SYNOPSIS:

Sue Smith was thirteen when her mother committed suicide. Her father said she jumped off a bridge and just floated away. Sue recently found out that was a lie. Her mom jumped from a building and smashed into smithereens on the sidewalk. Sue walks the Appalachian Trail trying to figure out her life. She discovers a tent with a skeleton inside. The bones belong to Brian, a runaway. A suicide note was left. Sue takes it and informs the mother. Sue wonders about Brian’s life. After the police question her, they offer a job no one wants…clean up a crime scene. Sue is unemployed so she takes the job and quickly finds out she has a lot to learn…about herself, about blood, about bugs, and everything else related to death. She copes with the job by planting trees to live. She meets Joe, a vagrant, after he solicits money from her. She refuses his plea and instead offers to pay him for removing a couch someone has died on. Joe takes the offer, thinking it’s just a simple moving job. Both are shocked and disgusted to see the amount of clean-up required. Joe becomes more than a helper when one of the suicide clean-ups looks like a homicide. Sue and Joe put incriminating pieces together and find themselves in a life threatening situation.

Sue prides herself on her new ability to restore a death scene so perfectly that no one will know that blood had sprayed onto the ceiling, that brain bits were in wall crevices, that body fluids had drained into the padding under the carpet. Every death has a story that teaches Sue about life.

Sue and Joe travel to the Aokigahara Forest in Japan, the suicide capital of the world, to further understand death. Joe says they need to plant a Sequoia when they get back…their family tree.

Songs: WORMS (HEARSE SONG) and FEAR, PAIN, RAGE