“Jesus,” I muttered. “Could we not spring for air-tight packaging? This is why people leave bad reviews, asshole.”
The man grunted at me, and his response was muted by the voices erupting and overlapping, like a gleeful, cruel scream.
“This is your fault.”
“You deserve a tarp like this.”
“Everything ends like this.”
“Die, fag!”
“Wow,” I said, in a deadpanned tone. “Group effort tonight? Cute. Real cute.”
I opened the bag another inch, still not looking inside. My heart wasn’t racing. That was the thing people never understood. Panic implied surprise. I didn’t do surprises. I did commentary, like internal narration, that was or wasn’t under my control.
“We are in control!”
“Alright,” I told the demons, smashing my head hard enough to see the world blur for a minute. “You’ve made your point. Horrible, noted, gold star. Now, shut up while I finish the unboxing of granny’s gift from hell.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the guy who brought it, then back at the bag.
“Will your grave be so smelly?”
I smirked. “Bet. I’ll eat tuna for a week.”
“What will Randall’s look like?”
The smirk on my face vanished, and I ground my teeth so hard I heard the crack shut the demons up.
The guy leaned back, arms crossed, staring like I’d grown a second head. “Uh…you talkin’ to yourself, dude?”
I didn’t even glance at him. Maybe he wasn’t even real. “Yeah. Don’t worry, it’s a full-cast production. Ticket sales aren’t great, but the critics will love it.”
He frowned. “Seriously. You…you’re nuts.”
I was used to that.
I shrugged, one hand on the duffel. “Depends who you ask. Some of them are dead. Some are imaginary, and some are nosey men who goad a stranger, unzipping a very dead body.”
“Don’t get cocky,” the demons hissed.
“Shut up, Geoff,” I muttered, not stopping. The bag was almost unzipped. “Later, we’re doing interpretive dance, wanna join?”
The guy blinked. “Right…uh…the parcel. You gonna open it or?—”
I smirked, tugging the zipper fast, making it rip off.
“Happy?” I said, chucking the broken metal at the man.
He just shook his head, muttering something about ‘crazy people’ and stepped back, catching the zipper.
I grinned at my audience. “See, guys? Everyone’s a critic.”
I gave the zipper one last tug. The smell hit me full force. That sweet, sickly cold that I could taste on my tongue. My stomach didn’t flip. I snorted. “Well, you’ve got presentation issues, but she certainly doesn’t have an issue.”
Fuck.
Randall’s mother just lay there like she’d taken one long nap and just…never woke up was a horrible joke. The damn scene made my mouth dry, and my demons? They were losing their tiny little minds.
