Read Wake Up Dead - an Undead Anthology for Free Online

the inhabitants in the neighbourhood were without their flaws. Mrs. Blanchford was a gossip who had her nose in everyone’s business. The Schusters were the negligent type who never sorted the compost or recycling out of their garbage and let their children run amuck. Skye could name a point of contention for everyone who lived in the near hereabouts, and she was sure that they all took issue with her as well.
    Muttering unhappy thoughts under her breath, she continued on her path to her car. She was the only one in a five block radius who owned a compact hybrid, and she had been forced to make several personal sacrifices because of the upfront costs involved. Of course, the majority of her neighbours owned minivans or SUVs – horrible wasteful gas-guzzlers. Skye never heard the end of complaints about the rising price of gas. Serves them right, she would think, for their destructive status-based indulgences.
    As she opened the car door, Skye glanced up at the sky overhead. Not a cloud in sight, and she was running low on sunscreen. She had light hair, pale blue eyes and the fair skin that burned and freckled easily to match. Summer was rapidly approaching, and she would have to protect that skin, or pay the price. It would mean a trip to the drugstore at some point during the day.
    She slid behind the steering wheel and dropped her woven-hemp purse on the passenger seat beside her. Before pulling out of her driveway, she turned on the radio to listen to the morning news. The announcer was in mid-story.
    “...This is the third body found in Capstick Park in as many months. Each are believed to have been stored elsewhere before dumping, because of their desiccated appearance. Forensic experts suggest that it must have been somewhere hot and dry to result in that level of dehydration. The current victim has been identified as Marguerite Crawley, known to her friends as ‘Mags’. Police have confirmed that she did have a record for solicitation, similar to the first two victims, and authorities are concerned that the city may have a serial killer to contend with...”
    That last statement in the news made Skye’s mind drift away from the sounds coming from the radio, as she happened to pass the Green Street Animal Clinic.
    “Now that,” she thought, “Is an example of a where you would find a serial killer.”
    The clinic was a twenty-four hour affair, the only veterinarian’s office in the city offering emergency services during off hours. That, Skye believed, was the only reason she did not lose it and torch the place. There was some real value presented by the clinic in that aspect and even she had been forced to rely on their night-time assistance for one of her pets in the past. Her main fracas with the facility, however, had nothing to do with their regular care and all to do with the murderous Dr. Taurian.
    Because there were often times with little activity during the middle of the night, the head vet on staff, a Dr. Odin Taurian, offered euthanasia free of charge to the city run shelter, a monstrous organization who slaughtered strays by the hundreds every year. Since they could avail themselves of his services on a regular basis, the city shelter had cut back on the wait period for the animals it housed. When Skye had originally started working at Strays to Stay, there was a six month amnesty period for animals at the public pound, partially because they lacked the funding required, the availability of someone qualified to euthanize the animals and a means of appropriately disposing the bodies. It meant that the animals were a little over-crowded and the large shelter was often in jeopardy of depleting its food stores for the creatures it housed, but at least they were alive.
    Enter Dr. Taurian into the picture, and suddenly the period of amnesty shrank from six months to four. Not only was he a capable professional who offered to do the dirty work for free, he agreed to dispose of the corpses in the clinic