Be the Death of Me (4 page)

Benedict Ford

Axe?

Check.

Mace?

Check

Crucifix?

Check.

I’m ready; physically, emotionally, mentally equipped. The darkness is my friend, the night, my closest ally. I’m Batman, Bond, and that guy from the Matrix all crammed into the body of a wiry, sleep–deprived seventeen year old. My senses are set to vigilant, finely tuned, my mind operating on all cylinders. I feel more awake, more alert than I have in years. I don’t know what I’m fighting against–thieves, murderers, spawn of Satan–so I’ve prepared myself in every way conceivable. I shudder as I remember the way they vanished, fading into the blackness like nightmares.

Short, bark–like snores can be heard issuing from downstairs. It doesn’t sound like Gran had any trouble sleeping in spite of her alarm at the considerable amount of armory I spent the last few days carrying up to my room.

“What are you doing with Frank’s hunting equipment?” she’d asked, referring to her deceased third husband’s old compound bow, and the twenty or so fiber–glass arrows I was busy dragging across the living room rug.

“Nothing, Gran!” I’d shouted, hurrying the stairs, the bundle of old–fashioned weaponry and religious paraphernalia slipping from my arms.

And now I wait. They’ll show up sooner or later, I know they will, hoping to surprise me, to catch me off guard. It’s been days. They probably think they’re clever, coming days later, waiting until I’ve let my guard down, when I’m in bed and they think I’ll be asleep. Well, who’s laughing now, huh? Let’s see what happens when they try to sneak up on me this time.

The hours slip past, creeping by without end. Every minute feels like an hour, every hour like a day. My eyes become heavy and sore, each blink longer than the one previous. A tree branch scrapes angrily against my window, and through the darkness an owl hoots in impatience.

“I know what you mean, buddy,” I agree, crossing my arms over my chest and pressing myself into a sitting position against the headboard. The twelve cups of coffee must be wearing off. Still, I refuse to let my eyes close for even a minute. I can’t sleep. I can’t! Who knows what will happen if I do?

Don’t fall asleep.

I begin repeating the words over and over again in my head, a mantra against the drowsiness.

Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall . . . asleep. Don’t fall . . . asleep. Don’t . . . fall asleep. Don’t . . . fall . . . 

“Will you look at this place? It looks like the prop room for
Gladiator
.”

“You know how the living can be when they’re scared, Billie. He obviously panicked.”

“Yeah, but where did he even
find
a battle axe?”

I jolt awake, banging my elbow painfully against the nightstand. It teeters into the strategically placed wall of weapons I’d spent all night positioning around the mattress, knocking them over one by one like a row of deadly dominoes.  They clatter noisily to the floor. My hand grasps frantically for the kitchen knife stashed under my pillow. The blade slices through my skin, and I drop it to the floor with a pained cry. With my fortress of artillery overturned, and my hand cut and bleeding, I reach for the only option I have left at my disposal.

I lunge for the crucifix hanging over my bed, tearing it from the wall and brandishing it at the glowing figures like a sword.

“Who are you?” I gasp, eyes bloodshot and unblinking. I climb to my feet, standing over my mattress like Quasimodo defending Notre Dame. “What are you doing here? What do you want? Answer me!”

“Whoa, easy man,” the male intruder says. He doesn’t so much as flinch at my threatening stance. “Just calm down, okay? And quit waving that thing around before you hurt yourself.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I swing the heavy, wooden crucifix in front of me in an arc, daring them to come closer.

A second later, as if acting on its own accord, the cross tears itself from my hand, shooting out of my grasp and soaring across the room where it lands with a soft plop atop a heap of dirty laundry by the closet door. I stare at the spot where my makeshift weapon has landed. I certainly hadn’t meant to throw it. Maybe it was an adrenaline rush.

“Whoa!” his blonde comrade breathes in surprise. “Holy hell, Tuck! What was that?” A look of strange realization flickers across her face. “That’s it! That’s what you can do! I’m right, aren’t I?” I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I have to admit, if I ever
was
going to be assaulted, I definitely wouldn’t mind it being attacked by this creature in front of me. She’s wearing the same outfit she wore the last time I saw her, a t–shirt and a pair of great fitting jeans. Her blonde hair is almost white, shimmering like water around her neck and shoulders.

Her friend turns to look down at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he winks.

“HELLLLOOOO!” I shout, drawing their attention. “I don’t mean to interrupt here, but who the hell are you?” I force myself to focus on something other than the goddess in front of me. I whirl on the boy, feeling certain I can control my thoughts around him.

He takes a gradual, though deliberate step in my direction. Even though I’m unarmed, he holds his palms in front of him like a police negotiator. “My name is Tucker,” he begins slowly. “This is Billie.” He nods his head at the girl. “I need you to calm down. We’re not here to hurt you, I promise. We’re Guardians.”

“
I’m
a Guardian,” the pretty blonde mutters under her breath.

They may as well be speaking another language.
Guardians?
The word means less than nothing to me. “I don’t care who you are! Just get out!” I shout.

“Then why did you ask?” The one named Billie rolls her eyes and sighs in exasperation. “Seems a little stupid to ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to.”

“Billie, please don’t make this worse,” her towering friend whispers, glancing back at her.

She sneers in my direction before snapping her lips shut, pretending to zip them closed between her thumb and forefinger.

“Thank you,” he tells her with an overly sugary smile. He turns to face me, his loose, dark tie swinging back and forth like a pendulum. “Now then, where was I?”

“You’re in my bedroom!” I yell. I don’t know what’s wrong with my voice. I’m dangerously close to sounding like a little girl who’s scared of the clown at her birthday party.

“I’m more than aware of where I am,” he starts again. “I meant, where was I in regards to speaking to you?”

“You’re Guardians,” I fill in the blank for him before I realize what I’m doing.

“Right,” he smiles. “Thanks. Like I was saying, we’re Guardians. I’m Tucker Reid, and this lovely lady is Billie Foster. And I feel I should inform you that calling the cops will only be a spectacular waste of time.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re the only one who can see us.”

I have no idea how to even begin responding to that statement. It doesn’t matter anyway. He doesn’t wait for a reply.

“Can you do me a favor?” he surprises me by asking. “Could you maybe sit down? There’s a lot of sharp objects on the floor. You’ll have to tell me how you got your hands on a javelin by the way. But if you fall off your mattress and impale yourself on one of them, well, it would sort of defeat the whole purpose of us being here.”

He says all of this as if magically appearing in someone’s room and asking them not to accidentally stab themselves with antique artillery is the sort of thing that comes up in every day conversation.

“Wait a minute,” I say, still standing my ground, realization finally hitting me. “Hold on. You’re . . . you’re not here to kill me?”

“Nope.”

Behind him, his partner shakes her head silently from side to side.

Slowly, cautiously, I drop to my knees. We may have come to some sort of uncomfortable understanding, but that in no way implies that I trust either of them.

“So what then?” I practically bark. “Why are you here? What do you want? I don’t have any money.”

“We’re not here to rob you.” He remains standing, making no further moves in my direction. “We’re here to protect you. To keep you safe.”

A hysterical burst of laughter breaks free of my chest. “Keep me safe from what? People who break into houses in the middle of the night?”

“This is going to sound crazy, but believe me, everything I am saying to you is true. Something is going to kill you,” comes his response. The words wash over me like ice water. “Or someone. We don’t know. But it’s our job to see it doesn’t happen.”

I suddenly feel defenseless, tempted to arm myself with one of the many weapons lying around my bed. “Yeah right. That’s just part of your plan to get me alone so you can harvest my organs or stitch a skin suit of out of me! And don’t for one second think I haven’t noticed you still won’t explain how you got in here!” I say, pointing an accusing finger at the pair of them. “What did you do, drug me or something?”

The tiniest flicker of a smirk appears around the edges of his mouth. “You’re not drugged,” he relents. “And believe me, we’re a little shaken about all of this ourselves.”

From behind him comes a feminine, though derisive laugh. He whirls on Billie, who in turn shrugs her shoulders and points to an invisible scapegoat at her side.

“We’re not supposed to be here,” he continues, ignoring her. “I mean we
are
supposed to be here, but you’re not supposed to know we’re here, you know? You can see us, but you’re not supposed to. See us, I mean. Do you see what I mean?”

I shake my tired, confused head. “Are
you
on drugs?”

Billie doesn’t try to contain her laughter this time.

“No one here is on drugs,” her friend says, driving fingers through his already tousled hair.

“Then what are you talking about? Why shouldn’t I see you? You’re standing two feet in front of me for crying out loud!”

He takes moment to look back at his pretty partner. She keeps her lips pressed together, and simply raises her eyebrows as if to say, “Just tell him already”.

“You’re not supposed to see us,” he begins, carefully choosing each word, “because we’re dead.”

This is it
, I think. I have finally snapped and my sanity is no more than a memory, gradually slipping away with each second of stunned silence. I can hear what he’s saying, but the statement is so ridiculous, so insane, I don’t want to understand.

“Okay, good joke.” My voice sounds abnormally loud after all the silence. “Very funny. You almost had me there for a second.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

The look on his face stops me from saying another word. This guy either has the world’s best poker face, or he isn’t kidding in the least.

But how can he be serious? Dead? I mean, come on! Magicians, maybe. Thieves, probably. Out of their minds, most definitely. But dead? True, I can’t deny they do have a certain “otherworldly” quality about them. I mean they
glow
for chrissakes! And I will never, as long as I live, be able to forget the way they both vanished the first time I met them, disappearing into the night like vapor over boiling water.

Oh god.

“You’re . . .” I start, trying my hardest to verbalize. “You’re . . . you’re . . .”

He laughs at my struggle to remain calm. “Just let us know when you’re ready.”

“Dead?” The word explodes from my mouth like a cannon shot.

“Atta boy.”

“Dead?”

“That’s right.”

“Dead? As in . . . dead? As in deceased? As in kicked the bucket, checked out, shuffled off that mortal coil, headed into the light, pushing–up–daisies dead?”

I may have armed myself with every means of protection I could get my hands on, but I in no way prepared myself for this. I shake my head back and forth, feeling whatever’s inside roll around like the inner workings of a pinball machine. “No,” I say, more to myself than anyone else present. “No, no, no, no! This is insane!
You’re
insane! Both of you!”

“No argument here,” he says. “But that doesn’t change what we are.”

“But . . . how? I mean . . . why? I mean . . . you can’t be! How can you be dead when you’re standing there talking to me. It’s not possible.”

“Oh, it’s possible,” he replies rather ominously. “Just unlikely.”

“
Unlikely
?” I sputter, ignoring the rush of shivers crawling up my back. “How is waking up to find my bedroom invaded by dead people categorized as unlikely?!”

He shrugs his glowing shoulders. “Then don’t think of it like that,” he says, the epitome of casual. “Think of us as something else.”

“Like what exactly? How am I supposed to think of you? Supernatural bodyguards?”

“If that makes you feel better.”

“Well, it doesn’t! I don’t care what you call yourselves! I’m not okay with this! Dead, living dead, zombies, ghosts, raging lunatics, I don’t c–”

I stop, my attention momentarily drawn to what’s going on behind him. Billie’s hand is raised in the air as if she’s waiting to be called on in class, an adorable expression of impatience on her face. He–Tucker, I think he called himself–notices my slip of focus and turns to face his partner.

“You have something you’d like to say, Billie?”

She puts down her hand, and actually takes the time to unzip her lips before fixing me with a chillingly cold smile.

“Zombie?” she asks, taking a single step toward the bed. I can’t help but cringe a little at her approach. “Zombie? Do I look like a zombie to you, kid? Do I look like I foam at the mouth and eat brains for breakfast? Huh? Do I?”

I cringe. “If I say yes, are you going to eat me?”

Now it’s Tucker’s turn to laugh.

“Listen up, pansy” she says, leisurely placing her hands on the mattress and leaning into my face. She’s close enough for me to see that there’s not a single wrinkle, freckle, or blemish to be found anywhere on her shimmering, ivory complexion. “I really don’t care what you call me,” she whispers. “It doesn’t matter in the slightest. What
does
matter is that we’re here whether you like it or not. So you’d better get used to it, because we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. You got that?”

I nod. Tucker folds his arms over his chest and continues to grin smugly at the pair of us.

“Good.” She straightens up, and steps back in line with her companion. “Now clean this place up. It’s a mess.”

I’m out of bed in a flash, the hardwood floor cold against my bare feet, dashing around the room, gathering spears, axes, knives, bludgeons, crucifixes, and any other sharp objects I can find and stacking them into a pile in the far corner.

“I think that went rather well,” I hear her whisper as they supervise the cleaning process.

Tucker raises his eyebrows at her. “You didn’t have to scare him.”

“Admit it,” she chuckles and slaps at him playfully. Even her laugh is pretty. “It was a
little
funny.”

He grins. “Maybe a little. I thought he might actually wet himself at one point.”

I stop my work to stare at them. “I can hear you, you know.”

“I know,” she replies, not bothering to look my way. “You missed one.” She tilts her head to a rather ominous looking meat tenderizer sticking out from under the edge of my comforter.

I toss it on to of the pile where it clangs noisily against a large, metal mace.

“Alright. First things first,” Billie says with an air of command, finally turning to address me. “We’ve got to do something about your name.”

I glare at her. “What’s wrong with my name? It was my great–great–great grandfather’s name.”

“And I’m sure he was a swell guy, but I can’t be the Guardian of someone named Benedict. I have a reputation to uphold. In normal circumstances I would just use your middle name, but Bartholomew doesn’t really work for me either.”

“You can call me Benny,” I offer, hoping to get on her good side. The last thing I need is some crazy woman–dead or otherwise–angry at me.

“No,” she muses. “I think I’ll just call you Ford.”