Death by Obsession: confessions of a funeral director

Hello, lovely readers. What follows is the synopsis of my forthcoming novella. Feel free to provide some feedback below. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

His name was Christian, child of God. Always a diligent Catholic, insides sooty with the dark flame of desire. Yet Christian’s desires were no mere temptations of earthly delights. No, his urges and proclivities were far more sordid, impelled by a demonic force hidden deep within.

It came as no surprise to his mother when he was reported, at the supple young age of fifteen, attending funerals in Perth. It was the directors themselves who first alerted Mrs Gunter to her son’s odd behaviour. While outwardly Christian projected the image of the perfect son — obedient, polite, church-going — Mrs Gunter’s maternal instincts told her there was something darker within. She was right…

The funeral director at a leading funeral home in Perth, Felix Santos was in attendance one day. He spotted Christian who, having preempted the other guests, had arrived early to a wake. The teenager was leaning over the coffin of a recently deceased, making some surreptitious gestures that poor old Felix’s eyes couldn’t quite perceive. But as he gradually neared, footsteps silent over the lavender-fresh carpet, Felix buckled at the knees, grasping desperately for the wood of the nearby mantle.

After his initial catatonia passed, poor Felix Santos didn’t know what to do. He called up all of his friends, other funeral directors Perth and Australia wide, to notify them, and faxed images of Christian Gunter across the city, so that no dead man should ever undergo what Christian’s first victim (or was it the second, third or moreth?) had undergone.

Christian was henceforth banned from funeral homes. His aspiration to become a funeral director himself were thrown to the wayside. Alas, Perth cannot sleep easy still. Now, with funerary rites out of the picture, there’s no telling what twisted debasement his future holds.