Came Upon Some Bodies Rotting

THE NIGHTMARE

EXT. FUNERAL HOME - NIGHT

It's a dark and stormy night.

LANE (V.O.) I sent our staff home early that night. There was work to do and I wanted to do it alone.

INT. THE FUNERAL HOME MORTUARY - NIGHT

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS on a CD. Lane prepares for the embalming. In RHYTHM TO THE MUSIC: she slips into a plastic smock; puts on plastic booties; puts a clothespin on her nose; pulls on rubber gloves, tucks her hair under a shower cap; applies black under her eyes (like a football player); fits ear plugs into her ears and hangs a sign on the mortuary door that reads: "When the music's athumpin' - the embalmer's apumpin'. 

There's a glass reservoir full of pink embalming fluid on a table.  A plastic tube attached to the side of the fluid pump leads into Ruston's neck as he lies atop a stainless steel table. Blood issues out of another opening cut into an artery near his ankle.  The blood swirls down the embalming table drain. 

Lane pours herself a double shot of Canadian Club rye and she downs it quickly.

LANE (V.O.) In mortuary school, the instructor advised against embalming family and friends. It'd screw up your head, he told us. She snorts a line of white powder off a mirror with a straw.

LANE (V.O.) But this was different. My old man was such a rotten bastard.

Ignoring her blood-stained latex gloves, she gnaws on a tube of cookie dough.

LANE (V.O.) I knew when the time came, I'd get satisfaction out of gutting him. And I did.

She puffs on a hookah hose and inhales the smoke deep into her lungs. She blows a thick cloud of smoke at her father's corpse.

LANE (V.O.) My only regret was that he wasn't alive to feel the pain.

Lane opens her father's slack jaw and peers into the corpse's mouth, preparing to suture the gums closed.

LANE: Any last words, daddy? Confessions? Prayers?

The body of Rushton Slaughter lies motionless, eyes open.

LANE: I didn't think so.

Lane goes about sewing the gums shut using a metal gun loaded with wire suture. THWAK, THWAK, sounding like a staple gun.

RING - IT'S THE FRONT DOOR BELL. Lane turns off the CD player. She walks to an intercom on the wall. INTERCUT BETWEEN LANE IN THE MORTUARY AND her UNCLE MITCH AT THE FRONT DOOR.

LANE: Who's there?

MITCH: Laney. It's your uncle Mitch.

INT. FUNERAL HOME - FRONT DOOR - CONTINOUS

There is a frightful storm raging as Lane opens the door to her rain-soaked uncle. He's dressed in his priestly garb, including a starched white collar.

LANE: Uncle Mitch, it's after midnight. Are you okay?

MITCH: Sure, sure. I was just passing by...

A HORN HONKS in the street.  Lane sees a waiting cab over Mitch's shoulder. Two DRUNKEN NUNS hang out the windows swinging bottles of champagne, laughing.

NUN ONE: Hurry up Mitchy! We're lonely.

NUN TWO: Party's just getting started! Whoo hoo!

BACK ON MITCH AND LANE -

LANE: Come in out of the rain.

Mitch enters but rears back slightly when he sees Lane's gloves and apron covered in blood.  Lane smiles sheepishly and flicks the gloves into a waste basket.