“Dude, you gotta see this,” Pat said. “Fresh meat.”

I rolled my eyes. There were several ways of coping with being constantly surrounded by death and putrefaction, the perks of working in the morgue-slash-autopsy of the forensics department. Pat just had this way of calling me over for every new delivery, as I called them, with the excitement of a kid on its eighth birthday party piñata.

I had to cut him some slack, though, as he was the new guy and was still trying to get his stomach used to having to face dead people all the time, some of which ghastly butchered by unfortunate circumstances. The human body just never was designed for being hurled against a concrete wall at near-one hundred and fifty miles per hour or getting hit by a truck at full speed because noise-canceling headphones do a terrific job nowadays—and these were just two of the less unappetizing examples. Now, don't get me started on accidents with chainsaws, lawnmowers or gardening equipment in general. Those rarely made it here in one piece.

No matter the cause of death, they would all land on our dissection table for proper autopsy.

I, for my part, was doing fine with the idea that after death, the body just turns into an alternate kind of biology: food for various organisms, mostly. Our level of humor, albeit a special kind of morbidly tasteless, was a great help too. Also, just like in all trades, we were very fond of making fun of the newbies and had our array of pranks we pulled on them, usually involving perverse amounts of ground or diced meat or, alternatively, sausages and lots of a special mix of ketchup and barbecue sauce.

Now, Pat here was a particularly annoying type of newbie, going crazy over rating the bodies from a scale from one to ten in several attributes like goriness, prettiness, usability for a B-grade horror flick, and whatnot. In my book, dude was bonkers but then again, we were working at a morgue. It did take a special kind of borderline pathologic mindset to even consider this job.

“Come on, already. You have to see this,” he pressed on while I was internally counting to ten to keep myself from taking the bone saw and make it look like yet another gruesome accident.

I was already scoping out over which black bags containing dissected corpses I could distribute his body so no one would notice their change of weight should my annoyance come to a sudden outburst. When my gaze fell upon the new delivery, though, I had to admit I: had it not been for the nasty-looking infection that seemed to be spreading from a bite mark in her neck or for the hue of her skin that indicated near-complete lack of blood, she looked like a peacefully sleeping beauty waiting to be awakened by a kiss of true love from a knight in shining armor... or to be shagged until her eyes rolled up in the thrashes of her wildest orgasms.

What a waste, I thought to myself and sighed, bracing myself for Pat's impending comment.

“On a scale from one to ten,” Pat started, sporting his signature grin, causing me to put some serious reconsideration my earlier plans involving surgical equipment, “how fuckable is she and why eleven?”

Damn self-fulfilling prophecies!

"Dude," I sighed, "you're impossible. If you would just cut it out, pretty please."

"Come on, man," he kept pushing. "Don't you like it when they smell of formaldehyde? Kinda turns me on," he added with a dirty smirk.

“Pat!” I snarled. “Have you completely lost it? She's dead! You hear me? Dead!”

He stepped back and threw up his hands. “Dude, chill, it's a joke.”

I snuffled heavily before subbing him, “Yes, but I can't hear anyone laughing. Now get out of my eyesight before I report your professional misconduct to Dr. Campbell.”

“Aye, boss, won't happen again,” he meekly replied, a pissed off tone in his voice. Then, sheepishly, “What do you want me to do, then? Shift's still another three hours.”

“I don't care! Don't you have places to be? Go get a sixpack at the convenience store so we can share a cold one after work, or whatever. Put it on my tab,” I shot back, just wanting him to leave me alone—formally forbidden for a number of reasons but at this moment, I didn't give a rat's ass.

Little did I know that I was about to discover a whole new reason as to why working in a morgue alone was forbidden.

Once he had gone, after my stream of curses had come to an end, I put on a surgical mask and slid my hands into a pair of rubber gloves. I took the poor girl's chart to skim over it but not without noticing that Pat had been right. Were she not lying under this blueish, sterile light, bereft of her life, I would have taken my chances at luring her to bed.

I shook my head to remind me of my profession and the legal implications that came with it and guided my attention back to the medical chart.

Nothing especially striking—not for my line of work anyway, I thought as I read, Age: 26, Cause of death: likely blood loss, subject to investigation, send to autopsy; Time and date of death: blah blah and so on and so—

“Wait...” I mouthed as my eyes fell on a specific line: Caution advised. Suspected Rabies lyssavirus-type patient. Possibly highly contagious infection. Unidentified pathogen. Not airborne. Treat as biohazard level 3 or higher.

This was odd. The worst we usually got was HIV which was classified as level 2. The higher levels were usually quick-processed in the hospitals' quarantine wards.

I read the file again, more attentively this time. There were hand-written notes in the police report.

Suspect investigated for manslaughter. Claims self-defense. Suspect was bit by attacker. Claims it was necessary to bludgeon attacker to avert attack. Suspect turned highly aggressive. Suspect tried to bite officer. Officer knocked down suspect in self-defense. Suspect died soon thereafter. Cause of death subject to investigation.

“And during the entire interrogation, the blood kept pissing out of that wound and they wouldn't patch her up or what? Things don't add up here,” I said to myself. “So they're probably sending her over to prove she didn't die because the officer knocked her down or from non-assistance of a person in danger. Idiots!”

That explained why the body of the attacker hadn't been delivered with her. Still, where was that body, I wondered.

The phone rang, startling me to near-heart-attack.

“So a biter,” I chuckled while stepping to the wall-mounted landline. “Wouldn't mind if she bit me. Tsk, too bad I missed that heart-attack. Could have died in her arms.”

“Yo, dude, cashier's not gonna write it on your tab. Says anyone can say they write on someone else's tab,” came Pat's voice from the other end.

“Which one is it? The curvy black girl or the skinny blonde?” I asked back. “If it's the black girl tell her exactly this: 'Honey Bear hasn't forgotten about Sugar Curves.' She'll understand.”

“Wha—'Honey Bear'?” was all I heard him say before the cashier chimed in.

“Honey Bear, that you?” I heard her voice. “Tell Skinny Rice Krispie Boy Toy here he better not call me any sweet names. Got it on the tab but you better pay up by the end of the week or I'll show you Sugar Curves can just as well mean business, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am!” I saluted and hung up, but not without the appropriate gulp. When Sugar Curves said business, she damn well meant business.

“Back to little hungry girl here,” I muttered under my breath. “Too bad you're a stiff, darling. I bet you were terrific in bed when you were alive. You really were one bewitching minx. I would have loved to get some bite marks from you.”

For a moment, I thought I'd see some more color on the girl's skin. I took a closer look and—“Holy shit!” I exclaimed from being shocked to see her eyes open wide. I somehow expected to see her blink but she was dead, obviously. Why else would she end up on my dissection table with a body no warmer than room temperature—and no pulse?

“Damn those cops and their morbid sense of humor!” I cussed and realized I hadn't noticed her eyes being open before. Had I really paid so little attention? Those damn night shifts seemed to do a number on my eyes and memory but someone had to do them. Just another three hours but I needed to get my shit together.

I took the chart again and tried to extract more detail. No matter how many times I tried to read and re-read the indications, however, I was utterly unable to memorize anything. I was too focused on trying to remember how I hadn't noticed the dead girl's eyes not being closed.

Then it hit me: they had very well been closed alright! Hesitantly and with hands slightly shaking, I lowered the chart to look directly into the pale gray eyes of the girl. She was looking back at me.

“Holy crap!” I shouted and stepped to her. She was alive.

While her eyes were still not blinking, they followed me. I thought I heard a long, faint gasp emanate from her mouth but couldn't be entirely sure. Then, as I grabbed her arm to feel her pulse, I noticed she was still just as cold as when I had received her fresh and still had no pulse, yet her eyes were clearly scanning me. Not a single doubt about that.

I was petrified.

Strangely, what calmed me was the gentle, cold caress of her hand against mine. I heard her long, guttural gasp again. My gaze wandered to its source where I could see the faintest smile through blood-stained teeth. I couldn't help but smile back at the face of this innocent, heartbreaking beauty. I stepped closer to her, let my fingers trace her tummy, the curve of her waist. Her smile grew as I lowered my face to meet hers and planted a quick peck on those full lips that felt only marginally warmer than ice.

As I parted from her, I could feel her hand grab the hair on the back of my head and pull me into a kiss that marked a stark contrast to her actual body temperature. Despite the strange feeling, my natural instincts took over as I allowed her tantalizing tongue to snake into my mouth and wrestle with mine. I noticed a rather prominent taste of iron.

I supported my weight on one hand while the other looked for a way under her shirt, seeking to touch her soft, cold breasts that fit in my palm like a glove. She groaned in response. I felt her teeth graze my tongue, hesitantly trying to bite it. A gentle pinch of her nipple made her open her mouth again and release my tongue.

Her hand moved down my belly to my belt buckle which she clumsily tried to undo, still in the haze of her deep slumber. I helped her get my growing erection out of my pants. She grabbed my shaft with both hands and pumped it, pulling on it as if to urge me to step to her.

“Easy there, girl, I don't wanna get caught by Pat,” I giggled, although knowing I couldn't care fucking less.

With eager anticipation, I naturally followed her directions, looking forward to feeling her lips wrapping around my bulbous head that now was engorged with my blood filling it to near-bursting point.

I let out a gasp as I realized she not only sucked me but also gently sank her teeth into my flesh. Only very few men enjoy the sensation of teeth raking over their shaft and I certainly was one of them. In fact, it felt a lot like she was nibbling on my shaft, trying to get a good grip to properly bite me. This accompanied by her groans fueled my lust beyond my ability to rationalize why this was utterly wrong: me, a morgue employee enjoying some carnal pleasure on the dissection table—with one of my patients, so to say. Should Pat catch us, I wouldn't hear the end of it and would be facing several years behind bars branded as the corpse fucker. Well... YOLO!

All my professionalism cast aside, I moved in and out of her mouth and said, “You really are a biter, aren't you, girl? Yeah, bite my cock, you hungry slut.”

Her comments came in grunts and I thought I'd feel her hand gently cup my balls but soon was proved wrong when she squeezed them just that little bit more than necessary, nearly sending me over the edge then and there. This girl I had formerly pronounced dead knew what she was doing.

I slid my hand under the elastic waistband of her pants. Puzzled to find her as cold as the sterile room down there, I sought her crotch which, to my even greater astonishment, was drenched in her juices. Yet, in the state I was, I didn't let the state of utter confusion about this finding stand in my way of ravaging this cold, pale beauty.

Just as I retracted my cock from between her lips, she seemed to have found the right amount of control over her jaw to let her teeth fall on each other with a loud biting noise.

“Whoa there. Easy, girl,” I chuckled. “You can't just bite my dick off, girl, or you won't get any of this into your soaked pussy, yes?”

She slightly nodded in reply but I couldn't really tell if it was just a random bobbing of her head. She did seem slightly incapacitated after all, although her willingness to get her dripping-wet tunnel filled by my solid pole left no doubt about her intentions.

She practically jumped at me and wrapped her arms around my neck. With her legs still rather limb, she supported her weight partly on my chest, partly on her knees that slowly slid apart on the polished steel of the table. I held her close with one hand and helped her shimmy out of her pants with the other. Her awkward hip movements weren't a great help, just like her tentative nibbling on my neck and the hums of cool air against my ear, which turned me on to a point where I had only little control over my hands.

Once one of her legs was free, she seemed to have regained force in both of them, as she jumped from the table and wrapped them around my waist, thereby knocking to the floor any equipment that was in the way of her pants that were dangling from one leg. From alone, my cock found her entrance and slid into that ice-cold cave.

I was shocked at first but soon found it very appealing. “Damn, girl. No wonder you're so clumsy. I'd be too if I were that cold.”

For her size, she was surprisingly heavy. Even more challenging was the fact that she kept throwing her body against mine with every downward thrust of hers, nearly making me lose my balance. I had to step back until my back hit the wall for support while she kept thrashing around, jumping up and down my shaft, seeking to bite me, moans getting louder and more aggressive.

I turned around, pushed her against the wall and pile-drove my cock into her sheath until I felt my orgasm approach. I transported her back to the dissection table where I lay her on her back.

“Baby, can I come inside you?” I asked and got a grunt for an answer as well as two arms reaching for me, trying to grab the collar of my shirt to pull me into a kiss, just as primal as her fucking.

I gave her my last pumps until I lost all control over my cock and splashed her frozen womb full of my fiery semen. At the first spurt, she went limp, then arched her back at the second as her own climax emanated from her throat in guttural growls with every throb of my cock spilling my seed.

As I retracted from her, even before I could collapse on her in my exhaustion, she jumped me anew and I felt a stinging pain in my neck. She had sunk her teeth in my flesh and was trying to tear out a sizeable chunk of it. In my sudden panic, I tried to push her away despite knowing she had sealed my demise right then and there.

As my vision started getting blurred and my head got heavy from the sheer amount of blood that was oozing out of the wound, I understood what type of infection she had contracted and had now transmitted to me. The insight put a stupid grin on my face as my surroundings grew darker and my consciousness slowly faded. Yet, before I fell into the pitch-blackness of the eternal sleep, I thought I could hear Pat's voice screaming in panic, followed by the girl's undead moan, then a gargling noise as if Pat was using obnoxious amounts of mouthwash, except that he wasn't.

Then, darkness.

As I opened my eyes again, I was surprised to see her face hovering over mine. She was holding me, a warm smile over her stone-cold face while, in the corner of my eye, I could make out Pat's lifeless body still twitching. She had spared me but finished him off quickly—a tasty meal to share with her freshly converted lover.

Before we could feist on our meal, though, the main door flung open and in ran a squad of soldiers armed to their teeth.

Fools. They were going to need far greater calibers against a starving zombie who knew how to wield razor-sharp surgical steel and who was determined to protect his sweetheart.