The Night is His Time.
The body had been scanned with a Gieger counter. All traces of gamma radiation were gone.
The pathologists had said it was strange. When they did the scan for any trace amounts of radiation, they found none. None at all.
“Every body, living or dead, gives off some trace amounts of radiation,” they had said. “But this one… it’s like he’s been… emptied.”
General Ross didn’t care. He cared that a good man had been lost in the field of duty, and that was very sad, but it was the truth.
Betty spent a long time in the morgue with the body of Dr. David Bruce Banner. She stroked his hair, held his hand, cried until she had no tears left to give. She had spoken to him, said things that no one on Earth besides her would ever know, secrets that no one would even know had been told.
There was no need for an autopsy.
The General had consulted with the pathologist, and they had assured him that the body could be buried without contaminating the soil, or irradiating others.
“I mean, I’m assuming,” they said. “This has never really happened before.”
The General gave them a look. “It never really happened at all.”
The pathologist paused, then nodded.
That evening, General Ross reviewed the security footage of Bruce Banner’s transformation. That soldier, Officer Talbot, had been telling everyone the name he’d given it outside the cave, but Ross had told everyone to ignore it. Dead things didn’t have names, they were simply past.
“Play it again,” Ross told the techie, who replayed the footage. The change in Banner had come on so suddenly, like it had just burst forth, almost like it had been there all along… waiting.
Waiting for the right time. Waiting to be bo-
The General’s thoughts were interrupted by a rumble, and the security breach alarm. He frowned, and turned to the techie.
“You turn up the volume or something?” he said, as the lights flashed on the screen. The techie shook their head, looking lost.
“It doesn’t have audio,” they said, quietly.
The General’s eyes went wide.
Moments later, he was standing in the morgue, the alarm echoing through the base.
The grey-walled room was empty, except for a large, crumbling hole in the far tiled wall, letting in the cold night air.