To be fair, we’d scream and run away too. Probably uttering all sorts of prayers we know by heart.

Redditor /u/the_8th_henry:

My neighbor a while back before I moved was a mortician. He didn’t have any creepy stories per se, but one that sticks out concerned this one night he had a body he was preparing for a very early morning wake or service (whatever was going on, it was unusual, and it required him to work into the wee hours of the morning on this particular corpse).

So as he’s working on it, he turned his back to grab some tools or supplies, and the angle he was standing at with regard to the corpse left the body visible just out of the corner of his eye. As he was looking down at whatever tools he was getting, in the corner of his eye he saw the body slowly start to sit up. His fight/flight instinct immediately kicked in, and he ran to the stairs as fast as he possibly could, but he was so clumsy trying to get up the stairs he tripped and was pretty much crawling and clawing his way to the top.

He was just near the top before his senses finally came back, and he knew it was rigor mortis. He collected himself and started to laugh at how absurd it all was. He had been doing this for 15-20 years at that point, and he had never had a freak out like that before where instinct overtook knowledge and experience. He actually sheepishly admitted he had to go clean himself because he had sh*t his pants in the panic.

So do rememebr to open your bible every once in awhile and memorize a few Psalms.

Redditor /u/Loverboy21:

Well, if [bodies] happen to have a lungful of air, then moving them causes it to release. When the air travels through their throat, you get some minor vocalization, but it’s usually just a liquidy gurgle. It still gets me sometimes, though, if I’m working alone.

It’s a perfect intro for a new Stephen King novel.

Redditor /u/NurseSexKitten:

Nurse here[. …] And the only place I’ve ever seen the lights flicker is just outside the morgue. They are fine almost all of the time but when we bring a body down the lights always flicker. Really creeps me out.

Maybe it felt a bit too cold. Put a thicker blanket over it. Him. Her?

Redditor /u/Pays_in_snakes:

I was filling out paperwork over one of the stiffs all by myself while working late when it shuddered. Never saw that before or after, no explanation.

Well at least it was the chapel and not anywhere else. Kneel and say a prayer.

Redditor /u/Tejnin:

I only experienced something one time and that was around 10pm, after 2 years with no activity at the location, I had turned all the lights off in the chapel and when I went to check the casket door, the lights turned back on. I was no where near the switch.

Not funny, mom and dad. Not funny at all.

Redditor /u/Eicrad:

Sometimes I would come to work with [my mom] and help her set up the chapel for a service. One service in particular was of a little boy who drowned. His parents dressed his identical twin brother in the same outfit as him. Grief does sh*t to you.

She kept her sense of humor so she could have the last laugh.

A former Redditor:

Funniest thing would have to have been a very elderly woman with a glass eye who chose to have it kept wide open. Gave me a hell of a fright when I saw her in her casket.

Dogs do that to a person alright.

Redditor /u/hate_my_login:

[My mom] was asked to go up in the attic to look for some old records, and came across a baby coffin. She went to move it with her foot and could tell it wasn’t empty. Immediately went back downstairs and asked the director about it. Apparently it’s a mans embalmed dog, that’s being stored until he [perishes], so his dog can be buried with him.

If you believer in signs from beyond, then this certainly counts as one.

Redditor /u/oodlenoodlespoodles:

The time that the family released doves in a rural cemetery, after being told not to, and a hawk ripped one to pieces [really stood out].

Ironically, there was no clowning around that day.

Redditor /u/spicemaster242:

We had a [deceased] clown one time. This person was buried in full clown costume with makeup and all. The whole family was clowns, all the friends were clowns. And at the family’s request, the funeral directors were clowns too. They supplied costume and did our makeup. Family and friends had 1 tear drop painted on near the eye. Definitely my strangest.

On the bright side, at least he didn’t have anyone staring into his soul.

Redditor /u/SweetSyberia:

One of the creepiest for me was having to clean a gentleman up…I was supposed to clean his eyes, as well. Opened those up only to see two empty sockets. No eyes. Was an autopsy embalming.

We’d like to know if the deceased took revenge from beyond.

Redditor /u/Gingervitus455:

After an open casket viewing a man came in saying he wanted to pay his respects privately. No big deal, that was fairly common.

We led him into the viewing room, opened up the casket and told him to take his time. A couple of minutes later we’re sitting in the office and hear a really loud popping sound, followed by running and the door slamming.

We ran into the viewing room and the deceased’s mouth was hanging open and the skin was odd looking. The best we can figure is that he punched the guy and took off.

Well someone’s clearly out of her mind. The poor kid.

A former Redditor:

Separated parents are mourning the loss of their toddler at the visitation before the funeral. Mom is grieving unlike any mother I’ve seen grieve over the loss of a child, almost fake. She proceeds to pick up the child and “hide” him in her coat and walks out the door while no one is looking. Other funeral director is like…holy sh*t, why is there an empty lil casket. The other funeral director finds the mom running to her car where he stops her and grabs kid.

Separated parents have huge blow out at the visitation.

We find out 2 months later that the mother and her new boyfriend had physically abused the kid, causing its [perishment]. Biological father had no idea.

Wouldn’t have been a pretty sight if it were an open casket.

Redditor /u/Tejnin:

[A] decomposed guy had been found after rotting in his garage for 3 weeks in the summertime. He was covered in bugs, his skin was black and green, and the flesh sloshed right off the bone. I couldn’t do anything for that case, he was cremated.

It takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a whole lot of not being freaked out.

Redditor /u/StudentMortician:

When we were prepping/washing the body of a 90+ woman, one of her toe nails fell off and the hair on her head kept falling out. It took a good 3 hours to get her hair put back in one strand of hair at a time to make it look acceptable.

The deceased wife should have haunted them both in their dreams.

Redditor /u/vibree:

At one service my mom was at, the wife of this older gentleman had passed. He showed up to the funeral with his new girlfriend who was much younger and was wearing a very busty outfit. When the husband would begin to cry, the girlfriend would bring him into her chest to comfort him while stroking his hair. Shortly thereafter, the husband asked one of the funeral directors about the flowers from the funeral. He wanted to know if he could take them with him for the wedding he was having that weekend with his new fiancé.

The lady was probably wondering why she was being moved. Without her permission from beyond.

“One instance spooked me bad. My coworker and I were given notice to move a body out and clean the room for its next occupant. We got up there, got the woman’s body out of the bed and on to a gurney, and went around making sure the various apparati around the bed was dormant (nurses job, but we were told to always check.) I go stand at the foot of the gurney to direct it when my coworker squeaks “… Dude … She’s … awake …”

Lady was blinking, rapidly, over freaky, glassed over, dead eyes. Anyone who has seen a dead person’s eyes after death knows what I’m talking about – there is clearly no life left in the body. We both freaked the fuck out and screamed for the nurses, who came running. They called code whatever, thinking she might be waking up … My coworker and I just backed up, flattened ourselves against the windows, and watched the ruckus.

Woman was stone dead, no breathing, no heartbeat, no brain activity, nada. None of the nurses or the doctor could or would tell us why the woman was blinking several hours post mortem.”

Good thing it was a friendly poke, though coming from beyond the grave, it’s enough to freak anyone out.

“One time I had prepped this man. I came into the prep room to do some laundry and things. As I walked passed him, I noticed a small piece of lint in his ear from the towel I used to dry him off. I took my gloved pinky and kinda swiped it out. I proceeded to fold some towels. The next thing I know I felt something touch my ear, near the ear opening. It felt just like someone stuck their finger in my ear but there was no one around. The next day I was looking through the obituaries (i read the obituaries of the cases i work on) and sure enough this man had one. It mentioned how much of a prankster and fun he was. I guess I was his last prank.”

Enough to make you want a stick and a cold one.

“I worked security at a hospital and part of my job was dealing with the morgue. One time I just came on shift and had to go release a body to a funeral home. I walked in and I seriously thought someone had been eating bbq in the morgue. I asked if a particular Dr. was back (previously we had to get the administration involved in telling her she couldn’t eat while doing autopsies or store her groceries in the walk in cooler with the bodies). The other guy with me said, “No. Why?” I said because it smells like bbq. He was just like, ‘Oh nope. That’s the five kids from the house fire.’ I felt like crap the rest of the day.”

The poor girl took her own life because of something that happened to her and now she’s crying for help.

“My first experience at work was when I first started my embalming career. I worked at an independent mortuary service. I had just started my shift and was using a restroom in the back. When I came out, I heard what sounded like a girl sobbing and the sound of feet shuffling around on the floor. The floor was kinda gravely and had a distinct sound if you scooted your feet on it. The sound was coming from around a corner that led into a small room where we would store embalmed bodies ready to be delivered to their respective funeral home. I figured someone was upset and crying. So I kinda snuck in, still hearing the sobbing. When I peaked around the corner, the room was empty. No living person in there. I noticed that there was only one body in there as well. A young girl. She shot herself in the side of the head. I wasn’t scared per se, but I’m pretty sure you could audibly hear my heart beat.”

Maybe there really is something about those horror movies where the lights always flicker.

“Nurse here. I’ve seen my share. People poop themselves when they die. Before we take bodies down to the morgue we always have to clean up the poop. Also bodies stay warm for a long time. That was really surprising the first time I did post-mortem care is that an hour later the body was still really warm. And the only place I’ve ever seen the lights flicker is just outside the morgue. They are fine almost all of the time but when we bring a body down the lights always flicker. Really creeps me out.”

Another worker adds: “When I would present with a specific body to high school students, a single light would frequently flicker during my talk. What’s weird is, that light never flickered any other time and it would only flicker when I presented with a specific body. I never told that to the students I was presenting to, and always played it off as no big deal. Secretly, it always kind of creeped me out and made me wonder why.”

Let’s hope they gave him a hand after the job he did.

“One time we had a person who did some acting and modeling in California. A hand model. The family came in early for the visitation to set up pictures and things. I show them in, help them get started then leave them so they can do their thing. I come back in about 10 min to check on them and just about every picture they put up was this persons hands from the various ads they did. There were some family photos, but most were a pair of hands. It was funny to me because most people will put up whole pictures.”

No, what happened was the deceased got hurt after a wrestling move like that.

“One time my uncle picked up a body and hoisted it over his shoulder to carry to the cart, keeping in mind this was the 50s and they probably don’t do it like this any more. Anyway, he flung it over his shoulder with the head side in his back and my dad was standing behind him when he did this. That movement compresses remaining air from the lungs and my dad said the dead body just let out a huge moan that scared the bejesus out of him. He thought maybe the guy wasn’t actually dead or was reanimating!”

Maybe the dead are afraid of the living? For good reason.

“Dead people get goose bumps. The arrector pili (the tiny muscles responsible for goose bumps) go into rigor mortis after death just like every other muscle. Rigor mortis is transient, so it can be weird if you happen to notice the goose bumps appearing or disappearing … makes it seem like they’re still alive.”

Rice came with a lot of sauce that day.

Said one mortician: “We had this house call one time. The lady was dead a while. On the couch all bloated as hell. When we started moving her, the abdomen busted. I had goo and maggots all over my leg.”

Replied another mortician: “We call maggots disco rice. I hate them so much.”

One has to wonder if morticians and their staff swear like Gordon Ramsay during the process.

“Contrary to popular belief, the dead aren’t basted in rosemary honey-butter and slid into a giant Kenmore if they’ve chosen to be cremated. (Trust me, I was disappointed to learn that, too.) But no: Once the coroners, medical examiners, and morticians are done with their extensive dead-stuff checklists, you’re rolled up in a plastic sleeve like a giant newspaper, and put into a long, carboard box. Your toe-tag is removed and hung on a hook on the outside of the oven they’re about to place you in.

(There are usually a few ovens, so they want to make sure your ashes aren’t sent to the wrong family.) One Reddit mortician did, however, confess: “There is some co-mingling involved, although very minimal. It is unavoidable, you can’t get every single grain out. As long as you sweep it properly after each person, it is very minimal.”

At any rate, the ovens are then cranked to either 1400 or 1800 degrees and the odors begin to swirl.

“Obese people being cremated smell like bacon. Skinny people being cremated smell like fireworks.”

Okay this is way too “Final Destination”. Someone start shooting the new film.

“Lots of interesting deaths. I embalmed a man that was found dead, leaning over a balcony in the front of his house. It was October and with all his decorations, neighbors thought he also was a decoration. He was there for days. Another time there was an old couple walking down a main road. A truck drove by carrying sheet metal. One flew off near them and decapitated both of them.”

The poor child was forgotten due to someone’s negligence.

“The place I work has a small area in the fridge to place newborns. It’s up in the corner on a little shelf. Normally there is a clear plastic bin with a few blankets in it. The infants are usually extremely premature so its hard to notice them bundled up.

When someone brings a body to the morgue a sheet is supposed to be filled out. Someone brought an infant and didn’t fill the sheet out. Over the next several months it started to smell extremely bad. The entire area was cleaned out but the smell remained. It wasn’t until someone checked the bin that they found a decomposed infant.

I am so glad I didn’t have to see it, but knowing what it smells like makes me sick.”

The dead don’t like witnessing couples getting down to it. Let them rest in peace.

“There is one thing that it’s worst. I worked some time in a hospital here in Spain. One of my duties was taking the recently deceased patients to the morgue.

Then, you are alone with the corpse and suddenly it moves up. I literally sh*t myself the first time. It seems that if they are new fresh corpses sometimes the muscles contracts and with the help of the internal gases the body gets up a little. I was just used to the job because it doesn’t happen regularly but then it happened one day so I didn’t expected it.”

Another adds:

“A friend of mine once dated a mortician’s daughter, and while making out with her in the prep room had a body sit up. Freaked him out, but she just said “they do that sometimes” offhandedly like it was no big deal.”

That body is cold and stiff, so why make it difficult?

“I always slice the back of tshirts, shirts, and jackets. It just makes it easier to dress. I don’t like jostling around with the body incase they purge some fluids. I work with a guy that cuts nothing, I chuckle as he struggles with a body.”