Grim Death and Bill the Electrocuted Criminal

by Mike Mignola

  “In some cases that’s exactly what happens,” Bentley explained. “But with others…” He looked back to the ghost of the old woman, who continued to stare at him pleadingly. “The perpetrator will get away with it.”

  “And why is that your concern?” Pym asked.

  “Because I’ve been chosen, Pym,” Bentley said. “Due to the sins committed by my parents, I’ve been selected for a special purpose.”

  Pym slowly blinked, folding his hands in front of himself.

  “If you say so, sir.”

  “Cheer up, Pym,” Bentley said, attempting to add a bit of levity to the moment. “You always said that I should find a hobby. Well, here it is.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of collecting stamps,” the butler replied.

  “Yes, well, Death had other plans for me,” he said, turning his gaze back to the woman. She was standing closer now, as if aware of what he was finally going to do.

  It was time.

  Bentley stood up, gazing at the skull mask in his hand. “Tonight, my purpose begins.”

  “And that means what exactly?” Pym asked.

  “We’ve already gone over this, Pym,” Bentley said. “The spirit of the murdered victim will be—”

  “Yes,” Pym interrupted. “They will be avenged. The perpetrator responsible shall be made to pay for his crime.”

  “Exactly,” Bentley said. “See, you were listening.”

  “Oh, yes, I certainly was,” Pym said angrily. “I wanted to get every single detail so when the police come calling, I can maybe convince them that you’re not in your right mind and that they’ll take you to Bellevue Psychiatric instead of prison.”

  Bentley glared. The words were hurtful, but he could understand where the butler’s concern was coming from. If only the man could see what Bentley saw.

  “I’m leaving,” Bentley said, starting for the door. The ghost of the older woman with the gaping head wound evaporated like steam on a mirror.

  “Will you be taking a car?” Pym asked.

  “How else would I make my way into the city?” Bentley said, stopping in the doorway.

  Pym hadn’t turned around, his back to him.

  “Your skill as a driver—” he began.

  “Is more than adequate,” Bentley finished, starting through the door into the hall.

  “Do you know where you need to go?” Pym asked, back still to him.

  “Yes.”

  Pym slowly turned, walking across the room toward him.

  “I’ll bring the car around,” he said, passing him in the hall, as he proceeded down the stairs.

  Bentley followed close behind, with purpose.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The workers had started to return to some level of consciousness as soon as Bentley had finished the act he’d been sent there to do, and he left the circus grounds before they could recover, clinging to the shadows as he made his way to where Pym had left the car.

  His guns had been emptied, so he’d picked up the giant hammer again and smashed the sea creature’s skull into oblivion. Grim Death had experienced no joy in committing the act, actually feeling a moment’s worth of pity for the creature taken from the sea and displayed as some twisted oddity for two bits a peek.

  But it had committed the most heinous of crimes, and needed to pay recompense.

  He felt a moment of panic as he stood in the darkness, searching for the car. Had Pym left him? He began to ponder. It would serve him right for what he’d put the poor man through. He was just about convinced that this was indeed what had occurred when the ghost of Tianna Hoops appeared in the distance, the eerie glow from her body shedding light upon the car hidden in the deep shadows of some trees.

  He made his way toward the car, feeling the heavy weight of exhaustion and injury attempting to drag him down. I’ll rest in the car, he told himself as he approached from the back.

  Pym was outside the car, pacing furiously as he approached.

  “Bentley!” Pym said, coming toward him. “Are you all right?”

  He still had the mask on, and raised a hand to halt his butler’s approach. He then removed the mask.

  “A little sore, Pym,” he said. “But I’ll be fine.”

  “After how long in the hospital?” Pym asked, ignoring Bentley’s hand and coming to support him as he almost slumped to the ground. “Two weeks, maybe?”

  “I just need to rest,” Bentley said, allowing Pym to hold him up. “But you need to drive.”

  * * *

  He was about to tell his manservant to take him home, but the ghost of the trapeze artist had other ideas. She was suddenly there—the look upon her ghostly features even more intense than it had been before. He wanted to ask what was wrong, but she acted, her spectral fingers sliding through the mask and into his skull.

  Showing him what was happening at the prison.

  “Right to a hospital,” Pym said, opening the back door to help him to sit.

  Bentley saw Warden Delocroix taking papers from a filing cabinet and going to his desk, his perceptions suddenly changing to show him what paperwork the man was completing. It was the execution orders for William Tuttle, and from what Bentley could see, the event was scheduled for tonight.

  For some reason the execution had been changed—moved up.

  “No, I have to get to Blackmore before…”

  He thought of William Tuttle, an innocent man dying for an act he did not commit. He couldn’t allow it to happen.

  Pym began, “Couldn’t this wait until—”

  “No,” Bentley said sharply. “It has to be now … tonight. The execution…”

  Tianna appeared beside him, her tears drifting in the darkness inside the car.

  “I can’t allow an innocent man to die,” Bentley told his butler. “Please, Pym,” he implored. “Get me there as quickly as you can.”

  Pym silently did as he was asked, climbing into the driver’s seat and pulling the car out from the darkness at the side of the road, tires squealing as they gripped the road.

  Bentley could feel Tianna’s ghostly eyes upon him. He didn’t want to look at her, but he also didn’t want to lie. He’d already promised that he would save her love.

  But now he wasn’t sure he would be able to fulfill that promise, and couldn’t bear to meet her mournful gaze.

  “Faster, Pym,” Bentley said tiredly from the back, skull mask clutched in his hand.

  “Time is of the essence.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  BEFORE:

  The old woman’s name was Beverly Chambeau. A wealthy woman, from a wealthy family. She was a good woman, donating to many charitable organizations and causes.

  She hadn’t deserved to die the way she did.

  Beverly had lived in Manhattan, in a penthouse on the Upper East Side, with her son, Phillip.

  The man who had murdered her.

  Pym had begrudgingly dropped Bentley near a back alley off Madison Avenue, letting him slip from the backseat of the car in order to find access to the building.

  Standing in the darkness, attired in the full guise of Grim Death, Bentley waited for some kind of inspiration. Something that would tell him how to proceed.

  There was a part of him that protested what he was about to do, a tiny voice inside his skull attempting to make him reflect on the insanity of his actions. As if Pym wasn’t enough, now he had to deal with a voice inside his head.

  Staying close to the wall of the building, he approached a back door, grabbing hold of the knob and attempting to turn it.

  Locked.

  Of course it was locked, he thought, frustrated. They couldn’t have just anybody gaining access to the building.

  He was actually thinking of just finding Pym and heading home when he noticed the ghost of the old woman, Beverly Chambeau, standing not too far off down the alley.

  “Yes, I know,” he told her. “I’m working on it.”

  Her arm moved ever so slightly, a finge
r starting to extend. As if pointing.

  Grim Death moved closer. She is pointing … but to what?

  The coal shoot had been left ajar, probably after the last delivery of the season. It wasn’t the easiest way in, but it was a way in, and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  He squatted down, pushing up the flap to reveal the shoot that led down to the bin, and wedged his body through the opening, going down the slide into the filthy black coal.

  Climbing from the bin, he found himself in the building’s cellar. It was almost as crowded as his own, with old pieces of furniture as far as the eye could see. He walked closer, checking out the pieces. They didn’t appear to be all that old, or in that bad of condition. Odd that they would be down here.

  Grim Death went to the small set of stairs that led up to the building’s foyer. It was deathly quiet there, and he waited to be sure he was alone before heading toward the staircase that would take him upstairs to the first floor of the townhouse.

  He’d seen this place inside his head, and was familiar with where things were, even in the pitch darkness. He needed to find Phillip, and maneuvered his way through the shadows as he searched.

  An explanation of why all the furniture was down in the basement became apparent, as the first floor was rife with new pieces. The woman’s son had seen fit to redecorate after her sad demise.

  Now that everything belonged to him.

  Being in contact with Beverly’s spirit, Bentley had learned that the woman had had terminal cancer, that she would have been dead from the horrid, wasting disease in less than a year. It was this knowledge that had led her to a very important decision. She intended to give it all away, her entire fortune, to the most needy of the city. It was when she shared this information with her son that things took the most awful of turns.

  Phillip did not care for his mother’s idea, preferring instead for the money, and all that it entailed, to stay in his possession. He tried to convince her otherwise, but she would hear nothing of it, explaining to him that he would be taken care of, but life was going to be a little bit harder for him after she was gone.

  It was when she explained that she was going to the lawyers the next day, to begin the process of changing over her will, that Phillip realized he couldn’t allow her to do this.

  That he couldn’t allow her to change the kind of life he’d grown accustomed to. It was a matter of his survival.

  So he decided upon the unthinkable.

  Bentley stood in the center of the newly refurnished living room, the smell of fresh paint and wallpaper glue hanging heavily in the air. He listened as he stood there in the darkness, deciding that Phillip was not home.

  Moving through the shadows, he approached the second staircase. This was where the act had been performed. Where the son had sealed his fate.

  Bentley saw it, felt it as it had happened.

  They’d had another heated discussion, and she’d said that the matter was closed, that she was going to see the family lawyers in the morning.

  Bentley saw the way he watched her as she carefully descended the winding, marble staircase. She had become less sure on her feet, so was being extra cautious, holding on tightly to the railing as she descended.

  Phillip had zeroed in on this weakness and decided that this was how he would do it.

  How he would ensure for himself the life he’d grown accustomed to.

  Bentley watched him descend behind her, coming in close. She heard his approach and started to turn, never expecting that he would—

  He pushed her. It wasn’t hard, but it was enough.

  Bentley experienced the horror and crushing sadness she felt as she realized what her son had done, followed by a terrible feeling of weightlessness as she fell back, and then the agony of impact, the shattering of her skull as it connected with the unyielding marble stairs.

  Beverly lived for a little while as she lay prone upon the stairs, gazing up at her son as he gradually became less defined, finally turning to black as unconsciousness claimed her.

  And Death took her hand.

  Beverly’s ghost was there beside him now, staring at the spot where she’d been found the following morning. She remembered, as did Bentley, the crocodile tears Phillip had cried as the ambulance drivers came to remove her stiffening body.

  It was all a horrible accident, they were led to believe. She had been unsteady on her feet these days, due to her worsening illness.

  The authorities didn’t give it a second look.

  And Phillip’s life continued on as it had, undisturbed.

  But that was about to change.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Blackmore Prison seemed like a ship, its windows and lights about the premises shining, floating in a sea of undulating fog.

  “Sir, please,” Pym begged. “How will you gain entrance?”

  Bentley sat slumped in the backseat, peering out the window at the prison.

  “Do you know when the execution was to occur? And how will you…”

  How? He hated the word just then—it stuck in his craw. How? He had no idea, but he did know he had to get in, he had to somehow save William Tuttle before …

  How? He wanted to pull out his two guns and perforate the word with bullets.

  He grabbed the back-door handle to exit, then stopped.

  “Think about this, sir, if you’re caught…”

  Before opening the door, he did just that, remembering he’d left his mask, and he slipped it on over his face.

  “An innocent life, Pym. I must—”

  “But you don’t know, Bentley,” Pym practically begged. “He might already be gone.”

  Bentley thought about this for a moment, but it didn’t change a thing.

  “I still need to go,” he said, opening the back door of the vehicle and slipping outside. The fog was thick, like smoke, hiding his foot as it touched the ground.

  Bentley leaned into the car to speak to his manservant.

  “You can go if you like, just in case I…”

  Pym couldn’t look at him. He sat clutching the steering wheel in both hands and staring ahead.

  “I’ll wait for you, sir,” he said. “But please hurry … and do be careful.”

  “Careful as mice,” Bentley told him, never quite understanding the phrase, having seen many a mouse caught in traps that had been set in the basement of Hawthorne House. They didn’t seem careful at all.

  He pushed the door closed with a click, not wanting to slam it, and headed into a wooded area before he reached the high fence that surrounded the foreboding property. The guardhouse was lit not too far off in the distance, and he thought that he could see the head of the guard inside.

  Bentley waited in the darkness and the fog—for what, he wasn’t quite sure. Inspiration, perhaps? For an idea of how he could get inside undetected, and somehow save William Tuttle? He didn’t even have his priest’s disguise with him, and even if he did, how…?

  There was that word again, and Bentley felt the cold foot of despair suddenly upon his neck, trying to push him down, down, down.

  “And here we are,” said a familiar voice. Familiar, but still Bentley gasped.

  “Roderick?” he whispered through his mask, looking around for the large black bird.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” the raven answered.

  Bentley found him perched upon the branch of an oak, looking out over the high fence at the prison beyond.

  “So, what are you gonna do?” the bird asked. He did what looked like a little dance, moving up and down the thick tree limb and bobbing his head.

  Bentley stared at the prison again: nothing had changed. It still appeared quite impenetrable. “I don’t know. But I have to get in.”

  “Or not,” Roderick offered.

  Bentley looked to the bird.

  Roderick bent down from his perch to address him. “Look at it this way, you’ve done what you could,” he offered. “You got the creep that was truly responsible for the trape
ze artist’s death … I think the boss would be pleased with that.”

  The bird looked away from him, back to the prison.

  “I think you could go back to the mansion and call it a night.”

  Bentley thought about the suggestion, imagining slipping into a hot bath and soaking for days, followed by at least a week of sleep. That would be truly glorious.

  But then he thought of William Tuttle, sitting in his cold, dark cell, being eaten up by guilt for something he didn’t even remember doing as he waited to die.

  “I could,” Bentley said, already missing the hot bath. “But I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?” the raven questioned with a severe cock of his black head.

  “William Tuttle is innocent,” Bentley said. “It was that creature … that siren that killed Tianna Hoops. William Tuttle loved her … he would have never done such a thing.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that he was convicted and sits in there waiting to die.”

  “If anything, he should know,” Bentley said.

  “Know what?”

  “That he didn’t do it. That he didn’t kill her.”

  “But he’s still going to die,” Roderick croaked the sad knowledge.

  “Yes,” Bentley said. “But at least he’ll know that he had nothing to do with hurting her. It’s not much, but it’s something.”

  “So you’re still planning on getting in there then,” Roderick said.

  “Yeah,” Bentley answered. “I have to.”

  They were both silent and staring, Bentley waiting for that moment of inspiration when everything would suddenly make sense. It didn’t come, and he was about ask the bird if he had anything to contribute, when …

  The mist began to thicken, rising up from the grounds around the prison, so thick and churning that it nearly suffocated the light emanating from the monolithic structure.

  “Is that you?” Bentley asked as the fog continued to grow.

  “Let’s just say the boss is happy with your response,” Roderick said.

  Through the expanding blanket of mist Bentley observed the pinpricks of light flicker, like the stars in the sky suddenly blinking out from existence as if God had temporarily forgotten about them, but then remembered.