What indeed?
In debris gathered outside the door- dust, bits of leaves, and what else- are the remnants of a disturbance where something-that-was-more-than-likely-someone was dragged out. Why might she think so? The waves along the edges, waves of struggle like snakes winding across sand, and at least she knows whatever was moved was kicking and fighting when it was taken and not dead- in the sense she understands that word.
As she inspects the door where it lies just within the wrenched frame, she may wonder again. How?
A person could have done this, yes, a very strong person. Perhaps a person in the depths of some berserk drug-induced frenzy.
But this door was not broken down by man alone. A tool must have been used.
This was a reinforced security door and the shape of the impacts at its center are no larger than nine inches in diameter each. Impacts- here are two of them. Like two battering rams with rounded heads like SWAT might use. She can estimate that they met the door with around 1200 to 1500 joules a piece, the kind of force that moving horizontally... Well, it's difficulty to imagine any human being able to exert it in that direction so effectively. Gravity's help isn't there. Still, the evidence of leverage is.
Yet not effectively enough. Along the edges of impact points there are the rings of another set. Of the first set. They battered away at least twice to open the door. The second rings are not spaced evenly as the first. Two separate entities working together, but not in perfect concert.
Verna is brought out of this Fermion revery (indeed her world is spinning and the number are odd) when she notices that just within the frame are specks of dark (perhaps the darkest she has ever seen) red blood in its shadow, where sunlight has yet to shine.
This may halt her.
That's if she plans on venturing within before the police come. She may have already halted herself. They'd told her they would come, hadn't they? They are on their way. They'd urged her not to go inside and to wait for their arrival. By the time she's done inspecting the door, the frame, the floor, sirens announce that officers of the law are coming.
In debris gathered outside the door- dust, bits of leaves, and what else- are the remnants of a disturbance where something-that-was-more-than-likely-someone was dragged out. Why might she think so? The waves along the edges, waves of struggle like snakes winding across sand, and at least she knows whatever was moved was kicking and fighting when it was taken and not dead- in the sense she understands that word.
As she inspects the door where it lies just within the wrenched frame, she may wonder again. How?
A person could have done this, yes, a very strong person. Perhaps a person in the depths of some berserk drug-induced frenzy.
But this door was not broken down by man alone. A tool must have been used.
This was a reinforced security door and the shape of the impacts at its center are no larger than nine inches in diameter each. Impacts- here are two of them. Like two battering rams with rounded heads like SWAT might use. She can estimate that they met the door with around 1200 to 1500 joules a piece, the kind of force that moving horizontally... Well, it's difficulty to imagine any human being able to exert it in that direction so effectively. Gravity's help isn't there. Still, the evidence of leverage is.
Yet not effectively enough. Along the edges of impact points there are the rings of another set. Of the first set. They battered away at least twice to open the door. The second rings are not spaced evenly as the first. Two separate entities working together, but not in perfect concert.
Verna is brought out of this Fermion revery (indeed her world is spinning and the number are odd) when she notices that just within the frame are specks of dark (perhaps the darkest she has ever seen) red blood in its shadow, where sunlight has yet to shine.
This may halt her.
That's if she plans on venturing within before the police come. She may have already halted herself. They'd told her they would come, hadn't they? They are on their way. They'd urged her not to go inside and to wait for their arrival. By the time she's done inspecting the door, the frame, the floor, sirens announce that officers of the law are coming.