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Otto Walker donned his lab coat, snapped on his blue latex gloves, and looked down at the first corpse of the day.

He didn’t know the man’s name, didn’t know anything about him. He wasn’t old, Otto could see that. So many of the dead that passed in front of him were little more than loose skin on ancient bones. The men bald or almost bald. The women with short, white hair as stiff as a broom’s bristles.

This man wasn’t like that.

Otto doubted the deceased had made it past his mid-fifties. He’d been overweight when he was alive. The man’s belly rose from the middle of the embalming table like the top of a giant muffin.

A bank would’ve suited this guy. Otto could imagine him in a shirt and tie, buttons straining at the holes, rejecting someone’s loan application. Too risky, he’d have thought, before turning down the request.

And here he was…rejected by life.

There were no signs of any wounds or injuries, none of the accidental damage that so scarred a middle-aged body and took such skill to hide. Whatever killed this guy had been internal.

A heart attack, probably. Or a stroke.

Something was wrong with the flow of his blood.

Otto held up a scalpel, his forefinger resting on the back of the blade. The handle sat comfortably across his palm.

Start near the windpipe. Run your finger down the groove of the neck until you reach the spot.

He hesitated. Sweat pooled inside the rubber glove. This happened every time, despite all his training as an apprentice mortician. Nervous excitement was a side effect of loving one’s job.

Otto always found his own carotid arteries with ease. Uncovering the artery in someone else, someone who didn’t have a pulse, was only a little harder.

He found the spot and went for it.

Placing the scalpel’s tip on the right side of the cadaver’s neck, he drew a short line. A tiny amount of blood welled up. He pressed a fingertip to the skin, testing its resistance. The scalpel had barely sliced through the epidermis, so he tried again, applying more pressure this time. Otto dug through the skin.

He tried again, pressing harder this time. The scalpel slid deeper, parting layers of fat and fascia.

There they were. The carotid artery and the jugular vein, pale blue under the embalming room’s fluorescent lights. A thrill curled through him as he made his first incision into the carotid artery.

The blood that seeped out was thicker and richer than he’d seen before. Dark, sluggish, like oil from a broken machine. He pried the edges of the wound open wider, exposing the frayed ends of the severed artery.

He reached for the arterial tube, a length of smooth plastic attached to the embalming pump. With a steady hand, Otto inserted the tube into the artery, securing it in place.

With that done, he turned his attention to the jugular vein. A fresh incision. Another tube, this one for drainage. He twisted it in deep, forcing the opening wider until he was sure nothing would clot too soon.

Pleased with his efforts, he adjusted the pressure dial on the embalming machine.

A moment later, preserving fluid surged through the artery, forcing blood out through the drainage tube. It pulsed in sluggish waves, snaking through the transparent plastic until it emptied into a grate in the floor.

Otto leaned back on his stool, still clutching the scalpel.

This was the part he liked best. He could sit here for hours, just watching.

Once, that blood had been life itself—oxygen, nutrients, thought, movement, being. A whole existence, carried through veins, feeding the brain, sustaining the heart.

And now?

It was garbage.

Soon, a biohazard truck would come to collect the waste, carting it off like any other discarded thing. But Otto liked this moment, before it was taken away, before it was nothing but another forgotten remnant of the dead.

Life was so fragile. Here today, down the drain tomorrow.

Few people got to see the transformation, but he did. Otto’s hands shook, and he set the scalpel down before he hurt himself. He held them in his lap in case Chris came down and saw his excitement.

Blood continued to flow, dripping past the grate. There was nothing to do now except wait and watch.

The dead had always fascinated him. By their color, their stiffness, their complete inability to act or react. Life happened around them, and they just lay there, decaying slowly while the source of their life flowed away.

Processing corpses from decay to preservation should’ve been easy. Otto had thought it would be. But he always struggled.

And the last time he did this…

He shuddered. His stomach roiled as though he’d just chugged a bottle of vinegar.

Otto had pushed Friday night out of his mind, tried not to think about it. Every time he recalled the touch of the young man’s skin, remembered how the kid struggled, he wanted to throw up.

Everything about that night had been wrong.

“The sacrifice would be a volunteer.”

That was what he’d been told. The sacrifice would be someone who wanted to be redeemed, or someone mortally ill with nothing to lose and only redemption to gain.

But the guy hadn’t acted like he had nothing to lose.

And the body was so young. So warm. So…alive. And the groan the man made as the blood poured out of him…Otto had never heard that before. He’d expected something, a gentle moan of relief perhaps as his life was drained out. But that man had moaned in pain. He hadn’t wanted to go.

Nausea roiled through Otto’s guts. To bleed someone while they were still alive was too awful.

He couldn’t do it again. He thought he could.

Surely, he’d done enough now. There was no need to help anymore.

His contribution was done.

Watching blood drip into the drain, Otto brought out his phone. He peeled off one glove, and with trembling fingers, typed his message.

I’m out.

The reply came before he’d even put the phone away.

There is no out.

A chill passed through him. He’d known backing out wouldn’t go down well. But fear hit him from one side as guilt struck him from the other. He couldn’t drain a living body again. It was wrong. He’d done it once, but never again. He just couldn’t.

I’m sorry.

His phone buzzed.

Go home. Now. I’ll meet you there. We can discuss.

Otto’s fear grew. It was like a black shadow hanging over him, a dark beast with sharp teeth and claws.

In or out, that was the rule. And he’d been in, except now, he wanted out. Surely, that wasn’t too hard to understand.

He replied quickly.

I can’t. I’m at work.

Again, the reply came instantly.

Home.

More typing.

Now!

The chill that passed through Otto was colder than anything he’d ever felt. Sweat rose on his forehead despite the cold air in that basement. He knew that tone, and he knew he couldn’t resist.

He could hear his boss, Chris, roaming around upstairs. A service was about to start shortly.

Chris would be up there in his black suit and his black tie and his long, sad face, greeting the mourners and showing them to their seats. He did it so well. Otto envied him. How someone managed to pretend to show so much concern about the death of someone they’d never known was beyond him.

If he ever did graduate from embalmer to mortician here at the funeral parlor, he doubted he’d be any better than a theater usher. He’d smile too wide, talk too loud. It’d be hard to stay in character. Chris was always so much more sensitive. Probably why he opened the funeral home in the first place. And Chris would understand if he just wasn’t feeling well.

Otto turned back to the body bleeding out on the mortician’s table. He’d finish up, then get going.