Greg Holmes was anxious. He had wanted to make this trip for a long while and was trying to waste as little time as possible. Although it was only morning, the day was dark - dark and hot. He felt as if he was breathing warm syrup. Greg opened the car window to let in a breeze, hoping it would dissolve the thick spongy air. The smell of tar and eucalyptus flooded in with the dusty wind. Penrose was cursed with eucalyptus. Greg had been living there for some time, ever since the insurance company he worked for had transferred him. They had told him Penrose was an up and coming little town with hundreds of prospects. They lied. It was a nowhere place: a dirty rural town where everyone read the Bible and gambled.

To drive into Penrose you had to follow a long winding motorway. Narrow bumpy streets crept off the main road, extending like dusty little fingers into the town and beyond. Almost all the houses and shops were built out of a powdery red brick that rubbed off on everyone - on everything. From a distance, the place looked like a crouching rat, ruffled by the wind. For the past week, the streets had been knotted with people. Penrose was the home of the region’s annual Tupperware festival. It gave the town an excuse to dress up in its Sunday best and hold a carnival. Year after year, the same homemade pies were sold to the same people while the rickety Ferris wheel rotated, covering hundreds of visitors in the dust that never settled. Greg needed to escape.

Bracken Street was fifteen minutes south of Penrose’s outskirts. A distance most people wouldn’t travel in the festering summer sun unless it was necessary. Everyone dreaded that necessity. Greg had ventured to Bracken street once before and now he was eager to return. Only two places inhabited the street. Greg was heading to the second - the funeral parlour. To get to it, he had to pass Bob’s Dry Cleaners, a shop that prostituted itself in the hope that someone would enter. It confronted the passer by with bright colours, shouting out its name to the dusty road. Bob’s Dry Cleaners looked awkward in the shadow of the funeral parlour: a sprawling wooden building that lay next to the carcass of a rusting railway track. It squatted against a peeling wall, staring out towards Penrose. It had no sign, but then again, it didn’t need advertising. Everyone died sometime. Bracken Street was a place people went to remove stains or offload the dead. Greg was there to do neither.

Greg was not a typical insurance salesman. He didn’t stink of desperation. He was uncharacteristically handsome; in fact, every girl in Penrose had descended on his front door when he had first arrived. A pastel cloud of dazzling vultures, armed with their mothers’ apple pies and their older sisters’ cheap perfume. Maybe they wanted him because he was the only man who wasn’t stained with the dust of the town, but nothing lasts forever; after a while Greg got a little smudged. Greg did have one quality essential for a salesman. He could slip, effortlessly, into whatever character best suited the client. However, Greg Holmes didn’t give a damn about insurance. He did his job when he had to; the rest of the time he used his talent to discuss everything other than accidental death-cover. People trusted Greg. They opened up to him. He knew everything about everyone in that town. He talked to Mary about her husband’s violent drinking spurts. On bingo nights, Mrs Sanders would whisper animatedly about her boss’s various affairs and on most Sundays, Mr. Kaplan, the local preacher, would let Greg in on his ‘five golden rules of tax evasion’.

Greg was not an insurance salesman, not really. He was a writer: a fine connoisseur of people and situations. He had agreed to move to Penrose because he needed inspiration. Greg was looking for a story. He hoped the little town was hiding an amazing tale or a rare character: the type that only seems to emerge out of small, backward places. Greg believed that it was his job to find those characters and write about them. Not in all his months in Penrose had Greg found what he was looking for. Not until he met Tom Pyron. He had sold him an insurance policy - that had been two weeks ago.

After their first encounter, Greg had tried to return to Mr Pyron’s funeral parlour. He wanted to find out more about the man and the place. Only three people worked there: Tom, his nephew Jonathan, and Luke, an assistant who helped with anything and everything. Greg had tried to contact Tom. He had made telephone calls and left messages, but no one had replied. According to town-gossip Mr Pyron was ill - that made no difference to Greg. When he had woken up that morning he had decided that this time he wouldn’t call, he would just arrive. Greg suspected Tom Pyron was hoarding secrets. He wanted to find out what they were.

Tom Pyron was a man beyond fifty and balding. He was always impeccably dressed in a dark suit that looked more like armour than clothing. Somehow, it never creased, never stained, as though it were immune to the forces of nature. Tom had a limp and walked as if he was waist deep in mud and struggling. Before Mr Pyron opened the funeral parlour in Penrose, he had been a pastor in a neighbouring town. Greg never found out why he had left the church. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. Tom referred to the funeral parlour as ‘the family business’ - that was a first. Tom Pyron didn’t have the look of a man who worked in a funeral parlour. He lacked that morose glare. Tom never seemed sad. You always had the feeling he was calculating something. He carried a heavy brief case, which pulled him downwards. On it, in faded gold, were the initials ‘T.P.’. Greg was suspicious of people who felt the need to label themselves, as if the world had to be reminded of their existence. Mr. Pyron was one of those people. If Greg thought Tom was strange, Jonathan, his nephew, was worse. Together they were bizarre.

It was mid-morning when Greg arrived at the funeral parlour. It was windy outside and the sand particles, a thousand tiny needles, bit at his cheeks. He rushed passed the large wooden door, pushed it and stumbled into a long narrow passage. Inside, the wild noises of the wind faded into a distant desert song. Greg was greeted by the ticking of a clock. In the distance, he could hear a faint humming. It was a dim place - immaculately clean yet at the same time dirty; the kind of dirt that no amount of scrubbing could ever remove. The walls were stained with faint yellow memories of dripping water.

Along each side of the passage stood two neat rows of stiff chairs, lined up like little wooden soldiers. The gloomy passage was illuminated in patches by three florescent lamps. They shed puffs of light that let off a hint of green and cast faint shadows. The lamps were selective about what they revealed. It was what Greg couldn’t see that drew him in deeper. He walked down the passage. At the end of it, there was a door that lead to the reception. It was a rather bright room. He had lingered too long in the dim passage and the warm glow hurt his eyes. The windows in the room were open and the curtains were moving frenetically, trying to avoid the wind. A naked bulb hung from a noose on the ceiling: it was dying. It let off a pulsating sort of light, glowing bright and then giving up. Greg stopped. He had expected to see Tom. Jonathan was there instead.

He was slightly angled so Greg couldn’t see him clearly, but it was obvious that the faint sound he had heard in the passage was coming from Jonathan. He was humming a silly tune while spraying a plant. The plant was astonishing. Bright purple flowers protruded from a bed of jagged leaves. Scattered amongst the leaves were spiky pods. The plant seemed to be emitting a warm glow. Every now and again Jonathan would whisper something inaudible, making weird indistinguishable sounds. He was humming to the plant! Jonathan looked like a bee, his fingers gently probing, like antennae. The scene made Greg feel uneasy. He hadn’t expected to see Jonathan. For a split second, Greg considered turning around and heading back out the door. He stopped himself. He had come for a story, for something unusual. He had a feeling he might get it here.

Greg cleared his throat. Jonathan whipped around to face him.
“Yes?”
He seemed annoyed, as if Greg had interrupted some private conversation. Jonathan’s eyes were set so deep in his head that Greg imagined God had pressed them an extra bit harder with his thumbs. Greg wondered if he remembered him. However, before he had a chance to speak, Jonathan approached him with his hand held out. His expression had changed. He looked almost friendly.
“Mr. Holmes, can I help you?”
Jonathan’s movements seemed practised. His voice gurgled, as if his words were drowning in spit. Greg put on his warmest expression and clasped his hand.
“Jonathan, how are you?”
Jonathan said nothing, but he did manage a nervous little half-smile.
“Uh, I was in the area,” Greg continued, “so I decided to stop by and see if your uncle was around. Is he in?”
At the mention of his uncle, Jonathan stiffened. A crease began to form on his forehead, as though he was contemplating something. A moment later, it was gone. Greg felt Jonathan might be waiting for an elaboration.
“It’s about his life insurance”.
“Oh, I see,” Jonathan said, arching his brows, “he’ll be arriving shortly. Take a seat Mr Holmes. You don’t mind waiting?”
He gestured to a table and chair in the corner of the room, and then silently returned to his position behind the front desk.

Greg made his way over to the chair and sat down. He had an unusual characteristic for a salesman - he didn’t mind waiting. Greg made sure to sit with his back to Jonathan. The boy was giving him the creeps. He had started that wretched humming again. Every now and again Greg sneaked a slow cautious glance in Jonathan’s direction, he was beginning to feel slightly apprehensive. He told himself to get a grip. Sure, the kid was strange but who gave a damn. If he could cope with Penrose for three years, he could cope with this. In any case, this visit might give him an idea for a story. Greg grinned at the thought.

On the table, there was a newspaper and a pile of books. Greg picked up the paper. It smelled of fresh ink. As he read, words with no meaning blurred his vision. He couldn’t concentrate. His eyes roamed about, restlessly. A tumble of thoughts were bouncing around his head. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t ignore Jonathan. Greg was sure he was watching him. Jonathan’s pupils were drilling into his back. He could feel them. The black dots began to move around the page like ants on something sweet. Greg put down the paper and went through the books. There was a Bible, naturally, always number one on Penrose’s bestseller list. Next to it was a book on biological warfare. Biological warfare, in a funeral parlour? Greg picked it up and began to page through it. An instant later, he turned to Jonathan holding the book above his head.
“Not something I expected to find in a funeral parlour. Is it your uncle’s?”
“I put it there,” Jonathan replied, “I thought it might liven the place up a bit.”
“Oh, yeah, I suppose it does, in a way.”
Greg turned around. He couldn’t figure out if Jonathan was joking or being serious, so he paged through the book for a while, not wanting to insult him.

People in Penrose lived to talk about each other. It gave them a sense of purpose. Mrs Androse had told Greg, over a foul piece of cheesecake, that Jonathan’s parents had died in an awful car accident. Jonathan had been in the car. He was stuck in it for three hours after the crash, watching his parents die. Directly after the accident, Jonathan was taken in by his father’s older brother, who in Mrs Androse’s estimation was ‘not the most charitable of men’. His uncle had made him work in the funeral parlour to earn his keep. Mary seemed to think that the funeral parlour had become Jonathan’s security. It drew him in and kept him there so that he no longer wanted to escape, and even if he did, where could he go?

Greg was beginning to feel impatient. Unable to wait another moment, he decided to strike up a conversation.
“Unusual plant that,” he said, pointing to Jonathan’s significant other. He meant it. He had noticed the plant the instant he had walked into the room.
Jonathan’s expression transformed instantaneously.
“Yes, it’s astonishing, isn’t it? I’m glad you noticed.”
A slow yellow smile etched its way across Jonathan’s face, revealing a gold filling that clutched one of his bottom left teeth. It winked at Greg every time the light caught it. Greg understood people from the little things they did. He saw Jonathan in the way he smiled at that moment. He couldn’t decide if he liked him or not. Strange, Greg usually read people easily. All he had grasped about Jonathan was that he was beginning to find him interesting.

Jonathan had moved close to Greg. Too close. There were two wet patches underneath Jonathan’s armpits. The strong smell of sweat was making Greg sick. After an uncomfortable moment, Greg spoke.
“You have an unusual job. I was wondering, well, I hope you don’t mind me asking. What is it like, working in a funeral parlour?”
Jonathan’s answer was quick and unexpected.
“It turns you into a ghost.”
The smile froze on Greg’s face. He didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t have to, Jonathan continued for him.
“The thing about a funeral parlour, Mr Holmes, is that it’s an in-between place. You never quite know where you are.”
Then, he turned and slowly began to walk towards the door at the other end of the room. This was intriguing. Greg quickly abandoned the table and chair and blindly pursued him.
“An in between place, what do you mean?”
“I mean, I never know whose world I’m in. Yours or theirs.”
“Theirs?”
“The dead.”
Then, as if he was suggesting the most natural thing in the world, Jonathan added, “Would you like to see one, Greg?”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s Mrs Temple”, Jonathan’s voice was animated now, excited. “You did hear? She died on Friday. We just got her today, fresh from the morgue. The funeral’s at two.”
Of course Greg knew Mrs Temple, everyone did, the nasty old bitch. She had died in her sleep; everyone was expecting it. God knows it had taken her long enough - she was eighty-seven.

Greg felt edgy. Jonathan’s suggestion had caught him off guard, but he had to admit, the prospect of seeing a corpse was thrilling - horrifying. The proposal left him with a strange, indescribable sense of anticipation.
“What about Tom? You said he’d be back any minute.”
Until that moment, Greg had forgotten about Tom. To be honest, he couldn’t care about him anymore. Jonathan was much more interesting. Nevertheless, he had to ask; he didn’t relish the prospect of being caught disrupting business.
“Don’t worry Greg. He and Luke went to a cremation. They should still be a while.”
“Oh, don’t you do cremations on the premises?”
“No, but we can organise to have it done on the other side of town – only on special request.”

As Jonathan finished his sentence, he slipped through the door behind the counter. It was left open, swaying back and forth. Greg knew he was meant to follow. He walked into a medium sized room. In its far left corner, there was another door. A few feet further right, the room ended in a staircase. Jonathan was just ahead. He paused and turned, his eyes settled on Greg like two black flies.
“He makes me paint them.”
Greg was stunned. It was the sort of sentence you had to step back from, to examine if you had heard right.
“I put makeup on all the corpses. I’m an artist; a painter.”
There was a heavy pause. Jonathan was holding his hands tightly together, up high in front of his chest. Greg could tell he was squeezing because white blobs were beginning to appear on his reddish skin.
“When my parents died, the day after I moved in, he made me paint my first corpse. It was my father.”
Jonathan’s words were acid, and his face, a cast of pure hatred. Greg could hardly speak.
“God. How… how awful!”
“My uncle said I remembered him best the way he was. That it was my job to make him look alive again.”

Greg couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Tom had come across as an unpleasant man, but this…
“Tom told me he was a pastor!” Greg muttered, in the hope of some sort of explanation. He didn’t get one.
“He was. Do you know what he told me on the day of the funeral? To thank God for everything, even for the bad. So I sat on my stool, washing my father and thanking God while he stood behind me, watching. He always said that if I was going to work in the business, I better become hard to it: to death.”
Jonathan loathed his uncle; Greg could see it on his face. He flung Greg a shrewd look and was silent. When his voice returned, from somewhere far away, it was as if he had forgotten Greg was even there.
“When I first started painting them, I couldn’t sleep. Then I got used to it. Later, I began to enjoy it. I’m very good now.”
Greg felt numb. Jonathan wet his lips. Red patches had appeared on his cheeks. He looked up, remembering Greg.
“Ah yes, I promised to show you Mrs Temple. She’s this way. Follow me.”

Greg trailed just behind Jonathan. They walked through the door in the far left corner. It led to a plain room with bumpy pink walls. There was a slight difference in temperature, nothing too noticeable, just cooler. It was like being inside a huge peach. In the centre of the room, like a tiny pip, was a dead Mrs Temple. She was lying on a metal table. Looming over her, like a thin white worm, was a large lamp. On the counter, next to the lamp, was a clutter of bottles, jars, brushes and creams. They were every colour imaginable, every size and shape. Greg stared at Mrs Temple. He was aghast. It was amazing, unbelievable! In life, the woman had been a malevolent old hag. In death, she looked saintly. Jonathan had made her seem like the grandmother everyone wished they had. All her malice had been painted over, ever so subtly. She was dressed in creamy silk. Her hair, coarse and ragged in life, was soft and neat, done up loosely in a high bun.
“It’s remarkable,” Greg exclaimed, “you’ve made her look, well, nice.”
“It’s taken me years to get my technique just right.”
“Don’t you keep her in a, uh, colder place? You know, to preserve her?”
“We do, but her funeral’s in an hour or two, she’ll be going into her coffin soon.”
“You’ve got quite a talent.”
Jonathan was obviously pleased with himself. His face was glowing with excitement. He responded immediately.
“Would you like to see something else?”
“What?”
“This way.”

At the back of his mind, Greg harboured a suspicion that Jonathan was playing a game with him. What type of game Greg couldn’t guess. He was too distracted to think straight. Jonathan’s enthusiasm was infectious! Greg couldn’t resist it. His apprehension melted. The place was turning out to be a treasure chest of macabre delights. It was exhilarating. Greg hadn’t felt such a blaze of emotions in months, years. Penrose had been boring him to death, and this visit was making him feel alive again.

Jonathan was rushing. He went out the door and down the rickety wooden staircase, Greg following behind him. At the bottom of the stairs was what must once have been the basement of the old building. It had a stale, earthy smell. Tom had turned it into their home. It was dark and cramped. Greg felt as if he had walked into a black and white movie. A lamp was on, yet as hard as it tried it couldn’t give off enough light. There were no windows. It was neat - organised. Every object was honoured with its own special place.

There was a little coffee table in the middle of the room. On it sat a radio. The sound was down, not off, and out of the corner of his ear Greg could hear a faded orchestra that trailed him like a mosquito. The room broke off into a tiny kitchen. A large gold crucifix was plastered onto a wall behind a bookshelf. Jonathan was leading Greg to a door underneath the staircase. Greg ran his fingers along the wall closest to him. It was cold and slimy.
“He turned the basement into our home. In this business, it’s always better to be close by. In case of emergencies.”
“Oh, that makes sense I suppose.”

Jonathan opened the door under the stairs. Greg gaped. It was like walking into a fantastic purple theme park. Jonathan observed Greg intently, analysing his reaction. Covering every inch of wall were enormous paintings of the plant he had seen in the reception. They were exquisite! They caught Greg’s eyes immediately and held them until they began to tear. He couldn’t blink. Jonathan had painted the plant in every way imaginable. In some pictures it was smiling. In others, it looked ferocious, about to devour whoever was looking. In the largest painting, the plant seemed to be trapped in a tornado. It was twisted, purple and red: its colours violent and swirling.
“I don’t only paint corpses.” Jonathan’s voice was smug.
“These are fantastic. Fantastic!”
Jonathan’s grin widened, revealing his teeth.
“What type of flower is it?”
“It’s a Datura Stramonium. Better known as The Devil’s Apple.
His voice was solemn, as if he was introducing Greg to a very important foreign dignitary. Greg didn’t want to interrupt. Jonathan licked his lips.
“I found out about the Datura a couple of months back, when we got a call early one Saturday morning. Tommy Simmons had died. We were to start getting things ready for the funeral.” Jonathan’s eyes were red. They darted about frenetically. A layer of slimy sweat was forming on his face.

Greg’s excitement and fascination began to ebb. Jonathan looked completely insane! Understanding was beginning to creep up on Greg; he had an idea of where this was going. He didn’t like it. Mrs Sanders had told him how Tommy Simmons had died. He felt sick. Tommy was only a child, he couldn’t have been more than four.

“They just found him dead,” Jonathan said in a matter of fact tone, “he was a perfectly normal child, a happy little thing. I’m sure you heard about the family - very rich. They live in that big house just outside of town. Jack Simmons inherited the copper mine from his father. Anyway, a few hours after the morgue picked up Tommy’s body, we found out how it had happened.”
Greg’s stomach turned.
“Mr Simmons had had a few business associates over to dinner. One of them had brought an ornamental plant, as a gift. It was a Datura Stramonium. Mrs Simmons put it in the dinning room and forgot about it. That is, until they noticed it a few hours after Tommy’s death, overturned and lying on the floor. It was only a few feet away from where they found little Tommy’s body. He had eaten some of the Datura’s seeds... I suppose they look like sweets, only a little smaller. Just one can kill a child, a few more can eventually kill an adult.”
Jonathan was cheerful. His expression disturbed Greg.
“You see Greg, the Datura contains lethal levels of toxic alkaloids. Once you’ve had a good dose your pulse rate increases, your body begins to convulse and then paralysis of the nervous system kicks in. Your pupils dilate and you lose all sense of reality. Gradually, you slip into delirium and lastly, into a long, twilight sleep.” Jonathan’s eyes sparkled. “The juice from the leaves is particularly deadly in a glass of Brandy.”

Greg was shocked. He felt as if the world had done a summersault. Jonathan was toying with him. He could tell.
“How awful!”
“Awful?” Jonathan exclaimed defensively, “When I heard the story I almost jumped out of my skin! I couldn’t help admiring the Datura. Anything so powerful has to be special. Don't you agree, Greg?”
The side of Jonathan’s mouth was screwed up in a malicious grin. He tilted his head in Greg’s direction. His ear was alert, waiting for Greg to say something. He didn’t. Greg was retreating, slowly backing out of the room towards the stairs.

Jonathan started humming. His exuberance infuriated Greg; he had to say something, something that would wipe the obnoxious smirk off Jonathan’s face.
“That plant’s a damn monstrosity. For God’s sake, it killed a child! Have you gone completely mad?”
Jonathan’s enthusiasm vanished in an instant. A scowl replaced it. For one bold moment, Greg returned the stare. Then, a slow fear began to creep up his body. The horror settled in his stomach and squatted there, growing ominously. Greg felt panicky. This had gone too far. He swallowed hard.
“I mean, that story about Tommy, it makes you think... how could God let something like that happen?”
“God’s clever,” Jonathan replied.

All the blood in Greg’s body was rushing to his head. He felt as if he had woken from a trance and found himself underground. He was dizzy, suffocating. He needed to get upstairs.
“I’m sure Tom’s back by now. He’s probably upstairs wondering where you are.” Greg scampered up the stairs as he spoke. Jonathan was close behind him.
“Yes, we wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.”

When they emerged upstairs Greg felt much more comfortable, but nowhere near relaxed. It was raining. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard it before. A furious blast of thunder made the window pains rattle and the lightning seemed to split the room in two. A storm had been building up for a while, ever since that morning. Greg quickly scanned the room. Tom still wasn’t there and he wasn’t going to spend a minute longer with Jonathan. He looked down at his watch with an exaggerated movement.
“We’ll I’ve waited and Tom’s still not here. I’m afraid I’m going to be late for…”
Jonathan interrupted.
“You’ve waited all this time. Sit down.” It sounded more like a command than a request. “I’m positive he’ll be here in a minute. You can’t go out in this weather Greg… you’ll catch your death.”

Jonathan hovered around Greg anxiously. He was forcing a friendly smile. He escorted Greg to the scarred wooden chair. When Greg was seated, Jonathan moved to his desk and began sifting aimlessly through a pile of papers. His eyes shifted restlessly from the entrance to Greg and back again.

Greg decided he would wait to give the storm a chance to ease, but when ten minutes were up, he was leaving. Tom or no Tom. He stared at the clock across the room. The storm showed no sign of dying. Jonathan’s voice invaded the air.
“Greg?”
“Yes?”
“Would you like a nice glass of brandy, to warm your bones?”
The breath caught in Greg’s throat. He was leaving - now!

He got up quickly, without a word. He had only taken a few steps forward when he heard the front door open and close with great force. At first, Greg thought the wind had burst through it. A moment later, a man entered the reception. He was black-haired, young and ugly. It was Luke. He was holding something in his arms. As Luke moved towards him, Greg looked harder. He was carrying an urn, brown and heavy. It had a golden engraving on it. Greg had been so distracted by Luke’s sudden appearance that he hadn’t noticed Jonathan, who had silently emerged behind him.
“Ah Luke, we’ve been expecting you. How was the cremation?”
“As expected.”

Luke put the urn down on the desk and walked through the back door. Greg could now see the golden engraving. It looked like initials: ‘T.P.’. He felt Jonathan’s bony hand on his shoulder. Greg stared at him, confused. A slow smile crept up the corners of Jonathan’s lips as he observed Greg’s expression. His mouth moved towards Greg’s ear. Spit glistened between his lips. Pointing directly to the bulky brown urn, Jonathan whispered, “Like you Greg, my uncle was never very fond of the Datura… I told you he would arrive, you just had to wait."