Diana Rowland - My Life as a White Trash Zombie

“I mean, not to eat or anything,” I quickly added, tacking on a laugh for good measure, though it sounded strained and fake to my ears. “That would be pretty gross, right?”

He eyed me dubiously. “And dangerous, too. Mad cow disease. That sort of thing.”

I blinked. Maybe that’s what I had? Some sort of disease?

“But to answer your question,” he continued, “No, we don’t carry that sort of thing here. Does it have to be a cow brain?”

I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak in case I came across as a complete lunatic. Instead of the partial lunatic he probably already thought I was.

He pursed his lips and frowned. “Is this for some sort of school project or something?”

“Yeah!” I exclaimed, leaping on the excuse. “That’s it. A project.” Did I look young enough to be in high school? Or maybe he thought I was in college. Ha. Like that would ever happen.

A low snort escaped him. “My advice would be to find someone who hunts. Get them to give you the brain when they process the carcass.”

Process the carcass. That sounded oddly hideous. I gave him a weak smile. “Gotcha. Thanks.”

He gave me a stiff nod, then moved down the counter to help another customer—no doubt someone who actually wanted meat. I let out a breath. Wonderful. Getting animal brains was as hard, if not harder, than getting human brains. And I had no idea if they’d even work the same way.

“Hey, Angel!”

I swung around with a guilty start to see Monica Gaudreau, one of the other death investigators at the Coroner’s Office. Monica was a short and chunky redhead with a bright personality and a voice raspy from too many cigarettes. Not that she let her raspy voice stop her from talking fast enough to make your head spin. Oh, god, did she hear me asking about brains?

But to my relief she merely flashed me a broad smile. “So the rumors that you’re alive and well after doing somersaults in the van are true!”

I blinked. “Umm. Rumors?”

She laughed. “Rumors, fact, whatever. You know how it is around that office. I swear, I think the secretary moonlights as a gossip columnist. Hell, she’d make a killing. Maybe I’ll suggest it to her! Anyway, good to see that you’re doing all right. I saw the van in the wrecker yard. I can’t believe you’re up and around!” Then she surprised me by giving my arm a squeeze. “Damn glad, too. It would suck having to deal with one of our own. Besides, you keep Nick on his toes.”

I managed a weak grin in the face of her machine-gun style of speech.

“Ew. Do you smell that?” she said, nose wrinkling. “I think the meat in the cooler’s going bad. Anyway, good thing you were wearing your seatbelt, huh? Heck, the main reason I wear mine is because I don’t want any of the schmucks we work with to see me naked on the table in the cutting room.” She gave a mock shudder. “Pervs!”

“Yeah, no kidding,” I finally got in, somehow keeping the smile fixed on my face. It wasn’t the meat in the cooler going bad.

“Well, good to see you doing so well. See you at work!” And then she was off down the aisle, pushing her cart at breakneck speed and snatching items off the shelves without a hitch in her stride.

I took a deep breath after she was out of sight, partly to regain my equilibrium after the less than a minute in her presence, but also to try and ground myself in the realization that the people I worked with had been worried about me and gave a shit.

How cool was that?

In odd parallel to my earlier fridge staring, Dad was staring bleakly into the fridge in the kitchen when I got home. He looked up and closed it when I entered, surprise lighting his eyes as I plopped several plastic grocery bags onto the counter. He had a beer in his hand and when I did a quick scan of the kitchen I saw only one empty. Good. That meant I was hitting the sweet spot in his sobriety. Just enough buzz to take the edge off and keep him being a cranky asshole, but not so much that he’d progress to being mean and ugly and compelled to detail my numerous failings as a person and a daughter. Defensive much?

“Hey, Dad, I got those burritos you like so much.” I dug through the bags and pulled a couple out. A smile flickered across his mouth, and I felt a little bump of pleasure that I’d thought to get them. He could be a real shit sometimes, but he was still my dad. He’d been there for me when it had mattered the most, even though it had damn near killed him. Yeah, everything had gone to shit after that in other ways, but it taught me to keep my expectations real low.

“Thanks, Angelkins. I was about to go down to the corner and get some fried chicken.”

I made a face. “That stuff’ll give you the runs.”

He snorted. “Like the burritos won’t?” But he pulled a plate out of the cabinet and snagged one of the frozen burritos.

“Yeah, well, I got some decent food too.” Glancing at my dad as I unloaded the bags, I pulled out a bag of apples. “You should eat some fruit after you eat that. You’ll feel better.”

He didn’t look up as he unwrapped the burrito and stuck the plate into the microwave. “I’d feel better if my daughter had told me she’d been in an accident.” He punched the start button, then turned to me, an odd expression of hurt shimmering in his face.

I sighed. Small towns and the gossip mill. Yeah, well, you were passed out on the couch when I made it home from the ER the other night, and I was relieved since I didn’t want to deal with questions about why I was covered in blood. I knew you’d either be an asshole or you’d pretend to be concerned and caring—depending on how drunk you were, and I didn’t want to deal with either reaction. The times that he was like this—almost normal and real—were so rare that they were damn near precious. And I’d learned to never count on them.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” I said instead. “I wasn’t hurt other than a little cut on my head. It wasn’t my fault, so I didn’t get in any trouble or anything.”

“You still coulda told me,” he mumbled, though there wasn’t much conviction behind it. It was as if he knew how unpredictable his reactions could be. Hell, I was sure he did know, though that made it tougher to deal with in a way. If he knew how much of an asshole he could be, why couldn’t he stop being one?

“Sorry,” I mumbled back. I busied myself with putting food away for a few minutes. “You going anywhere? I was gonna cook dinner tonight for the two of us.”

He gave me a doubtful look, and I had to grin. “Okay, I bought some stuff I can heat up,” I amended. “But it’s still better than that gas station chicken, right?”

“That’d be nice, Angel. Did you buy more beer?”

I ignored the twinge of uneasiness in my gut and pointed to the bag at the end of the counter. “Just a six-pack. I paid all the bills today, and I was running out of money.” That was a lie. I had a case in the trunk of my car, but I wasn’t going to bring the whole thing in. Things were cool right now. If he drank a six-pack it probably wouldn’t make much difference except to keep him mellow. But if I brought the case inside, he’d be drunk and vicious by the end of the night.

I’d learned how to dole it out to him. Sure, I was a shit daughter for giving him booze and enabling his alcoholism. If anyone wanted to call me out on it, they were welcome to spend a week with him and see what it was like.

He shuffled off to the living room with the six-pack while I finished putting things away. The instructions for the frozen lasagna said it would take thirty minutes to cook, so I stuck that in the oven and set about trying to clear out some of the dirty dishes in the sink. The dishwasher hadn’t worked in years, and the usual routine was that one of us would break down and hand wash dishes about the time we ran out of either clean plates or counter space.