazard suit. The Marines whispered among themselves while I prepared for autopsy number two.
The mummified remains lifted easily onto the autopsy table. The body was that of a woman, but the age was difficult to determine. The skin was brown-yellow and dried out like leather. The fingers were black, the skin pulled tight against the bones. The desiccated lips retracted unveiling fragments of broken natural teeth. The right cheek bone and upper jaw protruded from a gaping hole in the face giving the corpse a menacing appearance.
I couldn’t find any injuries, or more particularly, I couldn’t find a bite mark. I wondered if the condition of the body was concealing the lesion.
I made the usual “Y” shaped incision and began to flay the skin back. The layer of fat that usually sits just under the epidermis had melted away leaving a thin, rough sheet covering the chest and abdomen.
The process of mummification occurs in arid environments. After the proliferating bacteria sweep through the body and consume everything available to them, the moist and bloated shell will dehydrate, leaving behind a corpse that resembles beef jerky. Given enough time, I was confident that the Island would be overrun by mummified zombies.
The internal organs were bathed in the same deco juice as the previous case. All the organs were normal and I couldn’t find any natural disease processes. The uterus was missing, it had been surgically excised many years ago, and the pelvis was filled with dense scar tissue.
I removed the skull cap and the gray outer cerebral cortex poured out of the head like runny grits, leaving a soggy ball of congealed white neural tissue. I incised the brainstem at the foramen magnum and lifted the slippery neural mass out of the head. The remnants of the brain were solid, and mounds of adherent cortex protruded at various points, sticking up like mushrooms.
I made one-half inch slices through the brain and aligned the sections from front to back, as before. A gunshot wound track snaked through the brain, the cavity was filled with black goop. A small 9 millimeter caliber lead bullet fell out of the occipital lobe.
“This looks about the same as the other brain. Large chunks of cortex have sloughed off, but there are still well preserved regions within the various lobes. The deep structures, like the basal ganglia, are also intact, and look at this,” I said pointing to the cut sections of brainstem. “The brainstem is perfect. It’s as though the more primitive part of the brain has survived, and so have its connections to some parts of the neocortex, or the ‘new brain’, evolutionarily speaking.”
“What does that mean?” one of the Marines asked.
“It means that this is very odd! I am not quite sure what it means. The parts of the brain that control instinctual drives are intact, and the parts of the brain that allow us to control our urges are shot to hell. We’ll have to see what it all looks like under the microscope. I have no explanation for this. None.”
I continued to evaluate the cut sections. It was obvious that there was an asymmetry to the way these brains were dying. The more primitive areas seemed to be intact, while the new brain wasted away. From an evolutionary standpoint, the brain’s had reverted back in time, using regions that governed animalistic behavior. The primeval drives necessary for survival were in control. They had become hunters, and us prey.
The autopsies were done and the room was clean. The important samples were placed in a box for the trip upstairs to the lab where they would be processed overnight. I was disappointed that more questions hadn’t been immediately answered by the autopsies. I was hoping for some sort of ‘slam dunk’ diagnosis so we could all go home. I had no good news to report at the evening briefing. I still didn’t know if the dead were being reanimated by a toxin or a virus, or even a bacterial organism. I was becoming frustrated and my neck ached. I realized that I had gone more than thirty hours with only occasional cat naps. At least I thought it had been about thirty six hours, I wasn’t sure what time it was, or what day it was; fatigue hit me suddenly and hard.
There was an ache in the pit of my stomach, and all I wanted to do was go home. Maybe the general would let me give my wife a quick call, just to check in. Was it even possible to call home? What if something was wrong? What if there was an accident? Did my wife and kids make it to my sister-in-laws? Did they even go? What if someone was in the hospital? Who is taking care of the dogs? Are the windows up in my car? What if something happens to me? Would they even know I was eaten by a zombie? My mind raced around and around and my pulse quickened. I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, trying to stay in control of my emotions.
“Well, I think it’s a wrap in here for the day. I want to check on our guests one more time before we go upstairs, anyone interested?” I said, my voice rapid and shaky.
Everyone in the group wanted to take a peek so, we all crept down the corridor and gawked in window. The 2 Driftwood had not moved.