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Category: Dark Fantasy/Horror
Description: One-way ticket to Hell.

Bart is a greedy morgue attendant with money on his mind. He gets more than what he bargains for when he chances upon a pain-letter, one he must pass on or bear the consequences of his inaction.

Stan is a chiseler, a fake medium, preying on his unsuspecting clients' earnings through bogus channeling sessions. When he meets mysterious Joanna Stark, he believes her promises of powers beyond his comprehension, powers blessed by the Netherworld.

Jenna gives up her old life and career to settle down as Troy's loving wife. He is a God-fearing man who will consent only to marriage. Except fate maps a different ending to their love story, a conclusion that takes them both down and never up again.

Bart, Stan, and Jenna are destined to go on a long and abominable journey that sinks them below their expectations and forces them to endure pain and anguish beyond their worst nightmares.

On the paths leading to the depths of Hell, their sins don't matter!
eBook Publisher: Double Dragon Publishing/Double Dragon eBooks, 2012 Double Dragon Publishing
eBookwise Release Date: February 2012

1 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [151 KB]
Words: 31007
Reading time: 88-124 min.

THE DEADENING

1

The morgue's double doors swung inward with a loud groan announcing the arrival of another stiff. Alone, Moe maneuvered the bloody gurney into the morgue.

Bart scowled. "Another one?" He rose and gathered his shoulder-length sandy hair with an elastic band.

Moe positioned the gurney in a corner and blew on his hands to warm them. "Yeah, what else would I bring you in this godforsaken cadaver-stacking weather?"

With a sigh, Bart strode to Moe. He agreed with the ambulance driver; when the sky snowed heavily enough, then rained long enough, it created the right amount of sleet on the roads to cause fatal accidents. So far, they had received four bodies.

Bart jerked his chin in the direction of the lumpy, bloody, and covered mass on the gurney. "What happened to this one?" He unzipped part of the body bag for a glance. The jade-green eyes of a young redheaded kid stared back at him, his face marred only by few spatters of blood on his right cheek.

Moe shook his head. "You're the morgue attendant; check the report."

A smile threatened to break on Bart's lips. "Come on, Moe. Save me some time; summarize it for me."

With garlic-laced breath, Moe huffed. "You people e'spect me to do everything. Pay me the salary of a driver and want me to do the job of a senior employee. I say, get bent. The whole lot of you." Moe limped to Bart's desk, opened a drawer, and helped himself to Bart's peanut butter sandwich. The chair groaned as he parked his ass on it and crossed his legs on the desk.

Bart's favorite pastime was the delicate process of irritating Moe, who was ready for action at the twitch of a nose. Smirking, he studied the report that came with the body.

Martin Robinson--born in 1990 and weighing 170 pounds--had killed himself.

"Tsk, tsk, Martin, boy! What could've been so bad that life became unworthy of you?" Bart shook his head and donned a pair of gloves.

"You talk as if he can hear ya!" Moe sounded amused.

With the intention of leaving Martin in the positive temperature chamber for Ben, the other morgue attendant, to handle, Bart unzipped the bag, mindful not to lose any hairs or fibers, to perform his usual inspection of briefs--a usually ignored search by the medics and police officers. God bless whoever invented the brief's hidden zippered stash pocket, he or she gave him the opportunity to increase his income every now and then. He glanced up at Moe, waiting for his opinion of Bart's actions.

"Anyone hearing you just now would think you respect the dead. Anyone watching you will know you don't, for sure." Moe was the only person who knew about Bart's little hobby.