"Davidson,.MaryJanice.-.Betsy.1.-.Undead.and.Unwed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Mary Janice)

My next memory was of opening my eyes to pure darkness. When I was a kid I read
a short story about a preacher who went to Hell, and when he got there he
discovered the dead didn't have eyelids, so they couldn?t close their eyes to
block out the horror. Right away I knew I wasn't in Hell, since I couldn't see a
thing.
I wriggled experimentally. I was in a small, closed space, which was an
intriguing combination of soft and hard. I was lying on something hard, but the
sides of my little cage were padded. If this was a hospital room, it was the
strangest one ever. And where was everybody? I wriggled some more, then had a
brainstorm and sat up. My head banged into something soft/hard, which gave way
when I shoved. Then I was sitting up, blinking in the gloom.
At first I thought I was in a large, industrial kitchen.
Then I realized I was sitting in a coffin. Which had been placed on a large,
stainless steel table. Which meant this wasn't a kitchen, this was?
I nearly broke something scrambling out. As it was, I moved too quickly and the
coffin and I tumbled off the table and onto the floor. I felt the shock in my
knees as I hit and didn't care; in a flash I was on my feet and running.
I burst through the doors and found myself in a large, wood-paneled entryway. It
was even gloomier in here; there were no windows that I could see, just rows and
rows of coat racks. At the far end of the entry was a tall, wild-eyed blonde
dressed in an absurd pink suit. She might have been pretty if she wasn't wearing
orange blusher and too much blue eye shadow. Her brownish-rose lipstick was all
wrong for her face, too. She was so shockingly pale, just about any makeup would
have been wrong for her.
She wobbled toward me on cheap shoes?Payless, buy one pair get the second at
half price?and I saw her hair was actually quite nice: shoulder-length, with a
cute flip at the ends and interesting streaky highlights.
Interesting Shade #23 Lush Golden Blonde highlights.
The woman in the awful suit was me. The woman in the cheap shoes was me!
I staggered closer to the mirror, wide-eyed. Yes, it was really me, and yes, I
looked this awful. Well, why wouldn't I? I was dead, wasn't I? That silly ass in
the Pontiac Aztek had killed me, hadn't he?
I was dead but too dumb to lie down. Dead and walking around inside the funeral
home in a cheap suit and fake leather shoes. The funeral must be tomorrow?later
today, I amended, looking at the clock. And my jerkweed of a stepmother must
have picked out this outfit for me. And?
I slipped one of the shoes off, looked at the inside. Property of Antonia O'Neil
Taylor.
The bitch meant to bury me wearing her cast-off shoes! This seemed more of an
injustice than being driven into a tree while my cat watched.
My cat! Who was going to look after the little monster? Jessica, probably, or
maybe my mother?yes, probably my mother.
My mother.
It occurred to me that I should seek out my grieving friends and family and tell
them I had no intentions of being buried. Then sanity returned. I was dead. I'd
been zombified or whatever, and needed to finish the job the guy in the Aztek
had started. Or maybe this was purgatory, a task set for me, something I had to
finish before God opened the gate.
I had the fleeting thought that the doctors in the ER had made a mistake, but
shook it off. I remembered, too well, the sound of my skull shattering. If it