The Deathtaker

by S. L. Baum

  Sam waited a few more minutes, but decided not to knock again. If she was sound asleep, and exhausted, he didn’t want to take her away from a much-needed rest. With no immediate deadlines for school, he decided to go through a few more boxes. He went over to the garage and opened the doors, but Krista’s truck wasn’t there. It was pretty obvious she hadn’t gone straight home. She probably didn’t feel as bad as Doc and Pete thought she did, he figured she made a stop somewhere, maybe Marlene’s. Sam called her but it went to voicemail, so he left a message for her to call him back, and then he sent a text saying the same.

  While he waited for Krista to get back to him, Sam went back into the garage and opened up a box.

  Doctor Baker was still reading when Krista’s phone went off. He took it out of her purse and saw that the missed call was from Sam Webber. They hadn’t planned on that, had they? What was he going to do about that boy? The phone beeped, indicating a voicemail and immediately after, a text came through. Doc read the message as it scrolled across the top of her phone. Where are you? Pete said you went home sick. Are you okay?

  Doc figured he’d better call the young man, and feed him some plausible excuse.

  Ben and Marlene got home and started packing boxes. It was a wordless, frantic mission to get everything that wasn’t already packed, into a plastic bin or a cardboard box. Marlene was in the bedroom, dealing with all the clothes, and Ben was in the garage, trying to box his tools. It was too overwhelming.

  He went back inside, climbed the stairs, and went into their room. Ben sat down on the edge of the bed. “There is no way we can do this, love.”

  Marlene poked her head out of the closet. “Maybe we can just hire a moving company to come in and finish it up for us. They can ship it all to Charleston.”

  “I think that’s a great idea. I’m surprised I didn’t think of that before.”

  Marlene went to stand in front of her husband. “That’s because you never thought I’d get better.”

  Ben looked up at her with wonder. “How do you know you are?”

  “I just know, my darling husband. We’ll go see a specialist as soon as we get to Charleston to confirm. But I’m quite positive that nothing will be found. I know I’ll get a perfect check-up.”

  Ben put his arms around his wife, resting his head on her stomach. Marlene ran her fingers through his hair. It felt so good. He sighed into her. “Let’s just pack like we are going on a vacation and get on the road.”

  “Alright.” She kissed the top of his head. “I don’t care what we do, as long as we get to do it together.”

  “Always together,” he said, giving her a little squeeze. “I’ll get the suitcases.”

  Ben and Marlene got on the highway an hour later. The keys to the house were sitting in a mint tin, buried under the soil of the plant by their door. Ben planned to call Sheriff Tucker first thing in the morning, and break the news that they’d gone in the middle of the night. Sam didn’t even want to imagine what Tuck would think of him, but nothing else mattered anymore.

  Marlene’s hand was firmly in his as Ben drove them away from Cedar Creek and their miracle cure, and toward their second chance at life together.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock in the evening by the time Doctor Baker decided what lie to tell Sam. He must have almost dialed the young man’s phone number a dozen times prior, but was never able to put in the last digit. His palms were sweating as the phone rang. Doc didn’t like to lie.

  “Hello?”

  “Sam, it’s Doc Baker.”

  “Shit. Has something happened to Krista? Pete told me she was heading home, but she’s not home, and I have no idea where she is,” Sam rushed through the words. He’d already called Pete, Opal, and Adeline, after having no luck reaching Ben or Marlene, but nobody knew where Krista might be. “I’m seriously out driving around, right now, because I called several people and nobody has a clue.”

  Doc wanted to smack himself. Sam was alerting the whole damn town. He knew he’d waited too long. “I’m sorry, son. I should have called you earlier. Krista is here, she came to see me soon after I told her to go home. She said her headache was getting worse by the second, and when she got over here she began to vomit. It looks like a severe migraine. I gave her some pretty high dose pain pills, and finally got her to lie down after she stopped vomiting. She’s asleep in my guest room and I’m watching over her. She should be fine sometime tomorrow.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  “No, Sam. You’re not. I’m damn tired. I’m going to bed. I don’t want anybody else invading my house this evening. I’m sure she’ll be fine tomorrow, and I’m also sure you can do without your girlfriend for an evening… while she rests, without you disturbing her!” Doc decided to play the crotchety old man. If he were grumpy enough, maybe Sam would want to keep his distance.

  Sam gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white from the pressure. “Doc, come on! I just want to check in on her.” Sam pounded on the wheel.

  “I’m a doctor of medicine. I’ll do the checking,” Doc insisted.

  “I want to see her,” Sam argued.

  “I understand that. And you will, tomorrow. Drive yourself home, son. Let the girl sleep. If you come over here, and she wakes up, and that migraine gets worse, what kind of selfish man does that make you?”

  Sam sighed into the phone. “Alright, Doc. I get it. I’ll go home. It just… she’s been looking not quite right for days now. I’m just worried.”

  “I know you care about her. I do too. Migraines are tricky and sometimes they last for a couple days. We’ll see how she is tomorrow. Goodbye, Sam.”

  The phone went dead in Sam’s ear. Doctor Baker had hung up. Sam turned around and headed back to Abe’s. At least you know where she is, and that she’s safe, he reasoned with himself. He knew Doc would take care of her, but that didn’t stop the worry that had grown inside of him. He hoped Doc was right, and that it was just a bad migraine, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it if something was seriously wrong with Krista. He couldn’t lose someone else that he loved right now.

  What if it’s a brain tumor?

  “Shut up, Sam,” he told himself. “Go home.”

  Abe was waiting at the table for him when he walked in through the back kitchen door.

  “Did you find her?” Abe asked.

  Sam looked at his uncle in confusion. He hadn’t told him what he was doing, he’d just said he was going out for a drive.

  “Adeline called while you were out driving,” his uncle explained. “She said you called her, Pete, and Opal asking about Krista’s whereabouts. That girl’s truck is gone, and she didn’t come back with you… so did you find her?”

  “I didn’t find her, but I know where she is. Doc called me while I was driving around and said that she’s at his place. Apparently she got a severe migraine that had her throwing up. He gave her something to kill the pain, but it knocked her out and he wants her to stay and rest.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Able said with a single nod of his head.

  Sam sat down next to his uncle. “It does, doesn’t it? But I got all crazy on the phone and started barking that I needed to come over and see her.”

  “Sounds like a worried young man in love.”

  Sam ran his hands through his hair. “Sounds like a possessive, crazy, soon to be ex-whatever, if you ask me. I’m throwing a fit with her boss, even after he calls to tell me she is fine, because I can’t stop my mind from thinking terrible thoughts. I got myself all worked up driving around, looking for her, imagining the worst. And even after Doc says it’s a migraine, I start thinking brain tumor.”

  “You didn’t know where your girl was, you had a scare, that’s understandable. I think most men have that protective gene in them. But the whole tumor thing, that’s your fear creeping in. You lost your mom and it’s still a raw wound. It’s not going to go away, that wound is yours forever. I carry my own, but they won’t always sting so bad. I can p
romise that much,” Abe told his nephew. “I’m off to bed. You should get some rest too.” He got up from the table and motioned for Sam to do the same. “Come on, son. It’s late. You can talk to Krista in the morning.”

  Sam followed his uncle up the stairs, and tried to release all his fears into the air. “You’re stupid for freaking out over a headache,” he mumbled to himself as he climbed into his bed.

  At eight in the morning Doc made the decision to text Sam from Krista’s phone. I’m still at Doc’s. This migraine is crazy. Light sensitivity. Even the phone screen is too bright. I’m staying here, in a dark room. Doc just gave me some more meds so I’ll probably be out for a while. Turning my phone off. Call you later.

  He hoped that message was good enough.

  Doctor Baker called Pete and told him he was staying at home unless he was needed. Which, it turned out, he was. Pete called him back around noon. The principal had brought Tianna Tyson in, with her arm wrapped in gauze. She fell down on the school playground and sliced her arm on a broken tree branch. Pete was pretty sure the little girl needed stitches.

  After confirming that every door and window in his house was locked up tight, Doc headed out.

  Sam was driving toward the diner when he passed Doc. He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the man pull into the medical center. Without hesitation, he made a U-turn and went over the bridge, and then down the dirt road that would take him to Doc’s house. Krista’s truck was parked out front. After trying the front and then the back door, which were both locked, Sam walked around the perimeter of the house, peering in all of the windows.

  “You’re a creepy peeping Tom now,” Sam muttered as he went to the next window. “You could get arrested for this.”

  The curtains inside were drawn, but there was enough of a slit down the middle that Sam could make out a form on the bed. He assumed it was Krista, asleep. He tapped on the window, knowing he was stupid to risk waking her, but somehow that didn’t stop his hands from moving. She didn’t move. He knocked a little harder. Nothing. Sam banged on the side of the house with his fist. Krista didn’t stir.

  “You can wake up from a buzzing phone, but not from pounding on the wall. What did Doc give you?” he asked, out loud. “And you, Sam, are talking to yourself like a crazy person. Crazy peeping Tom having crazy one-sided conversations. Crazy Sam Webber. Yup, that’s what people will start calling you.”

  Sam went to the porch and sat down on the swinging bench that was there. He decided he would wait for Doctor Baker to get back. Which took about an hour.

  Doc shook his head in disbelief as he approached his house. He shouldn’t be shocked to see Sam Webber sitting on his porch swing, staring him down, but he was.

  “Hi, Doc.”

  Doctor Baker rubbed at the back of his neck. “Hi, Sam.”

  “I just came by to see Krista.”

  “I’ll go in and check on her for you,” Doc sighed.

  Sam stood. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t. Just wait outside, please.”

  Sam clenched his fists at his side. “Yeah. I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to see her now,” Sam insisted.

  “This is my property, young man, and I don’t like your tone.”

  “Yeah? Well, this is all starting to seem a little sketchy and secretive to me. What kind of drugs have you given her to make her sleep this much?”

  Doc tried to walk around Sam. “I’m not drugging your girlfriend, Sam. I gave her medicine.”

  Doc started yelling at himself in his head. Why hadn’t he and Krista planned on how they would deal with Sam in this situation? He shouldn’t be blindly stumbling through this subterfuge.

  Sam blocked his path. “Medicine that has knocked her out cold. I was banging on the back wall of the bedroom she’s sleeping in and she didn’t budge, not even an inch.”

  Doc stared at him in disbelief. “You were looking in my windows and banging on my walls?”

  “You’re holding Krista hostage!” Sam raised his voice a notch.

  “Please get out of my way.”

  “Let me in your house.”

  Doc hung his head in defeat. He didn’t want to provoke Sam; he was obviously distressed. “If you are willing to listen to a story first, then I will let you in.”

  Sam’s frustration was rising. “Are you stalling for some reason?”

  “It’s a bit of a tale. I think we should sit down for this.”

  “I’ll stand. Start talking, Doc.”

  Doctor Baker told Sam everything he knew, everything he believed, everything Krista had told him, and everything he’d witnessed the night before. Throughout his tale, Sam looked at Doc with a mixture of disbelief, shock, concern, and anger.

  “I’ve given you her secret, without her permission. Please respect that,” Doc said as he finished.

  “You want me to believe all this?”

  Doc shrugged. “Believe it, or not. It’s all true.”

  “Marlene was dying, Krista reversed that, and now she’s asleep in there?” The disbelief in Sam’s voice rang through in each word he spoke.

  “She told me that it would take at least twenty-four hours for her to awaken. We’ve got a few more hours before that is supposed to happen.”

  “So when is she supposed to wake up?” Sam asked.

  “Krista didn’t say it happened like a kitchen timer going off. Ben and Marlene left here around five, and it’s one-thirty now. Like I said, a few hours.”

  “I listened to your story. Can I see her now?”

  Doc nodded his head and unlocked the front door. “I guess so.”

  Doc walked down the hallway, with the boy close at his heels. As he cracked open the door to the bedroom, Sam pushed his way in front and rushed to Krista’s side.

  She was flat on her back, her body covered with a blanket, only her face was visible. Her eyes were closed and she looked completely still, like it wasn’t her on that bed, like it was a doll of her. Sam touched her cheek, but quickly snapped his hand away from her skin.

  “She’s so cold.” Sam reached under the blanket and held her hand. “Her fingers are like ice. What did you do to her?” Sam stood up and turned to look at Doctor Baker. “Did you kill her?”

  Doc chose to ignore the murder accusation. “A dead body wouldn’t be that cold. It would get to room temperature eventually, but not colder. Her temp started to drop quickly, as soon as Ben and Marlene left here last night. The coldest reading I’ve recorded is thirty-seven degrees. But it seemed to be rising before I went out earlier.” Doc reached into his bag and pulled out a digital thermometer. “Here. Swipe this across her forehead. See for yourself.”

  Sam did as instructed and looked at the reading. “Forty-three point two.”

  “Still rising,” Doc noted. “I have Marlene’s cell number. Do you want to call her? That may put your mind at ease.”

  Sam wasn’t listening; his mind was trying to process what was in front of him. “She looks dead, Doc.”

  “At initial inspection, she appears to be. There is no pulse, no heartbeat, no breath. But there is no rigor mortis, you can easily bend her joints.” Doctor Baker went to Krista’s side and moved the blanket away from her body. He lifted her arm, bending it at the elbow. “See? And though her blood is not flowing, it’s also not pooling, or settling, within her body. She is not a corpse. She is in stasis.”

  “She’s not dead, but she’s not alive?”

  Doc tapped at the side of his head, considering the question. “As far as I can tell? Yes. Krista told me she would wake-up, but I’ve determined that what she really means is, she will reanimate.”

  “When will she reanimate?”

  Doc closed his eyes. “Sam, seriously, this is the third time. I don’t know! I’m guessing in a few hours. We will wait together and when it happens, it happens.”

  “Do you really think it will happen?” Sam asked as he took the blanket and carefully spread it back over her body. />
  “I do. I really do.”

  Sam sat down on the floor, resting his back against the side of the bed. “Then what was all that talk about migraines?”

  Doc went to the chair in the room and lowered himself into it. “That was me trying to buy her some time. We didn’t plan on you. But then, we didn’t really plan on what we’d tell anybody. I called and texted on my own. I thought if I could stall until she woke up…”

  “But the desperate guy got in the way.”

  “You’re not desperate, Sam,” Doc told him. “You were concerned. You love her; that’s plain to see. Have you told her that?

  Sam shook his head. “Well, I kind of did.”

  “Never delay the opportunity to tell a woman that you love her. What’s wrong with young men these days? I had to tell Pete the same thing.”

  “She told me not to,” Sam explained. “She said it to me, and then she told me not to say it back.”

  “Women are an enigma.”

  “Krista is a mystery, that’s for sure.” A sad smile crossed Sam’s face. “Doc, if she doesn’t reanimate by six, I’m calling Sheriff Tucker.”

  Doc raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that, when it comes to dead bodies in this town, I am the medical examiner?”

  “That’s pretty sinister, Doc.”

  Doc leaned back into the chair and picked up his book. “I’m going to sit here and read while we wait for her. I don’t think any calls will need to be made.”

  Sam moved to sit at the foot of the bed and rested his hand on Krista’s leg. “Okay, Doc. We’ll wait.”

  The two men moved in silence. Sam flipped through magazines, scrolled through his phone, and attempted to get a jumpstart on his next assignment. Doctor Baker got up from time to time to check Krista’s temperature. He held out the thermometer for Sam’s inspection at each reading. Doc was fascinated by the dramatic drop and then the steady rise. It was a few hours later, as her body was nearing eighty degrees, when Sam noticed a twitch in the corner of her eye.

  Chapter Seventeen