Billy Hindle

And when I hear their footsteps across the carpet, feel their hands slide under my pillow to collect the little pearl, try not to giggle, and close my eyes shut the whole time, it reminds me that they're here.

The Second Body

Everyone thinks forensics is just dusting fingerprints and catching the criminal.

But more often than not, it's about reading.

Reading the story of a corpse.

The angle of a wound.

Was the gunshot homicide or self-inflicted?

The contusions on their head.

A slip and fall or a hammer to the head?

Obviously, some corpses have simpler stories to tell than others, especially when I'm only looking for the exposition.

The second corpse isn't as lucky as Mr. Goodkin's.

No wallet or other form of ID, but her face again feels familiar.

There aren't even fingers to go off, at least from what the first responders recovered.

A simple, mangled, shriveled, rotting corpse buried and suffocated and peeled out from under rubble.

I wonder if it left a shadow behind, like the nuclear outlines in Hiroshima, but stained of grease.

Sizzling, dripping grease.

I don't have to imagine the stink.

Maybe the corpse is lucky.

Lucky that they don't have to smell it, see it, feel it.

I jolt as the heavy steel door clanks open.