by Saul, Jonas
“Can I help you folks?”
Nothing pissed me off more than being startled.
My human body jumped a foot and let out a small squeal as all three of us turned around and stared death in the face. The man standing with the aid of a cane was twenty feet away. He must have been at least ninety-years old. The side of his face looked melted, like he’d kissed a fire and paid for it. He was simply gorgeous.
“I’m sorry, we were just looking around,” John said.
Do you realize how dumb that sounds? Oh, we’re just looking around in the middle of the tall grass and huge trees. We must’ve looked like complete idiots.
“I haven’t seen anyone this far off the road in a long time,” the old man said.
“Is this your property?” John asked.
“My papa owned it and it fell into my hands when he died in the fifties. I’ve lived here since I was born in 1934.”
I looked at Jacob. His head was down as he stared at something on the ground. I could tell he was thinking. Then my eight-year-old son spoke as he looked up at the old man.
“Your name is Kirk Sutton. I remember you because you always played with frogs. You actually had a few pet frogs that you wouldn’t let anyone near. We used to tease you about it.”
The old man looked at Jacob/Mark. He studied my son with a wry smile that turned to a scowl. A few seconds passed before he spoke. “How did you know my name? And how do you know about my frogs?”
“I know because I’m Mark. I used to live just over there in the thirties.” Jacob lifted his arm and pointed. Then he looked back at Kirk Sutton. “I also know about your other obsession.”
“Well now, that couldn’t be possible, little man, since you’re only a boy. The family who lived in the house that burned down were the founders of our little village, Mr. and Mrs. Novar. They had a boy named Mark, but they all died in a fire in 1944.”
I caught a breath in my throat. In that moment, I too, recognized Kirk Sutton. It came to me in a flood, like the dam had surrendered. I remembered everything—the tree line, the landscape, even where the train tracks were. I saw men hammering spikes into the rails as they put the tracks in. My mind’s eye showed me the details of their clothes, their tools. What surprised me more was why I hadn’t known any of this before.
I used to watch my son Mark and his friend Kirk catch frogs as I sat on my porch and sipped lemonade. The yellow dress that I’d worn today was the same dress I had torn off on the day of the fire so I could protect my son from the smoke and flames that licked up the walls. Another incarnation, another time. What I found curious was why I had forgotten it.
Mark and I died in the fire. I knew that now. We’d failed in our joint mission in that incarnation because of Kirk, the man standing before us. And we came back together to live the life that we never got the chance to. I stepped close to Mark/Jacob and reached for him.
That’s why we’re here now. Together.
Our eyes met and we could see the secret between us that had lasted seventy-five years. Jacob knew. All those years and he knew. Together we would kill today and together we would be killed.
I simply couldn’t wait to die. And what an honor to die with my son at my side, again.
Jacob stepped away from me. He reached into his pocket and moved further into the foliage.
“Jacob, where are you going?” John asked.
Jacob ignored him as he moved deeper into the field. I would’ve ignored him, too. He was a straggler now, the only one who didn’t know his part in all this.
“I know it was you,” Jacob said loud enough for all of us to hear.
The old man looked from Jacob to me and then back to Jacob.
“You couldn’t help yourself,” Jacob continued. “But you got burned, too. I was told all about it, but I had to meet you for myself.”
I had stepped into a new realm and left behind my old reality. The gig was up. No more playing human.
“Who told you about me?” the old man asked.
“Your brother. He’s coming today.”
John, that’s you. Getting it yet? You’re his brother.
“I don’t have a brother and I do not have to stand here and listen to this craziness.”
John yelled for Jacob to come back. I turned and rebuked John.
“We’ll handle this,” I said.
The old man started away on his cane. I was ten meters from my son but still close enough to see the matches he pulled out of his pocket. He flipped the top, lit one and touched the rest with it. The matchbook flared in his hand.
The old man glared at the flames in Jacob’s hand.
“That’s right. Watch the fire. That’s what you did all those years ago. You watched the fire while your brother and I burned along with my mother. You listened to our screams and smiled. You stared so long that you got burned, too. It’s mesmerizing, isn’t it? Just watching the flames …”
Jacob tossed the lit matches into the air. I expected John to scream in protest, but heard nothing from behind me. The high grass was seriously dry for this time of year. The old man’s house was too far away for him to escape.
Kirk Sutton used his cane like an expert as he tried to run from the flames. But it wasn’t the fire he ran from, it was my husband. He’d finally gotten it. He knew who he was, or rather is.
“Get him, Daddy,” Jacob shouted to his father.
My brain felt bent. Everything was good, as it should be.
I watched as John tackled the ninety-year-old man. They were lost to sight in the tall grass.
The fire rose above the waist-high foliage not one meter from Jacob, who was laughing as he watched the flames soar higher and higher.
Something clicked in my head. I actually felt it. Magical.
John lifted the old man above the grass and carried him like a surfboard. Kirk shouted something about the police.
I walked closer to the flames to watch.
A loud crack resounded across the fields. I spun around to see a man running off the back steps of the old man’s house. He had a gun in his hand.
“Stop what you’re doing or I’ll shoot!”
Then I heard what Kirk Sutton was trying to say. His son was a cop.
The three of us circled the flames that had grown to a small brush fire. John stood the old man up and then, without preamble, shoved him into the center of the flames where he fell on his back and writhed. He squealed and screamed as his flesh melted in areas spared in the fire of 1944.
The joy I felt as Kirk cooked in the flames was immense. My human body experienced a strong, vibrant orgasm as I listened to the wails and screams of pain. I almost fell to my knees.
The gun fired again somewhere behind us. John fell to his knees, blood spitting out of his mouth. I turned to see the cop aim his weapon at me.
The gun bucked in his hand. A bullet raced by me and shattered Jacob’s face. What a sight, all the bone and blood shooting into the air, caught by the grass, my son’s soul free. The cop with the gun had no idea how happy he was making me at that moment.
I stayed low, grabbed John’s hand, and reached for Jacob’s to form a bond. All three of us lay on our backs and waited. I was the only one left unhurt, but my time was coming and I looked forward to it.
Kirk Sutton had fallen silent in the fire. The new screams came from the cop. He stepped over and looked down at me.
“Who are you fucking people?” His face told me everything. The red cheeks, the wet eyes, the breathing. He was going into shock after hearing his father’s screams. His mind was slipping into protective mode before he lost it entirely. It was always such a pleasure to see someone crack in front of me. Always a pleasure.
I smiled at him. It inspired him to raise his weapon and point it at me.
“Kirk, your father, murdered people,” I said. “We came to make him pay. Shoot me, and we’ll come back for you, too.”
The gun went off and I felt yanked away.
I’ve been at this for e
ight-thousand-two-hundred years. It’s time to retire. My son is more powerful than I thought. I’m so proud of him.
Unlike my cousin, The Grim Reaper, we aren’t lazy, waiting around hospitals for people to die. We take them, but we stick to the tormented souls. We’re like the ultimate cleanser, ridding the world of scum.
Maybe one day I’ll have to come for your soul. I could be your mother, your brother or your friend at school. You’ll never know. But I’ll be there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for my chance to end a life.
Waiting for my reward.
The pleasure in murder is too great to stop.
I am, therefore I kill.
I’m sure I’ll see you soon.
The Ruse
What’s life, but a river of tears? The chase for the almighty dollar. There are more billionaires in the world today than there has ever been in the history of man. I used to be like those people—money hungry. I didn’t care who was in my way. If I could make a buck, I’d do it.
That was until I learned a lesson only life and death could teach. And now I do the right thing.
Be a stand-up guy? Or fall down?
Decisions, decisions.
But first, let me tell you how I got there.
My life changed forever with one text message.
I was a real estate agent. I played on the stock market. I watched the penny stocks, waiting for one to strike gold and be worth hundreds, or even thousands, overnight. I was the guy that handled the million-dollar homes in our little community on the Bay. The commissions were huge. I lived well, even if I only sold one house every three months.
Then I got a text message: “John Turnbull.”
At the time, that name meant nothing to me. I checked to see who’d sent it. The first red flag was planted as there was no return number. I’d never seen that before. There’s always a number to reply to.
I’m usually a pretty organized guy. I use a day timer, a calendar, a notebook, an appointment book, and two computers at home to track everything about my clients. My cell phone is a mini computer, detailing my day’s routine, activities, and meetings. Each morning I sync it with my computer, and off I go to do its bidding.
I’d never heard of a John Turnbull, though.
Two hours after I received the text, I was sitting at my desk in my office. Jessica, my company secretary, buzzed me to say I had a call waiting on line two. She said the caller wouldn’t identify himself. That’s Jessica, always fucking around. She’s got issues, man. I mean, serious parent issues. They’re dead, she’s not. That’s the issue.
I picked up line two to discover that I was talking to John Turnbull.
Of course I asked him if he’d sent the text and he denied it. Apparently, he doesn’t even own a cell phone. John and his wife are in their late seventies. They’d won the lottery six months ago. After they’d won millions of dollars, every family member for hundreds of miles around began visiting and calling, looking for money. It drove them crazy. John said he wanted to buy a house on the lake, but he wanted to do it discreetly. That’s why he didn’t own a cell phone anymore, and he refused to say his name when he called the office.
A week later, I sold an expensive house to Mr. and Mrs. Turnbull. They probably didn’t need one that pricey, but a little charm, and smooth salesman talk, will do it every time. They overspent, but what did I care? The commission was worth it. Fuck ‘em.
The mysterious text stayed unsolved, though. It started to piss me off. I wish I knew who warned me about the Turnbulls. But in the end, was it a warning? At the time, I didn’t think so. I soon forgot about the stupid text. It was as if it hadn’t happened.
Two months later, I received another mysterious text. A name again. This one I knew because it was my sister’s name. I hadn’t seen my sister in over ten years. After our parents died, their will was not divided evenly. She got everything. I hated her for it. I refused to speak to her. Then she moved away.
I wondered if the text was another prophecy. I decided to block all my calls. I still didn’t want to talk to her. I also realized at that moment that I was giving more credence to those ridiculous texts than I wanted to.
I decided that I could completely avoid incoming calls by leaving the office. I told Jessica I felt ill. She smiled at me in her usual, stupid way. Like she knew what I was up to. At twenty-three, she thought she had the world figured out. She couldn’t even figure out her own fucked-up head, let alone the world.
She was driving the car the night her parents died in the accident. To this day, she still thinks she was to blame. After three suicide attempts and two years of therapy, I took her on to be my secretary out of pity. She makes mistakes and screws up sometimes, but at half the price of any other Coffee Maker, I get by.
On my way out the door, I asked her to take messages, and then wait until tomorrow to give them to me because I was turning off my cell phone.
There, problem solved. No more texts, no calls. The prophecy couldn’t come true. I would not see, or hear from, my bitch of a sister.
On the way home, I decided I’d barbecue for dinner as I did on most Fridays. I pulled in and stopped at my favorite butcher shop. While selecting a T-bone, a woman walked up and stood beside me. I figured she was waiting to grab something from my side of the meat bin.
I was wrong.
I turned and looked into the eyes of my sister. I stumbled a little. Then I tried to not act surprised.
She’d lost weight. She was very thin. Sickly thin. She wanted to talk, I didn’t. I’d gone to great lengths to avoid her and yet, here she was, in living color. She was so thin, I assumed it was cancer eating her away from the inside.
What, all the money from mom and dad’s estate run out? Can’t afford all the drugs and chemo for the cancer treatment? Don’t come crawling to me.
It wasn’t my life anymore. These people I’d called, “Family” had ostracized me. It’s only DNA that connects us. I could be standing beside any other customer in the meat shop for all I cared.
I bought my T-bone and left the butcher shop. On the way out, she followed me and said she had something to tell me. Something important. I shouted over my shoulder that she could tell me in two weeks. Book an appointment with my secretary. Before getting into my car, her voice weak with whatever cancer does to people, I heard her call out, saying she’d be dead by then.
Deep down inside, I’m not a callous man. I think somewhere along the way I placed wealth at my core. People like me are money centered, and I’m okay with that. You will lose people you care about in the process. Maybe that was why I was single in those days. I didn’t care about people that much, so why would they care about me?
I looked at my cell phone a little differently after that. It seems my phone, or whoever sends those texts, knew something about my future. When a legitimate text came through, I always jumped. It was six months before I received my third prophecy. This one wasn’t a name. It was a message.
To save a human life, be at the butcher shop at 3:00 p.m. This is your last chance.
That wasn’t going to be possible. I had a house showing at 3:00 p.m., one of the huge mansions on Garrison Hill. This house was shaping up to be the biggest sale our little town had ever heard of. My client had toured other houses with me for over three months, with only a few he liked. It was just last week that this house went on the market. We drove by it four days ago. The owner’s gardener was on the lawn, watering plants. My client, and his wife, toured the back yard, and peeked in windows. They said it looked perfect. The full walk-thru was for today, at the same time as the prophecy.
I couldn’t miss the appointment with my client. But how would I feel if someone actually died today and I could’ve stopped it?
I decided to do something completely uncharacteristic. I lifted my home phone and called the office. Before I changed my mind, I told Jessica, who was giggling for some reason, that I couldn’t make my three o’clock. Get someone else to show my client the house and if i
t sells we’ll divvy up the commissions accordingly. I told her to hold all calls and wait until the next day to give me my messages.
I couldn’t believe it. What was I doing? I had two shots of scotch whiskey, looked at my watch, and started getting ready for my date with destiny.
I pulled into the parking lot of the butcher shop ten minutes early. Everything appeared normal. As I was supposed to be here to save a life, I’d thought of all kinds of scenarios. If there was a gun involved, I was toast. I didn’t know CPR, so I hoped the intended victim didn’t have a heart attack or something. I went through as many scenarios as I could come up with on how I would save someone’s life. I also thought about my client. I wondered who Jessica had gotten to show the house.