The Missing Body

Chuck has got us seeding ideas. This week he gave us a choice of 5 he's chosen or we could go onto the Randomise site... I thought to be lazy and pick one from his selection. I chose #2: A Dead Body Goes Missing.

Man, did I have fun with this or what?

enjoy.




I’ve been waiting for her for a day or so and she hasn’t shown up at the meeting point. I went back to where the party was, and the police have done a great job cleaning up the mess there… including taking away any of the bodies left there.

This include hers – damn!

This means she’s in the morgue and I have to go and get her before they cut into her.

I find my way there and try to look like I work there. I’m not sure if I’m succeeding – but I get past a few security personnel and a couple of doctors – then I find a room full of bodies with toe tags and all covered over.

None of them make me hungry – they’ve all been dead for hours and are completely finished. But I can smell a new one’s come in and the coroner is looking her over.

Donning the lab coat and grabbing a clipboard, I walk into the next room where the man is starting to examine my girl on the slab. She’s been stripped down, bathed and readied for an autopsy.

He looks over, startled that somebody’s come in, “Oh, hi! You must the new guy.” His mask shifts as he smiles behind it.

“Yeah, the new guy. Paulie.” I lie, and almost put my hand out to be shaken and realise the man is wearing gloves, so I wave instead, “She new?”

“Yeah, came in with the massacre at the university across town.” He puts down the scalpel and picks up her clipboard as I put mine down on his desk, “Here are her details, so you’re up to speed. I won’t start until you’ve read it.”

I open the metal board upwards and look at her name, age, address, hair colour, eye colour, blood type… all of this I knew because I’ve been her friend for years. Only recently have I asked Celine if she wanted to join me in my world – and she said yes. But changing her was more difficult than I thought.

We should have done it in the privacy of my house – or hers – not at the university; where everything could go wrong…

…and did.

What happened there wasn’t my fault. I forgot about the ravenous hunger after the change and couldn’t control her as she destroyed almost every human in sight at the party across from her dorm. I was foolish; and my sire ordered me to do something about her; as she’s turned rogue – and they’re dangerous to the public.

I turn to the coroner to find Celine awake and standing behind him smiling. The metal clipboard clatters to the desk with the others there as I grab the man and pull him behind me, “Celine, you don’t want to be killing anymore.”

“But I checked her pulse, she’s dead.” He whispers.

“Yeah, she doesn’t have a pulse – just like I don’t have one.” I mumble.

“What? You don’t have what?” he asks.

Ignoring him, I concentrate on her, “Celine, you’re in danger… look around at this place. They were going to cut you open and kill you.”

Her eyes wonder around at the cold slab, the doors, the hygienic tools and the bright overhead lights, “This is a morgue… what the fuck am I doing here?”

“When you were knocked out at the party, they thought you were dead, and brought you here.” I say, “Remember when I said that if we were ever separated to meet me in the main quad outside the library? Well, you didn’t show, and I went back to find they had cleaned out the place.”

“They?”

“The police.” I reply, “And honey, you killed them all… all of those people at the party.”

“Who knocked me out?”

“I did… I forgot about the hunger you feel after the change. I tried to help you, but you were surrounded by food.” I can smell the coroner’s fear intensify, “I really need to get you out of here.”

She nods, “The smell of the dead is strong here – and he stinks of the dead.”

I put out my hand, “Come on, we’ll get the hell out of here.”

After Celine gets dressed and takes off her toe tag, I wonder what to do with the coroner. She suggests killing him, I’m against that; seeing he’s just doing his job.

“I don’t want any trouble, I’ll give you ten minutes and pull the alarm.” He says, “After all, you both let me live.”

She smiles, “For now…”

I grab her hand and pull her out of the place, down the back halls – which are now empty – and outside into the cold night air; but not for long. I can hear the dawn coming. We have to find a place to hide for the day.

This isn’t how I wanted her first day as a vampire to be.

As we are walking back to my place, I notice a television reports saying that a body has gone missing from the morgue. The coroner is being interviewed by a reporter just outside the building and he says: ‘I’m not sure where it went. I stepped outside for a moment to take a phone call, when I returned it was gone from the slab. I’m afraid that creepier things have happened at the morgue.’

“Creepier things than us?” Celine whispers in my ear as a wad of newspapers slaps onto the curb nearby. On the front, the headlines read: ‘Body Missing From the Morgue: The Undead Walk Amongst Us!’

I kneel down and undo the strap from around the pile, grabbing the top one, as the newspaper man comes out, paying him before I leave, “Jeez, this got out quickly.”

“What do you mean?” she smiles.

Celine didn’t get it… she just didn’t understand what she had done and who she was to the public right now. As she turns the corner, I pull a large knife I had grabbed on the way out of the coroner’s rooms out of my jacket pocket and…

I step out of my shower as the news on the television interrupts a movie I had turned on when I arrived home.

“It’s been a gruesome day here in the city. First the massacre at the local university on Friday night, then we had a body go missing from the morgue on Saturday morning. And now, that body has been found in an alley only blocks away from the morgue.” The reporter looks as though she’s going to be sick, “Oh, this is a horrible day. I can’t go on, turn the camera off.” She turns away as tears fill her eyes.

“Well,” his voice says from the recliner, “It looks like you got her in the worst fashion possible.”

“Yes.” I reply, “And I loved her.”

He rises from his comfortable seat and walks to me, giving me a fatherly look, “Rin, you’ll be fine. Now, can I have my knife back?”