It is possible that “The Autopsy”, by Michael Shea is my favorite short story.  The protagonist, Dr. Winters, who talks to his cancer, who means “to show courtesy to this uninvited guest” fascinated me from the moment he narrated his surroundings to it.  My first reaction was annoyance at his exposition, who talks like that, in real life, but that he was describing his surroundings to a disease, fascinated me.

            The story dribbles information through a torrent of description, we hear all about the town, what Dr. Winters looks like, what Craven looks like, and through all this we get little trickles that something is amiss.  A normal town at night…but why does Dr. Winters have body bags?  There is a need for a second autopsy, yet Craven and Dr. Winters ramble on about Dr. Parsons drinking problem.  The explosion comes out eventually, gradually, and also the missing persons.  “It is truly one of those Nightmare Specials that the good lord tortures lawmen with and hides the answers to forever” says Craven.

            This story has all sorts of great elements, the meteor shower which might have reached the ground, strange space robots, the sympathetic(ish) extra terrestrial traveler.  What I wanted to see happen was Dr. Winters teaming up with his cancer to fight the alien menace.  I wanted the cancer to come into play at the end, that the alien wouldn’t take him because of it, something like that.  Maybe the fact that he spoke to it hid the truth that it was another traveler, and the two could fight…  I rewrote the end to this story several times in my head.  I approve of Shea’s ending, but I think he could have done so much more with the cancer…

            So I wrote my own story.  About a woman who talks to her cancer, except her cancer crawls out of her stomach and kills people, and may or may not be just in her head. 

            Shea’s use of language (in addition to a killer plot) is what bumps the story up to excellence.  For example, when Craven and Dr. Winters are talking, they laugh: “Both men laughed, paused, and laughed again, some might have said immoderately.”  I love the tone here.  Speaking to the audience that way is risky, but I like it.  I find adverbs amusing, (which is why I tend to overuse them, I think) they add something when it feels as though they are used deliberately, and Shea uses them in abundance.  There’s certainly a different feel between “…’ he said angrily” and Shea’s adverbs, his are not there for lack of better words, they are carefully planned and meticulously placed.  (See what I did there?  Using the adverbs?)  I don’t know how Shea gets away with lines like “’Clever corpse ,’ the doctor cried. ‘Clever carnivorous corpse!  Able alien!’” which I feel would be struck from my book as fast as a crit partner could pick up a pen, but it works!

            The piece is legitimately scary, when Dr. Winters is hearing things as he is performing autopsies, I was actually afraid.  The characterizations are good, it’s gross, it’s everything I look for in a story.  I’m debating paying seventy dollars for a collection of his short stories on Amazon…