The Viewing

‘And this is the….’ Sammy stopped in the doorway, one hand holding the doorknob, her other arm holding her tablet computer against her breasts.

‘What?’ I laughed, stuck behind her in the hallway. She froze there as though someone had switched her off. I manoeuvred myself around her, noticing her mouth was half-open, her chin trembling, as though she’d forgotten how to work it. It was her eyes though, the way they stared.

When I managed to get around her, I saw what she was staring at.

Then I wished I hadn’t.

The empty house Sammy was showing me around was all bare rooms painted white. This one room, though, had a great red smear across the one once-pristine white wall as though someone had thrown a bucket full of blood against it. The smear ended down where the skirting board met the floor and the body lay, half-slumped against that wall with what remained of its head, pressed back against the wall at an unnatural angle.

I too was staring now. The shoes, the jeans, the shirt and the jacket the corpse was wearing. I saw the look in Sammy’s eyes too as she turned to me, looking down my body and seeing the identical jacket, shirt, jeans and shoes.

Then, both of us turned slowly back to look at the body slumped there and my own dead eyes sightlessly staring back at us.

It was then Sammy screamed.