"Spine"

"Lieutenant?"
The tall man got out of his sedan into the light September morning drizzle. The cold cut through his jacket as he lit a cigarette and stepped under the bright yellow police tape. The streets were slick with new rain and the city's own filth and something else.
"We found them like this about an hour ago. It's pretty horrific."
The tall man shrugged and motioned for the officers taking photographs to move so he could get a closer look.
Bodies, maybe five, maybe more. It was hard to tell from the distance and condition just how many there were.
Lt. Jacobson took a long drag and bent over the carnage with a noticed indifference.
"So what did this?"
"We're not sure, sir. We've not actually found any marks on any of the bodies, apart from the severe mutilation. We can't even identify what or if a weapon was used. There's no cuts, no tears, no bite marks. hell, not even a bullet wound anywhere. it's as if they just simply fell apart, all right here."
"Interesting pattern. Has forensics been out yet?"
"They just left, sir. had a few stragglers taking pictures when you got here, but they'd already gotten all they could."
Jacobson bent doen and looked closely at one of the mounds of mangled flesh. Not a scratch, not a blemish, no bruising. He'd never seen anything so perfect, so completely flawless. Who-what-ever had done this was a masterful killer, if indeed it was even something that HAD done this.
"Bag em up and try to get IDs on it."

A few days later, Jacobson's desk was covered with photographs and evidence files. There had been no witnesses, no new information found in the forensics studies. He looked over the files intently. It had been bugging him. How could there be nothing? They had to be missing something.
"Sir? We''ve got another one."

The scene was played out much as the previous one had been. Several bodies, horribly destroyed, all arranged in patterns he felt sure he'd seen before.
"Anyone have an any information on the way these things are displayed? I mean, it's obviously a pattern...but, what's it from? I know I've seen it before..."

Weeks went by and with startling certainty, every 4 days five new bodies showed up, each arranged in strange patterns. Seventeen instances in all, each in a different part of the city, the victims completely unidentifiable, no witnesses, no traces of any weapon or motive, and not one name on a single victim. The volume of people missing and the areas where the bodies were discovered didn't make any sense. There had to be nearly a hundred bodies, yet the evidence didn't point to any reported missing persons, and there was no discernable pattern to the discoveries. it was as if, all over the city, random bodies simply broke down into their component parts in large groups. Was it an epidemic? Localized spontaneous dispersion? Jacobson Stared into the pictures on his wall. What was the connection?


And then he noticed something-A realization that shook his soul and sent a chill straight up his spine...