Don't Open The Well Read Free Page B

and ambulance pull away from his newly acquired property, he wouldn’t be
missed. For the last two years, his father had barely even set foot in the town
except to purchase more alcohol or cause trouble in the downtown bars.
    No, it was over now and Michael couldn’t wait to
consign his father’s body to the hell inside the furnace.
    His father’s body was placed in the Coroner’s van,
and the officers sat and consoled the crying young man.  It was a fine
performance, but the show wasn’t over yet.  It was his eighteenth
birthday, and now all the decisions were his to make.  The land, the home,
and even the damned crematorium were now all his. 

The next day, Michael contacted the Coroner’s office, and let him know that he
was going to cremate his father’s remains.  The Coroner asked Michael if
he’d like him to assist, but Michael let him know he’d been running most of the
business over the last few years, and that this was a solemn event that he
needed to do alone.

Michael’s tears fell on cue as the Coroner wheeled his father’s body into the
main furnace room of the Crematorium.  They walked back outside, and the
Coroner gave the young man his business card, immediately followed by a hug. He
told him to be strong, but if for whatever reason he needed help with this, to
call the number on the card.
    He needed no help. This was his moment and he alone
would push the button that would burn the hateful man that had stolen his
sanity. 

The Coroner slipped behind the wheel of his vehicle, and Michael watched him
drive away, waving as he did so until the car was out of sight.  The sad
countenance remained on the young man’s face until the Coroner’s van turned the
corner.  Once the vehicle had disappeared from sight, Michael’s face lit
up, and a wide grin spread across his face.
    It was time, at last.

He re-entered the Crematorium, unzipped the body bag, and spat into his
father’s dead face.

“Everything I’ve ever loved, you’ve burned away,” Michael said leaning into his
father’s gray and motionless face.  “You burned it all.  My toys, my
clothes, my pictures, my books, my tree house…even my mother – you burned her,”
he said, his voice filled with anger. “Well, old man, now it’s your turn.”

Michael pushed the gurney up to the mouth of the furnace, slid his father’s
corpse feet first into the smooth and recently cleaned chamber, and then leaned
close to his father’s ear, and whispered, “I will burn away everything that you
are, that you were, and that you ever could have been.” 
    Michael left the
incinerator’s doors open as he turned the knob, filling the furnace chamber
with white-hot fire.  He stared, unblinking, as his father’s body was
devoured by the growing inferno.  There was a dark pleasure to be found in
those dancing flames, and a smile played upon Michael’s lips as the flesh
blackened and curled on his father’s bones.  Michael’s mouth opened wide,
and he began to laugh.

As the laughter died down, Michael took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and
prayed aloud for the first time in over eight years.

“May the fires of hell burn a million times brighter as they receive your
tainted soul and make you suffer for the sins you committed upon this earth,
you despicable man.”

Chapter 7
    A few years went by, and thanks to his dedication,
the business wasn’t just doing well – it was now operating better than ever
before.  Michael had managed to bring in business from funeral homes all
over the tri-state area, and soon, he had so much money stashed away that he
decided to splurge.  He hired a construction company to build an enormous
live-in tree house, high up in the two-hundred year old oak that grew deep in
the wooded and undeveloped part of his property.
    He was taking back everything his father took from
him, piece by piece.

The construction wasn’t cheap.  In fact, he had to take out a loan on half
of the cost, but it didn’t