"This little lady had an automobile accident," he said.

Pulling back the sheet some more, her upper torso was revealed. The chest had been recently closed after an autopsy and the stitches used to sew her back up immediately distracted the eyes away from her breasts. It was a much messier stitching than the students had seen following a live open-heart surgery a week ago. There were also several bruises near the belly and lower chest.

"No seatbelt," Dr. Mickelson remarked.

He pointed to the largest bruise on the flesh. It was oddly circular in shape. "This is where the abdomen collided with the steering wheel, causing internal bleeding."

A female student had to look away, her eyes welling with tears. "Oh God, I told myself to stay calm," she whispered to herself.

By now, Dr. Mickelson was already moving on to another injury on the body. He couldn’t understand the cause for her squeamishness, but he wouldn’t let it slow him down. He clearly was the most uninhibited person in the morgue. Even more so than his friend Mark Lamm, the class’ teacher.

"And there, do you see those marks on the neck?" He was pointing to the bruises on each side of the neck. They appeared small and reddish. One would think they were one-toothed vampire wounds if they didn’t know any better. "Those were caused from the combination of whiplash and neck trauma. Slight swelling before death with these bruises make for nasty marks like this."

He covered the face and body back up with the cloth, then looked to Dr. Lamm.

"Do you need me to show them anything else?"

"No-no, that’s quite enough for one day," Dr. Lamm replied. A couple of the students grumbled in displeasure of the remark. He looked over at his class and queried, "Does anyone have any questions for Dr. Mickelson?"

One of the more desensitized students who had grumbled was the first to ask.

"Dr. Mickelson, is there anyone you’ve worked on that is famous?"

The class giggled as much as one in a morgue could as Dr. Mickelson was contemplating the question.

"I’m afraid I don’t get out all that often," he replied. "Not as often as you students, anyway. I try to keep up, but once you hit middle age like me and work in a hospital, your social life winds up like all of the residents in here." He paused, then simply added "Dead."

"So no one really famous?" the student next to the first one asked.

"Well... technically I shouldn’t name names," Dr. Mickelson replied back. "But there is someone in the ‘locker’ who’s occupation was listed as model and actress. She died from a drug cocktail that had deadly side-effects when combined together."

"Oh yeah!" the first student shouted out immediately. "She was the one in the paper. Had trails all down her arm from the heroin, cops said."

With a frown, Dr. Mickelson said "Well, I’ve said too much already now--" and was cut off by a third student.

"Can we see her?" the student chimed.

"What?!"

"The model. It would be...," the student scratched her head fervently, looking for some type of explanation for her desire to see the body. "...Fascinating to see the effects of death on someone who was so glamorous in life. Understand?" She shrugged her shoulders at the doctor.

"I understand, young lady, that without her family’s approval, I would be sued unabatedly." The tone of the doctor’s voice was very harsh, as though he was insulted by the idea for more than just the stated reason.

The class suddenly seemed very quiet, a silence that lasted seconds but seemed eternal. Everyone was looking away from the incensed Mickelson. Dr. Lamm sensed this and decided that this was the best time to let the class go.

"Okay," he said. "I guess that is enough for today. Tomorrow we will meet in class and begin further discussion of the embalming processes that Dr. Mickelson went over briefly today."

The word "briefly" stuck out at Mickelson, who knew he could discuss more on any pathological process than Lamm ever could. But before he could defend his honor, the students had already scrambled for the exits. Once the room was empty but for the two physicians, Dr. Lamm looked over at one of his less-familiar friends for a little chat.

"What was that all about, Jules?" he asked. "You almost exploded on that student."

Mickelson sighed and looked up at his friend. "Those kids of yours weren’t taking anything seriously. I doubt they care anything about how things work. They just wanted to know who they might be looking at one day so that they have stories to tell their friends." That was somewhat true. That was as accurately as he could define the cause. But in reality, Mickelson was just getting grumpy. It was getting late--almost high noon--so he wanted to get home.

"I see," Dr. Lamm said. "I suppose you have a point, but then what do you think our professors and guest morticians thought of us, trying to learn the intricacies of something they had just modernized? Did we attempt to learn their old techniques and how they learned from mistakes? No. We just wanted the specific factual information, no background. Every generation is learning from the book notes of the previous one, my friend. Once they grow up, then they will wind up ‘writing the book‘ for others and end up like you."

"I bet they can’t wait," Mickelson said as he rolled his eyes away form his friend‘s jab.

In the deadness of the dark that had fallen over most of the hospital hallways, Mickelson entered the morgue at his regular time, 1 AM. Not a soul was on the floor in all likelihood.

He opened up the ‘locker’ that was housing the woman that the class had seen earlier and pulled her refrigeration shelf out.

Mickelson spent his youth constantly preparing for his next challenge. To him, life was all about work. Get assigned a task, accomplish it, and ask for another. Naturally, the social life he claimed to attempt to have was really something that never existed. Lamm was his best friend. He was not Lamm’s best friend.

By the time they were juniors in college, Mickelson seemed to be the only one in classes who took things seriously, so he thought. He hated the vast amount of spare time that Lamm would get to have, and he tried in earnest to destroy any spare time he himself may harbor with a good read, a read in books that Lamm never even considered as source material. This, he thought at the time, would help him beat his friendly rival. He would get the prestige, not Lamm.

The idea worked from Mickelson’s view. He won the job at the hospital, even though Lamm never applied and entered into teaching instead. Those that can, do; those that can’t, teach, he thought. He would be the one assisting the police examiner if there was possible foul-play, not Lamm.

Lamm would have to work down the street and show kids things they both had already learned years ago, expanding his knowledge in the area only in piecemeal, while Mickelson would be learning new things every day. He’d been able to tell when a cadaver was nearly drained of his once life-giving blood by the slowing of the heart in the chest as blood was being pressure pumped out of the body. Most people never get to witness the dead pulsate as they are drained, they can only read about it in books. Even then, they don’t get to know how to time the pumping until they get the hands-on experience.

By the began working at the hospital twelve years ago, he and Lamm started to be only social acquaintances overnight. His love for his work consumed his life.

If a man spends too much time at work, he has to find ways to enjoy it.

So here he was, standing there in front of a cold corpse who was to be buried in a couple of days. They would come to take her after his shift. She would be worked on by a beautician, then viewed by her loved ones one last time. But Mickelson didn’t care. They could have her.

He slammed her locker shut, then put in his key and opened the locker with one Anita Johnson, model and actress. There she was, all 5-foot-7, 120 pounds of her. Mickelson knew it was a special day when they wheeled her in. Special, special, special.

The zipper to the plastic sheath that contained her slid down with ease. He unwrapped her body from this prison and got his first gaze at her. She had a faint blue tint to her skin, but was more pale than anything else. She was to be embalmed by morning. Easy enough, that would only take a few hours. He had all night to finish the task.

Mickelson wheeled her out and stopped at the table where the tape player was at. With the push of a button, Beethoven was playing for the entire room."Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, m’dear." he muttered to the blanketed corpse before him as he began wheeling her to the most secluded area of the room. "Very dark and mysterious, don’t you think?"

When he finally had her there, he picked up the trocar that would be used to help drain her. It was directly above her, hovering there. He decided to put it back in its holder.

He had to do a little experiment first.

The cabinet in his desk opened with a click after he inserted his key. Inside lay a dozen or so prophylactics, a bottle of personal lubricant, and a bottle of elegant perfume. It was a special night, he just grabbed the whole cabinet out from the desk. He may want to use everything.

He hurried back to the corner of the room where the body lay. Beethoven was speeding up the rhythm.

There was a noticeable oddity when Mickelson got back to his beloved. He wasn’t sure of it, but for some reason the head seemed to have turned to face away from him.

"Well now," he joked, mostly to himself, "perhaps you’ll be the first lively one I’ve had in some time." He was ready. With a few composer motions to the tune of the music with one hand, he lifted up her legs and freed them from the plastic sleeve with the other. His hand brushed up against her breast. The skin at the center was soft, even though her body was cold, so cold. Nipples needed blood to harden.

Suddenly, Mickelson noticed something very strange. The head moved again and its eyes were now looking at him. Pale blue, sunken eyes met his and for a moment, he thought he must have fallen asleep on his shift. Sure, people survived after being declared dead, but no one believes it can happen to them. That thought of dreaming did not last very long. Panic soon replaced it.

Before she could move, he grabbed the nearest bed cloth and held it scrunched-up over her face. Her arms immediately flew up in retaliation and she easily seemed human.

"You won’t put me to jail, bitch." he muttered as he kept pushing the cloth harder and harder on her face. Still, the arms reached out at him. He pressed down until it seemed like her face might collapse. Too bad, he thought, it didn’t. Finally, the hands of the body grabbed his face and started pressing him back. Once they got near his eyes, he thought it was time to back off.

Mickelson was halfway turned around when the hands from the body grabbed his arm. He looked back around and was able to get a glimpse of the head rising quickly from the gurney. It was not even slowed by a seeming lack of oxygen. He wasn’t able to move his arm before he saw the mouth open and close around the upper portion of his arm.

"Fuuuccckk!" he yelled out as he pulled with all his might and freed his bitten arm from the teeth of the corpse. Blood spilled onto the table as veins and arteries ripped from the pressure. Getting free of its clutches was much easier, as its hand seemed to almost let go of his arm once it had the bite. It chewed for a few seconds and attempted to swallow, but the lump of flesh didn’t seem to go down. The hunger within the thing stayed.

Using those few precious seconds, Mickelson had already grabbed a scalpel. He noticed the creature returning its dead-yet-hungry gaze at him once again. He leaped forward and jabbed the corpse in its eye. The scalpel went in over an inch, but the body seemed unrelenting to the pain it should be feeling. It moved its head up quickly and got a nibble of his fingers as he tried to twist the scalpel in more. Feeling another bit of pain, he let the scalpel go. It was lubricated from the inner tissues and slowly slid out of the socket, doing a little more damage as it exited that went unnoticed by the corpse still.

Once again he had but few seconds to think of another possible attack. Noticing the trocar he was about to use before was sitting on the equipment table, he reached for it. The creature grabbed his other arm, but it did not have time to bite him. He flapped his arms and it let go, giving him the two spare seconds to grab and operate the utensil.

The hum of the empty tube waiting for a drink filled the air. With a quick motion, it was inserted and sucking the matter out of the busted eye of the zombie. Again, it seemed unaffected to the blood and protein being sucked from its skull. Mickelson even had to hold it down to make sure that the thing would not move enough to knock the tubule out. He put his full 245-pound frame on it and held it against the wall.

For six seconds, the pumping did nothing but lightly irritate the being. Mickelson was battling with the thing’s appendages as little bits of red and pink flesh were gobbled up by the tightly-held tubule. Then something popped. Grey matter began oozing through the see-through tube and the corpse started to shake violently. Then, it just stopped moving. The left hand, attached to an arm that had two very long veins appearing on it from drug addictions of days past, no longer was trying to reach out. Its brain had been sucked out through its eye.

Mickelson wiped the sweat from his brow, then let out a little laugh. He wondered how the hell he was going to explain this to the woman’s family. Being a big actress, this was no back page of the paper type of news event. This could be as bad as someone finding out about his late night activities in the morgue.

He knew he would have to dispose of her. But he wondered how. Before he could come up with a solution, a new problem manifested itself when he heard bangs and scratches nearby.

The rest of the bodies in the morgue were not staying dead either. They wanted out of their temporary housing to get at him. And they knew, he thought. They all knew his secret.

Mickelson’s panting grew louder as he started losing his grip on reality, trying to think of the situation he was in now. He threw his hands up in frustration as he was unable to think of a better solution to the task at hand than what was in his head right now.

"I’ll just have to get rid of them," he muttered to himself. "Get rid of them of them all."

He looked around the room for anything he could use as a weapon. The scissors. He reached over to the table where a dozen pairs of angled scissors waited for him. He filled his lab coat pockets with them. It was getting hard to use his left hand for the job, where two bites had occurred.

"Okay you little shits," he said as he walked to the refrigerator, swinging one pair of scissors with his right hand’s fingers. "Come and get it."With a CLANK, he unlocked the first locker. The cadaver inside was trying to push the it open, but Mickelson held it shut with his hip as he began to unlock the second. CLANK went the lock. Again the door was being pushed open, but he held it there with his ever-stiffening arm. The pain from the arm seemingly made it easier for him to hold it there. He didn’t even notice that he was going beyond his normal strength, especially for someone who was missing some flesh from his arm.

With a final CLANK went the third drawer. Three bodies pushing against him was too much for Mickelson. He fell away from the refrigeration cabinet as the drawers swung open almost simultaneously. Echoing out from them were the groans of final hunger. A hunger that could never be satisfied.Reaching in his pockets, he made sure to keep on eye on the situation in front of him. As he saw the pale blue faces rise out of their chambers, he had successfully fitted each hand with two pairs of scissors.

Mickelson looked over at his clients and awaited their advance. They were slow getting out of their beds, but the eminence of what was to happen made their movements seem quickened. Finally, they were standing upright with their arms reaching out for him. He threw one pair of scissors at the woman he had shown the students some sixteen hours earlier. It hit her face and fell straight to the floor. That was not the outcome he’d imagined when he threw them. She didn’t even flinch but her mouth, which slowly opened so that she might get a bite of his flesh.

They were now only three or four feet away from him. Taking the initiative, he dove straight at the female corpse. The pair of scissors he had left in his right hand drove only millimeters into her head before he hit the skull. He thought he may have cracked it, but the inside was definitely intact, because the corpse grabbed him and took a bite from his shoulder due to the proximity he was in from having to stab the thing.

He yelped from the pain but was able to spin out of its grip. The other two corpses reached for him but he had already crawled away and was heading to the corner of the room. The corpses kept advancing and split up around a table that seemed to be the only two ways out of the corner. He was now boxed in.

The corpses lumbered toward him. The stench of embalming fluid was perfuming the air. Mickelson knew he had to take on the one corpse that was coming from his right. He had no chance against two coming on his left. He could barely feel the scissors in his left hand, but he managed to transfer one to his right hand and he began to position himself to spring forward on the body that was coming toward him.

With all the speed of an elephant, he hurled his body at the corpse and put the scissors in front of him. The scissors hit the temple of its skull at an angle. He had broken into its skull and it seemed inactive, but it was still too stiff and heavy to let him by, so his forward motion was stopped cold. He pushed against it, but the thing’s foot had been in mid-air when the strike was made, and now it was on an irreversible fall forward. The corpse toppled onto Mickelson.

"Ah, shit," he yelped as he tried to push it off of him. His left arm was essentially immobile and his right arm was not strong enough. He cocked his head back away from the body that was on him and saw the other two corpses turning the corner of the table and coming right at him. They were only a few feet away, much too close to give him time to push this thing off of him.

"No. No-no-no." He thought he could talk them out of their attack. "Please. I did what I did for me. I had nothing against any of you. You just didn‘t say no."

The creatures dropped their knees onto the hard floor abruptly. Bruising from this action was nothing they cared about; that would require blood. They grabbed his face and pulled him free from underneath the other corpse. But his freedom did not last. He could not escape four hands on his flesh. He tried to wiggle out of their grasp, but they would not let go.

"No. No!"

A set of golden front teeth tore into his right leg. Just afterward, another set of beautifully white teeth ripped out an eyebrow, spewing blood over his face and down his cheek. He was now screaming wildly. Blood poured into his eyes and stung them more mildly than the bites, but enough to make him shut his eyes. The tears building under his lids helped clean up the eyes enough to let him get one last glimpse of the attack. The chins of his attackers were bloodied, which made for an interesting contrast with the paleness with the rest of theirs faces. They were in his face and looked at him menacingly, but kept bobbing their heads below the neck for food. He almost wished they would have blinded him again, but his fascination wore on as he witnessed his demise. The two bodies were fully crouched as they took bite after bite. He wasn’t sure when he stopped screaming, but he thought it may have been after they kept refusing to bite him in the face again. But finally, one of his attackers made its way back toward his face. He wanted to scream, but wasn’t sure if he could. He simply looked on as the head of this attacker advanced, looked him in the eyes, then bowed to take a nibble from his nose. The sharp pain--a pain coming from his face--made him close his eyes for good.

The two continued this assault until his flesh was chilled enough to leave a bad sensation in their mouths, one of the few sensations they had left to feel. Only slightly tempered from their "feast," they left him there and went out in search of new prey.

After several hours, one of the two motionless bodies rose from the floor - an overweight man wearing a dirtied, bloodied jacket that read MICKELSON on the pocket. He knew everything that happened and yet could recall nothing. Hunger took up the majority of his thought.

The man stumbled toward the hallways. He knew where the nurses office was, and that thought would have made him drool if he had the capacity to. There were so few things he could think of and yet he had such clarity. He knew the one--the only--thing he wanted now was flesh. And he wanted it lively and warm.