Blair sighed as she switched on the light to the freezer, rubbing her aching neck. The bitter cold of December always made her joints lock up. She was young, but years of figure skating and martial arts and whatever other stupid shit she could come up with had taken its toll. In the dark, sat a black body bag, its lumpy form nearly indistinguishable from the darkness surrounding it.
"Hello. Who do we have here?" She unzipped the bag, revealing a young face, only about her age. Instantly, the 22 year old was on the defensive; Bodies never came to the mortician's assistant looking this good. The man looked like he was asleep, eyes and mouth already closed. This was a body that had been worked on previously. His pale skin was cold as ice. She considered calling Connor, her supervisor, but she was quickly reminded of the fact that it was five in the morning and he was likely still asleep. That's the only reason she was preparing the body instead of him. Blair instead inspected the gum line. There was no sign of a needle injector, nor suturing. She tested his elbow and it moved easily; He'd been dead three hours and rigor mortis hadn't set in yet. As she was once again running her gloved finger along the gum line for something she missed, his eyes snapped open. Blair screamed and flung herself backwards, colliding with an examination table.
"What the FUCK?!" He cried, before passing out. Blair caught him; he had a faint, thready pulse, he was alive. She quickly dialed 911 and, unfortunately, Connor got a call as well.
****
As the sun rose over Grand Rapids, in the Spectrum-Butterworth Hospital in the heart of the city, the man was identified as 23 year old Devon Thomas. He'd gotten in a bar fight and subsequently passed out in the snow. That's where paramedics found him and pronounced him dead in the snow. He was now in a medically induced coma, awaiting news on whether or not brain damage had taken place. Blair fumed into her Starbucks. Her dad had been a paramedic for well over forty years; She knew that 'they're not dead until they're warm and dead.' Then again, the medics that handled him did seem young. She did, however, silently congratulate herself on not starting the embalming process immediately. Heaven knows what would have happened then.
"Okay." Connor's voice came from somewhere far away. "WHAT happened, exactly?"
"Paramedics fucked up." Connor shot her a look of disdain. She smirked over her coffee.
"I gathered that much."
"Paramedics pulled him out of the snow about 3AM last night. Declared him DOA and shipped him right to us; he had the foresight to file an advance directive."
"And he just woke up on the table?" Connor tied his long, stringy brown hair back with a hair tie of the same color.
"Yep. When I opened the bag, his eyes and mouth were already closed. There was no evidence of a needle injector being used or any suturing. I was doing a second check when he woke up, yelled 'fuck', and passed out again. God, I knew some shit would go down today" Connor rubbed the bridge of his nose. Blair knew he was tired, a kind of tired sleep couldn't fix.
"How could you tell?"
"Full moon. Weird stuff always happens on the full moon." Connor sighed and stretched. His back cracked, the popping gas sounding a lot like Rice Krispies.
"Well, may as well head home. Take the morning off, come in after lunch. Let me know when he wakes up." He started to walk away.
"94 hours!" Blair called after him.
"Good! Then I'll get some fucking sleep!" He stalked away. Blair drove home not long afterwards. As she curled back up in bed, a thought defied her.
"Damn, he was cute though."