My Life as a White Trash Zombie

Chapter 2

I made it home from the hospital and obediently set my alarm for 7:30 A.M. This was my chance to turn things around, to not be a complete screwup.

My alarm went off at 7:30. I slapped the snooze and rolled over.

I woke up again at 9:15.

Crap!

I took the fastest shower of my life, yanked on jeans that I hoped were clean, grabbed the first T-shirt I could find that didn’t show my navel or have something obnoxious printed on it. Great. I had a job handed to me, and I screwed it up the first day. That I didn’t understand why I supposedly had this job was beside the point. If it paid real money and didn’t involve me getting naked, I was willing to give it a shot. Besides, I’d been doing some thinking. I was a huge fan of all those crime scene shows on TV, so I knew that coroners did forensics and that kind of stuff, and carried all their equipment around in big vans or Hummers—which most likely needed drivers, right? In other words, there was a really good chance that this job could be exceedingly cool.

But hell, anything’s better than working a minimum wage job at Bayou Burger, I thought as I pulled the shirt over my head and raked my fingers through the frizzy mess of my hair.

I lost several precious minutes in a frantic search for my purse. I had a vague memory of having it when I went to the bar the other night, which meant I had zero idea where it had ended up. Hell, I didn’t even know where I had ended up, other than the ER. Oh yeah, and naked on the side of the highway.

I finally dug the spare keys to my battered little Honda out of the bowl on top of my dresser, then ran for the front door. At least my dad wasn’t up yet. Not that I expected him to be any time before noon. That was fine with me because it meant I didn’t have to try to explain to him where I’d been or what had happened. He probably had no idea I’d even been in the hospital. Again, I had no problem with that.

I hit the door at a run, then turned around and ran right back to snag one of the stupid drinks from the little fridge in my room. It usually only held beer, but I hadn’t wanted to put the drink-stuff in the kitchen fridge and risk my dad drinking one or throwing them out by mistake. I knew he wouldn’t believe me if I told him they were medicine. At least that’s what I assumed they were. In fact he’d probably be more likely to throw them out if I said that. He got drunk damn near every night, but he acted as if I was a serial killer if he found a joint or pills in my room.

I remembered to shake the bottle, then opened it and gave it a dubious sniff. There was a faint coffee-chocolate smell, but beneath that there was a tang of something I couldn’t quite place—nutty or meaty, with a faintly metallic edge. “Whatever,” I muttered. I’d consumed disgusting crap before.

It was thick, with a texture that reminded me of tapioca. I had a split-second desire to gag and spew it all out, then it suddenly shifted to a craving for more. I didn’t think I’d be able to drink the whole thing, but before I realized it I was shaking the bottle to get the last few strange tapioca-like chunks out.

I lowered the bottle slowly as an energizing warmth spread through me—kinda like a shot of Everclear, but without the getting drunk part. I felt awake, alive. The only thing that kept me from slugging down another was the fear that I might overdose on it, and I sure as shit didn’t want to end up back in the hospital.

I dropped the empty bottle in the trash can and glanced at the clock: 9:30.

“Crap!”

I ran for the door.

The St. Edwards Parish Coroner’s Office was in Tucker Point—about twenty minutes from my house. Despite a couple of wrong turns, I managed to make it there before ten and by some miracle still managed to get the job. I didn’t have to interview or anything, which was a relief since I was a pro at tanking interviews. The human resources lady had apparently been expecting me because she pulled out a folder with my name on it and plopped down a big stack of paperwork for me to fill out. That I could handle. I was pretty darn good at filling out employment forms. It was the whole bit about keeping a job that I wasn’t so great at.

Unfortunately, the human resources lady didn’t know anything about how I’d managed to get hired and gave me a funny look when I asked her about it. I finally shut my mouth and concentrated on filling out the million forms in front of me. The last thing I wanted was for her to realize I didn’t deserve this job.

Once I finished with the paperwork the lady turned me over to a guy named Nick Galatas who was supposedly going to train me as a van driver. Nick was a couple of inches taller than me, though that didn’t mean much since I was only five foot three if I really stretched. He had dark brown hair and green eyes, and would have probably been kinda good-looking except for the fact that he seemed to have a permanent smirk on his face.

“You’re going to be partnered with a death investigator,” he informed me over his shoulder as he led the way through the building that housed the Coroner’s Office. It was a new building and everyone seemed to be really proud of it, but to my disappointment it didn’t look anything like the forensics shows I watched on TV. Instead it seemed like any other government office—over air-conditioned, low-key colors, boring posters, generic office furniture. There were a few doors that required a key card to enter, with impressive names like “Toxicology” and “DNA.” But I was again disappointed on discovering that the labs weren’t full of nifty chrome and cool blue and pink lighting. Total letdown.

“Twice a week you’ll be on call for a twenty-four-hour period,” Nick continued. “Otherwise you’ll be working mostly the morning shift. That’s when I have class,” he said, making it sound like he had an appointment to see the frickin’ pope.

“Okay,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t really care what shift I worked. They all sucked equally as far as I was concerned.

“I’m pre-med,” he added smugly.

“Okay.” I said again. I didn’t shrug this time, but his jaw tightened a bit as if he was annoyed that I wasn’t displaying the proper amazement at his accomplishment.

“And I’m next in line to be promoted to death investigator.” The look he gave me was nothing short of a challenge, and I had to fight to not roll my eyes. What, he expected me to start crowing about my own accomplishments so he could top them? He’d be waiting a long time for that.

“Cool,” I replied, forcing my face into a smile. I didn’t even know what a death investigator was, though I assumed it had something to do with investigating death. But Nick sure as hell didn’t need to worry about me horning in on his position. I only had to get through a month of this.

We came to the end of a long hall, stopping in front of another locked door. Nick glanced at me as he pulled out his key card. “Here we are,” he announced. “You’re going to be spending a lot of time here.”

I registered the word on the door. Morgue. A sick, sinking feeling began tugging at my insides. “I will?” I said, hoping my voice didn’t betray my sudden unease.

The smug smile returned. “Well, yeah. Your job is to pick up bodies and bring them here to the morgue.”

Van driver. Oh, Angel, you moron. What the hell did you think the coroner needed a van for?

One month. I took a slow deep breath. That’s all I had to do. “Oh. Okay,” I said as calmly as I could manage. I was totally not okay, but damn, I didn’t want Nick to see it.

He swiped the card and pulled the door open, stepped through and gestured for me to follow. I hesitated half a second but forced myself forward.

The smell hit me first. I’d expected a putrid and nasty rotting-flesh smell, but instead the air held a confusing mix of antiseptic cleanser, blood, and another odor that I couldn’t immediately place. A second later recognition smacked into me, and I realized it was the stench of the stuff used to preserve dead things, like the frog I had to dissect when I took Biology in high school.

Except, I never did dissect the frog. I was so grossed out and freaked at the smell and the mere thought of cutting into the thing and seeing its insides and guts and organs and everything, that I threw up all over the floor of the Biology lab. The teacher yelled at me, the other kids laughed, I started crying, then I threw my books down into that puddle of puke and marched out of the classroom and out a side door of the school. About a week later a social worker came to the house because, even though I was sixteen and old enough to drop out of school if I wanted, there were still procedures and shit. I don’t think Dad even knew I’d stopped going to school until the social worker showed up, disgust in her eyes and a fake-caring smile on her pinched face as she minced across the flattened beer cans in our driveway. But Dad didn’t make me go back to school, just told the lady I was going through a lot ’cause my mom had killed herself a couple of months ago, even though I wasn’t “going through” anything and was totally fine. He was the one being all grieving and stuff, and I think he simply didn’t have the energy to get into it with me. So I told the lady Biology and high school were useless crap, I was going to get a job, and I was never coming back to school.

And I didn’t.

Yeah, I sure showed them.

I stopped in the doorway of the morgue and clenched my jaw shut in preparation for the heave of nausea that I knew would hit me any second now. All I could think about was that frog and me throwing up all over the tile.

“You okay?” Nick asked, except I could tell he didn’t really want me to be okay. He wasn’t even bothering to hide his smirk, and it was obvious he wanted me to lose it because then he’d be able to feel even more superior. Like all the kids who pointed and laughed when I lost it in Biology.

Jerk. I took a cautious breath, surprised and relieved to discover that my stomach was apparently on my side and was going to behave, at least for the moment. I slowly unclenched my jaw and returned his smirk with one of my own. “I’m fine,” I replied as I stepped in and allowed the door to close behind me.

Disappointment flickered briefly in his eyes which only strengthened my desire to not wimp out in front of him.

The morgue was mostly what I’d expected—cold and vaguely creepy, like I’d seen in the movies. The walls and floor were off-white, but in a shade that made me wonder if it was the original color or if they’d somehow been stained by the strange and gross smells—kinda like the way the nicotine-yellow walls in my dad’s bedroom had once been beige.

The tour continued as Nick showed me the procedure for logging bodies in and out and took me into the cooler where the bodies were stored. I’d expected a wall full of little doors with the slide-out tables that held the bodies, but instead it was simply a giant walk-in cooler—like you’d find in a restaurant or liquor store—with some big shelves on the wall and about half a dozen stretchers lined up beside them. The shelves were empty, but three of the stretchers had black body bags on them.

Dead people. I backed out of the room as quickly as I could without looking like a total weenie. I was sweating from the stress of waiting for my stomach to wake up and realize what was going on. Any second now I was going to heave and puke all over the floor—or perhaps all over Nick. That would be fine with me.

The next room he took me to held hundreds of plastic containers full of tissue samples, floating in a sickly, brown soup—formalin, as he informed me rather pompously. But still not a whisper of nausea. I could hardly believe it. I even got queasy if I saw someone spit on the sidewalk, and don’t ever ask me to change a diaper.

Finally, Nick brought me into the room where the autopsies were performed—the cutting room, he called it. I tried to avoid looking directly at anything in there. Metal tables. Drains in the floor. Lots of really scary tools and equipment. Yeah, I had the basic gist of it. I didn’t need to see it up close and personal.

Nick started pointing things out in the cutting room, blathering on about the duties and the responsibilities and the procedures, with this cocky air about him as if he was the damn coroner. I’d almost tuned him out when I heard him say, “When you’re assisting the pathologist during autopsies, you’ll need to—”

“Whoa!” I jerked my hand up to stop him. “Wait, what?” I asked as sick horror shot through me. “You mean, like when the bodies get cut open?”

Delight lit his face. “Yes, you’ll be helping with the autopsies. You didn’t know that?”

I couldn’t speak for several seconds. There was no way I’d be able to do this. I couldn’t even handle the thought of a frog getting cut. How the hell was I supposed to be all right when it was people? What kind of vicious joke was it to put me in a job like this? Maybe that’s all this was—a big whopping practical joke. Take the loser girl with the weak stomach and no nerves and put her where she’s guaranteed to make an ass of herself. And threaten her with jail and death to make sure she plays along.

Except, why would anyone go through all that trouble just to play a trick on me?

“It’s cool. I’ll be fine,” I somehow managed to say. I wouldn’t be, but I wasn’t going to let him see it. He’d enjoy it far too much if I walked out right now. I didn’t have a whole lot of self-respect going for me, but this was as good a time as any to pretend that I did.

Besides, I wasn’t going to go to jail just because Nick was a prick.

“Good to know,” he said, smirk stretching to a grin. “Because we have one scheduled to begin in about twenty minutes. Might as well get you suited up so you can start learning the ropes!”