Excerpt: A Walk Amongst the Dead

Long fingers gripping the fake leather steering wheel cover, Mickey O’Flannagan, catches himself contemplating mummification. Mind enraptured with the wrought iron hooks the Egyptians used to pull the brain bit by bit through the nasal cavity as he pilots the big Cadillac through the rain drenched alleys to the location O’Bannion told him to rendevous with him and the boys. Why would they do that, he wonders and swerves slightly to avoid what might have been a cat or a large rat. Remove the brain, toss it away and all the other organs plucked from the body before putting them in jars. Sure, he could understand the concept of harvesting and preserving them for the afterlife, but the brain? The cerebrum and cerebellum, the hypothalamus and cerebral cortex, all of it was behind the eyes, the part that let you see the world, the mouth that nourished the flesh, the ears that heard the words of others and the nose that smelled poisons and spices alike. Mickey found it hard to believe that great ancient creators thought the spongy mass inhabiting the skull cavity was refuse to be flung aside for the disease infested rats.