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.