Stephen King wrote in his lengthy essay on the craft of writing fiction, Danse Macabre, that terror is the purest emotion, because it captures the entire mind and emotion of a person. If he can’t terrify his reader, he would like to at least horrify his reader with a sense of danger and fear. And if that doesn’t work, he’ll go for the gross-out.
This story would surely qualify as belonging somewhere in that pecking order. I don’t know if my favorite line is “Those fluids can be very flammable … Sort of like a grease fire” or “The crematorium is back in business and the funeral director said they’ll notify the family to assure them their loved one wasn’t harmed.“
Terrifying? Probably not. But this is at least a gross-out.
