by Tom Simpson
PURE PROFIT
Billy was losing it. His icy blue eyes darted back and forth in the dimly lit corridor. He knew he had heard a sound. It couldn’t be my imagination he thought. The sound was too real. A sort of gulping, sighing whisper. Not at all heavy, very muffled.
“Crap, this is all I need, my first night on the job and my hair will probably turn white. Why was I ever stupid enough to think I could handle something like this? Getting a job as a security guard in a funeral home was a real stroke of genius. Only a moron would accept this job placement from the employment agency. Sure the money is good and I desperately needed a job but, come on, this is just going over the deep end. Why in the heck would they need a guard here anyways? I know, people are just dying to get in, yeah right.
Billy kept glancing over his shoulder, flashing his five cell flashlight in wide arcs to penetrate the gloominess that seemed to be standard equipment.
“Boy, do they ever crimp on their electric bill,” he quipped. “If this place was mine I would light it up like a football field.”
Billy Matlock, at twenty, was a strapping six foot two but, his acne was his most remarkable feature. Pock marked since thirteen he had endured seven horrible years of being called pizza face or pus head. Now he thought, I will become a man. That is if I can live through the night. That noise was coming from further down the corridor and to the right. His light shone on the old wooden gate elevator straight ahead which he knew from studying the floor plan was where the junction of the passageways, one a stairway leading down to the basement where they did the embalming and the other a stairway going up the second floor where the did the final preparations for viewing. The passage to the right was the one to the embalming room.
Maybe, they left the pumps running or whatever did the chemical changes to a body that made it legal for entombment or cremation, depending on the family’s wishes.
“I guess I better check it out so they will pay me. I would hate to be stuck here all night for no reimbursement. That would really suck,” he complained out loud.
Billy continued down the hallway, his flashlight leading the way and turned to face the stairs not breathing for fear of someone or something hearing him. He took a couple of deep breaths as quietly as possible and holding his breath again, slowly descended the concrete stairway. The stairs turned to the left halfway down and he paused again to take another couple of breaths. His flashlight always pointing forward, lit up a wood framed doorframe with the massive oak door standing three quarters open. A faint light immersed from the doorway creating a small puddle of pale yellow in front of the opening.
Billy, started shaking slightly and decided he could do this even though he had never been this frightened. He descended, one slow step after another until he was standing in front of the large opening. He extinguished the light before entering the dimness and looked first to the right seeing only a few closed doors and the quickly to the left where his attention focused on a steel table bolted to the floor. Various tubes and pipes snaked down from stainless machinery bolted to the ceiling and terminated under a white sheet draped across the top of the table. The sheet covered a large bulge that Billy knew immediately was a body. Well, that person is dead so I should not be so scared, so why am I, Billy thought.
“I have to see for myself,” he whimpered. “Just like in a cheap horror movie.” He walked slowly toward the table willing his legs to stop yet not having any control over his forward motion. He stopped directly in front of the head shape of the sheet and reached out a hand that he knew he had lost all control of. His hand lifted the edge of the sheet about eighteen inches and he suppressed a yelp, dropping the sheet and jumping backward. The face under the sheet facing in Billy’s direction, was the man he had seen the week before in the employment office. He knew that the man had five years experience as a security guard and the office manager had picked him over Billy exclusively because of that. That was why Billy was surprised when the manager had called him yesterday and offered him the job after all. The manager said the other applicant had only shown up for only three days and had failed to come to work the night before.
Trembling, Billy ran toward the door and was halfway up the stairs when his way was suddenly blocked by the very large man that he had met in earlier in the evening.
“Billy my boy, what seems to be the rush? You look like you’ve see a ghost. We don’t have any spirits in this building that I know of.”
“I just saw the guy I replaced lying on that table down there,” Billy stammered. “How did he die? Was he killed here?”
“Nonsense my dear boy, I see where you could be confused. That man that is being embalmed had a slight resemblance to the man that didn’t bother to come back to work. They both had dark hair, a slight mustache and a slight build. The characteristics ended there. The man on the table was a least twenty years older and had been in a wheelchair for many years. He was a disabled veteran that was missing his left leg and he finally succumbed to his many war wounds. We were just getting used to that chap you knew when he bolted for some unknown reason. Please, let’s go upstairs and have a cup of coffee and you can relax for awhile before you continue your rounds.
“Okay I guess,” answered Billy in a soft voice, “I guess my imagination ran wild.”
Billy and his boss walked up the stairs to the main corridor and turned left and walked to the third door on the left which the man opened and motioned Billy to one of the available chairs arranged around a conference table. The man went to a large coffee urn and poured two cups and asked how Billy wanted his coffee. Billy remarked black was fine and slowly began to relax.
“I was really stupid to act like that, I guess I was just spooked,” Billy volunteered. “This place is a little scary.”
“Not when you get used to it,” his boss replied. “The place will feel like home before you know it.”
The next night, a little more confident and still a slightly bit scared, Billy once more set off on his rounds. He could not believe the size of the funeral home. The basement he was in the night before was in the old wing of the building and it was used only when they had a large volume of business at one time. The new part of the building, that in contrast was brightly lit, had a four table embalming room, five viewing rooms and two conference rooms. He wanted to stay clear of the old part of the building as much as possible so he decided to patrol that area only maybe twice a night. He figured he could fudge a little on his patrol notes because after all, he hardly ever ran into anyone.
Billy, stalling as long as he could, headed down the dark hallway to the old section of the funeral home, to do his inspection. He again descended the stairs again hearing the soft gurgling sighing type noise and decided it had to be coming from the embalming equipment. Why, he wondered, would they be using the old section again? His boss had told him when he reported to work at eight pm that it had been an unusually slow day and most of the workers had already gone home. Billy walked through the old oaken doorway and turned immediately to the left and stared at the steel table that looked like it held another body being prepared. He, like the night before was drawn unwillingly up to the sheet draped figure. I wonder who they are doing now, he thought as he again lifted the sheet. He dropped the sheet like it was on fire and jumped backwards again. The same guy was under the sheet. How long do they have to embalm someone anyways he thought. I know I have to look came immediately to his head. I don’t want to but, I have to. He walked back to the body and this time picked up the bottom of the sheet and stared at the two perfectly normal legs.
“The boss lied,” was barely out of his lips when he heard a soft voice coming from the direction of the doorway.
“Yes I lied Billy. I am so sorry you came back here and lifted that sheet again. If you would have left well enough alone we could have kept you employed for a very long time. Now, unfortunately, it’s over. You see, we have been running a double scam for quite awhile
, very profitable you see. The poor soul you replaced had unfortunately overheard my partner and me discussing our business transactions and threatened to blackmail us, so we had no choice but to turn him into pure profit. You, I’m so sorry are now in the same boat.
You see my lad. We not only illegally sell the blood we drain out of our customers, we harvest all the organs when the family is unaware and sell them on the black market. That is why so many organ transplants fail. We, through a clever plant in a very well-known firm, sell dead organs packed in ice and no one is any wiser when it doesn’t work. Now dear boy, we have to dispose of you just like your friend laying on this table. We do not have to have the cost of a funeral and we have a body we can get rid of piece by piece. That is what we call pure profit.
Billy started screaming and he was still screaming ten minutes later when aided by the man’s partner Billy felt the embalming fluid start coursing through his veins as he lay on the stainless table previously occupied by the man from the employment office.
The end.
I hoped you enjoyed your little trip through my mind.
