Revival - A short story - Snippets #4 and #5

This time - a police report from Cincinnati, and a newspaper article from The Baltimore Banner.

Before you read, let me reiterate - at the end of each piece there are Notes from person or person’s unknown - this isn’t me concluding the post, it’s still part of the story. On every snippet I’ll forsake my usual sign-off to prevent confusion between what is and isn’t part of the story.

If you didn’t catch ‘em, here’s part 1, here’s part 2, and here’s part 3.

Hope you enjoy reading!

And as ever, thank you.

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One of several CPD police reports regarding an assault witnessed in Pendleton, Cincinnati, December 5th 2023.

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On 12/5/23 at approximately 2100 hours I answered a call-in from a young woman in some distress. Quickly ascertaining she was in no immediate danger, but that there was an apparently violent individual in the area, I sent out officers to her location. She stated she had witnessed an altercation between two men, one older, one younger. The aggressor, the older, had punched the victim twice each in the abdomen and face before fleeing. Caller describes him as running “like someone with stones in his shoes”, and being approximately 5’10m or 5’11m tall, with a wiry build, M9 ethnicity, and dark hair.

At approximately 2130 hours officers arrived on the scene and met with our caller. Simultaneously paramedics had arrived for the injured youth, who had sustained no serious injuries in the assault, and insisted to Officers Singh and Jameson that he did not want to press charges. More details available in onsite officer’s reports.

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Opening paragraph of an article published in The Baltimore Banner (May 2022), entitled ‘Dead End - Trail Goes Cold on Claims of Resurrection’

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‘Our journalists have been tirelessly investigating the theory that a cadaver at a local university was restored to life early last month. Having been turned away countless times hasn’t stopped us, as we’ve quizzed students and staff alike on any strange happenings in local scientific circles. A member of the Hopkins Student Science Fiction and Fantasy Association revealed that his friend, a medical student who will remain unnamed, swore he saw a cadaver (previously donated in the college’s anatomical gift program) walking around campus last Tuesday night. According to him, the man was missing his right eye, as well as several fingers. The truth of the matter remains to be seen, unlike the walking dead man, due to the fact an ambassador for the college Chancellor refused to confirm the veracity of this rumour.’

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Notes.

This piece is, to my mind, ridiculous, and I’m as surprised now that it got published as I was when I first read it last year. The Banner is a decent sort of paper, as far as I’ve heard, and to publish journalism of this type seems a little out of the ordinary. It may be that it was a sponsored stunt to boost attendance to the SF club. Stranger things have happened.