About a Vampire by Lynsay Sands
One
“Crap,” Holly muttered, staring down at the sheaf of papers she’d just stepped on. The small disc stapled to the top corner told her that it was the paperwork for one of their clients. It included the burial permit, the coroner’s certificate, the application for cremation and the coversheet with the client’s name and info . . . and it should have been given to John Byron when he arrived to start his shift at 4:30 that afternoon. Obviously, it hadn’t. This bundle must have fallen off her desk at some point that day.
Holly continued to stand there for several seconds, simply staring at the bundle. She didn’t even remove her foot, because once she did, she’d have to do something about it . . . like take it to the crematorium . . . and she really didn’t want to go down there. Not at this hour. Making the trek during the day was one thing, but it was just past midnight now. She’d have to make her way through the graveyard to get to the building that housed the chapel; the columbarium, where the urns rested; and the crematorium, where the bodies were stored and waiting for their turn at the retort.
Retorts is what the owner of Sunnyside Cemetery, Max, had called them when he’d given her the tour the day she’d started. He could call them what he liked, but retort was just a fancy word for the oven where they burned the bodies.
Shuddering at the thought of the coffins shelved in the cooler, Holly closed her eyes briefly. A popular game here seemed to be to freak out the new worker with tales of the “ovens.” Jerry, the day technician, and John, who took the evening shift, as well as her boss, Max, and even Sheila, the receptionist, had all told her one horrific tale or another. But the most memorable was John telling her how the coffins burned away first and the corpses sometimes sat up inside the oven, muscles contracting in the heat and mouths agape as if screaming in horror at their doom. That image had stuck with her, convincing Holly she really didn’t want to be cremated. In fact, she’d decided dying was to be avoided at all costs if possible.
Sighing, she opened her eyes and peered at the papers, wishing she could pretend she hadn’t seen them. After all, in the normal course of events, she wouldn’t have found them until morning. She shouldn’t be here now except she’d got home after work, made dinner and looked for her purse to get her blood tester to check her sugar levels, but hadn’t been able to find it. Thinking she’d probably left her purse in the car and not wanting dinner to get cold, she’d decided the blood test could wait. Of course, by the time dinner was finished, she’d forgotten all about it . . . until she was brushing her teeth before bed. She’d been halfway done when she’d remembered.
Pulling on her trench coat over her pajamas, Holly had hustled out to the car in her slippers to retrieve her purse . . . only it hadn’t been there either. That had stymied her briefly, and she’d stood in the cold garage for several moments, trying to think where it might be. She’d had it at work when she’d paid Sheila for lunch, Holly recalled. She then tried to bring up a memory of slinging it over her shoulder as she left work, but instead remembered that her hands had been full of tax forms and receipts . . . no purse. Holly hadn’t noticed at the time because her car keys had been in her coat pocket.
After wasting another few minutes debating whether she could just skip testing that night, she’d slouched with resignation and got in the car to drive back to work. Missing one test once in a while wasn’t that bad, but skipping two in a row wasn’t good. Besides, the cemetery was only a ten-minute drive from her home. It simply wasn’t worth risking a diabetic coma.
Of course, Holly thought now, if she’d realized that coming back would mean having to make a trek through the graveyard—-in her pajamas no less—-she might have risked the coma.
Grimacing, she bent and snatched up the papers. There was nothing for it, she would have to drop them off before heading home. Otherwise, the cremation wouldn’t happen until tomorrow or the next day, which could be a problem depending on when his ser-vice was scheduled to take place.