My Life as a White Trash Zombie

Chapter 14

“You’re certainly raring to go, Angel.” Dr. Leblanc gave me a quizzical smile as he picked up his clipboard.

I was already completely decked out in the protective gear—which, thankfully, had long sleeves—and gloves to cover the fact that I’d manage to lose another fingernail. I’d nearly been forced to resort to wearing a mask as well after I’d made the mistake of scratching an itch on my cheek. I’d felt the skin begin to peel away and stopped right before giving myself a gaping crater in the side of my face. Wouldn’t that have been lovely? Several frantic minutes in the bathroom with a combination of makeup and—god help me—hair spray had provided a temporary patch, and right now it merely looked as if I was trying to cover up some serious acne. Or leprosy.

The body was also ready: stripped of clothing, with the block beneath the shoulder blades to make it easier to open up the body and examine the innards. I didn’t want a single second to be wasted.

“You know me, Doc. I love me some dead bodies!” I said it with a deliberately cheeky grin, and he gave a laugh in return.

“Fortunately, we can accommodate you.” He made his notes and then commenced with the Y-incision.

I did my best to be Super Morgue Tech, ready with every piece of equipment the pathologist needed before he could ask for it. I had to bite back a whoop of joy when he finally gave me the go-ahead to cut the head open. In fact, my anticipation was so great, I had to take several deep breaths to get my hands to stop shaking so that I could make the incision across the top of the head. Luckily, Dr. Leblanc was too busy slicing organs to notice.

When I opened the skull, the smell of the brains washed over me in such a heavy wave I had to grab the edge of the table to steady myself. The hunger rose up like a rabid piranha, and I gritted my teeth against the urge that wanted me to bury my face into that convoluted surface and suck it all down. Breathing shallowly, I carefully removed the brain from the skull and set it on the scale, then passed it over to Dr. Leblanc as soon as he took note of the weight.

He murmured thanks and then bent his head to slice into it. I moved to where I was directly behind him and surreptitiously sucked the juices off my fingers. A mistake, since that merely jabbed my appetite into full wakefulness. I only thought I’d been hungry before.

An eternity later Dr. Leblanc dropped a sample of the brain into a tub of formalin, and then dropped the rest of it into the plastic bag. “Okay, close him up,” he said as he pulled his gloves off and dropped them into the hazardous waste container. “I have a deposition to get to, so I’m going to autopsy the headless one later this afternoon.”

Not trusting my voice to work, I gave him a nod, then stepped up as soon as he moved away. I didn’t give a shit about the headless guy. No brain meant no interest on my part. Busying myself with the needle and string, I waited, heart pounding as I listened to Dr. Leblanc’s retreating footsteps, then I quickly dipped my hand into the bag and palmed a piece of brain. It wasn’t big, only about the size of a walnut, but when I knelt to pretend I was tying my shoe it went down my throat like golden honey. The hunger gave one last wail before settling, momentarily satisfied with the offering. It wouldn’t be enough to put me back to normal, but at least I could think straight and finish what I was doing.

I managed to sneak one more bite before closing everything up and putting the body back in the cooler. Then I did the smart thing and made absolutely certain there was no one left in the morgue. Dr. Leblanc had gone back to the main building for his deposition, and Nick and Pete were both off. Now I could eat as if my life depended on it.

I quickly tugged the zipper open and untied the bag. I was getting good at finding all of the brain pieces and getting them into a jar with a minimum of mess and fuss. Standing near the open door of the cooler, I kept an ear cocked for anyone entering while I ate the brain right out of the jar. Normally I’d have waited until I was away from the morgue to eat, but not now.

A relieved sigh escaped me as I savored the rush of returning sensations—including the strange tickle as my fingernails and skin grew back. The spot on my cheek itched again, but this time it was due to the bizarre glop of makeup and hairspray stuck to it. Smiling, I peeled it off and flicked it into a trash can.

There were only a few small chunks of brain left in the jar. It didn’t surprise me that I’d managed to bolt down almost the entire brain, as famished as I was. That should hold me for a few days. Surely there’d be some bodies coming through by the time I needed more. I needed to build up a stash. I couldn’t afford to let myself get that desperate again.

I jerked at the sound of the door buzzer, nearly dropping the jar and the last few chunks it held. Crap. The buzzer was from the back door of the morgue, which meant that someone from one of the funeral homes was here to pick up a body. That was yet another part of my job. Once a body had been autopsied and released by Dr. Leblanc, then someone from the chosen funeral home would come and pick up the body from us. For bodies that were released on the scene—which was quite a few, especially with elderly victims—the funeral home picked the bodies up right there. Saved me a lot of work, since if I had to pick up every old fart who croaked I’d be running bodies nonstop.

Taking a deep breath to settle my pounding heart, I snuck a quick peek out into the hallway to make absolutely certain that I was alone, then hurriedly tipped the jar back and downed the last few bits. I wrapped the empty jar in a bunch of paper towels and dumped the whole thing into a garbage can as the buzzer sounded again.

“Coming!” I called, suppressing a burst of aggravation. Snatching another paper towel, I dragged it across my face to get rid of any blood or brain juice on my chin, then ran my tongue over my teeth to be sure I didn’t have any telltale chunks in my smile. Not that I expected people to know that the food caught in my teeth was brains, but still, anything caught in teeth would be gross.

I half-jogged to the back door and shoved it open. This door opened onto a broad covered walkway about twenty feet long, and beyond that a parking lot large enough to hold about a dozen cars. I usually parked back here since I spent most of my time in the morgue anyway. About the only times I went to the main building anymore was for staff meetings or to pick up my paycheck.

A funeral home van was parked at the end of the walkway and an Asian-looking guy leaned up against the outside wall by the door, an empty stretcher parked on the sidewalk beside him. Maybe in his mid-twenties or so, he looked more like some sort of goth-punk rocker than a funeral home worker to me. His hair was cut in a spiky mop with one long lock that draped across his face, and he was wearing black pants embellished with zippers and chains. His T-shirt was plain black, which somehow seemed conservative considering the rest of his general look, though in the next second I decided that wearing something adorned with skulls might be frowned upon by the funeral home he worked for. I probably stared rudely for a couple of seconds before he pushed off the wall and grabbed the stretcher.

“Hi. Sorry,” I said, holding the door for him as he pushed the stretcher in. “I was just finishing up after an autopsy. Hope you haven’t been waiting long.” I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling as I noted that he had a tiny skull earring in his left ear. Wow, darlin’, you digging the death thing a bit much, huh?

“No big deal,” he said with a casual shrug. He had the barest touch of accent, telling me he probably hadn’t been born here, but it was so faint I figured he must have been only a kid when he’d come to the states. “I saw the van,” he continued, “so I knew someone was here. I figured you had your hands full.”

“Who are you here for?” I asked, pulling the door closed behind him..

He tugged a piece of paper out of his pocket and glanced at it. “Faust, Daniel.”

I controlled my smile. Faust, Daniel was the fine gentleman whose brains I’d just chowed down on. “Got it. I’ll bring him right out.”

I retrieved the body from the cooler and brought it and the stretcher back out to the main room, then plopped into the computer chair. I was stupidly proud of myself that I’d picked up the computer system with little trouble, though my typing still sucked ass. “Okay, Faust, Daniel. . . .” I flicked a glance up to the funeral home worker. “Which home are you with?”

“Scott Funeral Home.” His tone was strangely mild, and his eyes stayed on me in a way that probably should have been unnerving, but I was high on brains and feeling too good to be down in any way.

I made the appropriate entries, then printed out the receipt. Standing, I yanked it off the printer, then handed it to him with a dorky flourish. “Sign here, and he’s all yours,” I said.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” A slight smile played on his face as he signed the paper.

“A little over a month,” I replied.

“Is there anyone else here new?”

I shook my head. “Just me.”

He straightened, eyes raking me in a strangely appraising way. “So you’re probably the one who can tell me where all the brains have gone.”

I felt as if he’d punched me in the gut, and I know I stood there with an utterly stricken look on my face.

“I . . . uh . . . what do you mean?” I said, but I couldn’t keep my voice steady. I knew I sounded guilty as hell. Shit. I didn’t think anyone would have noticed that they were missing. Nick had told me that the funeral homes never did anything with the bag of organs.

The skin around his eyes tightened in annoyance. “What, you thought no one would notice? That’s not how this works. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

“Tell me what?” I managed, voice cracking.

“The brains come to me at the funeral home,” he said with patronizing slowness. “Then I distribute them.”

My initial shock and terror faded to be replaced by a strange relief. But I didn’t dare reveal myself yet. There was always the chance that he was with some organ donation service, and if I came out and said, “Hey, you’re a zombie too?” I’d look like a complete whacko.

“Who the hell are you?” I said instead. “And why do you need the brains? Who do you distribute them to?”

He leaned against a filing cabinet and tucked his thumbs into the top of his pockets. “You’re new, aren’t you.”

“I told you,” I said, scowling, “I started here a month ago.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. You’re a new zombie, right?”

I swear my knees shook, and I had to grab at the table behind me.

“Oh, thank god!” I exclaimed before I could think. “Shit, I swear there was a part of me that thought I was fucking crazy. I mean, I’m wanting to eat . . . well, y’know.” I realized I was babbling and forced myself to stop and take a deep breath. “Is that—really? Is that what I am?” Instead of horror at the confirmation all I could feel was overwhelming relief. I’m not crazy. There’d been that teeny tiny sliver of doubt. Okay, so I’m a monster. And, yeah, that’s more acceptable than being insane.

He cocked his head. “You really don’t know? Why did you think you were craving brains?”

My attitude slowly began to reassert itself. “Well, how the fuck was I supposed to know? I thought I was nuts!” Then I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re one too, right?”

“That’s right.” He stuck his hand out. “I’m John Kang. Everyone calls me Kang.”

I took his hand, shook it. “Angel Crawford. Nice to meet you.” He didn’t feel dead or undead, or whatever. His skin was warm, and he looked totally alive to me. Did that mean he’d fed recently?

I inhaled sharply. “You left that note!”

He gave me a puzzled look. “Note?”

“Yeah, there was a note at the ER and on my van. . . .” I trailed off as his expression remained blank. Disappointment curled through me. Yeah, that would have been way too easy. I shook my head. “Never mind.”

He was silent for several seconds, regarding me. “Who the hell changed you?”

“Changed me? What, you mean someone made me like this on purpose?”

“Well, yeah. It’s not something that happens by accident. You have to be close to death already, then get bitten all to hell by a zombie to get the virus into you, and then you have to eat brains almost immediately to feed the virus.”

“Well, I don’t know these things,” I nearly snarled as the frustration threatened to boil over. “I figured I’d been bit or whatever by accident. Hell, I had no idea what happened.” Did that mean that whoever left the notes for me was the one who changed me? But why? And if it was a virus, was there some sort of treatment for it? “Why don’t you tell me what the hell’s going on!”

“Sure,” Kang said. “But first, you need to ante up the brains.”

I could only stare at him for several seconds. “Wait . . . you mean I have to turn all the brains over to you? Why?”

Kang’s expression tightened. “Because that’s how things work. I get the brains, and then I distribute them.”

“To who?”

“Other zombies. Who the hell do you think?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Uh huh. And when you say distribute, do you mean you have a soup kitchen sort of thing set up for local zombies looking for a meal? Or do you sell them?” I had a feeling I already knew the answer. Zeke, the zombie who’d ambushed me with a tree, wouldn’t have been so desperate if there’d been a place to get free brains.

“I sell them,” he replied, practically spitting the words out. I could see that my failure to instantly buckle under was annoying him.

“Do you get them from the other funeral homes too?”

He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. He was working really hard to keep his cool, I had to give him that. “I get as much as I can. Look, this is an efficient system we have going on here. I don’t need you coming in and screwing everything up.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “So you’re telling me that you’re the only zombie who works in a funeral home?”

“I’m the only one in a position to take care of all the others,” he retorted. “If you think you’re going to come in here and cut into my business, you’re deluded.”

“Yeah, well, let’s get one thing straight, asshole. I have no intention of cutting into your business, okay? But I’m also not gonna let you screw me over.” I found myself smiling. I’d been in scenarios like this before, though they hadn’t been about brains. Maybe my less-than-pleasant history would come in handy after all. “See, I think what you want is for me to give you all the brains from bodies that don’t normally go to your funeral home. ’Cause right now you only get, what, maybe a fifth of the ones that come through the morgue?” His scowl told me I was on the right track. “But it’s not like you could be short of brains. I mean, you also get all the ones from the people who y’all pick up who don’t come through here. Nursing homes, hospitals, hospice deaths. . . .”

I watched a muscle in his jaw leap. “You have no idea how this works.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe not. But I’ve dealt with your type before. I know you’re not the only zombie in this business.” I didn’t know for sure—there was always the chance that Zeke was the only other one, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense that zombies would automatically gravitate toward jobs where they could get a hold of brains with a minimum of hassle. “And I think that right now you’re just being a dick, trying to pressure me into handing everything over to you and cutting everyone else out—including myself.” I threw my hands up. “Do I really look that stupid?”

Kang’s lip curled into a sneer. “You didn’t even know you were a zombie.”

“Yeah, so? I was ignorant, but I’m not a fucking moron. Why would I give the shit to you just so I could buy it back from you later?” I leaned back against the counter. “Hon, you’re fucking with the wrong chick. I’ve been around too many drug dealers to buy into a scheme like that.”

He shocked me by bursting out laughing. “Drug dealers? Well, that’s an interesting analogy.” He shook his head but a sardonic smile stayed on his face. “All right, clearly I underestimated you. You’re serious about not wanting a cut of the action?”

I hesitated. I was already risking enough by taking the brains for my own use. If I was somehow caught profiting from it. . . . It felt skeevy, even though I could logically see that it was no more skeevy than a restaurant charging for food. “Yeah. I don’t need to do that.”

“But you’re still cutting into my supply,” he pointed out.

“Okay, well, how ’bout I leave the brains in the bags that are going to Scott Funeral Home. So nothing changes for you. And, if I get into a bind or something, you help me out, and vice versa.”

“And you’re going to keep all the rest?” He raised an eyebrow.

“That’s right,” I replied, putting as much defiance as I could into my tone. “We don’t get that many bodies through here. Y’all get a buttload more through the funeral homes.”

He grimaced. “Sure, but most of them are old. Taste old too.”

I resisted the urge to say something obnoxious like, “Suck it up and deal with it.” It was clear he wasn’t thrilled, but he also seemed to realize that this was as good a deal as he was going to get. “So, are you gonna tell me about zombies and how all this works?” I asked instead.

He started pushing the stretcher toward the door. “You’re a zombie,” he said, tone flat and curt. “You eat brains. What more do you need to know?”

I stared at him in shock for a split second, then scrambled to get between him and the door. “Seriously?” The word practically exploded from me as I planted my hands on the other end of the stretcher and stopped him. “Could you please turn off the dick mode for a few seconds? I’ve already said that I’m not going to cut you out. Don’t make me regret that!”

He glowered at me. “Fine,” he finally said. “But make it quick. I need to get back.”

I bit back a smartass retort. “You said you distribute brains. Surely that means you know who the other zombies in the area are, right?”

“Only a few,” he said with a shrug. “And trust me, none of the ones I know would be likely to have turned you. Too secretive, too scared of discovery. Most zombies don’t want anyone to know about them.” His mouth twisted. “Hell, most are pretty damn lazy. You burn fewer brains if you sit on the couch all day watching TV.”

I blinked. I hadn’t thought about it like that. A vision of a fat, redneck zombie sitting on his couch watching football and eating brains instead of popcorn swam up in my head, and I had to resist the urge to burst out laughing.

“And the ones I provide to, who aren’t lazy fucks,” he continued, “are either people who work only to make enough money to buy the brains they need, or people who don’t want to get their hands dirty and can afford to pay for delivery.”

“I suppose animal brains don’t do the trick?” I asked.

Kang gave a dry laugh. “We’d probably have a lot more zombies if that was true. But no, human brains are the only kind that give us what we need. And, in case you were wondering, zombie brains are no good either.” He shrugged. “This is why it’s not good to have too many of us in one place. Brains aren’t exactly easy to come by, and the last thing any of us needs is attention drawn to ourselves.”

A chill walked down my back as I tried to process that last statement, but he gave the stretcher a jerk, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Can we please do the twenty questions bullshit another time?” he said with a cocky sneer. “I need to get back to my job.”

Even though I knew I had a million more questions for him, I couldn’t put anything into words at that moment. I released the stretcher and stepped aside. He was out the door in the next instant, while my thoughts tumbled in an uncoordinated, frustrated loop.