September 26th Total: 773 Words
Today we had a bit of a conversation about Part One of this story. Thank you for commenting and helping me through this! I really do appreciate the hell out of it! Please feel free to comment.
On to part two. I'm still using 'they' as the pronoun for now. Here's part one for context. Looks like this will be in three parts.
The preparation room was sterile in every sense, and looked somewhat like a dentist's office. Forsythe had had it painted a soft shade of green to offset the harshness of the brushed steel cabinets and tables. They had considered detailing the molding with small flowers, or perhaps depictions of adorable woodland creatures, but could not shake the feeling that this would have been in poor taste, somehow. Forsythe wheeled their two guests into the room and washed up. They decided before they were through with the first rinse that they would see to the more damaged lady first. It was the least they could do for her, after all she had been through. They pushed the second gurney against the wall gently, and then turned on the radio. They searched around for some age appropriate music to help their guests to relax before going to dress themself.
A dead body did not bleed, or excrete in any way, but the chemicals Forsythe would be using were harsh, and the fluids they would drain were rife with bacteria, and as such the seal of their garments was important. They put on a respirator and a plastic mask, and little cloth booties. They had a belt hanging in the same closet, which they put on. The weight was companionable as they put on their smock and tied it behind their neck. Last were gloves, and the task was complete.
They unzipped the first lady from her bodybag and addressed her by the name on the clipboard.
“Mrs. King.” She had been washed at the hospital, her body autopsied. Her skin was pale gray, bloodless. She had been in her sixties, and, they thought, perhaps quite beautiful in her time. Forsythe clucked their tongue, surveying the damage. She had been butchered, and bloodily so. The long suture down her abdomen was uneven, as there had not been enough flesh to complete her after the autopsy. Something had taken violent, tearing bites out of every available inch of flesh. Her face was half destroyed, her lips and one breast torn off. The flesh of her left arm had been stripped off. She had been gutted, and Forsythe could only imagine how it must have looked when they found her. They thought that 'massive bloodloss' did not begin to cover what had caused this woman's demise. They shook their head, pityingly. It was such a shame.
“You poor dear. Let's clean you up.” They said. They were lucky enough to have a machine to lift their guests onto the table, and used it to lay poor Mrs. King out on a set of blocks and a headrest. Then, as not to be disrespectful, they went and unzipped Mrs. King's unfortunate housemate, Mrs. Vickers.
Forsythe stopped, the zipper still in their hand. They checked the coroner's report, confirmed what they had read earlier, and what Terrance had said. They reached out and touched her face. She was, and there was no other word for it, she looked quite healthy for a dead woman. Her skin was not drawn, or even pale. There was no sign of her blood pooling at the back of her neck, or anywhere for that matter. Her limbs were loose, as though rigor had not set in at all. She was pink.
Forsythe swallowed, a strange and uncomfortable thought that not even the cheerful radio could push back rising to the surface of their mind. Most cities with any sort of ghost industry claimed the same, but this was the truth: Forsythe lived in the most haunted city in America. They knew it. Everyone knew it. Certain papers of ill repute made their livelihoods on their fair city. They had the highest concentration of supernatural activity in the nation, perhaps the world. There was an antique mall on the other side of town that no one but the tourists dared enter, office buildings with suspiciously high turnover rates and bloody stairwells. Cats laid eggs on the nearby farms. Ghostly librarians shelved books by a system that was no longer accepted. The Scouts did not hold Jamborees here, or for miles from here, for reasons even they could not voice.
But Forsythe was a mortician, and a professional one. They sighed. They even laughed a little.
“Goodness me, Mrs. Vickers,” they said. “Goodness me.” They turned away, leaving her on the gurney against the wall. They laughed again. There was a paranoia to this line of work, a silly, childish way of thinking. They looked back over their shoulder at Mrs. Vickers. She stayed perfectly still, glowing with vitality she did not possess.
“Goodness me,” they said, once more for good measure.
DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON HER OH NO
(This story is complete. Here are links to parts one and three.)
