The tiny kitchenette was bathed in the same artificial teal glow that illuminated the rest of the mortuary, but without the benefit of negative space to diffuse the harsh light--it made coffee look like tar as Roland poured the first cup of the night into an earthenware mug, casting a disapproving glance at the garish Halloween novelty mug beside the coffee press as he did. There was a plastic-wrapped marshmallow ghost on a stick laid across the brim, and inside a Keurig cup labeled 'pumpkin pie spice,' guaranteeing Roland would have extra trash to throw out when he finished his shift in the morning.

  "What's the flavor for tonight?" Towanda stepped into the kitchenette behind him, wearing the holiday's colors with a cheerleader's radiance in the form of an orange shawl striped black and clicking with purple beads.

  "Black." Roland poured just until the layer of crema frothed over in the center of the mug, then set aside the press.

  "Didn't you see the mugs Miss Marten's family left for us? You know you can help yourself, that one on the counter is for you," Towanda offered, her long shiny fingernails plucking marshmallow treats from their glass baking dish and stacking them on a plastic to-go plate.

  "You know those K-cups could pave Rhode Island end-to-end every year with how much waste they produce?" Roland leaned back against the counter, arms crossed as he sipped at his simple brew. "There are landfills that will outlive the human race full of them."

  "Yeah, you done outlived all of us already with your old miserly self," Towanda said with an endearing scoff, folding the plastic wrap back over the glass dish. "I'm leaving the rest of these for you, honey, just make sure to put the dish in the sink when you're done so it can soak overnight."

  "Goodnight, Towanda."

  She was already swinging her purse over her shoulder, calling back a 'Happy Halloween' to him as she disapppeared down the hall. Roland waited until he heared the soft electronic chime of the front door before sighing, pushing back his glasses, and stepping into the hall himself. To the left was the entrance--to the right was his office, and he had a lot of work ahead of him tonight.

  "Who was that?" A third voice called down the hall towards him, a younger male voice, echoing off stainless steel surfaces.

  Roland's leather shoes padded softly against the carpeted hallway floor--the door to his office ahead was ajar, his client just out of sight behind the corner. "Towanda," Roland said back, knowing his voice would carry so there was no need to raise it. "She's taking her nieces trick-or-treating tonight, it'll be just me tonight."

  "Bummer."

  Roland pushed open the door fully to his office--the embalming room was significantly cooler than the rest of the building, polished metal and tile surfaces retaining little heat. His client was already ready to prep, laid out on an operating table beside a gurney: the young man had been discovered on a golf course earlier in the week, one of several casualties of a mass killing, tragic and disturbing. Roland set his coffee mug down on his workstation, beside an array of surgical implements and various jarred chemicals.

  "Working the graveyard shift by yourself, then?" The voice was disembodied in all but the most literal sense, the young man's lifeless corpse still as stone and the same shade of pale gray as one, his fluids having already been drained earlier.

  "Never heard that one before," Roland sullenly replied, pursing his lips--it was going to be a long night, he could already tell.

  The young golfer's eyes didn't blink as they followed Roland around the room, his lips barely perceptibly moving as he spoke to his undertaker. "So who's Towanda?"

  "The face of the business--she handles the familial relations and financials for the most part. It's an equal partnership, but I don't mind handling the more...unsavory jobs."

  "Ohh, I'm unsavory now?" This cadaver was already going to be a headache for Roland, he could hear it in the corpse's voice. "Is she cute?"

  Roland was drawing on a fresh pair of gloves. "We keep things professional. I prefer work remain just that."

  "Yeah, who would want to liven up this place, am I right?" The dead golfer's eyes roamed around the room. "Which is...where am I, anyway?"

  "Palimpsest Mortuary," Roland replied stiffly, retying his apron strings behind him.

  "Don't know it. Where's it at?"

  "In the Lowlands, just south of downtown."

  The golfer couldn't frown, but the effect was the same as his voice lilted. "Why so far? I live across town."

  "Your parents have money, and wanted the best for you, so they brought you here." Roland clicked on his wireless speaker delicately with a gloved fingertip--he'd given up trying to use earbuds years ago, the attention-starved bodies would just yell over his music so he'd be forced to take them out.

  "You're the best, huh? My, my, lucky me." The corpse chuckled, a hollow, breathless sound.  "Any of my buddies end up here, or was it just me? Oh, sorry, manners--I'm Jed, by the way."

  "Hello, Jed. Just you. The rest of them were...well, there wasn't much of them to transport, I'm afraid." Roland was piping a thick preservative gel into one of Jed's deeper open wounds, which would require some extra cosmetic care to conceal.

  "Yeesh. That bad, huh? Gotta be honest, I don't remember much of what happened. What was the cause of death?"

  "Blunt force trauma to the thoracic cage, the subsequent collapse and cardiac tamponade causing arrest in the pericardial--"

  Jed was snoring so loud it cut Roland off entirely. His eyelids snapped open, the only part of his face other than the lips he could still move. "Jesus, doc, English please."

  Annoyed, Roland glared at Jed, setting down the gel pipette. "You were hit so hard in the chest your heart stopped pumping. Also, I'm not a doctor."

  "I know, it's just an expression, you know?" Jed joked as Roland continued his work. "Like in the movies? Anytime someone says something mildly complicated, and the screenwriter's afraid he's gonna lose the audience so he has another character be all, like, 'English, doc,' so he can make what he just said easier to follow? Always hated when movies did that, like yeah, obviously I don't know what a 'mainframe' is, you don't gotta remind me..."

  "I don't watch much television, I'm afraid." Roland rotated his tray of tools away from himself, replacing it with a tray lower down on his standing cart. "The next step is to smooth over the surface and conceal any apparent damage before applying makeup. Would you care to make any special requests?"

  "Like, do I wanna be prettied up for the pageant? Nah, I'm good, thanks, I don't really expect much in the way of competetion when they lay me out for the fam." Jed paused. "Though, it would be cool if you could like--rig my arm to pop up and scare everyone, like if I see someone in the crowd on their phone or whatever? I want all eyes on me."

  Roland didn't blink. "That's somewhat outside of my skillset, I'm sorry to say. Sometimes I get asked for things like rosary beads, or more traditional cultural makeup--those things, I can accomodate," he said, demonstrating by pulling a small wooden crucifix from a drawer.

  "No thanks, doc. I didn't really go in for that sort of thing--my parents did, I know, but I don't wanna give 'em any false hope about where I'm headed." Jed looked straight ahead, up at the ceiling. "Not gonna be much to look forward to on the other side, is there?"

  Replacing the crucifix, Roland pushed the drawer shut gently. "I wouldn't know, I'm afraid."

  Jed sighed. "Well, I'd say it was a good run, except I'm pretty sure that last hole I played I remember penciling in eight-over-par, so I probably deserved to drop dead anyway. You play golf?"

  Roland shook his head, dabbing a brush at some powdered blush. "No."

  "Terrible game, do not recommend," Jed continued. "Even so, I guess I'm gonna miss it, that and a lot of other things." He ran down the list as Roland applied the makeup. "Fried rice. Lite beer. Ed Sheeran. Ice cubes." His voice withered somewhat. "Yeah, this is gonna suck, bro."

  "My sympathies." Roland finished up, leaning back to survey his work. "Jed, I must apologize, the next part is to set the face for viewing, which means sealing the eyes and mouth shut. This is where you and I part ways, sir."

  "Huh? Oh, yeah, it's all good, thanks man," Jed said, sounding somewhat withdrawn. "Hey thanks for keeping me company, even if only for a little while."

  "Of course." Roland's hand hovered over his tray once more. "Sure you don't have any final requests?"

  "Nah. I'm good bro."

  The next few moments were silent--at some point between the eyelids and gluing the lips, Jed was gone, and Roland was alone once more. The room quiet now, Roland set to readying the body for transport, wheeling him to the overnight lockers before sliding him into a vacant box.

  Roland returned to the embalming area to choose his next client, mulling over his options as he looked at the wall of freezer doors, all hiding their mystery guests. There were no services scheduled in the gallery tomorrow, so he had free pick--alternating between off-site jobs like Jed and in-house guests seemed a good way to break up the tedium. Nevertheless, there were a few run-offs from the nearby hospital, and Roland would have liked to have them all out of the way before the weekend's services. That in mind, he chose one such door and yanked back the stiff handle, the freezer bed sliding smoothly outwards before him.

  This client was older, balding, coated in a static mess of white body hair--drowned off the coast after taking his boat out on a solo venture. If it weren't for that, Roland might have suspected he'd died of natural causes based on--

  "BAH!" The cadaver's eyes snapped open as he spooked Roland, who drew back sharply, falling for the trick. Asshole.

  "Hey put me back in, I'm not done!" The old mariner chuckled. "Just keepin' ya on your toes, boy. Gotta be ready for anything!"

  "Don't call me 'boy,'" Roland said sourly.

  The corpse ignored this very pointedly as he spoke. "Say, just you tonight, boy? Got you working the graveyard shift, eh?"

  This guy was already getting on Roland's nerves. "You know, you aren't even the first person tonight to make that joke."

  "Bet I'm the best looking, though! Died young and left behind a beautiful corpse, I'm living the dream. Or, is it 'dying' the dream? Heh." The old man looked about. "No, but really, I don't get any sort of say in who I get put with?"

  Roland raised an eyebrow. "Is there a problem?"

  "No, no problem," the drowner denied. "Just, you don't strike me as the type with much of a sense of humor." His eyes told a different story as he looked Roland up and down. "Kinda uptight, aren't ya, boy? Aren't you people supposed to be, you know, a more vibrant sort? Always crackin' wise and whatnot?"

  "Oh, very much so, actually," Roland agreed, leaning in somewhat. "In point of fact, I'd like to think I have a great sense of humor."

  "Yeah?" The old man wasn't impressed. "Hit me then, Coltrane."

  Roland's grip on the freezer handle tightened. "What do you call a racist old man who dies alone, has no immediately family claim the body, and who hasn't had his toe tag filled out yet?"

  "I dunno, why don't you tell me?"

  Roland smirked. "A John Doe."

  With that, he slammed the freezer drawer shut, silencing the old corpse once more.

  This one he'd leave for Towanda in the morning.

  Narrowing down his selections, Roland located his coffee mug before moving onto the next client--he was gonna need all the caffeine he could handle if the cadavers were all going to be this grating. Running a finger down the chart that hung on the wall next to the lockers, he located one that had a name and cause of death that seemed unassuming--the more unremarkable the circumstances surrounding their expiration, the less likely they were to be overly chatty. With a small amount of trepidation he made his choice and, coffee mug in hand, opened the next freezer, the cold vapors billowing out around to obscure the features of the next cadaver.

  Barely had the mist cleared before the corpse asked: "Got you working the graveyard shift, 'ey pal?"

  Roland exhaled deeply, quaffing back the entirety of the contents of his mug in one swallow.

  It was going to be a long night.