Dead Serious

Chapter 11 - The Switch

Once night once again descended on the town, we took my minivan back out to where we'd stalked the funeral earlier on. Before we'd left Eternal Wings, we went over our main goals one more time.

"No desecrating bodies" I sternly reminded them.

"No adding to whatever body count is already on record there" Aaron added.

"And no turning on the incinerator and "accidentally" forgetting to shut it off" Sighed Tom.

"What happens if we get caught?" I asked.

"We can't let that happen. Steve would freak and we'd probably get arrested. It's still trespassing if we have a key right?" Aaron asked.

"We need to dress up" I suggested.

"What like as a cowboy or an Indian or something? Have you been smoking the incense, Frodo?" Tom asked.

"No I mean in all black. Like a cat burglar or something you see on TV. Do you have any balaclavas?" I asked, realising too late how silly that sounded.

"I might be a little on the wacky side but I'm not a terrorist you jackass!" He barked.

"Sam's right though, we need some sort of camouflage" Aaron calmed the situation. "If only we knew of a place where all black clothes are a normal sight . . ." He let the last statement hang in the air, waiting for one of us to take the bait.

"I suppose we'd find that here, wouldn't we" Tom finally caught on.

So it was decided we'd keep our black suits on and top them up with black hats. The hats were often used at funerals to complete our getup but I'd been told on my first day that they were kind of old fashioned so we'd only really wear them if the customer wanted us to. Steve always gave them the choice but I'd yet to wear the headgear. I certainly wouldn't have imagined that my first time doing so would be to break into another funeral parlour. What had my life become?

Outside the funeral home we all took a deep breath.

"You guys ready for this?" Tom asked. I nodded.

"If I was ever going to go to jail, I never would've imagined that it'd be for something like this. But I'm ready" Aaron said defiantly.

We stealthily made our way to where Tom had seen the key being hidden. Luckily for us it was still there so we had no problem getting inside.

Now, in case you haven't figured it out yet, without the cheerful banter and the comedy shows on television, funeral homes can be a pretty freaky place to visit. Well now we were in an unfamiliar one at night, and none of us were hiding the fact that we were terrified.

"This was a bad idea" Aaron observed as he shone his flashlight around the dark corridors. For all we knew this looked like Eternal Wings did, but it was so dark that none of the features could be made out. We'd decided that turning on the lights would make it obvious that someone was inside when they shouldn't be, so our torches would have to do.

"For once I think I agree with you" Whispered Tom.

"Should we turn back?" I asked.

"No way!" Tom hissed. "We've come this far already. We have to put our lives on the line for this mission!"

"Oh trust me, I think we are" Aaron gulped.

By now our eyes had adjusted to the darkness a little better. It was a long narrow building which initially seemed to only house a corridor, but there were three doors on either side. We decided to get the worst part over with early, so slid to the end of the corridor and checked the two furthest doors. They contained a bathroom and a janitor's closet. Suddenly we felt pretty stupid for coming up with that plan but we put it to the back of our minds and continued on our quest.