Extra, Extra! Come Get Your Death Papers!

NORTH COUNTRY MORGUE – It is without a shadow of a doubt that the North Country Morgue serves a morbid purpose – chemically bonding dead bodies to preserve them, but what purpose does this all entail? No one knows the answer to that. Not even Karl the manager knows.

Patients come in willy-nilly, expecting to receive matchless service from the staff, though they themselves are not always so cooperative, which may lead to irreconcilable transgressions. We’ve seen how Crystal has treated Candice, but it is not to be disagreed she has treated many other morgue members the same way.

Other valetudinarians promote their propaganda, spreading false information about other patients and the crew members, working to belittle and discourage anyone from using the North Country Morgue’s grave facilities.

“Yes, you may post that on our door,” Karl would say to a woman handing out flyers for a show featuring a stuntman juggling chainsaws on a unicycle. For a show not even days from then but weeks. Even months into the future.

“Oh, certainly,” he would say to a disheveled man who’s teeth are all golden and falling out of his mouth as he speaks. Crunch. Crunch is what someone would hear if they stuck a microphone right underneath his jaw. Uncanny is what it all is.

But then others emerge from the shadows when there is no Karl around to confront and stop them. Then they must suffer the wrath of the shy Arlo. Oh, Arlo. How timid he is and reluctant to let people paint the morgue’s doors with their crap. Sure, sometimes, it was for a fundraiser for a meaningful cause, like cancer awareness.

One fateful night, Candice approached Arlo at the office door.

“I’m sorry, but there is a gentleman who would like to speak with a manager. If you weren’t here, I would have just sent him on his way.”

Hesitantly, Arlo stood up from his office chair, sending it sprawling into the wall with a THUD. Shaking as if he’d just been lifting cruise ships all day and was struggling to keep himself upright, he exited the door, his presence now a ghost.

“Can I help you, sir?”

The man, jolly as could be with razor scars all across his cheeks, smiled at the lad.

“I’d like to promote this show for a hero of our day. He’s volunteered for every animal shelter, fire station, police station, and jury in the county. And the town has put together an event to commemorate him and all his work. What do you say?”

Arlo looked over his handout, eying the person in question, who looked as if he’d just gotten run over by a train but then was glamoured about at a salon for dead people. Tickets for the occasion cost nearly his life savings – $600. And the timing of it was just impeccable – nine o’clock in the evening. Not that the time mattered to him because he was a night owl. But he was sure no adults in their right mind would want to attend the show.

“I’m sorry. I will have to decline.”

“Why?”

Arlo, because he could not answer under pressure, simply gave silence as a response. The whole situation was sketchy to him. Who would honor a dead man who killed his forefathers with disdain and sarcasm?

“It’s okay. Don’t remember what this guy did. Leave him in the dark and perish away.”

And with that, the man left the morgue, and Arlo was left in shock. Someone spreading publicity about a a dishonorable agent. For shame.