It was Christmas Eve, and I was working in the embalming room of a funeral home. The embalming room was everything the cop shows your grandparents watch conditioned you to think it was. A cold utilitarian space with puke green tiles on the walls, tiles on the floor, and harsh fluorescent lighting. A row of freezers were to one side and an office area laid to the other. In the middle was a metal table where the magic happened. A large man with marble blue skin and a distended stomach was laid out like a Thanksgiving turkey in hell, a thin white sheet covering his privates. Christmas music drifted from an ancient transistor radio on a high shelf and snow filled the sole window. Death never takes a break, and neither did I. I was in that morbid little room on the fourth, my birthday, and yes, Christmas, it was easy to lose track of time and your own sanity, so I tried to keep things festive. Aside from my gloves and apron, I wore a jaunty Santa hat with a palm that would hit me in the face if I turned my head too fast. That night I was alone, safe for a body in the viewing room across the hall, and of course my current patient. The body in the viewing room was that of a youngish man in his mid-forties named Mr. Erickson who died of a brain aneurysm. He was sitting down to dinner with his family when it hit one minute. He was laughing and planning Christmas for his kids. The next he was face down in his mashed potatoes and everyone was crying. That's how quick death happens sometimes. I hope I don't sound callous, but maybe a kind of am. You have to be in order to do this job. When they wheel in dead toddlers still in their Spider-Man PJs, you can't go to pieces. And you always focus on the little things if you aren't careful. One time this little boy came in and he had a temporary tattoo of SpongeBob on his arm. You remember putting those stupid things on? You wet the sticker, hold it on, and then take it off. Watch a wholesome image and hear the kid was dead. I don't know, maybe if I was a better writer I'd be able to articulate why that sort of thing disturbs me. Since I have to say something, I'll say this. Kids shouldn't die. They shouldn't. But they do. And someone has to take care of their bodies. Anyway, I was nodding along to Winter Wonderland and draining Mr. Thompson's blood when a loud crash rang through the empty building. I jumped a foot and inadvertently yanked the nozzle out of Mr. Thompson's abdomen. I fell back a step and bumped onto the machine, a sort of vacuum. When you know, it tipped over and the top came off. Blood swept across the floor like the red sea closing on the Pharaoh's army and the nozzle fell from my hand, clattering to the table. Damn it. I said through my teeth. There was a drain in the middle of the floor, so clean up wouldn't be that bad. But still, I was so worried about the mess I'd made that it wasn't until I was filling the mop bucket from the slop sink when it hit me. Wait a minute. Wasn't there a loud noise? I looked at the closed door with a verboding feeling. I cut the sink and listened, but heard nothing. It was probably one of the coffins in the showroom. A few were propped upright like those picks you saw from the Old West. Some dead gunslinger with a dour undertaker, standing beside him like a fisherman with his prize catch, and sometimes they took a header. When I was finished mopping up this mess, I'd check it out. Pushing the wheeled bucket to the center of the room, I started to swab the deck, whistling step into Christmas by Elton John. I'm real sorry about that. I told Mr. Thompson, honestly. Sometimes I can be a real boob. He didn't reply. Which is a good thing. You can talk to the dead and be okay. If they start talking back though, well, you got a problem. I opened my mouth to say something else, but the words cut off when another sound came. This one quieter than the first. Or a second, I wasn't sure that I'd heard it at all. Then it repeated, a soft, scraping sort of noise like sandpaper on a block of wood. I turned to the door, and as I did so, I realized what it was. Footsteps. My heart began to race as if on cue, the light seeping in through the crack at the bottom of the door flickered. Like something had passed in front of it, my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach, and my hands tightened on the mop. Someone was here. My mind raced with a thousand possibilities, each one more terrible than the last. The funeral home wasn't in the best part of town, and crime had a way of, you know, happening. Just recently, someone got faded to streets over, and a while back, some dude slid by a crack house with an AK and dumped a clip. I don't know why anyone would want to break into a funeral home, but hey, here we are. The shadow moved slowly, the hissing sound of its dragging footfalls so loud that I could hear them over the pounding of my own heart. I lifted the mop like a club, and licked my lips. I started to call something. Hey buddy, I got a mop and I'm not afraid to use it. That seemed pretty stupid, so I kept my mouth shut. The shadow passed by, and for a long time, nothing else happened. Then I heard the telltale clunk of the rear door at the end of the hall opening. I waited a little while after I heard it close again, then I tossed the mop aside, and crept to the door. I pressed my ear to it, and listened. Sure that the danger had passed, and that I absolutely wouldn't confront a junked-out burglar, I flung the door open and strode out into the hall like my name was John Wayne. That's right, you better run. I swaggered over to the door, and pushed it open. A cold blast of wet wind-driven snow hit me in the face, and I choked, the building backed up to a parking lot, and on one side a stand of trees separated it from a string of backyards open to each other. I spotted a dark figure shuffling away, but as soon as I had a bead on him, he disappeared into the trees. I looked around, and there in the snow was a single set of footprints leading away, slightly smeared, as though the perp had been dragging a broken foot behind him. A nervous laugh wailed up from my throat, and I shut the door. Coward, come back and face me. I hurriedly shut and lock the door, in case he decided to do just that. Better go see what he stole. The first place I went was to the showroom. Nothing was missing, and none of the coffins were upset. What did I hear then? In the next room, over. I found it. A sleek pine casket lay on the floor of the viewing-room. Its hinges snapped, and one of its two little doors standing open. Ah, shit. Those things were expensive. Even worse. What kind of shape was the body in? I went over and moved the coffin. What body? Mr. Erickson, he of the brain aneurysm at dinner, was gone. I checked the whole room, even behind the door, in case he was playing hide and seek. No go. He was nowhere to be found. I ran to the back door, and threw it open. The rapidly falling snow had filled the footprints in, just as clearly as if they had never been there at all. A shiver went down my spine. Defeated. I went into the office to call my boss. Later, the police came and took my statement. Their theory was that someone had taken Mr. Erickson, and that was a good theory. What else could have happened to him? He didn't just get up and walk away. Did he? Q. Nervous laughter. On Christmas morning, the Erickson kids woke to find their dead father sitting in his lazy boy facing the tree, as if to watch them open presents. I can only imagine their screams of utter mind bending horror. The cop said it was just a sick joke of some kind, and left it at that. I bought into that for a long time. But it was bullshit. First of all, I saw one man. How could one man carry the corpse of a 210-pound man by himself? Bride over the threshold style? That didn't make any sense. It was possible though. I mean, it did sound like the guy was struggling to move. Something in the back of my mind. Some dark, primal, reptilian instinct, however. Doesn't believe that. I know it's insane. But if you ask me, Mr. Erickson wanted to spend one last Christmas with his family.