People were more interesting when they were dead.

Spencer leaned over the

body of his latest subject: a recently-pregnant woman, three stab wounds to the
chest. Shed been poisoned, though. Even her body could tell him that much.
Dead people could tell him a great deal more than alive ones, without ever
needing to open their mouths granted, if live people let him cut them open,
then it might be a different story. For now, though, he set down his scalpel with
the satisfyingly familiar clang of scalpel-on-morgue-trolley and pushed off the
ground with one foot to wheel the chair round to his desk.
Suspicious circumstances, he would write on the file. Wounds delivered after
death. What Spencer meant was that shed been murdered, but that wasnt the
official language. Innocent until proven guilty, after all! Murder wasnt the right
code. He bet the woman wouldntve cared about the politically correct
terminology; she was dead.
Dead people 2, alive people 0.
It was a sunny afternoon, but the weather couldnt always reflect the overall tone
of your career when you worked as a mortician the streets wouldve flooded.
He checked the slim silver watch on his wrist and found it was only 12:53PM. If
hed had a boss who cared, he wouldve been told to go take a break.
Fortunately, his boss was the judicial arm of government, which meant the
majority of them were lawyers; he could work right on through till he wanted to
stop.
Spencer chewed on the end of his pen and rubbed at his brow, scanning the list
of names to get through. Jane Doe, John Doe, John Doe, Jane Doe. Not really their
names, but until it came to sending them off for cremation he didnt really care.
Maybe he would take a break. Spencer was a willowy sort of a man, with a mop
of perpetually ginger hair atop his head and little muscle to speak of. Evidently,
he did not eat very much, and what he did eat wasnt very good for him; the pale
skin and dark circles under his eyes were enough to speak for the amount of
coffee hed consume in one day. His psychologist theorised that he only boredom
ate this would normally have the opposite effect on a persons body mass
index, but Spencer was rather good at finding interesting things to do. He very
rarely got bored.
Besides, the woman ate. Shed eaten and look at those trace amounts of poison
still left in her system shed died as a result of it. Of course he didnt eat much.
Spencer was a mortician, not a thrill-seeker.
The double doors behind him swung open and banged against the wall, dramatic
as you please Spencer didnt even look up. Hed been expecting Carl in again
at some point, to tidy up; for the most part Wednesdays were lazy autopsy days
where he had the morgue to himself, but even the morons in the government
could pay enough attention to realise he needed someone to clean up after him.
Clean up on trolley 7, he called over his shoulder. The morgue was made
entirely of concrete, made for sterility rather than comfort who needed comfort
when they were dead? so his voice echoed around the room for a bit, and faded

into silence. Spencer waited for Carls exasperated quip about not being a shop
assistant. Spencer waited for Carls normal noisy way of walking to interrupt the
echo that still reverberated off the walls. Spencer waited for the tell-tale rattle of
Carls trolley to inform him that hed been right in his assumption.
Get in the freezer. Definitely not Carl.
A cool piece of metal pressed hard against his neck. Round, he realisedthe
barrel of a gun? It was positioned so he couldnt see it, or perhaps so he couldnt
see whoever-it-was that happened to be behind him. Spencer stiffened. Only
now did he realise that he ought to be afraid. Hed been too busy analysing. Who
walked that quietly? Why were they targeting him? Why the freezer?
Spencer waited for a beat, just a second, to figure out how he was going to
approach it. Okiedoke, he said, much more brightly than hed intended.
Apparently, he was going to approach it like a coward. He wanted to live.
Now that was something his psychologist was gonna have to hear about if he got
out of this alive.
Hands either side of his head, Spencer pushed himself from his seat with a sense
of calm he didnt know he was capable of. The freezer was big enough to house
several bodies, for several daysincluding his own. If it crossed his mind not to
go in, the sharp prod of the gun on his back kept him walking.
A dead person wouldntve tried to kill him, either.
What can I get for you, sir? Blood? Wifes body? Thosere popular nowadays,
wouldnt be a true armed burglar without a few bodies behind y
Shut up.
Not-Carl was not-impressed. The butt of the gun hit him before he really had a
chance to protest Spencer Lloyd hit the floor with a thud, and the door swung
shut behind him.

He was cold. Then again, his last memory was of being locked in a freezer, so
that probably made sense. Spencer came to gradually, rocked out of
unconsciousness by the familiar lurches and turns that came with riding in a car
where was he? His head throbbed, and somehow each breath he drew was just
a little too short, just a little not-there-enough. His eyes slid open. The muddy
brown eyes of the cars driver lingered on his face, staring into the rear-view
mirror, apparently adamant in the belief there was no need for watching the
road. Maybe he was being kidnapped? But there were no cords to tie him in
place; the doors were unlocked; the red vinyl of the seats only crime was
ugliness, not entrapment.
An ID card was pinned to the passenger seats sun visor; Spencer rode in the
back. He peered at it, vision still bleary. TAXI LICENSE, it said. A photo of the
driver sat next to it, offering that same crooked-tooth grin.
Spencer hated taxis. It was always guaranteed youd find a stranger in one, and
theyd try to make conversation. For a moment, he was tempted to simply close
his eyes again and try to fall back into whatever hed been in before he awoke,
but his conscious presence had seemingly been taken as an invitation Walking
on Sunshine blasted through the speakers. The driver winced, and reached over
to adjust the volume. He glanced at Spencer. Spencer stared back, not bothering
to hide it.
You all right, kid?
He was a twenty-seven-year-old man, which left the term kid riddled with
inaccuracies. Didnt matter. Its Spencer. Where am I? he answered the
question with one of his own, because if hed been all right he wouldntve been
unconscious in the backseat of a, frankly, unpleasant taxicab. Can you turn the
heater on? Its bloody freezing in here.
The driver laughed, and switched on the A/C. Youre a freezer, he said.
This was why Spencer liked dead people. They didnt say things that didnt make
any sense. He glanced blearily at his watch, and found it wasnt there hed
been redressed in what looked like robes, of plain black. What do you mean?
Youre in Off, mate.
Its Spencer.
I know.
Silence. Maybe he shouldnt bite. Wherever this taxi was taking him, it had to be
better than inside the taxi, so if he kept his mouth shut nothing could go wrong.
For a while this was precisely Spencers philosophy, and he kept himself
occupied by peering out the window closest to him. The weather was nothing. A
sort of in-betweeny, not-raining-not-sunny grey sort of thing youd get on an
overcast day, which was fine, except the streets were like that, too. And the
buildings. People must really have liked grey, here. The taxi driver seemed rather

content to let him explore his surroundings evidently, Spencer was not the first
person hed kidnapped.
Its an in-between place, Spencer said, eventually.
Youve got that right, Mr Lloyd. Its the In-Between place.
Fine. What dyou mean?
Off. Yknow how you lot say, you know, when you die you go On?
Was he dead?
This is Off.
Hed died, and was now experiencing an afterlife full of stupid plays on words.
Spencer closed his eyes and let his head thud back onto the seat. What a world.
There was a long period of time where neither of them said anything, which
Spencer appreciated the cab driver seemed the jovial sort, happy to chat about
just about anything, but now that the comfortable silence had fallen, he didnt
even seem perturbed. Perhaps most people offered this silence, perhaps he was
ordinary, as he considered this new revelation Spencer would have hated the
thought, had he not been busy pondering and re-evaluating his life, as a whole.
Hed been 27. Young and promising mortician; little rough around the edges,
sure, but what could you do? He was Spencer Lloyd, and for a while there hed
been the up and coming Sherlock Holmes of dead-people-dissecting.
There wasnt much use for a mortician in a world where nobody actually died.
(Hed definitely have to find a new hobby.)
Spencer didnt like the look of Off. He didnt like the look of the grey sky and the
grey streets and the grey everything, nor the way the taxi drivers gaze was only
on him. The car couldve been driving itself, for all he knew which made it odd
that the driver was here, at all. What was he, a counsellor?
Let me out. He had made up his mind. Spencer reached for the doorhandle;
unsurprisingly, it was locked. This did not do much to calm him. Let me out! He
couldnt stay here. How did people do this, how did anyone just go into Of like it
was the most natural thing in the world? Why had he taken the taxi drivers
words as fact, at all? Spencer rattled the handle, a little more urgently. He hated
it. The pity in the drivers eyes, the way he could see the heat radiating off the
leather in waves and he still wasnt warm, the stupid unopening door handle
the slow-rising panic that had been bubbling under the surface suddenly rose up
within him with a passion, and Spencer Lloyd found himself entirely unprepared.
CANT YOU HEAR ME? Spencer demanded, rounding on the driver; he looked
uncomfortable. Apologetic. He HATED it.
I SAID, LET ME OUT!
Thats not my call, mate.
THEN WHOSE IS IT?

Silence. He was fixed with a you-should-know-that sort of look, and suddenly

for the first time in several years Spencer felt extraordinarily small; young;
scared. He didnt understand anything. Hed chosen to work with dead people
because they were all the same, when you got down to it, when you cut them
open and their insides were identical and there were never any goddamn
emotions.
Red-faced, he collapsed back into his seat. His eyes were wet. The taxi driver
pretended not to see. Spencer hated him. He wasnt fragile, he wasnt afraid, he
was just just
Were almost there.
A change of subject. Spencer ran a hand through his hair and swallowed hard.
Where? Whatever dignity hed been trying to preserve had been lost, so he
might as well ask the right questions. He turned to look out the window a second
time a touch of colour was beginning to bleed into the landscape, reds and
blues and yellows. He caught a glimpse of another car, moving along at the rate
of a funeral march, headed in the opposite direction. The person in the back seat
was pale and unmoving. The driver looked nowhere but the road.
At least he wasnt headed back that way.
Im taking you home, said the taxi driver. Emergency accommodation for the
newbies. Its customary to open up your home to someone once you get on your
own two feet, so most of the time you lot will have a place to go. Youll be okay.
Youre with Kara, up in Partway Apartments. Karas practically a celebrity.
Spencer didnt like the sound of her, already. Back home, back in the real world,
hed had a place to stay; a morticians wage didnt cover any mansion, no, but
hed done quite well for himself. His kitchens light had never worked but he
hadnt had to share his apartment with anyone. Okay. The answer was suitably
detached. Spencer stared out the window.
They took the rest of the drive in silence.

Partway Apartments turned out to be a nondescript multistorey situated in the

very middle of the city. The taxi pulled up alongside it and the driver at last
spoke up, to inform him simply that theyd arrived. Spencer had taken to leaning
his head up against the window, eyes half-closed, body shivering he was tired.
He mustered the energy to peer outside, at the sunny day, and curse the fact he
was still freezing but then it was time to get out, and out he stepped. His way
home and way out