The Wellington City Morgue was not the best place to work, but for Lisa it was either assistant of the coroner or stay with her drunk uncle back at their farm. She was bored to death, no one had died in the last two weeks so she had nothing to do except sit on a computer and browse through social media. After wasting some time, she yawned, leaned back and thought of sleeping, but it was only 7 in the evening.
"Imma go see the girls at the hostel and have some fun for the night" she said, and immediately began texting someone.
Moments later, Lisa eyed Mr. Lee's office from the window, he was sleeping, 'Perfect!' she thought, now she could sneak and get out of the morgue. As she was leaving a voice caught her attention.
"Where do you think you're going young lady?"
"Mr. Lee, I was just gonna get us some coffee" Lisa replied.
Lee wasn't amused, he knew going to get coffee always lasted hours, and she never returned with coffee either.
"You know the drill, anything you girls will be having is good" he said as he leaned back and closed his eyes.
"Sure thing sir" Lisa said and left.
·
Later at the hostel, the girls, Ada and Maya, opened the door and welcomed her. Lisa passed the two bottles of cheap whiskey she bought on the way.
"So, when is the opening?" Lisa asked excitedly.
"Midnight at 12, you coming with us or do you have someone already?" Maya replied as she took the bottles and handed it to Ada.
Lisa threw herself at the furniture, took a deep breath and said "I don't have a date, so I guess with you two"
Ada came back with poured glasses, offered one for each of her friends and "Cheers!" all at once, "I can find you a date, there is this new cute boy in our campus, Jared, he recently dumped his
girlfriend for making fun of his crazy sister Jane" Ada said.
"Jane the insane?" Maya said while making a funny face and 'retard' gesture. "Once she pushed me so hard I almost fell, and I wasn't even doing anything"
Ada stared at her with a blank face, then continued "Yes that one, Jared is the brother, and he is single"
"But I don't think he will have time for a relationship, he is always too busy taking care of his sister. So let me think of someone else" Maya said as she took a sip of the whiskey.
"What's wrong with his sister?" Lisa asked.
"You see, Jane was being bullied so much all the time everywhere that Jared had to transfer to our college, he goes everywhere she goes so that no one would hurt his little sister anymore " Ada replied.
Maya continued "This is going on for almost three months now, he ties her shoes, covers her in crowded places and probably reads her bedtime stories at night"
"Was she always like this?" Lisa asked.
"Some say that she was a loner, parents never visited, brother in another campus, not a lot of friends either, but no she wasn't like this. This is after the accident" Ada explained.
"Hey, why are we talking about her? Let's head out and find ourselves some fake dates. The club is opening in 3 hours and boys don't grow on trees" Maya told them.
·
Lisa and her friends were waiting in line for the night club to open, all with their fake boyfriends since there was a discount for the couple's entry. Music was loud and the girls were excited, but Lisa couldn't stop thinking about Jane. 'How can a car accident leave someone psychologically paralyzed?' she thought. Ada was right in front of her, and her curiosity overcame her.
"Hey Ada, so about that girl Jane, did she have many head injuries after that car accident you mentioned? I mean the injuries and broken bones must've been pretty bad to put her in a situation like that, right?" she asked.
"Car accident? When did I say that? Jane was raped one night at campus. The attackers beat the shit out of her after that too, then left her there until the janitor found her in the morning with multiple fractured bones" Ada replied.
"Oh my God! That's horrible. Did they find the attackers?" Lisa asked again.
"Yeah four of them were jailed, the rest were never identified. It's super sad what happened to her. After weeks of coma, she woke up but couldn't speak. They transferred her to our college immediately. Nowadays she stutters and mostly writes stuff..." Ada was explaining when the bouncer interrupted.
A while later they had entered the club when Lisa got a phone call, it was Mr. Lee. 'He is waiting for that whiskey I bet, let him wait' she thought, and let the phone ring. When the phone rang again, Lisa felt agitated. She never wanted it to be work because work meant someone had died, and that wasn't a happy thought.
"I hope it is not what I think it is" she told herself and picked up the phone.
"Lisa, come to the morgue, there has been a suicide" Lee told her right away.
Lisa's heart started racing, 'a tragic event' she thought.
"Yeah, sure. I am on my way. May I ask who it is?" she asked curiously.
"A young female, college student, blond hair, fair skin, medium height. Subject has shot herself in the head. Name's Jane Montgomery" he replied.
Lisa was in shock, "Oh no, was she suffering from anything psychologically?" she asked to make sure it was who she thought it was.
"Wait, let me see... Yes, multiple conditions. Hey do you know this girl? If so then my condolences" Lee said.
"Not personally, but she goes to my friend's college. Well, used to. Anyways, I am coming there" Lisa said with a sad tone, ended the call and left.
·
Lisa arrived at the morgue, changed to her lab clothes and went straight down to the Autopsy room. There she was, Jane Montgomery, lying dead on the table, brain’s been blasted out. Lee had already done some cleaning on her, but Lisa could still see inside of her head. She put on her gloves and went to examine the victim.
"Skull's been damaged pretty badly. A few bruises at right arm, maybe she fell or hit something bare-handed? Except for those, not a single scratch" she told herself, feeling sympathy and continued.
"Wow, what a waste of a good body, but I guess physical pain is not why you did this right? I can never understand what you went through, all that bullying, all that pain, everything you thought about was to end it and here you are, finally at peace"
She examined the bullet wound for a moment and continued "Honestly, when I heard about you I kinda felt your loneliness, and wanted to be there for you. But then I guess, what you went through, there is not much recovery from it. Rest in peace Jane" At this point, Lisa could feel her eyes watering a bit.
"Huh, never thought I would shed a tear for someone I never knew" she told herself sarcastically, and two people entered the room.
"Miss Noir, were you talking to yourself?" Lee asked.
"It was nothing important sir" she replied.
"I want you to meet detective Mathews, he's been charged with following the case of our subject..."
"Her name's Jane, sir. Jane Montgomery" Lisa interrupted.
"I am aware of that," Lee said and gave a confusing look.
"Miss Noir, Nathan Mathews, good to meet you" the tall guy in a black suit told Lisa.
He continued "As you're aware, Miss Montgomery was subject to bullying, cyber bullying, sexual harassment and assault. We have already identified the weapon she used to end her life, the bullet matches the gun and her fingerprints are all over. So we are confident this is a case of suicide" Detective Mathews explained.
"Okay, is there anything I can do besides be the coroner's assistant here in the lab?" Lisa asked.
"If you have noticed there are bruises on the victim's right arm, there is a small chance she was forced to pull the trigger. See if you can find that out for me. Also, Mr. Lee told me you have some friends at Huffington college where Miss Jane went, see if you can discover anything related to this, discreetly" Mathews told her.
"Okay, alright, I will look it up," she said.
"Great, keep me posted," he said.
"Of course detective, we will start the autopsy right now" Lee said, as the detective went out.
·
A while later at the lab, Lisa and Lee were done with an external autopsy. This time they had done a thorough one for the detective, to see if there was any sign of external forces on Jane's death, there was none. It was a clear suicide. The question was that she had three months to do so after checking out of hospital, why now?
"So, if there is nothing else, we should wrap this up and call the detective early in the morning," Lee said.
"Yeah, sure. Let me just clean stuff up then I am ready to sleep like a baby" Lisa told him.
She picked up a piece of cloth and began wiping the tables and mopped the floor of the blood dropped from Jane's skull. Then she went to turn off the machines and lights.
As she was leaving she heard a thump. Lisa switched the lights back on and looked at the room, there was nothing, then her eyes caught the blood that was pouring out of the lying body's head.
"Didn't I just clean this?" she felt frustrated. She came back, wiped the blood, went to turn off the lights and looked back to see blood coming out of the bullet hole again. She gasped, 'I am gonna put a piece of cotton in there this time' she thought.
As she stepped forward, Jane's right arm moved slightly up and hit the metal table and Lisa heard the familiar 'thump' sound. Her heart suddenly began to pound so fast she could feel it in her neck.
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit" ... she said as she ran back and glued herself to the wall. 'What the fuck is happening, am I gonna witness a zombie now?' she thought. Lisa gave herself a few seconds break, her brain started functioning again.
'What do I do, what do I do? I should go to Lee. No, I should first make sure it's not an irregular accident, yes I should check her pulse, her pulse' she thought and slowly stepped forward.
With each step fear surrounded Lisa, her eyes were locked up to Jane's arm to see if it would move again, but also to her eyes, she could open them any moment now in Lisa's terrified mind. 'What am I doing? Trying to check a person's pulse who's been dead for over five hours. Did I drink too much?' she thought.
"Alright, just once" she said and proceeded to check the pulse. First 5 seconds there was nothing but then it started to happen, one pulse, two pulse, three pulse. Lisa couldn't believe what was happening. Her eyes widened and heart raced again.
She thought of leaving the arm and running to Mr. Lee, but in a second Jane Montgomery opened her eyes and was sitting straight on the autopsy table. Lisa screamed and screamed louder, she thought her heart might stop and she would faint any second now, but she heard Mr. Lee coming down the stairs with heavy steps.
"Lisa what the hell is going on" ... he tried to say but saw the dead body that turned its neck looking back at him. He had a blank face. He noticed little droplets of blood pouring out of Jane's holed skull, he fainted right then and there. Lisa wanted to help him but wasn't able to move a muscle.
"Wha, what, what, how, is, this, possible" Lisa stuttered with fear and shock. Jane was alive again, with a bullet hole in her head, had lost almost all of her frontal lobe and also naked. Jane stepped down of the table and stared Lisa down from head to toe and back, looked her in the eye told her:
"I need clothes"
