Five hours later I knew a lot more about the movie versions of zombies, and not a damn thing that would help me in my own situation. All the zombies in the movies were the enemy—mindless creatures that wanted to kill and eat flesh and brains. There were still two more DVDs in the stack, but I couldn’t face the thought of watching them. Too depressing. This isn’t me, I told myself. That’s not what I am.

As long as I stayed well-fed, right?

Clive and Randy were still watching the end of the third movie—one of the George Romero flicks. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. I’d lost track. I glanced at the clock: One A.M.

“Y’all can keep watching. I’ve had enough.” I stood.

Randy looked at me with a frown. “You’re not staying the night?”

“Nah,” I said. “I need to be up early.” It sounded weak, and Randy sighed and rolled his eyes.

“C’mon, Angel, stay,” Clive said without taking his eyes from the screen. He was enjoying the movies way too much—cheering loudly every time a zombie got dispatched. I knew that was the point of these movies—humans overcoming the zombie menace—but, gee, for some reason it was beginning to get under my skin. “Besides,” he continued, “your man here needs some hot lovin’, and I ain’t about to give it up for him.”

Yeah, well, I wasn’t about to give Randy any hot lovin’ with Clive around. About a year ago Clive had made a joke about me doing both him and Randy at the same time—the kind of joke that wasn’t really a joke if I’d even hinted at being willing to go for it. Which I wasn’t. At all.

I tried to think of a nasty-funny comeback, but I was too worn out to come up with anything. “I need to go,” I told Randy, ignoring Clive’s bark of laughter. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

He gave me a nod and a shrug. “Yeah, no biggie.”

I kept the smile fixed on my face. No biggie. Yeah, that was us. I collected the movies we’d already watched and headed out. I didn’t ask Randy to walk me out to my car, and he didn’t offer. I left to the sound of Clive yelling encouragement as zombies died on the screen.

Chapter 16

The third morgue tech, Jerry, was sitting at the computer in the morgue when I came in the next morning. He lifted his hand in a wave without taking his eyes from the monitor.

“Angel,” he muttered in greeting.

“Jerry,” I replied, mimicking his low, gruff tone. The parody was apparently lost on him though, because he simply kept on with whatever it was that had his attention on the computer.

I put my lunchbox in the bottom drawer of the desk, rolling my eyes when I saw the solitaire game on the computer.

“Anything exciting happening?” I asked.

He gave a heavy sigh. “Busy day yesterday. Dr. Leblanc cut the headless pizza guy yesterday afternoon, as well as a heart attack and an MVA that Nick brought in after you got off.” He closed the solitaire game and pulled up the page that showed which bodies were scheduled to go to which funeral homes. “Those last two will probably be picked up later today.”

I peered over his shoulder at the screen. “What about the Pizza Plaza guy? Anyone picking him up?”

“There’s some sort of hitch with the ID which means official notification hasn’t been made, which also means there’s no one who’s authorized to make the funeral arrangements.” He shrugged, clearly and deeply unconcerned.

“What happens if no one makes funeral arrangements?” I asked. “He stays in our morgue forever?”

He wagged his head in a no. “That would be disgusting,” he stated. “Bodies still rot in there. Just takes longer. Like meat in your fridge at home.”

Okay, that made sense. The morgue cooler was exactly that—a cooler, not a freezer. Early in my time at the coroner’s office, I’d stupidly wondered aloud why it wasn’t a freezer, until it was pointed out to me that performing an autopsy on a frozen slab of meat would be a wee bit difficult. Oh. Yeah.

“So what happens to them? State pays for them to be buried or something?”

His chin dipped in a nod. “Riverwood Funeral Home handles the pauper burials for this parish and they get reimbursed a set amount for each one. They have a plot set aside for the pauper burials—no headstones or anything, though.”

I frowned. “Why not? What, poor people don’t deserve a real grave?”

A whisper of amusement lit his eyes. “They get a real grave. And the exact location is recorded. But there are a lot of people who’d never pay for a funeral if they knew the state would do it for free.”

“Ah. I get it,” I said. “People who want to be able to visit the grave are gonna pay for it. Bet there are still people who don’t care, though.”

“Agreed, which seems fair enough, I suppose. Funerals can be expensive. And are for the survivors, not the decedents.”

I simply nodded in response. We’d had Mom cremated after she hung herself. There’d been no funeral. No one would have come to it anyway.

“That’s what happened with the other headless guy,” Jerry said.

I gave him a blank look. “What happened?”

“No next of kin was found, so Riverwood took him—gave him a pauper burial.”

I sat on the edge of the desk. This was the guy who’d been killed while I was stumbling down the road, high as a kite. Maybe I could milk Jerry for some info. “What was the deal with that?” I asked. “That happened right before I started here. Who was he?”

“He was identified as Adam Campbell—lived in a fishing camp down at the end of Sweet Bayou.” Then he shrugged. “Wrote for magazines—tech articles, that sort of thing. Neighbors said he was a nice guy. Some teenager got lost out there a couple of months ago, and Adam let the search teams use his yard and house as a base of operations. Cooked for them too—big pots of gumbo, crawfish, jambalaya. I think everyone was disappointed when the little teen bastard was found alive and well.” A smile flickered across his face.

“If he was so nice, why didn’t any of those people step up and pitch in for a real funeral?” I asked, frowning.

Jerry pushed away from the desk and stood, grimacing as he audibly popped his back. “Because people suck, and everyone’s always sure that someone else will take care of it.” He glanced at the clock. “Time for me to drag my sorry carcass out of here. Have fun with the stiffs.”

“Always,” I replied as I sat in his seat and pretended to pick up where he’d left off with the game of solitaire.

I waited until I heard his car leave the parking lot, then grabbed my lunchbox and scurried to the cooler. The MVA was scheduled to be picked up by Riverwood, which meant I suffered no guilt as I scooped the brains out of the bag and into my jars. The heart attack I left alone since it was going to Scott Funeral Home. Kang had been a dick, but I wasn’t going to back out of our deal.

I poured tomato soup in on top of the brains and then quickly blended them up with my cheapo handheld blender. It didn’t look terribly appetizing, but at least it wasn’t instantly recognizable as brains.

My appetite gave a soft little nudge as I made my little brain concoction. I knew I needed to try to resist those first nudges of hunger, try and hold out a bit to make my supply last as long as possible.

But not right now, I told myself. I need to be sharp for work, right? I indulged in a few big gulps from one of the jars, then replaced the lid and stuck both jars into the lunchbox with the blue frozen thingies that would hopefully keep the brains from going bad before I got home and could put them in the fridge. I didn’t have a ton of brains to spare, but I also didn’t feel like dealing with the hunger right now.

The doorbell buzzed as I was putting the lunchbox back in the drawer. It was Kang, and he gave me a tight little nod as I stepped back to give him room to push the stretcher in.

“You’re here for Blackwell, Travis?” I asked.

He glanced at the paper in his hand. “That’s right. Is he all ready?” he asked.

I narrowed my eyes into a glare. “Uh huh. He’s all ready. All there. All that good stuff.”

Kang gave a slow nod. “I appreciate that.”

“Yeah, sure thing,” I replied as I turned and headed to the cooler to retrieve the body, not adding “asshole” even though I really wanted to. The urge to run over his toes with the stretcher when I returned was pretty strong, but I managed to resist it. I was even nice and helped him pull the bag from our stretcher onto his.

He buckled the straps holding the bag onto the stretcher, then paused and looked at me. “I didn’t really think you’d keep to our deal. I apologize for misjudging you.”

I shrugged in acceptance of the apology. “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be so mistrusting.”

His lips twitched. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, you learn that trusts are easily broken.”

“Oh, please. You can’t be much older than me.”

Kang let out a low chuckle. “Yes I can, and I am.”

I frowned at him in doubt. “Oh, really? How old are you?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a rude question?”

“Give me a break. C’mon, fess up. How old are you?”

“I was seven years old when I lost my parents during the Korean War.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that.” I struggled to remember the brief smattering of history I’d actually studied, but couldn’t think of when the Korean War was to save my life. There was still stuff about Korea in the news, so maybe it was only twenty years ago or so? I didn’t want to say anything, though, for fear of looking like a complete dumbass. “Okay, well, um, anyway, don’t worry about the brains. I won’t screw you. But can you please answer some questions for me?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll do my best.”

“How often do I need to eat brains? I mean, I feel hungry all the time.”