Corpse Whisperer Sworn

by H. R. Boldwood

  “Excuse me?” I said, vaulting to my feet. “Barbie-doll Hoo—”

  Ferris shushed me and jerked me into my chair.

  “Who’s gonna pay that bill, Jake?” Slidell asked. “I’ll tell you who. Not me. And not the good people of New Orleans.” Then that good ol’ boy, with a whole lot of baby Ds behind his name, finally put his cards on the table. “If Mr. Patriot Act here wants to raise that damn body, then by God, he can cover any damages this little Hoodoo Mama causes.”

  Hoodoo Mama? My, my. This Colonel Sanders wannabe certainly had a death wish.

  The room fell silent, and all eyes darted to me. But I didn’t know why. What the hell had I done…today?

  The pulsing vein on the side of Dickhead’s neck looked ready to blow. He stared at me with narrow, unblinking eyes. Sweat trickled down my hairline as I visualized my career fading into the sunset.

  “Fine,” Dickhead finally said. “You want indemnification from losses secondary to Nighthawk raising Wiley in your morgue, you’ve got it. I’ll assume that’s a reciprocal agreement.”

  “Oh, absolutely.” Slidell called Sally on the intercom and asked her to join us. “Of course,” he said with a smirk, “You won’t mind signing off on our little agreement.”

  “No. Why would I?” Dickhead eyed me, a crazy-train smile sprawled across his face.

  Little Allie shivered.

  Sally typed up the indemnification agreement and handed it to Slidell and Dickhead for their signatures. As they scribbled their names on the dotted line, I wondered what kind of reciprocal damage Director Horton envisioned heading my way.

  No need to borrow trouble, the brain bitch sniped. It always finds you anyway.

  “We’ll only get one pass at this,” I said. “So, listen up. Doc, make sure all your corpses are in drawers or cold storage. Sally, get as many plastic drop cloths as you can find—and some potato chips.”

  “What kind of chips, hon?”

  “Who cares? They’re for Wiley.”

  “The dead guy?”

  “It’s either chips or your little red fingertips. You choose.”

  Sally huffed at me then sprinted off to gather the supplies. Ferris, Boudreaux, Dickhead and I followed Slidell down the hall. Once Slidell slid his keycard through the reader, the door to the morgue’s administration office popped open. We funneled down the hallway, past a file room and the pathology lab. A barrage of bangs, clangs, and thumps clattered up ahead.

  “What the hell is that?” Slidell whispered.

  Ah, shit.

  “That’s the sound of FUBAR,” I mumbled, peeking through the window in the morgue door. Our carbonized corpse, Sherrod Wiley, was tearing the place apart. Blackened chunks of flesh and tissue fell from his bones as he railed from one end of the operating theatre to the other, leaving a minefield of zushi in his wake. Bone saws, rib spreaders and scalpels sailed randomly across the room. Wiley stared back at us through the window, growling and licking his lips as though he could see us.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Slidell whispered, craning his neck to gawk at the carnage. “How the hell…? I thought you had to raise him. How much more raised does he get?”

  “Oh, he’s plenty raised,” I said, clueless as to how that had happened.

  An instrument tray crashed into the window, causing us to duck in unison.

  Slidell stuck his finger in my face. “Ask your damn questions, lady. That flambéed flesh-eater’s making mincemeat out of my morgue.”

  Wiley flung a loaded gurney against the wall, catapulting its cadaver into the air. The cadaver crashed into a second gurney, and then a third, toppling them like a human bowling ball, and sprawling them across the floor. He grabbed one of the cadaver’s arms and began gnawing the flesh from its bones.

  Dickhead frowned. “That’s not normal. Is it?”

  “Not even close,” I replied.

  Wiley wasn’t behaving like the usual freshie, craving junk food as a precursor to flesh. How long ago had he been turned? And why had he appeared to be dead when we opened the trunk?

  Wiley sprouted a gaping hole in the decomposed tissue of his torso. His intestines spilled to the floor and slithered across the tile like giant gray worms.

  How the hell was this happening?

  There were only so many variables in the equation.

  I yanked Slidell away from the window and grabbed his face. “When you examined Wiley, did you find evidence of a bite wound, or an injection site?”

  Slidell shrugged, darting his eyes back to the window. “His dermis and hypodermis were severely compromised.”

  “In English, Doc.”

  “Look at the crunchy bastard!” he sniped. “Who could tell?”

  However it had happened, Wiley had been infected and from this moment on, the situation would only get worse.

  I sucked in a breath, faced Ferris and said three words that, if I were lucky, I might live to regret.

  “I’m going in.”

  28

  That Crazy Hoodoo Mambo

  Sally bellowed from further up the hallway. “Percy? I’ve got the Pringles, baby.”

  “Bring ’em on down,” he yelled. “That crazy Hoodoo Mambo’s going in.”

  Sally rounded the hallway and stopped short at the sight of us huddled by the morgue room door. “Couldn’t find any of those drop-cloth thingies, so I grabbed these instead,” she said, holding out a box of trash bags.

  “No worries.” Boudreaux deadpanned. “The contamination ship has officially sailed.”

  “Okey-dokey, Jake. I’ll just toss you the bags. Ain’t coming any closer. Bye-bye now,” she said, her voice already fading.

  Ferris trotted up the hall, retrieved the supplies and carried them back to the morgue door.

  Slidell handed me his keycard and patted my arm. “Best of luck, honey. You gonna need it.”

  “Ready?” Ferris asked.

  “Always.”

  He grinned and handed me a trash bag. “You never know.”

  His baby blues bored into mine, confessing feelings that his lips didn’t dare.

  “You never know,” I said, with a wink, tucking the bag in my pocket.

  His eyes lingered on mine, as he unholstered his Glock. “I’ve got your six, Allie girl.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said, racking Hawk’s slide. “Let’s do this.”

  The keycard slid smoothly through the reader and the door buzzed open. We pushed inside, slow and easy, single file with me in the lead.

  A loud crunch echoed as I stepped on a piece of debris. Wiley’s head shot up and swiveled toward me like a charbroiled meerkat, the meat from the cadaver’s arm still stuck in his teeth. Then Wiley did something he hadn’t done before. He twitched.

  Have I mentioned that I hate freaking twitchers?

  I raised Hawk and put Wiley in my crosshairs. It would have been so easy to squeeze the trigger. But we needed information.

  “Who kidnapped you, Mr. Wiley?” He snarled and sank his teeth back into the cadaver’s bicep, gnawing on it like a drumstick. “Who did this and why?”

  “Le-serk,” he mumbled, tearing off another strip of meat.

  “Le Clerc? Toussaint Le Clerc?”

  Wiley dropped the half-eaten arm and swiveled toward me, nodding. His blank eyes locked with mine. Then he twitched a second time. The charred, bacon-like strips that used to be his lips curved into a hideous smile.

  He smells you, Little Allie whispered.

  “Where did Le Clerc hold you?” I asked, taking a half-step back.

  Wiley didn’t respond—probably because he’d stopped listening. The scent of fresh meat beats the stink of a rotting carcass any day. A long, low growl hummed in his throat. He bared his teeth then slid his fire-ravaged foot forward, reaching for me with blackened arms. Flecks of a blue checkered shirt that had melted into his skin caught my eye.

  I swiped the sweat from my brow and cocked Hawk’s hammer. “Why you? What did Le Clerc want?”<
br />
  Wiley lunged. I side-stepped and spun, keeping him in Hawk’s sights. Wiley’s grisly smile returned. He seemed to enjoy the hunt.

  Freaking twitcher.

  “Answer me!” I shouted. “What did Le Clerc want?”

  “Gov-ner’s shed-ual. Fun-raser,” he said, pouncing on me hard and fast.

  I jumped backward and fell over the rest of the corpse he’d been noshing. My right hand slammed into the stainless-steel sink, sending Hawk airborne. I scrambled to my feet and rolled left, barely out of reach of Wiley’s snapping jaws.

  “Get clear,” Ferris yelled, leveling his Glock at Wiley’s head.

  I waved him off. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! We need more answers.”

  My eyes snapped back to Wiley as I slid my Ka-Bar from its sheath. “Focus, Mr. Wiley. Did you give Le Clerc information about the Governor’s fundraiser?”

  Most of Wiley’s blackened skin and tissue had sloughed to the floor, leaving his body glistening, open and raw. The grisly mass of carbonized waste stared at me and slowly shook its head. “No,” he croaked. “Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Injected me…made me…tell.”

  Wiley roared and circled me from the right, stumbled and caught himself. I matched his pace and moved with him, maintaining the distance between us.

  Hang in there, Mr. Wiley. Just a couple more questions, I thought. Then I’ll make this all go away.

  Wiley chittered his teeth and fixed me in his flat black stare. I glanced at Ferris, waving my knife, and said, “If you have to shoot, stay clear of his head.”

  Wiley hurled himself at me. I dove to my left, but not soon enough. He clamped my leather boot between his teeth and crunched.

  I swiped my knife at the gristle of his arm.

  “I’ve got this!” I yelled to Ferris.

  Wiley instinctively let go as the knife connected. I snapped my leg back and kicked, but he dragged himself forward and snagged my boot in his hand. I pulled up my other leg and drove the heel of my boot into his face, knocking him backwards.

  He landed on his butt, up against the wall by the door.

  “Where did Le Clerc hold you, Mr. Wiley? Was there anyone else there with you?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.

  His face was caved in from the nose up, but his jaws still snapped, and his freaking teeth still clicked like a dead car battery. He’d lost more appendages than he had left, and his exposed organs were seeing the light of day for their first and only time.

  “House,” he murmured. “Big house. St. Ber-nard. No one…else.” Wiley’s breaths came in gasps. “Bas-tard. Le-serk. Kill. Kill him.”

  I had all the information I was going to get. It was time to put Wiley down—not just because it was the right thing to do, but because what had happened to him was an atrocity. Wiley never asked for this. When he refused to betray the Governor, Toussaint killed him and injected him with the Z-virus…because zombies can’t lie. Toussaint got the information he wanted after all. Then, to get rid of the evidence, he’d set Wiley on fire. The problem was that Sherrod Wiley’s brain hadn’t been destroyed by the flames, and now all that remained of the governor’s point man was this incinerated, skeletonized monster.

  Wiley snarled and tried to climb to his feet, but there wasn’t enough cartilage left to hold his bones together. His body folded into itself like a house of cards, splintering, and shattering his femurs and hips. But his jaws…those tireless jaws…continued to snap. Toussaint’s conscripted, low-rent weapon of mass destruction that simply couldn’t die, still wanted to eat me alive.

  Screw that.

  “He’s mine, Ferris.”

  I crawled across the floor and recovered my 9mm from beneath a pile of debris. Bringing Hawk to bear, I aimed the muzzle between Wiley’s eyes, and said, “I’m sorry Le Clerc did this to you. You’re right. He is a bastard.”

  With a gentle tug of my trigger, Wiley’s troubles faded into black. Ours, on the other hand, had grown exponentially. Jade Chen had been kidnapped, Rico and Fairchild were missing in action, we had no antidote for the Z-virus, and now Governor Thornton was in danger. Something needed to give.

  I dropped cross-legged to the floor, head in my hands, trying to ignore Little Allie who wondered if I’d ever be strong enough to take down Toussaint. Boudreaux, Dickhead and Slidell shuffled in through morgue door and quietly surveyed the scene. They muttered among themselves, but had the good sense to let me be. Even the pissed-off Dr. Slidell.

  Ferris stooped and briefly squeezed my shoulder. After strolling away, he spoke to the others in snippets and hushed tones. When the conversation ended, Boudreaux, Dickhead and Slidell left.

  Ferris turned to me with eyes that were warm and filled with something I’d rarely seen in them before. Compassion.

  “When you’re ready, Boudreaux wants to debrief us back at the office.”

  He gave me his hand and I climbed to my feet, scanning the room from top to bottom, side to side. Slidell’s morgue had been reduced to a biohazardous heap of detritus.

  “Here you go,” I said, forcing a grin and pulling the trash bag from my pocket. “I don’t do windows.”

  “Why don’t you keep it,” he said, eyeing the layer of zushi that slathered me like a second skin. “You can wear it in the car.”

  29

  Glints of Gold and Stinky Yellow Dust

  After a quick stop at the hotel so I could shower and change, Ferris drove us back to the office for our meeting with Boudreaux.

  “What exactly do we need to be debriefed about?” I whispered, as we marched past the junior agents’ cubicles. “Wiley trashed the morgue. I put him down and everybody there saw it. End of story.”

  Ferris hushed me as we entered Boudreaux’s office and joined Dickhead, Babs and Mouton at the conference table.

  “Where’s Vinny?” I asked.

  “Not to worry,” Babs said, “Young Master Abruzzi is reviewing some redacted case files used for training purposes. He seems to be drawn toward investigation.”

  “Huh. How’d he do at the shooting range?” Ferris asked.

  Babs sighed and pushed her glasses up her nose. “He’s quite the marksman.”

  “Better than you?” Ferris quipped.

  “We weren’t keeping score.”

  Boudreaux whisked into his office, closed the door, and joined us. “Sorry to keep you waiting. We need to discuss the raising at the morgue this morning.”

  “Actually,” I said, picking at the arm of my chair. “It wasn’t a raising. At least, not by me.”

  Dickhead rolled his eyes. “Duly noted. Let’s start with your Q and A session with Wiley.”

  “It wasn’t rocket science,” I said. “Toussaint kidnapped Wiley to access Governor Thornton’s schedule. When Wiley refused to cooperate, Toussaint killed him and then raised him.”

  “To get the info he wanted,” Dickhead interjected. “Because zombies can’t lie. Brilliant.”

  “After Toussaint got what he wanted, he tried to destroy Wiley by setting him on fire.”

  Boudreaux frowned. “That’s where I get lost. You’ve used fire to put zombies down. Why didn’t it work this time?”

  “Hell, I don’t know.” I rubbed my face with my hands. “What do we know for sure? The only way to put down a biter is to destroy its brain. Obviously, the fire didn’t get the job done. Maybe Wiley’s skull protected his brain. Maybe the fire didn’t burn hot enough.”

  Dickhead shook his head. “That doesn’t explain why Wiley appeared to be dead in the trunk and then popped up a day later like some…Roborotter.”

  “I know. I know.” Little Allie had been nagging me with the same question. “Wiley’s brain wasn’t destroyed by the fire, but maybe it was damaged. Like his wires got crossed, or his synapses misfired. Look, I’m not a scientist, but something caused him to appear to be dead and then rise later.”

  “Wait,” Babs said, typing furiously on her laptop. “As I recall, there is some historic, pseudo-scientific evidence to support the n
otion of a delayed rising among the undead.” She scrolled a bit, scanning the pages and then beamed. “Yes, here it is. Consider the case of Clairvius Narcisse, a Haitian who claimed, in 1962, to have been administered a toxic concoction and subsequently lapsed into a coma-like state that mimicked death. Believed to be dead, Narcisse was buried and, as legend has it, later resurrected by a Bokor who enslaved him for a number of years.”

  Boudreaux wrinkled his brow. “But Narcisse never actually died. He just appeared to be dead. Fifty some odd years later, Wiley died, was raised, then appeared to die and rise again.

  “True,” Babs said. “But in one very important regard, their cases are quite similar. Both victims experienced a time lag between infection and raising. We must ask what would account for that similarity.”

  “You might be on to something.” I got to my feet and began to pace. “According to our conversation with Dr. Christian, Toussaint’s manipulated versions of the Z-virus contain puffer fish and toad toxins—the same toxins used to create Zombie Powder.”

  “Yes, of course,” Babs muttered. “The same toxins purportedly used on Narcisse. Or what if Wiley’s rising in the morgue was nothing more than a neurological backfire—simply his damaged brain recalling Toussaint’s command?”

  Ferris nodded. “The right combination of those toxins, neurological deficits secondary to fire damage, or a combination of both may well be responsible for the delayed rising.”

  Dickhead held up his hands. “Whatever the forensics may show, we have more pressing matters to deal with. Governor Thornton is in danger and he needs to be so notified.”

  “On it.” Boudreaux pointed to Mouton. “Find out who’s taken Wiley’s place on the governor’s staff. I want a copy of upcoming fundraisers and public appearances scheduled over the next two months.” Mouton nodded and rose to leave, but Boudreaux motioned him back to his chair, saying, “Stay put, son. I’m not finished with you yet.”