Don't Fear the Reaper

by Michelle Muto

  At last, we hitched a ride in a dual cab diesel Ford. The driver got out of his truck, chirped the alarm and went into the convenience store. While he bought cigarettes, we slid through the doors and waited for him to come back.

  I didn’t want to ask where we were going or what would happen when we got there. Even Daniel seemed to understand this wasn’t the right time. Or maybe he already knew what was happening. Maybe he and Banning had suspected this event would come. Or, it might have been some sort of reaper thing and Daniel decided to cut Banning some slack. I hoped so. How horrible would it be to know when people were going to die? I shuddered.

  No one talked the whole time the driver made his way to our destination. He didn’t seem to sense us either. He smoked one cigarette after another while sipping on his coffee and listening to the radio. About ten or so minutes later, Banning leaned forward and touched the dashboard. The diesel sputtered and the engine lurched before finally giving out.

  “Damn it! What now?” cursed the driver as he steered the truck to the side of the road.

  “We’re here,” Banning said as he got out of the truck. I slid through the door and joined him on the curb. Daniel walked past us until he came to the building situated on the corner. He leaned against it and watched as the light turned green and the few cars in the intersection proceeded through.

  The truck driver tried the engine again and after one false start, it roared back to life and the guy drove away.

  Banning sighed deeply and took a seat. I checked the curb for gum or other debris and sat next to him. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t anything going on here. The street appeared deserted—not a person in sight. It was just us, three souls hanging out on a deserted street corner, waiting for the living to come along. Waiting for one of them to join us.

  A stray cat trotted across the street. Surely we weren’t here for a cat.

  We sat there for several minutes. With the exception of the cat, an occasional spurt of cars going by, and the piercing sound of someone’s whistle and shouts from a street over, there weren’t many signs of life. Before we’d left the truck, I took note of the time; almost five in the morning. Not exactly rush hour. What was Banning waiting for?

  I had expected something, but not what happened next. A car ran the red light and broadsided a sedan going through the intersection. I didn’t hear any tires squealing, only the deafening crunch of metal folding in over itself and breaking glass. The horn of the second car was stuck, and it blared incessantly.

  Banning walked into the intersection toward the first wrecked car. He touched the hood and the horn sputtered, then stopped. Like the truck’s engine, I doubted it was coincidence.

  I looked for Daniel. He gave me an odd smile, motioned for me to pay attention to Banning. Banning stood beside one of the mangled cars, talking to a beautiful dark haired woman in a flowing white dress. She hadn’t been there a second ago.

  The angel (for I was certain she could be nothing else) and Banning stood amid the fenders, broken glass, and a collage of unidentifiable parts that littered the intersection. Some sort of fluid pooled under the car that had run the red light. The airbag had deployed, making it impossible for me to get a good look at the driver. But the side window had been shattered and inside, I got a straight shot at the passenger. Dead. I didn’t need anyone to tell me.

  Groans came from the other car. Behind the shattered windshield, was a single occupant—a woman. How many souls was Banning here for? He walked along the passenger side of the first car, the angel at his side. I had to watch. It reminded me of yesterday in the morgue—I felt like I was outside myself.

  I wanted to join them, but something told me not to interfere. While I heard them talking I couldn’t make out what they said. Their tone indicated they were having some sort of disagreement. The woman seemed apprehensive, even slightly defensive with her arms folded in front of her. Banning’s posture seemed more open, his tone almost as though he were pleading or apologetic. I frowned. I’d never heard Banning plead for anything.

  The dead passenger’s face was covered in blood and his broken jaw hung limply against his throat. His nose had been obliterated, driven into his skull.

  Banning leaned closer, putting one arm into the window. For a moment, the dead guy’s face seemed to move, but it looked more like an image superimposed across his body, flickering like it was out of focus. The guy’s image pitched forward, out of his upper body and screamed. Then the image collapsed back into the battered corpse.

  Banning’s voice carried over to me. I didn’t have to hear each word to know what he said. A breeze swirled around Banning’s feet, blowing his duster. Then the air blew past me and I shivered.

  Cold. So cold.

  This was it—I was about to learn how Banning had done it—how he’d ushered my soul from the living to the dead. The image of the man flickered again. This time, he came into focus. His head shook from side to side and his eyes flew open.

  Banning stepped aside, then walked to the second car. The woman there remained slumped and unmoving behind the wheel.

  “There’s more than one,” Daniel whispered beside me. I’d never heard him leave his post at the side of the building, but I was glad to have him standing next to me.

  “And it’s just Banning? No other reapers?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “Who’s the angel? Is this about another deal?” I asked.

  The woman glanced our way briefly, although I’m sure she couldn’t hear us.

  “They’re working on it, but not the kind of deal you’re thinking of,” Daniel said.

  “So, she’s not mad at him?” I watched Banning as he worked. He was death, but dignified all the same. He moved effortlessly, with careful grace as he bent to examine the woman driver in the other car.

  “Yeah and no. Not like she used to be. That’s good for Banning.”

  “She means something to him,” I said.

  Daniel let out a soft snort. “Big time. And, she’s been warming up to him through the years. But even if they worked things out between them again, it wouldn’t do any good.”

  The passenger Banning had just visited rose from his body and stepped from the car. He studied the wreckage for a moment, utterly confused. A second angel appeared. She ran to him and they embraced.

  “Mom?” he said.

  The woman smiled and nodded.

  During that moment, I forgot all about Daniel and Banning and everything else. This second angel had come for her son. Jordan hadn’t come for me. I couldn’t imagine what had happened to keep her from finding me, or more importantly, heaven. I stared longingly as the angel and her son walked down the street, fading into the air, their images sparkling like diamond dust until they vanished completely.

  “Afterlife to Keely, you in there?” Daniel prodded.

  Even though they were gone, I found it hard to look away. “Yeah,” I managed to say. “Sure.”

  “Looks like the show’s not over,” Daniel said.

  Banning and the pretty angel were deep in conversation. Banning touched the woman’s sleeve. She shook her head and reluctantly shrugged him off.

  I frowned and returned my attention to Daniel. “So, who is she?”

  “Banning’s wife,” Daniel said.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Banning’s wife?” I stared at the angel next to Banning. Her hair was brown, like mine, except hers was smooth, straight and several inches shorter. She was tall and thin with a flawless porcelain face.

  “Yep,” Daniel replied.

  Sirens wailed as two police cars pulled into the intersection. The officers hustled from their cars to check on the injured. “Passenger’s dead,” one of them shouted. He hurried around to the driver’s side and tried to wrench the door open. “Need cutters,” he called out to the others. “Looks bad.”

  I wanted to tell him the driver was alive, that neither Daniel, Banning, nor an angel had checked on him.

  “Woman’s in bad s
hape,” the other cop yelled. “Dammit! Where’s the ambulance?”

  I jumped as a loud horn pierced the night. A fire truck pulled into the intersection. Men scrambled from the truck. Daniel stayed beside me while I gawked. At some point, I’d grabbed hold of his arm. He didn’t seem to mind or care, so I didn’t bother letting go.

  “It’s okay, Sandra. Don’t be afraid,” I heard Banning say to the woman in the car. Banning’s wife stood behind him, ready to collect or convince or whatever it was angels did. Since none had ever come for me, I wasn’t sure.

  “I need assistance here!” one of the firemen yelled.

  Another fireman ran to the truck while a second one checked on the woman inside the car. He reached in—right through Banning.

  “His hand went right through him!” I said.

  “People are just like walls. As long as you think about passing through them, that is. If not, well, the mortals don’t notice, but you’ll look pretty silly when you smash into them.”

  I thought about the firemen, wondered what they’d think if they could see us all standing around, observing them. Would they give up on the people in the car, assuming that nothing they did would make a difference?

  Daniel continued to explain as the fireman reached through Banning again. “We never have a choice about them passing through us, though. They just do. It has to do with some living energy in motion crap being different than motionless afterlife energy. Anyway, it feels chilly. Get a bunch of them passing through and it’s like walking through a meat locker.”

  “I thought that’s what we did to them,” I said.

  Daniel shivered. “It’s worse for us.”

  Phantom Physics was so weird. Good thing I had forever to get used to it. I still didn’t enjoy thinking about that part.

  The nightmarish scene continued to unfold. The driver’s eyes followed the fireman’s face before turning her gaze to Banning. Did she think the same thing I thought when I had first seen Banning? No, probably not. To her, he might simply be a bystander. When I was dying, I’d been out of it enough to think Banning had been a paramedic. Better than a skeleton in a cloak with a scythe, I guess. Then again, the idea that a reaper and demon could pass for anyone on the street should give any mortal a reason to be afraid.

  “It’s going to be okay,” the fireman lied to the woman. Even if he didn’t know it, I did—she wasn’t going to make it. She was about to be just as dead as Banning and Daniel.

  And me. How odd that I accepted my death so easily now. Of course, accepting was one thing, embracing it was another.

  Two ambulances arrived. One of the paramedics checked the woman’s vitals. He called out for some sort of fluid, some cc’s of a drug I couldn’t pronounce.

  The firemen wrenched the driver door open. It gave way with a metallic groan that set my every nerve on edge. For a brief second, I caught a glimpse of the woman inside the car. She appeared conscious, but barely. Blood smeared the interior.

  The paramedics took over and obscured my view. I knew they were busy fitting her neck with a brace and extracting her from the car. Banning stood off to the side, staring at the ground and kicking uselessly at some piece of debris. Whatever had happened between him and his wife must have been pretty bad for Banning to not be right at the dying woman’s side.

  When the woman had been secured onto the stretcher, Banning finally stepped in. She was close to death now. Banning would take her hand any moment, any second. He spoke to her, and she looked right at him.

  “Take my hand,” he told her. His hand slid around hers and she curled her fingers lightly around his.

  The paramedic swore loudly. He checked the woman’s pulse. “Code! Code!”

  Except for the top of his head, I lost Banning in the shuffle. After another few moments of commotion and yelling, and everyone except for Banning backed a step or so away from the stretcher.

  “She’s gone,” one of the paramedics said.

  The other swore again. I guess he understood that with the amount of blood loss, he didn’t stand a chance of reviving her. One of the cops was on the radio asking for accident investigation.

  It was easy to tell the more experienced of the bunch—the ones who’d seen this more times than they could probably count. Their faces were less sullen than a few of the other rescuers. They weren’t uncaring, they’d just grown numb. I didn’t blame them; shutting down their emotions was the only way they could survive day in and day out doing this.

  Banning should have worn the same expression. Instead, he looked horribly pained. Dejected, even. It had to be hard for Banning to stand by while the paramedics tried to save the woman—he’d been a doctor once. Even from where I stood, the sadness on his face was agonizingly readable. He hadn’t looked like this at the hospice center. I didn’t remember him like this after my death. Then again, Mr. Manero had been suffering and I’d been too out of it to recall everything with precise detail, so who knew? Maybe if Banning had been there for real he could have saved her. Yeah, that’s probably what bothered him so much.

  While the paramedics bustled around her, her soul rose from her body. Banning gently helped her from the stretcher. She seemed confused, dazed as she took in the sights around her. She was free of the blood that had streamed from her nose and mouth, free of the shards of glass that had sprinkled her hair.

  “My car!” she wailed. “Oh my God!” She hurried toward it, taking in the damage, the twisted metal that had once been a small, older Mercedes.

  “How did I ever survive?” Her eyes grew wide and trembling hands flew to her mouth. She looked at the blood inside the vehicle and then, quivering, the lack of blood on the clothing she wore. It was almost slow motion the way she turned toward the paramedics loading her body into the ambulance.

  I could relate.

  Banning was talking to her again, and she kept shaking her head. “No, no, no,” she cried repeatedly. She backed up a few steps, trembling hand still to her mouth.

  “She took his hand. Doesn’t she remember?” I asked Daniel. I recalled taking Banning’s hand when he’d asked me to. That simple gesture marked the exact moment of my death.

  “That part is involuntary,” he said. “At the moment the body ceases to exist, it twitches. It’s a soul’s instinct to reach for the reaper’s hand.”

  Instinct? We were born with the instinct to take the hand of death into ours?

  The second set of paramedics had already loaded the driver of the other car into the back of another ambulance.

  “This guy reeks of alcohol,” one of them said.

  Banning tried to console the woman who’d just died. Banning’s wife said something to the woman. “I won’t go!” she screamed.

  Two of the firemen passed through me, and I felt a burst of extreme cold so raw and glacial it hurt. Big time. I stepped away, frantically wiping at my arms. God, I hated purgatory. I made a mental note to avoid walking through anyone, or ever have them walk through me. Good thing it was normal to avoid running into people and walls.

  The ambulance with the injured man drove off, lights flashing. The fire truck had begun packing up, too. A tow truck driver had arrived and was talking to one of the cops. They finished loading the woman’s body into the ambulance, and I felt a pang of sorrow for her.

  Coax her to go, Banning. Don’t let her see this. Don’t let her watch the ambulance take her body away.

  “It’s okay,” Banning’s wife told the woman. “Come with me now. You can’t stay here. They’re waiting for you. All of them.” She shot Banning an uncomfortable look.

  The accident investigator got out of his vehicle and met with the remaining paramedics.

  Now, Banning. Hurry. Convince her to go.

  I wondered why her loved ones hadn’t shown up. Maybe they couldn’t bear to see her body or the accident scene. The dead woman nodded slowly as she reluctantly turned, still trembling, to take the angel’s hand. Like the others, they faded into sparkling diamond dust, leaving behind the
dull glow of the streetlight in their wake.

  Banning stared after them for a long moment. The cops were diverting traffic around the flares and cones they’d set up. Accident investigation had arrived. A man took the lens cap off a camera to take pictures. The tow truck driver connected a chain under the Mercedes front carriage.

  Banning stood in the midst of all the turmoil, looking so lost among the bustle of the accident scene. So lost among the living.

  “Banning’s wife… did she die in an accident?” I asked Daniel.

  “Yep,” he replied. “And his daughter did, too.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Daniel and I stood and watched Banning. It was almost as bad as the accident itself. Banning stared at the wreckage, unwavering, his shoulders slumped. The cops waved traffic around the debris.

  “Not good,” Daniel said.

  “Definitely not good,” I echoed.

  Purgatory was such a dismal place that I’d grown accustomed to Banning’s strength and resolve. Uncertainty rustled inside me. “What do we do?”

  “Do?” Daniel asked.

  “Yeah, like how do we make him feel better?”

  Daniel stood with his thumbs hooked in the front of his jean pockets. “I don’t know. In his shoes, what would make you feel better?”

  He had a point. Life was out of the question. So was going back in time. Since I clearly had no connection to heaven, talking to his wife was out of the question as well.

  “Come on,” Daniel said. “Time for Sunshine to do her job.”

  Either way I thought about it—attitude or the way I died, a ray of light was the last word I’d use to describe myself. I consoled myself that Daniel was at least more moody than I was. Of course, being a demon, I suppose he had good reason. “Why do you keep calling me that?”