He loaded the box magazine of the Krag with shells and then he pulled the bolt back and slammed a shell into the chamber with a very quick motion. It surprised the Hawkline women and then it pleased them, knowing that Greer and Cameron were very experienced at their work.
Greer put another shell into the magazine, replacing the one that had just gone like a-cat-catching-a-mouse into the chamber.
The Krag had a leather strap on it and Greer slung the rifle over his shoulder. Then he put a handful of shells in his pocket. He was ready to earn his living.
“One of us is going to have to carry a lantern,” Cameron said. “So he’s only going to have one hand free if something happens real quick with that monster. You carry the lantern and this Filipino bustin’ gun and I’ll do the shotgun.”
He handed the automatic pistol and the extra clip of bullets to Greer while saying, “Give me that.38 there.”
Greer gave him the.38.
“I can get this rifle working real quick if we need it,”
Greer said. “And if the son-of-a-bitch jumps us, we’ve got enough stuff here to turn it into sausage.”
“Can we be of any help?” Miss Hawkline said.
“No, girls. You’d just be in our way,” Cameron said.
“This is our line of work. So you just keep out of the way and we’ll kill your monster for you. Who knows? Maybe we’ll eat it for supper tonight. It might be real tasty.”
Journey to the Ice Caves
The Hawkline women guided them down the hall to a flight of stairs that led to the laboratory and the ice caves.
They were halfway down the hall when they heard a heavy slow shuffling sound. It was the butler. He emerged, head ducking through a door, into the hall.
“You’re going to kill the monster,” he said, in a very old voice. His mouth moved and his voice seemed to come out moments later.
He towered above them.
His hair was white like the frost on the grass outside the house.
“The monster ate my master,” the giant butler said. “If only I were younger, I’d kill that monster with my bare hands.”
His hands were huge and knotted with arthritis. Probably in their day they could have killed a monster but now they were in repose like old gray uneatable hams.
“You’re going to kill the monster,” the giant butler repeated. He was very tired from his trip to Brooks to pick up new things for The Chemicals. He was getting too old to make a trip that long.
The giant butler’s eyelids were drooping.
“Thank God,” he said. The word God almost lost itself in his throat. It sounded like somebody sitting down in an old chair.
The Door
The door that led to the basement was a heavy iron door with two bolts on it. Miss Hawkline pulled the bolts back.
There was also a large padlock on the door. The lock was very impressive. It looked like a small bank. Miss Hawkline took a huge key out of her dress pocket. She put the key into the padlock and started to turn it when suddenly there was a huge crashing noise behind them.
They were all startled and turned around to see the giant butler spread out, over 7 feet and 300 pounds, on the floor. He looked like a stranded boat in the hall.
Miss Hawkline ran down the hall toward him. The other Miss Hawkline followed like a shadow in her footsteps. They crouched on their knees over the giant butler.
Greer and Cameron stood there looking down. They already knew he was dead while the two Miss Hawklines still searched for life in his body. When they discovered that he was dead, they both stood up. Their faces were suddenly very composed. There were no tears in their eyes though they loved Mr. Morgan like an uncle.
Greer was holding a lantern in his hand and he had a rifle slung over his shoulder and a large pistol stuck in his belt. Cameron was holding a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun in his hands. The giant butler lay dead on the floor. The two Miss Hawklines stood there silent, totally composed, looking unreally beautiful.
“What do we do now, young ladies?” Cameron said. “Kill the monster or bury the butler?”
Thanatopsis Exit
“Do you know what I really want to do?” Miss Hawkline said.
“What?” Cameron said.
“I’d like to get fucked.”
Cameron looked down at the giant butler and then at Miss Hawkline.
“I’d like to get fucked, too,” the other Miss Hawkline said to her sister. “That’s what I’ve been thinking for the last hour. It would be very nice to get fucked.”
Greer and Cameron stood there with their guns while the giant butler lay there alone and forgotten with his death. Greer took a deep breath. What the hell? You might as well do one thing as another.
“First things first,” Cameron said. “Let’s move this body out of the hall. Where do you want it?”
“That’s a good question,” Miss Hawkline said. “We could put him in his room or we could lay him out in a front parlor. I don’t want to bury him now because I want to get fucked. I really want to get fucked. What a time to have a dead butler on your hands.”
She was almost a little mad that the giant butler had taken this particular time and place to die. He looked awesome lying there in the hall.
“Hell, this is too much to think about,” the other Miss Hawkline said. “Let’s just leave him here for a while and take care of getting fucked.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about him going any place,” Cameron said.
So they just left the giant old butler lying dead on the hall floor and went off to get fucked, taking along with them a 30:40 Krag, a sawed-off shotgun, a.38 and an automatic pistol.
Thanatopsis Exit #2
Greer as he made love to Miss Hawkline kept thinking about Magic Child. Miss Hawkline had a body that was exactly the same in its appearance and delightful movement as Magic Child’s.
They were making love in a beautiful bedroom upstairs. The room had many delicate feminine things that were unfamiliar to Greer. The only thing wrong with the room was the cold. It was very cold in the room because of the ice caves under the house.
Greer and Miss Hawkline made love under many blankets in an incredibly ornate brass bed. Their passion had not allowed time to be spent building a fire in the fireplace.
Greer kept wondering as they made love if this Miss Hawkline were Magic Child. At one moment he almost said the name Magic Child to see if she would respond, but then he decided not to because he knew that Magic Child was dead and it did not make any difference in which Miss Hawkline she was buried.
After Making Love Conversation
After they finished making love, Miss Hawkline lay gently cuddling up against him and then she said, “Don’t you think that it’s kind of strange for us to be up here making love while the butler is lying down there dead in the hall and we haven’t done anything about it?”
“Yes, it is a little strange,” Greer said.
“I wonder why we didn’t do anything about his body. You know, my sister and I are really very fond of Mr. Morgan. I’ve been lying here for the last few minutes thinking about why we haven’t done anything about him down there. It’s not a very gracious thing to go off fucking while your family butler, whom you love like an uncle, is lying dead in the hall of your house. That has got to be a very peculiar way to react.”
“You’re right,” Greer said. “It sure is.”