The Last Viewing

I was hunched over a mountain of paperwork in my cramped office at the Maplewood Juvenile Detention Center, the cheap fluorescent light humming like a trapped wasp. Outside, the West Texas wind had kicked up, flinging gravel and mesquite against the window, a constant rasp that frayed my nerves. It was past 2 AM, and I was the only soul in the building, or so I thought. My coffee had gone cold hours ago, and the numbers on the budget forms had begun to blur into meaningless squiggles.

Then my phone screamed, shattering the silence. It was Tessa, my best friend. She usually had a voice like warm molasses, but now it was thin, ragged, almost swallowed whole. ‘Marcus? Marcus! You gotta come. Now.’ Her words were a blur, her breathing ragged. My gut twisted. ‘Tessa, tell me where you are. What happened?’ A strangled sob came through the line. ‘The Willow Creek Mortuary. Please, just come. Hurry!’ The line went dead.

My mind raced through every horrible possibility as I grabbed my keys and sprinted to my truck. Willow Creek Mortuary was at the edge of town, a Victorian relic with peeling paint and a sagging porch. Tessa had been cleaning there for months, always alone at night. I’d always joked it was creepy, but she laughed it off. Now, that joke felt like a prophecy. I floored the gas, the speedometer pushing past 80 as I tore down the lonely farm roads, the dust billowing behind me like a ghost.

The mortuary loomed out of the darkness, its tall silhouette against the starless sky. The front door was unlocked, hanging slightly ajar. I pushed it open, and the smell hit me first: a cloying mix of formaldehyde and floral perfume, so thick it coated my throat. The hallway was lit by a single, flickering sconce, casting dancing shadows on the floral wallpaper. I called out Tessa’s name, but the only answer was the low hum of the refrigerated drawers in the back.

I moved deeper in, past the chapel with its empty pews and the podium where a preacher’s Bible lay open. I found her in the embalming room at the rear, kneeling on the tile floor, her face pale as the body she must have seen. She was clutching her cleaning caddy as if it were a lifeline, her shoulders shaking. ‘Tessa!’ I rushed to her, crouching down. ‘Are you okay? What happened?’ She looked up, and her eyes were wide, fixed on something behind me. I turned, and there, on the stainless steel table, was the body of an old woman, laid out and prepared. But that wasn’t what made my blood run cold.

On the woman’s chest, resting just above her folded hands, was a small, tarnished locket. The kind you’d see in antique shops. But it was open, and inside was a faded photograph of a young man, and in that photograph, the man was staring directly at the camera, his eyes holding a glint of malice. Tessa finally found her voice, a whisper. ‘She… she wasn’t in the drawer when I got here. I was dusting the chapel when I heard a thud from back here. I came in, and she was just… here. And the locket… it wasn’t on her when I prepped the room earlier.’

I helped her to her feet, my own mind spinning with impossible explanations. ‘Maybe the funeral director came back for something,’ I said, trying to sound rational. ‘Maybe he left her out for a morning viewing.’ But the look on Tessa’s face told me she knew something was deeply wrong. ‘No, Marcus. The front door was locked. I had to use my key. And the locket… it’s warm.’ I reached out and touched the locket. It was warm, almost like it had been worn by a living person. A cold dread settled in my stomach.

We decided to get out of there, to call the police from my truck. But as we turned to leave, the lights in the embalming room went out, plunging us into darkness. The only light came from the hallway, but it too began to flicker. A low, rhythmic thumping sound started from inside the room, like something being hit slowly against a hard surface. I grabbed Tessa’s hand, and we stumbled toward the exit, my heart hammering. We made it to the hallway, and the door behind us slammed shut with a heavy, final echo.

We reached the front door, but when I turned the knob, it was locked. Tessa fumbled for her keys, but her hands were shaking. ‘The key’s not working,’ she whimpered. I tried my shoulder against the door, but it felt like brick. Behind us, the lights flickered again, and in that strobing, I saw a figure standing at the end of the hallway, just a dark silhouette, still as death. The thumping started again, but now it was synchronized with my heartbeat, getting faster, louder.

Then, a voice, soft and old, like dry leaves rustling, drifted from the room we’d just fled. ‘You didn’t say goodbye.’ Tessa screamed. I dragged her toward a side door that led to the garage where the hearse was parked. It was unlocked. We stumbled inside, and I slammed the door shut, fumbling for the keys to the hearse. Tessa collapsed against a stack of metal chairs, sobbing. I got the hearse started, its V8 rumbling to life. I shoved the gear into drive and barreled through the garage door, peeling out onto the gravel, not daring to look back.

We drove in stunned silence for miles, the only sound the engine and our ragged breaths. I finally pulled over at a gas station. Tessa was still trembling, clutching the locket. Wait, she had it? In the chaos, she must have grabbed it. She held it up, and we both saw it. The photograph had changed. Now it was no longer the young man. It was a picture of Tessa and me, standing in front of the mortuary, taken hours ago. Underneath, in faint, spidery handwriting, were the words: ‘You’ll be back.’

I looked at Tessa, and she at me, and we both knew. That was not a threat. It was a promise we couldn’t escape. The mortuary would claim us, just as it had claimed the old woman, just as it had claimed the young man in the photograph. We were not victims of a haunting; we were part of the collection. And somewhere, in a dimly lit room in Willow Creek, the old woman smiled, knowing her locket had done its work.

We never spoke of that night again. We both moved away, but the locket stays with me, in a drawer I never open. And some nights, when the wind howls and the clock strikes three, I can feel its warmth, pressing against my skin, and I hear that whisper: ‘Why did you leave me?’ I’m not the one who left. But I know, one day, I’ll have to go back. I just hope, when I do, I’ll be the one walking in, not lying on the table.