My Life as a White Trash Zombie

by Diana Rowland

  Not that I needed the comparison. I didn’t have to psych myself up to eat a piece. The hunger took over and the next thing I knew I was on the second slice—and I felt good. I closed my eyes in bliss. It was almost like the kinda good that some drugs could give you—and I knew drugs—except that it was somehow . . . cleaner.

  So what if I was nuts? This was fantastic. The hunger was gone. More than gone. I felt sharp and clear and alive and completely sated. I felt awesome.

  My eyes snapped open. I could feel the puzzle pieces fall into place as the last bite of brain slid down my throat. I knew this feeling. The coffee-drinks . . . those gooey chunks with the same consistency, given to me by the same mystery person who told me to give in to my cravings.

  Holy shit. I’d been eating brains for two weeks. And loving it.

  I couldn’t make my mind figure out what that meant. I didn’t want to know what it meant. It had to be some sort of disease, right? I mean, anything else would be crazy.

  “Oh, man,” I whispered. “I am way beyond crazy.”

  There was still nearly half a brain in the bag. I grabbed a towel, quickly wiped my face and hands, ducked out of the cooler and snagged a clean and empty plastic container from the room where the tissue samples were kept. My pulse hammered as I returned to the cooler and stuffed what was left of the brain into the container. Whether I was crazy or diseased, I obviously needed to keep eating brains unless I wanted to feel like I was dying of hunger. If my heart was beating, that meant I was alive, right? Couldn’t possibly be anything else.

  So what if I’d seen enough horror movies to know what kind of creature eats brains. That wasn’t possible. There was no way I was . . . that.

  I shoved the container into a paper bag, then did my very best to clean everything up so that no one could possibly know what insanity I’d been up to.

  Am I insane? Or am I a monster?

  I had no idea which was the better option.

  Chapter 8

  My stress levels were so high that when my cell phone rang I let out a shriek and damned near threw the bag containing the tub of brains into the air. Yeah, that would have been an impressive mess.

  I took a deep breath in an effort to settle my galloping heart, then yanked my phone out of my pocket. “Yeah?”

  “Yo, Angel. It’s Derrel. You okay? You sound out of breath.”

  Thank god I sounded out of breath and not . . . completely fucking insane. I took another long breath. Insane maybe, but at least I wasn’t hungry anymore. And I felt fantastic. Then again, the fact that I felt so good after what I’d just done was so fucked up I almost felt worse.

  No, I felt fantastic. No denying it. This was wrong all over. “Um, yeah, sorry,” I said. “My phone was in the other room, and I had to run from the cooler.”

  “Shit, girl, you could have called me back,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Anyway, I was checking to see if you were finished up there, ’cause I’m going to grab some late breakfast, and I figured I’d see if you wanted to join me.”

  “Sure,” I replied automatically, then felt a spasm of nerves. I just ate brains, and now I was supposed to sit down and eat normal ordinary food like a normal ordinary person?

  “Great!” he replied before I could take it back. “Meet us at the Top Cow Café over on Ninth Street. We’ll hold a spot for you.”

  “Okay,” I said faintly and hung up, then realized he’d said “us.” Who the hell else was going to be there?

  I looked down at the bag I had cradled in my arms. I ate brains. Holy shit. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was like an earworm running through my head. I ate brains. I’m crazy. Completely batshit crazy.

  My gut clenched as a hideous thought occurred to me: If I was crazy enough to eat brains, what if I was crazy enough to kill someone? What if I was somehow involved in that murder out in the swamp?

  My knees shook, and I had to grab for a chair. I sat, fingers tightening on the brown paper bag. I didn’t remember much, if anything, from that night. Maybe I was some sort of schizo. Maybe I was just as much of a sick fuck as Jeffrey Dahmer. I needed to go turn myself in or something, right? I mean, I couldn’t risk walking free. What if I killed someone else? The thought of going to jail gave me cold sweats, but being a murderer. . . . No, that was even worse.

  I stood and dug my hand into my pocket to retrieve my keys, then frowned as my fingers touched a crumpled piece of paper. I pulled it out, uncrumpled it, let out a ragged breath.

  The note from Anonymous Letter Dude. I wasn’t hallucinating that. Which meant that I probably wasn’t crazy.

  Somehow that didn’t make me any happier.

  I hurried out of the morgue with the bag cradled to my chest, certain that at any second someone was going to jump out from behind one of the scrawny bushes surrounding the small lot and demand to know what I was doing. I reached my car without anything like that happening, though I managed to drop my keys twice while trying to get the trunk open. On the third try I got it unlocked, then took several deep breaths in an effort to calm down and chill a bit. Just because I’m insane doesn’t mean I have to act all crazy, I thought with a harsh scowl.

  I gave my head a sharp shake. No, not insane. It wasn’t some sort of split personality of mine that sent me the stuff at the hospital. The drinks in the cooler had been some sort of brain concoction. I was sure of that. And I didn’t start getting drop dead starving until about two days after I’d finished the last one.

  But what did it all mean?

  I stuffed the bag of brains into a corner of the trunk, stopped at the first drugstore I saw and bought an insulated lunchbox and a bag of ice. I drove to a remote corner of the parking lot then transferred the bag into the lunchbox and stuffed the space around the bag with ice. The paper bag tore as I went to close the lunchbox, and I paused, pulse thudding as I looked at the grotesque undulations of the brain visible through the plastic. What if I got caught with this? It was obvious what it was. I needed a better system.

  I let out a shuddering laugh. Right. I needed a better system for this completely fucked up insane thing I was doing. I finally closed the lunchbox and slammed the trunk lid shut.

  Unfortunately, my mind was so scattered that I slammed the trunk right down on my left hand.

  I let out a scream of pain and tried to pull my hand free but the fucking trunk had somehow latched on my crushed fingers. Pain and panic swirled together as I struggled to get the trunk open. My keys had dropped onto the ground and in a burst of utter desperation I grabbed the lip of the trunk with my right hand and yanked as hard as I could, even though I knew there was no way I’d be able to force it open.

  To my shock and relief I heard a sharp crack of metal, and the trunk swung open. I pulled my poor hand to my chest, cradled it while tears of pain streamed down my face. I was afraid to look at it. I’d caught a glimpse of the twisted fingers. I knew they were broken. This was fucking great. And I didn’t have health insurance yet. How the hell would I do my job with a broken hand?

  I leaned up against the back bumper while I hunched over my hand and cried in misery and pain. Though . . . the pain really wasn’t as bad as it was at first, I realized after a few seconds. Maybe I was going into some sort of shock. I risked a peek at my hand, involuntarily sucking my breath in at the way the first three fingers bent backwards between the top two knuckles.

  A sudden tug of appetite made me flinch in surprise. How the hell could I be hungry at a time like this? And why didn’t this hurt more? I’d had broken bones before. I knew the pain involved a bit too well. This felt as if I’d already taken some kind of painkillers.

  Hunger tightened my gut again, and my eyes fell to the lunchbox in my trunk. Oh, come on, I thought with a sudden weary despair. How often was I going to have to eat this shit to keep from being ravenous all the time? I quickly looked around to make sure there was no one anywhere nearby before unzipping the lunchbox one-handed. At the sight of the plastic container the hunger gave a l
ittle jump, as if to say, “Yes! That!”

  I scowled. Fine. Whatever. I could chow this shit down and then go to the hospital for my hand. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about being caught with brains in my trunk.

  I nervously checked my surroundings again, tugged the top off the container and let the stupid, crazy hunger have its way. Less than a minute later I’d managed to finish off everything in the container, and my appetite had settled down again.

  I’m gonna be screwed if I end up needing to eat brains every couple of hours, I thought, worried and depressed, as I walked over to a nearby dumpster and chucked the empty container into it. There’s no way enough people will die for me to—

  I stopped dead, staring down at my left hand.

  The fingers were straight again. I slowly flexed them. No pain, not even a hint of it. The bones were most certainly in the right number of pieces. There was no swelling or blood—not even the slightest hint of a scrape.

  Oh my god.

  I swallowed hard then forced my legs to carry me back to my car. I hadn’t imagined or hallucinated my hand getting slammed in the trunk. When I got back to my car I could definitely see flecks of blood on the edge of the trunk lid where my hand had been.

  The brains . . . they healed me up. I couldn’t think of any other possible explanation. A hysterical giggle escaped me. Guess I didn’t need health insurance after all.

  And maybe I wasn’t crazy either. I wanted to be relieved, but. . . .

  A chill crawled through me. What kind of monster was I?

  Making sure I had my hands safely out of the way this time, I shoved the trunk closed, scowling as it popped right back up again. I peered at the latch—or rather, what was left of the latch. It was in pieces, and when I looked around I could see that the hook part had somehow cracked off and was lying in the bottom of the trunk.

  Okay, so my car was an old piece of shit. The latch was probably already cracked or something, and when I pulled on it I got lucky, that’s all.

  Right?

  I went back into the drugstore and bought some duct tape. I taped my trunk shut and got in the car, but paused before cranking the engine.

  Something else was different.

  It took me several seconds to figure it out, but finally I realized it was something that was missing. My stench.

  I didn’t have to lift my arm and smell myself. I’d grown a bit used to it over the course of the day, but I knew that the aroma of rot that clung to me all day was now gone. I smelled as fresh as if I’d showered that morning—which I had, of course, but this was the first time all day I could believe it.

  When I eat brains I don’t smell like rotten meat. I heard a low whimpering noise, then realized it was me.

  Starting the car, I turned the radio up, then drove to the café to meet Derrel, while I did my best to pretend the last ten minutes had never happened.

  Chapter 9

  The Top Cow Café, situated in a slightly crummy section of Tucker Point, was a cramped little hole-in-the-wall with a sign out front so weatherworn it was barely readable and waitresses who didn’t waste their time with little things like courtesy and smiles. But the food was terrific, and the coffee kicked ass, and I’d never been there when half a dozen people weren’t patiently waiting their turn to be scowled at.

  I walked into the café, bypassing the waiting people as I scanned for the hulking figure of my partner. It’s official , I thought with a sigh as I spied him at a table for four and realized who else was with him. God hates me.

  Derrel gave me a broad smile and wave as I fixed my face into something other than the pained grimace I wanted to wear. Marcus Ivanov glanced my way and offered the most neutral of smiles. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed that I was there, but then I figured that surely Derrel would have told him I was coming, and if the deputy had a problem associating with my type, he could have shoved off before I got there. Not that I would have had a problem with that.

  Screw it. I wasn’t going to be chased off. Besides, my stomach was giving a very ordinary sort of hunger grumble at the smells of pancakes and waffles. Well, that’s one good thing, I thought as I slid into the empty chair that wasn’t right next to Ivanov. I’m insane, but at least I don’t have to give up syrupy carbs.

  “Angel, do you know Marcus?” Derrel asked with a smile. “Angel’s our newest employee,” he told Ivanov without waiting for me to reply. “She started as a van driver and morgue tech a couple of weeks ago.”

  “We met on the scene this morning,” the deputy replied with an even smile, saving me from trying to figure out a way to explain how we’d actually met.

  Well, that was cool of him. “Um, yeah, he saved me from doing a face-plant on the sidewalk,” I said with a laugh that I was sure sounded forced and self-conscious.

  Derrel grinned. “Marcus takes the whole ‘serve and protect’ thing pretty damn seriously. That or he simply wanted an excuse to put his hands on a cute chick.”

  I could feel myself flushing, and the only thing that saved me from total embarrassment was the fact that the deputy looked slightly flustered as well. Derrel simply laughed and shoved a menu my way.

  “Here. Order food,” he told me. “We’ve already ordered, but you’re the one who’s all skin and bones.”

  My stomach gave another soft little rumble, but I couldn’t be sure what the hell it was rumbling for. “I, uh, kinda just ate,” I mumbled.

  Ivanov’s mouth curved in a smile. “You’ll need to keep your strength up if you’ll be working with this beast here,” he said with a nod toward Derrel. Then he looked back at me, smile still on his face. God-fucking-damn but he was seriously good-looking. “Have you ever had the stuffed pancakes here? They’re evil. I highly recommend them.”

  “Heh. The cop is recommending evil,” I said. “Too funny.”

  To my surprise, Ivanov chuckled. “You’ve discovered my dark side.”

  Derrel made a rude noise. “And you’ve also seen all there is to his ‘dark side.’ This is the squeaky cleanest fucker I’ve ever met. How he manages to not be a complete dick is beyond me.”

  Ivanov’s smile stretched into an actual grin. “You’ve obviously never talked to any of the, uh, guys I work with.”

  He didn’t even flick a glance my way, but I knew with an odd certainty that he’d been about to say “the people I’ve arrested” and then changed it because I was sitting there. Part of me wanted to be totally self-conscious but there was a bigger part of me that couldn’t help but be really grateful that this cop wasn’t saying anything about that time he arrested me, or even hinting at it. Or even saying anything that could make me feel uncomfortable. That was cool. And unexpected. Maybe he was just messing with me. Waiting to let loose with that info when it’d be really humiliating.

  But even as I thought it, I had a hard time believing it was true.

  A surly waitress came by and poured coffee for me, and I went ahead and ordered the stuffed pancakes. Marcus gave me a smile when I did so. I smiled back out of reflex then quickly busied myself with the cream and sugar, getting my coffee the way I liked it. Sheesh, I was starting to act like a high school kid with a crush. This was a cop. I was a convicted felon. He was simply being nice. That was all.

  The waitress returned less than a minute later, slid plates of food in front of Marcus and Derrel, muttered something about refilling their coffee when she could get a damn free second and left. I told the two men to go ahead and eat, and they didn’t need any more urging. I sipped my coffee while they ate and absently listened to the short order cook yell for a waitress to come pick up her damn order. Her retort was equally harsh but no one in the diner paid any attention to it. It was all part of the “ambience” of this place.

  “So,” Derrel said after a moment, eyeing the deputy, “have y’all come up with any leads in the headless hunter case?”

  I’d just taken a sip of coffee and barely managed to keep from spraying it across the table in a scene that could have
been right out of a sitcom. Of course, then I had to keep from breathing the coffee right back in, which would have resulted in the sort of coughing fit that would have looked even more suspicious. I grabbed my napkin and managed to pretend to sneeze which had the added effect of covering up most of my face which was surely completely beet red with embarrassment at this point. Yeah, I was classy and suave like that. Jesus Christ, Angel, get a grip!

  Ivanov cast an uncertain look my way then, thankfully, returned his attention to Derrel. “Nothing so far. The victim’s been identified, as you know, but that’s about it.”

  Derrel dipped his head in a nod. “Adam Campbell.”

  “Right,” Ivanov said. “The guy lived in a fishing camp not too far from where his body was found. Kept to himself, worked as a technical writer or some such thing.” He shrugged. “The detectives questioned people in the area but haven’t come up with squat.”

  Derrel huffed out a sigh. “Monica was working that night. I know she wasn’t thrilled to be working two scenes back to back, but it sounds like that one was pretty interesting.” He glanced my way, slight frown creasing his forehead. “Have you even met Monica yet?”

  I nodded. “Met everyone in the staff meeting last week.” Although “met” was a strong word for what was more like: “Hey, everyone, this is Angel, our new body-snatcher. Angel, this is everyone!” There were three death investigators: Derrel, Monica Gaudreau, and Allen Prejean—the Chief Investigator. There were also three van driver/morgue techs: me, Nick, and a pasty-looking older guy named Jerry Powell. Supposedly the coroner, Dr. Duplessis, wanted to hire one more of each to make scheduling easier, but that was on hold for some sort of budget reasons. The only reason my position had been open was because the previous van driver had been caught stealing lab supplies. I almost never saw Monica or Jerry because of the way the shifts fell. If it wasn’t for the fact that the office had a staff meeting every other week I probably wouldn’t know anyone except Derrel. And Nick, but only because he’d trained me.