She pulled a fresh gurney into the embalming room. On it lay an elderly man, his skin the color of wet river clay. The protocol was simple: wash, drain, preserve. But the air in the basement was heavy, smelling less of formaldehyde and more of burnt hair and ancient soil.
A wet, slapping sound echoed from the hallway. Slap. Drag. Slap. Drag.
"I am the rot in the floorboards, Rebecca. I am the shadow in your mother's eyes."
The room plunged into darkness. When the emergency red lights kicked in, the elderly man on the table was sitting up. His jaw hung at an impossible angle, and his eyes had been replaced by swirling, oily voids. He raised a finger, pointing not at her, but at the incinerator.
"Just another night, Becky," she whispered, her breath hitching.
She peeled back the sheet on the gurney. Nothing. She checked the woman in cold storage. Nothing.
Then, she heard it—a voice coming from her own throat, but not her own words.
The fluorescent lights of the River Fields Mortuary hummed at a frequency that felt like a needle pressing into Rebecca’s skull. She had taken this apprenticeship to face her demons, but tonight, the demons were literal.