The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  He smiled and looked impressed as he nodded his head. “No argument. Okay then. Maybe you can take on some additional responsibilities during your time here. It’d help us out a lot. So, the bodies come in there. We inspect them and check the tag against the report. That’s very important.”

  An abrupt laugh escaped me. “Oh yeah. I so know about that. We had a funeral once where the lid of the coffin was opened and people who expected to see their sweet old Uncle Bob found some derelict from under a bridge instead. It wasn’t our fault, but it was still an ugly scene at the dinner table that night.”

  He winced, as I expected him too. I still did when I thought about it. “Did you ever find Uncle Bob?”

  I nodded. “Luckily. He was still at the hospital in the basement with the wrong toe tag. So yeah. Verify identity. Check.”

  “Good. Now, this next part is really, really important, so circle, star, and underline it.” He spoke slowly and carefully. His finger bobbed in the air with each word as though it were a bouncing ball without the music soundtrack. “When the body is wheeled in this room, we remove a body from one of these ten drawers and put the new body in. Then we take the removed body and put it in the bank of drawers behind you. No exceptions.”

  My pen paused, and I felt my eyebrows drop until the hair tickled my eyelashes. I moved my pen until the clicker pointed at the door to his right. “But you told me during the tour that all of these drawers are full and all of the ones behind me are empty. Why not just put the new bodies in the empty drawers until they’re all full? Don’t they refrigerate completely?”

  He shook his head firmly. “That’s not the way it works. Breaking that rule will get you fired and possibly me as well. So…no. Just do it the way I tell you and everything’ll be fine.”

  Stupidest rule I’d ever heard in my life. No wonder people burned out of government jobs. “Okaaay. Got it. What’s ne—” My cell phone cheeped to tell me I had a text message. I automatically reached for it, but then it occurred to me personal calls might not be allowed. I froze and looked at Mike.

  He lifted his wrist and peered at his watch, then shrugged. “It’s lunchtime anyway, so go ahead and take it. But normally you’ll need to turn it off during work hours. I’m actually surprised you have a signal. I hardly ever get one down here.” The phone cheeped again as he pushed away from the wall. “We take an hour lunch, so I’ll meet you back here at one. The hospital called earlier and said a new delivery was coming in. We’ll do a walk-through of accepting a new body, and then I’ll show you how to do the forms to the state to order death certificates. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds great and also sounds like this is going to be a pretty easy summer job.”

  The chuckle that escaped him had dark undertones, which surprised me. “You might not say that by the end of the day. But I do like optimism.”

  * * *

  “Well, I suppose I’d better get back downstairs. Thanks for having lunch with me, Dani.” I wiped the last bit of ketchup from my lips and stood up.

  My best friend flipped her wrist to peer at a neon pink watch that was probably visible from space. Hurts my eyes to stare at it too long. “You’ve still got ten minutes. Are you really that excited to get back to a sunless concrete bunker filled with corpses?”

  I knew I shouldn’t be. Really. But the smile escaped me anyway. “Yeah. I am. So sue me for thinking this summer is going to seriously rock.”

  Dani rolled her big brown eyes. She’d known me since first grade when I snuck an embalmed hand from dad’s collection into school for show-and-tell. She’d been the only one not to scream or throw up…including the teacher. We were destined to be BFFs. “You are so weird, Lia. You’re really determined to take over the mortuary when your dad retires? You want to do this for your whole life? No traveling to Monte Carlo to lie on the beach or singing for your supper on a cruise ship? You could, you know. You’ve got a really good voice.” She stood with me because I didn’t sit back down.

  I let out an abrupt laugh before picking up the burger wrappings and crumpling them to put them in the trash. “Could you really see me singing in some sappy musical on a Disney cruise? I love you, but you’re completely brain damaged. I’d do to Rogers and Hammerstein what Tim Burton would do to Sesame Street.” I grabbed my white jacket from the booth behind us and slid into it. Dani had complained the lingering smell of antiseptic was making her queasy.

  Wuss.

  “And besides,” I continued as we walked out of the beating sun to the cool shade of the building overhang, “Peaceful Grove Funeral Home is an institution around here. We get clients from three counties and overflow from the city. Why would I want to go out into the world and struggle to find the very same thing my dad and granddad have worked their whole lives for and are ready to hand to me for the asking? I mean, if I’d wanted to be a lawyer or a musician, that would be one thing. But I want to be a mortician.”

  Same old argument, different day. She didn’t think I understood what I wanted. I knew I did and also knew she would never get where my head was. We stared at each other for long moments with raised brows and wide, unblinking eyes until we finally burst out laughing. She bumped my hip with her purse like she did every time we agreed to disagree. “Girlfriend, you are a nut. Go play in the morgue. But I swear, if you start wearing goth makeup and walking like your freaky uncle Theo, I’m calling your sister to put you in a rubber room.”

  My sister Sophie was a doctor at the hospital in the psych ward. Gee, I wonder how she gravitated toward that career after growing up in our family? Because, yeah…my uncle Theo, also an undertaker, was seriously freaky and did walk a lot like Lurch on The Addams Family.

  “If I start walking like that…please lock me away.”

  I gave her a hug as she laughed, and we strolled back across the grass to the low-slung concrete building arm in arm. Moments later, I was alone in the cool shade, watching her walk toward her bright red sports car. She turned when she reached it and raised an arm, her skin the color of rich cocoa, to wave good-bye. I returned the wave and then looked out over the parking lot. I didn’t see Mike’s car yet in the space he’d said was his—he drove a big, bruising sedan that’d been made at least a decade before I was born. Frankly, it surprised me. It was straight up one o’clock, and Dad had said he was a really punctual guy. But hey, what do I know?

  Thirty minutes later, I realized I didn’t know much. Still no boss and a locked door. If this was some sort of test to see if I had staying power…well, I didn’t have a ride home until Dad came to get me, so I was here for the long haul. Dani was six months older than me, and every time I saw her behind the wheel, I started counting down the days until I could get my permanent driver’s license. Of course, my family still didn’t have the sort of money as the Underhills, so I probably wouldn’t see a car other than my parent’s until I bought my own.

  I was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the locked door when squeaking wheels made me look up to see a guy in uniform walking down the hall. I recognized the symbol on the jacket pocket as the same hospital where Sophie worked. The gurney he was pushing was covered with a blanket, the body underneath tied down with thick leather straps. I didn’t bother to get up when he looked down at me. In fact, I patted the tile next to my leg. He wasn’t all that cute but seemed like he would be good to talk with to kill time. “Hi. I’m Lia. Might as well pull up a piece of floor. Nobody’s here and I don’t have a key.”

  He reached into his pocket and extracted a ring of keys. He selected one and turned toward the doorknob. “I’m Larry, and I know who you are. You’re Sophie’s sister. We got the memo you’d be working here.” He opened the door.

  “They give you guys keys to the morgue?”

  He laughed, and it made him look younger. Not young enough, mind you. But probably in his twenties instead of his thirties. “Hardly. I barely have keys to my own locker. No, these are Mike’s keys, and they come with a message.”

  I pus
hed myself to my feet, using the wall as a brace, then followed the gurney inside. I held open the door so it didn’t hit the deceased and then let it close behind me. Larry dangled the key ring until I took it, then spoke. “Your boss was hit by a bus over lunch.”

  My mouth opened wide. Whoa. I mean, people always say that jokingly when they talk about burial plans and making a will, but how often does it really happen? “Oh my God. Is he dead?”

  He shook his head, making strands of curly red hair fall over his eyes. “No, but he’s pretty banged up. Broken ribs, a fractured jaw, and a shattered femur. He’s in surgery right now, having pins put in the ribs so they don’t puncture his lungs.”

  Ouch. See, this is why I don’t work in a hospital. Other than for the death certificate and any police investigation, what damage there is to the corpse is irrelevant. And they’re not in pain. I don’t like pain. I think my sister is just as weird as she thinks I am, for wanting to be surrounded by people who hurt. “So what now? Am I supposed to go home and wait for someone to call me?”

  He pulled the blanket off the dead body. Well, actually it wasn’t a body. Not per se. It was a not-quite-clear zippered bag, and the scent that wafted up from the movement of air told me why it was in a bag. Eww…it was a floater. There’s no worse smell in the world than flesh that’s ripened underwater. “Not that anyone told me. We’ve got a call into the coroner to tell him what happened. He should be here shortly. But no, we can’t close the county morgue. It messes up the whole process, and there’s no way I’m putting this thing back in my van. It’s all yours. Give me a hand here and we’ll get him onto a cart. I’ve got to get back.”

  Bodies have their own momentum when being moved. I’ve gotten the hang of lifting and swinging a corpse so the body does part of the work. But the bag…the center of gravity was all wrong, like there was a big ball of pus located dead center that rolled and shook like jelly when moved. I was terrified that if I swung it like a regular body, it would move faster than I could control and rip right through the bag. Yeah, they’re strong bags, but fear isn’t logical.

  Larry seemed to have a similar fear, because he lifted the plastic gingerly and we sort of slid it from Larry’s gurney to one of the morgue’s. I couldn’t help but shudder. We seldom got floaters at home. They were either cremated or handled with a closed casket. Dad had never actually let me see a floater. Said it would give even me nightmares.

  I believed him.

  Larry handed me the clipboard, and I matched the name on the bag tag to the report, then signed and initialed where he told me. “Any chance you can help me get him into a drawer? Apparently, I have to move one of the bodies in those drawers and replace it with this guy.”

  He shook his head and almost looked sad about it. “No can do. I’ve got this job because the guy before me did just that. I know it sounds stupid, but I have to presume there’s a reason. The rule goes back better than a hundred years.”

  Wow. Multiple generations of stupid. Not much to be done about it, then. “Okay. I’ll deal with it. Thanks for the keys.”

  He waved as he left, and then it was time to earn my pay. Oh wait. I wasn’t being paid. Lucky me.

  I reached for the handle for the nearest drawer and pulled.

  Nothing happened.

  I tried again, but the latch remained against the door as though welded. It was locked?

  The next handle was the same. No amount of tugging or prying could move the handle. I did try prying, with the metal push broom handle. But no such luck.

  One by one I tried the doors. It wasn’t until I reached the last door, the top right, that the handle moved. Hallelujah! I opened the drawer and pulled out the rolling table. It took just about every bit of strength I had to do it, too. The guy on the slab must have weighed three hundred pounds. I tentatively tugged on his arm, but he wasn’t going anywhere without at least two other people. There’s no weight like dead weight.

  Well, hell. I looked over at the new dead guy. He could stay at room temperature for a bit, but not long. I could only hope the coroner came soon.

  * * *

  He didn’t. Big shock. Hour after hour rolled by while I sat and answered the phones. I checked in at the hospital twice to find out how Dr. Morgan was. According to Sophie, they had him in a drug-induced coma so a machine could breathe for him while the ribs healed. So, no help there. I’d already called Dad to let him know what was happening. He told me to sit tight until five and then he’d come to help with the body if nobody had come before then. He had two funerals today, and neither he nor Gramps could get away before that. Mom and Grandma were shopping in the city. So, that was that.

  The problem was that the guy had started to smell. And I mean really smell. The body must have been sitting for a while before they found him, and by three o’clock, it’d gotten so bad I wanted to get him in a drawer just so I could air out the room enough to breathe. Dad had told me the drawers here had fans and vents to funnel the expansive decomposition gases. I knew I could lift him, at least enough to drag him onto a slab. Then, Dad could help me move him from one bank of drawers to the other before anybody knew.

  Even still, it took me the better part of a half hour to manage it. I’d have to stop every couple of minutes to go into the next room to let out the breath I was holding and take another gulp of air. But it wasn’t just the smell. It was hard not to stare at the body. The flesh was spongy and bluish white with patches of orange and black—colors humans should never be able to achieve. Granddad had told me when I decided to do this that the flesh could tear if I wasn’t careful. He said he’d seen that once, the flesh ripped and what used to be muscle underneath just sort of burst out like pus. He’d lost his lunch.

  And my granddad was a tough guy.

  So I was careful.

  Finally, it was done, and the moment the door closed on him the air in the room lightened a little. It’d still take some serious spraying and probably a few candles to get it back to normal, but that was okay.

  I sat down in the office chair and took off my nitrile gloves—the same purple as my hair. Frankly, I was proud of myself. I’d been confronted with a problem and had risen to the occasion. Under the circumstances that had to count for something.

  Needing to tell someone about it, I called Dani. This was too big for texting. She picked up on the first ring, and I proceeded to tell her the whole weird tale.

  “Wow. Go you, Lia!” She really did sound proud of me, and I couldn’t help but beam.

  “So you don’t think Dr. Morgan will be mad I put the body in the wrong drawer?”

  She let out a noise approaching a raspberry. “Nah. Like you said, you’ll move the body as soon as you can. But you can’t have it rotting right there in the room, can you?” I was just starting to answer when an odd sound came from the next room. It sounded almost like a person moaning. Apparently, Dani could hear it too. “What’s that weird noise? Is that on your end?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know.” I stood up and kept the cell phone to my ear as I went into the cooler. The connection crackled a little but held. I held the phone away from my head while I tried to locate the sound. It seemed to come from everywhere—almost as if it was coming from inside the walls. Or the drawers.

  The closer I got to the drawer I’d just put the floater in, there was no mistaking that the noise was coming from inside. “Uh, Dani? The noise is coming from inside the drawer I just put the new body in.”

  “Oh…snap. Is the fan broken or something?”

  It didn’t sound like a broken fan, but that was the only logical answer. I pulled on the handle and the door opened.

  There was a pause, as though the whole universe was holding its breath. Silence deep enough to drown in. Dani’s voice in my ear made me let out a small yelp. “Hey, the sound stop—”

  As if on cue, a shriek of abject terror and pain exploded into the room, literally knocking me over. My ears registered the wave of energy as pain, and I recoiled from the strength of
it. I hit the edge of the examination table, and the phone flew from my hand, landing on the tiled floor across the room.

  The anguish in the wailing was so intense it made my chest hurt and tears come to my eyes. My hands went over my ears. It was torture, fear, panic, and grief—all rolled into a single sound that burned in my veins. My more sensible legs struggled to move away from it, but my oddly wired brain was excited by the noise and forced my feet forward, toward the body on the slab.

  “Lia? Are you there?” Dani’s voice was barely a squeak a thousand miles away, unable to compete in my head with the wretched wailing. “What’s happening?”

  I gingerly took my hands down and reached for the metal table on rollers. I pulled hard, yanking it from the wall as though the force would make the sound stop. The screams continued.

  I stared down at the remains inside the bag—the mouth was now open in an eerie imitation of a scream, even though most of the face had dissolved away. Empty eye sockets stared up blankly, and the teeth on one side gleamed in the light. There was no rising and falling of the chest, even though there was no mistaking the sound came from inside the bag. I hesitantly placed an open palm on the chest of the corpse and then pulled it away with a jerk. No movement. I hadn’t expected any, of course. But I hadn’t expected the sound, either.

  My heart pounded with fear even though I seemed to have a freakish fascination with the bubble of plastic that had appeared in the bag, as though it was being pushed up by the force of the scream. It seemed wrong on so many levels.

  I turned away from the body and went to retrieve the phone. “Dani? Are you still there?” I had to shout to be sure that she would hear me.

  She had to likewise scream to be heard over the din. “Duh! Where else would I be? What’s going on there?”