Zombi

Chapter 2-Meat Suit

I hate my job.

This thought barely registers in my head as she blew in on a gust of wind, her hair lifting in the breeze and tangling around her face. I dragged my gaze up from the mystical depths of my mug and looked at her. She looked pretty this morning, in a black skirt that hugged her hips and a soft yellow shirt with a neckline that dipped just below forbidden, luminous next to her white skin. I was slumped in my creaky office chair with bed head and a wrinkled shirt. I hadn’t slept well, and I needed a shower. My face conveyed the surly attitude of fuck off.

“Dimitri,” she said, acknowledging my presence with an incline of her head. Her eyes flashed when she saw the ring on my finger, snug on my knuckle.

“Do you have an appointment?” I smiled dopily, blinking. If I was awake I might have been sarcastic, but my brain was clogged with cotton balls.

She raised her eyebrows in disbelief, both of them. “Do I need one?”

“Yes.”

Her shoulders stiffened. "Excuse me?"

I shook my head to clear it. "They’re downstairs." I stood up and stepped from behind the receptionist’s desk. The waiting room was flowery and deserted, with chairs just comfortable enough to justify sitting in them and a receptionist who drooled on his calendar half the time. The rest of the time I read Pax’s cheap, secondhand romance novels under the desk, the kind with mysterious, enticing men and bitchy women who deny their feelings. I justify it to myself by saying I’m looking for how to get/treat women, but that's a blatant lie. We all have our vices.

I opened the door for her, rubbing the back of my neck. She brushed past, without a thank you might I add. That didn't really faze me, and I followed her down the hall. Her heels clicked rhythmically as my shoes slapped the tiles.

“You look terrible,” she said, without turning her head.

I yawned, my eyes watering. “Yeah, well. My uncle died yesterday. In case you forgot.”

“He’ll be back tomorrow.”

I scowled and narrowed my eyes. I was awake now. She opened a door near the end of the hall, just a crack. A nasty chemical smell seeped out and hit my nose. I barely had to fight the urge to gag, but her face screwed up like she’d sucked on a lemon. You get used to it, after a while, working in a morgue. We tried to mask the smell of embalming fluid with potpourri, but it was a lost cause.

She stopped and cocked her head, listening with her fingers wrapped around the handle. Two voices. I pushed roughly past her and hovered with my ear to the crack.

Male and female, talked over each other. His voice was cool and flat, but it had an edge to it, like a sharp knife. The woman’s voice babbled hysterically, rising and falling like a wave.

“He never asked you for anything . . ,” she pleaded.

“The debt must be paid.”

“But . . ,”

I heard a smack and slammed the door open. Dhavel kept his back to me, stepping away from the woman and smoothing back his ruffled hair. My aunt looked over his shoulder, at me, her watery eyes betraying the grief she felt. She held her palm against her bright red cheek.

Icy fingers touched the back of my neck, making the hair on my arms stand up. I think my heart skipped a beat. She dug her nails into the skin between my hairline and my collar, hard enough to make me wince and shy away. Her breath stirred near my ear. She caught my eye while moving past, her face expressionless. But her eyes spoke volumes.