From an Enchanter Fleeing

Peter Crowther

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O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Ode to the West Wind

It is the fog that comes first. It drifts into the small town of Dawson

Corner while everyone is asleep, the entire town tucked up in their

beds ... dreaming dreams of hope and safety. And normality.

It sneaks down Main Street and around the old oak in front of the town

hall; it crouches in the hollows and ditches of the cemetery; and it

hides amongst the trees out by the lake.

It snakes along sidewalks, shuffles past storefronts and swirls across

picket-fenced lawns cut so fine they look painted. Then it banks

against water butt and shingle, fall pipe and boarding, slate and

wainscoting, building upon itself like aerosol cream or shaving foam,

working its way past downstairs windows and up to bedroom windows, and

then guttering and roof tiles until it reaches chimneypots and even the

occasional weather vane.

In the beginning, the fog is wispy, like cigarette smoke, but then it

thickens ... thickens until it becomes almost impenetrable.

That's when the dead come.

Some of them drift with the fog, ethereal translucent shapes, like

kites or bedsheets blown in on the west wind this autumn morning, ten

minutes before three a.m. ... the graveyard hour, the time when doctors

and nursing staff will tell you they have the most deaths, gentle

leave-takings, when folks done down by illness or the sheer

accumulation of years or even, on occasion, by the medication that's

been prescribed to them, check out for new adventures someplace else.

Others retrieve their corporeal states, lifting once familiar bodies

from casket and grave, from mausoleum and undertaker's parlor. And then

they shamble through the thick fog without so much as a single unsure

step, slow but determined.

Pieces of these visitors drop soundlessly to pavement and sidewalk,

plop onto lawn and porch, slide off of doorknobs and handles ...

sometimes leaving mottled residues on previously smooth and polished

surfaces.

Here comes one of them now ...

Matthew Fisher, a permanent eleven years, three months, and fifteen

days old, fresh from the lake where he has hidden these past eight

months, tangled up in weeds while the sheriff and a team of distressed

relatives and stalwart volunteers combed the countryside where he was

last seen, the search party finally deciding that the boy must have

fallen into the fast-moving river swollen with the spring thaws and was

like as not on his way to the ocean (if he wasn't there already). But

here he was all the time, right here in Dawson Corner, lying at the

bottom of the lake. And now he's come back to town, his face bloated

and white, his eye sockets empty and sightless, one ruined sneaker

still securely fastened around a foot and ankle that have nevertheless

had tiny visitors, hungry visitors. And so it is that, halfway along

Green Street, just a couple of houses from his old home, Matthew

Fisher's lower shin bone cracks and splinters, momentarily lurching him

to one side. He bends down, snaps the foot completely off and, carrying

it like a grisly memento, continues his journey, swaying side to side

when the shin-stump connects with the ground — slop, clunk, slop, clunk

— until he reaches a familiar picket fence and an even more familiar

walkway.

He moves up the walkway toward the house, easing himself up the three

steps to the porch and the swing chair, pulling open the screen door

with a hand that he absently notices is now reduced to just two fingers

— at which point he checks behind him on the path, scanning with those

deep black eye sockets, but seeing nothing — and then he thumps his

wizened and gray hand on the door frame, once and then again and at

last a third time, leaning forward until his face is almost touching

the glass door that leads to the kitchen, opening a mouth that is

stick-dry and wormy to say to the gowned figure that has just turned on

the light and is even now standing barely ten feet away from him, her

hands up to her face, and a yellow pool spreading on the floor around

her feet. Hi mom... I'm back! but no sounds come. Not from Matthew

Fisher, at least.

[IMAGE]

"That heavy?" the man asks, nodding at Hellboy's right arm, the

elbow-to-wrist section of which appears to be encased in a red-colored

dynamo or

jet-engine fuselage.

"Uh-uh," comes the response. A sidelong glance takes in the identity

tag hanging on a tight-linked chain around his neck: Lucius Jorgensen,

the tag's lettering proclaims.

"And those — " Jorgensen nods at Hellboy's head. "Look like goggles —

up on your forehead. What are they?"

"They're goggles." Who was this guy? Didn't he read Life magazine?

Watch TV?

"Yeah? They are goggles?"

"Yeah. I'm a pilot."

"No kidding. They look like they're part of your head."

"Right again. Surgically attached goggles. Stops me losing them."

The man shakes his head and continues to stare as Hellboy shuffles his

overcoat sleeve down a little before folding his arms across his

stomach. He only wishes he had a sombrero as well. But things could be

worse: the guy hasn't seen his tail or asked why his face is so red.

Leaning his head to one side, Jorgensen says, "They're not really

goggles are — "

The door opens and Tom Manning enters the office. His manner is

brusque, his face expressionless. He nods to the two men seated in

front of his desk before taking his seat. Clasping his hands on the

inlaid green leather of the desktop, Manning says, "Hellboy" and

"Jorgensen," each time with a nod that is returned. And then he says,

"You two know each other?"

Jorgensen turns to Hellboy, smiles and then looks front again, nodding.

Hellboy says, "We're old friends."

The Director of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense grunts

and shakes a Marlboro from a pack that looks like he's been sitting on

it. Lighting the twisted cigarette, he says, "You okay, Lou?"

Jorgensen nods, eyes blinking.

"You don't need to do — "

"I'm okay. Really."

"Still on the medication?"

"Yes, sir."

"Helping?"

"The medication helps, yes, sir."

Another grunt and then, "Okay. Gentlemen, we have a problem."

Hellboy throws back his coat, watching Manning pull smoke out of the

Marlboro and blow rings. It never leaves you, he thinks, that desire to

go back to it. "Where this time, boss?" he asks, shaking off the

craving.

"Dawson Corner."

Hellboy looks questioningly at Jorgensen, Jorgensen looks questioningly

at Hellboy. They turn back.

"It's in Maine. Little town about thirty miles in from the coast.

Farming community. Think of a Post cover by Norman Rockwell —

barbershop, bandstand, corner drugstore where you can buy three-scoop

lime floats for a nickel. That kind of thing."

"What's the problem?" Jorgensen asks.

"Fog."

Hellboy frowns the question without speaking.

"This fog is different. Some kind of gas, maybe — " Manning shrugs and

blows out a thick plume of smoke. "We don't know. FBI had some people

up there first thing this morning."

"What happened?" Hellboy asks.

Manning says, "Take a look," and, pressing a button on his desk, turns

to face the large screen on the side wall. As the screen flickers to

life, the blinds on the window close up and, just for a moment, the

room is plunged into darkness. Hellboy hears Jorgensen breathe in, and

then the room bursts into life.

On the screen it's foggy — thick impenetrable fog. Both traditionally

suited men and women and military types — uniforms, thick boots,

weapons, shaved heads, chewing gum — stumble around in front of an

increasingly unsteady camera wailing and sobbing. Some are wearing

masks, with respirator blocks, while others are not. Still more are in

the process of ripping their masks from their faces or carrying them.

The camera is clearly hand-held. One of the men, rubbing his hand

across his eyes, comes up against the camera, pauses for a few seconds,

and then tears off his mask. He pulls the pistol from the holster on

his belt and points it at the camera. There are no protestations, just

interminable sobbing and crying. He pulls the trigger and blood-specks

and pieces of what Hellboy knows is human flesh spatter the man's face.

The camera falls to the ground but keeps running. Now towering above

the camera, the man gives a brief howl to the sky before placing the

gun barrel in his mouth — his mask hanging from his wrist — and firing.

He falls forward onto the camera and the screen goes dark.

Almost immediately, the blinds open and Manning presses a button that

turns off the screen.

"Thoughts?"

Hellboy shrugs. "Could use some editing."

"Lou?"

Jorgensen draws in a deep breath and says, "You been back in for the

bodies? I mean, I do take it they're all dead."

"I think that's the case. But no, we haven't been back in." He nods at

the now blank screen. "They were all wearing masks when they went in

there."

"All of them? Seems to me most of them weren't."

Manning shakes his head. "Everyone had a mask to begin with."

"Why'd they remove them?" Hellboy asks.

Manning shrugs. "They just seemed to go — " He searches for the right

word. " — seemed to go wild. It was okay right at the beginning, but as

soon as they were in the thick of that stuff — every man and woman of

them; hard-assed combat-ready troops and bright-as-a-button graduates

alike — they just tore them right off."

"And that's all we have?"

"That's all, Lou," Manning says. "It's your ball — yours and Hellboy's

— if you want to run with it."

"Hey, excuse me if I'm missing something here," Hellboy says. "If we go

in there to Dawson's Creek — "

"Corner. It's Dawson — singular — Corner."

"Whatever. If we go in there, isn't the same thing going to happen to

us?"

Manning looks across at Jorgensen. Jorgensen turns to face Hellboy and

says, "Not if we're not breathing."

"Ah, yes," Hellboy says after a few seconds. "There is that."

[IMAGE]

Outside of Manning's office, Hellboy asks Jorgensen, "So what's the

problem?" "We won't know until we get — "

"No, not with Dawson's Bend — "

"Corner. Dawson — singular — Corner."

"Right. Not there. What's the problem with you?"

"My wife. My children." They're walking out of the B.P.R.D.'s small

Manhattan office across from Central Park — otherwise known as "the

Staging Post" amongst operatives ("good place to get a fresh horse and

take a pee," as the word has it) — the sunshine glinting from the

windows of the buildings up Central Park West and Columbus Circle. Kids

are chasing each other around the park entrance, cab drivers are

slapping car doors with their hanging left arms, car horns are

blarrrt!-ing, skateboarders and roller-bladers are singing along to

metal and rap piped into their cerebral cortexes.

Hellboy knows the gist of what's coming even before it comes; he only

needs the fine details to complete the mental picture.

"Boating accident," Jorgensen says, checking the traffic for a break

and making it sound like he's responding to someone who just asked him

for the time. Hey, sure ... it's four-fifteen; and, by the way, my wife

and kids are dead.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," Jorgensen says with a shrug.

"How many kids?"

"Three. Joey, Candice, and Monty. Eight, five, and almost two. And

their mom. Ruth." He turns to Hellboy. "You getting a cab or walking?"

"Walking." He waves his arm once. "Cabbies think I'm carrying a

bazooka."

Jorgensen chuckles. "Yeah, sorry about that."

Hellboy shrugs, says, "About what?"

"The shtick with your arm. And the horns. Plus the heavy tan and — " He

points casually to the back of Hellboy's voluminous coat. " — And

that," he adds.

"You already knew all about it, right?"

Jorgensen chuckles and pats Hellboy on the shoulder. "Like I don't read

Life magazine or watch TV, right?" He shakes his head. "I was kidding

you."

Hellboy gives silent thanks for his coloring. "Yeah, I think maybe I

get a little too self-conscious," he says, and then he takes a hold of

his tail and stuffs the end into his coat pocket. "Come on, we got a

'walk.' We'll go through the park."

They stroll across Central Park West — Hellboy ignoring the excited

mutterings and wide-eyed stares of recognition he gets as he goes by —

and through the gates. Almost immediately, the sounds of the city start

to fade away. After a few minutes, Manhattan is a recent memory of

someplace they were but aren't anymore.

The story comes out steadily but with a degree of determination.

The Jorgensen family was holidaying. Washington State. Out on a boat.

Stranded. Something wrong with the engine. Seas got choppy. Storm

broke. Boat capsized. No moon. Just the five of them in the water. His

hearing their cries over the sound of the wind and the sea. Frantically

flailing one way and then another, swimming — no, not swimming: nothing

so civilized in that sea — blind as he followed first one screaming

voice and then another. The voices stopped. One by one. And all that

was left was the sound of the storm. And of Lucius Jorgensen screaming

their names out in the darkness, one after another, time after time

after time.

"Jeez, I'm so sorry," Hellboy says.

"Like I said, not your fault."

They're sitting on a bench watching the squirrels.

"They found two of them," Jorgensen says, in a kind of

oh-and-by-the-way manner. "Joey and Candice," he adds.

Hellboy waits before asking about Jorgensen's wife and the little boy.

Jorgensen shakes his head.

"The medication do any good?"

Jorgensen gives a little chuckle but doesn't say anything.

"Not taking anything, huh?"

"They just want to give you anti-depressants. You get hooked on those

babies, and it's night-night for good."

A big squirrel stops right in front of them, picks something up between

its paws, and proceeds to eat. It watches them carefully.

"I asked Manning if I could come back. He said no. But then this came

up, and he asked me. Just as well."

"Yeah? How's that?"

"If I'd stayed home — " He pauses and looks around, taking in a deep

breath. "Well, there's nothing to stay home for. Nothing to carry on

living for." He turns to Hellboy. "But I kept putting it off. Figured

it was unfair to deprive the Company of my talents."

Hellboy nods. "And those are?"

"I've developed a solution that slows down the respiratory system

without affecting consciousness. And when I say 'slows it down,' I mean

it virtually stops the need to take in air at all. Through the nose,

through the mouth... even through the skin. We're going to be using it

in cryogenics but it has certain benefits in everyday use. Such as in

combat."

"The good of weapons of mass destruction."

Jorgensen nods. "With this stuff, they can throw anything they want to

throw at us and it won't matter ... because we won't be breathing."

"How long does it last?"

"Couple hours. Three at the outside. We can't risk any longer."

"How come?"

"It slows the heart down — and I mean it pretty much stops it without

your losing consciousness. But the downside of that — of the fact that

the heart isn't pumping blood — is that you leave it too long, it

starts to clot in the veins."

Hellboy follows another squirrel with his eyes.

"So, that what you think this is? Terrorist attack?"

"In Dawson Corner, Maine?" He shakes his head. "Uh-uh."

"So what?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

[IMAGE]

The town is up ahead of them, but they can't see it. Not an electricity

or phone-line pylon, not a roadsign, not a distant rooftop. Nothing.

"Zilch," says Jorgensen, lowering his infrared binoculars. "Like trying

to look inside a bran muffin."

Right in front of them, stretched across the road, is a wall of fog.

Its sides pulsate and roil but it stays in one place — doesn't come any

nearer to where they're standing.

The five of them drove over in a stretch limo that you could land

planes on: Hellboy, Jorgensen, two marines who didn't speak anything

except militarese, and a driver called Maurice. After a couple of brief

exchanges —

You not too hot in that outfit?

Sir, no sir!

Nice weather today, huh?

Sir, yes sir!.

— Hellboy thinks it's a blessing the marines don't speak much. Now

they're here, the marines just stare, and Maurice spends his time

chewing, shaking his head, and repeating the Savior's name as though it

may help somehow. It doesn't.

Jorgensen hands a bottle of water and little plastic cup of tablets to

Hellboy and then takes a similar dose himself.

"That it?"

Jorgensen nods. "That's it."

"What do we do now?"

"We wait."

"How long?"

"Half hour."

Hellboy looks up into the spring sky. The clouds are strung out like

gossamer across a deep red and violet around the sun. "Sun's going

down," he says.

"Yep."

Hellboy frowns. "That not a problem?"

"Why? Past your bedtime?" He chuckles. "We go in any earlier we could

end up sucking on our guns." He nods at Hellboy's right arm. "Or, in

your case, your hand."

"You ever considered stand-up?"

Jorgensen smiles but doesn't answer. He lifts a machine out of the back

of their jeep and fastens a leather strap around his neck. He looks

like a cigarette girl in one of the swanky Manhattan clubs, but Hellboy

doesn't say anything. He just watches the wall of fog shimmering in

front of them.

Jorgensen, now wearing some kind of earphones set attached to the tray

at his stomach, goes right up to the fog and sticks what looks like a

wand into it. He remains like that for several minutes, one hand

holding the wand and the other adjusting dials and switches on the

tray.

When he comes back, he's frowning.

"What was that all about?"

Setting the tray in the trunk of the limo, Jorgensen says, "Analyzing

the fog."

Hellboy waits, watches Jorgensen check his watch.

"So?"

"So, it's not fog." He looks over at him and breathes in. He puts his

hand over his mouth and nose and waits, watching Hellboy. After several

minutes, he removes his hand. "I think we're okay," he says. "You

ready?"

Hellboy shrugs. "I guess so. What was all that about?"

"All what?"

"You holding your breath."

"I wasn't holding my breath. There isn't any to hold."

"Huh?"

"Don't you feel anything?"

Hellboy pulls a face. "Like what?"

"Like your mouth being different?"

Hellboy looks at Jorgensen, smacks his lips, and frowns. "Hey," he

says, his face lighting up like a child's. "It's working." He puts his

hand over the lower half of his face and mumbles, "I'm not breathing."

"That's not strictly true," Jorgensen says as Hellboy removes his hand

from his face and attempts to gulp in air, without success. "If you

weren't breathing at all, you'd die."

"Bummer." Hellboy scowls and points at his mouth. "Sad face."

"Hard to tell the difference." Jorgensen hands a set of goggles to

Hellboy, watches as Hellboy puts them on over his glare.

"Real goggles," Hellboy says. "You do care."

Jorgensen ignores him and says, "Your respiratory system has slowed to

the slightest fraction of its usual rate — think of hibernation and

then multiply it a hundred-fold. You'll get air but very little spread

over long periods." He pulls a set of goggles over his own head.

"Infrared," he says. Then he lifts a metal-handled reel of fluorescent

yellow cord out of the jeep. He takes the end of the cord and starts

attaching it to the jeep's door handle.

"These to help us see?" Hellboy swings around with the goggles in

place.

"They're to help us see," Jorgensen says.

"That to stop us getting lost?" Hellboy asks, nodding at the cord.

"That's to stop us getting lost."

Hellboy grimaces. "Richest country in the world and we end up walking

into oblivion wearing 3D glasses and carrying a length of string

stretched out behind us and tied to the doorknob."

"Sometimes the least technological methods are the most effective."

"I know some politicians wouldn't agree."

Hefting the reel in his right hand, Jorgensen says, "Politics and

common sense never were natural bedfellows."

"Amen to that."

"Okay," Jorgensen says, "time-to-go time." He reaches out a hand. "Hold

my hand."

"Hey," Hellboy says, taking a single backward step, "don't I get

flowers? Candies?"

"You got the goggles. You're turning into an expensive date. Just take

my hand. We go in there, no telling what's going to happen. Could end

up wandering around there until the pills wear off."

"Could be messy."

Jorgensen doesn't respond. He looks around and takes a step forward,

Maurice and the two marines watching.

The yellow cord unravelling alongside them, Jorgensen and Hellboy step

cautiously into the fog. Almost immediately, all reference to the

outside — the sunshine, the blue sky, the clouds — disappear from

sight. All that there is, is the fog — thick as cotton candy.

Hellboy shuffles his grip on Jorgensen's hand and makes to take a deep

breath. Only no air comes in and none goes out. He looks down at his

chest and repeats the attempt: no expansion. "I don't think I'm going

to get used to this not breathing," he says. "I keep wanting to do it

but — "

There's no response from Jorgensen.

"You sure it's okay?"

"It's like I said," Jorgensen says with a sigh. "And don't forget, you

lived that way before you were born." Hellboy is suddenly aware that

Jorgensen's voice has changed — he has turned to face Hellboy now,

saying, "Assuming you were born, of course."

"A stork brought me."

"A roc more like."

They have walked about seventy or eighty feet now, and the fog doesn't

seem quite so thick, although — even with the glasses — they can barely

see their own hands in front of their faces.

Suddenly, Hellboy sees a dark shape pass in front of him, hears the

sound of shoes on wooden boards for a few moments. Then silence again.

"Hear that?"

Jorgensen grunts.

They move on.

"Hey," Hellboy says, suddenly remembering. "You never did say ... about

the fog, I mean."

"What about it?"

"You said it wasn't fog. How'd you figure that?"

"I analyzed it. Fog is pretty much just plain water — kind of vaporized

into a mist-form, but basically plain water. This stuff is primarily

water but it has two other components as well."

Squinting into the murk, Hellboy says, "What are those?"

"Well, the first one is mucin — that's a hydrophilic: in other words,

it likes water."

"And the second one?"

"The second one is — or are — phospholipids."

Hellboy waits for a few seconds and then, when it's clear that

Jorgensen isn't going to add anything more, says, "You're losing me

here, doc. What's the significance of these extra two elements?"

"They're not typically found in fog, in mist, or even in rain."

"Where are they typically found?"

"In the eye. The mucin is created by the goblet cells of the

conjunctiva while the phospholipids are produced by the meibomian

glands. And, of course, water is produced by the lacimal glands."

"I thought you said that was just water?"

"It is. But it's also present in the eye and in a hundred other places

as well. But not the mucin or the phospholipids."

Hellboy turns to face into the gloom and nods, turning the information

over in his head. "You're telling me that this fog was created by an

eye?"

Jorgensen yelps in pain.

"You okay?"

"Yes. I just walked into some kind of — " He lets go of Hellboy's hand

and waves his hand in front of him until it connects with a clunk.

"It's a road sign ... street sign, something like that." There's the

sound of a frenzied rubbing of material. "Shit, that hurts."

"It'll be fine," Hellboy says. "So much for the damn glasses."

"I just wasn't watching where I was going," comes the response.

"Gimme your hand."

Re-connected and now walking on wooden boards alongside storefront

windows they can just make out, Hellboy and Jorgensen choose each step

very carefully.

"So, it's all been produced by an eye?"

"Several eyes, but yes ... it's produced by the eye. But only under

certain circumstances."

"Yeah? How come?"

Jorgensen waits for a few seconds before he says, "It's tears."

[IMAGE]

After a while the fog seems to weaken. It doesn't fade away completely,

and the intrepid duo still maintain their link, but they can soon make

out the shapes of buildings and parked vehicles, fences and trashcans.

And then, something else. Hellboy watches, straining his eyes to see

while Jorgensen crouches down by an object at the side of the road.

"There's two of them," Jorgensen says. "Both male."

"Dead?"

"Yep. Well dead." Jorgensen bends closer until the first shape's head

assumes more detail. That's when he sees that the entire face has been

blown off. He gives thanks at this moment that he cannot smell. Now if

only he couldn't even remember smell, he would be fine. But, alas, he

can. He can do only too well.

Is this your son?

Yes ...

And this your —

My daughter.

I'm sor —

She was five years old. Her name was —

The man pulls the sheet hack but as he does, Lucius Jorgensen, suddenly

feeling very old and frail, notices that one of his daughter's eyelids

looks sunken ...as though there's nothing underneath it.

— Candice, he tells the man. Her name is Candice. He wonders whether he

should have used the past tense.

With the sheet back over his daughter, the smell fades away a little.

But only a little.

Have you found my wife? Jorgensen asks. My baby? He considers

explaining that he's talking about two bodies there, not just the one

... but he decides against it.

The man shakes his head. Didn't find nobody el —

"You okay?" Hellboy asks.

Jorgensen stands up. "I'm fine." He shifts the reel of yellow cord to

his left hand and flexes his right. "Nothing we can do for them."

Hellboy takes a hold of the man's jacket. "Looks like it's thinning out

a little," he says. And it's true. As they start off again along the

road — or wherever it is they're walking — they can make out building

shapes, the familiar form of an automobile, and even their own

slow-moving reflections walking parallel to them. Hellboy looks up.

"The moon's up. I'm getting light here."

They stop to look at the window, neither of them speaking, both of them

flexing hands or lifting arms slightly, and finding something in such

brief movements that gives cause for optimism ... even though they

caused them themselves.

And then, from diagonally across the street, a high-pitched squeak cuts

through the mist. Hellboy and Jorgensen turn around and squint into the

murk where they can just make out a figure standing against a screen

door. It's a woman, they both realize as the mist clears momentarily.

Stepping off from her porch and onto the path that leads to the

roadside, the woman smiles dreamily, looking first at Hellboy and then

at Jorgensen, her steps a little awkward, stilted, like she's maybe had

a little too much to drink or just woken up. Then she looks back over

her shoulder, back at the house, where the mist still swirls around the

porch in blustery ribbons of gray and white.

"Ma'am?" Jorgensen says, keeping his voice calm, non-accusatory,

non-threatening.

Mindful of his appearance, Hellboy pulls his gabardine coat about

himself and attempts to cover his right arm — his Right Hand of Doom —

with his left, and keep his tail under wraps. He's only partially

successful but the woman, while continuing to look from one of their

faces to the other, beaming all the time, seems not to notice.

"He came back to me," she says at last.

And it's a big Amen to that, Brothers and Sisters, Hellboy adds

mentally.

"Ma'am?" Jorgensen says again, this time holding out a hand to the

woman, taking a tentative step toward her, reducing the space between

them. He pulls the goggles from his face and thrusts them into his

pocket, returning the hand to its outstretched position.

Behind the woman, the porch door creaks open, its brittle whine cutting

through the mist.

"My Davey," the woman says. "He came back to me." And she turns around,

wringing her hands together, muttering.

Hellboy peers.

Jorgensen peers.

And then, slowly, falteringly, a young man makes his way down the two

steps from the porch to the path before, one foot placed carefully in

front of the other.

"Oh, Davey," the woman says, breathing the words rather than simply

speaking them.

The man is little more than a boy, they now see as his face emerges

from the swirling cotton candy that surrounds them. He's decked out in

his Sunday best — a black or dark gray suit, white shirt fastened at

the neck and crowned with a subtly colored tie (red? Hellboy thinks,

looking down at his own hand which appears similar in shade and hue,

though he wonders if it's the glasses). On his feet the boy is sporting

sneakers, which seems incongruous with the rest of the outfit. But,

around the water and coffee machines of the B.P.R.D., Hellboy has heard

all about the constant battle of parenthood.

"Hellboy ... "

Jorgensen doesn't need to say any more. Hellboy has seen it for

himself.

Now that the boy — surely no more than fifteen, sixteen years old — is

almost upon the woman (presumably his mother), he raises his arms,

hands flexed and stretched, fingers yearning for touch. He's walking

very awkwardly now, Hellboy sees, his legs apparently being moved with

great difficulty ... or pain? Hellboy glances up at the boy's face and

sees no sign of discomfort. But those arms ...

Hellboy steps forward, throwing his coat-tails out around him and

lifting his right arm.

"Hellboy — "

At the tone of Jorgensen's voice the woman turns, her smile fading as

she sees Hellboy's arm raised. She turns fully and raises her own

hands, palms erect against Hellboy, her eyes glaring wide.

"No," she shouts, "he means no harm."

Hellboy glances quickly at the shambling boy now only a few feet away

from the woman's back, arms still outstretched. "Doesn't look that way

to me, lady," he snarls ... but, as he watches the boy, he notices the

right side of his head. And then the left. Hellboy frowns.

Responding to the frown, the woman turns and sees what Hellboy sees.

The right side of the boy's head is blackened and indented; there seems

to have been some attempt at covering over the discoloration but it

hasn't been entirely successful. But the left side — a hair-covered

flap of skin hanging over what appears to be a large hole, behind which

Hellboy glimpses pieces of bone — is far worse.

"The bullet went right through," the woman says dreamily as she turns

back to Hellboy. "But he came back to us from the undertaker's parlor.

My Davey," she adds finally. "I think he wants to talk to you."

Hellboy holds his position as the boy finally reaches the woman and

takes hold of either side of her head. He stays like that, as unmoving

as a statue, and the woman drops her own arms by her side.

Hellboy takes three steps forward to take him within reaching distance

of the woman. He watches her eyes roll backwards. And she opens her

mouth.

[IMAGE]

Can mere sound have color? Can it have a smell? Or a texture?

The sound that issues from Wilhemina Pritznuk has all of these things:

it carries with it a blackness that is so impenetrable that mere light

must attempt to go around it, casting brief reflections that shimmer

and die in the mist alongside; it brings an olfactory odor so strong

that Jorgensen's nose begins to bleed, and his eyes run with a yellow

matter thick as mustard; and it moves toward and engulfs them with a

sheer physicality so strong that it pushes them back, bending ribcage,

sternum, and pelvis.

Staggering backwards, Jorgensen covers his ears ... then his nose and

eyes ... and finally, he bends forward, wrong-footing himself so that

he falls sideways, curling up, knees to forehead, crotch to mouth,

turning his head sideways so that at least one ear is protected.

Hellboy sees that the other one — the one that is unprotected — is

bleeding.

We mean you no harm, the sounds say when their swirling is done.

And now the sound is acceptable; the blackness has drained from it and

only the fog remains; the pressure is gone from Hellboy's and

Jorgensen's frames, though the bruising remains; and the smell — either

rancid meat or stagnant water — has faded, leaving only the faintest

hint of staleness. The vaguest hint of cheap perfume on dirty skin.

Hellboy steadies himself and steps close to the woman.

Groaning, Jorgensen gets to his feet, mopping blood and matter from eye

and ear, nose and mouth.

"Who are you?" he asks.

Me or the woman?

Jorgensen says, "Both."

Her name is Billie Pritznuk. Shes my mother.

"And you are — "

"Davey?" Hellboy finishes.

Yes. I am — or was — David Pritznuk.

"Was? Who are you now."

Now I'm a shade. On the other side. But I am others, too. All the

others.

"Why — Why are you here?" Jorgensen ventures.

To fix the break.

"Break?" Hellboy asks.

And so, through the woman's drab monotone of possession, the story

unfolds.

[IMAGE]

What you must understand is that the other side is a land inside a land.

"Right," Hellboy intones.

Refusing to acknowledge the sarcastic tone, or simply ignorant of it,

the woman / boy continues. The newly dead assemble in the outer area

where they wait to be acclimatized to their situation. The voice pauses

and then adds, It's a difficult time.

"I'll bet," says Hellboy. He's pulling my leg, he thinks.

Jorgensen glances at him fiercely.

"Sorry."

The grief is palpable. Millions upon millions, every day, countless

thousands upon countless thousands each hour, hundreds upon hundreds

every tiny fraction of a single second... whether old or young, torn

from their lives, separated from their families and their friends,

coming to terms with death memory —

"Death memory?"

The woman turns to face Jorgensen. Their bodies recall the very moment

that everything closes down: the very nanosecond when veins stop

pushing through blood and hearts cease to beat. There is a time — the

time of leaving — that they are aware, a knife-edge of understanding

before they tumble over. That is death memory.

Hellboy hears Jorgensen mutter something, but it's lost on him as the

voice continues.

As I said, the grief is huge — in each case — and there are many, many

cases. Try to imagine, the voice says, the world as a whole: try to

imagine — step back

within your heads and picture the world, all the myriad continents and

countries, the hospice bedrooms and hospital emergency rooms, the

bombs, the killings, the traffic accidents, the household mistakes,

faulty wiring, drownings, suffocations, fires ... the cancers,

coronaries, and heart attacks ... the millions who die and the millions

who are born ... the endless cycle of death and birth, birth and death.

The comings and the goings. And before the newly dead can pass over

completely, they must be cleansed.

"Cleansed? Like some kind of detoxification process?"

Yes, the woman / boy says with what Hellboy thinks might just be a

smile.

There is no sadness on the other side and none may take any in with

them. For most newcomers, the process might last a day or two; for

others, just a few hours; and for an unfortunate few, weeks or even

months.

That accumulation of grief — the true, boundless grief of the death

memory, built up over millions of years —

"The fog," Jorgensen mutters.

— yes, as you say, the fog, the voice adds. It is unlike anything that

exists on this side. While the death memory is being extinguished from

them, these new arrivals will do anything to stop the pain and anguish.

But, of course, there is nothing they can do. They must wait it out.

"Cold turkey," Hellboy says.

Both the boy and woman nod in unison. And so it flows and eddies and

swirls about them, cutting them off from all others, making impossible

any relief.

"So the fog — this accumulation of grief — is all around this ... this

waiting area?" Jorgensen asks.

Yes. The waiting area is a gray zone of exorcised grief impacted upon

itself trillion-fold on trillion-fold. It's deadly to people who are

still alive ... the embodiment of profound hopelessness and despair...

more than anyone could possibly bear. Well, you've seen what happened.

"With the soldiers?"

The woman nods. They did whatever was necessary to stop it. She shrugs.

And now they themselves are adding to it. More expunged grief.

"And it's leaking out."

It was leaking out, the voice says directly to Hellboy.

"So what is this?" Hellboy asks. "Are you like the little Dutch kid

plugging a hole in the dike with your finger?"

For a few seconds, both Hellboy and Jorgensen think that the woman-host

is not going to respond but, at last, she says, Something like that.

Then she lifts an arm and waves it out majestically. And as you can

probably see, the leak has been fixed and the fog is dissipating. In a

few more hours it will be gone and safe for people to be in here.

Jorgensen says, "But why did you come here?"

It's not only me. Many of the people who used to live in Dawson Corner

are here ... at least all those who have relatives and friends still

here in the town. Some, who no longer have access to their bodies, came

in incorporeal form — ghosts, if you will — while others retrieved

bodies from mausoleum crypts, cemetery plots, and, as in my own case,

undertaker's parlor-slabs. The voice pauses for a few seconds and then

adds, Needless to say, the bodies they found were not always in the

condition they'd left them.

But we had to come. If we hadn't, then all of our friends and relatives

here in town would have succumbed to the fog. We couldn't allow that.

"So how could you stop them?"

We couldn't stop them breathing it. What we could do was build up such

a colossal weight of good feeling and optimism that it might counteract

the effects.

"Sounds a little too 'new age' to me," Hellboy mutters.

The woman sighs and, behind her, just for a second or two, the boy

drops his head slightly. No, its decidedly old age, the voice says, the

boy having raised his head again. Optimism and faith have long been

strong adversaries of resignation, acceptance, and despair. Of course,

we haven't been successful in every case, the voice continues, softer

now. But we did what we could. After a pause, it adds, And now I see

it's time to go.

Hellboy looks around him and sees the street is clearing. He can see

store windows, an open sidewalk, parked automobiles, telegraph poles, a

mailbox. And he can see a group of people ... a demonstration of sorts,

all standing stock-still in the center of the street, the final wisps

of gray twisting around them and dissipating into nothingness.

The people are men and women, boys and girls, young and old ...

Living and dead.

"Jesus Christ," Jorgensen says as he follows Hellboy's stare.

The boy removes his hands from the woman's head and steps around her,

walking stiltedly across the street to where a gaggle of emaciated

pensioners surround two badly disfigured accident victims from a

five-vehicle smash-up on the Interstate five miles out of Messane,

their hair burned away to stubble and their faces frazzled, one side

exposing yellowed teeth and blackened gums; a young man wearing a

kaftan, his face milky white, rubs shoulders with a boy of what could

be around twelve or fourteen summers — it's hard for Hellboy to be more

precise as the boy's skin is bloated and pallid, partly eaten away, the

eye sockets empty holes ... and in his left hand he holds what appears

to be a severed foot (this is confirmed when Hellboy sees that the boy

is leaning to one side, his left leg ending in a ragged stump); two old

women who can't weigh more than one hundred pounds between them, their

hair wispy and fumbled, like steel wool, lean against the window of the

hardware store, one of the women holding a small, gray-faced baby who,

distinctly un-baby-like, watches the proceedings with a calm far beyond

its apparent years. These are the solid ones, the corporeal ones;

there are others who look perfectly normal, undamaged and whole,

holographic images hanging in the air like clean laundry, shimmering

and shifting though there is no wind blowing.

"The dead of Dawson Corner," the woman says, her voice back to normal.

Hellboy sees, forming behind them on the sidewalk, the town's living

inhabitants, their faces carrying tired smiles, moist eyes.

"Were you aware of what you were saying," Jorgensen asks, "when — you

know — when Davey was holding you?"

The woman nods. "It was as though his voice — that wonderfully moving

and familiar voice — were speaking right out of me ... right from here

— " She hits her chest once, with a small closed fist. " — and I

understood everything." She looks around and then squints upward.

Shafts of moonlight are filtering through. She looks back at the two

men and says, "Your people will be here soon."

"Is it safe?"

Jorgensen walks across to the group of corpses and cadavers, wraiths

and wisps, shades and specters. "It's safe," he says, more a mumble

than actual speech. When he reaches the boy — Davey — he holds out a

hand.

"Jorgensen!" Hellboy steps forward onto the street, his tail and coat

swirling out around him like a whiplash.

"Please ...," Jorgensen says.

Behind them, the woman says, "He can't speak. He's fresh from old

Mister Swinney's funeral parlor, filled with sawdust and formaldehyde.

That's why he had to speak through me."

With what appears to be a frown — his face creasing and folding like

modeling clay, and his mouth opening slowly to form an almost-perfect O

— the boy takes a hold of Jorgensen's hand.

Hellboy brings up his right arm and makes to spring forward, but the

woman's hand on his shoulder stays him.

"Leave him be," she says. "Just leave him be. They won't hurt him."

Hellboy is not convinced but, seeing no immediate danger, he rests his

arm by his side, suddenly feeling its full weight.

Jorgensen shudders, pulls back with a start though he doesn't break

contact with the boy. The boy takes another step forward and places his

other hand on the side of Jorgensen's face. And then he drops both

hands, steps back, and, without a word being spoken, he drops to the

ground.

Others — the damaged ones or the ones wearing pressed suits and best

dresses — follow his example.

Then the shades fade, the storefronts and sidewalk behind them now

showing through their midriffs and their legs, increasing in its

intensity, until, as one, they disappear like soap bubbles, popping out

of existence as though they had never truly been there.

Hellboy wonders if perhaps they never were.

Jorgensen drops his head, and for a few seconds he seems to be about to

fall himself. But then he straightens, lifts himself tall, and turns.

As he does so, he looks across the street.

Hellboy turns and stares.

Outside the general store there's the faintest glimmer on the sidewalk,

a disturbance of the air particles, of something bending the fabric of

the atmosphere out of shape. Out of nothingness, a shape begins to

form, a roiling mass of color and density, shadow and substance.

"Hellboy ..."

"I'm watching it," Hellboy says, "I'm watching it," and he steps to the

side, standing astride the outstretched figure of David Pritznuk, his

tail unfurled and swaying side to side.

"Get the people off the street," Jorgensen says, and he takes a step

toward the disturbance.

The "disturbance" is some kind of fracture in the ether, like a

holographic transmission that's not quite connecting. But parts of it

are now showing through as Jorgensen walks slowly toward it, showing

through and then fading out again, then coming back — different parts

of it — and fading again.

Hellboy moves to his left, covering Jorgensen's side and back, stepping

carefully over the prone shapes, some of them on the road itself and

others half on and half off the sidewalk.

As Hellboy starts to call out to the townsfolk, two things happen: the

first thing is that the "disturbance," such as it is, finishes coming

through and all of the electrical static charge around it subsides,

leaving only a woman of about thirty-five, forty. Just before the

second thing happens, Hellboy notices that she's carrying something in

her outstretched arms.

The second thing that happens is someone grabs his tail. And that's

when the lights go out in Hellboy's mind, leaving in their wake a dim

but somehow comforting and reassuring glow. He feels himself jerk

spasmodically, waving his big right arm weakly across in front of

himself — it's ineffectual because there's nobody there. As he lurches

drunkenly he catches sight of the boy — David whatsisname — propped up

on an elbow with the other hand firmly holding onto his tail. He thinks

maybe he should do something about that but that's when the voices come

into him.

And then through him.

He opens his mouth to speak, wondering what it is he's going to say.

Lucius? Oh, baby...

The words taste strange in Hellboy's mouth ... strange and wet, with an

underlying saltiness of sea water. He can feel the memory of it on his

face, in his mouth, up his nostrils ...

Without turning to Hellboy, Jorgensen moves forward, dropping the spool

of yellow cord right where he stands. "Ruth?"

I'm here, baby. You've been worrying and you shouldn't. We're fine.

"'We're'?" He looks down at the bundle she's carrying and sees a small

arm shoot upwards, wafting the air before withdrawing.

Come see him, the voice coming out of Hellboy's mouth says softly. Come

say hello to your son.

The tiny head pushes itself forward from the bundle and turns jerkily

toward Jorgensen. The face smiles.

"Monty ...," Jorgensen whispers.

Tilting his head to one side — where he sees the outstretched cadaver

still holding onto his tail — Hellboy, or whatever powers now operate

from within him, whispers. Exactly what he whispers, he doesn't know

... words and phrases, rounded syllables and stuttered consonants,

vignettes and extracts, softnesses and affections, breaths and oaths.

Absently, his head, arms, and legs twitching as though he's plugged

into a main electricity supply, Hellboy glances up ahead as the sounds

pour from inside of him. There, on the sidewalk of a midnight

small-town in Maine, Jorgensen, Ruth, and Monty are re-united. They

don't touch — they can't touch — but Hellboy sees them look into each

other's eyes. Sees Jorgensen's hand move out to the bundle in his dead

wife's arms ... and softly push right though it, the image swirling

like colored smoke where the hand passes.

Then, all at once, the pressure on his tail suddenly subsides and

Hellboy falls forward onto the pavement with a dull thud. He lies there

for seconds which extend into minutes. When he lifts his head, the

street is empty of shades and ghosts and Jorgensen is on his knees —

Hellboy can hear the man sobbing. Alongside Jorgensen, the living

townsfolk of Dawson Corner have gathered, their hands on his shuddering

shoulders.

They have all lost friends and loved ones this night, Hellboy realizes

as he scans the street so strewn with bodies. Either lost them or

re-lost them.

"You know," Hellboy hears one woman say to another, "there's no sadder

sound in the whole world than that of a man crying."

The other woman nods and then, very carefully, turns to look in

Hellboy's direction.

"What about the other one?" she says.

"He'll be okay," comes the response. And then, "Well, as okay as he was

when he got here I guess."

[IMAGE]

On the way back to Manhattan, Jorgensen says, "You okay?" Hellboy nods.

"Okay. Empty. Took it out of me." He looks at Jorgensen and says,

"You?"

Jorgensen nods. "Better now."

"What did she say — I mean, what did I say? No, forget that. I have no

right to ask."

Jorgensen waves never mind and says, "She just told me to take care of

myself."

"Sound advice."

Hellboy sees an exit sign coming up on the right, but no sooner has he

seen it than it's behind them. He turns and looks out of the rear

window.

"What is it?" Jorgensen asks.

Turning around in his seat, Hellboy addresses the marines up front.

"Either of you guys see that last exit sign?" he says.

"Sir, yes sir!" the driver snaps. For a second, Hellboy is afraid the

man will stand sharply to attention and salute right where he's

sitting, causing the stretch limo to jacknife against the traffic.

"What did it say?"

"It said 'To Arkham,' sir," the man says. "Twenty-eight miles, sir."

Hellboy turns to face Jorgensen and smiles, shaking his head. "I

thought it was a myth," he says softly.

Jorgensen leans toward him and says, "That's what I thought about you."

As the limo speeds toward the waiting metropolis of New York City, the

sun edges over the horizon and spreads its light westwards.

And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;

At whose approach, ghosts wandering here and there,

Troop home to churchyards.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

A Midsummer Night's Dream