Undead 10, Undead and Undermined - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,1
neck again, restlessly kneading the fabric.
“So, help me out here, are you saying she woke up then yelled, or yelled and then woke up?”
Graham slumped forward and rested his forehead on the cracked, pitted tabletop. “You’ve come here to kill me, haven’t you? But you’ve gotta bug me to death to do it, right? Remember your oath, doctor, and summon the decency to make it quick.”
Finally! This must be the slowest or sleepiest coroner in the history of forensic science. It was like he didn’t know there were people in his morgue who had an agenda. I couldn’t speak for the other dead guys in this chilly tomb, but I couldn’t afford to loll around on an autopsy table all night. I wondered if he knew how selfish he was being. Just because I was dead didn’t mean I wasn’t in a hurry.
Bad enough I had given up on life/death and was resigned to permanent exile to . . . where do the souls of sadistic despots-in-training go after death-for-real? Hell?
Not for what they’ve done, but what they will do? Or do we still get to heaven because we didn’t live long enough to bring about (or don’t bother to prevent) the end of the world? Because we hadn’t quite gotten the chance to turn on friends and family in order to save our own ass?
Wherever I was supposed to end up, I’d be there in a couple more minutes. Then this would be done. I’d be done.
(Oh where oh Elizabeth where oh my own where are you?)
I softly groaned, which was drowned out by the saw. I could shut my eyes (as I was) and I could clamp my hands over my ears (which I didn’t dare), but couldn’t shut my brain off. Couldn’t block my husband’s thoughts.
I had to, though. His life and my soul depended on it.
“Of course I remember everything.” Graham pinched the bridge of his nose. He wore the expression of a man forced to tolerate exceptional stupidity. He looked like that a lot. “It was half an hour ago. I’m freaked out, not brain dead.”
“Do you . . . do you mind going over it again?”
“Of course I mind, you hirsute moron.”
“You start a lot of sentences with ‘of course.’”
“I get asked a lot of dumbass questions, of course. Did you catch how I mixed it up that time? And to answer your silly-ass question, I should be focusing on psychologically blocking the last hour, but I’m sitting here, aren’t I? I haven’t even gotten to the weirdest part yet, you believe that?”
His chief gave him a manly clap on the shoulder. The pathologist winced and prayed his shoulder hadn’t been dislocated. “I want you to know we all get why you decided to work with dead people. No one ever thought that was anything but a spectacular idea. I say again: spectacular! We’re just worried you’re going to be hauled away in screaming hysterics and come back determined to do a peds rotation.”
“Pediatrics?” Fresh horror swept over him like a freezing bath. “Never! I will never stock suckers! And I will never give out stickers! I will never say, ‘My, how big you’ve grown!’”
“You’re getting shrill again, Graham.”
He resisted the urge to bang his head on the table. “I hate everyone. But you most of all.”
“And the world continues to turn,” his boss said with maddening cheer. “Soooo . . . you’re still gung ho for the pathology residency?”
“What are the odds of another patient coming to life under my knife?” Cripes, his neck itched. “Look: I want the rest of the day off. I want you to deal with Admin and then I want you to go away. When I finish eating this cigarette, I’m outta here. I’ll be back tomorrow by shift change. There’s nothing else to talk about.”
“How goes the psychological blocking?”
“It goes shitty. I can remember everything. Everything that happened and everything she said.”
“So she did talk to you. Y’know, that’s the weirdest of all. That she could be lucid after—”
“After what, coming back to life? Why wouldn’t she be? You’re not listening, Chief: she was dead. Not in a coma. Dead. I’m concerned, Benson. You don’t seem to be getting this.”
“I’m concerned, too,” said his boss—who really was an okay guy once you got used to his perpetually sunny mood—“but for different reasons.”
“Weirdest night of my life, and I’m not a rookie, right? I’ve seen things; every path resident has. Shit, every doctor has. But the things she