"Allan! Don't try to move that thing by yourself."

Allan released the casket guiltily and straightened up, rubbing at the place in his back that always ached when he overdid it.

His brother-in-law continued his harangue. "Where's that new assistant of yours anyway? And your lazy brother?"

"Richard's taking a long weekend, and as for my assistant … Jacob is downstairs doing the preliminary work on the Buchman baby."

"You're usually so vigilant with the new hires," Dave continued. "Not afraid Jake might be doing something kinky to the body?"

Allan and Dave stared at one another, then both men laughed. No one knew where Jacob had come from, or how he'd learned they had an opening at the funeral home, but he'd been a godsend. Scrupulous, tireless, and almost painfully respectful, Jacob was so straight-laced that the other employees had begun repeating jokes about stiffs who worked in funeral homes.

These facts made Allan all the more shocked when he creaked his way downstairs to check on Jacob.

"What the hell are you doing!"

Jacob hitched back his sleeve for a quick glance at his watch before answering. "It's not what it looks like, sir, I assure you. It's just so much more difficult when the deceased is as small as Becky here."

"Boy, get the hell off that body!"

"Please sir. Would you give me," Jacob snuck another glance at his watch, "another six minutes? Then you'll see for yourself."

Allan looked around for a rake, a stick, anything to whack the boy with, like he used to do with his family's tomcat when it got into the Thanksgiving turkey. Anything to drive him down off the table. Off the body. There! The lever they used to position the caskets in some of the deeper crypts.

He raised the steel rod overhead, ignoring the twinges in his back. "It's move or die, boy."

But Allan didn't swing; young Jacob, still cradling little Becky's head in his right hand, lifted his left hand with three fingers extended and spoke a string of unfamiliar syllables.

Jacob gestured upward with his fingers as he explained. "And on the third day, Jesus rises from the dead. Don't you see? The Koine Greek was in the tense that indicates an ongoing present action, not a future action, past action, or singular event."

"Huh?"

"Mr. Huston, you're a professional, expert in the sciences of death. You cannot say you haven't noticed the difference between the living and the dead. Surely you know it better than any layman. Four minutes." The last two words were delivered as an aside.

Allan was drawn in despite himself. Death was his business, after all. "Well, certainly. There's a change in the facial features due to lack of habitual animation, a pronounced tendency towards lividity, and—"

"Forgive me, sir, but those are external details. Symptomatic of the transition from life to death, certainly, but not indicative or causal. The essential shift, as you'll see if you wait just two more minutes, is the exhalation of the Christ-nature from the body, which happens 72 hours after death."

Allan thought he could wait two more minutes before clocking his assistant and let the rod fall to a more comfortable position. "So, what will happen?"

"Lean in, and in precisely one minute, inhale. Sometimes the spiritus is faintly visible, but other times it remains unseen, and only the sweet smell of manna guides us."

For sixty seconds and what seemed like a lifetime, Allan leaned toward Becky Buchman's body. He tried to ignore how the younger man's crotch drove into Becky, to silence the dark suspicions the position roused, to give Jacob one last moment of trust.

"There!"

A half second later, the younger and older mortician were leaning in to inhale the sweet something rising from the body.

"Ahh!" Allan's moan was involuntary, driven from his body by the scent of this … whatever it was—heavy as honey but sweeter by far, overwhelming the tongue without cloying. He could feel the miasma move into his lungs, then slowly permeate his limbs. He straightened up and smiled. The chronic pain in his back was simply gone. Allan swung the heavy steel rod he'd been holding, and it moved smoothly through the air, like a baseball bat had twenty or thirty years before. Oh, that felt good.

"There. You see," Jacob acknowledged his smile.

It wasn't a question, but Allan was about to agree anyway—until he turned to see that not only was his assistant still crouching on the dead infant's body, he was now sporting an erection that was clearly visible even through his dress slacks. Old reflexes took over, fuelled by renewed muscles.

"Shit, boy!" This time there would be no New Testament mumblings to halt Allan's chastening rod. It knocked aside Jacob's upraised hands and slammed into his skull, killing him instantly.

Allan stood over the body, still smiling from whatever he'd inhaled from Becky but beginning to feel guilt over what he'd just done to Jacob. The guilt intensified when he realised that he too was now fully erect. Must be the scent. Still, no one was going to criticise his actions, what with Allan being caught in such a compromising position. But should he even say anything to anyone about it?

Allan lowered the rod. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to think about that for a while. Say, until …" He lifted Jacob's wrist; the impact had stopped the hands of his watch. "Oh, all weekend. Until 11:41 Monday morning. Then I might be able to find a more … inspired answer."

On the third day, Jesus rises from the dead—and this time, no one else would be around to smell him.

"And on the Third Day" - © Copyright Greg Beatty  2006