Final Fitting

The bell above the door chimed, and Marcell Crane didn’t look up from the cuff he was stitching.

He never rushed a seam — not for the living, not for the dead.

The man who entered stood just inside the threshold, letting the quiet press against him.

Marcell counted three heartbeats before acknowledging him. Long enough to see if he’d fidget.

He didn’t.

“Welcome to the Corrobory,” Marcell said without lifting his eyes from the thread.

A pause. Then the man spoke, calm and deliberate:

“I need to schedule… a final fitting.”

The needle stopped mid-draw.

Marcell’s gaze slid upward, measuring the man like he was already standing on the dais under the shop lights.

Tall. Broad in the shoulders. Too much tension in the jaw.

“Same measurements as last time?” Marcell asked.

The man shook his head. “No. This one’s… bigger.”

Marcell reached beneath the counter, produced a black canvas suit bag with a heavy brass hook at the top, and slid it across.

“Ensure the customer returns with this,” he said.

The man nodded once, took it without looking inside, and left.

The bell chimed again.

Marcell went back to his stitching.

Two days later, the light in the shop had shifted — thinner, colder. Thursday had come.

“That’s the fourth one this month, and it’s only the seventeenth.”

Marcell looked up.

She was in the corner again, perched on the arm of the leather chair like she owned the place. Molly.

Barefoot with one leg crossed over the other, nylons laddered in three places, a constellation of stains across her pinstripe skirt and white silk blouse. She was a wreck — and that wasn’t even counting the long red line bisecting her throat like an angry sunrise.

She was dead, of course. Molly was. Had been for two years.

But unlike his other customers — and much to Marcell’s chagrin — Molly simply refused to pass on.

He sighed, setting the needle aside.

“I thought I asked you not to sit there.”

“You can see me?!” She exclaimed with mock surprise, hands shooting to her face.

“Of course I can. Put that out!” he growled, pointing to the cigarette smoldering between her lips.

It was the same one she always smoked. The dead sometimes carried with them a token from their life — car keys, a photograph, a wedding ring. Molly had chosen her last cigarette, the one he had given her, and rarely was it far from her mouth.

Molly wasn’t in the chair anymore.

Marcell caught her out of the corner of his eye, draped languidly across the arms of an outstretched mannequin like it was a fainting couch. The dummy’s stiff porcelain grin leered over her shoulder, its half-tailored jacket still bristling with pins.

He passed by, running a hand down the front of the jacket to smooth a crease. The fabric drank the light, charcoal with a faint pinstripe — a funeral suit for a man who still drew breath.

Marcell walked past the case containing cufflinks. They followed him like spider’s eyes. Gleaming, cold, indifferent.

“So,” she said, watching him with that sly little half-smile. “What happens when no one’s left to be fitted? Do you just start measuring yourself?”

“I don’t plan on running out of work,” he replied without looking up.

Her head tilted. “Then who do you think’s gonna fit you one day?”

The question hung there between them, heavier than wool. He pulled the sleeve taut, checking the drape.

“They already tried,” he said.

That earned him a grin, all teeth and trouble.

Her grin lingered just long enough to be dangerous, then she slipped off the mannequin and padded toward the counter.

“You’ve got that look again,” she said.

“What look?”

“Like a raccoon who lost the custody battle.”

He gave her a flat glance. “And the pot calls the kettle black.”

“I’m dead, what’s your excuse?” she said, leering. “And besides, what’s wrong with raccoons? Scrappy little things. Don’t care who’s watching.”

He set the jacket aside, reached for his notebook. When he flipped it open, a loose scrap of paper fell out — a quick, rough pen sketch. A rat wearing a backwards ball cap, mid–cheeky grin, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

He snatched it up as she appeared next to him, standing over his shoulder.

“Oh my god. Is this supposed to be me?” Marcell asked, squinting at the scrap. “I don’t even smoke.”

“Pure coincidence,” Molly said, straight-faced.

She studied it, then tucked it into her skirt pocket like it was worth something. “I’m keeping this, Marcell.”

The way she said his name — soft, deliberate — made him pause. It was the tone you’d use when you weren’t just talking to someone, but anchoring yourself to them.

For a moment, they both stood in the quiet, listening to the soft hiss of the steam iron in the other room.

The tone sounded then.

Though it was more a reverberation felt than heard.

It came from the bell in the back — where the real work was done.

The cigarette fell from Molly’s lips and vanished before hitting the floor.

Marcell looked up from the stack of shirts he’d been straightening.

They froze.

“That’ll be your Thursday,” Molly said.

Marcell didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the half-open door at the end of the narrow hall, where the light seemed to bend away from the frame.

A muted thunk followed by the faint rasp of a zipper.

He heard a door slam, the creak of an old suspension — and then, finally, the sound of tires moving away across the pavement.

Pachelbel was gone. The ancient blue Ford hearse slinked away into the night, having surreptitiously delivered its cargo. Its duty was complete.

Marcell moved toward the table, Molly trailing close behind. In the center of the backroom, hanging from the delivery hook, was the black canvas suit bag from earlier.

Marcell unhooked it with practiced ease, laid it on the fitting table, and unzipped it in one smooth draw.

Two gold coins rested over the man’s closed eyes, gleaming against the waxy skin. Payment, plain and simple.

Marcell pocketed them without ceremony — the dead didn’t need change.

He inhaled.

His eyes rolled back.

He was standing in a hallway now.

The air was stale.

Glass crunched underfoot. Picture frames lay shattered against peeling wallpaper, scattered among the detritus of a life abandoned.

He stepped over each piece.

Somewhere ahead, a television murmured — laughter, crying, fighting, singing. The sound of a life in jumpcuts.

The pale blue light led him to a sitting room. Two chairs faced the screen. One was taken by a man with a glass of brandy in his hand. Another glass waited on the table between them.

“Come on, sit down. You’re gonna miss the best part,” the man said, waving at the empty chair without turning to look.

Marcell adjusted his tie and stepped forward.

The screen flickered through moments: a marriage, a divorce, a night of passion, a murder. A carousel of days — beautiful, ugly, unremarkable — spinning past without pause.

Marcell watched in silence. When the man lifted the spare glass in offering, he declined. You don’t drink with the dead.

Instead, he drew a cigarette from his case — the same kind he had once given Molly — lit it, and offered one.

The man accepted. Smoke leaked from a hole in his chin — roughly the size of a .45.

“Do that to yourself?” Marcell asked.

“No. But they wanted to make it look like I did.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter? Job’s done, right? I mean, look at this place. Where even are we? Who are you?”

“A professional. We’re somewhere between — and not for long. Neither of us can stay here. I’ve come to… facilitate your passing.”

“And what does that look like?”

Marcell stood, brushing off his sleeves.

“Since your patron booked you for the standard fitting, we’ll have to make do with something off the rack. Allow me.”

He walked past the television — just as the man was taking a shot for what appeared to be his 21st birthday — and toward a wood-paneled wall on the far side of the room.

As he approached, doors began to etch themselves into the wood. Each was topped by a small placard displaying a numeral.

Marcell strode to “VIII” and opened the door.

A blinding light filled the room.

When it abated, the man’s final suit was left behind.

Marcell gestured toward it. “Try everything on.”

Back in the shop, Marcell zipped the suit bag closed and hoisted it onto a steel rail.

With a practiced motion, he sent it sliding into a wide-bore chute at the rear of the room.

Somewhere far below, the tube opened to the sea, consigning its occupant to the deep.

He watched until the hum of the mechanism faded, then turned to the sink, rinsed the bag inside and out, and hung it to dry — ready for the next customer.

Molly leaned in the doorway, arms folded. “One day, someone’s gonna pay in counterfeit.”

“Then I’ll send them back,” Marcell said, and reached for his needle.

The bell in the front of the shop chimed once more, and the ritual began again