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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.
Pulling the zipper closed, I glanced up in time to see Marianne headed my way, pulled along by a very eager dog.
“You must be Angel,” the petite woman said breathlessly as the dog stopped in front of me. “Ed and Marcus have told me about you. So nice to finally meet you!”
I straightened and gave her a smile. “Hi, yeah, I’m Angel. You’re Marianne, right?”
She bobbed her head in a yes, then dipped her chin toward the dog who was sitting and staring at me intently. “And this here is Kudzu.” She frowned at the dog, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, you silly mutt. She’s not a corpse.”
I could feel the blood drain from my face, but thankfully Marianne kept right on talking and didn’t seem to notice. “She’s a cadaver dog, see? And she’s smelling the body you have in the bag, and probably your clothes as well since you wear them in the morgue, right?” I nodded but she kept on going. Damn good thing since I wasn’t quite sure if I’d recovered the ability to speak yet. “We came out to see if we could find this poor guy’s head, but instead we stumbled across a little campsite where he’s probably been living.” She shook her head. “What an awful, awful thing.” She tugged at the leash and the dog obediently returned to her side.
Well, now I knew where Zeke had been staying. Not that it mattered anymore. “Yeah, I think the cops are freaking out a bit,” I said, relieved that my voice didn’t show any of my earlier shock. “I guess they’re thinking it’s a serial killer.”
Marianne rubbed her arms. “I’ve been making Ed stay at my place every night ever since the last body was found so close to where I live.” Then she grinned. “Though that’s not much of a change from the usual. He has a nice enough apartment over in Longville, but it’s furnished like a dorm room. Whereas I actually have silly things like beds and chairs and couches.”
“And hopefully a large refrigerator, too,” I said, thinking of his incredible appetite, then felt silly for saying it since she’d probably have no idea what I meant by that.
To my relief, she let out a peal of laughter, though she quickly covered her mouth and looked around guiltily. “Oh, gawd, look at me giggling over a dead body. People will start thinking I’m horrible and cold. But, yes, I have a large fridge. That man goes through groceries like nobody’s business! If I ate the way he did, I’d weigh about a thousand pounds!”
Someone called her name, and she whipped her head around. I followed her gaze to see Ed at the top of the berm. He gave me a wave, and I lifted my hand in reply.
“Speak of the devil!” she said. “He’s going to help me take Kudzu on a long run around this area. It always helps to have someone else with me.” She looked back to me. “It was so great meeting you. You’ll have to come over the next time we have a get-together! We have a fish fry or a barbecue at least every other weekend. I’ll make sure Ed or Marcus gives you a call! ” Then she was trotting off with Kudzu before I could do more than give a weak smile in return.
I let out a long breath. One thing was for sure—I needed to stay the hell away from that dog.
To my shock and surprise, Ben and Mike both helped Derrel and me carry the body bag back to the road. Most of the ranking officers had left which meant I could get the van up close so that we didn’t have to haul the damn thing down the road as well. I gave both detectives super nice smiles in thanks, even though Ben was the one who’d stepped up to help and had then guilted Mike into taking another strap. I wasn’t going to bitch. Sure, I could carry it myself, but why burn up the brains if I didn’t have to?
As I closed the back of the van I saw Marcus out on the street talking on his phone, but I didn’t have a chance to do more than give him a little nod and smile. His expression remained fairly grim, though he returned the nod, and I felt instantly silly for being all smiley and cheerful on such a gruesome murder scene. At least Marianne had caught herself and realized how awful it was to laugh at a death scene. Me, I didn’t even think about it. I’d become totally jaded already. I barely thought of dead bodies as former people anymore.
The thought left me cold. Was that part of the zombie insanity? Maybe it had nothing to do with hunger. Maybe it was part of this virus or whatever, and the longer it was in me the less I’d think of people as people, and it would eventually seem natural to want to bash their heads in.
No, I was being completely stupid. I mean, Kang was still pretty normal, and he was old.
Still, it continued to bother me throughout the day—enough for Dr. Leblanc to notice how quiet I was.
“Something bugging you, Angel?”
I looked up from the computer and began to give a general No, I’m fine denial, then paused. “Well, sort of, but I’m afraid you’ll, um, think I’m weird.”
His eyes flashed with kind humor. “Weirder, you mean?”
I gave a weak laugh. “Yeah, more than usual.”
“What’s up?”
I took a deep breath as I tried to figure out how to say it without sounding like a freak. I really liked Dr. Leblanc—not in a sexy way or anything. Ew! But simply as a nice person who seemed to be willing to try and understand me. I trusted him, and even I could admit that I wasn’t the type to trust many people. I could do that bit of analysis on myself just fine.
“Well, I think I’m becoming kinda cold,” I said. “I mean, I pick up these bodies, and I don’t even think about the fact they were once living people. It doesn’t bug me, and I think it should.” I met his eyes. “Shouldn’t it?”
He patted my shoulder. “Angel, you have a tough and crusty exterior, but you have the kindest, mushiest heart I’ve ever seen. You’re not cold. Thinking of the bodies as non-people is simply a defense mechanism your brain engages to protect you from the horribleness of what we have to do. We all do it.” The smile he gave me was warm and gentle. “We crack jokes and we’re terribly inappropriate because, if we focus on the loss, we’ll lose our minds and won’t be able to do what needs to be done.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Besides, I know you’re not cold.”
“How do you know?” I challenged.
“Because you cry when we get kids through here,” he stated. “No one jokes about the kids. Those are the ones that get to us the most.”
