HEY ALL YOU PEOPLE. HEY ALL YOU PEOPLE. HEY ALL YOU PEOPLE WON'T YOU LISTEN TO MEEEEEE. (Spongebob reference.)
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That reminds me, remember when Death was friendzoned? "Buddy." LOLZ.
* * *
The morning after Death vanished from my bathroom floor, I felt sick to my stomach and made my bed next to my toilet. When I tried to throw up, barely anything came out. I was left gagging on an empty stomach. I was miserable. The whole week I had called in sick to school, without my parent’s knowledge, although I was in perfect health. I, for one, was not planning on going to high school with the Grim Reaper peeping into my classroom and trying to kill me, slash sign his contract. So, I played sick a majority of the week.
Now Karma was now slapping me in the face. Now I was really sick.
And I had the awful feeling that it had something to do with the power I now unquestionably had. That white, terrifying light that I still had little to no control over. What was it? I was too exhausted to think about it. I crawled into bed and managed to fall asleep. When I woke up, I felt a lot better, so I forced myself to get dressed.
For a moment, I thought about checking my email for Malphas' instructions. He wanted to help me get rid of Death. Problem was, I didn't trust anyone at that moment, or at least, that's what I kept telling myself. I didn't trust anyone, and that was why I wouldn't check my email and look at Malphas' instructions for me. Right?
I shook myself from my thoughts. I would live a normal life. I would socialize. I would see my best friend. I wouldn’t keep in this routine that Death had me in. I would live a normal life.
I plopped down on my bed, wearing a black t-shirt that read ‘I’m Batman’s Wife’ in yellow blocked lettering, and slipped on faded ripped blue jeans over my long legs, paired with my favorite pair of beat-up converse. I applied the usual heavy black makeup to my eyes and black lipstick, sprayed some perfume on, and then slipped my backpack over my shoulder.
I would live a normal life.
“I’m normal.” I flipped off the mirror. “Suck it, Death.”
Smiling to myself, I turned to leave the room, when my bedroom door hit the wall with a crack.
“SURPRISE! I’M EARLY!” the intruder screamed, running towards me at full sprint.
“Aunt Sarah?” I broke into a grin, throwing my arms out. She nearly tackled to me to the ground, squeezing me tightly to her thick, fashionable sweater. As a fitness instructor, she was strong.
“We were going to get you in the kitchen, but I just couldn’t wait! How’s my favorite niece?” She pulled me at arms length, looking at me with large blue eyes. “Oh, I missed you! You get more and more beautiful every time I see you! Happy almost birthday, babe—“ Her eyes dropped to my neck. “Wow, what a…beautiful necklace.”
“Thanks,” I said quickly.
“Where did you get that?” She had lost most of her liveliness, growing abnormally serious.
An odd protective sensation went through me. Suddenly I was tucking it into my shirt. “I--I got at a thrift store. It’s good luck, or something,” I lied. And now I’m indebted to a warlock and a mirror man, I wanted to add, eying the vanity mirror in my room. “It’s just a piece of junk,” I added softly.
“Faith, that’s not a piece of junk. You shouldn’t wear stuff like that, it looks Satanic.”
“How would you know that?”
Aunt Sarah opened her mouth to reply, when Mom and dad poked their head into my room.
“Surprise!” they screamed in unison.
“I should have known you two were in on this!” I laughed, and then realized something. “You guys know I have school today, right? Why would you let Aunt Sarah come so early?”
Aunt Sarah put a finger to her lips, her strange mood gone. “I talked to your mother. You’ve just got that terrible migraine, and it’s best that you do something fun today…” She winked at me. “Play along, kid! We’re breaking you out of jail!”
I looked towards my mother, who winked at me. “Mom? You let this happen?”
“Hey, I can be fun sometimes!” she argued. “Especially when it’s almost my baby’s birthday!”
She never acted spontaneous and fun like this Aunt Sarah was around, but my father did. My parents weren’t as visibly brain washed, as they were the day before. However, they clearly had no recollection of Death’s visit in our home.
They still had absolutely no idea that a big, muscular, intimidating, and unmistakably hot drama queen in a cloak was after me.
“We’ve been planning this for weeks, honey,” Dad confessed, kissing me on the head. “Aunt Sarah thought up this great idea for today. We decided we would give you a long weekend for your birthday. I almost said no, though, because of all the crazy stuff that’s been happening in the city, but Aunt Sarah’s plan avoids the city completely.”
“What crazy stuff?” I asked.
“Have you been watching the news?” Mom asked.
“No, I haven’t,” I said, plopping back down on the bed. The last time I had watched anything on my television was when it went static and Death’s smooth, accented voice came through the set. A shiver went down my spine. “I haven’t been watching television recently.”
“Good. Television is bad. Kills brain cells.” Mom sat next to me on the bed and absently ran her fingers through my long hair. “It’s drugs that are causing this crazy thing, I’m telling you,” she told my father and Aunt Sarah. “The drug rates in Chicago are skyrocketing.”
Aunt Sarah put her hands on her hips. “Is this about that ‘body’ they found at that park?” She rolled her eyes. “I heard the main eye witness was a crack addict!”
“What are you all talking about?” I asked taking small bites of the meal my mother put in front of me.
“I’ll show you. I’m sure they’re still be reporting it…” Dad turned the television on.
“In the latest, the crime rate in Chicago has inexplicably snowballed, after a so called “Man with Wings” was found dead outside of the D & S Towers. Bystanders say the mystery man vanished from plain sight before investigators could arrive on the scene...”
The news station flashed to a witness. “He was alive for a while. He spoke to me. Then, he just went… poof, and vanished. It happened so fast. I swear I’m not crazy. I’m not one of those people who go to Church every Sunday, you know, but I believe in a God. And something just isn’t right about this. Something just doesn't feel right about Illinois anymore. I feel it in my gut, you know?”
“You can say that again,” I muttered under my breath.
“Eyewitnesses who saw the man before he supposedly disappeared, reported that in the man’s last moments alive, he said, ‘A great darkness is coming’. Earlier today, video went viral of ‘The Winged Man’ dead on the sidewalk, then disappearing all together. People from all around the country are shaken up, and are gathering globally at horrifying numbers. Is this the end of the world? Do we have reason to panic?” Anchorwoman Smiley turned towards another camera, shuffling some papers in her hands. “In other news, the D & S Chicago Against Crime advertisement campaign is still being launched tonight. Devin Star, president of D & S, has not directly acknowledged the public scandal outside of the Towers. But when we approached David Star, his son, he certainly had something to say…”
The television flashed on David Star and my heart leapt. He was not wearing his aviators and the flashes of the camera had him squinting in pain.“Mr. Star, is it true that the incident outside of the Towers was a publicity stunt for your new campaign?” a news reporter asked. “Is this ‘angel’ symbolic or your campaign improving Chicago's crime?”
“It is to my understanding that the eyewitnesses who have reported this event work for a rival company of ours, and that the leaked video was heavily edited.” David’s chocolate eyes slid directly to the camera, narrowed like two slits. “The D & S Towers are not affiliated with this so called, “Man with Wings”, or the protesters and criminals provoked by this incident, and we are currently investigating the situation to find out who did this.”
“So we should we expect to see you tonight at the campaign launch with a lovely lady on your arm, Mr. Star?” another reporter asked.
“Yes, you will.” David grinned, and an awful feeling settled in my gut.
“I swear to all that is holy...” I muttered under my breath. "If that smile was meant for me..."
“One last thing." David spoke directly to the camera. I felt as if he was looking directly at me. “My father and I have worked hard on this campaign, and we won’t let anything get in our way,” David Star continued. “The world is not ending. Unfortunately, events like this are a reality in our society. Businesses don’t always like to see others businesses become more successful. What my father and I have built is an everlasting corporation. This strange event, I assure you, was one of our many of our rival companies trying to make people skeptical of our cause.” He rose an eyebrow. “And to our rivals, I say, you can do much better than that.”
You can do much better than that...
Death was clearly calling someone out. But who?
“Lawyers are sharks and businesses are killer whales.” Dad turned the television off. “Crazy stuff, huh? I wonder if this whole thing was just a drug thing, or if that Star guy is right, and it’s a rival company of theirs.”
“Definitely drugs,” Aunt Sarah and Mom said in unison, looked at each other, and then burst out laughing.
I stared at the screen as they laughed, watching a group of Catholic activists holding up signs on the television. Suddenly, I inhaled sharply; a vivid memory came back to me. I was in David Star’s office and something crashed through his massive office windows. David covered me with his body, but I could see what it was. I knew what it was.
An angel.
“Are you alright?” Mom asked, rubbing my back.
My heart pounded in my chest. “I have to use the bathroom,” I replied, and rushed into my bathroom, shutting the door quickly behind me.
"MAY GOD PROTECT US ALL FROM THE EVIL THAT IS TO COME! MAY GOD PROTECT US ALL!"
The scream repeated itself over and over again. I squeezed my hands against both sides of my head, willing it to stop.
“MAY GOD PROTECT US ALL!”
He had made me forget. Death—David, whoever the hell he called himself, had made me forget. Now I remembered. The news had triggered my memory. I remembered the blood on the angel, the empty sockets where eyes once were. Some sort of animal or creature had pecked its eyes out. I remembered the way David had killed the angel, crushing its windpipe until it died. I remembered the panic in Tiara’s eyes as she asked, “Are we under attack?” Are we under attack? What did that mean? Attack, from who?
I was beginning to remember a lot of things, now that I was thinking about it. But they were all puzzle pieces to different puzzles. Nothing made sense, it seemed. In my dreams, I sometimes had flash backs of my encounters with Death as a child. Those didn’t make sense the most because Death had treated me so differently. I looked over at the corner of the room, where turned over canvases were still stacked in the corner, I wondered if there was anything else I would remember eventually, like his identity. Or, I feared, I would remember something a lot darker.
Something that possibly made Death take away all of my memories of himself from me.
“Faith?” Aunt Sarah was knocking on the door. “Honey, are you alright?”
I took a deep breath. In. Out. In. Out.
I opened the door. Stepped out into my bedroom. Acted like everything was fine. “I knew that yogurt tasted funky,” I said, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “So, what do you guys have planned for me today?”
* * *
One delicious lunch of BLT sandwiches and root beer, forcing my father to hold our bags as we shopped till we dropped, and a two and a half hour drive later, we pulled into a picturesque farm, with giant apple trees and happy people carrying around caramel popcorn and pumpkins.
"Pumpkin picking! Pumpkin picking! I’m so glad you said yes, Faith!” Mom did a little dance with her jingle, shaking the passenger seat. Oh God here we go again. “I remember when you were a little baby, and we use to get those little mini pumpkins that you still couldn't really grasp in your chubby little hand. You use to love painting them and then throwing them at Daddy when he wasn't looking!”
Dad winked at me in the rear view mirror. “You gave me a black eye one time, kid!”
“I’m here for caramel apples.” I slapped my hand on my thigh once for emphasis. “If there aren’t any, I’m out!”
“There’s always some by the red barn,” Mom said, laughing.
My stomach growled. “Well, what are we waiting for? The birthday girl wants caramel apples!” My family and I got out of the car and began to walk towards the red barn. My family and I had traditionally gone to this farm every year, but seeing it now made me think back to how large and fairy-tale like it seemed when I was a little girl, with it’s gorgeous scenery and welcoming workers.
“Wait, where’s Sarah?” Dad asked, stopping us. “Weren’t they following us?”
On cue, Aunt Sarah and her seven-long-years-of-dragging-him-around boyfriend, who decided to tag along (don’t even get me started on him), slowly pulled up in the spot next to us in Andrew’s d-bag sports car.
“Who’s got Andrew duty this time?” Dad muttered under his breath, earning a nudge from my mother.
“Be nice,” Mom growled.
Rushing out of the car, a metrosexual, polo-shirt-and-khaki-pants-Calvin-Klein-wanna-be, aka Andrew, rushed out of the drivers side of the vehicle and began vigorously rubbing a rag on an imaginary stain on the car.
I made eye contact with Andrew and alas, I did not turn to stone.
Andrew was one of those people that said whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Don’t know what I’m talking about? I’ll give you a perfect example. Most times, he commented on how many carbs I ate. You see, Aunt Sarah was a health nut, so Andrew and her met at the gym, but I for one enjoyed my donuts and chocolate cake.
One time, Andrew commented on my feet when I was wearing fuzzy red socks, saying they looked like clown shoes. We were at my grandmother’s funeral. I was fourteen.
Another time, he said my breath smelled like tuna. I would have been fine with him leaving it at that—it was the morning after all and I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet--but no. He added on to the insult, saying the tuna had been laid out in the sun for five days, and he wanted to burn his nose off of his face. Plus, he always gave me this once over with his eyes, making it clear he never approved of my outfits. You know the look.
“Why does he have to go everywhere with her?” I whispered to my parents as we watched my aunt try and pry Andrew away from the imaginary stain on his sports car.
My dad and I were convinced that Andrew was secretly gay and with my aunt for her money. It was definitely the pink polo shirts and his obsession with America's Next Top Model and Say Yes to the Dress that made us skeptical of his sexuality.
Not that anything was wrong with him being gay, but wasn't it kind of pointless and rude for Andrew to continue a seven year long relationship with my aunt if he really liked men?
“I bet he demands to share a toilet with her in the woman's bathroom, he's so clingy." I put my hands on my hips. "Then again, he probably doesn't even pee, because he's a robot."
“Good one, sweetheart," Dad said, holding up his hand for me to hit.
We highfived around Mom.
My Mom looked utterly appalled. “Faith! Henry! Enough! He is a nice man and you should be happy for Sarah! He's better than that other guy, Joshua, or whatever his name was…?”
All of us cringed. Joshua was very.... hairy, and smelled of Bologna and some serious B.O. Smelled worse than my tuna breathe after that one Thai food experience...
Truthfully, Andrew had his moments. I didn't hate him that much. His conceitedness and rudeness, I'll admit, cracked me up because I was so used to it. Without Andrew, who would my dad and I make fun of during holiday dinners? Who would we play pranks on while my little cousin, Jimmy, awkwardly opened yet another sock gift from Grandma Beth, and cried his eyes out?
In conclusion, Andrew was a necessary evil.
“Hey, beautiful sis! Hey, beautiful niece!” Aunt Sarah looped her arms with my mother’s and mine, leaving my poor father with Mr. Snob. Andrew didn't even spare me a glance, nor wish me a early happy birthday yet, and I didn't expect him to. “I say we go pumpkin picking, then do that later!” Aunt Sarah lifted her sunglasses and jabbed a finger towards an old, moldy wooden sign that read Moe’s Haunted Hayride. “Looks fun!”
For a moment, I was horrified. Anything haunted reminded me of clowns, and anything clown related reminded me of…
Suddenly, my stomach abruptly clenched and I clutched it as non-challantly as I could. A chill shot down my spine.
I knew that feeling.
Death was near.
I scanned my surroundings, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. What could he possibly want with me now? Revenge, for knocking him unconscious? With my family with me? Now my heart was in my ears, pounding incessantly. I prayed I wouldn’t have another panic attack. Death had followed me to the farm. He wouldn’t let me have a day with my family.
I can’t live a normal life.
"Honey?" Mom asked. “What’s wrong? Is your stomach bothering you? You keep touching it."
I looked over at Aunt Sarah, to find her staring at me with an odd expression on her face, similar to the one that she had given me when she saw my necklace.
“Just cramps,” I said, laughing a little. “Come on, let’s go pumpkin picking. I just need some fresh---” I cut myself off as someone roughly bumped into me, nearly knocking me to the ground. "Hey--!"
The man had the hood of his sweatshirt up with a leather jacket over it, collar up. "Nice shirt, Batman's wife," a familiar, sarcastic, deep and slightly accented voice said, commenting on my shirt. The world seemed to slow down as the man turned to look over his shoulder, face masked by an endless black shadow, and took a long drag of his cigarette, letting a out a large puff of smoke which hit myself, my parents, Aunt Sarah, and Andrew directly in the face.
Swatting at the fumes around my face, I watched Death with a stunned expression on my face as he strolled away, disappearing into a store on the farm.
You have to be kidding me, I thought to myself.
The evil bastard could track me down like I had a GPS stuck to my ass.
"Who the hell was that?" Andrew asked, stopping in his tracks.
"That was really rude," Aunt Sarah said, still watching the store. "Am I just running low on sleep, or was that d-bag wearing something over his face--?"
"You're kidding, right?" Andrew looked visibly terrified. His answer "You didn't see his face? That guy looked scary as hell."
"He was definitely wearing a ski mask, Andrew." Mom took out a bottle of pepper spray from her purse and started to march towards the store. "I'm going to go say something to that guy--"
"Mom, no." I grabbed her a little tighter than I intended. "It's fine. Please, don't say anything."
Andrew was getting paler by the second. "I don't like the way that guy looked at me..."
My full, undivided attention was now on Andrew. Looked at you?
"Babe, I think you need sleep more than I do," Aunt Sarah laughed out, giving Andrew a playful pat on the back. "He was wearing a ski mask!"
"He wasn't," Andrew insisted, making Aunt Sarah roll her eyes. She clearly thought he was kidding. As if Andrew ever made good jokes?
"When I was a kid, guys like that got a beat down for touching a girl like that," Dad began, hooking an arm around my mother. "Had he been six inches shorter, I would have knocked him on his ass for touching my daughter!"
"You tell em', Henry! Beat him up!" Aunt Sarah punched Dad lightly on the arm. "He'll probably leave the farm, anyway, once he realizes the alcohol store isn't around here. What sober man walks around in a ski mask in Chicago, in autumn?"
Everyone laughed except for Andrew and me.
Because everyone, except for Andrew and me, were oblivious to the fact that Andrew had seen Death's true identity.
And everyone,, except for me, were oblivious to the fact that the "ski mask" Death was wearing, wasn't a mask at all. It was a shadow. A curse, which hid Death's identity, unless someone was supposedly about to die...
Crap, I thought.
Death was going to collect Andrew's soul.
And something told me Death was going to have a lot of fun with it, just for me.
* * *
;)
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