Colette Blackheart worked late nights and into the early mornings, as janitor for the Burns & Stiffman Mortuary and Crematorium, and that mortuary was the last place anyone saw her alive.

It was 2:20 A.M., Several days before her body was found. Her boyfriend, Jack Stone, the last person to see Colette alive, was just finishing up his nightly ritual of closing the 'Tap Room', a bar he owned and operated right down the street from the 'Tag n Bag' (Jack's nick name for the mortuary) where Colette worked.

Colette hadn't shown up to the Tap Room at 2:00 A.M., her usual time. Now, Jack was feeling a little worried as he bent down to wring the water from the steaming mop in his hand.

That's when his phone began to ring.

It was Colette, …show more content…
"Well shit!" he yelled out loud for no one to hear then he fished his phone out of the bucket of scalding water.

"Ouch!" He yelled as he stood up and walked over to drop the phone on the counter of his bar.

"Damn! Guess I'll just have to stop by and pick her up, if I don't see her walking along the way."

He didn't feel like walking all the way across his freshly mopped floor to use the regular phone at the other end of the bar. And Finishing up would only take him a few more minutes.

He wrapped up moping the floor, then emptied the mop bucket, rinsed it out and put it back in it's upside down position over the grate on the floor.

Jack shook his full head of black wavy hair, as he walked over and took his black leather jacket off the hook where it was hanging, put it on, shut off the lights, walked out, locked the door and then jumped on his Harley, forgetting his wet cell phone on the bar counter.

No one was around to hear the gravel flying back to the ground from the rooster tail he made when he peeled out, or to hear the roar of the engine which was fantastically deafening as he pegged it wide open and sped …show more content…
She probably had some extra work to do, after all, the Mortuary would be closed for vacation for the next two weeks so she probably had more to do than usual,"

He went over the details of the previous evening.

He had dropped her off at the mortuary just like any other day. She kissed him when He dropped her off.

“I love you. See you at the bar!”

“I love you too.” He had said back as she pecked him on the cheek then stepped back from the bike so he could pull away.

He saw her waving good-bye in his rear facing mirror on the left side of his handle bars so he threw his left hand high, up into the air where it stayed until she was out of sight.

Jack caught himself thinking about Colette's weird job and her strange fascination with death.

A conversation he and Colette had during the early days as a couple, came to mind.

He had asked her, "Isn't it kind of... strange, working there in the middle of the night all alone, knowing there are dead people there with you?"

"Nope. They're not dead people. They're dead bodies. Their spirit was long gone. It left the minute their heart stopped. I believe our spirit is who we are. Our body is like a 'car' to our spirit. Here on earth our spirits ride in our bodies and our bodies ride around in