Photo Credit: Thaishutter_2528
In this medical fiction tale, a goth mortician balances life between the dead and living, exacting dark justice on a predatory funeral home business heir.
This medical fiction tale is one of a collection of stories that are like “Final Destination” meets “The Monkey’s Paw” (W. W. Jacobs, 1902). As such, they are tragedies that appeal most to readers who enjoy the inexorable pull of a story arc that leads to doom. The technical details surrounding the event are drawn from real cases in the US OSHA incident report database or similar sources and are, therefore, entirely realistic, even if seemingly outlandish.
Drucilla Alexandra Fenworth-Covington was a disappointment, a source of great frustration to her parents and siblings alike, and a delicious monster. Her family couldn’t understand or relate to her and lived in constant trepidation over family gatherings and public functions. Where dainty footwear and tailored linen outfits were required, Drucilla might arrive in knee-high punk goth boots, torn fishnet stockings, and a dress resembling an industrial explosion of lace, taffeta, and faux-patent leather. While her twin sisters wore pearl necklaces and light makeup, Drucilla opted for black lipstick, nose piercings, and a stainless-steel choker with a thick metal ring. It was all very unsettling at best, and no one in her family knew what to do about her.
The stark differences extended to careers and interests and were also very disturbing to all but Drucilla. Margaret studied art history, vacationed abroad, and pursued a career in investment banking. Elizabeth, who had studied finance, vacationed in London and worked in hedge funds. Drucilla had studied pathology and toxicology, spent school breaks at body farms, and currently worked at a morgue. The twins thrived in golf, polo, and art scenes, whereas Drucilla preferred metalwork, archery, and swordplay. Margaret’s secret hobby was collecting erotic Greek statuary, Elizabeth’s was ancient coins, and Drucilla’s—death.
Drucilla wasn’t on a path towards becoming a soccer mom, socialite people-pleaser, or glamorous trophy wife, nor was she bookish in the sense of being divorced from reality —she simply rejected pretense. She didn’t actively dislike people but also didn’t make eye contact with anyone she didn’t find attractive, whether male, female or somewhere in between. She sought solitude in cemeteries, free from questions or opinions regarding her books on dissection or Victorian crimes. In a cemetery or mausoleum, nobody sidled up and asked huskily about tomb engravings or internment processes.
Drucilla maintained her distance from living people online as well. Although she maintained a business presence on funeral forums and socially on goth regions of the web, her interaction was sparse. She did, however, develop a distinct loathing for online bullies.
At work, Drucilla operated as the de facto manager since Hector, the aging mortician, was no longer much of a hands-on practitioner. Hector’s gastrointestinal problems stemming from years of poor dietary choices, undiagnosed diverticulitis, and a faulty gene inherited from his father also meant that one or two extra internments or cremations went unnoticed. His disinterest in oversight let Drucilla experiment freely, especially in the old incinerator rooms she’d upgraded. Hector admired her pioneering spirit, professional skills, and aptitude. It warmed his old heart to see her enthusiastic and engrossed in her work. What he would have found quite ingenious but equally disturbing were her explorations of spontaneous human combustion as a means of low-cost, eco-friendly cremation.
Victorian literature on spontaneous combustion fascinated her—not because she believed that people were bursting into flames on their own accord, but because something was clearly going on. Accounts spoke of bodies almost entirely consumed by flames, as well as parts of chairs or beds victims had been sitting or lying on, but mentioned that nearby flammable items such as curtains, furniture, or wall hangings were left unscorched. This combination of high heat and low surrounding temperature fascinated her, and she experimented with cremating bodies in such an energy-efficient manner. Her eco-friendly method turned out to be very simple; If she wrapped a body in cloth woven from certain natural fibers, gave it a light sprinkling of home-distilled potato alcohol, and performed a little fire-lighting ceremony, the body would steadily burn into ashes over a period of three days or so. Early attempts left hands and feet intact. Drucilla theorized that this was because their fat content was too low for the wicking action to reach a high enough heat to break down the tissue and bone. She’d tried adding oil and wax to the cloth, but while this helped, it was insufficient.
Eventually, a combination of waxed, high thread-count hemp cloth, essential oil injections, and positioning the arms and legs in the “Lazarus position” with arms crossed over the chest yielded complete cremation in three to four days. This process took considerably longer than traditional cremation but only used 12-20 kilowatt-hours (kWh) compared to 350-1,465 kWh for traditional cremation.
Drucilla understood that “natural cremation” was not an option every bereaved family would desire, but she knew that a small, very grateful number of bereaved would find solace in a method of disposal that wasn’t wasteful and wouldn’t harm the environment quite so much. Drucilla’s clientele included some who couldn’t afford the cash outlay, and for those, she accepted payment in kind—an oak desk repurposed as her kitchen table, a chain hoist for lifting heavy objects, and a black granite slab engraved and gold-leafed with her workshop’s “Ten Commandments”:
- Elbow-length gloves
- Tall rubber boots
- Plastic apron
- Sharpen instruments
- Safety glasses!
- No eating!
- No drinking, either!
- No trophies!
- Autoclave instruments
- Burn all clothing
Like Drucilla, Travis M. Lipps was also in the funeral home business, but that’s where the similarities ended. An entitled, opinionated, soon-to-be heir to a funeral home chain, Travis had a big mouth and a roving eye. He had grown up knowing that people around him yielded when he shouted, and he used his status to intimidate employees and harass temp workers. At the annual state industry trade convention and expo, he would strut and boast, and he always sat at one of the front tables at the gala dinner. His family business was not as large or well-heeled as the national brands, but he could still throw his weight around at the state level and was veritable funereal royalty in his county.
Travis felt entitled to manhandle women, talk over them, and steal their ideas and freedoms whenever he could. He liked “uppity women”, he joked. What he really meant was that he liked women who were promiscuous with only him, outspoken within limits he imposed, and opinionated when said opinions aligned with his own. Travis was not beyond a little slap or shove when a girlfriend got above herself, and he was quick to set women straight if they voiced discordant opinions. This naturally led to a high turnover in girlfriends, but as far as Travis was concerned, a guy with his status and future wealth could afford to be fussy.
Luckily for Travis’ funeral home staff, his father was a moderating influence to whom they could turn to seek help if Travis became too overbearing. At the conferences, trade shows, and expos where, the business had a booth; however, Travis had more freedom. There, the temp event staff were entirely under his control and discretion.
These events were often held in areas where jobs were scarce, and, given the lack of employment options, the women who worked them were, therefore, resigned to the awful treatment they received. Travis set the extremely low pay rates, ran the interviews in which he asked highly inappropriate personal questions while groping applicants, and he hired whomever he wanted. His habit of holding “interviews” in the bar and plying the younger and more attractive candidates with booze was his foray into holding follow-up interviews in his hotel room. Many applicants walked out of his interviews in disgust. Some walked off the job in anger before the first day’s end. Those who stayed were semaphoring just how desperately they needed the job, and Travis was very attuned to those signals.
Drucilla was in two minds about attending industry events. On the negative side, they were filled with lots of people—people who were loud, or wanted to shake hands, or tried to engage her in small talk that was about themselves or full of intrusive questions or involved tired pick-up lines. On the positive side, there were demonstrations of new equipment—cutters, burners, and body lifting or transportation devices. She found the booths promoting cadaver makeup fascinating and often staffed by people who were perfectly happy to demonstrate their products on her or themselves. She would have liked to demonstrate her environmentally sound auto-combustion incineration method at the event she was currently attending, but conference management wouldn’t let her burn a leg of pork in her booth, let alone a whole cadaver. Instead, she demonstrated her skill in sewing facial tears and avulsions using artificial skin and flesh pulled over a plastic skull. When she wasn’t presenting or handing out flyers, she wandered the booths, collected free swag, and people-watched. She also placed a few orders for equipment she hoped would streamline her work.
It was the second evening of the three-day event, and Travis had his claws firmly into his redheaded, eighteen-year-old temp event worker, Charise. During her job interview Charise had been required to disclose that she was on probation for shoplifting. Travis had looked her up and down, smirked, and remarked that, if hired, she’d be required to wear a short skirt and heels. She knew where this was going, but it was either being a “booth babe” or getting a meat packing job and risking slicing off a finger. Charise knew the money she’d earn would keep a roof over her head for another week, and the reference letter would help her gain acceptance to the local performing arts college. Together, they would satisfy her probation officer that she was staying on the straight and narrow.
As a booth babe, she’d expected to be ogled and propositioned. What she hadn’t expected was Travis making a firm and very un-tentative grope under her skirt when she reached up to pin booth bunting that had come loose. From then on, every moment in that booth was one of staying alert and trying to evade Travis’ hands which suddenly seemed to be everywhere. With her heart in her mouth, her stomach in a knot, and tears in her eyes, Charise was the picture of alarm and misery. Travis could smell Charise’s mounting despair as she tried to stay out of reach. He loved how her panic infected the three other women working his booth, and he relished the way it focused all of their attention on him and only him. When Travis forced Charise into a state of crying despair, he attracted all the attention he craved. He also attracted the attention of a monster.
Drucilla noticed the red-faced redhead through the crowd and briefly held those panic-stricken green eyes. She slowly picked her way through the milling crowd, holding the girl in view while piecing together a picture of why she seemed so distraught. When the redhead jerked, Drucilla saw the cause of the distress and halted her approach. For twenty minutes, Drucilla observed Charise and her fellow female booth workers, noticing how they were all nervously focused on the strutting, swaggering man in their booth: Travis M. Lipps. She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and shifted her focus.
It wasn’t difficult for Drucilla to determine which room Travis was in and to guess when he’d be in the shower, relaxing after his very enjoyable day. She opened his room with a master keycard before quietly unpacking some equipment and materials on his bed. Next, she dropped a bronze, fist-sized Anubis gargoyle into a knee-sock and greeted Travis with it as he emerged from the shower, defenseless and dripping. Then she unfolded her collapsible scoop stretcher, collected the now-reclining body, and extended the wheels. A person in a mortician’s uniform wheeling a body bag through a hotel at a funeral convention didn’t merit a second glance. Neither did using the hoist and slide arm to load it into her van.
Back in her incineration room, Drucilla draped the trussed-up but otherwise naked body in a special waxed cloth and added an accelerant. When she injected the oils into his hands, Travis regained consciousness in a blind rush, his screams and pleading echoing in the small space. After injecting his feet with oil, she stood back, smiled, and gently lit the cloth.
It was three seconds before the flames were dancing along the entire length of the wrapped body, three minutes before he died of a stress-induced heart attack, three hours before the bones were reached by the flames as they wicked the melting body fat, and three days before the last flicker burned out, his exhausted ashes slowly began to cool.
Travis’s disappearance raised little concern. Most assumed he fled town to avoid angry ex-girlfriends or their families. After three months, the case went cold, and after three years, it was shelved.
Drucilla continued her work, refining her methods and balancing life between the living and the dead.
