I made quick work of getting her into the bag and, as she was slender and short, I didn’t need Derrel’s help to get her onto the stretcher. I draped the dark blue Coroner’s Office cover over the body bag, then wheeled the stretcher out while Derrel kept Ginger occupied. Even though it was obvious a body bag lay beneath the sedate cloth, it still offered a bit of shielding from the emotional impact. Derrel and I were pretty good about doing our best to make sure friends and family didn’t have to see the body being removed. That was one of those “final” things that tended to hit people pretty hard.
By the time I got outside the rain had slacked off to a sluggish drizzle—still annoying after so many days of rain but better than the earlier deluge. I tugged my raincoat back on, then pushed the stretcher and its burden to where I’d parked.
A flicker of movement down the street caught my eye as I shoved the stretcher into the back of the van. I closed the door and turned, mystified to see a blond woman with a camera aimed in my direction. That’s the same chick who was taking pictures of me on the movie set. What the hell?
Though I knew damn well she saw me looking at her, she didn’t lower the camera and no doubt got some great photos of my scowl. A few seconds later, she turned and strolled casually off in the opposite direction.
Shit. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to chase her down and demand to know why the hell she was taking pictures of me. But leaving a body in the van so that I could run down the street was a sure way to get fired.
As if the universe wanted to help me make up my mind, lightning split the sky, followed immediately by a crash of thunder that shook the van. I jumped and let out a squeal, then dashed for the driver side door and climbed in. Yeah, I could probably survive being struck by lightning, but it would hurt like a sonofabitch.
About two seconds later rain slammed down in a deafening roar on the roof of the van. Fine, I could take a hint. No chasing down mysterious photographers today.
But as soon as this rain let up? All bets were off.
* * *
Even with the wipers going at mach ten the visibility remained utter crap. To add to the driving fun, the ditches and drainage systems had obviously thrown up their collective hands and said, “Fuck it, I give up!” which meant that water of varying depths covered half the damn streets. And of course that meant that traffic was a frickin’ nightmare, because, apparently, heavy rain and flooding streets were signals for everyone with a car to leave the house and run every non-essential errand they’d been putting off until the weather and road conditions were maximum-shit.
Yeah, I was in a peachy mood.
The rain eased up to slightly less apocalyptic levels by the time I reached Tucker Point. As I drove past the high school I peered over to see if the movie people were trying to shoot in the rain, but while there were plenty of trucks and trailers parked by the main building, there was little sign of activity. Probably doing as many interior shots as possible, I decided. A few people clustered under the overhang at the front of the school. A red-haired man gestured at the downpour in obvious agitation as a slim black woman stood with folded arms and gave a disinterested nod as if she’d heard the rant before. Another man in a suit paced back and forth with a cell phone held to his ear, while a mousy woman in jeans and a t-shirt looked out at the rain with a faint smile on her face, as if enjoying the show nature had put on for her.
I made it to the morgue without further incident, got the body of Ms. Brenda Barnes inside and logged in. As soon as I finished that, two funeral home workers showed up, one right after the other, and I went through the usual rigmarole of releasing the bodies they’d come to pick up. Neither of the funeral home workers were zombies; I smelled quite-edible brains in both of their skulls. In fact I realized—after each departed with his respective cargo—that in the past six months the few zombies I’d met had all been associated with Pietro’s organization. I hadn’t met any “independent” zombies in that time.
I paused as I set out the scalpels and tools for Dr. Leblanc and pondered that. It was true that Ed had succeeded in killing off close to half a dozen zombies, including Kang, who I’d met not long after I’d been zombified. He was the first zombie to give me the slightest clue about how to survive as a brain-eater. His job at Scott Funeral Home supplied a sideline in dealing brains to a handful of undisclosed local zombies—at least until Dr. Charish put a bounty on his head, literally, and Ed decapitated him. After I escaped her, Pietro’s people supposedly recovered Kang’s head along with others from her lab, but I hadn’t heard a thing about it since. And maybe there was more to Kang than I knew. Hell, I’d only been a zombie a short time before he was killed.
So were the only zombies left in this area ones who worked for Pietro? Or were there still zombies who worked at the various local funeral homes though not in any capacity where I’d come into contact with them?
“Angel?”
I jerked, startled out of my reverie by the voice behind me. “Shit!” I dropped the scalpel in my hand and turned to see Dr. Leblanc. “Jesus, you scared the crap out of me,” I said with a shaking laugh.
But instead of giving an answering laugh, his eyes dropped to my left hand, and a look of alarm spread across his face. “Good lord, Angel!”
I looked down to see a deep slice along the lower part of my thumb. Crap, I thought as I stared stupidly at the gaping flesh of the inch-long gash and the thick drip of blood onto the floor. I just mopped that.
Luckily Dr. Leblanc had no desire to gaze at the pretty patterns my blood made on the tile. With a quick motion he seized one of the towels I’d set out and pressed it to my hand. “I’m sorry I startled you,” he said, concern in his eyes as he maintained pressure on the gash. “You were standing so still I thought something might be wrong.”
“Sorry,” I replied with a weak smile. “I was lost in thought.”
He lifted my hand, pulled the towel away enough to allow him to peer at the wound. Crap, I thought again. I wasn’t tanked enough for it to have healed on its own at all. Then again, that was probably good since it would’ve been really tough to explain why I’d been bleeding only seconds earlier.
“Ah, damn,” he said, wincing. “You’re going to need a few stitches in that.”
I groaned. “Oh no, is this a workman’s comp thing? Will I have to fill out an incident report?” I knew the answer to that. I’d damn well memorized the employee manual to be extra sure I wouldn’t accidentally give Allen a reason to write me up or fire me. Any injury requiring medical attention required a metric fuckton of paperwork.
“Sadly, yes,” he said, pressing the towel back down over my hand. “But since it was completely my fault I’ll write it up for you.” He gave me a smile. “Least I can do.”
“Can you stitch it up as well?” I asked hopefully. “There’s no way I’m gonna go sit in an ER for something this tiny.” Especially when a few slugs of brain smoothie would take care of the whole problem. Craaaaap. This meant I couldn’t eat until this whole thing was dealt with.
To my dismay, Dr. Leblanc shook his head. “Best that I don’t. However, I know someone who can do a fine job on it and save you an ER trip.”
With that he led me back to the main building, though he allowed me to hold the towel on my hand myself. I expected him to lead me out and over to Dr. Duplessis’s practice which was right across the street, but instead he shocked me by bringing me to Allen Prejean’s office.
“Allen. We’ve had a bit of an accident,” Dr. Leblanc said, contrition tingeing his voice. “Completely my fault.”
Allen frowned, eyes going to the bloody towel around my hand. “What happened?”
“Angel was setting out equipment, and I jostled her when she had a scalpel in her hand,” he said, surprising me with the mild lie. Maybe he figured Allen would still find a way to make it my fault if it came out I’d cut myself because Dr. Leblanc had startled me. Damn, but I loved the pathologist.
Allen opened his bottom desk drawer, pulled gloves out of
a box and tugged them on, then stood and moved to me. I let him examine the gash, and even I had to admit it was an ugly wound for a non-zombie to have. The cut extended from the outer edge of my thumb and into the meat of my palm. It gaped open about a quarter of an inch, and I could see the white sheen of a tendon within. Didn’t hurt though. That was nice.
“Needs stitches,” Allen muttered. “Probably about five, I’d say.”
Dr. Leblanc nodded. “I agree. But any chance we can take care of that here and avoid her wasting hours in the ER?”
Allen looked up at Dr. Leblanc. “I could do it since it missed the tendon. I mean, I have a suture kit, but I don’t have any lidocaine.”
“I don’t need it numbed up for just a few stitches,” I said quickly. Allen gave me a doubtful look, but I hurried on. “Seriously, if you can stitch it up, that’ll be fine.”
“I’ll get started on the incident report while you take care of Angel,” Dr. Leblanc said as if the matter had been decided. After another couple of seconds of hesitation Allen shrugged.
“Okay, but no screaming or crying,” he grumbled. “Come on.”
I followed him down the hall and into a small, rarely used room that had become more of a catch-all storage space than the consulting room it once was.
“Have a seat there by the desk,” he told me as he looked through the cabinet.
I did so, mentally bracing myself against him being a jerk to me, or rougher than necessary, or any crap like that. Hunger poked at me, reminding me how unnecessary all this was, and I bit back a sigh.
Allen turned back to me with suture kit, wound wash, and towels in his hands, set them all on the desk and flicked on the swing-arm lamp. He folded one of the towels into a pad and set it on the desk by me. “Okay, Angel, rest your forearm there and get comfortable.”
“Thanks for doing this,” I remembered to say as I set my arm on the folded towel. “I really didn’t want to have to go to the emergency room.”
He unrolled another towel and draped it over my forearm. “Emergency room sucks,” he said. “This way you’ll be done in fifteen minutes instead of three hours.”
“You’ve done a lot of stitching?” Not that it really mattered since I wasn’t exactly worried about him botching it up. Even if he did, a slug of brains would take care of it.
Allen didn’t shift his careful focus from the wound. “I’ve gone with Dr. Duplessis four times on Doctors Without Borders rotations,” he said. “Did quite a few sutures.”
I blinked at him in surprise. “Really? Like other countries?” The instant the words left my mouth I realized how stupid they sounded.
But Allen didn’t deliver the condescending sneer I expected. “Yes,” he replied as he opened the suture kit and began removing items. “Africa, Guatemala, and Haiti twice.”
“I never knew that,” I said, frowning slightly. “Why don’t you ever talk about it?”
“It hasn’t come up,” he replied with a small shrug. He picked my hand up carefully and sprayed wound wash on it. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to sting, but I figured I’d give a slight wince anyway.
“Wow. Did you like it?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t have gone four times if I didn’t,” Allen replied. He finished cleaning the slice, then replaced the towel beneath my arm with a fresh and dry one. “I’m going again in October, but without Dr. Duplessis this time.” He pulled off the latex gloves he had on, then put on fresh sterile gloves from the suture kit.
“That’s really cool,” I said, meaning it. “Where are you going?”
“Guatemala again to work in a children’s services clinic in the highlands,” he said. He picked up the needle, then adjusted my hand on the folded towel. “Okay, Angel,” he said, speaking calmly and, to my continued surprise, gently. “Take a deep breath and let it out.”
I did so, fascinated and a teensy bit weirded out by this completely alien-to-me side of him, then watched as he did the first stitch with smooth efficiency and tied it off. He’d obviously done this a few thousand times.
Allen glanced up at me, a small frown touching the corners of his mouth. “Damn, Angel, you didn’t even wince.”
Shit. “Oh, um, I was watching you do it, and, uh, kinda forgot it was supposed to hurt.” I let out a weak laugh that sounded false even to me.
He pursed his lips, then returned his attention to my hand and began the second stitch. “Watching usually makes it worse.”
“I guess working in the morgue has gotten me really used to gore.” I shrugged. “Seems less scary to watch and see what’s going on.”
He knotted the thread. “Actually I’m the same way. I’d rather see it coming than be surprised.” He turned my hand slightly. “I think you can get away with only four stitches on this,” he stated. “It’s really shallow here at this end.”
“Okay, cool. Thanks.” I said. “I guess it’s good the scalpel was really sharp. I mean, I barely even felt it.” I winced as he did the next stitch, but when his frown deepened slightly I suspected I’d done so a fraction of a second too late.
“Do you generally have numbness in your hands?” he asked as he tied off the last stitch. “Or lack of sensitivity to touch?”
Double shit. “Nope. Not at all!” I replied brightly. I lifted my right hand and wiggled my fingers. “Totally fine!”
Allen cut the suture thread and set the needle aside. “Even a sharp scalpel hurts like hell. I know.”
How the hell was I supposed to explain it in a believable way? “Um, that arm was broken when I was twelve,” I said. “Maybe there was nerve damage or something.”
He shrugged, cleaned the wound area again, then taped gauze over the stitched cut. “Could be. You definitely don’t have normal pain sensitivity.”
“Or just used to it,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Used to getting sliced?” he asked, frowning more.
“No, um…used to getting hurt.” I hesitated, then gave him a tight and humorless smile. “Mom used to smack me around. That’s how my arm got broke,” I explained, even as I wondered why the hell I was telling him this. “She went to jail for it.” And died there, I thought. Killed herself on my sixteenth birthday. Luckily I had enough self-control to keep from sharing that lovely tidbit of family history.
But he didn’t comment on my little revelation. He wrapped up the suture kit, dropped the needle into a sharps-disposal container, stripped the gloves and placed them in a biohazard trash can. “You’re all done,” he told me curtly, sounding almost harsh after the gentler tone of before. “I’ll check it in a couple of days, but I don’t anticipate any issues with it. Keep it clean.”
“Sure thing,” I said. The old Allen was back. “Thanks for saving me a trip to the ER.”
“Don’t make a habit of it,” he replied, then left the room without a glance back.
I sat silently for another couple of minutes. Why the hell had I told him about my mom and her abuse? Because for a short time he’d been almost nice to me? Great. He treated me like a normal person, so of course I had to make sure he knew I wasn’t normal.
Taking a deep breath, I stood and returned to the morgue. After pulling gloves on over the gauze, I finished getting everything ready for the autopsy.
Dr. Leblanc returned as I was getting the body of Brenda Barnes onto the table. I hid a smile as I noted he was deliberately noisy as he walked.
“Everything go all right?” he asked.
“Went great,” I said brightly. “All put back together.”
He glanced down at my hand. “Does it bother you? We can postpone until the morning, or I can get someone else to assist if it hurts too much.”
“Oh, no, I’m cool,” I assured him. “Allen did it in four stitches. Hardly aches at all.”
Dr. Leblanc gave an approving nod. “He’s good. I know you have your differences, but anything is better than the emergency room for such a minor wound.”
I got the body stripped of clothing and shoved
the block under her shoulder blades so that her back was arched, making it easier for Dr. Leblanc to do the Y-incision and examine her organs. With her head dropped back I could see remnants of the zombie makeup—green, grey, and beige grease paint along her jawline, and square patches of lingering adhesive on her neck.
I stepped back and looked over at the pathologist.
“Why doesn’t he like me?” It bothered me now. It had never bothered me before, at least not like this. But now Allen was someone I could actually respect, and suddenly his opinion of me mattered. And that bothered me as well.
A grimace flickered across his face as he shook his head. “I don’t know, Angel. It’s been like that since day one.”
Taking a deep breath, I did my best to throw off the stupid desire to give a shit about Allen’s opinion of me. “Oh, well,” I said. “Brenda’s been waiting long enough. Let’s get to cutting.”
Chapter 7
The autopsy of Brenda Barnes went quickly, though Dr. Leblanc remained puzzled about the cause of death despite knowing what had killed her: hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which was a condition where the heart muscle got too thick to pump blood properly, he’d explained. What he couldn’t figure out was how the heck she could’ve had that condition, since her medical records showed absolutely no sign of any thickening whatsoever in a full physical she had right before being laid off only a year earlier.
Muttering about misread test results and sloppy record keeping, he returned to the main building in the late afternoon, leaving me free to finally scarf down some brains to appease the insistent waves of hunger. I peeled up the gauze and tugged the sutures out of my healed flesh since they itched like crazy now, then taped the gauze back down. Later I’d figure out how to keep Allen from wanting to check it in a few days. Oh yeah, and figure out some way to explain why it healed without a scar. Maybe I could buy some miracle scar cream and claim it did the trick. I groaned and resisted the urge to beat my head against the cooler wall.
After making absolutely sure I was alone in the morgue, I retrieved an empty container from my cooler and “harvested” the brain of Ms. Barnes. During an autopsy the organs—including the brain—were removed, examined, and samples taken to be stored in formalin. Yet afterward, the organs weren’t returned to their former body cavity but instead ended up in a big plastic bag that was set between the body’s legs for its trip to the funeral home. Therefore, once the autopsy was complete, I snagged the brains out of the bags for my own consumption.
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