My Life as a White Trash Zombie

Chapter 6

The ringing of my phone jerked me out of a nightmare—rotting flesh and crawling maggots, reaching hands and flesh dripping off bones. I struggled to shake off the lingering horror as I groped for my cell phone, almost grateful to be woken up even though it had to be obscenely early, since I could see through my crooked blinds that it was still dark outside.

I finally found the answer button. “Yeah?” I croaked.

“Good morning!” my partner, Derrel, said in an insanely cheerful voice. “I need my Angel to come out and play.”

The display on my nightstand clock showed 5:10. Ugh. Being on call sucked the big one. My usual shift didn’t start until eight A.M., but twice a week I was on call, which meant that if anyone died in the middle of the night, my ass got to go pick them up and bring them back to the morgue. On the other hand, it also meant that I took the van home after my regular shift was over on those nights, which saved me a few bucks in gas money.

Still, waking up this early was just wrong. “Why can’t people be reasonable and only die after eleven A.M.?” I whined.

“You’re cute when you’re cranky. I’m texting you the address. See you there!”

I’d been on the job two weeks, and I still hadn’t thrown up. I had no idea where my iron stomach had suddenly come from—because I sure as hell never had one before—but considering some of the gross stuff I’d seen and smelled, I wasn’t about to complain. One of the bodies we’d brought in the day before had been a decomp—the decomposing body of an old man who’d died in his trailer about a week and a half earlier. I seriously thought I was going to pass out from the smell, and I damn near ran screaming when I saw there were maggots crawling in his mouth and nose. The only reason I didn’t was because Nick the Prick was also there, and I knew he’d tell everyone I’d wimped out. And, once again, I wasn’t going to go to jail because of his smarmy little ass.

I’d been partnered with an investigator named Derrel Cusimano—a big, bald, black dude who’d been a linebacker at LSU a decade ago and looked like he was still perfectly capable of stopping the rush. He’d been a death investigator with the Coroner’s Office for about five years and was as friendly and nice as Nick wasn’t. He didn’t seem to give a rat fuck that I hadn’t finished high school or that I was on probation or that I was twenty-one years old and didn’t have a clue what to do with my life. He simply did his job and cracked inappropriate jokes when the general public wasn’t around and teased me about my bleached-blonde hair. Somehow when he gave me crap about being redneck trailer trash it was funny instead of mean, perhaps because he gave everyone equal amounts of crap. Plus, he consistently referred to Nick as an “over-privileged cocky asstard” which pretty much made him my hero, despite the fact that he was disgustingly cheerful at five in the morning.

I put my phone back on the nightstand, then ran my fingers through the tangled mess of my hair. The desire to lie back down was damn near overpowering, but I knew if I did I’d be asleep within seconds. And fired within hours. I’d been warned several times that “failure to respond in a timely manner to a call-out” was grounds for immediate termination.

“Only two more weeks to go,” I muttered with a scowl as I forced myself to get up from the bed. Then again, so far this job sure beat the hell out of working as a clerk at a convenience store. Though the convenience stores had fewer maggots. Usually.

The faint stench of rot wafted by me as I shambled down the hall to the bathroom. Great. Another rat died in the wall. The house I shared with my dad was . . . well, “piece of shit” was a pretty accurate description. Single-story with a tin roof and rotting front steps. Half the windows were cracked and had been repaired with duct tape, and the other half were so dirty you could barely see anything through them. I kept telling myself that one of these days I’d bust my butt and at least get the kitchen and bathrooms properly cleaned but somehow never quite found the motivation to do so. I kept things wiped down enough so that it wasn’t completely toxic, but there was no way I’d ever be comfortable having anyone over.

I did my business in the bathroom, squinting in the mirror after I washed my hands and face. The light above the sink was on but my reflection looked washed out and grey. Not too surprising considering the obscenely early hour, but the flowered wallpaper looked faded as well. To add to the joy, my toothpaste’s usual minty freshness wasn’t terribly minty, and I even double-checked to make sure I wasn’t trying to brush my teeth with something nasty like anti-itch cream.

Maybe I was coming down with something. I’d felt like this after leaving Randy’s last week—so faded and low-energy that after I made it home I’d cheated and downed one of the energy drinks, even though I was only supposed to drink them every other day. But I hadn’t overdosed, and in fact had felt fine the next morning. Or maybe I’m simply allergic to being awake at five A.M. That was more likely.

I swiped some deodorant into my pits, then wrinkled my nose. The stench was in here as well. I couldn’t seem to smell anything else, but I could sure as hell smell whatever it was that had died. I sniffed around in an attempt to trace the source of it, then on an absurd whim took a deep whiff of the back of my hand.

Oh, gross. It was me! I’d showered before going to bed, but apparently the funk from yesterday’s decomp had clung to me more than I’d realized. Derrel wouldn’t be pleased if I took too long to get out to the scene, but I figured he also wouldn’t be thrilled if I smelled like roadkill.

I took a quick shower and toweled off, then sniffed my arm again. It wasn’t nearly as bad, yet there was still a lingering aroma of something dead that clung to me. No time for another shower, though. I spritzed on a flowery body mist, but I might as well have been spraying water on my bod for all that I could smell it. I scowled and resisted the urge to give myself a second spritzing. If my sense of smell was off, I’d be running the risk of knocking Derrel over with the lovely combo of something dead plus way too many flowers.

My stomach rumbled as I returned to my bedroom to pull on cargo pants and a Coroner’s Office shirt. I yanked open the door of the little fridge to pull out a bottle of the coffee-drink stuff before remembering that I’d downed the last one two days ago. Or was it three? Damn. That bump of feel-terrific energy would’ve been pretty nice right now. Closing the fridge, I got down on my hands and knees and reached up under my bed, feeling for the pill bottle wedged between the springs. I pulled it out, pried the top off, snagged out two white, oblong pills. The rest went back into the bottle and the bottle to its hiding place. Coffee-drinks weren’t the only things that could give me a boost. I pulled a beer out of the fridge, washed the pills down, and stuck the open beer back in the fridge. It’d be flat when I got home, but it was better than wasting it.

Holding my shoes in my hand, I walked as silently as I could to the front door.

“Where the fuck you sneakin’ off to at this hour?”

Shit. I turned to see my dad sitting in the stained recliner, an open beer in his hand. More empties were piled haphazardly beside the chair. He was probably at the bar last night, got kicked out when they closed at four A.M., then kept going when he got home.

“I’m not sneaking out,” I replied. “I got called out to work, and I was trying to keep from waking you up.”

His mouth curled down into a scowl. He was only in his late forties, but a couple of decades of booze combined with a ten-year-old back injury from his time on an offshore oil rig, had him looking a lot older. A scraggly beard tried to cover his sagging jowls, and his light brown eyes seemed perpetually glazed. He had on the same battered jeans he’d been wearing the day before, wedged above his bony hips and under his slight pot belly. No shirt. Just pale, flabby chest and spindly arms.

“Between your phone and the shower, no way to sleep around here.”

“Yeah, well, sorry.” I dropped my shoes on the floor and shoved my feet into them. “Next time I won’t even bother trying to be quiet since I obviously suck at it.” What the hell did he need to be rested and alert for anyway?

“That sicko job of yours paid you yet?” He peered at me as he lit a cigarette. “Or you already spent it on pills?”

Crouching, I yanked my laces tight. “I haven’t been paid yet,” I lied. “Maybe later this week.” I really didn’t want to get into it with him right now. He expected me to give him half of any money I made to cover my “rent” and expenses, which was a load of bull because this stupid old house had been paid for over a decade ago, since it had actually belonged to his parents, and he got it when they died. Plus, he got his disability check every month—also a load of bull—which covered utilities and food and stuff like that. He only wanted my money so he could go get drunk.

It was beside the point that I usually spent my money on getting drunk—or high. It was my damn money, so it should be my damn buzz. Right?

“So, how much do necro-freaks like you get paid?” He asked, still watching me intently.

“Dunno, Dad,” I replied, keeping my attention on the laces of my sneakers. “It’s a special program . . . part of my probation.” More lies. Yesterday I’d been handed a check for my first week’s pay, and I’d about died when I saw the amount. More than double anything I’d ever made anywhere else. I had no intention of ever letting him know what I was making.

“Sounds fucked up to me,” he said. He took a long pull on the beer and chased it with a drag on his cigarette. Ash dribbled onto his hollowed chest, but he made no move to brush it away. “Why the fuck didja sign on for this? Why can’t you keep a real fuckin’ job? Or is that the only place that’d take a pillhead?” He scowled. “Only a freak would wanna touch dead bodies.”

“Well I guess your daughter’s a freak,” I shot back as I stood up. “What does that make you, huh?” It wasn’t the first time he’d called me names. “Freak” was pretty tame by his standards.

I stalked away from him and yanked open the pantry in the kitchen, muttering a curse as a couple of empty pickle jars tumbled out and rolled across the kitchen floor. One of Mom’s “things” had been saving and washing out jars in case she ever wanted to make jelly or pickled who-the-hell-knew-what. I’d never seen her do anything of the sort, which meant we had a couple hundred empty jars stuffed under every cabinet in the damn house. One of these days I was going to actually get around to throwing them all out. Probably about the same time that I cleaned the rest of the kitchen. Yeah, any day now.

I’d eaten pizza last night, but my stomach was acting as if I hadn’t eaten in days. There wasn’t much food in the house, but I managed to find a packet of Pop-Tarts that didn’t look too old. That would have to hold me until I finished at the scene. I was already running late.

My dad muttered something obnoxious under his breath as I headed to the door but I managed to make it out of the house without getting sucked into any more father-daughter bonding. I started to climb into the van, then paused at the sight of an envelope stuck under the windshield wiper. Frowning, I snagged it from beneath the wiper. It was a simple plain white envelope, sealed shut, with nothing written on the outside. I hesitated a few seconds as an unpleasant sense of foreboding shimmered through me, then I ripped it open and unfolded the piece of paper within.

Angel,

If you crave it, eat it. Trust your instincts. It’s cool.

Good luck.

What the fuck? My entire body went cold and my hand shook as I stared down at the note. I had absolutely no doubt that it was from the same person who’d sent me the letter in the hospital. This person obviously knew me and knew where I lived, but it wasn’t the stalker aspect of it that had me freaked out right now.

It was that they had to know what I’d been craving.

“Freak” is right.

I crumpled the note into a tight ball and shoved it deep into a pocket. My heart pounded in a combination of terror and anxiety as I started the van and headed out. No, that was insane. How the hell could anyone know that I’d been fighting the urge to chow down on . . . brains?

Yet what else could the letter possibly be referring to? Usually if I craved something, I ate it. Simple. I didn’t need anyone else to tell me it was okay and that I should go for it.

But I’d been craving brains. The smell was like chocolate and cookies and biscuits and gravy and everything else that was delicious. It damn near drove me crazy every time I had to touch one. I’d been fighting the cravings the way I’d never fought the urge to take drugs or get drunk.

As if to taunt me, my stomach chose that moment to snarl again. Stop it! I silently wailed. I ripped the packet of Pop-Tarts open with my teeth and ate them as quickly as I could, even though they were so stale and tasteless it was like eating cardboard. Maybe the uppers I’d taken would help. They’d always done a good job of killing my appetite in the past, so hopefully they’d help kill this screwed up hunger.

Or maybe I just needed crazy-meds instead.

If you crave it, eat it. I shook my head. I’d gotten comfy with the thought that this job was a substitute for rehab, but this letter threw that completely out of whack. Why on earth would it ever be all right to give in to that?

No. It didn’t make sense. It had to be referring to something else. A dull anger began to form in my gut. Why the hell couldn’t Anonymous Letter Guy simply tell me what the hell was going on?

I struggled to put the whole craziness out of my head as I focused on getting to the scene in a timely manner. Fortunately the van had a GPS which efficiently guided me to the address Derrel had texted—a one-story brick house in the sort of upper middle-class neighborhood I’d once hoped to live in. An ambulance and a police car occupied the driveway, and a black Dodge Durango with the Coroner’s Office logo on the side was parked at the curb behind a maroon Ford Taurus with so many lights in the windows and antennas on the back that it was screamingly obvious it belonged to a detective. Why the hell did they call them “unmarked” cars when it was obvious to anyone with eyes that it was a police car?

I pulled in behind the Durango, but paused before getting out and surreptitiously slathered more deodorant into my pits. I could still smell myself. It wasn’t overpowering or anything, but I couldn’t seem to shake the faint whiff of yuck—the same kinda sickly, almost sweet, rotting flesh smell of a decomposing body. I was also so hungry I was ready to eat the damn steering wheel, and the Pop-Tarts hadn’t made the slightest difference. It didn’t feel as if the pills had kicked in at all, which was really strange since I could usually count on feeling the effect within about ten minutes, and it had easily been half an hour.

I hurried up to the house, kicking myself for not bringing more pills with me. Though, with my luck, I’d take more and then overdose again, I thought with a sigh.

The stupid clawing hunger had me so distracted I didn’t even see the low step in front of the house. I tripped and only a sudden strong grip on my arm saved me from a humiliating sprawl.

“Careful there,” a deep voice murmured

I clutched at the hand on my arm as I struggled for enough balance to stand on my own. “Thanks, man,” I said with an embarrassed grimace. I got my feet under me, looked up. And froze. A cop. Shit, it’s a cop.

He released me and stepped back while I fought down the stupid instinctive flare of alarm that shot through me. After two weeks on the job and a few dozen death scenes I should’ve been used to running into cops all the time, but this was the first time I’d been up close and personal with one. Besides, this cop was kinda hot. I didn’t usually go for the men-in-uniform type, but he rocked it. There was no spare fat on this guy. His hair and eyes were both dark, but he didn’t look Italian or Arabic or anything like that. I took a quick glance at his nametag. M. Ivanov. Was that Russian? That would explain—

My thoughts came to a screeching halt. Ivanov. Shit. Marcus Ivanov. This was the cop who’d arrested me for that stolen Prius.

I could feel my face heating. “I, um, need to get inside,” I quickly muttered, avoiding eye contact.

“Of course,” Deputy Ivanov replied. He gave me a neutral smile, then continued on past me and headed toward his car. He hadn’t recognized me. I gave a small sigh of relief, even as a wistful little twinge shot through me. What the hell had I been so worried about? I wasn’t the sort of chick guys like that remembered, and certainly never in a good way.

I pushed aside my stupid disappointment and continued on in, stepping out of the way of the paramedics as they carried gear back to the ambulance. Their presence was routine. Unless a body had very obviously been dead for a while, it was standard to have them run an EKG strip to make absolutely certain the person was solidly dead. I was starting to get the hang of all the various procedures involved when someone died. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about before. I mean, who really wants to, other than maybe deciding whether you wanted to be buried or cremated?

I waited patiently inside near the front door and tried to ignore my churning gut while I did my best to stay out of the way. Detective Roth stood near the entrance to the kitchen while he talked on his phone. A curvy blonde woman wearing fatigue pants and a shirt with SEPSO Crime Scene printed across the back was crouched by the wall as she carefully packed a camera into a bag. More procedure. Unless someone was under hospice care or in a hospital or nursing home, a detective and a crime scene tech were dispatched to investigate and process the scene. Though I’d already learned that, unless it was clearly foul play, “investigate” meant that the detective took down the decedent’s information and then referred to the coroner’s report; and “process” meant that the crime scene tech took pictures of the scene and the body.

But I guess that makes sense, I thought. Going all out on every dead body would get to be a pain in the butt and a waste of time pretty fast.

I snorted. Look at me, being all understanding about cops. Who’d have thought that would ever happen?

I leaned against the wall, watched as Derrel spoke in soft and comforting tones to the dead man’s wife. For all his imposing size and looks, Derrel had a way of dealing with family and loved ones that was nothing short of a gift. I could hear him gently inquiring about her husband’s medical history and what medications he was on. From what I could overhear it sounded as if the guy had a history of heart disease and had died in his sleep.

I slid further in and peeked down the hall. The bedroom door was open, and I could see the dead man lying on his back in the bed, the sticky pads from the paramedics’ equipment still stuck to him in various spots on his body. He didn’t look very old, maybe in his fifties or so, which meant that he’d be brought in for autopsy—which was why I was here. A geezer in his eighties with a bad heart probably wouldn’t be autopsied unless he had a few bullet holes in him or a knife sticking out of his chest.

I stepped back as one of the paramedics returned. “Forgot my stethoscope,” he explained with a smile as he continued on in to the bedroom. He came back out with it in his hand, then paused in front of me, a slight frown creasing his brow. He looked faintly familiar but the “Quinn” on his nametag didn’t help me out. He was tall and slender, with reddish brown hair and a faint scattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Not bad-looking at all. I’d probably met him on a different scene sometime in the past two weeks.

He continued to frown down at me. “Something wrong?” I asked, oddly nervous that I’d screwed up somehow.

His expression abruptly cleared, and he gave me a broad smile. “I knew I’d seen you before. You’re looking a lot better now.”

My expression must have echoed the What the hell? going through my head because he chuckled and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m Ed Quinn. I . . . uh,” he lowered his voice. “I worked on you a couple of weeks ago when you were found out on Sweet Bayou Road.”

I could feel my face heating in embarrassment. Found dying of an overdose. “Oh. Great.” Then I grimaced. “I mean, thanks, y’know.”

His smile abruptly shifted to a look of chagrin. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

I shrugged, trying to appear casual. “It’s cool. That’s behind me now.”

“Good to hear.” His gaze swept over me, pausing briefly on the Coroner’s Office logo on my shirt. I could see the question forming in his eyes: How the hell had I managed to land this job? I struggled to think of something plausible but to my relief he seemed to sense my discomfort and left the question unasked. “Well, I gotta run,” he said, glancing toward the door. “Take care of yourself.”

I gave him a nod and a forced smile as he headed out. As soon as he was gone I blew my breath out and leaned back against the wall. Awkward. First the cop who’d arrested me, then the paramedic who’d kept me from accidentally killing myself. I didn’t even want to think what a third thing might be.

I groaned under my breath as a wisp of a too familiar odor reached my nose. Oh yeah, how about stinking like a week-old corpse?

Derrel came over to me with a paper bag in one hand and his keys in the other. I could see his nose twitch but thankfully he didn’t seem to associate the stink with me. “Okay, we’ll be taking him in,” he said. “Would you mind sticking this in the lockbox in the back of the Durango on your way out to get the stretcher and body bag?”

“Sure thing,” I said, taking the bag and keys from him. “What is it?”

“All of his meds. The Coroner’s Office collects them and disposes of them.”

I blinked. It felt like about a dozen bottles in the bag. “They throw it all out?”

Derrel nodded. “I have to count all the pills and log everything first, but yeah, they get incinerated. It’s not like they can be given to anyone else.”

“Gotcha.” I flashed him what I hoped was a nonchalant smile. “Okay, be right back.” I hurried out to the Durango and popped the latch for the back. A metal lockbox was there and a quick search through the keys revealed one that opened it. I paused with the bag in my hand. They can’t be given to anyone else, huh? My pulse thudded as I quickly looked through the pill bottles in the bag. I didn’t recognize most of the drug names. Heart medicines of some sort, I assumed. But there were also some anxiety meds, and even a prescription for my little uppers. And Xanax. A whole damn bottle—and I knew this stuff would be the real thing.

Hunger clawed at me again. Maybe Xanax would make the crazy cravings go away, or at least dull them a bit? It wasn’t as if I was going to take the pills to sell them or anything. That would be stupid. I’d be looking at serious jail time for something like that.

My mouth felt dry as I stood there with the bag in my hand. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the bottle of Xanax out, crumpled the bag shut and shoved it into the box. I started to put the bottle into the pocket of my cargo pants, then paused. What if Derrel had already written down the names of the drugs? Even if he hadn’t actually counted the pills yet, he’d be sure to notice a whole bottle missing.

I’m being a moron, I thought with a scowl. And now I’ve taken too long. He’s going to know something’s up. I’ll be busted for sure.

I quickly crammed the bottle of Xanax back into the bag and shut the lockbox. A strange relief settled over me and I let out a slow sigh. It had been stupid of me to even consider taking the drugs. So far I’d managed to go a whole two weeks without doing something boneheaded. I only had two more weeks to go and then I could be out of this job and away from brains and bodies and all that craziness.

I locked the box and closed the back of the Durango. I turned to get the body bag and stretcher from the van, but stopped dead at the sight of Ivanov leaning against his car and looking straight at me.

My heart gave a guilty leap until I realized that he was talking on his cell phone. And that he wasn’t looking directly at me at all, merely in my general direction. Cripes, Angel. Guilty conscience much?

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I’d taken those pills, he’d have been on me like white on rice.