“I’m trying, sorry.” Piper apologized. “You know, I always see these papers in crime shows but I didn’t think they were real.” She looked over the paper on her clipboard. It showed a blank figure of a body with its arms spread. This was the Initial Condition Assessment, otherwise known as an ICA. This is where she would record any markings, injuries, or other physical traits about a body she’d removed. She learned that on her first day and didn’t let Larry hear the end of it either. 

“Yeah, there’s a lot of shit they don’t tell you about the funeral industry.” Nichols commented, holding a tape measure to the dead man’s slimy arms. 

“Elbow width is twenty one inches.” 

Piper jotted it down. 

“Height is five foot ten, livor mortis and decomposition on the entirety of the body. Make sure you check the box that says odor, too.” 

“Definitely the box that says odor.” Lorna commented. Nichols chuckled at that. 

“Rigor mortis in the arms and legs. That’s about it. Let’s get him in the cooler.” 

Piper quickly wrote down what Nichols had communicated and zipped the body bag closed again. She rolled the cot across the prep room to the large steel door in the wall. Nichols opened it and Piper rolled the cot into the cooler, carefully steering as not to hit the few other bodies currently residing inside of it. 

She pushed the cot into an available spot and turned to leave, accidentally bumping into another cot and knocking the clipboard containing paperwork off of it. 

“Shit.” She bent over to collect the papers when the cooler door slammed shut. 

Piper stood straight up and briskly walked to the door, setting her hand onto the cold door knob. She pushed it. It wouldn’t budge. 

“No.” She gasped. “No no no.” She pushed it with both hands to no avail. Piper turned her back to the door and tried to push on it with her feet planted onto the tile flooring. She hadn’t realized the body bag that held the decomposed man had leaked onto the cooler floor, causing her feet to slip out from under her, sending her to the floor. Piper landed on her back, feeling cold moisture seep through her black blouse onto her back. She gagged and sat up, looking at her surroundings. Half a dozen cots with bodies on them. Bodies covered in white sheets with their feet sticking out at the ends. The coolant fans in the ceiling made the sheets ripple over the faces of the bodies, giving the illusion that they were breathing. Piper’s chest began to tighten.