The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL)

by Amber Benson

  Filled for the first time with the desire to know who and what she was—a yearning she hadn’t even known she’d possessed—she opened her mouth and asked what she’d never been able to give voice to before:

  “Tell me about the ‘supernatural’ world. I want to know what I’ve been missing.”

  seven

  Howard was not prepared for the next phase of his death. The first part, the leaving the body and becoming a ghost part had been easy enough. It was the “what happens next” that stumped him.

  He’d stuck around the retirement home for a while, watching as the aides cleared out the other residents from the area. They’d mostly ignored his body while they tried to calm everyone down and get them back to their rooms. He supposed he wasn’t really a priority since Medicare and Social Security wouldn’t be sending the home a monthly check on his behalf anymore, but still he felt sorry for his former physical self. In his mind, his body resembled a limp marionette puppet waiting for its master to pick up the strings and make it dance—though no one would ever pick up Howard’s strings again. They’d been severed and now he was free floating, a ghostly presence in the midst of the living.

  He hadn’t tried to get anyone’s attention, figuring if they couldn’t see him standing there, then he was long gone from the realm of human senses. It wasn’t like he particularly wanted any of them to know he was still lingering around. None of them cared if he was dead or not. He hadn’t felt close to another human being since his wife’s death—

  His thoughts ground to a halt as he found himself excited by something for the first time since he’d ceased existing among the living.

  If he was a ghost, then maybe his wife was one, too.

  He couldn’t shake the idea, once he’d come up with it. It was like a record player stuck on repeat.

  How did one go about finding other dead people?

  He couldn’t just get out the Yellow Pages and look her up, and there weren’t any other ghosts to ask. He didn’t know what to do. He sat down on one of the now-empty card tables, a half-finished game of UNO spread before him. He reached out, intending to flip one of the un-played cards over, but his fingers went right through it.

  But I’m sitting on the card table, he thought, curious about the rules of being dead—could you sit on something, but not touch it? Then he looked down and saw he wasn’t actually sitting on the card table. It was more like he was hovering over it, his butt and hips a few millimeters off the tabletop.

  There was a flurry of activity at the back door and Howard turned to see what was happening. It was the two men from the funeral home. He’d seen them before when they’d come to collect the first and only roommate he’d had after his wife died. When she’d been alive, they’d shared a private room. But after she’d passed, the home had quickly shuffled him out of there and into a space that wasn’t half as nice. Plus it already contained an occupant, a man called Benji, who was even older and more out of it than Howard.

  They’d been roommates for two weeks. Two long weeks of watching Benji’s family (three sons and their families) battle with the fact their dad was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s and had no clue who he was anymore—let alone who they were or why they kept bothering him. It was very sad and Howard, as terrible as he felt thinking it even now, was glad when Benji had died one night, peacefully in his sleep.

  Howard had woken up at four in the morning to pee, and he’d noticed Benji wasn’t snoring like he usually did. Curious, he’d crossed the room and bent down near the other man’s face. There was a funny smell, like rotten cheese, and he realized Benji wasn’t breathing.

  He knew he should’ve called for an aide and reported the death, but he felt sorry for the guy, thought he deserved a little peace and quiet. So he went to the bathroom and did his business then climbed back into bed and fell asleep. Needless to say, the morning aide discovered the body promptly at seven when she came in to get Benji ready for the day.

  These same two men had come from the funeral home to collect Benji’s body. Howard was supposed to be out of the room, at breakfast, but he’d forgotten his hat and had gone back to get it. He’d walked in on them bagging the body—an oddly pathetic sight—and he’d quickly grabbed his straw hat, escaping the room as fast as he could.

  But the image of Benji’s bloodless face being zipped up inside the black body bag had stayed with him for a long time.

  Now he was next in line for the same treatment.

  Fascinated, he couldn’t stop watching as the two men from the funeral home began their work. He wanted to swoop over and yell at them, tell them to leave him alone, but he knew it was pointless—and he should be focusing on how to find his wife, not watching a heavy black body bag envelop his body. He was so distracted by what the funeral home men were doing to his old body, he didn’t notice the Harvesters as they appeared behind him. Only the doleful ringing of a tiny bell, an artifact one of the Harvesters was carrying in his hand, made Howard turn around.

  He goggled at them, the two strange men dressed in Victorian clothing, their watered silk top hats resembling stovepipes. The fabric of their suits—one in puce, the other midnight smoke, both colors usually seen only with Halloween costumes—was elegantly stitched together, tailored to their bodies like a second skin. One of the men was very tall with an Adam’s apple protruding from his throat like an obstruction. He was wearing the puce-colored suit, his long torso halved where the top of the pants met the bottom edging of the suit coat, making it appear as though he could split himself in two. Howard imagined himself shoving the man, pushing against his chest with both hands just to see if the top half would slide off at the waist—but he restrained himself.

  “Are you Howard Fielding?”

  The other man, the one in the midnight-smoke-colored suit, spoke first. He was average height, a shock of pale apricot hair sticking out from underneath his top hat, the tiny silver bell in his right hand. The vest he wore, the only normal color on either of the men, was apricot and Howard found himself wondering what kind of person color coordinated their clothing with their hair.

  “I am,” Howard said, standing up from the card table, but still keeping his distance from the Victorians. “And who wants to know?”

  The taller one motioned for Howard to come closer and, almost against his will, he found his feet answering the call. He could see his reflection in the mirrored lenses of their tiny, round sunglasses, could see the uncertainty in his face as he moved unwittingly toward them.

  “Who are you?” he asked again, his vocal chords tight with fear as, against his will, his feet moved him closer and closer to the tall man’s beckoning finger.

  “Why, we’ve come to take you to your wife,” Midnight Smoke said, dropping his hand.

  Instantly, Howard’s forward locomotion stopped, but he was already so close to the two men he could smell the faint scent of lilies emanating from their persons.

  “You can take me to her?” he found himself saying through his fear.

  Both men nodded in unison.

  “What’s the trick?”

  Midnight Smoke turned to his tall companion and smiled.

  “There’s no trick,” he replied, his voice smooth as creamed butter. “You just have to come with us willingly and of your own accord. That’s the only stipulation.”

  Howard watched, mesmerized by the sleight of hand, as a misshapen iron jar the size of a coffee mug replaced the tiny silver bell in Midnight Smoke’s hand. The Victorian raised the jar toward Howard’s face, letting him see there was nothing inside.

  Howard nodded. Yes, he thought, the jar’s empty, but I still don’t trust you.

  “All you have to do is jump into the jar and we’ll take you to your wife,” Puce said.

  “You promise me she’s there? Wherever you’re taking me?”

  The two men looked at each other again, but they didn’t smile.

  “We are taking you where all souls go,” Midnight Smoke said, not really answering
Howard’s question, or making him any kind of promise.

  Howard didn’t want to be a ghost stuck wandering the Earth for eternity. He wanted to be with his wife, wherever she was, and these two men seemed to represent the only means of moving forward.

  “Okay,” he said finally, making his decision—for better, or for worse.

  “Just close your eyes and will yourself inside,” Midnight Smoke said, pleased by Howard’s answer. “It’s the simplest task in all of the world.”

  Howard did as Midnight Smoke instructed, closing his eyes and willing his spirit into the jar. It only took a second, and then Howard was gone—a wash of gray vapor sliding into an iron jar.

  Once Howard was inside, Midnight Smoke set a piece of metallic fabric over the top, securing it in place with a silver ribbon.

  “That was the easiest one yet,” Puce said, his voice a low growl.

  The Harvesters watched as the funeral home men slipped Howard’s corpse into the body bag already laid out on the gurney to receive him. The cold hiss of the zipper knitting itself together over Howard’s face bore the hallmark of finality.

  “Yes, it was,” Midnight Smoke agreed gamely, looking down at the iron jar.

  “Easy as pie.”

  * * *

  as soon as the fighting started, Gerald was out of there, braving the fog to find his Vespa.

  His brain had been kind of fuzzy ever since he’d woken up in the bungalow. He’d felt strange, lighter on his feet somehow, but now he did what he could to shake off the lethargy. He had to find Molly and get out of there before anything worse (than getting hit over the head and being left for dead on a bed) happened.

  He took off down the drive, running in the direction of the highway, his sights set on the hedges where he’d left Molly. He’d often been told he sounded like a herd of stampeding elephants whenever he ran, but to his surprise, he practically flew down the drive on silent feet. His body was as buoyant as a helium balloon, ready to sail up into the sky the moment someone let go of its string.

  He wasn’t even winded when he got to the hedges, but his heart froze as soon as he realized Molly wasn’t there. Like a dog chasing its tail, he spun in a circle, eyes searching for the missing Vespa. A sense of panic overwhelmed him, but then he had a calming thought, one that kicked the panic’s butt and gave him hope.

  Maybe he was confused! Hadn’t he gotten the wrong bungalow to begin with? Maybe he’d just gotten the wrong side of the hedges, too!

  Feeling a lot better, he jogged around to the other side of the greenery, but his hope was immediately extinguished when he found no trace of Molly there, either.

  He felt like he’d been punched in the gut…someone had stolen his Vespa!

  “Damn it,” he said. “God damn it!”

  A lone car flew past him on the highway and he glared at it, wishing it was him and Molly speeding down the highway instead—and the thought made him want to cry.

  Forgetting about the fight happening behind him, or his need to escape it, he ran down to the highway’s shoulder, eyes scanning the carports of the other bungalows. But he saw nothing out of the ordinary. There was no trace of Molly. The panic he’d fought off earlier began to claw at his throat again, making it hard for him to breathe. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He couldn’t lose Molly. He just couldn’t.

  He started bargaining with God. If he found Molly, he would quit his job at the dispensary and never, ever deliver weed ever again. He would be a better son and take out the garbage without having to be asked. He would never run a red light or sleep past nine in the morning. But even as he made these promises in his head, he knew they weren’t going to help.

  He was being punished.

  His mom had known something like this would happen. She’d been against him taking the job at the dispensary from the beginning, warning him bad things would happen if he did. She said marijuana was the Devil’s drug and his soul would be forever tainted by his proximity to it.

  But he hadn’t listened. He’d laughed at her, told her she was being silly. He wasn’t going to smoke the stuff, just give it to the sick people who needed it.

  Now he knew his mom had been right. If he hadn’t been working there, none of this would’ve happened. He’d run on the wrong side of God and he was gonna pay for it.

  With his Vespa.

  The realization he’d probably never see Molly again hit him like a ton of bricks and he began to cry for real, hot tears blinding his vision as he stumbled down the road. He didn’t see the red Fiat Panda as it rounded the bend in the highway and shot forward, speeding toward him at an aggressive clip, its daytime running lights like two evil eyes emerging from the fog. His own eyes red from crying, he looked up just in time to see the car barreling toward him. Unable to get out of its way, he just prayed the pain wouldn’t be too terrible.

  The driver of the Fiat didn’t even touch the brakes as the car slammed into him.

  And then that was it. The whole thing was over so fast Gerald didn’t even feel it.

  He looked up, astonished to see empty road in front of him. He spun around and his eye caught the Fiat’s red taillights as the car rounded another bend and disappeared into the fog.

  The car must’ve swerved, he thought to himself, his body numb with shock. But he knew that wasn’t what had happened. There were no skid marks on the asphalt, and he’d heard nothing to indicate the car had even seen him, forget swerving to get out of his way.

  His anguish at losing Molly was replaced by another emotion. The fear that maybe he, Gerald McKelvie, wasn’t with the living anymore. Terror tunneled through his brain, and he began to shake uncontrollably. It was as though his body was made out of Jell-O instead of muscle and bone.

  Then the day began to melt away and he blinked, rubbing his eyes to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing.

  All around him sunlight was disappearing, the foggy ocean haze somehow consuming the light and excreting darkness in its place. He scanned the horizon, looking for the storm clouds he knew had to be gathering, but there were none. The darkness was being manufactured by something other than the weather.

  There was a sonorous crack as a bolt of blue lightning shot across the sky, its electric light illuminating the empty highway, making everything look ghostly in the haze.

  There was another crack and the air around him sizzled and shimmered. He jumped back, thinking he was about to be electrocuted, but instead, two women in slate blue ruffle-necked dresses manifested in front of him, their eyes obscured by round glasses with smoky gray lenses. They were both holding parasols above their heads as if they were expecting rain.

  One of the women was shorter than the other, her long black hair pinned up at the back of her neck. She carried a long-handled butterfly net in her free hand, the exposed skin at her wrist, milky and white. Her neck was sapling thin behind the thick blue ruffles that sat up stiffly at her throat.

  “Gerald McKelvie?” she said, a sultry smoothness to her voice.

  He was so overwhelmed all he could do was nod.

  The other woman smiled at him and lifted her left hand, revealing a tiny silver bell hidden within her palm. She was a little taller than her partner, but even thinner. Pale blonde ringlets as thick as sausages fell to her shoulders, the buttery yellow skeins glistening in the darkness.

  “We can help you,” the blonde said, her voice even more melodic than her partner’s.

  “You can?” Gerald asked, still bearing the irrational hope that if he could only find Molly, then everything else would be okay.

  Both women nodded, but neither expanded on how they could help him. Instead, the blonde lowered her parasol, its shiny black material folding in on itself as she set it at her feet. She stood back up and smiled at Gerald before slipping a skeletal hand inside the blue ruffles at her throat, retrieving a small iron cylinder from the folds of the fabric. She uncorked the cylinder and let the top, which was strung onto a silver chain that hung from her
neck, fall back against her concave chest.

  “All you have to do is jump in,” she said, holding up the cylinder as though it were a talisman. “It’s the simplest thing in the world.”

  “And Molly will be there?”

  The blonde’s smile only lengthened, exposing shadowy dimples.

  Gerald wasn’t really expecting her to answer him. Besides, he’d already made his decision.

  * * *

  the man in Gray stood by the edge of the cliff, looking down at the valley below him. He’d had a human name at some point in his existence, but he’d expunged it long ago. Not that it really mattered. After a time, all names became obsolete. Besides why should a name remain eternal when the physical entity had been so transformed that it would be almost unrecognizable as its former self?

  So now he was the Man in Gray.

  It was really more the absence of color than the actual gray itself, that appealed to him. He appreciated how gray brought no unnecessary attention to its wearer, was utterly forgettable.

  From birth he’d been an inconspicuous man. Not because he chose this, but because his features dictated it. Eyes slid over his countenance without registering what they’d seen: the light gray eyes, pale lashes and brows, the long nose, and thin lips. It was a gift from God, or an anomaly of human genetics—he didn’t know which and didn’t care. His innocuous features had served him well over the many years of his existence.

  Below him, the swarm was growing. Like ants to an anthill they flocked and it was all because of him. He’d overseen the creation of The Pit, had chosen its design and its placement over his own, former, jail. Now he stood above it all, watching as the Harvesters and Transporters came in larger and larger groups to watch the cloud of power amassing above The Pit, the souls they’d collected pinned and wriggling in the holding corrals the Man in Gray had built just out of sight. He knew it wouldn’t do for the prisoners to see their final destination; to know they were bound for utter annihilation.