Prologue
“Oh, for god’s sake, shut up!” Trent Gardner barked as they dragged the corpse onto the cadaver table.
“Make me, you idiot,” Blythe spat, her arms straining under the weight. As they dragged the lifeless body from the stretcher to the cadaver table.
She flinched at the familiar sight of Trent’s dyed ginger mustache.
“What’s his name?’ asked Trent
“I don’t know, he’s a John Doe.”
“So how’d he get here?” “Someone beat him to death, apparently.” She hissed.
“Get him to the body cooler, come on! Hurry up!”
“Trent, I am gonna have to need you to stop fucking yelling at me!” Blythe spat.
As she took a closer look at John Doe, something caught her eye at the crack of his lips.
“Wait a minute, Trent, come over here. What the hell is this?”
John Doe’s body lay lifeless, but the edges of his mouth looked bruised.
“Blythe, get me the mouth stretcher.”
“Don’t boss me around, Trent.”
“OKAY! Please.”
Trent used the mouth stretcher to open the mouth carefully, peering inside.
“Bruising around the lips,” Trent muttered. “Upper palate, too… Jesus, something was stuffed in here. Also, there is damage to his tonsils, teeth are laced with some black shit. Ugh, I’m gonna have to report this.”
“Okay, you do all the cutting-open stuff later. Now I just gotta get the hell outta here, ya hear me? The smell is just ughh.” Exaggerating her disgust.
“First, help me put him in the body cooler, yeah?”
They slid John Doe’s into the cooler. Blythe was clearly rushing to bolt, but Trent seemed to have other plans.
“Hey, um… Blythe, what are you doing tomorrow night?” His voice unusually low.
“Trent Gardner, are you trying to ask me out?” Blythe smiled. “Yeah, is that gonna be alright?” Trent smiled awkwardly, his ears flushing red. “Yes, let’s go out for drinks, okay? I wanna get wasted tomorrow night!” blurted Blythe Trent, nodding, smiling triumphantly as Blythe bolted the door. He was already planning the night.
Then something flashed over Trent’s mind, that black shit on his teeth… And the bruising.
Could it be…?
A soft hum began to rise, like machinery flickering to life. Trent turned to warn Blythe—
BANG!
His voice was muffled by a loud blast, which blinded him. He tried to run towards Blythe, but all he saw was a stream of blood heading his way. He was pushed behind by the sheer force of the impact, and he hit his head on the metal door and passed out.
That was the last of Blythe Smith.
