The mortuary has eight chambers. They branch out from a hallway like arms on a spider. Inside these chambers, a maximum of thirty-two cadavers are stored at temperatures not exceeding -2 degrees Celsius.
The corpses stay for hours, or days, and then go to funeral parlors, forensic facilities, and, occasionally, pathology labs. The dead come from many paths to the mortuary, and they leave on many paths.
The mortuary hired me to install the security cameras.
I worked quickly in the chilly light, my fingers going numb in the cold. I made mistakes. I kept forgetting the task in front of me, my brain wandering like a lost and scared dog to the bodies on the slabs. Eyes that were open, but not to see. Mouths that were open, but not to talk. That horrible feeling of being totally alone while in a room full of people.
These weren’t regular cameras.
The mortuary forbids CCTV video feeds in the chambers. There was an embarrassing incident, years ago. A former employee sold photos of an OD’d starlet to the press.
The video coming from these cameras are distorted and garbled. You can’t actually see anything on them.
Instead, the cameras track motion.
Every twentieth frame or so is referenced and compared against the previous frame. If there’s any difference – defined as a pixel that has changed color – then it puts a flag in the camera’s software, stored on a web server.
“One flag is okay – sometimes the software screws up,” the mortuary security chief told me. “Two flags in a row is a suspicious screw-up. Anything more than that, get in your truck and come down here at the double, because there’s been a break-in.”
“Who breaks into a mortuary?” I asked.
“Organ thieves. People who want to be with a loved one, one last time. Frat boys pledging for Alpha Kappa Dumbfuck. It doesn’t matter, you just get down there as fast as you can.”
I’ve been monitoring the motion cameras for the past three months.
Usually, the cameras generate between ten and twenty flags a day. False positives. Sometimes I get two flags coming in within seconds of each other, and hair stands up on my neck for a moment, and after nothing else happens after a minute I go back to reading Deadspin on the office computers.
Once, I had forty flags come from chamber 7. I drove down there, expecting the worst…
…and found a cockroach crawling across a camera lens.
Another time, I got a single flag from all the rooms, simultaneously. A fuse had blown, knocking out the power. I replaced it before any of the cadavers had a chance to warm. Got a nice pay bonus for that.
The job was boring. Losing focus was just a matter of time. I went from checking the flags every few minutes to checking it every half hour, then to every hour, then to…
Today, I was on my phone, arguing with some nimrod online about Brett Favre’s passing stats, when my inner conscience spoke.
How long since you checked the mortuary flags?
Shit. Two hours? Longer?
I logged in to the web server.
37,440 flags.
Oh no.
I got in my truck, and sped down to the mortuary. I sat my phone on the passenger seat and flicked an eye to it from time to time.
More flags kept coming in. Several a second.
Someone had broken into the mortuary, and they were still there.
And the flags were coming in from multiple cold chambers. There was more than one person.
What was I suppose to do here? Tough talk a bunch of drunken frat boys with crowbars and hammers?
I parked outside the mortuary, the truck slewing sideways in a spray of gravel. I got out, ran to the front door, and tried to open it.
It was still locked.
I stared stupidly at the doorknob, as if reality wasn’t letting me in on some kind of joke.
I looked around, noticing details I hadn’t seen before. Like how there were no other cars in the parking lot, other than me. And no footprints in the gravel, other than mine.
Then, I went on a slow and steady walk around the mortuary.
No broken windows.
No forced-open doors.
No way in whatsoever.
I let that same slow and steady walk take me from the building back to my truck, where I sat in the cabin, phone in my lap.
The number of disturbances inside the building was now at 40,528, and climbing.
I watched more and more flags come through on my phone, wondering how long it would take before I turned on the ignition, picked a direction, and just kept driving forever.
[I won’t tell you to read this book or go to hell, I’ll tell you to read this book and THEN go to hell]
Prelude 1 – Entrance to the Inferno…
“I am the punishment of God… If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”
– Genghis Khan
New York, New Year’s Eve, 2024…
The white van turned the corner into Times Square and merged into late-morning traffic.
A man lolled back in the driver’s seat—no hands on the steering wheel.
He had touched the wheel of the self-driving vehicle exactly once since crossing the GWB—just a gentle touch, as if to remind the machine of his mastery, and then he’d pulled the hand away.
He studied New York through two layers of glass – the tinted dash, and the glasses on his nose. Rows of billboards, marquees, and coloured lights, all of them calculated to skirt just beneath the edge of the city’s light pollution limits.
A glaze of neon covered the city. Cheap. Thrilling. Saccharine for eyes.
During the day, Times Square had the dead gleam of fake jewellery. At night, it shone like a star too modest to rise into the sky. Even inside the car, he heard the buzz of thousands of voices. Tourists came from everywhere to ring in the new year.
Everyone wanted something from New York – memories, culture, experiences.
The driver didn’t come to New York to take. He considered himself more of a giver.
He pulled in to a metered parking spot and was about to get out when he heard and felt a banging fist on the side of his van.
He turned his head. A NYPD cop.
The big black cop shouted something, and spun his forefinger in a circle. The universal “roll down your window” gesture.
He obeyed. “Can I help, officer?”
“Yeah, buddy, you can. I saw you enter the street without using your turn signal.”
“This is a self-driving car. The computer should have thrown the signal for me.”
“It didn’t. I was watching. Step out of the vehicle for a moment.”
The driver got out. He had a small remote control on a keychain that allowed him to control the van without being inside it.
“Activate your left turn signal.”
The driver tried. The light remained dead. “Hmm. Bulb’s gone. I wonder how long it’s been like that.”
The cop scowled. “Are you the owner of this vehicle?”
“I am.”
“Can I see some paperwork?”
The driver produced his license and registration. The cop unclipped a RFID scanner from his belt and ran it over a microchip on the license paper. He looked over the cop’s shoulder at the LED readout as it checked the NYPD database for tickets, demerits, and other offenses.
There weren’t any.
The cop nodded and handed back the paperwork. “That’s fine. You’re free to go.”
“Will I get a ticket?”
“Naw, I couldn’t do that to a man on New Year’s Eve. Just get that light fixed, okay? There’s a mechanic on East Thirty-Fifth that’s open over the holidays. Best to get these things sorted out, right?”
“Sure, I will. And thanks.” The driver smiled.
“Say, where are you from? I can’t place your accent.”
“I’m from Portland. I’m actually not here to celebrate. My daughter’s coming from back from a vacation in Cancun, and she asked if I could pick her up.”
“Cancun? Aw, that’s such a kid place to go. I’ve got some time off coming up, and I hope to spend it in the Adirondacks wearing orange. You much of a huntin’ man?”
“Can’t say I am.”
“Well, it kicks the shit out of police work. Have a good day, man.”
“You too. And all the best with your hunting trip. It’ll be a good one, I’m sure.”
He reached into his pocket and pressed a button.
The uranium bomb in the van went off.
[Transmission of Vanadium Dark endeth, for now.]
Hello,
My lawyer wants me to write this as an exercise. I don’t see the point. The verdict has come in, and everyone wants me to go away. I want to go away. No more attention, please. No more idiots shoving microphones in my face, asking if I’m sorry.
Yes, I’m sorry. Very sorry! I’d do it again. I’d do it a hundred times. I’d do worse. But I’m sorry. Do you feel better now?
I’ll write a little, because it beats staring at the wall.
I was born forty two years ago in Brisbane, or so I’m told. I don’t have a birth certificate. I don’t seem to have ended up with the usual accessory of a father, either. I can remember a man picking me up when I was very small, so maybe that was him.
I was raised by my mother, and then by the council when my home situation deteriorated. I hotwired a car at thirteen, and squatted in an abandoned apartment when I was seventeen. I never had a problem with stealing, never thought it made me a bad kid. Now I’m on the hook for a crime to make all the rest look small, so I might as well speak my mind.
The part of my youth I want to tell you about happened when I was nine years old. I don’t remember where mum and I were, but I remember what we did.
We went to see a man.
(more…)
