Being Dead: 3 of 4

    Me update: chronic pain sucks out the happy like nothing else I know. I'm starting to feel back to normal, but that was a rough week. Giving my youngest her Big Girl Bed even though my hubby is working nights was totally worth it. My plan for getting to yard work now that the snow is completely melted from even the shady part of the yard... is delayed until further notice. Then again, real sunshine isn't that important when you can write about sunny days, right? ;)
    Writing update: Woo! Tracon got a planned release date! That one can be expected June 29, 2018. *Happy*. My writing vibe has suffered over the past couple weeks (ie: the main story was usurped by a couple other ideas that I'm playing in rather than what I'm supposed to be working on), but I think I have an iota of focus coming back now that the random brain-candy stories are wrapping up.
    Yay for the return of good weather (especially with it happening on a weekend)!

3. Who?

          "Here, look."
          The zipper at my feet was pulled open, the toe tag yanked out – ouch – and the plastic cord bit into the top of my toe. These guys were pissing me off. Only four groping morticians and one asshole priest scattered across close to seven hundred years wasn't a bad record. Humans can rest easy knowing that nearly all the men and women who make a living dealing with the dead are honest and caring. Then out of nowhere come clowns like these two. Why couldn't I have gotten a doddering old doctor who was a couple of years away from retiring and just wanted to get through their shift so they could get home to their wonderful spouse? Those are the ones I like the best: efficient, knowledgeable, and quick. As it was, I get stuck with two jerks that both were up for a little grab and feel – and possibly a little slash and explore – on the dead chick.
          I had the option of playing this out one of two ways if things got worse. One: wake up scared, confused and horribly in shock, then start crying and asking where I am. Two: eat. It had been nearly three days since I'd fed last, I really had been shot, and the prote tart (get it? Protein tart/blood bag? Pop tarts for vampires?) wasn't what you can call long-term filling. Usually I eat about one a day. One person can fill me up for almost a week, although I try to avoid that. It's been nearly one hundred years since I've eaten a human, and the six hundred or so years before that I typically stuck with fish and animals. Lately, thanks to technology, I choose the prote tarts. Just so you know, most vampires don't like feeding on people. It seems rude considering that we live and work together.
          "She's twenty-seven and died of a single gunshot wound to the stomach. The medic that brought her in said that she'd bled out in an alley behind a dumpster at least two days ago. Some guy tossing out trash found her. I saw her last night and knew she was going to be perfect."
          "What about any family?"
          Good luck finding them. But seriously, let's give three cheers for modern technology and the wonder of the computerized background check. Computers are so easy to hack when you have nothing better to do than to learn how to do it while you hide out for ten years. Homicide detectives are so persistent. It was just one guy who had it coming. Girls bond in dance club bathrooms, that hasn't changed since the dawn of drinking and I don't see it changing any time soon. Pricks just need to understand that. Eventually their victim is going to meet someone like me. Hey, I'm single and I'm little, you thought I wouldn't take a martial arts class or two? Or thirteen? Then that someone-like-me is going to break their stupid prick necks. I didn't even get a meal out of that guy; he disgusted me too much to eat.
          "No living or known family, and no friends who came forward to claim the body. We're totally clear."
          "Ok. Let me see her."
          I took a quick smell as the zipper was starting to get pulled back: plastic, dead, disinfectants, cologne (two kinds), blood (two kinds), and all the wrong pheromones. Apparently these weren't perverts. What the Hell was going on? I relaxed my chest around the air in my lungs and let it leak out on its own. The zipper finally made it up to and around my head so I relaxed my eyes into the stare that only dead people have. The top of the body bag was swept back with a flourish. Fluorescent lights burned into my retinas as I forced my pupils to stay motionless. Dead eyes don't dilate.
          "See?"
          Two men stood beside the autopsy table, one at my head holding the body bag open and one at my feet, both were young. I could hear their hearts beating faster as they stared at me. I'm not going to flatter myself, I'm fit, and being immortal has helped greatly in keeping me that way, but I'm no super model. I'm short, my face is plain, and my hair is nondescript. I can dress up pretty good, but twenty-four hours in a fridge after two days waiting to get found since being shot behind a dumpster isn't being dressed up. Body bags aren't that flattering either. They grinned at each other and the one from by my feet moved up by my head so he could slap his friend on the shoulder.
          "Drew is going to be very happy," he said.
          Drew? Why did that set off little alarm bells in the back of my head? These boys were collecting corpses for someone named Drew. Bodies to give to Drew. I should know what that means.
          "Do you think so?" asked the one holding the top of my body bag.
          Bloody Hell, I should know who Drew was! I was trying to drag it up from my memories, but it was like dredging a lake beside a landfill.
          "We have to move her quickly. He'll want her while she's still fresh," they were both still grinning like damn fools.
          Drew... Drew... why did I know Drew?
          They folded the top of the body bag back over me and started the zipper on its reverse course.
          Drew... Drew... No. Not Drew; Tdrue.
          The Soul Stealer.