The Terrors of Terri – Part 1

Things are not always as they seem, especially since Terri began working at the morgue. Karl claimed he only hired her to be in charge of unloading the pallets of dead bodies because he had a religious exemption from being around dead things. Which isn’t quite fitting considering the whole place is built around death… But don’t tell him I said that. Who am I? I’m not sure myself, but some call me Punk. Others call me Drama King. So, say nothing of the matter.

Terri came aboard the death team with the insight she was going to follow the steps of Tyrone and earn his title, his position, which was truly never his position. Back before Tyrone’s time, Arlo was in charge of distributing the contents of the dead pallets to their rightful places in the cooler. But before Arlo’s time, no such title even existed. Karl and his previous assistant, Zoe, created the inventory name to reward Arlo for his hard labor, and there was hardly ever a fault to find with him except he spoke too quietly.

But now for the terrors of Terri. What makes her so scary? Why is everyone anxious when she’s around and in a bad mood?

“She’s like the spawn of Satan himself when you’ve upset her,” Candice pointed out.

“She does already take anxiety medicines, but I don’t think those help her anymore. It’s like they just morph into her body because she’s just so used to them,” Haslia commented.

In the morning, Terri always came in with her novel chef’s knife, sharp as glass, fresh from its manufacturer’s box with foreign hieroglyphs on it. Every day, she’d grab cucumbers and green peppers, dice ’em up, staring blankly like a model skeleton at the restroom door in front of her as she sharpened her blade against the ceramic rod, screeching with every pass. In her ears were two buds, each one blasting heavy metal that could be heard from the office with every CLASH and scream from the band who had fallen victim to her interest.

SLICE.

SLICE.

All anyone could do was watch as the cucumber was repeatedly beheaded, each severed head rolling its way toward the edge, preparing to fall off like a daring paraglider with nothing better to do. As the slices fell over and capsized onto the cutting board, it was as if they were saying, “Run. Run from this maniac. You see calm but know otherwise? Run!“

Vegetables truly have a way with words, but so does Terri. With every passing chance, she’d say something like, “Candice is an imbecile. I hate working with her ugly face. All she does is nag, nag, nag and doesn’t do any of her own work,” under her breath and as she approaches any living soul, she gets louder and Louder and LOUDER just so her company can hear the heresies.

Candice would counter, “I’m just doing my job as the supervisor, and she’s just hanging out in the back instead of helping patients, and she’s the one getting upset because I’ve taken the liberty of requesting her presence out here, not stowing away bodies or burning bodies but helping live ones.”

“I didn’t know that Karl likes to be around dead bodies,” Jones said. “I thought for sure he was afraid of them, and so he is always hiding in the office…”

Arlo knew Terri was no good for the job anyway. All Mr. Karl had asked her to do was rearrange some chemicals on the shelves because they were as confusing as two blind people leading each other by the hand. Toward where? Toward a tree. She… flipped out. Every breath was a mutter against Karl and how Tyrone arranged the chemicals in this way, yet Terri was the one being targeted. But Arlo again knew that if Tyrone had arranged the chemicals in that baffling matter, someone was lying somewhere, and by knowledge of everything Arlo knew, even though he didn’t particularly have an inclination toward Tyrone, the guy wasn’t a liar, but things could have always changed.

When Tyrone wasn’t around, who was putting away chemicals? Arlo was, and he knew the right way to do things – old things in front, new in the back. Just as anything else would be organized with an expiration date. But Terri’s theory was just the opposite and far mysterious to anyone who heard it. So did Tyrone undo all of Arlo’s work and arrange new-to-old, or was Terri just trying to get out of work?

It didn’t matter. Terri spoke volumes of lethal misdemeanors about every soul in the morgue, everyone afraid she would lash out knowing her instability.

But this, this is only the beginning of what we at the morgue have dealt with. Death is like a field of radiant roses next to the Tetchy Terri.