by RJ Blain
Grave Humor
A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count)
R.J. Blain
Grave Humor
A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count)
by R.J. Blain
Most days, Anwen regrets working at a funeral home. With the residents no longer inclined to stay in their coffins where they belong, she’s got her hands full making sure everyone follows the rules:
* * *
In the funeral home, there is no screaming, no murdering, no mutilation, no possessions, no kidnappings, no resurrections, and no cursing of any type. Be quiet and stay polite.
* * *
The day Old Man McGregor decides to take a walk and disturbs her peace, Anwen learns there’s a lot more to the basement in the funeral home than a vampire and a handsome gentleman on ice.
* * *
If she’s not careful, she’ll learn first-hand why ‘eternally yours’ is the most potent of threats.
* * *
Warning: this novel contains romance, humor, bodies, shenanigans, and mythological puppies. Proceed with caution.
Copyright © 2020 by RJ Blain
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
Cover design by Rebecca Frank of Bewitching Book Covers.
Contents
1. Your funeral is at noon tomorrow.
2. Please don’t scream.
3. I was surrounded by assholes.
4. They need to leave so I can thoroughly scold you.
5. Satan would offer his residents air conditioning first.
6. In good news, there would be honey rocks in my future.
7. I’m in a mood tonight, so call me Lucy.
8. These are strange times.
9. Ain’t nobody dumb enough to keep a dog that ugly around here.
10. The world was a weird place.
11. A gallon of ice cream could fix anything.
12. Why would you put Jesus in a bucket?
13. Can I kill them?
14. This is like the start of a bad joke.
15. Taking the advice of an archangel seemed wise.
16. Fire can purify anything.
17. I will bring severe injury to any who try to take a piece of mine.
18. This really isn’t an efficient weapon.
19. Few souls have a hard alignment with the forces of good, evil, order, or chaos.
20. I’m going to need a manual on how to seduce an ancient antique.
About R.J. Blain
One
Your funeral is at noon tomorrow.
Had I been smarter or wiser, I never would’ve accepted the job offer at the funeral home. With my prospects few and far between, I hadn’t had a choice, not really. Who else would hire an eighteen-year-old high school drop out?
I could type.
Dead bodies didn’t bother me.
When the dead started chatting up a storm, I ignored them until the priest arrived. I almost liked the days when the corpses got talkative. The boss paid me triple the normal hourly rate per incident, and if nobody screamed, a gift card would magically appear on my desk the following morning. Without fail, the gift card would be for the grocery store, and it would offer me the rare opportunity to enjoy a luxury.
Luxuries came few and far between.
Tomorrow, I would take my gift card, fondle some honey rocks until I found the perfect pair to take home with me, and I’d crack them open and go to town on their sweet, sweet insides. I sighed happily at the thought of two perfect melons all for me.
It really was the little things in life.
“It’s no fun if you don’t scream, Anwen m’dear,” Old Man McGregor groused. “Must you suck all the joy from my funeral?”
“Your funeral is at noon tomorrow,” I reminded him. That was the problem with the newly dead. They got lost on the way, refusing to leave their bodies until someone came to lay them to their final rest. Old Man McGregor could make my life a living hell if I wasn’t careful.
In life, he’d enjoyed yanking on chains for the fun of it.
In death, all he had to do was sit up to yank on the entire town’s chain.
“You’re still going to suck the joy right out of it,” the old man whined.
I checked my watch. In an hour, Old Man McGregor’s wife and grandnephew would arrive for the viewing, which was scheduled to begin in three hours. I expected half the town would show up to pay their respects while the other half showed up to partake of the drama.
The dead getting up for a final chat tended to create a lot of drama, and after the first time it’d happened, attendance at viewings and funerals had skyrocketed.
People loved a free show.
Damn it all, I couldn’t afford to wait for my boss to arrive. If I wanted to get my greedy hands on a pair of honey rocks, the old goat needed to get back into his coffin where he belonged without pranking the entire town on his way to the grave. That meant one of two things. I could cut a deal with the cantankerous coot, or I could call for the priest myself.
The priest would arrive within ten minutes, as he didn’t appreciate when the dead refused to abide by the natural order of things. Corpses belonged in coffins or caskets, and Old Man McGregor had opted for a coffin rather than a casket.
I figured he knew he was a pain in the ass and wanted us to nail the lid closed so he wouldn’t get out once we put him in the ground where he belonged. Technically, the difference between caskets and coffins was one of shape, but generally, caskets were of better construction in addition to being rectangular. Traditionalists favored the coffin, as did many a vampire, claiming they were head and shoulders over the rest.
Every time someone cracked that damned pun, I wanted to beat them to death with their burial vessel of choice.
Personally, I liked cremation. Any urn would do, and you could store the ashes in a plastic container if an urn wasn’t available, although I’d heard of a few unfortunate incidents where someone had left their loved one out where a cat might use them as a litter box.
There wasn’t a whole lot anyone could do about urine-contaminated ashes, yet somehow, once a year, someone would stroll on in asking how to get Fluffy’s excrements out of their granny.
Oy, oy, oy.
At least Old Man McGregor wouldn’t be showing up again as a victim of cat pee and poor handling.
I straightened my shoulders so I wouldn’t sigh at the unfairness of it all. Old Man McGregor would prove a challenge, but I really wanted my damned honey rocks, and the only time I got them was when the dead returned to their rest without breaking any of the funeral home’s rules.
“You’re not going to do this the easy way, are you?” I asked, careful to keep my tone pleasant and curious rather than expose my readiness to rip what remained of his internal organs out through his right nostril.
“When have I ever done anything the easy way, missy?”
With that one question, I gave up on my attempt to be the immaculate professional. I sighed. “You’re going to cost me this week’s groceries, aren’t you?” Not only would he cost me the rest of my groceries, my honey rocks would be a dream within a dream.
It’d been so damned long since a corpse had actually cooperated with me. The last time, Mrs. Theault had been the one to do the screaming, and it’d taken an entire night of talking to her to get her to return to her casket. Everyone handled death a different way, but Mrs. Theault’s problems broke my heart.
She’d been headed to heaven.
Her husband had gone to hell.
&n
bsp; The whole town knew why, but it took death and some help from me to guide her back to the light where she belonged.
Mr. Theault was just one of the cheating, abusive bastards in town, and on a bad day, I wanted to take a pair of honey rocks and beat the assholes to death with them. The thought of ruining two perfectly good melons kept me from indulging in my desire to clean up Sunset, which probably meant I had a ticket to hell once I kicked the bucket, too.
I’d still gotten a gift card for helping Mrs. Theault head to where she belonged, but it hadn’t been enough to cover even a single honey rock after I’d gotten the necessities to get me through another week.
I hoped Mrs. Theault found a better man in heaven or got a new chance at a life with someone worth her time. Of all the little old ladies in town, she’d been one of the nice ones. Despite her long years, she never forgot what it meant to be compassionate. I supposed that had something to do with her final destination.
We needed a few more people like Mrs. Theault in the world. Then I wouldn’t want to do things like rip a dead man’s remaining organs out of his nostril.
Why the hell was mutilation of a corpse illegal? And since the corpse happened to be able to get up, walk, and talk, not only would I be hit with a count of mutilation of a corpse, I’d also get jailed for assault and whatever other charges someone got for ripping a dead guy’s remaining internal organs out through his nose.
I allowed my shoulders to slump, and I sighed again.
“That would be mean of me. All right, Anwen. I’ll give this hand to you. How do you get your groceries, and what does me going back to my coffin have to do with it?” The old, dead man sat across from me, squishing as he made himself comfortable. After the first dozen chatterbox corpses, I’d convinced the funeral home director to use thick pleather cushions, which were a breeze to clean. An hour with the right chemicals and some elbow grease, and no one would know Old Man McGregor had left his coffin and gone for a stroll.
“It’s simple. At your viewing—before and after, too—you don’t make anyone scream. You don’t scream. Nobody screams. Director Hammel hates when people scream in his funeral home. If no one screams or breaks any of the other rules, I get groceries. My current wage doesn’t pay for my bills and my groceries, so it’s really nice when a lively corpse behaves. If one behaves every month, I get my groceries. It works well for everyone.”
Once and only once, two corpses had felt sorry for me, and I’d gotten to have a nice steak to go with enough food to get by plus an entire pack of cigarettes.
Damn it, I could use a smoke, and I didn’t care if it landed me in my grave early. If someone brought me to my work for interment, I’d go out with a bang and work hard to break every damned rule on my way out. With the way my thoughts kept going, I had a ticket to hell, and damn it all, I meant to earn it.
“That’s it?”
I understood the skepticism in the old man’s voice. Director Hammel knew everybody in town, and the smart ones gave my boss a wide berth for good reason.
Old Man McGregor, while considered the town’s almost-lovable nuisance, wasn’t stupid.
“That’s it,” I confirmed, although I did nod towards the placard informing guests of the funeral home’s rules.
“I can do what I want as long as nobody screams?”
I pointed at the rules. “Those still apply.”
Old Man McGregor turned in the chair and read, “No screaming, no murdering, no mutilation, no possessions, no kidnapping, no resurrections, and no cursing of any type. Please remain quiet and polite.”
“If you obey all those rules, I’m paid a bonus in the form of a grocery store gift card tomorrow morning.”
“What’s in it for me?”
And there it was, the usual request for a bribe. If he wanted to be bribed, I could give him an ultimatum the dead wisely feared. “I won’t call the priest or tell Director Hammel you got out of your coffin. I’ll clean up before the viewing, and should you decide to do something that doesn’t break the rules, I’ll play dumb.”
Sometimes, giving the dead a chance to stretch their legs and play harmless pranks before they returned to the ground helped them accept their final rest. If he didn’t go down and stay down by tomorrow morning, the priest would handle the details with no one being the wiser his sermon was more than showing respects for the dearly not-quite departed.
“That ain’t hard for you, youngin’. We all know you never did finish your schoolin’ like a good girl. Why not, anyway? In my day, why, we would’ve given an arm and a leg for the chances you’ve thrown away.”
I considered taking my phone and beating the corpse to his final rest. “I could just call for the priest.”
“No, no. That’s all right. I never did get along with that jackass anyway. Indulge an old dead man, Anwen m’dear. Why quit? You’ve nowhere to go now. Your old man kicked you out over it, didn’t he? I’ve heard things you know. You made your momma cry.”
I picked up the phone, cradled it between my shoulder and ear, and cracked my knuckles in a show of preparation. Disgust and fury grew as a cold seed deep within my chest. “So I did, Mr. McGregor.” She’d cried because I hadn’t given her any fucking money to chase after her vices. She’d never given a shit about my schooling; to her, women existed to provide men with children, and all education did was get in the way of the procreation. She’d done her duty having me, and that was as far as it went with her. “I’m going to give you three choices. I recommend you choose wisely, or the priest will be over here in ten minutes to ruin your fun.”
“Three? Wasn’t it two before?”
Asshole old man. With enough work, could a spine be ripped out through a nostril? “Now it’s three. Are you going to cooperate and hear your choices, or am I just going to give the priest a call?”
“I’m listening.”
“Choice one: you return quietly to your coffin and play dead until your funeral. Choice two: I call the priest so he can deal with you. Choice three: I tell you why I quit school, and when I’m done, you return to your coffin.”
“And?”
“And what?” I returned the phone to its cradle. “That’s it. You return to your coffin. The end. Do whatever you want, but I’m not going to have some old dead coot judging me because he’s an ignorant ass.”
“You’ll lose your groceries if you let me do what I want.”
“You’re the town’s troublemaker. I’m an idiot for even entertaining the idea I might get a bonus tomorrow with you involved. Why get my hopes up?”
“I’ll take option three, please.”
Since when the hell did Old Man McGregor take mercy on any of his targets, especially when there was fun to be had? Well, if he wanted the truth, I’d give it to him—and maybe the old coot would go bother my parents for a while before heading to his grave where he belonged. “Dear old dad took my college fund and wasted it on hookers and blow in Vegas. My mother cried because I told her the truth, but she wanted me to think she hadn’t taken her half. She also wanted me to give her money. She’d used her half to get high while Dad was busy banging every prostitute in Nevada. Since I couldn’t afford college, why bother finishing the rest of high school? I dropped. No point in a diploma I can’t do jack shit with, and since my oh-so-loving parents returned to Vegas to finish blowing whatever the fuck else money they stole, I needed to get a job and work or live on the streets. Happy, Mr. McGregor? There is your story about the town’s shamed dropout.” I rose from my seat, snatched my work keys from my desk, and headed for the door. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Do me the favor of returning to your coffin so I can get this place cleaned up before your family arrives.”
“No, Anwen. That story didn’t make me happy at all,” the corpse whispered.
“That makes two of us. If crashing your own funeral makes you happy, be my guest—just try to keep the screaming to a tolerable minimum, please.”
Like always, I’d get my honey rocks—and my groceries—another
time.
I needed a smoke, but one of Director Hammel’s employment criteria involved abstaining from puffing away at lung cancer in a box. He viewed the smell as unprofessional, and the only stinking bodies he allowed in his funeral home were the corpses. As I could afford the occasional cigarette but couldn’t afford pixie dust, not when the low grades sold for twenty dollars a pop when added to some shit coffee, I usually kept my flirtation with lung cancer to the weekends. It was one thing to light up in the comforts of my backyard, as I could wash my clothes, never smoked inside, and took every reasonable precaution possible to hide my addiction. It was another to do so where I could be caught in the act.
Director Hammel likely suspected I cheated on his stupid rules, but he hadn’t complained about my habit, and until he did, I saw no point in making any changes.
I had one damned cigarette left in my pack at home and no money to get a new one.
Maybe Old Man McGregor and I could switch places; we’d both be better off.
Walking around the funeral home’s pristine gardens helped clear my head, and ten minutes later, I returned to my office. The unpleasant funk of embalming fluid lingered, evidence I hadn’t hallucinated Old Man McGregor’s post-mortem visit. I armed myself with paper towels, spray cleaners, and air freshener before waging a bitter, futile war against the funeral home’s lingering miasma of decay and death.
Lemon smelled so much better than rot. As far as the restless dead went, Old Man McGregor hadn’t left me with too much of a mess to clean. He’d stayed mostly intact, limiting his oozing to a spot here and there. It took me twenty minutes to erase the evidence he’d gotten out of his coffin and taken a walk.