Not a single sale came in all day, same as always. Of the three hundred and sixty-odd trades in this world, only mine and Skinny's deal entirely in the dead. Skinny has it easier. He's with the civil affairs bureau, funded by the government, and never has to worry about food or rent. Me, I'm just the unremarkable owner of a small shop selling goods for the afterlife, living the "three months without a sale, then one sale to feed me for three" life. Even so, I like where I am. Partly because of my family: nobody tells me what to do. Partly because doing business with the dead puts my mind at ease. At least the customer never haggles, and never tries to pull a trick on you.
The sun was going down and no business was going to walk in, so I closed the shop early and headed to Skinny's dorm.
I pushed the door open. Skinny was still sleeping, dead to the world. A bottle lay under the bed; I picked it up and saw it was the same one we'd shared at noon. So the guy hadn't had enough and had been secretly finishing it off here. A look around the room — reasonably tidy. You could tell he wasn't a careless man. But I knew better than most that when he starts to be careless, he stops being human. Against the wall on the desk stood a sealable chemical container, full of a colorless liquid. I pulled the stopper and a sharp, stinging smell hit me in the face. I frowned and put it back.
Directly above the TV hung a photo of some actress popular at the time, rising out of the water, alluring smile and a tiny bikini — enough to make your blood run hot and your imagination head somewhere it shouldn't. I honestly don't know how the guy ever managed to watch that television.
While I was looking, Skinny woke up without my noticing and was watching me with a dirty grin. "Big, huh?"
I have always hated that sort of thinking — judging others by your own dirty mind. So I said, solemnly, "Comrade, it's time we were going."
It clicked. He grabbed his keys and pulled me out the door. Damn. I must have slept crooked the night before — otherwise why was I turning my head back for one more look as I closed the door?
The mortuary's cold storage was in the basement at the southeast corner of the compound. Even in the height of summer the basement stayed cool, colder than cool — there was a chill to it. Skinny opened the door and a gust of cold air came out at us, carrying a piercing smell. It was the same smell that had come from the bottle in his dorm, only here it was stronger and thick enough to make you dizzy. Formalin. I followed him inside and looked around. Some hundred square meters, split into two areas: a preparation area for the bodies and a storage area.
The preparation area was nearest the door. To the east, a small square table. A double bed with a mosquito net sat tight against the wall, and beside it a washstand holding bottles of nameless disinfectant and hand cream. To the west, more than a dozen four-wheeled stretcher carts stood side by side, each with two sets of covers embroidered with the character for longevity. In the middle of the room, six stainless-steel single beds were spaced out, each with its own tool cart. I glanced down: on the carts were makeup brushes of every kind, color kits, mousse, combs, tweezers, a straight razor, alcohol and cotton balls, disposable examination gloves — all the essentials. Past the beds was the storage area. Along the whole south wall stood twelve stainless-steel cabinets, stacked three high and six across, each drawer marked with its own number. The air-cooled, fully enclosed compressors were working at full effort, giving off a low, dull hum. I looked up at the electronic temperature display above the cabinets: minus ten. I sneezed before I could stop myself.
I turned to Skinny. "Which one?"
"Number 69," he said, walking, and pulled open the drawer marked 69.
I was about to step in for a closer look when I saw his face twist and his finger point at the drawer with no words coming out. "What," I joked, "you really see a ghost?"
He turned to me, gray as death, stammering. "He — he's gone?"
"What?" I moved in fast. He was right. Empty inside, nothing at all.
A mortuary losing a body is no small thing. Skinny came apart — he went straight down onto the floor. I couldn't stand to watch. "Don't panic yet," I said. "Could he be in another drawer?"
"Impossible. There's only one key to this place and I'm the one holding it. If he's gone, somebody stole that key. Quick. I'll check all the drawers. You look around and see if anything's off."
I laughed to myself. This was my first time here — how would I know what was off? But with the man looking like a ghost himself, I couldn't refuse.
Skinny went through every drawer. Only the unidentified man was gone. That made it worse for me. Strange things happen every day. I've heard of people stealing all kinds of things, but never a corpse. A ghost marriage, maybe — but stealing from a mortuary? Whoever did it had more nerve than sense.
I clapped the visibly crushed Skinny on the shoulder and told him we should head back to the dorm and figure something out. He nodded like a machine.
We were almost at the door when I spotted something on the east side of the threshold — a piece of dark brown material about the size of my palm. The raised threshold had hidden it on the way in. I picked it up and got a shock, because I was twelve times certain this was nothing a mortuary would ever have. It was a lump of dragon's blood resin.
Now I was even more curious.