My Life as a White Trash Zombie

by Diana Rowland

  He looked down at his hands. They were empty—no beer, no cigarettes. “Got a PR.”

  Personal recognizance. All he’d had to do was promise to come to court for his arraignment. I’d kinda figured he’d end up getting one. At least that took the pressure off me. I didn’t ask how he’d made it home. I knew he still had a few buddies who’d be willing to give him a ride. He’d done for it others often enough.

  “Okay.” I stood there for a few seconds more, then finally decided I didn’t really have anything to say to him. Or nothing that wouldn’t start a whole new round of shit.

  I started toward the hallway to my bedroom.

  He stood up. “Baby, I’m sorry. I said . . . and did . . . some terrible things.”

  His words stopped me, and I pivoted back to him. “I’m not gonna drink anymore, Angel,” he said, meeting my gaze. He looked earnest, but I knew he was saying it right now because he’d been scared. He’d spent two days in jail, and right now he was willing to do or say anything to not go back there. I understood that completely. It was why I’d taken a job in the morgue.

  I also knew that after a while that fear would fade. Another week or month or so, and he’d start to forget how bad it had been, and he’d want a drink. I’d heard this announcement before. And I’d seen how well his willpower held out.

  But there was no point in throwing that in his face right now. It wouldn’t accomplish anything except to hurt and demoralize him. “That’s great, Dad,” I said instead. “I hope that works.”

  I turned away and continued to my bedroom. He didn’t stop me again.

  I heard him moving around the house. After a little while the front door opened and closed, followed by the sound of his beater pickup starting up.

  As soon as the sound of crunching beer cans faded away I came out of my room and went outside to the big trash can by the side of the house. As I’d suspected, there were several bottles of liquor plus a couple of six-packs of beer. It would be admirable if I hadn’t been through this bullshit before. He’d promise to change, then try and go cold turkey, zero to sixty as soon as possible. No rehab, no counseling or support groups, ’cause he was tougher than that, right?

  Except that in a few days he’d start to feel it, and he’d hate it, and he’d get mean and resentful, and somehow it would be my fault that he felt so shitty because he was only trying to get sober for me. And my life would become a complete living hell, or I’d simply avoid coming home. He’d never hit me like that before—once or twice, yeah, but never a full-out beating. It was possible that him snapping like that was a one time thing. It was also possible that it would only get worse from here.

  Maybe this time will be different. Too bad I couldn’t make myself believe it. I pulled the bottles and beer out of the trash can, then walked to the shed behind the house and dumped them onto the workbench.

  I wasn’t going to sabotage him. I wasn’t going to put it all back in the house or anything like that. But I was sure as hell gonna have it close at hand for the next time the shit hit the fan.

  Chapter 24

  My cell phone chimed with an incoming text message as I was carefully writing the date on the side of a jar. I stuck the jar in the fridge next to the five others already in there, stood and snagged my phone off the top of my dresser.

  Good morning my Angel of Death. Time to go play!

  —Derrel

  As if in response to his text, I felt a little bump of hunger. Great, I thought with a mental sigh. Now my body knows when I’m going to be more active. It had been a busy week in the morgue, which meant that my stash was comfortably large right now. In fact I was damn close to running out of room in my little fridge. I’d realized this morning that I probably needed to become organized and write dates on the jars to keep track of which ones had been in there the longest. I’d recently managed to pry a small amount of info from Kang, such as the fact that three weeks seemed to be the longest a brain stayed “viable” in the fridge. Allowing any of them to spoil was a waste I couldn’t afford. I had a nice buffer right now, but there was no guarantee that anyone worth autopsying would die in the next couple of weeks.

  Look at me, being all responsible and shit, I thought with a low laugh. Hell, if I exerted a little self-control and waited a bit longer between meals, I’d probably never have to worry about my stash again. Kang had also told me that brains could be frozen and still be worth eating after, but my little fridge didn’t have a freezer compartment. And there was no way I was risking putting brains in the kitchen freezer.

  I thumbed in a reply to Derrel’s text. My kinda fun. Gimme addy, meet u there.

  The hunger nudged at me again, and I hesitated, my hand on the door of the fridge. Yeah, I’d eaten just yesterday and I could surely hold out at least another day before things started to feel dull and lifeless. But I didn’t want any of it to go bad, I rationalized as I pulled a jar out, ignoring the little voice that told me that even the oldest brains in my stash had been in there less than a week. I was going out to pick up a body, which meant I’d be doing a bunch of lifting and carrying. I could start going longer between meals when I wasn’t working. Not today. I took one big swallow before I could change my mind, but even as I replaced the jar in the fridge an old but familiar burn of shame formed in my gut. So much for self-control.

  Sighing, I replaced the jar and closed the fridge. I needed to stop being so hard on myself. It was one damn swallow—barely enough for me to feel any difference. And everything else was going all right. In fact I had enough stash that I could afford to try and track down Zeke and give him some. I’d been resisting the idea and finding ways to talk myself out of it, but no new brainless bodies had shown up this whole week. Which meant that either he found a legitimate source, or he was hungry and on the hunt right now.

  And if I could somehow prevent another murder, I really didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t a long term solution to the problem of Zeke, but at least it might buy him some time until he could find a source of brains that didn’t involve getting them from living people.

  And maybe if I was ever in the same boat, he’d do the same for me.

  The address Derrel texted wasn’t so much an address as a general location. Despite the vagueness of his directions—Beaker St, 1 mile south of the hwy—the number of vehicles clustered in one spot let me know without a doubt where I needed to go.

  The area was an odd mix of rural and subdivision, with clumps of cookie-cutter houses interspersed with large plots of land complete with cows and goats. Several of the larger plots looked as if they were being developed into more clusters of houses, and a retention pond had been dug on the west side of the road. A dirt berm about five feet high separated the road from the pond and I could see a knot of people in uniform gathered at the top of it. The street was already blocked by a zillion cars, police units, and crime scene vans—far more than had been on the scene for the murder of the pizza guy. This time there were no obvious places to park anywhere near the crime scene tape, and I ended up parking the van damn near a quarter mile down the road.

  The road was uneven and full of potholes, and there was no way for me to know how far beyond the berm the body was. The stretcher would probably be more of a pain in the ass than it was worth. After a brief internal debate, I decided to leave the stretcher in the van for the time being and grabbed the body bag, gloves, and an extra sheet in case I was dealing with something messy. One way or another, Derrel and I were going to be carrying a body bag.

  Let’s hope this victim is someone nice and small and light. A midget. Yeah, that would work. I hid a smile as I continued on foot toward the knot of people. Then again, I was probably strong enough to carry a two hundred pound body by myself if I had to. I bit back a laugh. Yeah, that would draw some attention—little, scrawny me, all of five foot three and a hundred five pounds soaking wet. SuperZombiePowers activate!

  Too bad the superpowers came with insane hunger. Emphasis on the insane part.

  My
amusement faded, and I began to get a bad feeling as I clambered over the berm and took note of the number of people clustered right beyond the crime scene tape. I’d never met most of them, but I’d seen their faces in the news enough to know that one of the knots of people was the Sheriff and his immediate cronies—which meant that this was some sort of special crime scene: a multiple homicide, or a local celebrity . . . or a kid. My stomach clenched at the last option. There’d only been a few of them so far, but every time we had to do an autopsy on a kid, it damn near killed me. There’d been two infants who’d died right after being born, and a little girl with some sort of birth defect. But the worst had been a twelve-year-old who’d committed suicide. I’d gone into the cooler and cried like a baby after we were done with that one, and when I’d come back out—braced to be teased by Nick—I was weirdly humbled to see that his eyes were red as well. I guess some things fucked you up no matter what.

  I made my way carefully over the uneven ground, breathing a silent sigh of relief when I saw, through the group of people, the lower half of a body lying facedown. Definitely an adult. Damn good. I didn’t even mind that I’d have to carry him over all that ground.

  Then the people moved, and I saw why the upper ranks were at the scene.

  Oh, shiiiiiiit.

  I moved forward toward the headless body, anger and bile filling my gut—at Zeke for not finding another way to control his hunger, and at Kang for his callous acceptance that a zombie could go rogue like this. I knew I was being pretty smug and sanctimonious, especially considering I had a fairly reliable source of brains, but even though the job had been handed to me I still worked my ass off and did what I had to do to keep it. Not like Zeke, who’d stolen from goddamn bodies. What the hell had he been thinking? Why would anyone whose existence depended on a job choose to fuck it up like that?

  I shook my head. Yeah, I was fully aware of the irony of my train of thoughts. Maybe I was beginning to learn a thing or two.

  “Less for you to carry again, Angel.”

  I glanced up to see Detective Roth giving me a sour smile. “Yeah, but this whole losing your head thing is getting old,” I replied.

  “Tell me about it.” He ran a hand through his bristly hair and grimaced.

  I let my gaze sweep the surroundings. “Who found the body?”

  His grimace deepened. “A couple of kids taking a shortcut to their bus stop. High school age, but still. . . .”

  “That’ll give ‘em nightmares,” I said with a shudder.

  “No shit.” Ben rubbed his eyes. “Fuck. And three headless bodies means we mostly likely have a serial killer, which means the rank is going nuts right now.”

  I suddenly felt for him. All I had to do was pick up the body and go. He’d probably be out here all day and all night, and then likely spend a few more hours talking to everyone who lived around here in an effort to scare up any possible clue.

  Maybe I could help point him in the direction of Zeke as a suspect. I had no idea how I could do that, but I needed to figure out a way, and fast. Five people were dead—that I knew of—and I had every reason to believe that there’d be more. It wasn’t as if Zeke was going to suddenly wake up one day and decide he didn’t want to eat brains any more. He could have come by the morgue at any time instead of stooping to murder.

  And there was no way I could stop him on my own. But can the cops? I wondered. A shiver traced its way down my spine. Even if they found him and arrested him . . . what then? They wouldn’t be feeding him what he needed in jail. He’d rot, and get hungry, and. . . .

  “You ready to turn him over?”

  I pulled myself out of the spiral of my thoughts to see Derrel and the crime scene tech looking at me expectantly.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Sorry.” Tugging on the gloves, I crouched by the body, trying to position myself away from the messy stump of the neck. I didn’t want blood or anything else gross that might come out of there splorting on me. I took hold of the victim’s hip and shoulder and carefully rolled, then allowed the body to settle onto its back.

  Oh Shit. Fuck. Damn.

  I straightened, blood pounding in my ears as all of my carefully constructed theories came crashing down around me. White male, dressed in worn and dirty jeans and a faded New Orleans Saints T-shirt that celebrated the fact that they’d been divisions champs around a decade or so ago. Barefoot with mud on his feet and staining the bottom couple of inches of his jeans.

  But I was only barely aware of those details. My attention was completely fixed on the Florida-shaped stain on the front of the shirt. Tomato and brain soup.

  The crime scene tech leaned in close to photograph the front of the body. Each snap of the flash seemed to slice through me, jarring my thoughts into more disorder. The buzz of conversation between Derrel and the detectives wrapped around me. They would need to get fingerprints. The dog was searching the area for the head. They were considering calling out the dive team to search through the retention pond.

  “I know who he is,” I blurted. The detectives and Derrel pivoted to me in unison as if it had been choreographed. If I hadn’t been so off-kilter I’d have probably laughed.

  “Seriously?” Detective Abadie said, expression betraying nothing but doubt and impatience that I was wasting their time. “Recognize his face?” The skin around his eyes tightened as he gestured toward the body,

  The feeling of being off-kilter suddenly vanished, and I straightened. Maybe a few weeks ago I’d have slunk back and mumbled an apology for wasting their time. But not this time. Now I was annoyed.

  “Yeah, seriously,” I shot back. “And I don’t have to recognize his face. I ran into this guy a couple of days ago, and he was wearing the same damn clothes. But, y’know, if you want to be a cocky asstard know-it-all, that’s fine. Don’t let me waste your time.” I crossed my arms defiantly across my chest in emphasis.

  I heard a low chuckle that I was pretty sure came from Derrel, but I was too busy giving Mike a death glare to confirm it.

  Roth let out a bark of laughter. “Hey, Mike, she knows you pretty well!” He gave me an encouraging smile. “Miz Angel, would you please be so kind as to share any info you have with us?”

  I dropped my arms and gave the burly detective a sweet smile. “Why, sugar, I’d be delighted,” I drawled. “This guy is Zeke Lyons. He used to work at Billings Funeral Home until he was fired a few weeks back for stealing jewelry off bodies. And I recognize his clothing because he came by the morgue the other day and was hassling me.”

  “Are you sure it’s him?” Roth asked.

  “One hundred percent? No,” I said. “But I’ll go with at least ninety-nine percent sure. I recognize the stain on his shirt.” No sense explaining why I’d remember a thing like that.

  “Ah, my Angel of Death comes through for me yet again,” Derrel said with a grin as he scribbled on his pad. “You are a goddess.”

  Roth gave an emphatic nod. “We’ll verify with prints, but that gives us a big head start.” His lips twitched. “So to speak,” he added. Then he gave me a wink right before elbowing his partner. “C’mon, Mike, what do you say?”

  Abadie gave a sour sigh. “I’m sorry I doubted you,” he said in the kind of monotone used by six-year-olds when forced to give an apology. “Thank you for saving us from tedious legwork.”

  The two turned away to report this information to their superiors, and Derrel sidled up to me, amusement dancing in his eyes.

  “My god, Angel,” he said in a low voice. “It was worth getting up early for that alone.” At my perplexed look he grinned. “I’ve been waiting for an excuse to call Mike a cocky asstard for ages. I loved it.”

  I laughed weakly. “I didn’t exactly plan it. But sometimes it burns me the way they. . . .” I couldn’t figure out how to say what I wanted to say.

  “The way they dismiss you because you’re not one of them? And in your case it doesn’t help that you’re a convicted felon, which in the eyes of idiots like Mike, put
s you several levels below him.”

  I flushed at the reminder of my history, and Derrel lightly thwapped me on the head with his pen. “Stop it. You’re a smart chick. The people who matter have noticed that fact. Mike’s a dick. Besides,” he jerked his head toward the body on the ground, “you saved me a bunch of work. I’m pretty cool with that.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that, but I was saved by a small commotion from the south end of the pond. I looked over to see a couple of uniformed deputies along with a woman with a dog on a leash—all looking fairly pleased about something. I recognized the woman as the same dog handler who’d been at the other headless body crime scene: Marianne, Ed’s girlfriend.

  “I’ll be right back, Angel,” Derrel said. “Unless you need help getting him into the bag?”

  I shook my head. “I can handle this one.” I’d learned the trick of rolling bodies into bags my first week. I wouldn’t even need to use my zombie super strength.

  He gave me a parting wink, then headed in the direction of the detectives. I crouched and began to wrap the stump of Zeke’s neck in the sheet. So if Zeke isn’t the rogue, who is? I wondered in uneasy frustration. Or maybe I was wrong about the whole thing. Kang said there weren’t very many zombies, so what were the chances of two zombies being hard up for brains in the same area? Then again, I had no idea what Kang meant by “not many.” Could be five, could be a hundred.

  I opened the body bag, smoothly rolled the body into it, snapped the toe tag onto the right foot. Probably not a hundred, I decided. There’s no way enough people could die to support that many. I tried to do some mental math in an attempt to figure out how many zombies could live on the number of people who died in St. Edwards Parish, but gave up as soon as I realized I would need to do division in my head.