by A. L. Mengel
Ned stepped back, and Pat looked up from his clipboard. Pat looked over at Ned and raised his eyebrows.
“A little more than you were expecting?” Pat asked.
Ned shook his head. “No, no.” He looked up at Pat, directly in his eye. “You know how many of these AIDS queens come through here? Please. Just another day at the office.”
But these days at the office were what Ned had signed up for. He remembered when he was sitting in the front office at Heavenly Slumber, just upstairs, several years ago, interviewing for the role that he was now in.
“I demystify death,” he had said to a grey-haired stoic man sitting behind an expansive mahogany desk. The man’s face twisted a bit. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Ned shifted in his seat, tapped on his shiny loafers for a minute. He bit his lip as the man sat back in his chair with a creak.
“So many people are afraid of death,” Ned said, leaning forward. “I am here to make things a little easier for them.”
The man nodded, breathed in through his nose, and picked up Ned’s resume again, and read it for several minutes until Ned finally broke the silence. “There are a lot of people who fear death. And fear taking care of their dead. That’s where I come in.”
The grey haired man raised his eyebrows and looked at Ned. “It also says here you have a degree in Theology. And you went to school in Cincinnati.”
Ned sat back. “Yes. I do. And I did.”
“So you know a bit about embalming. So how are you going to do what you say, Mr. McCracken? Make things easier? Could you elaborate for me a little?” The old man straightened his glasses and leaned forward over his desk, and looked Ned right in the eye, waiting for an answer.
Ned fidgeted. He had rehearsed what he was going to say in the mirror the night before, dozens of times. He had said what he meant to say today, and he thought he had nailed it. And then his mind just went blank. And then he scanned the room.
He looked at the shelves to the left, with volumes of books on Theology.
And then he sat back, and very discreetly let out his breath. “People should not fear the dead. The dead won’t hurt them. They won’t jump out of their skin and leap off of the table and run at them with a butcher knife. It’s the living they need to fear. The living are capable of evil. The dead…do nothing. They aren’t capable of anything.”
The grey-haired man sat back in his chair and tilted his head to the side, as Ned continued.
“If I can do everything I can to make it seem like their loved one is just…sleeping…then I believe that it will help them. If they can see death is not a bad thing, that death is beautiful, then I feel I will have done my job.”
But days were now different as Stephen lay beneath him.
Ned reached to press the button to mix the embalming solution, and inside a large glass cylinder, a pink cloud started to move and billow, like the beginnings of a thunderstorm. It started to mix with a yellowish liquid, and a pink fluid was formed.
Ned closed his eyes as Pat looked on. “Pat. Are you ready?”
Pat nodded.
“Okay then,” Ned said, changing his surgical gloves. “Then I need you to pay close attention to this part. The solution is mixing. See it over there?”
Pat saw that the embalming fluid was clear and pink. “Yes, I see.”
“Good then.” Ned bent over Stephen’s body and reached for the neck, taking his index and middle fingers and placing them on the neck on the side underneath the jawbone. “We are trying to locate the carotid artery. Can you hand me the scalpel?”
Ned cut a small incision and reached in with his free hand. “There. Look down. Do you see? Hand me the trocar.”
Ned found the artery and started the embalming by pressing the button on the machine to transfer the liquids. The pink solution gradually drained from the cylinder, and Stephen’s blood drained out of his body, slowly, mixing with water on the stainless steel preparation table, which looked more like something from a foodservice operation than a funeral home, but it served the purpose. Small hoses irrigated underneath the body, and the blood was diluted and drained from the corner, deep and far away.
Ned waited as Pat retreated to smoke a cigarette.
Now the days at the office were something that Ned had been trying to put out of his mind lately. He had wanted to come aboard so bad, he tried so hard at his interview, but now he knew that he didn’t have it in him anymore.
It became all too clinical.
He had been a Mortician for over a decade, and, despite his raw talent at preparing the dead for viewing, he just didn’t think that he had it “in him” to deal with all of the rest. The funerals were the worst. There were so many tears.
Every day. Every single day.
It was his job to be surrounded by death all the time. It didn’t matter – because days that he wasn’t at a funeral or a burial, he was preparing a body or overseeing a viewing.
But seeing death everyday changes one’s perspective on life. And, each day, when he pressed the button the embalming machine, when the blood was vacuumed out of the body and exchanged with bright yellow embalming fluid, there was always the voice. The words that played in his mind. The one who “Ned” really was –
…And that’s me you’re referring to…
…I am six feet tall, a whole ‘lotta man. I have dark hair, always slicked back (I like the “wet look”), I have pasty skin, and I always wear black.
I’m the Mortician’s Mortician.
I am a killer.
Just a little joke. It amuses me. I may not really be a killer in the sense you might have just thought, but I sure put a lot of people in the ground, that’s for sure.
But let me tell you a little about old Ned here.
He sees bodies come through by the dozen. Heavenly Slumber always sees business. And that’s what they are called. Business. Just like any other. Like booze is the business of bartending and cash is the business of banking. Bodies are our business.
Ned really figures into this whole story that you’re about to experience. Why the city is really filled with dead bodies. Why the lipstick leper really came to town. Why the white worms attacked. And don’t get me started about George Stanley…
…But it wasn’t George Stanley lying on the preparation table this time. He had come through years ago, and that had been a burial. Which Ned was fine with, but he much preferred the cremations. And Stephen here was also scheduled for a viewing and burial.
So much for having any fun.
Ned paused, holding the trocar. “Time to pump and swish.” Pat looked up and over at Ned, who was examining the shiny, silver piece of equipment – no longer than a standard twelve inch ruler. Pat always shuddered at the sight of what looked like an oversized needle, and that’s really what it was. But it was just that the needle was connected to a powerful suction machine, which vacuumed all of the blood, water and fluids from the corpse. It then pumped embalming fluid – a yellow-green substance primarily composes of formaldehyde and methanol, looking roughly like urine, into the body to preserve it for a few days for viewing. Don’t want good ol’ Stephen here to start rotting before his time and send the family screaming from the chapel.
Ned has seen so many bodies come through his preparation room.
And he took the utmost care with each and every one.
He made sure the makeup was applied just so, and that the corpses looked to be sleeping in their caskets, and that the family was comforted during the viewings. All their needs were taken care of, Ned saw to it personally.
And so it wasn’t Stephen’s body that proved to be life-changing.
It wasn’t even getting the job at Heavenly Slumber. Ned had been there for over a decade, and nothing really seemed out of the ordinary. Bodies, flowed in, bodies flowed out. And sometimes, he’s got to burn ‘em. No, it wasn’t Stephen that was life changing. Nothing really abnormal about that body.
Stephen was just another macerated drag queen
. Another face, another body. At least that’s what it seemed on the forefront.
No, the body that proved to be life-changing was the body that came through next…
*~*~*
PART ONE
A CITY FULL OF BODIES
CHAPTER ONE
Douglas Kahn awoke with a start.
He shot up in bed, covered in sweat, and rubbed his eyes, burying his face into his hands. He had been dreaming of the bodies again.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and looked at the clock. It was still hours before dawn, and he knew that shortly he would have to put on the black suit that was hanging in the hotel room closet. He closed his eyes and exhaled, running his hands through what was left of his silvery, stringy hair.
He got up, slowly, and walked over to check the air conditioner. He felt the cool air blowing from the vents, but it stopped there. The humidity in the small, boxy hotel room was just stifling.
He poured himself a small glass of bourbon from the mini-bar, and picked up the phone. But he didn’t call the front desk.
“Jim?” He took a sip and set the glass down on the bedside table. “Sorry to call you, Jim, but I had the dream again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it was just liked it had happened when I was in Miami…the streets…everything. I had passed out in the limo, and when I woke up, the bodies were just everywhere. I couldn’t even get out of the car.”
“And where was I?”
Douglas stopped for a moment, as his eyes scanned the room. He saw shadows against the wall, set by the warm, pale glow of the exterior hotel lights. “You…I think you were dead.”
Jim laughed. “Doug, you have been having this dream for a while now. Doesn’t mean a thing.”
Doug closed his eyes and shook his head. “Look, Jim. Let’s just cancel this trip. I have no idea what it means, but I have known Sheldon for a long time.”
“Sure you have.”
Doug reached for a cigarette, placed it in his mouth, and flicked the lighter. It wouldn’t light after several attempts. He tossed the unlit cigarette back on the table. “Look, Jim, I don’t want to go. I have talked with Sheldon so many times before he died, and I know about all the weird shit that he was into. I mean, The Astral was one of the strangest things he ever did. And that Antoine guy…I don’t even know what to say about him. But this dream, Jim…I just don’t know how to explain it.”
“Like it was a prophecy?”
“Exactly.”
“So we don’t go then. When you go down to the lobby at 8am, like you always do, I will make sure not to be there.”
Doug placed his hand over his chin. “I don’t know if that’s the solution. I still have a lot I have to do down here. The reading of the will, everything.”
“So then I should be there? Waiting for you outside the lobby as usual? You need to decide whether you’re going or not, Doug.”
There was a moment of silence on the line as Doug attempted to light his cigarette again, now with a book of matches he had fished out of the drawer next to the Holy Bible. “Doug? Are you there?”
Doug waved the match and treasured the hot smoke as it flew to his lungs. A small trail of smoke rose to into the air. He exhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Yes, that will be fine. That will be just dandy. Be there at 8. I have an appointment at 9. You know how the Dolphin gets.”
Jim chuckled on the other end of the phone. “I sure do, Doug, I sure do. See you then.”
They hung up from the call.
Doug looked down at the cigarette as it burned in the ashtray; the cherry red tip shone through a plume of ash as the sweet smoke continued rising towards the ceiling. Doug had not touched the cigarette since his initial drag. He didn’t even want it anymore. He looked at the clock. It was almost 4am. Jim would be here in four hours.
He extinguished the burning cigarette and slid back under the covers. He desperately wanted to fall asleep, he wanted rest without dreams; he wanted it to be how it was when he and Sheldon were in college, back in the days in Boston, back when life was simpler, before Sheldon followed the path beyond theology and into the darkness.
But Douglas knew better.
As sleep started to overtake his body once again, as the room seemed darker and the doors to the other side slowly crept open, he knew, deep in his mind, that he would dream of the bodies again. It was inevitable.
For the fingers of light started to reach through the darkness; the rainbows and pastel spines danced through the rooms as a glowing illumination, foraging closer and closer to the bed and the sleeping Douglas. The man pulled the covers up close to his chin, draped an arm over his eyes, and pursed his lips as the pastels and rainbows surrounded his bed.
Douglas had no more power.
It was useless to resist.
The pastels and rainbows settled onto his body, and carried it upwards from the bed, as he lay, motionless and still, as his body levitated towards the growing beacon of light forming against the wall opposite the bed. The sleeping man was unaware; he slept soundly as his bed entered through the circular beam of purple, blue and white.
But then, it was time to awaken.
Time to spend time in a new world…
…In a dream world…
…and then the clouds turned black. And the oceans turned to poison…
And there was no more sun.
He could see his feet; he stood bare footed and dirty amidst the many small stones. He thought not to take steps forward; for he was standing in front of a vast, dark ocean, beneath a red sky painted with black clouds.
And there was screaming.
So many screams.
He looked around.
There were mountains, dark, filled with shadows, but there were no trees. He could see some light on the horizon. But it appeared more light the orange flicker from fire, not the sun.
And then there was something against the horizon. A dark, hooded figure.
It was moving closer towards him. Slowly, like it was floating along the stones, without taking steps or displacing any of the mist that gathered along the sands.
Douglas took a step forward and winced in pain. The sharp stones pierced his feet with each step. He lifted his foot and examined it.
He did not bleed.
The hooded figure was much closer to him now.
“Do not walk.” The voice was deep, like that of a man. Douglas stopped and waited for the mysterious figure to approach. And when he stopped, he saw the man had no face, only darkness under his hood.
“Do not be afraid, Douglas,” it said. “I will not harm you. I come to you here to contact you. To warn you.”
“Warn me of what? Why can’t I move? There is so much pain! My feet! It feels like they are on fire!”
“You are at the entrance to Hades, Douglas, and I have been watching you for some time. We all have a purpose, a reason for living. Soon, you will find out your purpose. But here, you are here because I willed you to come here. You will not be harmed here physically. There is no physical danger here.”
Douglas felt the pain subside.
“You see?” he said. “No physical danger. If you don’t believe you are in pain, you won’t feel any.”
Douglas looked around. The sky changed from red to orange and back to red, and the black clouds raced across the sky. “It doesn’t feel very welcoming here.”
“Just being here will slowly fill you with a sense of dread until you go mad. In Hades, the real danger is relinquishing your sanity.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I will come to you,” it said.
Douglas caught his breath. The screams quieted, and it was just the two of them on the beach, facing each other at eye level. The hooded man placed his hand on Douglas’s shoulder and looked down at him. “When the city dies, I will find you.”
*~*~*
And then everything turned black, and Douglas felt the searing pain of a headache
brought on by bourbon, as he looked over towards the drapes, he noticed the crack of sunlight creeping through the heavy blackout curtains.
Douglas reached over to bedside table and fumbled for his pack of cigarettes and groaned. He lit one and blew the smoke out. He didn’t even both to sit up, but rather lay flat on his back, the covers pulled up towards his neck.
He was shivering. “So…cold…” Have to warm up.
No matter how much he huddled in the covers, he remained shivering and cold. And no matter how much he tried to relax, he could feel the seething anxiety start to rip his insides apart.
He knew that today he would be drinking booze. Coffee would only make things worse. After he stubbed his cigarette out, he finally mustered up the energy to get out of bed. Rubbing his arms, he made his way to the bathroom, and shut the door tight, locking it with a small click.
And even when he started to warm up in a searing hot shower, the words of the mysterious hooded figure continued playing over through his mind.
When he finished his shower, he felt somewhat better. He had warmed slightly, and he fished a towel off the rack and started drying his face.
But it wasn’t the disturbing dream that caused him to hit the mini-bar before 8am. For it was when he saw the words that were written in the steamed mirror. As he finished drying his face, and hung the towel back on the rack, and saw the mirror, his eyes widened and his mouth fell open in horror:
When the city dies, I will find you.
*~*~*
Ned sat at his desk and stared at the phone.
Despite the brilliant sun shining outdoors, the heavy drapes at the Heavenly Slumber concealed most of the light, and the dark mahogany wood paneling on the walls gave the office a dark feel. He was filing the paperwork on Stephen, as the body was now prepped and ready, and reviewing the itinerary for the next day, when there was a soft knock on the door.