The Night-Shift Mortician: The Dead Leave Me Rules to Follow

My father died during his night shift at the funeral home. The cause of death was listed as a “heart attack,” but he was clutching half of a torn-up set of rules.

To find out the truth, I took over his shift.

On my first night, at 2:55 a.m., a woman’s corpse was brought in. On the inside of her wrist was a line of writing in blood, visible only to me:

“Don’t let her close her eyes before three.”

That was when I learned that the fixations of those who die unnatural deaths can condense into rules. Follow one, and the dead can rest in peace, while I receive something they left behind. Break one, and they come looking for me themselves.

The funeral home’s seven rules were bought with my father’s life.

And I have to test them one by one.