WHO. Eugene Bishop and company. WHAT. Even monsters have their demons. WHERE. The Bishop Family Funeral Home. WHEN. Late Saturday evening. WARNINGS. Violence, angst, and bloodshed.
Everything was clean now. Each table practically sang out with a shine all its own. Peace. That's what he felt tonight. A sense of peace. Every voice remained silent. Odd? Yes, of course, but Eugene felt no reason to look such a gift horse in its mouth. The past few days all he'd known was darkness. When he could come up for air, nothing felt the same. Everything was a mess. Everything. His paperwork, his floors. Violet. His dear, sweet Violet. Day by day, moment by moment, glance by glance. He'd had her wrapped around his wrist. She could slither in and out of his skin without so much as the blink of an eye. You could not ruin what already lay damaged from the outside world. Someone like him.
Eugene moved to take a quick peek at the digital watch on his arm, but all he spotted was a bare wrist and a splash of freckles. "Ah," he frowned, "I must have left it in my office." This wasn't much of a loss. He knew the time already grew late after the final clean-up of the evening. Things got awfully busy around the end of October. Holiday deaths were nothing short of right on schedule. Eugene stepped across the floor, looking around to see if anything else might have stayed behind. A quick dash caught the side of his eye and his chin snapped quickly in its direction. "Violet?"
The hairs at the back of his neck crawled to a stand. Last he could recall, Violet already left for the evening. Right? Perhaps, she, too, left something. "Did you forget something?" He called out once more, but the only noise to return to his ears happened to be his own voice echoing throughout the morgue. "Trick of the light," he suggested, speaking to himself to quell the drip of fear in his gut. Shhhh, something whispered up the side of his jaw, and Eugene knew it was him. This wasn't the time for the commentary of the darkness constantly competing with him for the wheel. Things needed to be done. Completed.
Eugene breathed in through his nose, regathering his composure for what was to come, and reached to turn out the light. 'Dad?' His hand slipped and his knuckles skidded up the side of the wall. He pressed his back against the door frame, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Who's there? If this is another one of you kids, I suggest you leave immediately. Y - you'll regret this. I don't - I don't want to hurt you." But he did. He always did. He'd slice you up into bits and pieces all because he could. All because it was what he wanted. He always got what he wanted.
He swallowed something dry in his throat at what he saw next. A small head poked up from across the room, behind one of the tables that belonged to the dead. Long black hair, a curious look, skin that glowed in comparison to the rest of the room. "No," he croaked, his eyes widening as the seconds ticked on by. "Sh - Sh -" Eugene knew her better than he knew himself. The small girl he once held in his arms. Nathan once held. Shilo. His Shilo. No one spoke. No one moved. He stood in the cold of the room, but shivered only due to the vision before him. "...How?"
'You look so different.'
Eugene made an uneasy attempt to step from the frame, his legs shaking underneath him. "You don't." Shilo walked around the table, dressed in the same dress Nathan last saw her in. She showed no signs of fear, simply intrigue. Eugene stopped just in front of her, looking down at the daughter he once knew but never could call his own. "Am I dreaming?" Nathan asked the question, but Eugene did not fight this. Nathan rarely seized the opportunity, and Eugene could not think of a more appropriate time.
Shilo shook her head. 'I don't think so.' A pause.
Before he could react, Shilo'd thrown her arms around him in a tight squeeze. Eugene blinked rapidly. What was he to do? This was not his daughter. There was no way. He must have fallen asleep at his desk for the second time that evening. Reincarnation didn't allow something like this to - Nathan wound his arms about Shilo's shoulders, pulling her in tight. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes and he shut them tight. "Shilo, I'm sorry. I'm - I'm so sorry. I never should have - I failed you."
'Her? Failed her?' Someone hissed in his ear. 'What about me, my love?'
Eugene froze. Every inch of his body stood stone still. No. Now he knew this was nothing more than illusion. A dream. No. A nightmare. Still, he felt her fingers across his back, traipsing up his spine until she was stroking at the fine hairs at the back of his neck. "Marni," he spoke the name without uttering a sound. Shilo's fingers tightened around his gut, but the warm hand moved around his shoulder until he saw her staring back at him. He glanced between the two of them, from Shilo's sincere expression, to the way Marni watched him as she never would in their life together.
'What about me, Nathan?'
"You - you have to understand. This - he never meant to," The color drained from Eugene's cheeks and turned the back of his neck and both his ears scarlet. "This is - I am dreaming, aren't I? This is - this isn't possible. You two, you aren't .. this is another life. A new life. I'm not h - I'm not just Nathan. His mistakes, they aren't - They aren't mine." Were they? Of course not.
'You left me, Dad. When I needed you most, you left me all alone.'
'You let him kill me, Nathan. You let Rotti kill me and then you tried to kill her. You tried to kill our daughter.'
Eugene began to pull away from Shilo's grip, but she would not budge. Marni drew closer, pressing her palm to the center of his chest. "Marni, please. If I knew. I could have stopped it. All of it," Nathan spoke once more, but it did no good. A fire grew in Marni's eyes and Shilo glowered up at him. "There are no words for how truly sorry I am. To the both of you."
'Not yet, Nathan.' Marni cupped the side of Eugene's face and leaned into his other ear. 'But you will be.'
A seething pain, like a hot poker being shoved deep inside him, reached his side. Shilo and Marni stepped back and where his daughter's arms were, now a scalpel sat buried inside of his stomach. Eugene's mouth opened, gaping open and shut like a stunned fish's might. "W - h - how is this possible? This is a dream. This isn't - dreams feel real when you're inside of them. I have to wake - I have to wake - AGH!" He held the base of the scalpel and tugged backwards, removing it from its resting place. Blood seeped out from the wound, making quick work of staining his t-shirt and down his pantleg. He dropped the scalpel, but as soon as it hit the ground, he found another lodged closely to where the other was.
Marni and Shilo exchanged smiles, but they were not yet satisfied. He felt each blade move inside of his flesh, sink in until it was scraping bone underneath. He moved backwards, his feet slow and his actions awkwardly sluggish. Finally, his body gave way beneath him and he crumpled to the floor, leaving a long trail of red after him. Marni and Shilo bent forward, more scalpels inside of their grasps. In and out, in and fucking out. He could not shout, but only wince, clawing at the tiles in the floor for some kind of escape, but he did not budge.
'You have to know what you are, Dad.'
'You can't forget.'
'Not this time.'
Eugene clenched his teeth, sweat dampening the already blood-soaked materials of his shirt. His breaths became more shallow, and his vision more incapable of clarity. His fingers curled, but no tightening of his fist came. "N - No - please. I have to wake -" he panted, his head slamming back into the floor. The two women of his life started to laugh, stabbing on his flesh as a painter would a canvas. He recognized the method. The precision. He'd seen him do it. Himself. The other half. The Repo Man part he tried so hard to fight.
"I'm sor - I'm sorry."
The laughter grew louder, filling his ears. Their faces twisted, grotesque. Disgusting. He tasted his own blood on his mouth, he could feel everything. Until finally, Eugene Bishop could feel no more.
There was silence. No one said a word. No one laughed. The only person to be found was Eugene himself, laying on the floor of his own funeral home, in a thick pool of his own blood. In his hand, a scalpel. One, simple scalpel. On his chest, the words he knew best carved so deeply into his torso that only a professional could perform such a task.