It's just past midnight on a Wednesday evening and I'm driving a hearse to the hospital. I'm tired and just want to go to sleep, but the phone rang and woke me up. There is a corpse waiting for me at the hospital. I'm a mortuary student and am working for a local funeral home as I study for my diploma. One of my duties is picking up the bodies and bringing them back to the funeral home.

I drive the hearse into the hospital parking lot and pull around to the back to the morgue. I've been working at the funeral home for over a year now. I've still got another four months until I finally graduate.

I've always been fascinated by death and funerals. As a kid when I went to a funeral I would linger at the casket, watching the body. When no one was looking I'd reach out my hand and touch the skin. The skin never felt real. It felt like cold rubber. As I got older I would attend funerals for people I didn't even know, just to get a look at the body in the casket.

So, after high school I figured the best path for me would be mortuary school and then start working in the funerary industry. I've really enjoyed the work so far, but I find the business side very boring. I'm more interested in working with the bodies. I've become very good at embalming and am getting better at making up the bodies for their funerals.

I back the hearse up to the hospital's morgue and get out. The night is chilly with a slight, autumn breeze blowing. I can hear the sound of brittle leaves rustling in the trees. I walk around to the morgue's back door. I've become a regular here. I pick up a couple of bodies a week at this hospital. I press the buzzer by the door and stuff my hands in my pockets. A minute later I hear the door being unlocked.

"Hey man, how's it going?" Gus says, as he swings the door open. He holds his hand out and I shake it.

"Going good, Gus," I answer as I walk through the door, "Though maybe a bit late for me."

"I hear that," he says and closes the door behind me. "But, you know people don't die during the day. They got stuff to do." He laughs at himself and slaps me on the shoulder. "Come on, she's over here."

I follow him through the next door that leads into the morgue. I once thought about working in the morgue like Gus, but what he does is actually boring. He doesn't do much more than tag the bodies, move them around the hospital, and keep watch over them. He's more of a record keeper and doesn't get to really work with the bodies.

"This one is pretty strange too. Some shit happened with it today," he says as I follow him into the body holding area.

"What shit happened?" I ask.

"Man, you wouldn't believe it. Some doctor is gonna get himself canned because he was screwing with the body."

"He screwed the body?" I ask.

Gus stops and bursts out in laughter. He turns to me and says, "No, man, he didn't screw her. Though I couldn't say I'd blame him. She was a hot piece of ass." He stares at me with a blank face for a few seconds. I stare back at him questioning. He breaks out in laughter again. "Come on, I'll show you."

I follow him over to the body drawers. He grabs a clipboard from his desk and then walks along the wall of drawers. He finds the one he wants, grabs the handle, flips the latch, and yanks the drawer open. He slides it out until it stops.

"Here she is. Ms. Julie Drake," he says. He sets the clipboard in the drawer down near the corpse's feet. "Come here and look at this." I approach the body. It's the body of a young woman. It does look like she was beautiful when she was alive.

"How old was she?" I ask, stunned by the young corpse.

"I think about 20," he says. "See what I mean. She was a hot piece of ass, wasn't she?" He looks at me with a big toothy grin. I look down at the corpse. The body looks so alive. I can tell it's a dead body. The skin has the pale, blue coloring of the dead and she lays very still, more so than any living body can, no matter how deep in sleep. But, I just can't believe that such a young woman, and one so gorgeous, could be dead. Her body is in perfect shape. She looked to be very athletic with a slender, well-toned body.

"What'd she die of?" I ask and lay my hands on the edge of the drawer peering in at her.

"Um," Gus picks up his clipboard and flips through it, "Oh yeah, she was asthmatic, died tonight during an evening jog. Looks like she held on for a couple hours, but the doctors couldn't save her. Definitely one of the hottest corpses to come through here, but she's a little skinny for my tastes. I like a body to have some meat on its bones. Them titties ain't even a handful." He laughs again and I stare at him. "Damn man, you take this shit too serious. Anyway come over here and see this shit."

I walk over to his side of the drawer as he reaches his hands in to grab her head. He twists her face away from us. He brushes the hair away from her ear and bends the ear forward exposing the skin behind it. "See that," he says pointing behind the ear. I lean in, looking where his finger is. I see a small hole with some light blue liquid seeping from it. "Shit," he exclaims, bringing his hands back from her head and wiping them on his smock. "Got some of that shit on my fingers."

"What is it?" I ask.

"Hell if I know. Nobody knows except some doctor whose about to be unemployed. After the girl died a nurse went in to check the room, make sure the body was covered, whatever. She found some doctor shoving a needle into the girl's head, right where I showed you. Looks like he stuck it right up through the bottom of the skull. He injected that blue liquid into her brain. The nurse called for help and eventually security got the doctor."

"I wonder what he injected her with?"

"Nobody knows, man. The police came, took him away, took statements, and called it done. I guess they figure the girl's already dead, so the most they can get him with is some desecration charge or something. But, he'll be fired from this hospital that's for sure."

"Should I even be taking her? Don't they need the body for evidence or something?"

"Shit no. I told you, she's dead. They ain't gonna do an autopsy on a girl that was already dead. Ain't worth it."

"That's weird, Gus."

"Damn straight. That's some weird shit." We stand there for a few seconds staring at the corpse. I study her body, admiring her long legs, narrow hips, flat stomach, and firm breasts. I'm getting slightly aroused. She was hot when she was alive. Actually she's still hot even now.

"Alright, man, you ready to take her out of here?" Gus asks, looking at me.

"Sure," I say, "The sooner I get her to the funeral home, the sooner I get to go back to sleep."

"Alright then, let's load her up."

I roll a gurney in from the hearse and place it beside her drawer.

"Here," Gus says, "You get her feet and I'll get her head."

I grab her ankles. The skin under my hands feels so alive. It feels cold like a corpse, but the skin is still soft under my touch. It hasn't begun to deteriorate and feel like cold pulp. Gus grabs her shoulders and we hoist her onto the gurney.

"Damn, this one's fresh, ain't she?" he says, "If she wasn't so cold I'd almost say she's alive. Hope she don't wake up in the back of your hearse and freak you out." He laughs loudly holding his head back up. "That'd be some crazy shit."

"Yeah," I mumble, thinking about her body rising in the hearse behind me. Goose bumps break out on my arms.

"Here, I'll get the papers for you and you can be gone," he says and walks over to the desk. I place a sheet over her body and then begin wrapping the straps around her. As I finish, Gus hands me the paperwork. "I'll help you with her out to the hearse," he says and grabs the other side of the gurney.

We wheel the gurney out the back door, down the ramp, and roll it into the back of the hearse.

"It's a cold night tonight," Gus says looking into the woods behind us. The wind blows, swirling around us. Gus shivers and reaches his hand out to me. I shake it. "Take it easy, man, I'll see you soon," he says.

"Thanks Gus, and you probably will," I say. He walks back into the hospital as I get into the front of the hearse and start it up.

I drive out of the hospital parking lot, heading back to the funeral home. The drive will take about thirty minutes. Then, I'll have to unload the body, put her in the chiller, and file the paperwork before I head back to bed.

I glance into the rearview mirror. I adjust it down slightly so that I can see the body more so than the road behind me. This is the weirdest pickup I've done since I've started working at the funeral home and I'm feeling uneasy. Why would a doctor inject some liquid into a dead girl's head? What was it? I keep looking to the rearview mirror, watching the body, partly expecting to see it moving under the sheets.

Actually, maybe that wouldn't be so terrifying. She is a very sexy woman. Maybe she would come back to life to seduce me. That wouldn't be so horrible. I haven't had any sex since I started the mortuary program. I've been too busy and my choice of career fields seems to freak out most women, not that I had many dates before I started at the mortuary school anyway. I don't have outstanding social skills. Maybe that's one reason why I prefer the company of the dead. I don't have to converse with them.

My thoughts wander as I drive through the night, glimpsing the covered body behind me. I imagine seeing movement under the sheet. I stop the hearse and climb into the back. I can see her arms moving under the sheet. I unbuckle the straps and pull back the sheet. She's lying there, naked, waking from her deathlike coma. Her eyes open and see me crouching above her. She smiles and lifts her arms to me. I bend down to kiss her. My hands move down her tight body.

I wipe my hands across my eyes to drive the images out of my head. My penis is hard inside my pants. I want to look at her again. I want to touch her. I rub my hard dick through my pants and squirm in the seat. I could pull over somewhere, get into the back with her and look at her again. I could touch her. I could do anything I want to her. Who would know?