For Love of the Dead Read online

  Tyler’s hands reached out as if to caress Mark’s dead body, but stopped short, hovering in the air a mere inch above the cold flesh of the ravaged chest. A groan echoed from the walls, a sound of indescribable pain and loss, deep and mournful, welling from the very pit of the tall man’s soul. Slowly he began to move his palms, first circling the corpse’s chest as if massaging it and moving on to vast sweeping motions encompassing the entire torso. As his movements continued, he began to chant, muttering under his breath. It would have seemed absentminded or similar to the quiet ravings of an insane street person, the words jumbled and garbled into incomprehensibility, had the sound not been replete with such a dire and intense purpose.

  One by one, the overhead lights flickered and died; even the glow from the computer screens and instrument panels seemed muted. A shadowy dimness filled the room as if a dark cloud had descended, hungry for light, and had slurped it up. The darker the preparation room became, the louder grew the chanting, taking on a singsong quality of prayer and supplication to some terrifying god of shadows and dark forbidden places. Now, actual words were distinguishable, but they were in some language lost in time, untranslatable and holding a strange and terrifying meaning. Had Lucy and Jake been awake to hear them, they would have clapped their hands over their ears and shrieked in agony.

  The sound rose in crescendo until Tyler spat forth the last word and held it in a long wavering cry, a desperate plea like the sound a small animal makes with its last breath as a predator crushes the life from it. On and on in a single harsh note, the word dragged out until, finally, with a gasp as the final molecules of air left his lungs, the painted man fell silent.

  He unhitched a small leather pouch from where it hung from the loincloth and removed a bottle, not a large one but nonetheless looking too big to have fit into such a tiny bag. An oily fluid sloshed within the brown glass and, when the priest uncapped it and poured some into his palms, rubbing them together to spread it, the liquid glowed an unhealthy and bilious green.

  Now he placed his hands directly upon the magnificent dead flesh, massaging the oil into the swell of the chest, covering the plates of armored stomach, pouring it directly from the bottle and rubbing it onto the striated thighs. Soon Mark’s body was covered with an oily sheen, glowing with an inner light and giving him some semblance of life but for the vicious marks of the knives still to be seen on his torso.

  When only the young man’s groin remained un-anointed, the first bottle was set aside and a second one, even larger than the first, miraculously emerged from the tiny pouch. The fluid trapped by the clear glass seethed and roiled a fiery red, with little bits of darker matter swirling within it.

  Tyler untied the breechcloth and allowed it to drop to the floor. His dick sprang from concealment—a gloriously noble shaft of noble purpose, the skin of his groin around it shaved as smooth as the top of his head, the absence of hair giving the illusion of even greater size. Thick as a can of soda it was, much too wide to be in pleasing proportion to the rest of his athletically lithe frame. And its length was far too long to have been easily hidden without substantial discomfort within the small bit of cloth that had been wrapped around the dark man’s waist. The head was huge, so big as to border on deformity, the glans so much darker than the rest of the man’s skin that one’s eye would be immediately drawn to it. It sprang forth, fully erect and throbbing. Though there was no other sign of his arousal other than the hardness of his penis, no expression on his face of sexual anticipation, no sign by heightened breath or clenched muscle of any eroticism, a thick droplet of milky sperm nevertheless welled from the end to break free and dangle from a strand of milky pre-come for an instant before it dripped to the floor.

  With a grimace, teeth clenched to prepare himself, Tyler tilted the bottle to pour a stream of scarlet directly upon his stiffened organ. He hissed with pain; his eyes bulged and his chest muscles stood out with the effort of biting back a scream of agony as the fluid made contact with the tender skin of his dick. Staunchly, he gripped his staff with one hand, tears leaking from his eyes as he coated his proudly straining manhood with a thick film of oil. When finished, he staggered forward and dumped a liberal portion of the scalding fluid onto Mark’s flaccid cock, spreading it to cover the shaft and massaging it down onto the young man’s heavy balls.

  When satisfied with the results, he stepped back, jaw still set against the agony in his own groin and, without further preamble, he seized the corpse by the shoulders and flipped its unresisting bulk over so that it lay face down. He paused to look at the youth’s magnificent physique from the rear. Though stark hatred coursed through his body in companion to the waves of pain, Tyler could not help being taken aback by the unbelievable beauty of Mark Hartner’s body. Hartner had indeed been blessed; his ass was nothing less than breathtaking. Hard and firm, a perfect bubble butt even in death, it had evidently been designed by the gods for one purpose: to be plowed by an ardent lover.

  But Tyler wanted nothing more than to take a hot poker and plunge it between those creamy and enticing cheeks, to watch the handsome arrogant face twist with agony as his innermost parts were fried by the scalding iron. Sadly, Tyler’s timing had been off and he had missed his chance to enact revenge. If he was lucky, if he’d made no errors in the ceremony or in concocting the potions, if the gods had heard his prayers and deemed his faith strong enough, perhaps there was still time to remedy the omission.

  He admired the rippling muscles across his adversary’s shoulders, the tight columns framing either side of the backbone, the splay of the trapezoids flaring from broad shoulders down to the slim waist. Tyler knew, had such painfully stunning beauty been granted to another man—to a different man, he would be unable to resist doing what he was about to do. But since the magnificent physique belonged to Mark Hartner, Tyler would take no joy in his actions, no satisfaction in his task.

  No, his triumphs would have to wait for later.

  Tyler climbed upon the table, positioning himself so his throbbing organ was poised at the crack of Mark’s ass. He poured the last vestiges of the vile fluid onto the dead man’s asshole and quickly massaged it in. Uttering another prayer to the gods, this one silent, that he would be able to perform what was prescribed without fear or hesitation, he thrust his dick between the cold cheeks. Deeper and deeper he plunged, feeling nothing but undying hatred as he went through the motions of making love, swallowing convulsively to keep himself from vomiting, hoping he could finish quickly. With a grunt, he came, purely from the physical action of friction rather than from any true arousal.

  The reaction from Mark, though not unexpected, startled him nonetheless.

  There was a sharp intake of breath, a gasp as if Hartner had just been saved from drowning and sought to gulp down life-sustaining air. His perfectly formed limbs twitched and thrashed spasmodically in a weird parody of passion. Tyler felt the corpse’s flesh grow warm as he pulled out. No, not warm—positively hot, as if Mark had been suddenly stricken with a high fever.

  The darkness in the room seemed to condense upon itself and take on a semblance of physical form. Mark gasped for breath a second time; the congealed light gathered into a long spear of plasma and, when his mouth gaped, streamed inside, filling his throat and working its way down into his chest. Mark screamed, the howl of a damned soul in torment and, at the sound and for the first time since he’d entered the funeral home, Tyler smiled.

  Mark’s entire body shuddered, as if plagued by the sharpened pitchforks of a thousand devils. He flipped over onto his back, his eyes wide and terrified, his muscles tightening as unknown currents of suffering ripped through him. His palms slapped at the metal table, his heels drummed against it. As the cloud of darkness permeated every muscle and bone and tissue, his back arched and his face screwed into a rictus of pain.

  The torn skin of his chest and belly knitted together, and the seam cut into his scalp by the doctor’s saw closed and smoothed over. One by one, the sutures worked their
way to the surface of Mark’s flesh and popped out, tumbling from his writhing torso onto the table or to the floor. In a very short time, all indications of the autopsy were gone but for a thin pink line, almost invisible against the newly ruddy flesh. A few more moments, and even those scant traces had vanished.

  Mark Hartner had been restored to his previous physical perfection. Yet his pain continued and his body still writhed in agony. Sweat broke out on his skin, beaded at first, then pouring from him in rivulets and eventually streams. His muscles contracted and released with bone-breaking force; every nerve in his body had to be aflame.

  As much as he longed to continue enjoying his enemy’s torment, Tyler knew his job was finished and the results were everything he had hoped they would be. He should leave. Now. He had given himself plenty of time for revenge.

  Quickly, he snatched up the empty bottles and crammed them into the sack. He retrieved the loincloth and used it to hastily wipe the paint from his face. Still nude, he moved towards the door, reluctant to leave and abandon his delight in watching the other man suffer but unwilling to remain and risk doing something to reverse the miracle of revival he had wrought.

  A pair of blue jeans, a simple white T-shirt, and a pair of tattered sandals awaited him on a chair just outside in the hallway. Once he donned them, he would recite the simple incantation that would begin to cancel the stupor he’d cast over the elderly mortician and her hunky assistant. A disposable lighter in his pocket would efficiently destroy the strands of hair he’d managed to steal from the two of them and finish dispersing the spell.

  Obtaining the hair had been rough doing, and had taken more stealth and planning than he’d known he’d possessed. But in comparison to the trials he’d had to endure to accurately identify Jake Marshall as the proper tool for his revenge, getting the hair had been child’s play. Tyler’s gods could be both demanding and cruel, and they often seemed to have no understanding—and even less sympathy—for the human limitations of their acolytes. They had no compunction about requiring sacrifices of Tyler along the way, even though he was proceeding along a path designed to accrue to their benefit in the end. Their help almost always came with a price. Tyler bore the scars and not all of them were physical ones.

  He shuddered at the memory of some of the challenges he’d overcome during the past several weeks and banished the lingering discomfort by imagining Jake and the older woman’s reaction to what they were about to face. Of course, they would be baffled by the resurrection, but undoubtedly they would either find some rationalization for the miraculous recovery or, more probably, would simply be unable to process it and end up by convincing themselves they’d narrowly avoided making a horrible mistake.

  As for Tyler, well, once Mark was up and around, he would bide his time. Spells such as he had cast were never to be undertaken lightly. His gods would require a heavy penalty for screwing with Nature, but Tyler would pay it gladly. He had plans for Mark Hartner—terrible plans.

  And now those plans could be carried out at Tyler’s leisure.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Wake up! For God’s sake, wake up!”

  Jake tried to brush away the fingers digging into his shoulder, fingers attached to hands that were violently shaking him. But he was much too groggy. Dimly, he heard the urgency in Lucy’s voice but he found it difficult to concentrate enough to figure out what she was saying.

  “Huh...wha..?” he muttered.

  He couldn’t imagine how he’d nodded off. It seemed like only a moment ago he’d been checking the tubing on the pumps before draining the new guy’s blood and injecting the preservative which, according to the manufacturer, duplicated “the wholesomeness of life.” Normally it was routine, something he could do without any effort or concentration—after all, it was his job—but he was distracted by the unbelievable perfection of the dead man on the table. When he and Lucy had unzipped the coroner’s bag and Jake had gotten his first good look at—what was his name? Mark Hartner!—his first good look at Hartner’s gloriously nude body, the breath had caught in his throat and he’d had to blink back tears. What a shame, he’d thought, What a frigging shame!

  Instantly, his thoughts started to run down familiar paths, and when he saw Lucy frown and knew she knew exactly what he was thinking, he managed to check himself. Even so, he felt a tightening in his chest and recognized it as grief for the terrible waste, sorrow for a life cut short prematurely. He had no idea how or why the young man had died—Lucy took care of the paperwork mostly—but he could not help wondering if it could have been prevented or, more specifically, if he could somehow have prevented it.

  What would have happened if he and the beautiful dead man had met months ago? Would they have even noticed each other—not just as objects of lust, that was far too common and too fleeting—but as people? Could they have talked, found common interests, perhaps discovered the spark of the elusive thing called chemistry between them? Might they even have found the beginnings of love? Perhaps had they found each other in time, Fate could have been derailed and the blond god stretched out lifeless on the table might still be able to cherish all life’s joys, to lose himself in everyday delights and perhaps to be deeply in love with someone—someone like Jake.

  His questions would remain forever unanswered, he knew. Just the same, he wondered if it was at all within the realm of possibility that Mark Hartner was the Right One and if his early death had stolen away the only opportunity for happiness Jake would ever have.

  Lucy had cleared her throat to catch his attention, her expression one of understanding and a touch of disapproval, and motioned for him to lift the corpse onto the preparation table. The weight of the cold, limp, and unresisting body in his arms was a harsh reality enabling Jake to banish his melancholic fantasies. Whatever might have happened had he and Mark Hartner met in time, whatever joy it might have brought to both their lives, it was far too late now for anything but regret for something that never was. His camera was in the top drawer of a nearby cabinet, in its usual place next to the gauze pads and eye shields. Though Mark was extraordinarily beautiful, Jake knew there was nothing extraordinary he could do for him—except remember.

  The young mortician heaved a deep sigh and got to work. He had barely set up the pump before his eyes grew heavy and he yawned hugely. The last thing he recalled was chiding himself that he had better get past these incessant maudlin regrets about the dead. He needed to keep reminding himself that only the Living could fulfill his need for love.

  It seemed like only seconds had passed before Lucy was shaking him awake in a purple panic. Perhaps he was more exhausted from last night than he’d thought.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d caught a cat nap at work; Lucy was amazingly tolerant of those kinds of things. The elderly mortician had become a surrogate parent to him, whether he’d wanted her to fill that role or not. She had no children of her own and Jake was an orphan. When he’d first started at Gentle Rest, Lucy had been fast to seize upon him and his perpetually uncommitted personal life as one of her projects. He’d often watched in awe as she transformed instantly from a Mother Hen, worried about the healthiness of the foods he ate and harping on his habit of drinking a little too much on weekend nights, into an Avenging Angel if he happened to mention that a guy he thought he might be becoming fond of had failed to return his phone calls.

  Where Lucy was concerned, Jake indulged in a little white lie. He claimed to be happily single and to like his life that way. Sometimes, though, when she was at the height of her matchmaking frenzy, she could wear him down so he confessed how nice it might be to wake up in the morning next to a familiar body, to share memories with someone more than just a friend, or to be able to save money on the packages of disposable toothbrushes he kept in his bathroom medicine cabinet so his frequent tricks could have minty-fresh breath in the morning.

  Deep in his inner heart, and for all his protestations about being a contented perpetual bachelor, Jake was a romantic. Years ago, he
’d had a lover, a boy with whom he desperately wanted to grow old. Devin had been amazingly handsome, a blond man who had inherited every physical attribute of his Scandinavian ancestors. Topping Jake by a good two inches, Devin was broad-chested and beefier than the slim, lightly muscled physical types of men Jake had always thought he’d preferred. Devin could overpower him in bed, and though he knew Jake would not be penetrated, he always teased him that he might force him anyway and Jake never ceased to find the threatened taking of his dubious virtue highly erotic.

  He was an orphan like Jake, and both young men thought of themselves as loners. They had many casual acquaintances, few close friends and, aside from attending classes, they both preferred to spend their time at home in the apartment they shared. Neither of them needed anyone but the other; together, they felt completed.

  But Devin had died, mowed down by a hit-and-run driver in their second year of mortuary school. And Jake had never quite recovered.

  The funeral had been bleak, attended only by two of their instructors and a sparse handful of fellow mortuary science students who showed up more from a sense of obligation than anything else. Jake had just about scraped the bottom of his meager savings to have Devin cremated at Gentle Rest, and much as he would have liked some physical monument to Devin’s life, he couldn’t afford to have him in-urned. He intended to scatter the ashes. But Lucy, whom he had met at the funeral and who had instantly taken to him, refused to hear of it and Devin’s ashes were now buried, quite illegally, under a small discreet marker in one of the flower beds on the Gentle Rest grounds.

  A week after the funeral, she’d offered Jake a part-time job as her assistant while he was finishing school. Instead of paying him—he’d mentioned how badly his apartment reeked of painful, bittersweet memories and how tough it would be to afford it on his own—she’d pretty much shanghied him into moving into the abandoned cottage on the grounds behind the funeral home. She claimed he’d be doing her a favor by cleaning it up and putting it into livable condition. Besides, she pointed out, Devin’s memorial would be practically right outside his front door. On the day he graduated, she surprised him with a stack of legal papers he couldn’t understand, threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t sign them immediately and, before the ink had dried, informed him he was now her junior partner in Gentle Rest. Partnership notwithstanding, even the suggestion of his working elsewhere would have been anathema. Aside from Devin, Lucy was the only family Jake had ever known.