"A Meaty New Mystery With A Brainy, Brawny Heroine"
Reviewed by Diana Troldahl
Posted July 14, 2011
Paranormal | Romance Paranormal | Fantasy Urban
Life is going along at its usual grinding pace for Angel
Crawford until she wakes in the hospital certain she is
mortally wounded. It must have been some kind of
hallucination though, as the bitch nurses insist her blood
levels showed heavy use of drugs, and she has nary a scar to
be seen. She is even more humiliated when she learns she
was picked up alongside the road like buck naked trash. Before she is released an anonymous gift of clothes and
protein drink is left for her with a note. The writer of the
note promises the news of her drug use will be kept quiet if
she shows up at the morgue the next morning and works for a
month driving the van. If not, the drug screen will be
enough to violate her parole and she will end up back in
jail. For a girl who puked all over the biology class on frog
dissection day, Angel finds handling dead bodies remarkably
easy, until she notices her stomach growling each time she
smells brains. As the reality of her situation becomes clear
her pride in doing an important job well wars with the
remnants of her old life. Worse, she perceives a pattern in
a string of recent deaths that indicates a serial killer
with a need for brains is on the loose, just when she is at
her hungriest. With a title like MY LIFE AS A WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE Diana
Rowland could have gone for a slick farcical take on a
popular horror genre, but instead has written a thoughtful
engrossing murder mystery with the most interesting of
heroines. Despite the seedy underpinnings of Angel's old
life (an alcoholic father and enabling druggie boyfriend
among others) the storyline is a positive one and I found
myself cheering for Angel from first page to last as she
works her way through her bizarre new circumstance. A grand
start to what I hope is a new mystery series.
SUMMARY
Angel Crawford is a loser Living with her alcoholic deadbeat dad in the swamps of
southern Louisiana, she's a high school dropout with a pill
habit and a criminal record who's been fired from more crap
jobs than she can count. Now on probation for a felony, it
seems that Angel will never pull herself out of the downward
spiral her life has taken. That is, until the day she wakes up in the ER after
overdosing on painkillers. Angel remembers being in an
horrible car crash, but she doesn't have a mark on her. To
add to the weirdness, she receives an anonymous letter
telling her there's a job waiting for her at the parish
morgue--and that it's an offer she doesn't dare refuse. Before she knows it she's dealing with a huge crush on a
certain hunky deputy and a brand new addiction: an
overpowering craving for brains. Plus, her morgue is filling
up with the victims of a serial killer who decapitates his
prey--just when she's hungriest! Angel's going to have to grow up fast if she wants to keep
this job and stay in one piece. Because if she doesn't,
she's dead meat. Literally.
ExcerptChapter 1 "You should be dead," the ER nurse stated as she adjusted
something on my IV. She was more husky than fat, with too
much eye makeup, and hair that had been dyed a nasty shade
of reddish orange. When I didn't immediately respond she
glanced my way, as if to assure herself that I really was
awake and aware. "You realize that, right?" she demanded.
"You're pretty damn lucky to be alive." "Um. . . okay," I muttered. Beneath the sheet I ran a hand
over my stomach, frowned. "Have I been in a coma or
something?" I asked. Her thin lips pinched together. "A coma? No. You were
brought in a few hours ago." She paused, set her hands on
her hips. "You overdosed." I scrubbed a hand over my face, shook my head. "No, I was in
a car accident," I insisted. "I remember being injured."
Didn't I? "I was bleeding," I added, less certain as I ran
my hand over the unbroken skin of my stomach again. She gave a dismissive snort. "There's not a scratch on you.
You must have hallucinated it." Her eyes narrowed with
contempt and disapproval. I didn't care. I was used to
seeing that when people looked at me. Glass and blood and metal. A broken body beside me. Teeth
and hunger. Gobbets of flesh ripped away.... Cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. How could that
have been a hallucination? Hallucinations were strange and
hazy and jumbled. I knew. I'd had a few. Making an annoyed noise in the back of her throat, she
snagged the chart from the end of the bed. "Unknown white
female. Hmmm. Do you remember your name, sweetheart?" She
flicked her eyes back up to me and gave me a sugary-bitchy
smile that didn't have an ounce of true concern in it. "Yeah, I know my damn name," I snarled. "It's Angel
Crawford." I wanted to add, And you can write it down
with the pencil that's stuck up your ass, but I managed
to hold it back. I knew that nurses had the power to make
your life suck worse than it already did, and it was clear
that this bitch considered me to be one step away from
starring in my own loser reality show. Screw her. I was at
least two steps away. The nurse gave a sniff as if she didn't truly believe I was
smart or sober enough to know who I was. "Let's see what all
was in your system—THC, hydrocodone, alprazolam,
oxycodone...." She rattled off a couple of other drug names
that sounded long and scary while I scowled blackly at her.
After she finished she gave me a look full of smug
satisfaction, hung the chart back up and left the room in a
pompous waddle before I could respond. Good thing too,
because what I wanted to say to her would have been too much
even for a Jerry Springer special. My anger withered as soon as she was gone, overwhelmed by my
confusion and sick fear. I lifted the sheet up to see for
myself—again—that I was uninjured. I struggled to make sense of it. I remembered the blood.
Lots of it. There'd been some sort of long gash across my
stomach, and I had a nauseating memory of seeing the jagged
end of white bone poking from my thigh, blood pumping out
and all over. But now there was nothing out of place. No
scrapes, no bruises. Just perfectly normal flesh all over. A
coma could explain that, right? A couple of months or so,
enough time for me to heal up. Except that I didn't have any scars, either. Sighing, I dropped my head back to the pillow. I hadn't been
in a coma. The nurse wasn't lying or messing with my head. No, I was simply a loser. Overdose. Great. Well, this was a new low for me, and it
didn't help that it was totally believable. The only
possibly shocking aspect was that it hadn't happened sooner.
I didn't remember taking as many drugs as the bitch nurse
had said, but the fact that I was in the ER was proof enough
that I obviously had. The nurse hadn't gone and altered my
lab results either. I did that all by myself, the
old-fashioned way. Weary depression rolled over me as I stared at the speckled
tile of the ceiling. Beyond the door I could hear the frenzy
of a stretcher being wheeled by and voices raised in brief
concern. I knew what would happen next. Some social worker
or psychologist would come in and tell me I needed rehab or
counseling or some crap like that, which was a stupid
suggestion since I didn't have money or insurance. Or worse,
I'd get a 72hour commitment for "psychiatric evaluation,"
since I was clearly a danger to myself, and I'd probably end
up in some nasty charity ward. There was no way I was gonna
put up with that. I felt perfectly fine now and more than
ready to get the hell out of here. I kicked the sheet away and slid off the bed. The tile was
smooth and cold against my bare feet. I needed shoes and
clothes. I was wearing the stupid hospital gown, and my own
clothes were so covered with blood that I'd draw all sorts
of attention if I tried to walk out in them. I shook my head. No, the blood had been a hallucination. There was no sign of my clothes in the room. No closets—only
one cabinet and an intimidating variety of medical
equipment. I started to move toward the cabinet, remembering
the IV a step before I accidentally yanked it out of my arm,
then spent a couple of seconds trying to decide if I could
carry the bag out with me instead of pulling the needle out.
Needles freaked me out, but leaving it in would probably be
worse than removing it myself. Hell, that was the only
reason I'd never gone for the harder drugs like heroin or
meth. Too chickenshit to stick a needle into me to get that
kind of high. Pills were easy. Plus I could tell myself that
I wasn't a real druggie. Except that now I'd almost killed myself just as dead as if
I'd ODed on heroin. Pushing that unpleasant thought out of my mind, I peeled off
the tape on my arm then clenched my teeth and pulled the
needle out. I braced myself against the wave of nausea that
always hit me whenever I saw blood—especially my own—but to
my relief it didn't hurt at all, and I didn't feel sick. A
tiny bead of blood welled up from the puncture site, and I
wiped it away with the hem of my gown before I even
remembered that I was supposed to be nauseated by it. Maybe that's why I'd hallucinated about being covered in
blood? There wasn't much that would freak me out more than
that. The door to the room opened again, startling me, and I
dropped the IV line with a guilty flush as a different nurse
walked in. She was a lot younger than the other one— maybe
in her early twenties or so, with sleek blonde hair pulled
back in a ponytail and the sort of fresh no-makeup look I
wished I could pull off. I looked like death without makeup,
and while my hair was blonde as well, it was that way
because I dyed it myself, which meant it was a frizzy,
damaged mess. Her eyes flicked to the discarded IV, but she didn't seem to
be upset that I'd removed it. "I wanted to make sure you
were awake and decent," she said with a smile that was
kinder than I expected. "There are a couple of detectives
here who want to talk to you." A frisson of terror shot through me. "Wh-why?" I asked,
though I was pretty sure I knew. They were here to take me
to jail. My probation officer had found out about the drug
use and my probation was being revoked. Or they wanted me to
squeal about where I got my drugs. I must have gone pale because she closed the door and gave
me a reassuring smile. "They only want to talk to you.
You're going to be fine. Here," she said, gently but firmly
pushing me back to sit on the bed. She didn't make me lie
back down—simply pulled the bed sheet around so that my
lower body and bare feet were covered. "That's better. I
know I can't talk to anyone with any sort of authority if
I'm half-naked," she said with a wink. Her unexpected niceness had me a little off-balance,
especially after the open hostility of the previous nurse.
"Where are my other clothes?" "You, uh, weren't wearing any when you were brought in." Oh, shit. I swallowed hard. "Did they take them off
in the ambulance?" Surely it wouldn't be as bad as if I'd— "The cops found you on the side of the road...naked." Her
face twisted in embarrassed sympathy. My throat tightened. "Was I—I mean, had I been...?" I
couldn't say the word. Her eyes widened. "No!" She shook her head emphatically.
"No, the doctor, um, checked. You weren't assaulted." I scrubbed at my face and fought the urge to cry. Overdose
and naked on the side of the road. This kept getting
better and better. And not even the victim of a crime, just
a stupid drugged-out skank. The nurse made a concerned noise in her throat, reached out
and gave my upper arms a firm rub. "Relax now. Everything's
going to be fine. These detectives want to have a word with
you, then you'll be ready to get out of here." She turned
and left before I could form any sort of coherent response. Right. Everything's going to be fine, I thought with
a sour laugh. She didn't know. She couldn't possibly
understand why I was freaking. I didn't have to stew in my panic for long. No sooner had
the door swung shut behind the blonde nurse than it opened
again and two detectives walked in. But they weren't
probation officers or narcotics detectives. That threw me.
At least I was pretty sure they weren't narcs. Those guys
usually went around in jeans and T-shirts, but these two
were in dress shirts and ties. The first one in was a burly
guy—at least six feet tall and stocky with a bit of a pudge
working around his middle, blondish brown hair, and a
scruffy-looking mustache. The second detective wasn't as
tall, but he was big in a muscled way. No pudge on him. I
could tell he worked out, and hard. He had dark hair, dark
eyes, and an equally dark expression on his face. Both had
guns, badges, and handcuffs on their belts. In other words, they intimidated the ever-living shit out of
me simply by walking into the room. "Ms. Crawford," the burly one began, "I'm Detective Ben Roth
and this is Detective Mike Abadie." He cocked his head
toward the dark-haired detective. "We're with the Saint
Edwards Parish Sheriff's Office, and we'd appreciate it if
you could take a couple of minutes to answer some questions
for us." "Do I need a lawyer?" I blurted. The two men exchanged a
quick glance. Oh, great. Nice way to start. Now I sounded
guilty as all hell. "That's completely up to you, Ms. Crawford," Detective Roth
said. "But we're only here to see if you might have
witnessed anything that could help us solve a crime. You're
not under any sort of suspicion at this time." His
expression remained serious but his eyes were kind. At
least, I wanted to believe that. The other detective looked
like he had a permanent scowl on his face. Maybe they were
about to play good cop bad cop on me. It would probably
work, too. I always fell for that psychological shit.
Especially when I was confused and stressed. Like right now. I gripped the sheet in my hands. "Uh, sure. What...um, what
crime?" Detective Abadie cleared his throat. "You were found on
Sweet Bayou Road right off Highway 180" His lips pressed
together and I could see the same derision in his eyes that
I'd seen in the red-haired nurse's. Maybe he didn't know why
I was in here, ‘cause of privacy laws or whatever, but he
sure as hell had his suspicions. "Okay," I said, doing my damnedest to not hunch under his
gaze. "If you say so." "At about the same time," he continued, eyes hard and flat,
"a body was found a few miles further down Sweet Bayou Road.
It had been decapitated." "Wh-what?" I said, staring at him in horror. "Decapitated. It means that his head was chopped off," he
explained, tone thoroughly patronizing. A sudden burst of anger managed to burn away a good portion
of the panic and fear that had been controlling me up until
then. "I know what ‘decapitated' means," I replied with a
scowl. "But I don't know anything about this. I sure
as hell didn't do it!" The two men exchanged another quick
glance and a sliver of the fear came back. "You don't think
I did it, do you?" Detective Roth shook his head firmly. "You're not a suspect
at this time, Ms. Crawford. However, right now you're the
only possible witness we have. Anything you can remember
might be useful." I swallowed. At this time. He kept saying that. In
other words I sure as shit hadn't been ruled out, even
though I knew there was no way I would have chopped some
guy's head off—no matter how high I might have been. So why did I remember blood...? I took a shaking breath. No. There was no way. I wasn't a
killer. "Sweet Bayou Road?" I asked, stalling for time to
get my thoughts into something other then a jumbled mess. "That's where you were found," Detective Roth said
patiently. "What do you remember?" "I...don't know." Sweet Bayou Road was only about five
minutes down the highway from where I lived, but there
wasn't a whole lot on it. A few fishing camps near the end,
and the rest of it was several miles of desolate and twisty
road through the marsh. "I mean, I was at Pillar's Bar with
my boyfriend. We had a fight and..." I rubbed my eyes, odd
flashes of the hallucination swimming through my head. Blood and pain...I thought I was dying. No, I
died. But then I was hungry. Starving-to-death
hungry.... I took an unsteady breath. "Then I was out on the road, and
there was an ambulance." I was arguing with the paramedics after they got me into
the ambulance, begging for something to eat because I was so
damn hungry. Maybe that's why I didn't walk into the stupid
white light. Maybe I knew they wouldn't have anything to eat
down that way. "I must have passed out." I looked up at the two men. "Then
I woke up here. Sorry. " No pain. No hunger. No clue. Detective Abadie let out an exasperated snort. "Why were you
out there?" "I don't know," I said. "I guess I was trying to walk home."
Walking home from the bar would definitely rank as one of
the more boneheaded things I'd done in my life. In other
words, totally believable. And somewhere along the way I'd
decided to strip naked. That must have been one helluva high. Detective Roth tugged a hand through his hair, clearly
frustrated. "I need you to think real hard, Angel. Did you
see anyone? Any cars? Someone walking along the road?" "I'm sorry," I mumbled, hunching my shoulders. "I didn't see
anyone." Fatigue and disappointment etched itself across Detective
Roth's face. "All right, Miss Crawford. If you think of
anything else—anything at all—please give me a call." He
pulled out a business card and handed it to me. "Yeah, sure thing," I said, obediently taking the card. A sour expression twisted Detective Abadie's mouth. "C'mon,
Ben," he muttered. "We're wasting our time." He turned and
stalked out. I couldn't even get annoyed at his reaction. I
had been a waste of their time. Detective Roth let out a low sigh but gave me a tired smile.
"I appreciate your talking to us, Miss Crawford," he said.
"I hope you get to feeling better." Then he too was out the
door, and I was alone in the room once again. Wrung out and depressed, I dropped the card into the
wastebasket.. This day couldn't get much worse. The blonde nurse entered again, this time carrying a cooler
and a large paper grocery bag which she set on the bed
beside me. "This was left at the nurse's station for you,"
she said, smiling brightly. "Looks like you won't have to go
home in a hospital gown after all! I'll go get your
paperwork ready, and as soon as you're dressed you should be
able to get out of here." She was out of the room with the door closing behind her
before I had a chance to respond. I stared at the closed door in confusion then looked over at
the stuff on the bed. The cooler was one of those mini
plastic things, big enough to hold a six-pack of beer. I
opened it to find six bottles of Frappuccino. At least
that's what I thought it was at first. It was the same type
of bottle as those kind of coffee drinks, and the contents
were brown and opaque, but there were no labels on the
bottles, and there was also some sort of pinkish lumpy
sediment at the bottom. What the hell? I checked the bag with the clothes next. A pair of
exercise-type pants, a sports bra, underwear, a plain blue
T-shirt and some flip-flops—all stuff that could be bought
if you weren't sure of someone's size. I was skinny with no
tits and no muscle tone. As long as the pants had a drawstring at the waist, I was probably good
to go. At the bottom of the bag was an envelope and a twenty
dollar bill with a little sticky note that had "cab fare"
neatly printed on it. Again, what the hell? My first reaction was to get pissed. I
didn't need anyone else's help. I took care of myself
because, frankly, depending on someone else meant standing
outside an empty, locked elementary school at six p.m. and
telling Mrs. Robichaux that no, really, my mom would be here
any minute and I didn't need a ride while a) Kerrie
Robichaux, who gets 100s on her spelling tests is looking
out the car window at me in a way that I'm pretty sure says,
Don't you even think about getting your trashy ass in the
back seat of this nice car, and b) Mom is again
conveniently forgetting I exist because her life was so much
fucking better before she got saddled with a kid and had to
do boring things like pick me up from school and make sure I
had clean clothes and socks that matched. I took care of
myself because I figured out that it was better when she
didn't remember I was around. And even after she was gone I
took care of myself, because Dad couldn't handle being a
dad, and instead sat on a bar stool at Kaster's remembering
when his life was simple and his wife was fun and he had his
job on the oil rig. Except right now I was naked—well, not counting the hospital
gown. And I couldn't take care of that without help, though
I was damned if I could figure out who'd bother getting
clothes and cab fare for me. The only person who came to
mind was my sort of boyfriend, Randy, but I couldn't see him
giving me money for a cab when he could come and get me.
Plus, he knew my size. I ripped open the envelope and read the letter. Then I read
it again, because it didn't make any sense the first time
through. Angel— Take good care of the contents of the cooler because it
should get you through the next couple of weeks. It's very
important that you drink one bottle every other day,
starting tomorrow, or you'll start to feel very sick. Be
sure to shake it up well before you drink it. There's a job waiting for you at the Coroner's Office. They
have an opening for a van driver, and the arrangements have
already been made. Go to the office at 9 a.m. tomorrow to
fill out the paperwork and start work. Now, here's the deal: You will take this job, and you
will hold it for at least one month. If you quit, or
are fired before one month is out, your probation officer
will be informed that there were drugs in your system when
you were brought to the ER, and you'll go to jail for
violating your probation. And if you go to jail, you'll
probably die there within a few weeks. This isn't a threat.
It's a warning. I'd explain, but there's no way you'd
believe me. You'll understand eventually. Good luck.
Hey, look, I thought with a miserable laugh, this
day just got worse. I stared down at the letter in confusion and disbelief. My
mom had gone to prison when I was twelve and died while
still incarcerated, on the day I turned sixteen. That was a
little over five years ago. Then last year I'd been more of
a moron than usual and had bought a nearly new Toyota Prius
for five hundred dollars from some guy Randy knew. A week
later I was pulled over and arrested for possession of
stolen property. Yeah, my "bargain" of a car had been jacked
a couple of weeks earlier in New Orleans. But the seriously
sucky part was that I'd kinda suspected that it hadn't been
legit but went ahead and gave the guy the money for it
anyway, too excited about what a great deal I was getting,
and convinced that I wouldn't get caught. Moron. I'd spent
two days scared shitless in a holding cell before I could
find someone to bail me out, and had been lucky as hell to
get a three-year suspended sentence and probation. I read the letter again, hand shaking. I thought I'd dodged
a bullet with that visit from the two detectives, but here
was another one right behind it, ready to flatten me. I
didn't want to go back to jail, and I didn't want to end up
like my mom and die there. But why would I die within weeks?
What was that all about? Maybe someone who had a grudge
against me was in jail already? I'd pissed off plenty of
people in my life, but as far as I knew there wasn't anyone
who hated me enough to want to kill me. I turned the letter over, searching for any clue as to who
had sent it. It was printed on plain white paper and the
envelope was an ordinary white envelope. No signature. No
postmark. None of this made any sense. I couldn't think of a
single person who'd bother finding me a job, much less
threaten me with jail to make sure I kept it. Why jail? Why not rehab? Because jail's a bigger threat, I realized. Rehab
would suck, but jail.... Whoever sent this stuff had to know
that jail scared the shit out of me. I read the letter one more time, then took a deep breath and
started getting dressed while my thoughts continued to
tumble. It wasn't as if I'd set out to be a loser. I didn't
wake up every morning and say, "Hey, how can I screw my life
up today?" But the universe sure seemed to be rigged against
me, and most of the time it didn't seem to matter how hard I
tried since I was obviously never going to catch a break. Except. Except this letter wasn't a couple of hardass cops
questioning me about something I didn't know shit about.
This was someone holding a big whopping threat over my head,
who also seemed to be crazy enough to give the slightest
crap about me— and give me that break I kept saying I
wanted. Me. Loser girl. If this job was for real and I
didn't at least give it a shot I'd be right back at being a
Grade A Screwup. But who the hell would do this for me? I had a feeling the only way I was going to find out would
be to take the stupid job. Drive a van for a month. How hard could that be?
What do you think about this review?
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy