Excerpt From A Short Story

The following is an excerpt from A short story I am working on as a creative writing exercise. Hope you enjoy!


    "Did it work?" She gasped, with the last of her strength.
    "Perfectly. Sorry." But Alonzo wasn't talking to anyone now. He pulled a handful of small glass vials out from his leather bag and lined them up to be filled. She had been a singular experience, he thought, and he would savor her like cognac.
    He was surprised at himself for saying 'sorry' to her. He used to apologize to everyone, saying 'sorry' for hours after they were dead, sacrificed to him. He held little memorials for a while, then he just tried to detatch from everyone. Now, though, he was seasoned at this grim existance and he never apologized anymore.
    His shovel was already in the car he left in the alley, but it was getting late, almost 5 A.M. He would have to wait until tomorrow to bury her body.
He delicately pulled a thin silver chain from her neck and put it in the top drawer of his dresser. On the chain was a small heart locket with her initial on it. The drawer already clamored with trinkets, a memento from every person on which he had ever fed. He kept them to remind himself of who he was.
    He flicked off the single 40-watt bulb that dangled bare from the ceiling. The sun would be up soon. He laid back on the grey, stained mattress. He never cared to sleep in a coffin. He lived in one.
.....
    Alonzo dreamt that night. He stood in a crowd of children; girls in pettycoats and bonnets, boys shoeless in plain cotton clothes made to last. The group gathered outside of a large, wooden building, like a house, but too big, and all one room. A woman looked down at him, called him 'Michelle.' The woman, their teacher, circled them around a sapling, a new apple sprout she'd found. They were transplanting it, their class tree, that would grow as they did. He thought he might like to grow things too. Or maybe Michelle thought that. When he got older, he would grow flowers, vegetables, trees. When he was done with his chores later, maybe mama would let him go and look for seeds...

    He woke groggily at the onset of night, his head like a sack of wet cement. For the moment he tried to ignore the corpse on the floor. He pulled a brown paper bag from the floor next to his bed. He filled a thin white rolling paper with dull green herb and twisted it. He lit a match and filled his lungs, trying to clear his thoughts for the task at hand.
    "Can I have a hit? My head is killing me." Marah sat up, rubbing her temple. Alonzo violently coughed out a greying cloud, and the joint fell onto his leg, left to burn for a few seconds in disbelief. She rubbed her eyes. He passed it to her from the circle of charred flesh on his leg. He looked her over without blinking, like a new species of animal. Memories from the previous night billowed in her mind.
    "So... Did it work?"
    "Uhh... Yeah." He stood suddenly and walked to the only door other than the exit. "Be right out." He stared into an empty mirror, frosted over in decades of grime. he almost never came into the bathroom, but he needed to think for a minute. What the hell happened? How was she still alive? She seemed to remember everything, too, how would he explain this? He leaned over the browning, crusty sink to try to focus. Should he just kill her outright and be done with it?
    The door banged open and off one hinge.
    "WHERE THE FUCK IS MY NECKLACE?!?"