Driving over to the hospital the police chief looked blankly out the window. Despite the very late hour, large drunken crowds continued to mill about the streets of the quarter as thirsty tourists continued their never ending quest for booze. They say New York never sleeps, but whoever said that obviously had never been to the Big Easy. New York may never sleep but New Orleans never even slows down. As head of the police for one of the most wide open cities in America, he had seen it all, but tonight was a first.
Dawn would be breaking soon and with it no doubt the news that a horrific gang of serial killers was loose in the city, lopping off heads and removing faces. The city, his city, had suffered so much over the years, culminating in the disaster of hurricane Katrina. Since then, everyone had worked hard to change the image of New Orleans from being a corrupt loose unsafe hell hole to a tourist and family friendly destination. This story threatened to in one-day ruin everything he and the mayor had worked so hard to achieve and he knew his ass was going to be in a big sling for answers. Hopefully the answers were contained in one of the cadaver drawers at East Jefferson Hospital. Pulling into the parking lot, the chief plastered on a stoic look on his face and walked through the front door.
Directed to the service elevator at the end of the main hall, the chief could feel the eyes of the staff shocked at his presence. He could sense the questions they must be asking. "Why is the police chief here at this hour? What is this all about? I guess it must be about Lorraine Clearwater". Reaching the basement, the doors opened and the echo of his polished patent leather shoes echoed through the lime green tiled hallways. Reaching the end of the hall, he saw the entrance to the Morgue and pushing open the door, the attendant visibly jumped when he walked in.
"Sir? What are you doing here?" the young man stammered as he desperately fumbled with his computer, desperate to close the screen filled with porn. Working the night shift in the morgue was not a high profile job, and one with long boring hours and few, if any, visitors. Steve the attendant was working his way through college at this job and took the opportunity to watch his favorite streaming girl on girl videos on the excellent bandwidth the hospital enjoyed.
"I need to take some prints son, of one of the bodies that were brought in tonight, fiftyish white man, gunshot victim. Does this ring a bell?" Knowing the man was nervous, he could not help but add a jab. "Don't worry, I won't be a second. Our guys on the scene obviously took a bad set, and, well, you know how it is these days. Sometimes you have to do things yourselves since your employees do nothing but jack off all day."
Feeling his words cut through the air, Steve pulled out his keys and blushed as he handed them over to the chief. Smirking and winking, the chief patted him on the back as he walked into the cold room and switched on the light.
Entering into the body storage facility, the chief shuddered. The individual drawers were fully refrigerated in order to prevent decomposition, and the effect on the room was to make it perpetually clammy and cold. This coupled with the aging, and failing, fluorescent light that cast a yellow/green pallor over the whole tile filled room made it live up to the creepy factor such a place would be expected to acquire. Turning the master key into drawer 227, when he pulled out the drawer his face dropped. Angry, he stormed back into the outer room and barked at Steve.
"Ok fucker, very funny. I assume you want to keep this job right?"
"Ye,Ye, Yes sir, of course. What is the problem?"
"You told me the wrong drawer. Now quit being a fuckhead and give me the right information. Look, the sooner I get out of here, the sooner you can get back to your two red heads enjoying each other's bodies, right?"
His face pale, Steve fumbled with the roster and scanned down the list. There was not a huge amount of activity in the morgue normally, and this night there had been nine people brought in. Three homeless men who had obviously had heart attacks, two gunshot victims that had not been identified yet, Captain Tony and the three attackers shot at Ed and Lorraine's house. Looking down the roster he saw the descriptions of the recent victims and only one fit that moniker, and he was stored in drawer 227. "Look, you can see for yourself" he said defiantly as he showed the roster to the chief.
"Well, he ain't there now, so unless this is the resurrection of the dead, I think someone must have written something down wrong."
Now Steve started sweating. To lose a body, even though he never placed him in the drawer nor was present when he was brought in would obviously cause his termination. Taking all of the keys out of the drawer, he rushed inside. There were only the nine unclaimed bodies on site, but he was so freaked out, he was determined to open all of the drawers. Following Steve inside, the chief visibly chuckled as he could smell the panic wafting off of him like a dog that had rolled onto a dead skunk. He hated fuckups, and nothing amused him more than to see one slowly twist in the wind. Walking behind him, as Steve rapidly opened each drawer, the chief saw the parade of bodies exposed to his gaze. There in the first couple of drawers were the homeless men, their bodies swollen and black as obviously they had been dead for quite some time before they were brought in. The next drawers contained the unnamed gunshot victims, their faces grey and speckled with frozen blood. Tony was in the next drawer, his head placed into a small bag and resting on his stomach. Smiling as he knew the mystery perps were soon to be revealed, when each successive drawer was opened to display its empty contents, his stomach dropped as much as Steve's. When the last drawer proved empty, Steve spun around in a panic, bracing himself for a violent drubbing.
"I do not understand this sir. Look, I was here all night. No one came in or out since I have been on my shift."
His face like stone, the chief grabbed Steve by the lapel and pulled him in close. "Listen up boy. Do you want to keep your job?"
Steve could not speak, but rapidly nodded.
"Good, now, tell no one about this. No ONE! Not your roommate, not your mother, not your fuck buddy! Do I make myself clear?"
"Y-Yes sir!" Steve stuttered, his mind wheeling in confusion and fear. His fear was for his job, while looking back at the chief he also recognized fear, but his fear was different, deeper and it sent a chill through his body.
Out in the swamps, Samuel cried "Hot fucking damn, finally!" when he saw the light purple glow of daybreak start to form in the east. Driving on the narrow road through the bayou for hours, any missed turn leading to a watery death had tried his skills and he had been driving for decades. Now that it was getting a little more light, and the fog started to lift, he was able to see more than ten feet in front of him and he was finally able to go above the achingly slow fifteen miles per hour. Patrick too looked visibly relieved as he recognized the incredibly dangerous driving conditions Samuel had navigated. No one ever drives in this part of the bayou at night and many, if not most, residents of the area got around on air boats.
