Like budding raindrops waiting tentatively to fall, the stars hid behind the graying clouds. Like black snow drifting in the throaty whisper of the wind, the darkness descended to Earth. Like a signature written in hot white, the maniacal crescent moon seared the sky and lay its twisted glow on a single, dark road and its lone pilgrim.

                The ends of the pilgrim’s black cape fluttered and snapped behind the elegant, yet impatient thrust of his legs as he pulled tight the thin sheet around his broad shoulders. His steps fell light and reverently, as if made to appease the very common earth they forced themselves upon. Even so, the uneven pebbles and soil whispered their suspicions of the interloper in an ancient, grating language with every touch of his sole. The pilgrim continued, oblivious to the earthy chatter and drew a shallow breath as he readied himself for the last stretch of his journey.

                The cool, dry air carried the muted scent of earth and with it danced the memories and remains of so many things past. The pilgrim shivered and rustled his cape, the very presence of the great cycle of life and death sickening on his aged tongue and nostrils. It was the perfume of untold billions of souls sundered from this mortal coil and returned to Earth and waiting to be born again as children and grass and stone and all forms great and small. Ashes of Caesars mingled with their assassins’. Lovers long past returned to hallowed ground as one. A painter slain and his canvas rotted swirled united in fruitful death. The pilgrim snorted and coughed, pressing his hooded gaze downward and tracking the moonlit path into the blooming hours of the night. He wove through the dirt and darkness until he found his most unnatural prize.

                A great manor loomed on the sunless horizon. Its stone bell tower pierced the heavens, gorging itself on the black blood of the night sky. Sprawling buttresses stood lonely testament to times long past their due. An ancient black gate rose rusty and spear-tipped from the ground, the toll of time and neglect ceasing beyond its broken arms. Slowly, the pilgrim raised his abyssal gaze, the familiar scent of dead flowers fresh in the air, as if their petals were fluttering invisibly into the tiny cove of his hood. The smell grew heavy as brimstone as he passed the rusty gate and set his eyes on a weathered wooden door. Petals hung wilted and curled from their papery stems and the zoo of hedge animals, browned and pruned by death’s perfect hand, faced eternity in their false poses, cruelly denied their natural decay. A sigh dripped slowly from the pilgrim’s mouth, relief and reluctance intertwining as he crossed the still garden and stood before the great wooden portal. A pale, withered hand reached out of the folds of his cape and lay itself upon the old door. With a calm final breath, he pushed.

                Like lifeless lungs the air hung cold and windless. Like old, thin paint the darkness painted a bleak picture on a canvas of nothing at all. Like fearful children the stars hid behind the closing door for fear of the great and terrible things that stirred beyond. Like life itself, light ended in darkness.

                “Bela Lugosi’s dead?” the pilgrim called out expectantly, the rustle of his cloak and the click of expensive shoes punctuating his tongue’s slow, eloquent dance. The words leapt madly from wall to wall as if trying to escape the entropic darkness, their desperate ecstasy filling the void one moment, then fading back into silence.

                “Bela Lugosi’s dead,” hard white light tore away the curtain of blackness in a cruel flash. The chandelier above perched itself in perfect stillness above the stone floor, the clear, bright light evenly coating the small reception room in a shadowless clarity. “Have a seat, Maxwell,” a pair of black lips crooned, moving like thin caterpillars across flushed, pink flesh. Two pearly fangs pressed themselves gently against the soft cushion of the lower lip, their perfect white unstained by the black lipstick and their hungry points insatiably sharp. Alongside them slight curves curled into a dainty smile, the pale blue eyes above them gazing up expectantly while the rims of her long and slender cheeks cast deep, slim shadows that lay all too still like those in cold marble or dead flesh. Her naked pink shoulders raised anxiously as she stared hard into the pilgrim’s eyes, her silky black dress rustling in the brief gust wind almost as if the stolen blood within her were writhing excitedly at the prospect of company.

                “I see time has been more merciful to you than our late Lugosi, Diana,” Maxwell cleared his throat and ran a hand across his chalky white neck, then adjusted his grey tie. The pale skin over his face pulled tight as he furrowed his brow and snorted from the dark cavities where a nose should have been. Thin white pinstripes ran fluidly down his black suit, rippling like a waterfall of fresh paint as he bent his rigid form and sat. Maxwell lifted his black bowler from his bald head and ran his long, slender fingers through a memory of hair. He sighed impatiently, replacing his hat and twisting his veiny neck toward his silent companion. His frown deepened, his dark green eyes hovering like vengeful spirits above his grim, jutting cheeks bones. “Maxwell, I know we’re here for a funeral, but could you lighten up a bit?” Diana smirked and rested her chin in a soft palm, her voice filling the room with a rich, sandy sound her tongue tickling the ivory of her teeth as if they were but keys on a piano of lifeless flesh.

                “Have you forgotten why we’re here?” Maxwell hissed, curling his lips in disgust. “This isn’t some trivial formality, this is the death of one of our own. Time finally caught up with him and now he’s dead, it’s a fate we all share.” He narrowed his eyes contemptuously, looking Diana up and down, his gaze growing thinner as it slid down her alien form. As his head bowed lower and lower, his face slowly sunk back into darkness, too ashamed to face even a mimicry of sunlight. Even his shoulders drew themselves upward, casting shameful shadows over his entire body as he withdrew from the maddening curse of simple existence. Only his lengthy pinstripes and the slivers of his eyes showed from behind the crooked darkness until finally, his eyelids fell shut and he shook his head shamefully, his weary eyes having had enough of Diana’s tall, curveless body. “We always die alone, it’s our lot after life,” his voice hovered just above a whisper, his head still swaying like a broken grandfather clock. “Who could love a faceless fiend me or a mannequin like yourself? It happened to Bela and it will happen to us.”

                Diana’s mocking grin melted like cheap lipstick. “Maxwell, you’re so obsessed with death that you forget that you’re alive. Poor Bela’s dead, but that doesn’t mean that we are, too,” A softer smile settled on her small jaw, her lips casting a tiny shadow over her chin. “This is our time.” Maxwell sighed and raised his head, gazing up deeply into Diana’s sparkling eyes.  “Time? You think time is on our side?” the air was bitter with stale venom “We’ve cheated death only to be killed by time, and he is not a kind hunter. No, he is a cunning poacher, feeding off of that which death discards, things that cannot die. He does not scoop them up mercifully and cradle them in oblivion’s sweet bosom. No, he waits and watches and laughs as undying things slowly fall apart. The David melts under his drooling maw, Mona Lisa grows faint at the touch of his breath, and we fall to madness and ennui as he taunts our dead tongues with living blood. Do not speak so highly of him, Diana, for he shall be our doom.”

                Diana chuckled and covered her mouth, her eyes squinted with sick glee and her shoulders hunched into playful hills. “Maxwell, you make it sound like we have nothing to look forward to. Though our loved ones may die, we may find others. Though our stability may wane, we may regain it through meditation. Our lot is not so gloomy, Maxwell, so let’s forget that we’re just a pair of walking corpses for a moment and give Bela a decent funeral,” Diana met Maxwell’s eyes and laid a cold hand on his. “I’m sure with all of that poetic angst in you, you’ll be the life of the funeral.” His skin and hers, pale and pink, mingled and their fingers and shadows entwined. Maxwell sighed and nodded, drawing his hand away from Diana’s and running his long fingers across his deathly face once more, his eyes fixed on the door to the parlor as they rose to finish the night. “Maybe you’re right, Diana,” a harrowing silence punctuated by the click of high heels and fine shoes filled the air as Maxwell and Diana approached the ornate wooden door. “But time is not our ally.” They thrust their arms forward and stepped beyond the groaning portal, closing the door quietly behind them and mourning the ravages of time.