But my stomach screamed at me the second I entered the cooler. I didn’t even have to look at the other body bag already in there. That guy had been autopsied on Friday and was waiting to be picked up by the funeral home. His organs were in a bag between his legs, and there was brain in there. I could smell it—through the plastic bag, through the body bag, through all the other stenches and odors of the morgue. The scent of that brain cut through them all.

I looked down at the organs swimming in the clear plastic bag. I didn’t even fully remember walking to the other stretcher and unzipping the body bag. A weird calm descended on me. I was really going to do this. I was probably completely crazy and hallucinating, but I couldn’t fight it anymore. I wasn’t that tough. Hell, that was the reason I was in this situation—I had no damn willpower. Get clean? Yeah, right. Too much work and too much of a bummer. Your life sucks and the only thing you’re good at is fucking up? So much easier not to think about it—wipe the worry away with a Percocet or a Xanax. Go numb.

I carefully untied the plastic bag and pulled it open. I didn’t look at any of the other organs. I wasn’t grossed out by them; they simply held no interest for me. It was the segments of brain that held my attention. Most of the brain had been sliced into neat half-inch slices during the autopsy. It looked like pieces of bread pudding that had been soaked in raspberry syrup.

Not that I needed the comparison. I didn’t have to psych myself up to eat a piece. The hunger took over and the next thing I knew I was on the second slice—and I felt good. I closed my eyes in bliss. It was almost like the kinda good that some drugs could give you—and I knew drugs—except that it was somehow . . . cleaner.

So what if I was nuts? This was fantastic. The hunger was gone. More than gone. I felt sharp and clear and alive and completely sated. I felt awesome.

My eyes snapped open. I could feel the puzzle pieces fall into place as the last bite of brain slid down my throat. I knew this feeling. The coffee-drinks . . . those gooey chunks with the same consistency, given to me by the same mystery person who told me to give in to my cravings.

Holy shit. I’d been eating brains for two weeks. And loving it.

I couldn’t make my mind figure out what that meant. I didn’t want to know what it meant. It had to be some sort of disease, right? I mean, anything else would be crazy.

“Oh, man,” I whispered. “I am way beyond crazy.”

There was still nearly half a brain in the bag. I grabbed a towel, quickly wiped my face and hands, ducked out of the cooler and snagged a clean and empty plastic container from the room where the tissue samples were kept. My pulse hammered as I returned to the cooler and stuffed what was left of the brain into the container. Whether I was crazy or diseased, I obviously needed to keep eating brains unless I wanted to feel like I was dying of hunger. If my heart was beating, that meant I was alive, right? Couldn’t possibly be anything else.

So what if I’d seen enough horror movies to know what kind of creature eats brains. That wasn’t possible. There was no way I was . . . that.

I shoved the container into a paper bag, then did my very best to clean everything up so that no one could possibly know what insanity I’d been up to.

Am I insane? Or am I a monster?

I had no idea which was the better option.

Chapter 8

My stress levels were so high that when my cell phone rang I let out a shriek and damned near threw the bag containing the tub of brains into the air. Yeah, that would have been an impressive mess.

I took a deep breath in an effort to settle my galloping heart, then yanked my phone out of my pocket. “Yeah?”

“Yo, Angel. It’s Derrel. You okay? You sound out of breath.”

Thank god I sounded out of breath and not . . . completely fucking insane. I took another long breath. Insane maybe, but at least I wasn’t hungry anymore. And I felt fantastic. Then again, the fact that I felt so good after what I’d just done was so fucked up I almost felt worse.

No, I felt fantastic. No denying it. This was wrong all over. “Um, yeah, sorry,” I said. “My phone was in the other room, and I had to run from the cooler.”

“Shit, girl, you could have called me back,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Anyway, I was checking to see if you were finished up there, ’cause I’m going to grab some late breakfast, and I figured I’d see if you wanted to join me.”

“Sure,” I replied automatically, then felt a spasm of nerves. I just ate brains, and now I was supposed to sit down and eat normal ordinary food like a normal ordinary person?

“Great!” he replied before I could take it back. “Meet us at the Top Cow Café over on Ninth Street. We’ll hold a spot for you.”

“Okay,” I said faintly and hung up, then realized he’d said “us.” Who the hell else was going to be there?

I looked down at the bag I had cradled in my arms. I ate brains. Holy shit. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was like an earworm running through my head. I ate brains. I’m crazy. Completely batshit crazy.

My gut clenched as a hideous thought occurred to me: If I was crazy enough to eat brains, what if I was crazy enough to kill someone? What if I was somehow involved in that murder out in the swamp?

My knees shook, and I had to grab for a chair. I sat, fingers tightening on the brown paper bag. I didn’t remember much, if anything, from that night. Maybe I was some sort of schizo. Maybe I was just as much of a sick fuck as Jeffrey Dahmer. I needed to go turn myself in or something, right? I mean, I couldn’t risk walking free. What if I killed someone else? The thought of going to jail gave me cold sweats, but being a murderer. . . . No, that was even worse.

I stood and dug my hand into my pocket to retrieve my keys, then frowned as my fingers touched a crumpled piece of paper. I pulled it out, uncrumpled it, let out a ragged breath.

The note from Anonymous Letter Dude. I wasn’t hallucinating that. Which meant that I probably wasn’t crazy.

Somehow that didn’t make me any happier.

I hurried out of the morgue with the bag cradled to my chest, certain that at any second someone was going to jump out from behind one of the scrawny bushes surrounding the small lot and demand to know what I was doing. I reached my car without anything like that happening, though I managed to drop my keys twice while trying to get the trunk open. On the third try I got it unlocked, then took several deep breaths in an effort to calm down and chill a bit. Just because I’m insane doesn’t mean I have to act all crazy, I thought with a harsh scowl.

I gave my head a sharp shake. No, not insane. It wasn’t some sort of split personality of mine that sent me the stuff at the hospital. The drinks in the cooler had been some sort of brain concoction. I was sure of that. And I didn’t start getting drop dead starving until about two days after I’d finished the last one.

But what did it all mean?

I stuffed the bag of brains into a corner of the trunk, stopped at the first drugstore I saw and bought an insulated lunchbox and a bag of ice. I drove to a remote corner of the parking lot then transferred the bag into the lunchbox and stuffed the space around the bag with ice. The paper bag tore as I went to close the lunchbox, and I paused, pulse thudding as I looked at the grotesque undulations of the brain visible through the plastic. What if I got caught with this? It was obvious what it was. I needed a better system.

I let out a shuddering laugh. Right. I needed a better system for this completely fucked up insane thing I was doing. I finally closed the lunchbox and slammed the trunk lid shut.

Unfortunately, my mind was so scattered that I slammed the trunk right down on my left hand.

I let out a scream of pain and tried to pull my hand free but the fucking trunk had somehow latched on my crushed fingers. Pain and panic swirled together as I struggled to get the trunk open. My keys had dropped onto the ground and in a burst of utter desperation I grabbed the lip of the trunk with my right hand and yanked as hard as I could, even though I knew there was no way I’d be able to force it open.

To my shock and relief I heard a sharp crack of metal, and the trunk swung open. I pulled my poor hand to my chest, cradled it while tears of pain streamed down my face. I was afraid to look at it. I’d caught a glimpse of the twisted fingers. I knew they were broken. This was fucking great. And I didn’t have health insurance yet. How the hell would I do my job with a broken hand?

I leaned up against the back bumper while I hunched over my hand and cried in misery and pain. Though . . . the pain really wasn’t as bad as it was at first, I realized after a few seconds. Maybe I was going into some sort of shock. I risked a peek at my hand, involuntarily sucking my breath in at the way the first three fingers bent backwards between the top two knuckles.

A sudden tug of appetite made me flinch in surprise. How the hell could I be hungry at a time like this? And why didn’t this hurt more? I’d had broken bones before. I knew the pain involved a bit too well. This felt as if I’d already taken some kind of painkillers.

Hunger tightened my gut again, and my eyes fell to the lunchbox in my trunk. Oh, come on, I thought with a sudden weary despair. How often was I going to have to eat this shit to keep from being ravenous all the time? I quickly looked around to make sure there was no one anywhere nearby before unzipping the lunchbox one-handed. At the sight of the plastic container the hunger gave a little jump, as if to say, “Yes! That!”

I scowled. Fine. Whatever. I could chow this shit down and then go to the hospital for my hand. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about being caught with brains in my trunk.

I nervously checked my surroundings again, tugged the top off the container and let the stupid, crazy hunger have its way. Less than a minute later I’d managed to finish off everything in the container, and my appetite had settled down again.

I’m gonna be screwed if I end up needing to eat brains every couple of hours, I thought, worried and depressed, as I walked over to a nearby dumpster and chucked the empty container into it. There’s no way enough people will die for me to—