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David Trenton opened the wooden door and reached his hand into the darkness, feeling against the wall for the light switch. His hand found the switch and he flipped it up. The lights blinked a few times before coming to life, but finally filled the dank smelling room with their bright, fluorescent light. David paused in the doorway before entering. After collecting his thoughts, he threw the door open all the way, crossed the threshold, and spread his arms open wide as if he were about to make a statement.

He titled his head back, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply; taking in the dank musty air around him and reveling in the scent.

“Wake up dead people!” he yelled aloud, clapping his hands together rapidly. He laughed at his own joke, then he pretended to hold an invisible partner as he waltzed around the room, humming aloud and eventually danced his way over to a table in the center of the room where a body lay on the table covered by white sheet.

David reached the table in mid-waltz and with his arms still dangling in the air. He glanced down at the table and said, "You can have the next dance my darling." He reached down and patted the corpse on the leg. "You and I have much work to do my sweet." He turned and grabbed a cart that was just off to one side of the table and pulled it closer. On the cart lay several shiny metal instruments. It was a typical assortment of tools used for slicing, sawing, cutting, and prying; just the sort of things a mortician needed for the job. He was to perform an embalmment procedure on the body and prepare it for an open casket funeral due to happen the following day. He did so, over the next few hours, methodically, just as he had done hundreds of times before.

David's great grandfather had started the business and it had been handed down to David by his father. The Trenton Funeral Home was the only one of its kind in the little town of Walla Walla. Basically, unless they were out of town when they died, everyone who lived there came through his doors eventually. David made quite a decent living from the money that his business drew in and he truly enjoyed what he did for a living; a little too much actually. David was a bit obsessed with the dead. His obsession with dead things began when he was a small boy. Hanging around the funeral home all day and all night allowed him to feed his obsession. David's father just assumed, at first, that his son was just really proud of his dear old dad and wanted to be just like him. If his father had only known sooner just how disturbed his son actually was he would have gotten some help for him, but David was a good little actor and made himself appear as innocent as an angel.

When David was finished with his work with the body, he covered the corpse with a clean white sheet and left the room. He went back to his home, which was conveniently next door to the funeral home, and took a bath. He put on one of his best suits and sprayed a light mist of cologne on his neck. He then walked back over to the funeral home and waltzed down the stairs to where he’d left the body.

He danced his way back over to the table where the body lay and took a bow. “Might I have this dance?” He asked of the cadaver. David took hold of the top edge of the sheet that was covering the corpse and slowly pulled it down to expose its hair and the top of its head. He stopped just shy of revealing its face. He took a few long breaths and then pulled the sheet down some more until the face was visible. He stared at the young woman's face and swallowed hard. His heart began to race just a bit. No matter how many times he'd seen death; no matter how many corpses he'd cut open and put his hands on; he still got excited at the sight. This corpse in particular was a bit special to David. He had liked her the moment she arrived here. The poor, pretty, little darling had fallen from atop her horse and broken her neck while riding in the meadow. Her folks said that there had been a snake in the tall grass that spooked the horse and she was thrown to the ground. She was barely eighteen and had just registered for college. It was a terrible thing for her parents, but a wonderful thing for David.

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