The woman protested, nodding at Mary. "She promised me a farthing if I made either of them scream."
"I'll give you a farthing if either man flinches," I said. She renewed her caterwauling, and I looked at John. "This particular blend of nothingness and chaos is an eventuality we didn't really plan for."
"No one does," said John, "and yet it's truly all that awaits us on the other side."
"What?"
"Nothing," said John. "Just feeling out a new style of narrative I've been working on. Nihilistic science horror."
"Is this really the time?"
"Ooh, that's a good one," said John, pulling out a charcoal pencil and a piece of note-covered paper. "What we think of as time isn't." He scribbled it down. "Now I just need a really unpronounceable name for the deathless being at the center of—"
"Can you please pay attention to the task at hand?" I cried. "For the love of all that's—"
"Door," said Mary.
"For the love of all that's door?" asked John. "No, I don't think that works at all."
"There was a knock on the door," said Mary. "I barely heard it over the various screams of the admittedly unconvincing damned."
"Fine, then," I said. "I'll go and see who it is. But unless it's another wizard or necromancer, I'm not going to let them in. Or possibly a sorceress—we don't have one of those yet. Maybe a warlock?" I walked down the short hallway, talking mostly to myself. "Though I suppose I'd make an exception for a better class of damned. These ones are abysmal, and not in the way you want a damned to be abysmal." I opened the door, a polite refusal already on my lips, when I shocked into a sudden silence by the appearance of three constables on the front step. I blinked, too surprised to think about hiding my face, and all I could manage to say was "You're not damned."
"Damned what?" asked the first constable.
"Damned cheerful," said the second, "because that's one I think I guarantee I'm not."
"Damned to hell," I said, immediately wincing, but too nervous to stop talking. "I don't know why I clarified that for you, as I doubt it explained anything helpful. Why am I still talking?" If they knew who I really was, and how I'd come into possession of the mortuary, they'd cart me straight off to prison.
"We've had complaints," said the third constable.
"About my talking?" I asked. "I'm trying to stop, I'm just too distracted to think of how." I tried to give a comforting smile, but went far too broad and attempted, halfway through, to tone it down, eventually abandoning what must have been downright terrifying and settling for fumbled question instead. "What—what—what—what exactly have you complained about?"
"Are you okay?" asked the first constable.
"Not you," I said, "but the others. What have they complained about? Not the other constable others, but the other others."
"Which others?" asked the second constable.
"Whoever it was that complained."
"Do you have any dead men inside?" asked the third constable.
"Several," I said, nodding toward the sign that said 'Mortuary,' "though the exact number is a matter of some discussion."
"The one we're looking for is about your height," said the first constable, "approximately your age, and, come to think of it, matches your description to a fair degree as well. Maybe a brother?"
"I have a dead brother?" I asked.
"You do?" asked the second.
"Not to my knowledge," I said quickly. "I'm sorry—are you looking for the dead men who might be alive but look dead, or the man who shouldn't be alive because he smells dead, or maybe the man who seems perfectly alive but claims to be dead? Because, frankly at the moment I'm ready to be rid of any of them."
"We're looking for a dead man named Frederick Whithers," said the third constable. He might have also said something else, but I didn't hear because I closed the door on them and walked back into the funeral chapel, my feet seeming to move almost entirely on their own. My head buzzed with a mixture of fear and anticipation and several other things that I couldn't identify, and grouped back in the first column with fear. The room was full of smoke green light and a maelstrom of wailing, black-clad figures.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," said Mary.
"Or become one," said John. "You're pale as a sheet."
"In approximately ten seconds, three constables are going to break down our front door," I said, my voice sounding surprisingly calm in my ears. "In approximately seven seconds, I'm going to start running."
"I take it both events are related," said Mary.
"Five seconds left," I said. "Visit me in prison, I'm rather curious to know how this whole . . ." I gestured at the staring men. " . . . thing . . . shakes out."
"You could hide as a mourner," said Mary.
"Or in the coffin," said John, "no one else is using it."
"Two seconds left," I said. "It's been . . . nice to know you. I guess." I prepared to run, but John caught hold of my arm.
"Plan C," he said. "Use it."
Something thumped the front door, rattling it in its hinges, and I heard the constables shout from the doorstep: "Frederick Whithers! We know you're in there!"
"Your final contingency," said Mary, "if the funeral goes pear-shaped."
"Plan C is not the kind of thing I want the constables to experience," I said. "Plus we're not very likely to get paid when it's over."
"Frederick Whithers!" The door thumped again, more loudly this time. "Open the door, or we'll break it down!"
"We're in the middle of a wizard duel," said John. "There are constables trying to take you back to prison, there are bad actors shrieking in your chapel, we have one fewer dead body than our public funeral schedule would imply, and I think the coals downstairs have spilled, because I smell wood smoke. So we're probably on fire, on top of everything else." He shrugged. "How much worse could it get?"
"Not even pears are this pear-shaped," said Mary.
"This is the point where it always gets worse," I said, and sighed. "I suppose this is my only chance to make it worse on purpose."
The front door crashed open, shaking the walls and causing the smoke to billow and swirl; the three constables poured in, shouting first in attack and then in alarm as they saw the bright green smoke and heard the ham-fisted wailing of the overeager damned. I pulled a bell from my pocket, held it up, and rang it.
The room was plunged into darkness.
"Aha!" shouted Mr. Tolliver. "Face the true power of the realm of death!"
"What in the bloody hell is going on in here?" cried a terrified constable. A chorus of mourners screamed in response.
"That's not your magic," said Mr. Crow, "that was mine, interfering with the lamp wicks."
"Your soul shall rot in the darkest pits of eternity!" growled Tolliver.
"No one said we'd have to work in the dark," said one of the mourners. "Do we get paid extra for this?"
And then a soft, whispering voice seemed to slither through the air, curling around our ears and lifting the hair on the back of our necks. "What have we here?" it said. "Who has stepped into our trap today?"
"Food," said another whisper.
"Blood," said a third.
"Mortal blood and mortal flesh." The words seemed to scuttle through my mind like a swarm of beetles, and then with a sudden flash the rear doorway lit up, red as the fires of hell, and framed in the glow stood a host of black figures, tall and slender and topped with jagged spikes, like living blades of pure shadow. The vampires had arrived. "Brothers and sisters," said the whisper, "it is time to feed."
The room collapsed into chaos, wilder and more desperate than ever before. Mourners shrieked and ran in circles through the smoke, searching for a door that wasn't blocked by vampires or constables; the constables ran in similar circles, still unsure who or what these shrieking, shrouded figures might be. Even Crow and Tolliver, no longer locked in silent battle, scurried back and forth in search of somewhere to hide. John and Mary and I backed into a corner
and watched.
"Is that Sable?" asked John.
"He really does look the part," said Mary. "What happens when they actually have to overpower somebody?"
"Pray that they don't," I said.
"Vampires!" screamed Crow. "You shall not have me, dark ones!" He pointed his fingers at them, striking a daring pose. "You shall not—agh! My magic is useless!" His bravado faltered, and he joined the panicked throng.
"You are my minions!" cried Tolliver, though his voice was more desperate than commanding. "It is I who have summoned you, now do my bidding!"
"The blood of a necromancer," said Sable. "Delectable."
Tolliver screamed, and a sudden stench heralded his last great necromantic assault. Soon everyone was covering their mouths, trying not to retch, and one of the constables shouted "No medal is worth this!" They fled from the room, constables and mourners and wizards and dead men, pouring through the door like black-clad sand through a smoke-filled hourglass. I peeked out the window and saw them scatter in the streets, each running as fast as he or she could, desperate to get away not just from us, but from each other. Mary and John and I closed the curtains and crawled into the hallway, collapsing in exhaustion.
"Well," said John.
"Well," I said.
"Was that satisfactory, master?" asked Sable, peeking out from the smoky chapel.
"Quite," I said with a nod. "They actually believed you were vampires."
"We are vampires," said Sable.
"And who knew you could act the part?" I said. "Surprised me completely. Well done."
"You can come out into the hall, you know," said Mary. "The air is much fairer here."
"No thank you," said Sable, nodding toward the open front door. "The sun."
"Ah, yes," I said. I stood up to close it, taking one last, wistful look as the final figures scurried out of sight. "Gone," I said. "With all their money."
"We still have the down payment," said John. "That should be enough to repair the fire damage."
"And look at the bright side," said Mary. "Now we don't have to pay the mourners."
"So we come out of this with only slightly less money than we went into it," I said. "I suppose it's not the worst funeral we've ever held."
"Don't even talk about that one," said John. "A complete disaster. At least this one had a wizard."
"Come on," I said, and helped them up. "Let's go put out another fire."
About the Author
Dan Wells writes in a variety of genres, from dark humor to science fiction to supernatural thriller. Born in Utah, he spent his early years reading and writing. He is the author of the Partials series, the John Cleaver series, and the Mirador Series. He has been nominated for both the Hugo and the Campbell Award, and has won two Parsec Awards for his podcast Writing Excuses.
About the Publisher: Fearful Symmetry, LLC is a media corporation fully owned and operated by Dan Wells, author of such books as I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, I Don't Want to Kill You, The Hollow City, and Partials. None of them are as silly as this one.
For more information about this and other books, visit Dan Wells online at www.thedanwells.com, contact him at
[email protected], or follow him on Twitter as @thedanwells.
Dan Wells, A Pear-Shaped Funeral
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