Morning Is Dead Read Online Free Page B

I’m stuck in this lunacy.”
    “Not lunacy. The law.”
    “Whatever. I need to get home to her. I would ask you to send an officer there but you all seem pretty incapacitated.”
    “We have a... good time.”
    “I need to go.”
    Alvin stood up to head for the door. A gunshot rang out and splintered the jamb to his right. His ears rang loudly. He turned back around to see Bitchhole trying to hold the gun. He probably could have just left but figured if Bitchhole tried to wing him he might end up shooting him in the head instead.
    “I’m afraid... you won’t be able to go for... long time.” He thunked the gun back down on the wooden desk. It discharged again and took out a window. “You need... processed.” He swiveled in his chair and pointed with an arm gone floppy and limp. “Go down that hall on... left.”
    Alvin crossed the room. The makeout couple on his left had now graduated to open sex. The cop had the woman’s skirt up around her waist, bending her over the desk. His hips moved slowly, buttocks pale under the harsh fluorescent station lights. “Need any help finding it?” he asked casually.
    “No. I think I can manage. You look busy anyway.”
    “Fuck yeah.”
    The woman moaned in ecstasy. They were probably on ecstasy.
    Alvin continued walking toward the barred back wall of the station. Three cells lined the wall. Two of them were occupied by what looked like a sleeping homeless guy and a very intense wiry man wearing a mint green outfit made from bath towels. Alvin started down the hallway. It was long and dark. There were no doors lining it. Like it was designed specifically to be a hallway and nothing more. At the end of the hall, pale yellow light bled from a partially cracked door.
    He felt a little nervous. He had no idea what to expect. He reached the door, put his hand on it, and took a deep breath.
    He pushed it open to reveal a withered, hunchbacked crone with wildly frizzy hair standing in the middle of the room. Her right hand, gnarled and heavy-looking, was roughly ten times the size of her left. A small camera hung suspended from the far right corner of the room. He couldn’t imagine this place being under surveillance and still running the way it did. Otherwise, the room was completely empty. Just gray walls and the gray tiled floor.
    “Come to be processed, eh?” the crone asked.
    “Yeah, I guess. I heard this was the place.”
    “It is. It is.”
    He continued to hover around the door, not wanting to venture further into this emptiness. Since the crone was the only other person in the room, he couldn’t help but think she would be vital to the processing process.
    “Come closer.” She beckoned with her normal hand.
    “I’m not sure how to do this.”
    “Just do what I say. Come closer now.”
    Cautiously, he crept toward her.
    “Closer,” she hissed.
    He moved closer.
    “ Closer .”
    Closer still.
    Once he was within arm’s length of her, she looked him up and down and, for a brief and horrifying moment, he thought he was going to have to have sex with this awful creature.
    “There there,” she said. “Now this won’t hurt a bit.”
    She hauled back her gigantic right hand and took a massive roundhouse slap at his face. Her hand tore into his cheek, the force knocking him across the room.
    He barked out in pain, collapsing onto his stomach and holding his left cheek. It was bleeding profusely. It felt like hamburger meat against his palm.
    Now the crone scampered over to him and he braced himself, thinking she was going to kick him or something. But she didn’t. She pulled out a slender rod about a foot in length from her skirt and ran it over his body. She turned to the camera in the corner and shouted, “He’s clear!”
    He curled into a fetal position.
    “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
    “My job is only to process.”
    “To process me for what?”
    “Deeper into the night. They always tell prisoners that before sending them in to me. I don’t