by Mike Mignola
“Children of nightmare, choose your fate,” Grim Death warned, his thumbs pulling back the guns’ hammers with an audible click.
One after the other they began to whoop their war cries, coming at him all at once in a tidal wave of enraged deformity, and Grim Death, twin pistols at the ready and with no further compunction, began to fire. He had given them a choice, and they had chosen death.
The abominations screamed. Some managed to avoid being struck, while others were savaged by the .45-caliber bullets that tore unmercifully through their twisted bodies.
Death temporarily satisfied, Bentley saw his opportunity and dashed toward the exit, turning as he ran to see a few survivors emerge from hiding places to resume their pursuit. Running low on bullets and feeling the heat upon his back, he turned his gaze to the large oven, still burning with a blistering intensity, and formulated an idea.
Bentley found a wrought-iron shovel and leaned into the oppressive heat. He drove the shovel into the burning matter inside the great stove and was horrified to see a blackened skull staring back at him from a pile of ash and bones.
He scooped a white-hot mound onto the shovel and spun toward his attackers, throwing the burning remains into their path.
The advancing monster children were driven back by the blazing vestiges, some of the rolling bones igniting drying puddles of grease and oily rags into hungry pyres.
From the doorway he watched as the twisted products of cannibalism reacted to the flames, their futile attempts at extinguishing the fire causing the voracious conflagration to spread.
That particular threat temporarily contained, Bentley rushed down the corridor to the funeral home’s basement, the smoke from the fire growing thicker as it followed him into the main building. From out of the writhing smoke the youngest Hargrove leapt, colliding with him and sending them both sprawling to the floor. The youngest, having escaped his bonds and internment in the casket elevator, was savage in his attack. Bentley worked his forearm beneath the young man’s throat as they struggled, driving him back and preventing the youth from biting him with snapping, knife-sharp teeth. Having no further patience for fisticuffs, Bentley brought one of his pistols up and jammed the barrel against the youth’s chest, firing a single shot through his black heart. The youngest Hargrove went down, but still showed signs of life. At Death’s urging, Bentley fired another slug into the young man’s skull to make certain he would not be getting up.
The Death inside him grew anxious, urging him to find the patriarch of the cannibal clan. The cellar was now filled with smoke, and Bentley carefully made his way through the choking fog in search of the undertaker. From somewhere in the haze there came a terrible screaming, like the tormented cries of suffering animals.
“What have you done to them?” asked a voice much closer to him than expected. “What have you done to the children?”
Bentley threw himself back, barely evading the looming shape that came at him from out of the roiling vapor. The blade of Hargrove’s ax came down upon the concrete floor in an explosion of sparks. Reacting before Hargrove could raise the weapon again, Bentley lashed out with one of his pistols, slapping the cold steel across the man’s jaw. Hargrove lurched back with a pained grunt as Bentley took aim with the other gun, but the smoke was now too thick, and the undertaker was gone.
Again came the disturbing, pain-racked cries, only this time they were closer. Bentley prowled the hidden landscape of the funeral home basement, through the shifting smoke, every sense attuned to possible danger. The ghost of the woman who had brought him here suddenly appeared, her damaged body taking form in the smoke. Her mouth was open in a pleading wail, her one untouched arm raised to point behind him. Trusting that the spirit had his best interests in mind, Bentley spun and fired into the curtain of obscuring gray.
There came a grunt, and the clatter of something heavy falling to the floor. Bentley advanced toward the sound and found the discarded ax and a serpentine trail of blood leading off farther into the labyrinthine basement.
He followed the crimson trail to the workroom he’d seen earlier, filled with the chemicals and tools of the undertaking trade. Hargrove lay upon the floor, blood leaking from two bullet wounds in his chest into a circular drain in the floor.
“I see you now,” Hargrove began, eyes fixed upon the specter of Death standing in the doorway, “see you for what you truly are.”
The older man attempted to stand, grabbing the wooden shelving for support—shelves that held dusty bottles of formaldehyde. The shelves creaked in protest, then tipped forward onto the injured man, the bottles of chemicals exploding at they hit the concrete. Hargrove lay there covered in glass and embalming fluid, the heavy wooden shelving pinning him to the floor. The drifting smoke and fumes from the spilled chemicals were nearly overwhelming, and Bentley found himself bringing a hand to his mask to filter out some of the choking vapors.
“Please,” Hargrove begged weakly, bloody hands reaching out to Death’s emissary. “Haven’t I served you well?”
The Death inside him stirred excitedly, sensing an end to the moment, and Bentley found himself beginning to raise one of his guns.
And then there came the screams again, and through the thickening smoke he saw a glow—a glow that was coming closer and closer.
“Please!” Hargrove begged again as Bentley moved from the doorway into a shadowed corner of the supply room.
The surviving Hargrove grandchildren swarmed into the room, their bodies aflame, screaming in agony, driven to madness by their pain. They were looking for somebody to help them—somebody to take away their torment.
They fell upon their trapped grandfather, all their emotions pouring out as they hugged, bit, and clawed at him with spindly arms burnt practically to blackened sticks.
And Hargrove, too, began to burn, the formaldehyde on his clothing and collected upon the floor beneath him igniting in a rush. The flames spread voraciously about the room as the Hargrove clan screamed for far longer than Bentley would have thought imaginable.
It was only a matter of time before the entire building would be engulfed. Bentley found his way back to the door from which he’d originally gained entrance and pushed it open; a rush of cool early morning air fed the fire behind him.
Bentley collapsed to his knees just outside the entrance, choking on purifying gulps of oxygen.
“Bentley?” he heard a familiar voice call out, and looked up through watering eyes to see Pym coming toward him. He continued to cough and gasp as the butler helped him stand, supporting him as they went down the alley between buildings to where the sedan was still parked.
“Perhaps if you removed the damned mask,” the man growled, reaching up to rip away his other face.
“Ah,” Bentley wheezed. “That’s better.”
It was still early enough that the streets were free of life as Bentley and Pym emerged from the alley and made their way to the car.
“I think it wise that we leave here at once,” Pym said, opening the rear passenger door before quickly going around to the driver’s side.
Bentley chanced a look at the funeral home before climbing in. The windows were illuminated with a ghostly orange light, and smoke was beginning to seep from beneath the sills and doors.
And then he saw them. There had to be at least a hundred, maybe more: the ghosts of all those who had been fed upon by the Hargrove cannibals. They were standing before the building, watching as it burned.
“Are we done here?” Pym called out from inside the car, revving the engine.
“Yes,” Bentley said as he practically fell onto the seat. His shoulder, his whole body, throbbed painfully, and he barely managed to reach out to grab hold of the door handle and pull it closed. “Yes, I think we are.”
Bentley slumped down in the backseat, helplessly weak, as the car screeched away from the curb. The Death that resided within him sighed contentedly, satisfied—
For now.
* * *
Be
ntley slipped in and out of consciousness through the long drive home, the sun having climbed higher in the morning sky each time he opened his eyes. By the time they returned to Hawthorne House, it would be a particularly lovely fall day—not that he would see any of it.
As soon as Pym parked the sedan, he helped Bentley out and into the mansion, where the butler assumed another of his seemingly endless responsibilities: cleaning and dressing Bentley’s wounds.
Painfully sore, and stinking of formaldehyde and cooked meat, Bentley slowly climbed the stairs to his room, while Pym did what he did to keep the great house in order. There was a part of him that would have loved another bath, but at the moment his body needed sleep far more than cleanliness.
Bentley entered his bedchambers, shucking off his stinking clothes. As he kicked off his trousers, he saw that his breakfast tray from the previous day was still sitting upon the table, reminding him that it had been close to twenty-four hours since he’d last eaten. Some of his breakfast still remained, a single piece of cold toast lying upon a plate. Bentley picked up the bread and brought it to his mouth, too tired to do anything but nibble on the crust. When he felt that he’d had enough to temporarily sustain him, he dropped the toast’s remains to the table and turned languidly toward the bed.
Another ghost had appeared, blocking his way.
Bentley didn’t want to see it, closing his eyes hard before opening them again. The little boy still stood there, large eyes piercing and beckoning to him. And that was when he noticed the ornate dagger protruding from the center of the child’s chest, phantasmal blood leaking out from the wound to form a halo of crimson around his small head. Bentley looked away, trying to get to his bed, but the small spirit continued to drift to block his way, his pale hands reaching out—beckoning.
“I have to sleep, little boy,” he told the child. “I’m so very tired. When I awaken I will…”
Bentley felt the odd stirring at his core telling him that the power he served had again awakened. It wanted him to act.
At once.
The ghost mouthed the word please, and Bentley felt his resolve collapse.
“Pym,” he called out in his loudest voice, “I have need of you.”
The door to his suite came open.
“What is it, sir?” the butler asked.
“I’m going to need another suit,” he told the man, his fatigue forgotten as he watched the expression on the ghost’s face turn from sadness to joy.
“But I thought you were exhausted?” Pym asked.
“I’m fine,” he told his friend, his heart beginning to race. “We have work to do.”
Death had no time for weariness.
Chapter Two
BEFORE:
Six-year-old Bentley Hawthorne raised his toy pistol and fired repeatedly at the large man, who dove behind the sofa to avoid being hit by the imaginary bullets.
Abraham Hawthorne exploded up from the other side of the elegant piece of furniture and lunged at his son, who continued to snap away with his pistol as his father snatched him up into his arms.
“You’re dead!” Bentley shrieked as he wriggled in his father’s grasp. “I shot you!”
“That pistol of yours only holds six shots,” Abraham told his son knowingly, and began to tickle him unmercifully. “Anything after that was like firing blanks.”
“No!” Bentley squealed as his father continued the onslaught of tickling. “The bad guy can’t win … The bad guy can never win!”
“And that is why you must always be prepared,” Abraham instructed. “You should always be aware of your rounds, and carry appropriate amounts of ammunition, or perhaps even another weapon if—”
“Abraham!” a woman’s soft but stern voice interrupted.
The large man holding his child upside down stopped his antics and stared.
Edwina Hawthorne continued with her cross stitch.
“That’s quite enough of the gun talk,” she said, pulling up on a stitch. “This is supposed to be family time, not talking-shop time.”
“Of course, my dear,” her husband said, letting the still squirming child down to the floor. “I just thought it might benefit the lad to bestow some important tidbits of information and…”
“Certainly, my dear,” she said. “I quite understand.”
Bentley stumbled back from his father. “I’m putting more bullets in my gun,” he said, going through the motions of loading invisible ammunition into the gun’s chambers. “And then the good guy will shoot the bad guy … and the good guy will win.”
The child was breathless, and soon coughing and gasping for air.
“Bentley?” his mother called from the sofa, setting her cross stitch aside to go to her son.
His father was already there, holding his son as he choked and gasped.
“It’s okay, boy,” his father said, attempting to calm him. “Just try to breathe in and out. Slowly, that’s it.”
“The good guy … The good guy has to win,” Bentley wheezed.
“Yes,” Abraham told him, stroking his sweat-damped hair and rocking him. “You’re right. The good guy always wins.”
“Give him to me,” his mother commanded, and Abraham did as he was told, lifting the gasping child and placing him in his mother’s arms.
“You shouldn’t have let him get so excited,” Edwina reprimanded.
“We were just playing, my dear,” Abraham explained.
“But he can’t play as others do,” she scolded. “His condition…”
The father stroked his son’s hair, gazing down at the little boy nestled in his mother’s arms, now breathing shallowly.
A tall, imposing figure dressed in butler’s attire appeared in the doorway.
“Is there anything that I may do?” Pym asked.
“I think he’s all right,” Edwina said, bending down to kiss the boy’s sweat-dappled brow. “He just needs some rest.”
“You can take him to his room, Pym,” Abraham said, stepping back to allow the butler access.
“Very good, sir,” Pym said, taking the child from his mother and into his arms. “Right this way, Master Bentley,” he continued, as he carried the child from the study.
His parents watched them as they left.
“I’ll just take a little nap,” the boy called out weakly, his voice sounding hoarse. “And then I’ll come back and we can play some more.”
The butler carried him to the staircase that led up to his bedroom and began to climb, and when the little boy was out of sight, his mother began to cry.
The pain his parents felt was palpable.
“He just needs some rest,” Abraham said. “He overdid it, is all. He’ll be fine in a few hours or so.”
Edwina’s back was to her husband as she stared out the window at the late-summer blooms.
“If only that were true,” she said, turning from the view to gaze at her husband. “He’ll never be better.”
“Don’t say that,” Abraham commanded, anger and frustration in his tone.
“Someone has to say it,” she said, tears streaming down her full cheeks. “Our boy is unwell, and has been since he came into this world. There’s no amount of love we can give him that will change that.”
“But the doctor said…”
“You hear what you want to hear. The doctor said that he will grow weaker over time, but then…”
“I refuse to accept that outcome,” Abraham barked, puffing out his chest powerfully. He had been in control of the Hawthorne family munitions business since he was eighteen years old, and was not in the least bit used to being denied his every want.
His wife came to him, her face damp with sadness.
“But it’s an inevitable truth that we need to confront,” she said as she put her arms around him, laying her wet cheek against his broad chest. “Our sweet boy will never grow to be an adult.”
“Don’t say that,” Abraham growled.
“But I must,” the boy’s mother cried. “I
can’t help but hope that the more I say it, the less excruciatingly painful the inescapable will be.”
Abraham irritably shrugged his wife off and turned his back on her, heading to the windows. “I will not accept that Bentley will die,” he said forcefully, gazing out at the deep woods beyond the backyard. “The answer is out there,” he muttered, brain churning with the intensity of thought, “the solution to keeping my son alive.”
He turned from the window to look at his wife, still standing where he had left her, looking so brittle and forlorn.
“I swear to you, we will find the answer,” he said, reassuring her. “If I have to wrestle Death itself, our son will live.”
Chapter Three
Lying in the darkness, halfway between waking and sleep, Bentley could sense that he was no longer alone.
He listened to the sounds of the presence from the protection of the darkness behind his eyes, and at once recognized the familiar footfalls. He attempted to dive deeper, back into unconsciousness, praying for the intruder to go away and leave him to his sweet oblivion.
He heard a sudden hissing sound, which could only have been the curtains covering his windows being drawn apart, and then felt the warmth of the midday sun searing the pale skin of his face.
“No!” Bentley cried out, certain that he would explode into flames if exposed much longer to the blistering rays. He grabbed his sheets and blanket and yanked them up over his head for protection.
“I can’t stand it anymore,” Pym said, from somewhere near his bed. “You’ve been entombed in this room for days. I refuse to let you rot away in the darkness like some sort of bizarre fungus.”
“I’m not listening to you,” Bentley said from beneath his protective covering. “Go away or you’re fired.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” he heard his manservant mutter beneath his breath as he strode from the room.
Bentley chanced a look, pulling down the covers and squinting across the room to the open door, hoping that Pym had left, but doubting that was the case. He heard the clattering of silverware and ducked down beneath the protection of his sheets and blankets again as Pym entered the room carrying a silver serving tray holding plates of food and a pot of coffee.