PROLOGUE

The Morgue was always busy this time of the year, the end of the holiday season seemed to bring out a special kind of chaos in the common populace—brawls, accidents, and worse. The festive season didn't make the smell of disinfectant any less stubborn, nor did it mask the smell of piss and waste clinging to the corpse lying on the table.

Olivia Cole stood over the body, staring at the bloated mass of flesh and fat in front of her with the same indifference she'd regard a road-kill deer with. 

The officers had done their best to get the body to the morgue before it got too ripe for the pathologist stuck working an autopsy on Christman Eve of all times. Considering that rigor mortis had set in and from one look at the tub of lard, she'd have diagnosed the man as 'Morbidly Obese,' the corpse was at least 3-4 hours in the oven... traffic maybe? 

And they hadn't even bothered to clean him up. Typical.

The morgue windows were cracked open, allowing the cold December air to stream into the room in a rather futile attempt to keep the smell down. Or, it might just be because the morgue's thermostat was set low to cut costs.

The Police department's budget had taken another hit, which meant that the morgue was first in line for the cut. No subsidy meant the dead house wasn't bringing in any dough for the clinic, ergo, they couldn't afford to run the cooling system at full power.

Anyway, no one cared enough to protest... except for the morgue staff.

A town police cruiser sat outside the window, parked next to a sleek black old-school bike. Inside, a woman, clearly a cop, sat cradling a paper cup of steaming hot coffee between her gloved hands, her breath fogging up the window. She'd rolled the windows shot... bad idea considering there was no ambulance outside. It would be too late by the time she realizes her uniform stinks of a dead, diabetic truck driver.

Her partner wasn't so lucky, or unlucky. He stood inside the morgue, next to the slab where his unfortunate passenger lay gaping into the lamp lights.

Officer Luke, judging by the name stitched onto his coat, wore a long leather jacket buttoned up to his chin, topped off with a leather fleece cap that covered both his ears. It made him look like a grandfather entertaining his grandchildren for Christmas, and judging by his age, he probably was.

"So, how did this dumbass die?"

He asked without wasting any time with greeting the Pathologist in charge,

"I was hoping you could tell me."

The woman has the name 'Cole' on the name tap strapped to the white lab coat. She looked no older than maybe thirty, tall and lean. The veins in her arms were visible, running like faint green circuits under her pale skin made ghostlier by the fluorescent light,

"My guess is he choked on something. Truckers eat all sorts of crap, that and poor chewing habits, fast eating, drugs, all that junk. But I don't think roadside diners have anything that'd blow a hole through his jaw."

The forensic table was no more than a quarter of a queen-sized bed, not like the dead were rolling off somewhere. If they did, it would be a whole new world of trouble.

Cole hoped to get the trucker sewed up before 2 in the morning, that way she could be on her way back home to have a drink and wake up with a hangover. She had opened a fresh pack of beers before the call came and was the only one who sounded sober enough to be hauled in.

Luke shifted uncomfortably, leaning against the examination table.

"They were having a bit of a party near Butch's place,"

He said casually, as if explosions and choke-induced death were common around this time of year.

"Something about a 'gunpowder barbeque.'"

Cole turned to give Luke the stink-eye for causing her more trouble. She already had enough on her plate without whatever the hell a 'Gunpower Barbeque' was supposed to be.

It was an old morgue, the only new item in the whole damn place was the mortuary cabinet, and that was secondhand from the state prison. God knows why there'd be a mortuary cabinet in a state prison. No heating, no couch, no TV, not even a coffee machine.

"You should be locking those idiots up instead of calling me out in the middle of the night."

Luke chuckled, glancing out the window as though he remembered something funny.

"Already did, this one busted his throat in the lockup. Painted Veronica in whatever was left of his face. Why do you think she's in the car instead of drooling all over you?"

Cole rolled her eyes, but something in Luke's joke caught her attention.

"How did he die?"

She asked again.

Luke fiddled with the radio on his waist,

"I thought finding that was your job?"

Cole paused, it wasn't. Forensics confirms hard evidence, not finds new evidence, so being a detective wasn't exactly her forte,

"You said he died in the lockup? How?"

Luke shrugged,

"Don't know. This guy was fine when we locked him up. Thirty minutes later, Judy calls me in, again. The guy just croaked in his cell, just like that. Then we dialed you, and a minute later he blew his cheeks all over Veronica."

Cole muttered angrily under her breath.

'Asshats! Can call her in on Christmas Eve but didn't even have the common sense to call in a detective or maybe a doctor.'

"You said they were using gunpowder to cook?"

Luke snorted,

"Nah, they were cooking with gunpowder."

"...isn't that the same thing?"

She turned back to the trucker's body, her nose scrunched.

"Who the hell uses gunpowder to cook barbeque?"

Luko didn't bother looking up from his radio.

"Eh, one of the local boys dared 'em. You wouldn't understand."

Cole felt the familiar urge to break someone's nose rising in her chest. With a resigned sigh, she grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and snapped them on. She might as well get this covered.

"What kind of gunpowder were they using?"

Luke groaned again, moving towards the door.

"Hell if I know! They had a bunch of stuff. Shotgun shells, powder bags, dynamite sticks, nitroglycerin—"

Olivia froze mid-motion, her eyes darting towards Luke.

"How the hell did a bunch of truck drivers get their hands on..."

BOOOOOOOM

The blast shook the morgue, knocking everything odd shelves and sending Cole flying across the room. The sound was deafening and her ears rang as she tried to process what had just happened.

She had been buried under one of the overturned examination tables, her lab coat soaked in crimson. Her head throbbed, and when she raised a trembling hand to her forehead, it came away slick with blood. A jagged shard of bone stuck out from her skull, and she could feel a warm, sticky sensation matting her hair.

Luke staggered to his feet, his coat singed and his face covered in concrete dust, coughing to clear his lungs of smoke.

"Cole!"

His voice was muffled, barely cutting through the high-pitched ringing in his ears,

"Where are hell are you!?"

The smell of burnt flesh filled his nose, making him gag as the smoke cleared. His vision swam, but he managed to make his way toward the collapsed metal slab. His boot hit something solid, and he looked down.

Cole lay still on the flood, face chalk white, blood pooling beneath her. Luke swore under his breath, his hand shaking as he reached down to check for a pulse.

Nothing.

"God damnit!"

Outside, Veronica scrambled out of the cruiser, a small fire extinguisher in her hands.

"Luke! Coke!"

Luke coughed, trying to keep his bearings as he stumbled out of the wreckage. 

A moment later, Veronica stumbled in, spraying foam on every spark that caught her eye. But her moments stopped as she saw Olivia's cracked skull, she turned pale and doubled over, retching violently.

Luke patted her back absentmindedly,

"East... east there, kid.."

But even his voice was shaking. 

The fire department arrived ten minutes later, dragging out what was left of the bodies and leaving the cleanup for tomorrow. It was a hellish scene—the mortuary drawer was busted and they had to remove half a dozen perfectly baked piles of pus.