AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Check him,” Mr. Fairview said. “I don’t want an unpleasant surprise. ”
Freddy opened up the walk-in refrigerator and wheeled out the other body that had been in the freezer, the one in the body bag. And Bryn, to her horror, heard that sound again.
That scratching.
Not rats. She could see the bag moving, very slowly.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. She couldn’t seem to move as Freddy unzipped the body bag.
The smell spread through the room, sickly sweet and foul, and from all appearances, what was in the body bag was at least several weeks dead and decomposing. Bryn was used to the stench, but what made her eyes widen and her throat close up was the fact that this corpse, this decomposing thing, was still moving. Not involuntary biological twitches. Real, directed movements.
The lipless mouth opened, and air scraped out—not a scream, because the vocal cords were gone, but she understood.
Deep inside, she knew it was a howl of utter horror.
“Christ,” Freddy said in disgust. “He’s hanging on better than I’d expected. I may have to disassemble him. ”
“No,” Mr. Fairview said, and came to stand next to Freddy, looking down on the remains of Mr. Garcia … Bryn’s predecessor. “This is fine. We can document the progress, until he’s too far gone to be of any use to us. Five full days is the longest anyone’s lasted, right? Maybe he’ll go to six. Or Mrs. Jones will. I suppose we can give up any hope of a payday on her as well. ”
“What—” She hadn’t realized that she’d spoken until the word slipped out, and then it was too late. She’d drawn their attention.
Bryn grabbed a scalpel from the tray of sterile instruments and menaced Freddy as he came her way. “Back off!” she said. “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch. ”
He laughed. “Late to the party, Double Trouble. Fairview got me first. ”
She was fast, but he turned out to be faster, slapping the scalpel out of the way and slamming her face-first into the wall. Everything went vague, except for the pain, which remained cuttingly sharp, and then she was on the floor in a heap, watching her own blood crawl red over the tile. Just like Melissa.
The voices came at her smeared and disembodied, from what seemed like a great distance.
“Do you want to keep her?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. It’s a bother to set up her disappearance properly. Let’s do it and get her in storage. I’ll decide later, once we dispose of Mr. Jones. ”
Bryn felt herself being lifted, then settling into place on a stiff, cold surface.
A preparation table.
“No,” she whispered, and Mr. Fairview looked down on her with that distant, professional compassion she’d thought was so wonderful before. Adrenaline surged through her, and she tried to get up. He had leverage, and muscle, to keep her down.
“Sorry it didn’t work out,” he said. “You really did have a lot of promise, Bryn. I hope you don’t take this personally. ”
He nodded to Freddy, and Freddy snapped on a pair of latex gloves, then lifted up a clear plastic bag.
He put it over her head.
Bryn involuntarily gasped, but the plastic filled her mouth and nose and blocked off her air. Freddy made sure of it by pressing his hand down over her face, and all her struggling didn’t make any difference at all. It seemed to take forever, and the panic was so extreme that it was painful, like needles in her skin. She was screaming, but the sound couldn’t get out. Her lungs ached, then hurt, then shrieked for air. God, it hurt. It hurt so badly.
Then it all started to go softly gray at the edges, and the edges pushed in, and in, until it was all a hazy mist, and she couldn’t remember why she was fighting so hard, and it was all pain, all of it. Dying was supposed to be easier.
Something crashed in the room, loud enough to penetrate even her fading senses, but she couldn’t make sense of it. Nothing made any sense. Everyone was yelling, and there was smoke, and fire, and the sharp pops of gunfire. Freddy’s chest exploded in a red mist, and he fell away. Blood splattered the bag over her eyes, and she couldn’t see anymore.
None of it mattered as she gasped, and gasped, and the taste of plastic was the last thing she knew as the shadows slipped over her and drowned her.
And it hurt, all the way to the very last scream of the last nerve.
“Crap, crap, crap,” a voice whispered, from a very long distance away. “Goddamn it. Shit. Come on, Bryn. Come on back. ”
Someone was patting her face, which felt cold and clammy with moisture. She felt … numb. Cold to the bone. And oddly disconnected, as if she weren’t quite inside her own body.
