Page 10 of Grave Love
By the time I unlock the front doors, the digital clock in the entrance lobby reads1:27. I clutch my bag to my hip, a length of rope with a hangman’s knot tucked inside. I keep my composure in check, prepared with an excuse if Denise walks in:I forgot my wallet. Sorry for bothering you.Denise lives in Destin; she’s never out here this late. She calls me or the embalmer to do nighttime pickups.
The refrigeration unit buzzes. I open the door. The cardboard boxes are like online orders: mindless products purchased during a late-night scroll, filling a person’s life with meaningless junk, just to keep that person from drowning in their own personal hell. I don’t judge: some people fill their emptiness with shopping; I fill mine with come. In the end, dead bodies are property, nothing more, and what I’m doing is simplyborrowingclothes.
I check the labels and dates. The names. My hands flutter with anticipation, momentarily losing track of the emotions, and that bliss keeps me going.
I find the one I’m looking for.
I slide the cardboard box onto the gurney, then open the top. The body isn’t fresh; it’s probably in limbo while the family decides what to do with it. The sweetly sour scent of death lingers in the air, dulled by the cool temperature. The important part is that the corpse ismyage. Her flat, cloudy eyes bore into the ceiling, her skin purpled and yellowed. She’s thinner than me, but with the same long, dark hair. A flimsy, white cotton dress covers her body, and I run my hand across the material. There are no signs of trauma here. She’s beautiful. Still in perfect shape.
I wonder how she died.
I scan the permits next to the refrigeration unit and find hers.Avery Smith.Some of the boxes on her form have been scratched out and rewritten—the family wanted her embalmed at first; now, she’s off to the crematory, into my care. Embalming tends to be more expensive, and the shock of the subtotal probably swayed their decisions.
In my mind, I warp her story until it fits into another version of me. Her familywantsto get rid of her. To pretend like she never existed.
Just like me.
I bend her knees and elbows in strange angles until I remove her dress, bra, and panties. I leave her body out, still thawing to room temperature, then head to the crematory with her clothes. I undress and place my own clothes on the table next to the retort, my body tingling with anticipation. The conveyor belt calls like a siren song, languid and stretched out, waiting for me.
I slip into her dress. Her underwear. Her bra.Embodying her.Little scales of her skin flaking onto mine. The conveyor belt moans with my weight, and I raise my head slightly, then wrap the rope around my neck, cinching it until the pressure is light, like a choker necklace.
I pull the canvas bag over my head, erasing my own existence. No one can see me like this.
The stranger’s clothes press into my back, the rubber on the conveyor belt heating with my skin. With one hand keeping the noose tight, I use my other hand to slip into her underwear and glide my fingertips over the tender, hairy skin between my legs. I think of the pills. The weight of them in my throat, choking them down like rocks falling to the bottom of a pond. That serenity swallowing me whole. Ending my life.
It’s not enough.
Those visions transform. I see a figure—a man so overpowering that I don’t have a choice. His dick impales me, tears bursting from my eyes no matter how hard I try to keep them inside. He puts a gun to my head. My eyes roll back and I pant as I reach my first climax. I tighten the rope slightly, my fingertips skimming across my mound, circling that sensitive bundle of nerves, the slickness of my sex dripping down between my legs. I’m not dead,damn it,but he’s going to kill me because he wants me, and there’s nothing that I can do about it. My imagination finds more clarity—his gaunt features look down on me, more skeleton than man, his light blue eyes haunting me like the hottest part of a fire. Like Blaze. I stand on the edge of the abyss, near that pleasurable peak I’ll never escape fromunlesshe pushes me in. Unless Blaze—
Do you like knowing that you’re going to die, little cunt?he asks. My core pulses, my need fixated on him. Pleasing him. Only him.Once I come, once I finish using you, I’m going to kill you exactly the way you like it—
A raucous bang jerks me from my fantasy, the backdoor slamming against the wall. A whistling tune fills the air. My chest stiffens, my body twitching with nerves. Every part of me trembles. I bite my lip.
Who the fuck is in here?
Chapter6
Ren
The flute-like whistlingfloats down the hallway, my skin crawling the louder the tune gets. Closer. Counting down the seconds until the stranger finds me. Until I’m exposed.
I’m fucked.I’m so fucked.I’m lying on the retort’s conveyor belt with a bag over my head and a rope around my neck, all while I’m wearing a dead woman’s dress.
If Denise finds me like this, I’ll be fired. My grandmother will never forgive me.
I picture my body disintegrating into the floor.
The cheerful whistling mixes with the heavy pound of boots, the power in each footstep shaking me to my core. No—the steps are too loud to be Denise. And Emily, our embalmer, is quiet; she’s not the kind of person who would evenhumto herself.
My heart throbs in my ears as I try to think. The steps grow louder, masculinity permeating the air. Salt. Sweat. Earth.
The gravedigger.Blaze.
He’s close now.
I can’t run.
I can’t go anywhere.
