What the hell was wrong with me?
To my shock and horror my mouth began to water and my stomach gave a loud growl—loud enough for the others to hear. Both of them turned to look at me and Dr. Leblanc gave a laugh. “Okay, you’re officially the toughest morgue tech who’s ever worked here if you can still be hungry during an autopsy!”
I gave a weak laugh in answer as I struggled to hide my confusion. Yeah, that’s all it was. I was just starving.
So why did I have the horrifying urge to grab a handful of that pink and grey mass and shove it into my mouth like movie popcorn?
A shiver crawled down my back. I was being stupid. I’d skipped breakfast, that’s all, and was probably still recovering from my dumb overdose. There was no possible way that I really wanted to eat the brain. It had to be some sort of flashback to that whole crazy hallucination.
Fortunately, Nick seemed to be oblivious to my anxiety. He picked up a scalpel. “The rest is easy. Slice the spinal cord where it connects to the base of the brain—” he said, somehow shoving the brain aside and sticking the scalpel in and around. “—and you’re good to go.” He set the scalpel aside and tipped the brain out into his hands, cradling it carefully.
He turned to me with naked challenge in his eyes. “Want to hold it?”
I froze for several seconds. I did not want to hold it, but there was no way I could admit it was because I was afraid I’d start hallucinating and crave it again.
I saw the smirk begin to form on his face. Oh, hell no. I was not going to let him win this one. Even Dr. Leblanc was watching to see what I was going to do. It’s a stupid little initiation, that’s all. I can do this.
I stepped forward and stuck my hands out, meeting the challenge in Nick’s eyes with my own. He grinned, placed the thing in my hands. It was slippery and a little mushy—a bit heavier than I expected it to be. I’m holding a brain in my hands. Holy shit. An unfamiliar sense of pride began to trickle through me. I’d risen to the challenge. It was a stupid and gross challenge, but I’d done it.
“You can go ahead and put it in the scale,” he said.
I set it carefully in the scale and stepped back. Dr. Leblanc gave me another sly wink, then peered at the numbers on the scale and wrote them on his clipboard. I smiled, absurdly pleased with myself.
Then I quickly grabbed a towel and wiped my hands off before I could give in to the insane urge to lick my fingers.
Chapter 4
It was after five P.M. by the time I finally left the morgue and climbed into my Honda. I turned up the volume on my cheap-ass car stereo, slapping the steering wheel in time to the beat as I drove, my mood a lot brighter than I’d expected it would be after my first day on the job.
Okay, so the job was weird, gross, and nothing I’d have ever signed up for on my own. But it was also kinda cool, in a freaky way.
Plus, I hadn’t screwed up. In fact, I’d done all right. I wasn’t used to feeling proud of myself. It was definitely something I could get used to.
After Dr. Leblanc had finished the autopsy I got a crash course in how to sew a body back up—nasty! And, even nastier, I learned that the organs taken out during autopsy didn’t get put back in before the body was sewn up. Instead they went into a big plastic bag and were sent to the funeral home in the body bag, where they’d then be put into the casket between the legs of the dead guy, all covered up with a pretty blanket so that no one at the funeral would know the bag was there. At least that’s what Nick told me. I wasn’t completely sure if he was fucking with me or not.
Once that was all done and we finished cleaning the morgue—which was more scrubbing and mopping than I’d ever done in my life—Nick took me to meet the coroner, Dr. Duplessis, and the Chief Investigator, Allen Prejean. The coroner seemed pleasant enough as we went through the “Glad to have you on board” crap that bosses always say, but there was a weird tightness to his smile that made the neurotic part of me wonder if he’d been pressured into hiring me and resented it. Then again, maybe he was always like that.
Allen was a different story, though. I had no doubt he knew about me and my history. That wasn’t me being neurotic either. It was stamped all over his face when we were introduced. He didn’t say anything about being glad to have me on board. Instead it was, “Your background makes you an interesting choice for this position,” delivered in a scowly, gruff voice, and which made Nick give me a funny look. I could only hope that Nick would take that to mean I used to be a secret agent or some shit like that.
But other than the awkwardness of meeting my bosses, pretty much the only ding against me the whole day was the fact that I didn’t have my driver’s license and the human resources lady needed a copy of it, since I was supposed to be a van driver and all.
I made a face as I took the turn onto the highway that led toward my house. I still had no idea what had happened to my purse, which meant I was probably destined to spend my morning at the DMV in Tucker Point. Joy.
I’d lived in this area my entire life. The farthest away I’d ever been was Talladega, Alabama, when I was ten. I lived in Nice, Louisiana, which was probably supposed to sound like the town in France—pronounced “neese”—but everyone around here called it Nice, as in, “Ain’t that nice.” There really wasn’t much about the town that was all that nice. It was a teensy little town in the southeast corner of St. Edwards Parish, which wasn’t much more than a big stretch of swamp and marsh in the southeast corner of Louisiana. Nice had a couple of groceries and some hardware stores, a few strip malls with consignment clothing shops and hairdressers, and a scattering of diners, bars, and gas stations. Most people drove the twenty minutes to Tucker Point if they wanted to do any kind of real shopping. We didn’t even have our own police force—the St. Edwards Parish Sheriff’s Office patrolled and answered 911 calls.
The sign for Pillar’s Bar came up on the left, and I slowed, memory abruptly flickering. That’s where I was the other night. I’d gone there with Randy, right? Maybe I left my purse there. I’d just quit my job at Bayou Burger ’cause some lady tried to tell me we’d made her stupid burger wrong and that we had to give her another one. Except she’d already eaten most of the first one so I told her No, and then my boss jumped my ass because the “customer is always right” or some bullshit like that. I’d been in a shit mood after quitting, so I downed a Lortab before going to the bar, and after we got there I went out back and smoked some pot with Terry, the bartender. Randy was doing something to piss me off, so I traded Terry a couple of joints for a couple of Percocet. After that the memory was a lot foggier. . . .
My mood dimmed. I sure as shit didn’t get this job as a van driver because I deserved it. I got it because I nearly overdosed and now someone was trying to teach me a lesson.
Yeah, yeah, the value of life. Just Say No. Whatever.
I didn’t really know what had happened between going to the bar with Randy and ending up naked on the side of the highway, but I had a feeling it hadn’t been pretty. Probably a good thing I don’t remember it, I thought with a sour grimace.
There were only a couple of cars in the parking lot. Another hour or so and it would start filling up with all the people who had shit lives and shit jobs—or no jobs—and who wanted to forget about all that before heading to whatever passed for home. Still, even a couple of cars was too many people for me to face without knowing just how much of an ass I’d made of myself the other night. I kept driving past and simply called the bar instead to see if anyone had seen my purse. No one had turned it in, so either I hadn’t left it there or someone had walked off with it.
I hung up, annoyed, then called Randy. I didn’t really want to go home. Home was where I slept and showered. I didn’t want to hang out there. But Randy wasn’t picking up, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.
I need a life, I sighed.