The Mortuary

As Clyde put the body in the cremation chamber, he wondered why they never did this first? Were they pure evil or did they feel justified in taking the law into their own hands?

Ever since the prison shut down, the town seemed to fill with evil and darkness. When the sun went down; the devil came out.

They were included in the demons who walked amongst the townsmen.

He turned it on and moved back towards the room which held his heart. He leaned against the door frame, arms crossed against his chest, and watched as she moved seamlessly through the room: cleaning the evidence and placing everything back in its proper place. She moved with a certain grace and swiftness- it took even his dreary, soulless breath away.

“Do you have time for one more?”

She turned around, entire face lit up, hands clasped against her chest, and grinning ear to ear.

“Oh, Clyde. You are too good to me!” She said, as she jumped and ran towards him in excitement.

The exhilaration in her voice made him feel a warmth he could not control. He moved towards her, took her by her small, cold, bloody hand, and guided her into the next room.

On the floor, a woman lay hunched over, face turned away from them. She was small in stature, about 4’10”-5'1", with salt and pepper hair, and overweight. She couldn’t quite make out any other features, as she lay there, nude, unconscious, with her hands tied behind her back, blindfolded, and gagged.

She slowly walked a circle around the woman. There was a certain familiarity to her, that she couldn’t quite place. She leaned over, closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and took in the scent of this mysterious woman. She recognized that smell. She stood and gazed back at Clyde, still intoxicated from the last.

“Bring her in,” she said, with a slight smile and a nod, as walked back towards her fortress. She ran her hand across Clyde's chest as she walked past him, just for an excuse to touch him. She loved feeling what was beneath his button-down shirt and thought often about what it would be like to hold his hard, sweaty body, against her own soft curves.

Clyde smiled to himself, and closed his eyes, as she did it. It was getting more difficult for him to resist her.

Clyde was neither kind, nor gentle, as he threw the woman face down on the table. There was a certain anger and roughness, which he had never expressed before. He was twice as aggressive when he flipped the woman over, knowing face up for the experience was a necessity.

Maybe it was the frustration he felt, in the areas he couldn't otherwise fulfill.

She was taken aback by his strength and ability to throw the woman around like that. She had never seen Clyde the way she did in that moment.

Clyde walked over to prepare another drink for her, sweat ran down his forehead, and didn't stop until it reached his shirt collar.

She watched the beads of sweat; with an intensity she never knew she had.

She stood over the woman, frozen. Why was this woman so familiar?

She removed the blindfold but did not recognize the face. There was nothing familiar about the eyes nor the nose. She removed the gag to reveal that the mouth, too, was unfamiliar.

Yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling. It was something about the knees and feet. It was wet and rainy outside this evening. Why was she nude? Where were her shoes?

“What brings this woman to us, Clyde?”

Clyde set the drink down next to her, walked across the room to sit in his chair in the corner, but he sat in silence. He placed his elbow on the arm rest, his chin in the palm of hand, and just looked at her.

This was uncharacteristic of him. Usually, he couldn't wait to tell her.

She stared at him, and he at her. She could feel him telling her something, yet no words were spoken.

This had never happened before tonight. It sent a chill deep into her, but she would proceed. She trusted that Clyde would never, could never, do wrong.

It must have been a crime too gruesome, too inhumane, to say. There could be no other reason.

She closed her eyes, nodded at him, and moved forward. She felt a tear roll down her cheek and she wasn’t sure why.

“Clyde?”

“Yes?”

“Was it an adult or a child?" she asked, looking back at him, with the tear still on her cheek.

“It was a string that never ended. It started with children and progressed to adults.”

She turned away from him, looked back at the woman…. the feet, the ankles, and the knees. She knew that she knew the woman.....but how? She wiped the tear, with her already blood-stained hand, and continued on.

It left a streak of blood from her last in it's place.

Clyde walked over and placed something in front of the woman’s face, causing almost immediate arousal. He grabbed the face forcefully, turned it towards the Mortician's wife, and held it there for several moments. He bent over, whispered something calmly and quietly for a few moments into the woman's ear, and the woman's eyes suddenly grew big as saucers.

The woman began to scream; began to apologize. But it was too late.

Clyde had pulled an old pair of scissors and pliers off of the shelf. He forced the woman's mouth open, clamped the tongue out with the pliers, and cut off the tongue.

As he threw the bloody, jagged, stump back at the woman's face, he looked in the blackest, darkest, most soulless eyes he had seen yet. And he said,

“You will never spit that venom at anyone ever again.”

Clyde suddenly realized the room was filled with a familiar, yet unmistakable, floral fragrance.

He turned to see her in the chaise, long pipe in her hand, and lamp lit. She was stretched out, relaxed, and more beautiful than ever. Clyde was aggravated that she had already began. They always waited until the end, to ensure everything went smoothly and to plan. He couldn't, however, resist the curves, that perfectly hugged, and were accentuated by the chaise. He walked over, took the long pipe from her hand and reminded her, "It's my turn with this. It is your turn with the woman." Then smiled at her, a full smile, showing his perfectly aligned teeth.

She loved that smile. It was unlike any other.

As she stood up, she got light-headed. She had a flashback. She was but a child, as she stood before someone who was telling her something. She couldn't quite make out the words. She was too focused on the shoes. The were small, black, and the fat rolled over the top.

She walked over to the woman, ran a finger along her oversized foot, around her fat ankle, and up to the bulging knee that held such familiarity. It all seemed to meld into one, as the woman's legs were so large.

"You know what your feet remind me of?" She asked, as she got up close to the face, cheek to cheek. "The asylum. The crazies who drool and bite themselves. They have feet that look like yours."

Someone had told her that once, but she couldn't remember who. She only remembered how it made her feel, and she wanted the woman to feel the same insecurity, shame, and self-hatred that she had felt in that moment.

She saw a tear roll down the woman's cheek. The woman stared off into the distance, with empty eyes. Perhaps, the woman was starting to feel the pain that she had caused over the decades.

She walked across the room, took her drink, and started to enjoy it. She couldn't handle the woman's eyes or the woman watching her. It filled her with a rage she had never felt before. She went closer to the woman's face, once again, and asked, "Do you want a drink?"

The woman nodded her head slowly. The alcohol would numb all of the pain- physical and emotional.

She threw the drink in her face, ensuring it went into the woman's eyes. She wanted to see them red, inflamed, swollen, and burning. She knew that this woman had made other's feel that in the past.

"Too bad. The drink will make you fat. It's too sweet for you." She said, face-to-face, with noses nearly touching, and her hot breath right on the woman's mouth. The woman could almost taste the floral and liquorice, despite having no tongue.

She let out a soft laugh, knowing the woman would be insecure about her already robust body. Another flash from her past, that she could neither place the time nor the date, but only the feeling.

She stood up, turned to walk away, with a single tear rolling down her cheek, remembering the self-loathing it caused. She would wipe the tear before anyone saw.

This was no time for weakness.

She pulled the 2 glass bottles from the shelf, a knife, and nothing else. She wasn't going to do this the right way; she was going to do it in the most excruciating way possible.

She approached the woman, and felt a power come over her, as the woman's eyes filled with terror. She lifted the knife to the side of the woman's face and made a shallow cut along the cheek. She opened a bottle, and slowly poured along the cut. She stood back, watching, as it bubbled, then cauterized. She smiled slightly to herself the entire time, feeling the full satisfaction of her own crimes tonight.

A sound came from the woman, but lacking a tongue, it was unrecognizable. She didn't sew the mouth shut this time; she wanted to hear the suffering of this one.

She was too familiar.

"Does that burn, doll face? Let me help you."

And with that, she spit directly into the woman’s face.

She then stood over the woman, staring into those black, dark, evil eyes for a full minute. She wanted the woman to feel the full disrespect that she had meant with it. She knew the humiliation it caused and wanted to inflict it back.

She knew that the woman now knew.

They knew one another.

But they had not been in contact for years.

She took the bone cutter and cut the big toe off of each foot- placing them each on woman’s chest.

She then cut along both collar bones, exposing where a proper embalming should take place, but instead pouring the formaldehyde directly into the openings. She watched as the woman writhed in pain. She lit a cigarette, sipped the last of her drink, waved at Clyde for a refill, and waited until it was done. She savored this moment, unlike any other before it.

She cut the woman open, from the middle of her breasts to her pelvic floor. She watched as the blood flowed from the open cavity and basked in the opulence of the small flaming communist river flowing in the richest of scarlet waves.

Clyde set the drink down next to her, before returning to the chaise, to start smoking from the long pipe. He turned up the flame on the lamp.

She moved a chair up, to sit face to face with the woman, legs crossed, garter exposed with knife in it, smoking a cigarette, and drinking her signature drink- as the final breaths left the woman's body. She leaned forward, put out the cigarette on the woman’s cheek, whispered something in her ear, and left the room. A final tear rolling down her cheek.

The room filled with a beautiful floral scent. It would be the last smell the woman ever smelled.

-And when the last breath left the woman, the Mortician's wife felt relief.