The Undertaker's Cabinet

by David Haynes

  His smile was awful and his false politeness only made what lay beneath worse. "Why are you here?"

  "You are friends with Mr Moreton, are you not?"

  Esther nodded.

  "Then he will be delighted with my plans for you. Absolutely delighted." She watched him reach behind his back and lock the door. "Our chat will be better served in private. I hope you don't mind."

  His smile turned into a snarl yet it was no worse than the former expression.

  Esther took a step backward and banged her hip on the desk. He was an old boy but he moved as if his bones had been freshly greased. Getting past him and onto the street was not going to happen and there was only one other exit - out through the back door. She turned quickly and ran through the office to the door. She'd never used it before and couldn't remember seeing a key in it but she grabbed hold of the handle and pulled. Shit, it was locked and the key was probably hanging up in the office. She turned back and saw Jacobs skeletal frame casually strolling toward her. His smile had returned.

  "Stay away from me!" she shouted and looked frantically about for something with which to defend herself. There was nothing except the fire extinguisher. She picked it up and winced at the weight. God alone knew how old it was. There was no way she'd be able to wield it effectively but it would put a gap between them.

  "I said stay away."

  Jacobs had closed the distance between them to a matter of feet now. Where was Bobby? He had to be close and she'd told him to come to see her before going anywhere else. "Bobby's on his way," she said helplessly.

  "Oh he's had quite a fright this morning. I should think he's reaching for a bottle of his beloved Jameson's as we speak."

  "What have you done to him?" She lifted the fire extinguisher to her chest. If he took another step she'd hurl it at him.

  "Nothing really. I believe he's been reminiscing about the old days. Looking over a few family snaps if you will. I hope you don't mind me mentioning, but you two seem to have become quite close of late. Although you are nothing like his late wife or course. I wonder if you might like to feature in a family photograph or two? My portraits are not twee in the slightest, they are quite unique."

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" She wasn't waiting for him to take another step and she wasn't going to be cornered like a helpless mouse. She pushed the extinguisher away from her body as hard as she could and screamed with the effort. The cylinder wobbled slowly through the air and Jacobs could have moved out of its path quite easily, yet he chose not to. As it reached him he raised one of his hands and swatted it down as if it were a rolled up newspaper. A brief bolt of pain flashed across his face and made his top set of false teeth drop onto his lower lip.

  "Unfriendly." His words were distorted as he sucked his teeth back in to their correct place. He turned his palm outward and to show Esther. "Look what you've done."

  She could see a wound had opened up across the width of his palm. It was deep and jagged but no blood filled the void. There was only a fathomless darkness which threatened to consume her the longer she stared into it. She looked up at his face again and screamed. This time it was not in defiance but in terror. Jacobs stepped forward and put his injured hand over her mouth. The wound fell across her lips but still she did not taste the iron rich liquid of life. No, as her vision began to swim and her mind start to empty, the only thing she could smell was her school science classroom. And it was not blood which dripped into her throat from the wound but a cold and bitter acid which burned its way deep into her lungs.

  *

  He wouldn't be going to see Esther first. He wasn't entirely sure whether he'd ever see her again; not in this life anyway. He needed to go to and pay a visit to Jacobs and he didn't care whether the whole town saw him. He crunched the car into first and revved the engine. He hadn't driven the car since Lucy had gone but good old reliable German engineering made it start first time.

  A green Magic Tree air freshener dangled from the rear-view mirror. He pulled it towards his nose and inhaled. The smell had all but departed but somewhere in his memory Lucy appeared and flashed her girlie smile. The one which made him feel like dragging her into the nearest bed and... "And what Bobby? Kissing her rotting flesh because that's all she is now. Rotting flesh and a mountain breeze air freshener." He revved the engine again and picked up the bottle of Jameson's from the passenger seat. It was early, very early but he needed fire in his belly and whiskey was about the only thing which set the home fires burning these days. He took a long drink until his throat burned and his eyes stung. He pushed the cork back in and dropped the bottle onto the seat. Jim Morrison and The Doors asked to be shown the way to the next whiskey bar on the CD player and he turned it up as loud as it would go.

  "On my way, Jim. Pour me a big one and I'll show you how an Englishman does it!" he roared and then floored the accelerator. The wheels churned the dirt into a cloud of dust and gravel as he screeched up the track toward the road

  The little car spun sideways out of the gate and in the mirror he saw the house glide out of view. He meant not to return, and he was sure one way or another he wouldn't be given a choice.

  He was as familiar with every turn of the lane leading from his house back toward Littleoak as he was with every swirl and flourish on John Jameson's signature. Nevertheless, they'd never been introduced before and giving them first sight of each other whilst driving the Golf at nearly seventy was a questionable decision. Leaves scattered in his wake and pirouetted wildly into the air before fluttering chaotically back to earth. When Tom had first passed his test the pair of them had taken Dad's Escort estate out for a drive, without his knowledge. One of his tapes had been in the player and the sound of old school rock had accompanied their anarchic journey along the lane. Tom had insisted he drove of course and Bobby allowed it. After all when you'd just passed your test you needed to drive. It was the last time Bobby had been driven anywhere by his younger brother.

  Tom had driven like a madman of course, but his control was absolute and his seemingly preternatural knowledge of each and every turn had been as mesmerising as it had been vomit inducing. Right up until the final hair-pin leading into town. Then, the fickle figure of Lady Luck let go of the steering wheel and stepped on the brakes with her leaden foot sending the Escort flying through the air into Dyer's field.

  Bobby reached over and grabbed the bottle, keeping hold of the steering wheel with his free hand. Dad had been mad. He'd been really mad, but not with Tom, with Bobby. Even then, they'd all known that Tom was never going to be anything other than mildly interested in, at best, Moreton and Sons. He took another mouthful and swallowed. The only reason Tom was in Moreton and Sons the other night... was it last night? He didn't know or care. All he knew was that Tom had been there because he had wanted to help his big brother. He'd seen how messed up he was and he'd tried to help.

  He stabbed at the brake and the car tipped and threatened to slide around the corner. For the next bend there would be no brake there was just a heavy right foot, John Jameson and The Doors. "I tell you we must die, I tell you we must die." He banged his finger on the steering wheel in time with Ray Manzarek's cool chords and slid into Dyer's corner like his wheels were on fire.

  With one hand around John Jameson's neck and the other tapping out in time with Ray there was no way Bobby could wrestle the Golf around the hair-pin and almost immediately he was spinning round and round as the ageing tyres searched in vain for purchase on the leafy road. He saw Dyer's field pass across his whiskey vision three times before he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable impact. "I tell you we must die..."

  *

  Somewhere, something was on fire. It wasn't the calming smell of coal in a hearth, nor was it the exciting crackle of a bonfire. No, it was something worse, something corrupt. Esther tried to open her eyes but they didn't want to play ball. She had the worse hangover ever but she couldn't remember drinking anything; not a drop. She groaned and tried again and this time sh
e was rewarded with a flash of light. It was weak and distorted, but on the floor in front of her was a weird kaleidoscope of colour. She closed her eyes again and shook her head. The lights were probably just some joke her brain was playing on her until it caught up.

  God, why did she feel so shitty? She opened her eyes once more and there they were again; the green, the red, the gold and the blue. They were all definitely there but more ordered now. It was as if someone had painted them on the floor. No, not painted exactly; that wasn't right. Someone was projecting them onto the floor. Someone was shining a light through some film or... some glass.

  She looked around slowly because that was the only speed she had. It didn't look like a church and she hadn't been inside one since she was married but there was no mistaking the smell; the scent of hope and love, of death and of pity. It was the unmistakable stink of religion. But the church wasn't all she could smell. Someone, somewhere was having a bonfire and one thing was for for certain, they weren't burning wood.

  She hadn't tried to move yet because in truth she didn't feel much like moving. Besides, her arms and legs felt as heavy as her eyelids and she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep them open. What the hell was she doing in a church anyway? She closed her eyes and tried to think about where she'd been earlier and what she'd been doing. Nothing came, there was just a vacuous space which should be filled with mundane and pointless trivia. A terrible feeling washed over her in a wave and crashed into her brain with a suffocating panic. Why wouldn't her brain work properly? What the hell was going on?

  "Tum-te-dum."

  Her eyes flicked open at the sound of a voice. It had come from somewhere behind her and it was accompanied by an acrid smoky stench.

  "Hello?" she called as loudly as she could yet it was no more than a whisper. She tried to move her head; to turn it toward the direction of the voice and the smoke. But as much as she tried she just couldn't move it. Her whole head throbbed wildly in time with the slow motion percussion of her heartbeat.

  "Ah yes. You have woken from your little nap I see," the voice whispered beside her ear.

  It was familiar yet the source remained obscured.

  "Who are you? Where am I?" she asked feebly.

  "How soon we forget!"

  The body of the voice stepped into view and he smiled broadly, giving the polished veneer of his sparkling teeth a coating of blue, green yellow and red from the stained glass. Esther screamed with all her might yet it sounded like nothing more than a dying sparrow to her ears. His face brought it all back in vile tasting bile in her throat. His hand across her mouth, his hand weeping something acrid, something base and corrupt into her mouth and when she thought she could stand it no more, blessed oblivion fell upon her. "What have you done to me?"

  He walked behind her again. "I have not perfected the craft yet. I am not sure I ever will now. Nevertheless, God loves a trier!"

  She felt her head being pulled to one side as if she were a puppet on a string. "Leave me alone!" Although she could barely feel her legs or arms for they were nothing more than blocks of stone, she knew she was standing; at least in the standing position. And since there was no way her legs could support her, she was clearly being held upright.

  "I haven't quite got to grips with my new acquisition yet but my trials are yielding some impressive results."

  She felt her head being tugged again but this time it was fiercer and came with a sharp spike of pain. The puppet master had managed to turn her head completely to the side and his face was now only a few inches from her own. He smiled and stepped back.

  "As you can see, I have already started on Mr Moreton. I shan't bother to make introductions as I believe you already know each other.

  As Jacobs stepped back Esther was treated to the vision of Tom Moreton lying on the altar beside the cabinet. Copper pipes pierced the flesh at his neck, his torso and his thigh. There were four pipes in all and they each led to a large copper vessel. Tom looked perfect. It was almost as if he were a facsimile of the man she had met only two days ago. His flesh was like that of a porcelain doll; blemish free. Was it possible he was still alive?

  But where did the fourth pipe lead? She followed its snake like path with a sickening dread and when the appalling surge of something so unclean and debauched flowed into her body, she know the fourth pipe was buried in her neck.

  "I don't know if this device was designed to run two bodies at at one time, let alone three. Nevertheless, Mr Moreton, the other Mr Moreton, will put it to the test I am quite sure."

  Esther wanted to scream. She wanted to rip the pipe right out of her neck and ram it up Jacobs' arse but all she could do was look at Tom. All she could do was watch a yellow gelatinous tear pool at the corner of his eye and fall slowly onto his cheek.

  Chapter 14

  Was it more surprising that he hadn't been catapulted into Dyer's field or that he hadn't spilled a single drop of John Jameson's finest? He took a mouthful to celebrate and dropped the finished bottle into the passenger foot-well. Not only that but the car was pointing in the right direction and hadn't stalled. In fact the only thing which had gone wrong was that The Doors tape had been savagely mauled by the player, the remains of which fluttered in a chaotic tangle onto the gear stick.

  "Sorry Jim." He put the car back into first and slammed his right foot down as hard as it would go. Someone was on his side, at least for the time being.

  He slowed down as he reached Littleoak village square and looked over at St Oswald's. Whatever circus had been going off over there when Esther called had finished. All that was there now was the church and in front of that was a set of open gates. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." He pulled the car to a stop outside Moreton and Sons and walked across the square.

  His belly and mind buzzed with the familiar spice of a good malt but the warmth in his mind was fast becoming an inferno, and it threatened to burn out of control. As he passed Crabbe he shoved his face as hard as he could. "Fat lot of good you are, Crabbe." he hissed.

  The facade of St Oswald's had never been particularly attractive but at least it hadn't been threatening, as it appeared now. The whole building loomed over the square like a pestilent cloud waiting to drop a thousand corpses onto the folk of Littleoak. A literal cloud gathered at the rear of the building too but the smoke didn't dissipate on the wind. Instead it clung to the building and gathered about the tower in a dismal shroud.

  There was a foul smell coming from it too; like rotten meat or blocked drains, or... burning flesh. He quickened his pace and jogged through the open gates. If he was right then it had to be stopped immediately. He hadn't been inside the church-yard for years so he had nothing to compare it to but it was a mess. Gravestones lay on their sides partially covered in grass while those that were standing were covered in lichen and were unreadable. It was in contrast to the cemetery where Lucy was buried which was almost sterile in comparison.

  He reached the far corner of the building and stopped. Jacobs' protector was a man used to violence and was probably skilled in much darker arts than just street brawling. It wouldn't make any sense to happen across him before he'd had chance to deal with Jacobs, one to one.

  He peered around the corner of the building and looked toward the source of the smoke. It might as well have been Victorian London for the density of the black fog which swirled like a magician’s cape at the conclusion of his act. He stepped from behind the building, keeping close to the cold stone. He didn't fancy someone creeping up on him in this.

  Almost immediately the light dropped and the day became night in one step. The smoke was acrid and stung his eyes making them water but he couldn't close them. It was difficult enough to find his way without being hampered by total blindness. He bumped his knee painfully on a gravestone and clamped his teeth together sharply to stop himself swearing. It was like a different world and it was one he didn't want to be part of.

  Just as his lungs started to complain and his will started to waver
he heard a muffled voice come from a few metres in front.

  "There's not many more left now Mr Jacobs. You want them all on the fire?"

  He couldn't hear the reply but he could hear the grunts of a man using his strength to drag or carry something. The smoke parted long enough for him to see Jacobs’ hired muscle heave two large brown lumps onto a smoldering fire. Golden flames shot into the air briefly as the fire was given life and just as quickly the most loathsome and nauseating stench washed over him.

  Without warning his stomach complained in the most demonstrative way it knew and John Jameson was evicted into St Oswald's church yard with his hair on fire. It felt like his eyes were trying to force their way out and tears streamed from his eyes forming dirty rivulets on his cheeks.

  "How do?"

  Bobby was bent double with his hands on his knees and even if the fog hadn't been there he wouldn't have heard the other man approach.

  "Looks like something's upset you fella. Here, I'll give you an 'and."