Dead Mans Hand

"Real good," Ackroyd said. "You could almost be a detective."

Wednesday July 20, 1988

5:00 A.M.

The sign before the rambling three-story Victorian house said COSGROVE MORTUARY, COSMO, TITUS, AND WALDO COSGROVE, PROPRIETORS, in suitably somber, Gothic-style lettering. The building was as quiet as death, as dark as the tomb. Bre

He jimmied a window and stepped through it into the lobby. He paused for a moment and shone his pocket flashlight around the small room. It had dark wallpaper and was cluttered with antique furniture and bric-a-brac. Chrysalis, he thought, would have loved it.

The directory, hanging in a glass case on the wall, listed several viewings. The one he wanted-Jory-was in the West Parlor. He clicked off the flashlight and gave his eyes a few moments to readjust to the darkness, then moved into the bowels of the mortuary.

There was a peculiar odor to the place, a curious mixture of chemicals and death. The silence was oppressive, unbroken by any sounds of movement or life. Bre

The West Parlor was a long, high-ceilinged room, still choked with scores of flower arrangements. The flowers, like everything in this place, were dead and wilted. Their scent was stultifying in the enclosed dark. They had been placed all over the room, the most were clustered around the closed coffin that was still in place against one wall. Bre

Bre

He lifted the lid and held it high. The darkness made it impossible to see any details, but Bre

The corpse was wearing a demure dress that covered it from neck to ankles. Above the neck was nothing. The head was totally missing, apparently obliterated beyond any possible hope of reconstruction. The hands, though, holding a Bible on the sunken stomach, were clear, invisible, dead flesh. They were her hands, Chrysalis's hands, of that Bre

"It was a difficult job," a soft voice said behind Bre

There was the sound of something moving swiftly away from the light, and the voice spoke again. "Please, the light is painful to me."

The voice was so authentically gentle and sad that Bre

The speaker moved out from behind the straight-backed sofa. He was a vague pale blur in the darkness, very white, very tall, and very thin. He smelled of strange, powerful chemicals, but his voice was as sweet as a young boy's.

"You work here?" Bre

"Oh yes. I do the embalming. Light is injurious to me, so I do most of my work at night. I was just stopping by to say good-bye to Chrysalis-it was a difficult job, but I did the best I could."

"This may sound strange," Bre

"Certainly," the pale man said in his sweet voice. "Why do you ask?"

Bre

The pale man nodded in turn. "I'll leave you to your private good-byes. Even though its past our regular visiting hours." He turned to go, stopped, and looked back at Bre

Bre

"I know," Bre

6:00 A.M.

In the still, sick moonlight, the fingers of the trees reached out for him hungrily as he passed.

He did not look up at that grim starless sky where the moon pulsed like a thing alive, glistening palely with all the colors of corruption. He knew better than to look, or to listen to the terrible secrets the trees whispered in the rustling of branches as bare and thin as whips. He walked through a land black and barren, where dead gray grasses grasped at his feet, and the fear grew in his soul like a black worm.

Huge wings of dry cracked skin stirred the dead air. Eight-legged hunters, lean and cruel as any hound, slid from tree to tree just out of the range of his sight. The endless, deep ululation sounded behind him, promising an eon of terror, an eternity of pain. He knew this place; that was the most frightening thing of all.

When he saw the subway kiosk up ahead, he began to run. So slowly he ran, each stride consuming an hour, but at last he reached it and started down the stairs. He held the railing tight as he descended. Trains roared through mindless gulfs far below him. Still he descended, down and around on steps that spiraled round forever, until he saw the other passenger. He began to chase him, down steps that grew narrow and cruel, and so cold that his bare feet stuck fast, and each step ripped away more bloody flesh.

And he was there again, on that platform, hanging out over the endless subterranean dark, and there was the man before him. Don't turn, he pleaded silently, while inside he gibbered in fear, oh please don't turn.

He turned, and Jay saw that white, featureless face, tapering to one long red tentacle. It lifted its head and began to howl. Jay screamed…

… and grunted in pain as he fell out of bed, cracking his elbow hard against the hardwood floor. He doubled over and clutched the elbow, making a whimpering sound deep in his throat. It hurt like a motherfucker, but he was almost grateful. There was nothing like a good sharp pain to chase away the nightmare.

He lay there for a good five minutes, until the throbbing in his elbow had finally subsided. Figuring out that his childhood trauma in the Dime Museum had caused the nightmare didn't seem to have cured him of it. He'd wet the bed anyway. At least this time he'd had the sense to sleep in the nude.

He started the water ru

Otherwise he felt like shit. Both his elbows hurt, one from falling out of bed, the other from where that psychopath son of a bitch Yeoman had twisted his arm. His nose was still sore from getting mashed against the wall. He had a big bruise on his stomach where he'd gotten mugged by the Monstrous Joker Baby.