#FridayFlash flashback, 2010 (edited) psychedelic horror

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The thunderous beat, stomping feet, wiggle the wood floor rattling lights. The blue-haired vocalist screams about love and pain while the band thrashes about working their instruments into furious fits. Before the stage, the human sea writhes into a torrent, arms waving glowing bracelets, bodies splashing together, bounding and swaying in currents. Piercing through the heavy fog, red spotlights splash the crowd like blood raining inside Club Necropolis.

On the pedestal beside the band stage, Kandy grooves to the music. She snuggles close to the backside of the lovely Zypher. Arms in the air, hips swirling, they move as one. The waving currents flow around their feet, a cloud of orange-red body heat, except for a nearby bouncer dressed black, a dim red simmer, the only other Itoril in the club. Seeing all the pairs of beady orbs, it seems nearly half the guests wear special lenses glowing in the black light. The wannabes gather around the pedestal, and Kandy snarls showing them true fangs.

Someone watches her. Glancing over, she spots a pale form slinking into the dark sea. Turning with her partner, Kandy loses sight of him behind a fan of blonde hair. Cold rushes down her backside. She steps into shadowy folds of time.

Music fades into the background. The fan of hair slows into wispy haze, nearly transparent. The crowd dissolves, apparitions dancing in slow motion within the silence.

Stepping around a nearly frozen Zypher, Kandy gazes over the sea of ghosts. The pull of time draws her back, and the world becomes more tangible. Searching frozen faces caught within the constant beat, she finds nothing unusual. Taking her partner, she falls back into the dance of life. Sounds explode, stomping feet, music, working into the pedestal, into her legs.

Eyes popping wide, Zypher stumbles and regains her groove again moving closer, arms wrapping around.

Kandy dances into a storm, and Zypher follows pressing in tight, their black lace waving about them. They wriggle together like dark fire. Slipping from hard cries into angelic hymn, the vocalist tells her tale about dancing with the dead.

Falling into a gentle swirl, she latches onto Zypher, cheeks pressed together. She whispers her heart’s hungry desire. Hands sliding down over her partner’s hips, she grasps the bottom of the skirt and lifts. Hearing the roar of delight from the men gathered around the pedestal, she laughs.

Slithering down into a squat, Kandy grasps Zypher’s warm thighs. She spots the nude-colored tape hiding the blood pack. Baring her teeth for the audience, she glances around finding ecstatic faces. Cold sparks rush up her spine. Something is out there. Not human. Not Itoril. Something cold watches her. She dives in biting the pack squirting red syrup running in rivers down creamy legs.

Zypher shrieks for the performance.

Unsatisfied, Kandy lifts the blonde up and slams her down onto the pedestal. Crouched over, she bites into thigh, tasting blood slithering about her tongue. The woman’s scream a treat to her ears. Peering up over the trembling leg, she spots a familiar buzz of hair and chiseled chin, a face from the dead.

Dressed in a light-colored shirt, the man glows like a beacon in the dark sea. Reaching out, he claws at the pedestal, pulling himself to shore. Leaking from his cruel eyes, violet smoking wisps curl up over buzzed hair.

Waves of cold splash inside, and she shudders. A single thought rises from the abyss: run.

Lunging into the shadows of time, Kandy leaps over the nearly frozen apparition of Zypher and onto the dance floor. Hands latch onto hers, pulling her into a spin, twirling through insubstantial dancers, warm waves splash against her. Never having gone this far, she cringes at each ghost passing through her leaving a wake of hot prickles on her flesh.

Spinning and gliding through the hazy cloud of ghosts, they dance to the frozen silence. Gazing at the cold expressionless face, the violet smoke pouring from dark eye sockets, she looks at the wraith. As he turns, leaving a trail of smoking bits, he tugs her deeper in, and time pulls at her sending them into a lumbering dance.

Watching creeping shadows eat at the floor, she claws at the arms holding her trying to break free. As the abyss closes in, she reverses her fight.

Meeting the rhythm, Kandy dances with the dead. Turning with her lead, she adds her own groove complimenting his steps. Time rips at her, but she dances through the shadows between worlds beneath a storm of lavender and azure clouds. As her insides begin to tear apart, she breaks the beat rushing into time.

Music slams into her, perspiration and leather attack her nose, and a person knocks her spinning sideways. Pushing against bodies, she stumbles through the crowd. She punches a man square in the face and escapes the dance floor. Spinning around, back against stone wall, she scans the club.

Glowing bracelets wave above the waving currents of the human sea, but nothing unusual stirs within. She imagines the wraith lurks deep within time or somewhere between this world and another.

Finding the rhythm, Kandy walks to the beat of life, up the steel stairs and out the door into the crisp night air leaving Club Necropolis behind.

“He’s not dead,” said Nine. Hearing her own voice made it more real.

Gasping, the Itoril man lurched. The vice held his head down. Reaching out, he clawed at Nine’s smock.

Twisting, Nine elbowed the arm aside, saw blade scraping her attacker’s face. Pushed sideways, she leaned the other way trying to stay on her feet. Growling, the man tried sitting up as he reached for her. Samuel grasped the other arm and leaned his weight down on the torso. Turning sideways, Nine tried to break free, but the grip on her shirt pulled her back.

The saw flailed biting her father’s arm. As she jerked the weapon back, the Itoril yanked her closer, his fangs slashing her hand. She cried out at the pain, and pulled her hand away.

No escape, the strength of the Itoril was too much pulling her down closer. There was nothing else she could think to do, but kill.

Gripping tight, Nine drove the blade down against the throat and began sawing. The grip continued pulling her down into an uncomfortable position. The top of the saw smashed her face shield against her chin. Thrashing, she worked the saw as fast as she could.

Blood splattered against her face mask, and the man’s growling cut out leaving the sound of ripping flesh. The body spasmed and fell still. A quick pull on the saw, and she felt blood spraying against her front, draining down her neck and beneath her shirt. So much blood on her mask, she could barely see. As the blade lurched against bone, she thrashed even faster, and the neck snapped, saw teeth screeching against the steel table.

A droning sound filled her ears.

Flipping up the mask cleared her vision, and she found the head held up in her father’s gloved hands with the gore facing her. Frozen, she gazed dazedly at the cut spine, the throat, and the layers of tissue around the opening.

Looking at her left hand, she found blood smeared over ripped latex. Only a pair of cuts, but they stung fiercely.

Her father’s voice, muffled, distant words she couldn’t make any sense of. Holding the skull out to her, he wanted her to do something. The next step, she thought. He wanted her to perform the extraction.

Realizing she still gripped the saw, Nine set the tool down. Turning to the tray on the side of the table, she picked the syringe up and stared at it uncertain what to do. She detected the voice of her father shouting at her, but couldn’t make sense of his words.

Blood. A splatter streak ran up her father’s smock. Crimson tears on white tile. The cold dead didn’t bleed like that.

“Damn it, Nine!” Samuel coughed hoarsely. “Hand me the needle!”

She held out the syringe. Samuel released hold, and the head fell over cheek-first onto the table. There was so much blood now, crimson filled the table, the drain track at the edge slowly gulping it away into the canister beneath the table.

Her father snatched the syringe away. “Hold it for me,” he said.

Dazed, she ran on automatic just like her first time, a teenage girl new to cleaning out a body cavity. Disgusting things most teenage girls never witnessed. Like that first day, she followed commands, her mind only half processing the sights and smells. Only now it wasn’t the gore, the chemical stench, or even body parts.

She had murdered a man, and now she held the decapitated head up so her father could poke a needle through the front of the throat going deep into the skull. An accomplice to murder was one thing, but tonight she had killed. She had become like one of those creepy guys at the park parents tell their children to avoid.

Bent over with his eye on the target, Samuel slowly worked the syringe. A clear liquid entered the tube. There wasn’t much.

“You can’t think of them as people,” he said.

Nine had always considered Lamia a friend. A person. That’s what her grandfather had taught her. Itoril were different, but they were persons, too.

All that blood, though. The man full of gunshot wounds had lost considerable blood. How could a person, even an Itoril person, wake up from that? A chiang-shih seemed more probable.

As Samuel pulled the needle out Nine released hold of the skull and wrenched her blood-stained smock off. Looking down, she found her shirt covered in blood, too. Wiping her hair back over her ear, she felt moisture. Red on her fingers.

Murder was in her hair!

Nine scrambled for the emergency shower. Pulling her shirt off, she tossed the blood-stained rag into the bin. She pulled the chain and bent over placing her head into the stream. Cold water rained down over her shoulders and head, streaming from the long strands of her hair rinsing blood into the drain. She stood bent over watching water turn clear then wiped her face.

Standing, she reached up and pulled the chain shutting the water off. Dripping wet, she turned to face her father.

Holding a test tube containing the extracted venom, he watched her with a concerned look on his face.

She scowled at him for getting her into this mess.

“We’re still short for the year,” said Samuel. He waved the small test tube showing her its contents, not much more than a puddle and a meniscus. Opening the freezer door, he placed the stoppered test tube of venom inside.

“Fuck you, Daddy,” said Nine. It was the first time she had ever spoken the f-word, and it felt good. Her grandfather would had threatened her with his belt had he heard, and she would had accepted a lashing. She deserved more than just a lashing.

Shocked, Samuel quietly gazed at her as he leaned a hand against the freezer door. After a moment, he huffed.

“Nine,” he said, “if we don’t collect more, he’ll come for us.”

Opening her mouth to argue, it suddenly struck her. Nine recalled her sixteenth birthday, the day her grandfather had told her his story about how Samuel had been taken as a child and later returned.

“Vampire Thyme,” said Nine. Until now she hadn’t known the details of the agreement Augustus Thyme had made so long ago. What did a vampire need with venom?

Samuel said, “And I’m certain he has little use for an old man like me.”

“Fuck!” said Nine. The word had already become a habit it seemed, and she bit her lip. She shook her head. “I need to think,” she said.

Nine marched away leaving her father to take care of the cremation. She stomped up the stairs letting her father know of her anger. The Thyme family business had expanded, adding murder made the list of funeral services more than complete. And complicated. She dared not think about what might happen when the Itoril people found out the Thyme family had murdered their kind for venom.

There wasn’t much time for thinking, though. As Nine marched by the office and glanced inside, she spotted a pair of cars out the window. The police had arrived.

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Chiang-shih (kiang shi or Jiang Shi) translates to "stiff corpse" and may also be considered a zombie. See deliriumsrealm.com/chiang-shih or wikipedia. Nine's tattoo was first revealed to Peter in Thyme for Nine.

As Nine ended the call with Diego, she heard the beeping alert from his ambulance in reverse. She pulled her smock open and slipped her phone into her jeans pocket. As she removed her latex gloves, she looked over her work on the corpse. The bruises increased challenge painting the face to return the appearance of life. A little more effort on the cheeks and the middle-aged man would be ready for his sharp suit his wife had brought in. Lifting the paper sheet, Nine snuck another peek of the toned abdomen—wrecked by her suture—nearly hairless all the way down. Just enough fuzz to give it some character, she thought.

Nine removed her smock and exited the mortuary. Heading down the hall she heard muffled voices from the other side of the receiving doors. Diego normally arrived alone with his special deliveries, and she had never thought to ask about a partner.

Opening the doors, she found the EMT waiting with the stretcher. She looked at her father in bewilderment.

“What took you so long?” said Samuel, frowning.

Grabbing hold of the stretcher, her father pushed. Nine leaped out of the way as he wheeled the corpse into the hall.

“Hey,” said Diego, “I didn’t realize you had a tattoo.”

Holding out her arm with her palm up, Nine showed him the Chinese characters. “I usually wear long sleeves for work. Cold in the mortuary, you know.”

Samuel opened the mortuary door. Walking backward, he pulled the corpse inside.

“Looks cool,” said Diego. “What’s it say?”

“Chiang-shih. Like a vampire,” said Nine, “but created after a violent death and the only way to ensure its demise is through cremation.”

Diego made a sour face and shook his head. “I guess it suits you,” he said.

Nine thumbed over her shoulder. “Did he meet you outside?” she asked.

“A ride-along,” said the EMT.

Rolling into the hallway, the stretcher banged against the wall. The mortuary door slammed shut.

Nine rolled her eyes, and strolled over to the door. The knob refused her.

“Open the door,” she said. Locking the door wasn’t like him, and she became worried.

“Listen,” said Diego, “I’ll forfeit my share this round.”

“No Diego,” said Nine, “I’ll get yours to you. You’ve been more than fair. Just tell me what my father was doing riding with you.”

“Since you’re the boss here now,” said Diego, “I wouldn’t want to keep secrets. However, I’d rather not say anything that might come back to bite me in the ass.”

“Oh God,” said Nine. She shook her head. Whatever it was, she could deal with it. “Don’t tell me then. I’ll call you later, Diego.”

Arms folded, Nine waited quietly as Diego pulled his stretcher outside. Once the receiving doors were closed, she returned to the mortuary door and pounded her fist on it.

She listened to her father rummaging about.

“I’ll go fetch the key then,” said Nine.

Footsteps approached. Lock clicked, and the door swung open.

“You’re the head cheese,” said Samuel. Holding the door open, he stood looking glum. “I guess it’s time you learned,” he said.

After donning her smock and latex gloves, Nine approached the stainless steel mortuary table holding the special delivery. Blood soaked the purple dress shirt, and the usual dark spot marked the crotch and partway down one leg of the black slacks. The body didn’t smell bad, though. Persons often shit themselves at death. Spotting the fangs within the open mouth, Nine realized this corpse was an Itoril person.

For a better look, Nine pushed the upper lip with her finger. The fangs were impressive—in appearance and length. By comparison, Lamia’s fangs were harmless nubbins. Pretty blue eyes, too. This handsome devil could have passed among the elite of Itoril people.

By her count, fourteen gunshot wounds dotted the torso. The shooter had reloaded and continued blasting away at the poor guy. The more powerful Itoril could handle a few wounds, but damn, she thought, someone had wanted this sucker dead.

Samuel held out a plastic face shield. Nine took it and placed the halo cap over her head, clear mask raised.

“Shouldn’t that one be prepared by now?” said Samuel. He thumbed at the other table.

She took a long look at the muscular corpse scheduled for a showing in the morning. It was a cruel world to let handsome men die in their prime.

“Oh, I see,” said Samuel.

Scowling, Nine said, “As if! You always take your time with the pretty ladies.”

Before the glare hit her, Nine regretted speaking her thought. Prettying up a corpse for showing meant getting intimate with cold flesh, hiding scars and stitches, fixing misshapen appendages, and dressing the dead like a doll. Mortuary work was an art, and Samuel Thyme transformed the dead into angels.

“One thing to keep in mind,” said Samuel. He set an empty syringe prepared with a long needle on a tray beside the table. In his other hand he held an amputation saw. ”The fresher, the better. Don’t forget that.”

Blood pooled underneath the body, oozing into the drain track at the edge of the table. This Itoril appeared so fresh Diego had to have been near the crime scene when the shooting had happened.

“A ride-a-long my butt,” said Nine. “Did you shoot this person?”

Samuel held the saw handle-side out over the table.

“Well, did you kill him?”

“Damn it, Nine!” Samuel slammed the amputation saw on the corpse’s abdomen. “If you and Lamia hadn’t screwed up that last one. Whenever those uptight leaders of their half-secret society deliver a venomous prick, we harvest the juice and send it back to them.”

Venomous Itoril with their impressive fangs were rare. According to her grandfather’s research, venom could pacify a victim or induce hallucinations. Interest in the potent juice fueled greed and fed crime. As far as Nine was concerned, the body and all its fluids should be disposed of, but business arrangements dictated otherwise.

“So, we missed one,” said Nine. “They’ll understand.”

Leaning his hands on the edge of the table, her father hunched over and lowered his head.

“No, Nine,” said Samuel. He grimaced and shook his head slowly. “They don’t concern me. His quota does.”

Nine didn’t understand. If not with the organization they had the disposal arrangement with, then what quota? Her father was hiding something from her, and she didn’t like that one bit. After this extraction, she intended to pull rank to obtain this crucial business information.

“Let’s hurry before it sours,” said her father. Lifting the saw, he held it out.

Taking the amputation saw, she raised it away from the table as she was taught. The amputation saw worked much like a hacksaw including replaceable blade, but made entirely of stainless steel for simple cleaning. She didn’t want the sharp teeth snatching at any living arms in the work area. She lowered her face shield.

Samuel placed his hand under the corpse’s neck, the other on the chin, and lifted tilting head back exposing the neck. He positioned a block vice around the head and secured it to the table. Turning the crank squeezed cups against the skull holding it firm. He flipped his face shield down and placed his hands at his sides.

“Close under the chin, if you will,” said Samuel.

Nine had only operated the bone saw once before, and she was uncertain how to go about cutting a throat. Decapitating a corpse was frowned upon with most funeral services. Such ruthless disrespect went against everything she had learned. Things were so much easier when Diego delivered them decapitated.

Blood filled the drain track and seeped into the opening at the low end.

She still couldn’t believe her father had shot an Itoril man out there on the street somewhere, and had enough nerves to reload and finish the job. She felt as though she didn’t truly know the man.

“Nine, don’t puss out on me now,” said Samuel.

Nine confirmed all hands free of the work area then she lowered the blade over the neck lining up the teeth above the laryngeal prominence for the cut.

The torso rose and fell.

Nine watched the blood-stained shirt. No movement. Imagining things, she thought, an excuse to puss out. She took a deep breath and held it.

Orbs rotating, blue eyes gazed at her.

Like a chiang-shih, the corpse reawakened.

After sunset, Nine Thyme stood outside the family mausoleum. A plaque for Augustus Thyme, presumed dead, was mounted beside the stone walkway outside of the tomb of his father’s sister and her mother, the first resident of the graveyard on the hill. Boneyard, as they said back in her day.

The boneyard was home to several of Nine’s childhood companions. As she grew older, gradually they had abandoned her. According to her father, they had been imaginary friends. Nine preferred another explanation: childhood innocence saw ghosts of our past. She had only met a handful of the boneyard’s residents, none among the Thyme family.

Not until recently.

The marking she had made on the window of the sepulcher had faded away, but the response remained. Like a finger swiping dust on the inside of the glass, the message spelled her name and included a smudge.

NINE ﹅

Had the name—or the number, she thought—been there all along?

Breathing on the glass, she fogged the window. Using her finger, she smudged her name backward like before so the inhabitants could read it.

NINE ﹅ƎИIИ

As she waited for a response she considered writing a new message. Hello wouldn’t do, she thought. She watched the fading fog erase her backward name. In the retreating daylight, Nine took the narrow dirt path through the trees and into the backyard behind the house. An early service meant she needed to decorate the chapel tonight. She hiked along the side of the funeral home taking the drive along the woods around the chapel to the front of the property. Only a single car in the lot, her grandfather’s 1968 Cadillac hearse, now hers by inheritance.

Inside the office she grabbed a hefty basket crowded with white carnations from the desk and turned out the light. Leaving through the other door, she entered the showroom full of caskets on display. Crossing the showroom, she heard a noise from the office. Stopping before the doors to the chapel, she glanced behind and listened.

Must have been the building settling, she thought.

She opened the door, taking the side entrance into the chapel, and pulled the door closed.

Dusk fell through the stained glass windows casting a dull, blue glow over the nave. To conserve energy Nine flipped only the nearest switch on the set. Two sconces softly illuminated the front of the nave leaving the main doors at the back in blue shadow. Two flower pedestals and vases waited along the wall.

The most requested flowers at Thyme Funeral Home were lilies followed by chrysanthemums. After that, it was a toss-up between roses and carnations. White carnations represented innocence, and Gladys DeWalt had stressed the importance of white carnations for her daughter’s funeral. Thyme had been ordering from the same flower shop for decades due to their excellent service. These carnations looked perfect and smelled wonderful.

Setting the basket down, Nine reached for a flower pedestal and positioned it on one side. She set the remaining pedestal on the other side surrounding where the casket would go. After setting the vases on the pedestals, she counted out carnations and arranged a dozen in each vase.

Taking the basket, she slung it under her arm and strolled into the alley stopping at the first row. She slipped the stem into the clip fastening the flower to the end of the bench. She did the same on the opposite side. Taking a step towards the second row, the floor groaned beneath her feet. She fastened two more carnations in place, and continued making her way down the alley. After the last, she still held a half-dozen carnations to adorn the casket.

The floor groaned behind her.

Spinning around, Nine gazed in wonder at the carnations resting on the floor of the alley. Low probability for all the flowers to come loose falling behind her, unless her father had set about improving the fasteners. He was good with working on a corpse, but terrible with building maintenance. He always meant well, though.

She scooped up the nearest flower, slipped the stem inside the clip, and gave it a good wiggle with her finger. The fastener held the white carnation in place. Working her way back up the alley, and keeping a watchful eye behind her for falling flowers, she positioned each carnation back in place.

Between the first and second row, the floor groaned beneath her feet. Pausing, she lifted her foot, hearing a quiet squeak, and pressed her weight down. The floor groaned and snapped. Until more funds became available, the creaky floor would have to do. It wasn’t so bad, really.

Looking back, Nine surveyed the carnations standing at the ends of the benches meeting her satisfaction.

After repositioning the final two flowers, she set the basket of remaining carnations down beside one of the pedestals.

A deep groan and a crackle snapped behind her.

Twirling around, Nine found the carnations piled on the floor near the weak spot. The fasteners still held the stems. Heads had been lopped off!

Glancing around, Nine found no intruder. No doors had opened. She would have heard it. How could have someone snuck so close behind her and escaped unseen? No ghost could cut flowers, or put weight on the floor. Someone had to be hiding nearby.

Keeping watch over the nave, she marched to the side and down the aisle. An intruder with dark enough clothing could move about in the back, she thought. She checked between benches in each row, scouted the back, and hurried up the other side peeking between benches.

Nothing.

Returning to head of the alley, she gazed down at the pile of stemless, ruined carnations—at innocence lost.

No, not a pile, she realized. Clumped close together the white carnations formed the number, nine.

Only one thought came to mind. Anyone sneaky enough to remain hidden within the chapel was equally skilled at breaching inside the doorless tomb and mark the window.

!ɘniИ, it had to be.

Everyone gathered around Beth to look at her phone. In the photo, they stood in a line all dressed in white blouses with black neckties, except for the kitchen staff, Boris wearing an apron over a polo and Crank in a Tee shirt. It was their first group photo of recently opened, Autumn Twilight. Barely visible in the background stood a coffin decorated with paper ghost and pumpkins for Hallowe’en.

The youngest waitress, Laura, waved as she buzzed for the door. She had school in the morning. Nine waved back, belatedly, as the front door banged shut. As others filed out, Nine waited patiently, fist-bumping Crank on his way out.

Nine had only one thing on her mind: the coffin, curiously delivered to Autumn Twilight by an anonymous sender. She had recognized the model, sold more often for vampire groupie fashion than for the actual dead, at least in her experience at the funeral home. Caskets are far more popular, and the manufacturer had recently discontinued this coffin model.

Spotting Peter studying the coffin, Nine rushed over and bumped shoulders with him.

“Want to open it now?” asked Nine.

She couldn’t help but grin at Peter’s consternation with the sealed coffin. Uncertain if the restaurant owner had heard her, she elbowed him and reminded him her tools were in the break room.

“Sure,” said Peter, appearing dubious.

On her way upstairs, Nine met Beth coming down onto the landing overlooking the stage.

“He’s a handsome one, isn’t he?” said Beth, grinning.

“Oh, sure,” said Nine. Cute, no doubt, but Peter was her boss. Uncertain how to respond, she shrugged, and words came out of her mouth anyway. “I think it’s great how he’s trying to continue his father’s dream running a restaurant.”

A raised eyebrow, Beth gave a look of doubt. “Even though he’s terribly inexperienced?” she said.

“Peter will get the hang of it,” said Nine, “with a little help.”

“Uh-huh,” said Beth, rolling her eyes. “Just try not to help him too much, sweetie.”

Eager to drop this line of chit-chat, Nine smiled politely and wished the woman a goodnight. There were far more important things on her mind. Fetching the tools from her locker, she hurried back downstairs.

Still standing in the same spot, Peter gazed at the coffin in dismay. Nine tried to think of something to ease his mind. Funeral home humor rarely went over well outside the funeral home, and thinking better of it, she got started on the task of breaking the seal. She handed one of the pry bars to Peter, and she sat down at the narrow end of the coffin. Peter gave the tool a queer look and knelt down on one knee at the head of the coffin.

“If we’re careful,” said Nine, “the damage will be minimal so we can sell this bad boy.” She set the twin-lever end into the crack of the lid and smacked it hard forcing the prongs in. “If you want to sell it, I mean,” she said.

Imitating Nine’s method, Peter wedged his pry bar in at his end. Nine counted to three, and together they leaned their weight on the bars. The seal crackled, but the lid held.

“Peter,” said Nine, “if we find a pile of candy in here I’m going to smack you for not opening it sooner.”

“Why’s that?” Peter asked.

“Think about it,” said Nine, “trick-or-treaters grabbing handfuls of candy from a coffin. We could have been the coolest business on the block.”

Instead, they had handed out candy from plastic jack-o-lantern buckets. Still fun, but grabbing candy from inside an actual coffin would had been a blast. If only kids came trick-o-treating to the funeral home. None ever did.

Nine counted again, and on three, they pushed on the levers. A quiet snap, and the coffin groaned.

“It’s the seal,” said Nine. Noticing Peter’s concerned expression, she smiled. “We’d smell it if there was anything atrocious inside.”

Shipping a body requires a special container and must be shipped from a registered shipper. Certain destinations may require, or not allow, embalming before transport. Please see your funeral servicer for details and rates.

Note: any shipment request for a live person, including a person claiming to be, or accused of being, a vampire, will be refused.

Lid popping open, the coffin spewed find dust smelling like cinnamon and lavender. So much for candy. Setting the opener aside, Peter grasped the lid and lifted.

No padding inside, only a red liner. A rectangular silver canister sat in the middle nearly consuming the width. Hanging on the near side was what appeared to be samurai sword, perhaps some toy for men, thought Nine. A composition book caught her attention. Snatching it up, she began flipping through pages. Chemistry, mostly, and some dated journal entries.

Leaning over, Peter examined the canister lid sealed closed with clear tape. Brown tape held something attached on the side, which he poked at. Nine spotted a blue sticky-note at the corner of the canister and leaned in for a better look.

“Keep in freezer,” said Nine, reading the note. On the back side of the canister, more tape held something attached. She ripped it at once pulling a pair of items free. “And two syringes. What is this about, Peter?”

Peter shook his head.

Nine finished ripping the tape free and lifted the canister lid. Inside, she found two bags containing a red substance sitting on a bed of card ice pellets. According to the label on the bag, it contained blood. Someone had shipped biological contents without proper paperwork. Lifting the bag, she showed the label to Peter.

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious,” said Peter.

A bit rude, Nine thought and scowled at Peter. Turning her attention back on the canister, she found a third bag at the bottom. Squishing the bag pushed frosty bubbles around inside the clear liquid. Two bags of blood and mystery goo.

“Peter,” said Nine, “this is one weird box of treats.”

The coffin appeared to be in great condition, though, and the red interior looked divine. Could fetch a nice price, she thought.

“Dammit,” said Peter, grinning. “Now I wish you had talked me into opening it sooner. A pile of candy in the coffin would have been sweet.”

Peter could be slow sometimes, thought Nine, but in his own cute way.

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Note: this same scene from Peter's perspective posted in "Coffin of Treats" includes one huge difference. Who is missing in Nine's side of the story?