“I take it that’s worse than a regular death?”

“Looking at it’s not that bad, but the smell…” Ken shook his head. “When you pop someone open with colon cancer, that’s a smell you won’t forget.”

“This is really appetizing. Are we going to order some hors d’oeuvres?”

Ken grinned. “Sure. Liver pâté?”

“That’s truly disgusting.”

“You’re a wussboy.”

“And you’re a senseless psycho who’s completely inured to blood and guts.”

Ken shrugged. “You get used to it. I mean, before AIDS, we used to buy our lunch at McDonald’s and put the sacks on top of the open bodies and eat. Sometimes, if people came to visit, we’d intentionally gross them out and play catch with, like, a spleen. You know, just to freak them.” He laughed. “But now everyone’s pretty careful. AIDS and O.J., man. They’ve really put a damper on the body biz. Things just aren’t as fun anymore.”

Carlene arrived with Ken’s beer, and Stormy asked for another for himself.

“I’m telling you,” Ken said. “You oughta put shit like that in a movie. Show ‘em what it’s like in a real coroner’s office. People’d love it.”

“I don’t make movies, I distribute them. And aside from the Faces of Death crowd, I don’t think there’s a big market for stuff like that. There aren’t as many weirdos in the world as you might think there are.”

“Speaking of weird, I was talking to Tom Utchaca yesterday about what’s happening out by the reservation.”

“What is happening out by the reservation?”

“A lot of strange shit’s been going down.”

Stormy leaned forward. This was getting interesting.

“You know Tom, right? He’s not stupid and he’s not superstitious.” Ken lowered his voice. “He says his father’s come back to the reservation.”

“I thought his father was dead.”

“He is.”

Stormy blinked, started to say something, closed his mouth.

“Said he saw him in back of his parents’ old place. The house is abandoned, I guess, and he was driving by on his way somewhere and saw his father standing there in the empty field. He stopped the car because he wanted to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, and his father smiled and waved at him and started walking over.

“Tom took off.

“And he’s not the only one. A lot of the people say their dead are coming back. Tom doesn’t know what the hell to think, but he said the word going around the reservation is that the netherworld is full, that there’s no more room for the dead and some of them are leaking out, coming back into our world.”

Against his will, Stormy felt a slight tingle pass down his spine. “Are these supposed to be ghosts or actual resurrected bodies?”