Dead of Night

”Hey Rookie,” yelled the training officer, “put your nightstick away and get in the squad car. We’ve got a call.”

Officer Aaron Donovan jumped to his feet, almost tripping when the huge flashlight knocked against his knees. Adjusting his police department utility belt to a more comfortable position, he darted to the passenger door of the black and white. He’d have to finish his paperwork later; there was no way he could screw up on his very first shift. “What we got?” He queried his T.O.

Police training officer Michael Stewart chuckled as he watched his trainee nervously fumble his way into the police car. Rookies, he thought. “It’s a decomp,” he replied.

“Decomp?” the rookie trainee said inquiringly.

“Decomposing body. A deader that nobody found for a while.” Officer Stewart chuckled. “Generally someone follows their nose… after the rotting body starts really stinking up the neighborhood.”

Aaron swallowed, eyes wide. “Really? … Uhm, how long we talking?”

“From what I’m hearing at least a couple of weeks. Long enough for the body to become a putrid slime pool covered in maggots and flies. Just another night on the job Rookie.”

“Fuck,” whispered trainee cop Aaron Donovan as he turned to look out the window. The scenery passing by was lit by the red and blue strobing light from the passing squad car. Other than the police lights and siren the streets were dark and quiet at 2:30 in the morning.

When the police cruiser pulled up in front of the house the two officers clambered out. Their nostrils were immediately assaulted by a horrific smell. “Yep. Definitely a decomp,” T.O. Stewart said with a sigh. “Come on Donovan, looks like you get trial by shit.” The training officer had a rueful smile on his face, but the grey eyes were pensive as he looked towards the dark, quiet house. The street was eerily silent; neighboring houses dark, brooding. The only light came from a three quarter blood moon hanging pensively above like a malevolent spirit watching from on high. “God I hate these,” he murmured as he put in his nose plugs.

As the cops approached the house a white van pulled up behind the squad car. A bearded young man in dark dress clothes - blue long sleeve shirt, black pants, black dress shoes, and red tie - exited the vehicle. The man had a neatly trimmed beard. His hair was shaved on the sides. The top tied into neat ponytail. “Hey, Clint. How goes it? Glad to see you here,” T.O. Stewart said.

Turning tired eyes their way the mortuary driver gave a wan grin. “Morning Officer Stewart,” he replied. “Who’s your friend?”

“This here is Officer Aaron Donovan,” he said. “My trainee. First night on the job.” The two officers walked up to the body snatcher whose job it was to pick up the corpses and transport them to wherever they were to be taken. Generally either a funeral home or the morgue.

Smiling the mortuary service driver, née body snatcher, shook the rookie cops extended hand. “Hell of a call for night one,” he said with a grin.

“Yeah. Seems so,” the nervous trainee said. “Aaron Donovan. Pleased to meet you.”

“Clint. Clint Matthews.”

“Clint here had the pleasure on our last meeting of prying a decomp from where he had kind of fused to the side of a porcelain tub. Guess he was rinsing it and had a heart attack or something. That was a real mess.”

“Wasn’t it?” the neat young man said with a grin. “Did they ever figure out what the deal was with that locked kiddie room with the peep hole? That was really weird.”

“I don’t know,” Stewart said with a shrug. “I leave that to the detectives.”

As the body snatcher raised his head to sniff the aromatic night air, he grinned. “This one may be worse. Hopefully I won’t have to use a pry bar.”

“A pry bar?” Donovan asked nervously.

“Yep. The guy had practically liquefied while being cooked onto the porcelain. It was one heck of a mess. Had to wrap a hose around the body and have my buddy pull while I pried the body off the side of the tub. You should have seen the maggots writhing when the roaches started scattering.”

Aaron Donovan looked slightly green around the gills as he swallowed.

“I’ll meet you inside,” the body snatcher said. “Gotta get a body bag and the stretcher from the van.”

As the young rookie approached the silently ominous house the aroma of rot and decay got steadily stronger. It was undercut by the smell of old feces and urine. Donovan swallowed the huge lump in his throat.

Officer Stewart put on gloves and reached for the doorknob. He could hear rustling noises from inside. Lowering his head, he put an ear to the cool wood of the door. Inside he heard a skittering noise. He looked at his rookie trainee. He felt kind of bad for the kid. This was a hell of a thing for night one. He hadn’t had his first decomp call until he had been over a year out of training. Elderly stroke victims, heart attacks, even a gunshot to the head from a drug deal…, but a decomp was levels worse. Stepping to one side he flicked out his flashlight and turned it on. Pointing the powerful light beam down, the cop reached out again and turned the knob.

The instant the door opened a huge swarm of chittering roaches scattered in every direction. As a swarm of brown multi-legged insects covered his shoes, some darting up his pant legs, the rookie screamed and jumped - swatting at the cockroaches like they were fire ants stinging him. Jumping off the porch the rookie simultaneously heaved up the Ruben sandwich he’d eaten earlier while slapping at the insects swarming on his uniform. He could feel some inside his pants legs crawling on his skin. It was like a horror movie.

Chuckling as he walked up, the body snatcher, Clint , picked up the broom he had placed on top of the stretcher and began methodically sweeping the remaining bugs off the rickety porch. “That was mean,” he said to Officer Stewart.

“Trial by bug fire,” Officer Stewart replied quietly. “If he returns tomorrow night, he’ll be okay. Possibly even be a good cop.”

“Yeah,” Clint replied ruefully, eying the traumatized young rookie. The overwhelming putrid odor of a rotting corpse wafted from the open doorway. Replacing the broom onto the body bag perched on the rolling stretcher, he pulled it onto the porch. He turned to look pensively at the gaping maw. The door looked like a passage to the underworld. He chuckled. “Well, guess we gotta do this,” he said, adjusting his own nose plugs in a vain effort to lock out the stench.

“Donovan, if you’re done puking up bugs we need to get in here,” Stewart said, not unkindly.

“I’m fine,” the rookie said as he followed his training officer and the body snatcher into the eerily silent residence. Sweeping his flashlight around, he was greeted by an old leather couch with sagging cushions, a flat screen television, and a coffee table with a couple of empty, crushed beer cans. The smell seemed to be coming from a room down a dark hallway with framed pictures of people on the walls. Several were askew. He stopped to straighten a picture of a smiling man and woman standing by a cruise ship. Royal Caribbean was written in huge letters on the side of the massive ship.

“Clint, shut the door and hit the lights please,” T.O. Stewart said.

Aaron heard the front door snick shut and a moment later the harsh glare of electric lights lit up the scene.

“Well, follow your nose, Rookie,” Stewart said.

Aaron gulped and looked away from the handsome, happy couple in the photo. Nervously he headed into the hallway, following the stench to the putrid source. Reaching the last door on the right he listened intently. Aaron could hear a slight rustling and whirring noise from inside the room. “Ah, Jesus,” he whispered as he fumbled, eyes averted, for a light switch. “More bugs. I know it,” he murmured. As the light flashed on there was a huge whirring, buzzing noise from the room. It emanated from a large swarm of flies, roaches, maggots, and other bugs that were skittering away from a human shaped mass on the full sized bed.

On the bed was a dark, man shaped mass with little white maggots writhing in every orifice. A cloud of buzzing flies swarmed everywhere. Aaron choked as one flew into his mouth. Gagging he turned and ran back to the bathroom he had seen one door over. Darting to the toilet he hurriedly bent over, retching painfully. Acid burned his throat as he spewed what little remained of his stomach contents into the porcelain bowl of water.

In the bedroom Officer Stewart shook his head with chagrine. “He’ll be okay,” he said to the mortuary service driver who grinned in response, eyes on the mass of decomposing flesh on the bed. The cop walked around the bed and opened a window to let in some air. “Nothing like a Florida summer to ripen a nice corpse,” he said, putting his face to the screen in an attempt to get a breath of fresher air.

“Oh yeah,” the bearded body snatcher replied, shaking his head as the trainee officer entered the room behind them with a shame-faced look. The young cops huge eyes were glued to the still writhing mass of dark flesh and bones lying in a liquefied mess on the no longer white sheets. He grinned at the young officer. “Hell of a shame, isn’t it?” he said. “Nobody to even notice he wasn’t around. It sucks.”

Officer Stewart was looking around the room, taking in the dresser with wallet,keys, and a battered copy of a Stuart Woods novel on it. A small radio alarm clock was playing Simon and Garfunkel on a muted level. “These are the sounds…, of silence…,” wafted from the speakers like a message from the grave. Officer Stewart clicked the radio off and silence descended except for the three men’s harsh breathing and the rustle of maggots and flies. Other creepy crawlies were quickly disappearing beneath the bed. Some darted under the corpse while some hid under the reeking pillows and sheets. A huge roach, antennae waving, poked up from the gaping mouth of the deceased man.

“God, that’s gross,” Stewart said as his rookie turned away, obviously trying not to puke again. “I don’t see any weapons or obvious signs of violence,” the older officer said, grey eyes darting around the now brightly lit room. “Nothing but him and the bugs. Probably a heart attack, stroke, or maybe an aneurism.”

“Yeah…, probably,” Clint replied as he wheeled the stretcher next to the bed and prepared to open up a body bag.

The body was that of an older man. Hard to tell the age for certain due to the decomposition and the insects. The face had sunk inward. The man’s eye sockets were gaping holes with exposed nerves and vessels inside … mostly obscured by white maggots greedily lapping at the feast. The hands were covered in a mass of silver and gold rings. A gold necklace with a Cross of David encircled what remained of the neck.

Clint looked at the police officer. “Want me to start bagging him?” he queried.

“Yeah, momentarily. Let me get a few pics first.”

The mortuary services driver nodded and stepped back.

“Donovan, come here,” Stewart said.

Pensively, the rookie cop stepped forward. His eyes were glued to the horrific mass on the bed. The mortal remains of a human life…, now just roach food and maggot farm.

“Snap some shots of this guy so we can get out of here and let Clint do his job.”

Pulling out his department issued cellphone, the newest member of the police force proceeded to snap pictures of the putrid remains.

“Be sure to get it from all sides,” his training officer said. “Christ, what a mess,” he heard his T.O. mutter.

When his trainee was done, Officer Michael Stewart nodded. “That’s fine Donovan. Come on.” As the two policemen stepped back, a second mortuary services worker entered the room, nodding hello as he took in the scene. The officers nodded back as the second body snatcher walked over to join his coworker.

“All righty then,” he said. “Let’s get. Mr. Juicy off this bed.”

”Mr. Williamson. Clifford Williamson,” Donovan said quietly, looking up from the wallet he had been perusing. It was the wallet that had been lying on the brown wooden dresser.

“All right then. Mr. Williamson. Let’s get this show rolling,” Clint said. Reaching down, the bearded mortuary services driver began methodically removing jewelry from the corpse. “Can’t take all these with him,” he said. Reaching out he grasped a heavy gold ring that was on the corpses right index finger. As he pulled on the ring the finger popped off, falling into his gloved hand. Clint just looked at it for a moment, bemused. Popping off the ring he set it on the nightstand by the radio alarm. Turning, he held the loose, soft, blackened finger out to Officer Donovan. “Would you mind taking this? You may need it.”

Officer Aaron Donovan’s stomach churned as he reached out to take the slimy digit from the man’s proffered hand.

Clint winked at Officer Stewart as he turned back to resume bagging the legal remains of Clifford Williamson. When he and his coworker rolled the body up, an even worse stench of shit, urine,and decomposing flesh wafted out, causing them to gag. Officer Donovan, almost spewing, turned away.

“We’ll be out front if you need us, Officer Stewart said, wiping acidy spittle from his mouth with the back of a gloved hand.

“Sure thing,” the second body snatcher replied absently as he struggled to get the liquefying, sloshy corpse onto the body bag. He barely noticed as the two policemen ran for the door.

Ten minutes later two well dressed, serious looking young men wheeled a corpse laden gurney out of the dark house. Several more squad cars had arrived and six or seven police officers were milling around. One carried a yellow roll of crime scene tape up to the door. A few nearby houses now had lights on and a few neighbors were watching the unfolding drama from their front yards. All were silent. Only the squelch and squawk of police radios and a few croaking frogs broke the silence. Above the blood moon continued to observe like a deity pondering the vagaries of it’s mortal creations.

Setting the brakes on the stretcher, Clint Matthews walked over to stand by the rookie police officer. As he walked up, Officer Stewart nodded and stepped away a few paces - starting up a conversation with his sergeant.

“Quite the first night, huh?” Clint said, taking a puff from his vape.

“You got that right,” Donovan said with a wan grin. “Hope every night’s not like that.”

“You’ll be fine,” the mortuary services driver said to the rookie cop, clapping him on the shoulder. “See you next time?”

Aaron Donovan forced a wan smile. “Yeah. I’ll be there,” he replied. “Have a good night.”

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Note: While the above story is fictional it is based from real experiences of my son who is a mortuary services driver. Click on the link to check out his Tales Of Mortuary profile on TikTok.