Threnody (007).

(This is a 300-word-a-day novel project.)

She blew air out slowly through her lips; she’d seen dead bodies before. She’d covered a house fire once and seen the students carried out so they could be pronounced at the hospital – had been there when a Korean girl ran out of the house, hair gloriously ablaze before they were able to tackle her and put out her flames. Jesse had been at two car accidents and a drowning as well, and each time found that it wasn’t really that bad, not if you didn’t allow yourself to feel.

She started to take a step forward, about to dip her foot into the water to get a closer look, when the man turned his head to look at her.

Hi, he said.

Jesse screamed and jumped back, tripping over a large tree root and falling back on the sand. The man leaned casually out of his broken window, grinning at her. Half of his face was missing, the teeth and jawbone and eye socket all bare and visible, the skin torn away. The other half was withered mummy-skin, with the eye a milky cataract that focused on her.

I was making a delivery, he said. Some kid jumped me. Can you believe that?

Jesse was so completely gripped with fear and disgust that she didn’t register that he was opening the door until he was halfway out of his cab; the flannel on his right shoulder was stained with maroon, the fabric dried hard and inflexible there.

Bastard shot me. His speech was lisping, reminding Jesse crazily of the time she had a root canal. He stepped forward and fell face down into the water, and Jesse begged God to please carry this monstrosity off, but he stood, teetering against the force of the water, dripping. Whoops, he said.