Carol Anne Davis latest novel is the psychosexual thriller Kiss It Away.
Ah, there you are. Have you locked your bike up outside? As promised, I left the Crematorium's side door slightly open. That's where I admit my special customers, the ones who pay good money to take new-dead photographs.
I'm Ken, as I said, but you can call me what you like for a... thanks, love, that'll do nicely. We're not paid too good, we crem assistants, and if it wasn't for the punters who buy still lifes, I don't know how I'd live.
That stiff over there died in vain cause there's no much call for stills of dead white men, though I've a bloke who finds two hundred each time I've got me a dead black female. He don't care if she's three hundred pounds or a beansprout, long as she's got that coal dark skin.
You want to know what he does? Yes, love, you're payin' me for this so of course you can write it all down. As I said after your auntie's cremation, you give me the cash and you gets yourself a story. Long as you don't tell your editor which crematorium you're writing about or give him my real name.
Where was I? Hell, the cold in here does my head in sometimes. Oh, yeah, the guy who likes dark ladies comes in here and takes his Polaroids and goes home to... well, whatever he does with them. I mean, it's not like the dead know what's happening to their likeness, is it?
The living don't know as much as they should. None of the weepers who come here are halfway streetwise. Fact is, most people don't know how to stay out of danger, how to save their own lives.
See that girl on the table over there? She accepted a lift from some guy she'd just met in a nightclub. You can still see his tooth marks over both breasts. I tell you, these guys who hate girls always leave their dental prints for all to see. Left her in the park, he did, till some clean living jogger came along and near died of the shock.
That keep fit lark - now that's another killer if you don't have your ticker working right. First day it snows, I've half a dozen corpses in here, all fifty year old guys who decided to clear the white stuff from their driveways. Half an hour of shovelling and their cold hearts stop. Fact is, it's not much fun for me - as I said, there's few customers want photos of greying male bodies though I do a good line in little boys.
If you're a young boy who wants to save your own life, you want to avoid any of those clubs for the under sixteens as they're Kiddie Porn City. Some of these Camp Leaders have their own ideas about fly fishing, if you know what I mean. And if you squeal for Mummy the perv's liable to panic and wrap his fingers around your eight year old neck. Other times, a kid can't live with the fact that his Cub Leader is more interested in checking out his parts than in exploring his footie skills, so he hangs himself from the tree he used as a treehouse the year before.
Their mummies fall apart soon as the cops knock on the door, and sometimes top themselves within a month. Hell, I've cremated whole families over a one year period. Daddy often drives at speed into a wall or jumps into the river after his kiddie and wife have done the hanging bit. They sometimes take fifteen minutes to die, swingin' on the end of a rope and chokin' on the noose rather than having their necks fast broke by it, but Daddy knows what he's doing with the accelerator and its over for him in ten seconds flat.
I'll usually get a few hundred quid for the mother, more depending on how she's killed herself. Some of my punters like to photograph the cuts on a woman's wrists, the early hesitation marks and the heavy knifing. The cut that makes her bleed to death is the one that follows the vein up the arm rather than across. Others want a shot of the mouth if it contains some of the tablets which snuffed her - suicides often cough up the capsules that they've swallowed towards the end.
Tips on how a woman can save her life? Well, don't have kids. Your body starts to age soon as you spawn from it. No, keep your belly to yourself - and if you've got any sense stay unhitched in a nice wee bedsit. Single women live longer than married ones.
It figures, when you think how much looking after we men need. I mean, I'm okay - with the dough I make from the death slides I can stand some big meals out, a cleaning lassie for the house, a flash bint each time I want myself well serviced. But your average bloke wants all his meals and dishes done for him plus a lively bint in his bed who’ll bear his kiddies. That wears a woman out.
Truth is, I'm always seeing women in here that have been cancelled out by their guys in their own homes. Stabbed, torched, thrown off the balcony or down the stairs, I've cremated them. Husbands suffocate their wives at night or drown 'em during the day - and there are bloody weird things go on in the Twilight Zone. I've seen a woman so wrapped in sticky tape that it took us a half day to cut it all off. What he did to her after she was bound... well, use your imagination. Let's just say that there were fluids where no fluids had been before.
She was mighty popular, was that one. I reckon I took a couple of thousand for her in total. Some customers wanted to photograph her well trussed up, others turned up at various stages of my unwrapping her. I had to pay off the guy who usually works with me in the daytime as there was such a demand. He's dense, he is - doesn't realise that there's a photo market out there. Works nights in a bar to bring in a bit more cash.
The elderly are often short of cash, so if you plan on getting old you've got to start saving early. Then keep quiet about your nest egg or some quack doctor will make you change your will to favour him. Fact is, it's best to avoid the so called caring professions if you can - there's staff in them nursing homes that'll lift your glass eye if you aren't wearing it. Oh, and we at the Crem will nick your gold teeth and cut off your finger to get your wedding ring.
Don't get knocked out in a coach or plane crash either if you want a wealthy old age - there are always people looking for opportunities. By the time the rescuers have finished you'll be jewelerryless, moneyless and passportless.
I'll force some formaldehyde into this lassie's arteries now so that you can see how we prep people who're to be displayed in open coffins. I make them look real nice for that final showing. See how I push in the preservatives and pump out the old blood at the same time?
Talking of time.... Do you know how to save your own life now? Have you written down all I've said? Do you know not to have kids, not to marry, not to reach old age without proper savings? There's just one piece of information I didn't give you - tell a good mate where you're going each time you plan to meet a strange man.
Sorry, love, it's too late to write that down. I mean, you can if you like, but the notebook's going into the fire with you. Think I'm joking? No point in turning to the exit - me mate's locked the door.
Problem is, demand is far exceeding supply so I've started to drum up a little trade of my own. Soon as I saw you, I knew you were perfect. Young and living alone and workin' freelance - which means you probably ain't discussed this idea with anyone. See, I know how carefully folks guard a good idea. Blokes like me can sniff out human hope and greed and fear. Even if they do find your aunt was cremated here and that you decided to write about it, no one's going to suspect a long-service worker like me when you disappear.
They say it's the unknown that scares people most, so if it's any help I can tell you where you'll be going. See that coffin reserved for the girl I showed you earlier? Well, later tonight I'll put you both in there an' nail down the lid and tomorrow you'll burn like twins in the Crematorium's flames.
Trust me, there's no point in screaming for help. If there's anyone in the grounds they'll be people I've invited. Plus it's well after midnight and these walls are specially thick. Luckily for you, I can squeeze a slender neck real hard so you won't be squealing for ages, though you may hear a loud crack as your hyoid bone breaks.
Here we go. Christ, your throat is so slim an' warm. Don't worry your head about these hellish gagging sounds - it's just a reflex. Same with your face going all bulbous and the first few veins breaking in the whites of your eyes. There's really no point in gasping for air as I'm crushing your windpipe shut with every passing second. That's why the veins are flowing into each other so that both eyewhites have turned a rabbit red.
We're getting there, love. The haemorrhages are spreadin' down your neck and I know you can't help sticking out your fattened tongue at me. Lucky I've a change of overalls in the staff room as you've smeared me with the blood that's flowing from your nose.
That's the death rattle you're making now. The guy who likes hearing that most is doing time but I've another who has hot wet dreams about such strangled expressions. I'll phone him soon as your corpse has gone stiff and cold.