Reaper (7 page)

“Probably not.”

“Am I being punished? Is this some twisted
form of Hell without the fire and brimstone?”

“No. The way I understand it, you stay
wherever it is you call ‘home.’”

“So this is home for you, too?”

She nodded. “It’s changed a bit.”

The slightest shadow of sadness veiled her
face. Oz wanted to hold her. To be held.

“How old are you, exactly?” he asked.

“You should know better than to ask a woman
how old she is, Oz.”

“Ballpark.”

“Older than you.”

“Obviously.”

Cora smacked his shoulder, but she
smiled.

“Are you really a lesbian?”

Her eyes swept over the ground and her
fingers tangled around each other. Oz had never learned how to talk
to women. Probably never would.

“You shouldn’t let Bard get to you like
that,” she said.

When Oz didn’t respond, she added, “I’m not
really sure.”

“Seems like something you ought to be sure
of.”

A poncho-clad couple sat at the table across
the Oz and Cora. They shared a peck before silently dismembering
the barbequed ribs on their identical Styrofoam plates. The aroma
made Oz’s stomach growl.

“The summer I turned sixteen,” Cora began, “I
fell in love with a girl. Her name was Elizabeth and she had the
most beautiful singing voice I’d ever heard. She used to come to my
family’s Inn and sing for the travelers. I’d sit on the stairs and
close my eyes and imagine that she was singing her love songs just
for me. She had a husband, so I knew I didn’t stand a chance. But
while she sang, I imagined she was mine.

“One day Elizabeth came by while my parents
were in town and I was tearing my fingers to shreds trying to get
the previous day’s gunk out of a stew pot. She confided in me that
her husband had been nasty to her and that she needed to get away.
She sang for me while I worked.

“For several weeks it became a routine for
us—Elizabeth visited more and more frequently to keep me company
and to escape the terror of her husband. At the end of the summer,
I confessed my feelings to her. I expected to be scolded or
slapped. I expected her to run from the Inn and that I’d never see
her again, but when you keep feelings that strong tucked away,
after a while, they start to kill you. Instead, she kissed me. It
was the most exquisite thing I’d ever experienced.

“We carried on an affair for a while. Long
enough to decide to run away together. Her husband found out,
though, and put a stop to it. I was devastated. She didn’t even try
to see me. I felt that, without her, my life was meaningless and
I—”

Cora paused to rub her sleeve across her
nose.

“I met Bard shortly after that. He was my
reaper.”

“I’m sorry,” Oz said.

“I hardly remember the pain.”

Oz grimaced.

“So if you determine sexual orientation based
on who I’ve been involved with, then sure, I suppose you could say
I’m a lesbian by default.”

“I’m sorry,” Oz said, again. It hurt to try
to think of anything else to say.

Cora patted his knee. “Me too.”

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“I know. But I don’t think you have a
choice.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“It’ll be okay. Promise.”

Oz wanted to believe her. She was kind and
beautiful, so he should. But he felt like nothing would ever be
okay again.

Chapter
Eight

He couldn’t breathe. He was drowning. The
cold wetness stabbed his nasal passages and forced itself down his
esophagus, deathly near his lungs. He flailed—he reached—

Oz shot up in bed, soaked and gagging.

“Rise and shine, Princess.” Bard held a
bucket aloft and shook. Water sloshed inside. “Need a second
dose?”

“The hell is your problem?”

Oz wiped his face with his hands. He and his
pathetic little bed were drenched.

“We’ve got a pick up,” Bard said.

“I gathered that. Is this going to be a daily
thing?”

“The worst is death, and death will have his
day. Out of bed and downstairs in two minutes, Princess.” Bard
tossed the remaining water over Oz’s head and strode from the
room.

Oz sat in his sogginess, momentarily and
crazily thankful for someone to despise other than himself. And
glad that Bard hadn’t brought up Mark. He didn’t want to relive
it.

Mark’s death struck him on a deep level, not
only because he’d been his best, really his only, friend, but
because he’d died in a way that Oz designed. And Jamie. He still
couldn’t believe that Mark had a son. A son who wasn’t a complete
twit. Oz had so much he could share with him about Mark, but he
wasn’t sure that Jamie would want to hear anything from him. And on
top of that, Oz was responsible for Jamie. He must have been crazy
to agree to it, but what choice did he have? The rollercoaster of
emotion from guilt to anger to pity had Oz reeling.

Bard waited on the sidewalk while Oz dried
himself, changed into the clothes from yesterday, still wearing his
damp boxers because he had no others, and left the apartment.

“I need clothes,” Oz said.

“You have clothes.”

Bard wore the same jacket, tattered slacks
and shirt he’d worn the day they met. Oz would ask Cora the next
time he saw her. Of the two, she seemed the only one with a sense
of humanity.

After an hour of walking along the highway,
away from downtown, Oz asked where they were going. His feet burned
and he could feel angry blisters forming at his heels.

“Airport,” Bard replied.

If Oz remembered correctly, the airport was
at least a forty-five minute drive from downtown, which translated
to a two-hour walk, or more.

“We couldn’t have taken a cab?”

Bard stopped and gestured to the oncoming
traffic as if to say,
Go for it.

Oz sighed. No cabs would stop, no matter
where they were, because the reapers would always slip the cabby’s
notice; would slip everyone’s notice. This whole unnoticeable thing
was becoming less and less impressive.

And so they walked.

* * *

The Tampa International Airport arrival
terminal crawled with people. Husbands hugged pillars, clutching
bunches of grocery store roses. Kids tugged on their parents’ legs
anticipating the arrival of grandparents. Line-weary travelers
bonded over the pain-in-the-ass security protocol. Oz tried not to
look at them.

The reapers breezed past a pair of TSA agents
through the exit gates marked, ‘Do Not Enter.’

A legion of baggage-less people stood at the
end of the main concourse, watching the sky through the
ceiling-high window. Several of them turned to face Oz and Bard as
they approached. Cora was one of them.

Holy shit
.

Reapers—at least a hundred of them. Multiple
reapers could only mean one thing—more death than he and Bard could
handle on their own. Oz’s stomach turned.

“You’re late,” one of them said. She was tall
and thin, almost skeletal. Beautiful in a way that a lynx is
beautiful... until it decides to gnaw on your intestines.

Bard made a show of looking behind him.

“Looks to me like you’re all standing around
with nothing to do. So, no, Victoria. I am not late. But thanks for
your concern.”

She rolled her eyes and turned to continue
her conversation with another reaper.

“Fuckin’ cunt,” Bard muttered.

“What's his problem with her?” Oz asked.

Cora shrugged but another reaper behind them
chimed in.

“They had a thing a while back,” he said,
throwing his girlish blonde hair into a ponytail. “Back when he was
a pansy.”

Cora snorted. “Look who's talking.”

“Bard was a... pansy?” Oz said,
dumbfounded.

“Yeah,” the blonde reaper said. “Writers, you
know? He came at her with this poem he said he wrote. How did it
go?”

Cora groaned.

Blonde Reaper chuckled. “Oh yeah. ‘How do I
compare thee to a Summers' day? Thou art... delicious and shit.’ I
don't know. It was corny as fuck.”

“Shakespeare wrote that,” Oz said. “Not
Bard.”

Blonde Reaper laughed again. Cora's gaze
narrowed.

“No...” Oz shook his head. “No way.”

“It'd be in your best interest to step away
from that realization before it blows up in your face,” Cora
said.

Bard approached. “Before what blows up?”

Oz jumped.

Cora nodded at the window. “The plane.”

Bard squinted into the cloudy sky. “I figure
we got maybe five minutes.” He turned to Oz. “Think you can handle
yourself without fucking up?”

Oz nodded, but only as a reflex. In the
distance, crossing the sun like a wounded bird, Oz made out the
shape of a plane, losing altitude quickly. Smoke billowed from the
left engine. It headed right for them.

“Everyone to the tarmac!” Bard called.

Cora led the group to the jet-way door where
they dropped, one by one, onto the asphalt.

Oz was last to the end of the jet-way. He
imagined he heard the screams of those on board, the distress calls
from the captain, the whoops of the impact alert. He hit the ground
as the nose of the plane caved against the tarmac with what felt
like enough force to shake the entire planet. The plane slid the
length of the landing strip, losing huge chunks of metal as it
skidded. Sparks flew. Flames erupted. Bodies littered the grass
along the strip. The reapers went to work.

They moved quickly—some tending to those
thrown from the plane, some venturing into the burning
wreckage—without speaking to each other. The screams had stopped,
leaving behind a heavy silence.

Oz found himself cemented into place. He
could only watch the nightmare. Smoke billowed from the engines and
the front of what was left of the cabin, carrying with it the
stench of burning flesh. It was unreal. The reapers moved from body
to body, Ba to Ba, delivering payment for the boat man. Oz’s head
spun and it was all he could do to keep from vomiting. He swallowed
hard and willed his legs to move. Begged them. He took a small
step, then another, toward the Ba of an old, bent man. The old man
scratched his head as Oz approached.

He nodded when Oz took his hands. Oz shook
violently as he blew the needed coin into the man’s palm.

“Oz!”

The scream came from his left. Cora’s face
drained. She pointed at something behind him.

A shadow snaked across the tarmac toward the
faint Ba of a young woman, standing over her body, crying. The
shadow enveloped her and the woman’s eyes widened. Her mouth
dropped in a silent scream.

Oz ran. He had no idea what he’d do when he
reached her, but he knew he had to get there, fast.

This isn’t happening. It can’t be happening.
It’s fucking happening.

The shadow pulsed and morphed from black to
blood red. It devoured her from the ground up, like a shark from
beneath a still sea. In a matter of seconds, the shadow and the
woman were gone.

Oz’s heart beat hard against his ribs. The
screaming—it wouldn’t stop.

Then he realized it was coming from his
mouth. “The fucking fuck was that?”

No one answered him. They couldn’t. The
business-like demeanor with which the reapers began their work had
dissolved into complete chaos. The shadows came from every dark
place hidden beneath planes and between structures. It felt like an
ambush. Some of them took shape as giant, black wolves with pointed
teeth that extended well past their jaws. Saliva flung from their
fangs as they ran. The reapers scattered, all running now.

Paramedics sped over the tarmac, sirens
blaring. They had to know they were too late. No one could have
possibly survived a crash like that.

The fire in the nose of the plane slowly
consumed it, the flames growing, licking the side of the terminal.
One of the pilots dragged himself from the emergency door and
crumpled to the ground.

His Ba rolled out of his body.

A wolf howled.

Victoria ran toward the pilot’s Ba. The wolf
growled and pursued her. She didn’t look back. A primal cry erupted
from her chest as she tried to outrun it, but the wolf gained
ground impossibly fast.

“Look out!” Oz cried, sprinting after
her.

The wolf leapt, jaw open wide, and locked his
teeth around her neck. It hit the ground and tossed its head. The
snap of the reaper’s neck could be heard over the sirens.

Oz’s breath caught in his throat.

The wolf reared back on its hind legs. Its
mouth opened, the jaw dislocating like a python, and a fog of
putrid, black smoke stormed from its throat.

Banking from behind a burning row of seats,
Bard dove and tackled it to the ground. The smoke dissipated, but
the wolf wasn’t shaken. It snapped at Bard’s arm, drawing a
frightening amount of blood. Bard punched the wolf in the eye and
used all of his weight to hold the wolf’s jaw shut. He wouldn’t be
able to hold it long.

“Get him!” Bard yelled.

Oz couldn’t focus. He didn’t think they could
actually die; that there was any real danger to the reapers. Fear
paralyzed him.

“The pilot, Oz! Now!”

The wolf kicked and wriggled and growled.
Bard screamed in anger and pain.

Oz knelt over the pilot’s Ba. His body had
been scorched to a skeleton. The stench clung to his bones.

“Please,” the Ba said.

Oz held his hands and avoided looking into
his eyes. He blew gently into the pilot’s blackened fingertips. Two
glittering gold coins appeared, and he was gone.

* * *

Just as quickly as the nightmare began, an
unsteady calm took over. The reapers delivered payment to whomever
they could, but shadows had taken five in total. Arm still
bleeding, Bard lifted Victoria as if she weighed nothing and
carried her away. No one followed him. Even Oz knew better than
that. One by one, silent and exhausted, they left. Just like that,
like it hadn’t even happened.