Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
There, in the middle of the room, lay a body bag on a metal table. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief upon realizing that it was empty. We let our guards down, and began exploring. Some wanted to find money. Others maybe a cigarette or a joint, which was stupid to expect in a funeral home, but I didn’t think about that at the time. I am not sure what I was looking for, or what would make me feel like it was time well spent, but I figured just saying that I had been the ringleader, and given bragging rights, would be good enough.
“Hey, what are those?” Larry questioned.
To our left were these squares in the wall, seeming like mailboxes at a post office, and further past that, a huge oven.
“Uh, I don’t know,” I responded. “Go ’nd find out.”
I walked over to the large furnace-like structure. There was a metal door with a latch. I picked with it until I was able to unlock it to find some ash and soot inside. As I studied the big crematory oven, poking my head inside the dark, cold hollow, my friends scattered about, opening drawers from various metal cabinets, and finding sharp, rusted tools, old makeup, wigs, costume jewelry, cufflinks, and various articles of clothing.
“Look!” our friend Bingo shouted. “Come ’ere, you gotta see this!” His real name was Ben. He’d found an old dirty magazine shoved way back in one of the drawers.
It was a strange magazine, though. It featured men in capes, standing over women with these red, shiny balls stuffed in their mouths, and black straps around their heads. Some of the ladies were bound with chains around their wrists and ankles. Some were tied down, seemingly choking with a cock or two shoved down their throats and up their asses. Ben found his favorite page and shared it—a woman tied to a pole, getting gang-banged by three caped and masked men. At that age, I definitely knew what sex was, and had done my share of dry humping and kissing girls in the coat closet, but that magazine didn’t interest me. Instead, I kept studying the big oven.
A few of the other kids gathered around Bingo though, abandoning their previous investigations, now laughing and pointing, all wishing to get their chance to turn to the next page. Bingo, last I heard, had landed in prison for several sexual assaults. Go figure. Once the fun of the magazine had worn off, the explorations commenced. We talked amongst ourselves, a few of the guys racing around in the wigs that we’d found, and laughing as they pretended to be pretty girls wanting a date. I just kept standing there by the oven. Almost unable to move.
I stretched my arm out, the flashlight still on, and saw bits and pieces of chalky white, hard fragments. I reached out to touch a piece, but before I could, there sounded a blood curdling scream. One of my friends had pried one of those little post office squares open, pulled out a metal bed… and oh boy… Inside, was a decomposed body of what was possibly a woman. It was so dried out and hollowed, it looked as if it had been charred by the sun, the skin turned to leather. Long white hair flowed from the skull, and sunken bits, like dried out contact lenses, filled the bottoms of the sockets. The lips were gone, but the teeth were large and protruded. Slightly ajar, as if she had just one last thing to say.
The screams continued, echoing everywhere, bouncing off the walls as if in stereo, but I just stood rooted to the spot during the commotion, staring at the body. I walked over to it, terrified, yet at the same time, completely fascinated. The breast area was slightly puffy, but flattened and unnatural against the gaunt remains. Flush nipples and dark red areolas were stretched across ribs and bone. A thatch of coarse white hair was visible along the pubic area, and the skeleton’s nails were quite long, yellowed and twisted. The legs and arms were skeletal, and the neck was hanging on by a thread of small bones. The boys were still screaming, clamoring on top of one another attempting to race up the creaky stairs… but I just stood there. I wondered, what was her name? How old was she?
“Kage! Kaaaaage! Come on, fucker!” Larry screamed, tugging at my arm before taking off, too. Poor guy was worried about me. Footsteps thumped up the steps, and now, I was all alone. Trapped. Not from a locked door, but because I was wedged between dread, morbid curiosity, and feeling oddly at home there. With the dead. It was at that moment, that I realized death didn’t scare me, either. A strange comfort came over me, unnerving me so. Why was I okay with this? It was then that I noticed a little white label by the person’s feet. I picked it up and squinted. It had been handwritten in ink, but was a bit faded. I tried and tried even harder to make it out, and then, finally I could see it: