by Mike Mignola
“They give me what they are capable of giving,” Bentley tried to explain. “Then it becomes my responsibility to unravel the mystery of their untimely expiration.”
“And how exactly do you do that?” Pym asked. “Do you enter the building wearing your fright mask with your father’s guns blazing?” He stared at Bentley, his gaze hard and accusatory.
“I’ve told you before,” Bentley stated. “I use violence only when it is necessary.” He looked out the backseat window of the Packard at the building again. “When the answers are found and the villains exposed.” He paused, flashes of the insane bloodletting that he had perpetrated—that Death had perpetrated—over the last weeks parading before his mind’s eye.
“And until then?”
“Until then?” Bentley repeated, opening the passenger door and stepping out onto the sidewalk. “Until then, there is an investigation to complete, and purveyors of evil to be routed.”
He told his driver to wait for his return before slamming closed the car door and climbing the steps to the building’s front doors.
Into the lion’s den.
* * *
The thick, sickly smell of flowers was almost palpable as Bentley entered a wood-paneled foyer. A tall, dark-suited, middle-aged man stepped from an office on the right and greeted him with a serene smile.
“Good evening, sir,” said the man with a slight bow. Bentley took note of his voice; he had a sibilance to his speech. “May I first say how sorry I am for your loss. Constance and her mourners are in the Serenity Room. This way, if you please.”
The woman’s name came out as Consssstanssse.
Bentley followed the man down a short hall. They stopped at the doorway to a room on the left.
“Right in here,” the man said, motioning with his hand into the room.
“Thank you,” Bentley said.
The man bowed again, leaving Bentley standing in the entryway. There were chairs on either side of a short aisle, leading to the casket containing the departed in the center of the back of the room. A smattering of black-clad mourners were seated here and there, speaking in whispers so as not to disrespect the dead. Some turned to stare as Bentley entered, and he quickly found a seat in the last row.
He sat and watched as more mourners arrived and approached the casket, where they knelt for a moment, bowing their heads. Then, prayers completed, they would step away, politely offering their condolences to the grieving family before finding a chair and sitting only long enough to avoid seeming rude.
It went on like that for hours, people coming and going, and still Bentley saw nothing out of the ordinary. He was becoming antsy; usually by then the reason for his presence in a particular place would have become evident. Once again he carefully studied the room. His eyes finally settled upon the casket, and he made up his mind as to what he would do.
Bentley rose from his chair and walked toward the deceased.
Constance Dyer lay in her coffin, hands folded atop her ample chest. Her fingers had been wrapped in rosary beads, a silver crucifix dangling at one of her wrists. Bentley knelt upon the cushioned kneeler as if to pray, but instead studied the corpse. There appeared to be nothing wrong; the large woman’s face was heavily adorned in makeup that made her flesh appear waxy in the room’s lighting. She wore a string of pearls around her thick, powdered neck and a flowered dress that made him think of the jungle. He wondered how had she come to meet her end and what form Death had worn when it had taken her hand.
Bentley remembered a beautiful little girl with a beaming smile and curly blond hair the color of the sun, and how she had come for him, but his parents had had other plans—and things had not turned out so well.
Sensing that another mourner had arrived, Bentley stood, his eyes furtively searching one last time for any sign—any clue—as to why the ghost had brought him here.
As if he had somehow summoned her, the ghost appeared to his left, looking even more grotesque in the funeral-home lighting than she had in his bedroom. This time the top of her head had been removed, the inside of her skull fully visible and lacking its gray, cerebral contents. She tipped her head forward to be sure he saw the empty, bloody bowl. Even though she was a phantasm, Bentley reacted, stepping quickly back from the gruesome vision and losing his balance.
To prevent himself from falling, he reached out, grabbing hold of the coffin’s edge. The world began to spin, a spell of vertigo and nausea causing him to sway in an attempt to regain his balance. His gaze fell to the inside of the coffin, and he was surprised to see that Constance was gone, replaced by another.
It is the female spirit’s physical form, but intact from what he can see. The vision shifts. He sees the lid of the casket being slowly lowered, and then the container is wheeled from the viewing room down the hallway to what appears to be an open elevator.
The coffin begins its descent, the elevator door opening into some sort of stone basement. It is like something out of Dante: cold, wet stone, the ceiling lined with rows of iron hooks that sway in the dank, fetid air. He feels the sensation as the woman’s body is roughly hauled from her resting place, her clothes torn away and discarded, exposing her pale, naked flesh. At the end of a stone chamber, in front of a blazing oven, a man works. He is wearing a heavy, crimson-stained apron, his fearsome cleaver coming down with great force upon a wooden cutting board.
A butcher doing as a butcher does.
The woman is being brought to him.
Bentley sees that the man hacks at a thick and bloody piece of flesh, a limb, but he can’t tell whether arm or leg. The meat is expertly trimmed from the bone, then slid aside to be added to a larger pile later, while the clean-picked bone is tossed upon a heap of offal.
The butcher turns toward Bentley, his eyes a solid black in the firelight cast from the great oven. He motions for the woman’s corpse to be brought closer and smiles, exposing jagged teeth like razors, as the body is unceremoniously laid before him upon the bloody, gouged wood. He looks her over, assessing his work before raising the cleaver and bringing it down with a sound like thunder.
The hand that dropped down upon Bentley’s shoulder was firm, drawing him back from the nightmarish vision. He turned to focus upon a concerned face—the face of the butcher, but clean and unspattered with blood.
“Are you all right?” the older man asked. “You look quite pale.”
His teeth were normal, and instead of a bloody apron, he was wearing a fine black suit, with a white shirt and black tie. The middle-aged man who had met him at the door was standing beside him, as was another younger man.
“I’m fine,” Bentley managed to say as he tried to shake off the horrors of the vision. “I always look this way—pale, I mean. I’m just overwhelmed by grief, I suppose.”
The butcher offered an understanding nod. “Constance was a fine woman, and she will most assuredly be missed.”
Bentley was surprised to hear that the butcher had the same speech impediment as the middle-aged man.
“Would you care to sit down?” the butcher asked him kindly. “One of my sons can bring you a glass of water, if you’d like.”
One of my sons? Bentley realized that he was in the presence of the funeral home’s owner. The butcher in his vision was the senior Hargrove.
The eldest son began to walk away to fetch the glass of water.
“No, no that’s quite all right,” Bentley said quickly, stopping him. “I think I’ll just take my leave now. Thank you anyway.” He turned to face the aisle and found other mourners staring from their seats, concern on their faces.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said to no one in particular as he marched down the aisle and back into the hallway.
He pushed through the front door, but as he headed down the stairs, he could suddenly feel eyes upon him, and turned to see Hargrove and his two sons watching him go. There was something in their gazes, something that chilled him to the core and stirred him to action.
Now he knew w
hy he’d been sent.
* * *
Bentley slipped into the backseat of his car, startling Pym, who had fallen asleep.
“So?” the butler asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he turned to address Bentley.
“It was as I feared,” he said. “Behind the veneer of a family-run business something incredibly dark and evil thrives.”
Pym sighed, his shoulders slumping in the driver’s seat. “And that means what, exactly?”
“It means that I am now forced to act,” Bentley explained. “It was why I was summoned here.”
“What do you intend to do?”
Bentley stared out the side window at the building. “I wait until the innocent have departed.”
He reached down below the seat and retrieved the two guns he had placed there earlier. Taking one in hand, he chambered a round.
“Then I make evil pay.”
* * *
Bentley Hawthorne had no idea why he had been chosen. He knew that it had something to do with his parents, and the lengths they had gone to to keep him alive, even though they had been told by many a medical expert that his demise was inevitable.
They had attempted to ignore the laws of life, and death, and had paid a terrible price.
A price Bentley continued to pay.
* * *
“Do you have to wear that?” Pym asked with distaste.
Bentley glanced up through the eyeholes of the skull mask and saw the butler staring at him through the rearview mirror.
“I do,” he said. “When I wear it, I’m somebody else—something else—with an important job to do.”
“I mean no disrespect, sir, truly, but do you realize how insane this all sounds?” Pym turned in the driver’s seat to face him. “Ghosts sending you out in the middle of the night to God knows where, dressed in black, wearing a skull mask and carrying two automatic pistols. If I were to inform the proper authorities, you would be locked away in an asylum for certain.”
Bentley reached up with a gloved hand to remove the mask. He found it easier to talk to his friend this way.
“But you would never do that.”
Pym’s look softened, and he sighed. “You’re right. A long time ago, I made a promise to your parents. I promised that I would always look after you.”
“And you’ve done that quite well,” Bentley told him.
“But it hasn’t been easy,” Pym retorted, “especially of late.”
“Things have changed, my friend.” Bentley slowly returned the yellowish-white mask to his face. “I have been given a job,” he said, his voice taking on a more menacing tone.
A voice he barely recognized.
* * *
The lights inside the funeral home finally went dark. The last of the mourners had filed through the front door a little more than an hour before, leaving only the owners of the establishment inside.
“It’s time that I get to it,” Bentley said. “The Grim Death has work to do.”
He slid across the backseat and opened the door, allowing a rush of chilling air to enter.
“Is that what you actually call yourself when you’re like this?” Pym asked. “Grim Death?”
“It is the death I deliver to those deserving of it … It seemed appropriate,” he said, half in and half out of the car. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing,” Pym said.
“Why?” Bentley asked again, only more firmly, and came farther back into the car.
“It seems silly,” Pym said bluntly.
“Silly. Well, let me tell you it’s not that, I assure you. I’m the kind of death they deserve, you see.”
“Yes,” Pym said with a little nod.
“I’m not a happy death,” Bentley continued to explain. “These people I’m visiting … they’ve done horrible things. I’m the one who will remind them of their terrible actions and make them pay the price.”
“I see. Yes,” Pym said.
“Do you?” Bentley asked him. “Not so silly now, correct?”
Pym just shook his head no, ever so slowly.
Not entirely sure he believed the butler, and no longer having the patience to argue, Bentley slunk from the car, pushing the door silently closed behind him.
He darted to the nearest shadows thrown by the buildings on the street, using the darkness to conceal his movements. There was an alley between buildings, and he went down it, pressing close to the wall until it opened onto a large lot and the service entrance to the funeral home.
Bentley tried the heavy door but was not surprised to find it locked. He looked around, searching for some other way to gain entrance. His eyes fell on a rectangular basement window that he might have been able to break, but he paused when he heard the sound of a truck engine drawing closer. A closed gate at the far end of the lot was suddenly illuminated by headlights, and he quickly ran for cover.
A truck stopped in front of the gate, and the driver got out to push it open. Then he climbed back into the truck and drove into the lot, parking near the back door to the funeral home.
From his hiding place, Bentley could see the sign on the side of the truck—SALVY’S FLORIST, obviously making a delivery for the next day’s services. He watched as the driver again left the cab, this time walking to the door. The man fished inside one of the pockets of his baggy pants and produced a key, then unlocked the door and let it swing open into darkness.
Bentley saw his opportunity as the man turned from the open door and went around to the back of the truck, pulling open its double doors and climbing inside to retrieve his delivery. Stealthily, he raced from the shadows and plunged through the open door, just as he heard the delivery truck’s doors slam closed. He managed to slip behind a large brick support before the man came through the door carrying two large floral arrangements, carefully stepping down the three steps into the basement. He walked past where the masked Bentley had secreted himself and placed the flowers just outside another door at the far end of the room. Finished, the driver quickly left the basement, whistling a Gilbert and Sullivan tune as he closed the door and locked it behind him.
Bentley listened as the truck engine started up and then faded off as the florist drove away. He waited a few moments in the silence of the funeral home basement to be sure there would be no further interruptions before he cautiously emerged from behind the pillar. The basement was dark, but his eyes quickly adjusted. He could see the shapes of multiple caskets across from him. Even in the semidarkness he could make out the high quality of some, with ornate carving and silver and gold detailing, in sharp contrast to others that appeared to be little more than pine boxes.
He was surprised by how large the basement seemed to be, and as he prowled about he noticed several other doors, some closed, some open. He peered through one open doorway to find some sort of workroom, the wall covered in shelving littered with bottles of chemicals. A long metal table, which could only have been used for the preparation of the deceased for burial, sat ominously in the room’s center.
He also noticed that there were children’s toys—a tricycle, a doll, and a striped ball—just outside the workroom’s door, and thought how odd it was to see items such as these in a space where—
The silence was suddenly interrupted by the grinding of gears and the hum of machinery. Bentley scanned the shadows of the basement until his eyes fell upon a larger metal door with a heavy accordion gate across it. Ducking into a patch of concealing shadow, he watched as the door drew sideways, and a hand reached out from within to unlatch the gate and slide it aside. A casket resting atop a wheeled cart was pushed from the elevator, followed by the middle-aged undertaker who had greeted Bentley earlier that evening.
The undertaker left the coffin, disappearing for a moment somewhere in the basement, only to return with a wheeled stretcher. With growing fascination, Bentley watched as the man opened the lid of the coffin, roughly hauled the stiffened corpse of Constance Dyer from her resting place, and laid her body upon the stretcher.
They don’t intend to bury the body, Bentley realized. The sandbags were intended to give the impression of weight—the impression that Constance was inside.
But what of the body? he pondered. What is to be done with it? He recalled the horrific visions he’d experienced at the woman’s wake and hoped his suspicions were wrong, but …
Death roiled within him, already sure that it knew what was happening here, eager to make those responsible pay.
Bentley watched as the door where the delivery man had left the flower arrangements came open, and the youngest of the Hargrove sons appeared.
“The casket is ready to be sealed,” the older brother told his sibling. “When you’re finished, take it back upstairs and load it into the hearse. Burial is tomorrow morning at eight sharp.”
The older then got behind the cart that held Constance’s remains and pushed it toward where the youngest had just exited. “And bring these flowers upstairs while you’re at it.”
The youngest grunted something in response, getting behind the sandbag-filled casket and pushing it back onto the elevator. The older Hargrove got the other door opened and maneuvered the stretcher carrying Constance through the passage and into the area beyond; the door slammed closed when he was through.
Bentley knew thatwas where he needed to go—where Grim Death needed to be—observing the young man as he did as he had been told and returned for the flowers. The youth bent to pick up both arrangements. As Grim Death leaned farther out to observe, he unknowingly stepped upon a child’s toy and unleashed an ear-piercing squeak into the quiet of the room.
If the situation had not been so dire, he would almost have found it comical.
Almost.
His clumsiness had alerted the youngest Hargrove to his presence.