Chapter 4: ‘Here you come again’

The Midnite City Morgue, was manned 24/7 by a voodoo zombie named Carl, i say manned, Carl is only part man and his only friends he has are body parts.

But today something, more precisely someone’s body, needed to be examined and this made him happy.

‘Up stupid body’, Carl grunted lurching out of his chair, shuffled over to the wall of drawers and closed the ones he left open, ‘goodnight’.

He turned around, leaning against the doors of the drawers, watched as a new visitor was wheeled in, ‘thank you Denise’

Denise was a short blond haired student from one of the local academies, she was shy, which helped Carl, as well as her because she barely spoke but today was an exception.

Denise blurted out. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but this is a kid from the Graves estate’

Carl’s pupil less eyes widened, he growled, made a shooing motion to Denise, she just stood there and then he snapped his teeth at her.

She scurried out the double doors.

Slowly making his way over to his workstation, Carl pressed play on his music player and the opening riff to ‘Metal Noir’ by Seth echoed around the sterile stainless steel room.

He grinned, twirled on his heels, swinging his arms from side to side to the song, happy for the other human to have left and alone to do his work.

Carl walked over to the wall of drawers again, pulling specific ones out one by one:

‘Hello Dolly’, he laughed at the leg with a tag wrapped around its calf.

‘Hi Jeff’, Carl smiled at the severed head with a tag attached to a tooth.

‘Ugh Bruno’, he grunted at the amputated arm with a name attached to its middle finger.

Carl bowed to his audience, he walked over to the new cadaver in the room ‘wisdom of the falling leaves’ by Fires in the Distance began to play and he bobbed his head up and down in appreciation of the keys in the song as it bounced off the walls.

‘Thank you Jeff’, he unzipped the body bag, ‘good choice’.

Looking down at the pale body of the kid, one of the kid’s eye sockets was empty, Carl cocked his head and let out a low growl. He fully unzipped the bag, looked over the body and so no other puncture wounds. Looked over at the wall of drawers, ‘Damnit Bruno’, cursing the amputated arm and zipped up the body bag.

He normally would be more thorough, but something told him that he wouldn't anything and this bugged him

‘What do, Dolly?’, the long dead leg seemingly a font of wisdom and Carl nodded, interpreting the silence as an answer, which no one else heard but him and that was all he needed. The music continued, Carl made his way back over to his work station, pulled out a ruled notepad and scrawled one word Stiletto.

He had this habit of pinpointing murder weapons with lethal but mundane accuracy, this was no exception and he hated being right.

Being right meant more humans, ‘fuck humans!’ growled Carl, he didn't want to bring more attention to the morgue as Denise had already set up a social media page on several platforms.

‘Grumble’

Carl pulled out his chair, span it around, sat down, the body and his audience in full view,

‘Fine, Bruno’, he slammed a buzzer on his desk and down came Denise, silent with a mask of embarrassment, ‘what Carl?’ she asked.

He stared at her, his milky eyes sending shivers down her spine, ‘call mayor office, now’, he barked,’ask for Alex’.