Crave by Karen E. Taylor

corner of his eye, then looked over at me. I could almost tell what he was thinking: Mitch might be the judge, the one to pass sentence, but I was the jury. So he presented his case to me, completely ignoring Mitch. “You were right, you know.”
    â€œI? What was I right about, Larry?”
    He gave a sigh. “That this life is not a gift, but a curse. That no one in their right mind would seek out this life.” He shifted a bit uneasily on the sofa. “But then again, I was not completely sane at that time. I am now, you have to believe that, Deirdre.”
    I said nothing, but nodded. He certainly spoke with clarity, and his voice seemed calm, untroubled. But the glint of his eyes worried me. I could feel Mitch’s body tense, heard ice clink as he took a drink, saw his stare fasten on Larry over the rim of his glass. “Go on, Larry,” I urged softly.
    â€œLooking back on it all, I think the worst part was waking up in the morgue.” He drained his wine and looked down at the glass in confusion, as if wondering what it was doing in his hand. Then he shuddered and paused for a bit. When he finally continued, his voice was low and shaky. “Or maybe that was just the start of the nightmare . . . I probably don’t need to tell you, Deirdre,” and he began rolling the wineglass back and forth in his hands, “about the utter confusion of the senses I experienced when I woke up. The entire world I thought I’d known had changed: the sights, the smells, even the textures were all different—they were sharp and hurt me, physically. It was like I was a baby, who’d fought his way from the womb and burst screaming into his new environment. But not a baby, because I was born fully aware and functional. I knew instantly where I was and what I’d become. There was the coolness of the slab beneath my cold skin, the coarse weave of the sheet thrown over my body, the odors of death and disinfectant all around.”
    I grew increasingly fascinated with his account, his voice was emotionless, almost a drone now, and he was still rolling the bowl of the wineglass over and over between his palms.
    â€œWhen I sat up, the sheet fell from my face. The bodies around me stunk of decay, and the lights stung my eyes. I glanced down at my chest and saw only a fading scar from where Mitch’s bullet had exited. There was no sign of my skin having been cut open, so I assumed they had not gotten around to my autopsy yet.” Larry stopped for a minute, looked away from his hands and into my eyes. “Would that have killed me, do you think?”
    I answered him truthfully, “I have no idea.”
    Mitch’s response was a short grunt, then he got up from the chair and refilled his glass at the bar. He lifted the bottle of wine and raised an eyebrow to me, but I shook my head. I did not want anything to break Larry’s concentration.
    I shouldn’t have worried, he was too submersed in his past to let himself be distracted. The words flowed from him as if breaking down a dam. And perhaps they were; I remembered the utter loneliness of my earlier days. It would have been a joy and a release to have others of my kind to talk to.
    â€œWell,” Larry gave a small, mirthless grin, “I sure as hell didn’t stay around long enough to find out. I found an extra set of lab whites in one of the open lockers, dressed myself and just walked out.” His grin turned into a choked, almost furtive laugh. “I wondered how they’d explain the missing body. But, hell, from the looks of the place, they had so many of them and I figured that one less probably wouldn’t be noticed for a long time. And they certainly wouldn’t expect the corpse to be walking around.”
    Mitch settled back into his chair. “It was chalked up to paperwork error,” he said curtly, “happens all the time.”
    â€œOh, that’s good then. No APB out on