“I got one here on the floor,” Brad said to Romie, who stopped on the far side of the table.
Brad flipped the waiter’s torso and grabbed him under the armpits. He glanced down at the face and then looked away, but the image burned into his vision. The corpse’s eyes had exploded just like the rest, but he had no sign of gore on his cheeks. The waiter had big, white teeth though. He had a rack of giant, white, piano-key teeth. When Romie finally lifted the waiter’s dead legs, Brad got up the nerve to look back down. His lips were missing—that’s why Brad could see the corpse’s teeth so well. Something had taken the lips and part of the cheek. The edge of the wound was jagged, but clean. No blood or gore stained the rest of the skin.
Romie let out a yelp and dropped the legs. The body slumped and tugged on Brad’s shoulders, but he kept his grip. At least he kept it until he looked where Romie’s headlamp was pointing. She was staring at the corpse’s groin. There, the black pants had been pulled down a bit. The waiter’s white skin nearly matched the tone of the white jacket he wore. In the low light, Brad understood why neither of them had noticed earlier. But in the groin area, the white ended. There Brad could see the stringy, shiny edges of muscle where the skin and sex organs had been removed.
Brad dropped the corpse’s shoulders and backed up.
“There’s something in here with us,” Romie whispered. She whipped her headlamp around the room.
“Over here,” Brad said. “We’ll go together. Back-to-back.”
Romie stepped over the mutilated corpse and joined Brad. They matched steps and moved towards the door.
Brad saw the shadow first. When Brad stopped moving behind her, Romie turned her head and saw it too. Something standing just to the right of the doors cast a fuzzy shadow on the pavement between the restaurant and the truck. Brad thought about the gun tucked safely in the glove compartment of the truck.
“Out the back?” Brad whispered.
“Fuck that,” Romie said.
As if they’d agreed, they resumed moving towards the doors. Brad scanned the area surrounding the door for anything he could use as a weapon. He found nothing. Brad led the way and the two side-stepped through the doors. Outside, a short, stocky man stood a couple of paces from the back of the truck.
“Hello?” Brad asked.
The man didn’t reply. He flipped his bangs to the side, reached up with a grimy finger and rubbed his teeth. Romie passed behind Brad and moved towards the driver’s side of the truck as the two men stared at each other. Brad lost the staring contest. His eyes darted to his right, to the gaping black hole that was the entrance to the Chinese restaurant.
“Can I help you?” Brad asked.
“What are you doing?” the man asked. His voice was so low that Brad could barely hear him. He slurred the four words together into one.
Brad took a second to reply. “We’re clearing out the bodies,” he said, gesturing to the back of the truck.
“For whom?” the man asked.
“What’s your name?” Brad asked. “My name is Brad.”
“And I’m Romie,” she said. She circled around the truck and around the dirty man. Brad spotted the handgun she held at her side.
They waited for the man’s response. His eyes seemed to take inventory of the scene, darting around from place to place, again and again.
“Nate,” he said, finally.
“Nice to meet you, Nate,” Brad said. “Are you here alone? I mean, do you live with anyone else.”
“Yes,” Nate said.
“Which?” Brad asked.
Nate shook his head from side-to-side violently. He shook it so hard that Brad could hear the man’s cheeks flapping against his teeth. Romie took a half step back but kept the gun pointed only at the pavement.
“I’m sorry,” Nate said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to anyone. I must look like a crazy person.”
“No,” Brad said, “not at all. But you did startle us a bit because we only saw your shadow at first.”
“Sorry,” Nate said. “You never answered my question—for whom are you clearing out the bodies?”
“Oh,” Brad said. “I don’t know. I mean, we’re clearing them out for everyone, I guess. We thought it would be…” he trailed off, not knowing how much he should tell the dirty man.
“Respectful,” Romie said from her position. She kept her distance. Brad moved a little closer to Nate as they talked.
“Yes, that’s a good word for it,” Brad said. “It’s the least we could do.”
“I’m not sure I understand the point,” Nate said.
Romie and Brad exchanged a glance.
“Maybe we should be on our way,” Brad said. “I’m guessing we’ll see you around.”
“Probably not,” Nate said. “It’s been months and I haven’t seen you before.” Nate ran a slow gaze from the ground back up to Brad’s eyes. “I guess we travel in different circles.”
“Well…” Brad started and then didn’t know how to finish.
“So where are you taking them?” Nate asked. “To, you know, be respectful.”
“Mass grave,” Brad said.
“Where? In case I want to pay my respects.”
Brad looked to Romie.
“A patch of woods off of 114,” Romie said.
“Got it,” Nate said. “Patch of woods.”
“Okay then,” Romie said. She moved in a careful, sidestepping circle around Nate, back to the cab of the truck. Brad waved and walked to the driver’s door. They both closed their doors quickly and immediately locked them. Brad turned the key and prayed the moving van would start. Nate still stood next to the door of the Chinese restaurant as they pulled away.
“Well that was a bust,” Romie said. “Lots of corpses in there. We could have finished off the day.”
“What a creepy guy,” Brad said. “I hope we don’t meet up with him again.”
“I get the feeling we will, somehow,” Romie said. “Take a left up here in case he’s watching. I want him to think we’re headed south.”
“Sure thing,” Brad said.
Until they’d rounded several turns, Brad paid more attention to the rearview mirrors than the road in front of them. Romie called out turns and led them back around to Route 1 before they turned north again. They passed cars of the dead—veered off to the side of the road—but they were all empty. The doors hung open revealing empty seats. Another team of corpse collectors, probably Ted and Sheila, had already harvested this area.
“Hey,” Romie said, snapping her fingers. “Take a right up here. Old folks home.”
“Good idea,” Brad said.
They finished their quota with an easy pile of withered, graying corpses. Some of the old women, dressed in sweatpants and shirts, smelling like salty chicken soup, were so light that Brad could have carried them on his own. They doubled their speed when Romie realized they could pile two bodies on a wheelchair and move four corpses at a time.
They headed north towards the rendezvous point with their truckload of death.
BRAD FOLLOWED THE tracks of other trucks north on the highway through the snow. Weighted down with the corpses, the big moving van didn’t have any problem with traction. Before it got too deep—still less than a foot deep—Romie pointed out the line of sleds parked up ahead. Each flat sled was about twenty-five feet long and attached to a huge, tracked vehicle, the Bombardiers Pete acquired.
When he saw them pulling up, Pete waved Brad up to the front sled where the other two moving vans were also parked. Sheila and Ted were pulling bodies off the back of the van and carrying them over to the sled. As soon as he got Brad to the right spot, Pete jumped up on the sled to help Robby stack the corpses.