Deathbed Ch. 3

I felt the tears I had never shed for anyone but her. “Why, God? Why didn’t you release her from her torment? Why did it have to be me?”

Deadman was looking at me with narrow eyes. “*Irene*…” he repeated low.

“I spared her pain. It was murder and against the law and a mortal sin before God, but it was mercy too. I took care of my own, Roy, which is exactly what you tried to do. Don’t you talk to me about rights. I loved her the way I never loved you. I hated you and I’m glad you’re dead.”

“Your fucking eggs are co-old!” yelled Stephanie from the kitchen again, banging dishes in the sink. “Don’t blame me!”

Roy burst out sobbing, hanging his head. Deadman raised his brows and went into the kitchen. I turned and followed him, unwilling to look at my husband any longer. The dogs ringed around Roy and kept him where he was.

Deadman sat at the table, poured hot sauce all over his eggs and potatoes and wolfed the food down. I got a glass of water and drank it in an attempt to wash the strangling tightness out of my throat. “You married that guy?” he asked with his mouth full. “What a dipshit.”

“Yes.”

He swallowed what he was chewing and looked at me. “You killed your daughter?”

“I killed my daughter.” I sat down and covered my face. “A year ago tomorrow. I told Tony, he told Ron, and they decided to kill me for betraying the honor of the family. I wish they had killed me.”

“Her name was Irene?”

“Yes. Do you take the dead where they are supposed to go?”

“Some of the dead. Not someone like her.” He shook his head slowly. “Not the innocent.”

“Where are you going to take Roy?”

“He’s written his ticket himself…Irene. I only provide transportation.”

“Is that your contract with the Devil?”

The terrible shadow of age passed over his face. “I knock at the doors of projects and the doors of palaces. I’m called to find the ones who’ve earned the trip. I drag them out if they won’t come willingly and I make them ride with me. I have the authority and the strength to force them to go. I chase down the wanderers who think they can avoid the journey, but I don’t always come back with a passenger. Sometimes…they have already departed with another companion by the time I get there. Sometimes they don’t make it to the destination. There are other forces battling for them all the way, and I don’t always win the fights. Until I get to the gate at the end of the road with my burden, it’s not over, and perhaps not even then. I don’t pass judgment. I only carry it out. Death is impartial.”

“You take the damned to Hell.”

“Behold a pale horse,” he said softly. “And his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

“I’ve committed murder, but you’re a servant of the Devil. I killed my child to release her from her pain, and that torments me and always will. You are a dark angel of death, and you hand over human souls to eternal, unreleasable pain. What must you feel?”

The rider got up and stalked out of the kitchen, leaving his meal half eaten. I followed him out to the veranda and stood there while he shooed the dogs away and led Roy to the white Harley. Roy seemed docile but sluggish, and looked up at me for a moment. I looked away.

They mounted, Roy holding the rider around the waist, and the bike started up and made a wide turn in the drive. I saw Deadman’s face for a moment as they passed in the floodlights from the house, and it might have been the face of a skull. They roared down the drive and vanished into the darkness.

Part Twelve

He had gone on his awful errand, and I was alone in the house of the dead. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, although it must have been the wee hours of the morning by then. I sat in the porch swing and rocked slowly back and forth, looking out into the yard, the floodlights too bright to let me see the night sky.

Stephanie finished washing up in the kitchen and flounced off to the garage, opening a door to let light stream out behind her into the driveway. I heard a loud crackle of television and the shrill beginnings of an argument, then the door shut and closed off the sound. In the quiet I heard clanging and curses at the back of the house. Getting up, I walked along the veranda and looked around the corner to see who was there and what they were doing.

Illuminated only by one kerosene lamp stood Aitch and his father-in-law Vince, the owner of the property. They were addressing a rusty white propane tank supported by a small shed built against the foundation. Aitch had a large pipe wrench locked on a valve and struggled to turn it while Vince held up the lamp and offered vulgar advice.

Aitch’s generous muscles bulged and his features creased, but the valve wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t see a trace of the injuries Deadman had inflicted on him. Aitch let out a grunt, heaving with a great effort, and a vein popped out on his sweating forehead. WHANGG! The wrench slipped, hitting the tank with a loud clang and leaving a dent.

“Shit!” Aitch spat, wringing a stung hand.

“Will ya be a little more fucking careful?” yelled Vince. “Gonna cost two hundred bucks if we got to buy a new one, and I’m not the one who’s gonna ask ‘Taker for the dough!”

Aitch picked up the wrench and brandished it. “Fine. You do it, asshole.”

“Now just hold on a second there! This kind of thing is your damn job!”

“Hell, and here I thought I earned my keep porking my wife,” retorted Aitch with a sardonic grin. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I ain’t your hired hand any more.”

“Don’t you speak of my daughter that way! I’m still the owner of this fucking property, and it’s not like yer gonna inherit any time soon, you lazy piece of shit!”

“Shut the fuck up!” The two traded curses back and forth for a few moments and Aitch shoved Vince, forcing him to sit down hard. This provoked another storm of profanity and threats, and finally Aitch flung down the wrench and stalked off to the garage, followed by his father-in-law with his fist shaking in the air. A door slammed again and everything fell quiet.

I didn’t want to return to the house, so I descended the steps to the yard. A dog raised its head from the dust and examined me. I skirted the drive and headed to the back of the property away from the house. Passing the garage, I saw a window hung with a bedsheet, a lamp shining through it next to the bluish glow of a television. The voices inside were muffled.

The barn loomed up in the darkness before me. I liked barns, especially weathered barns with half-ruined roofs like this one, so I approached it and circled around to the half-open main doors. It didn’t smell like a working barn; they had no animals other than the dogs, apparently.

Inside hung Stygian darkness, punctuated by lighter stripes where boards were missing from the walls. Next to the doors, I felt the wall, found a battery lantern hanging on a hook and turned it on. Rats skittered away from the bright white light.

The beam lit up a series of wooden stalls hung with moldering harness and rope. Nailed to one wall were rough storage cupboards and a workbench. A tractor so old it had not a fleck of paint left crouched in the main open area like a rusty tomb guardian, and all around it rats had dug nests in the piles of disintegrated straw and stacked hay bales.

There still lingered a faint scent of manure and musky animal bodies, and a soft, mournful feeling of nostalgia moved through me. Papa had a barn like this one, though in somewhat better repair, and he still kept cows and chickens, so the place smelled strong like a real barnyard.

I hadn’t been to my childhood home in ten years. I’d always liked to sit in the barn and watch him milk the heifers, and when I was old enough, he’d let me bring the hatchet while he caught the cockerels for Sunday dinner. He’d praised my dispatch in chopping off their heads. “Not like a girl,” he’d say approvingly. “No silliness.”

I turned the lantern and saw a set of whittled hooks on one wall, just like the ones Papa had made for his rifles and shotguns. One old Winchester lever-action lay across them, but they were otherwise empty.

Deadman had ruined a shotgun in the fight when Vince had threatened him with it. Had he forgotten the man wasn’t killable? Was there a weapon in the world that would do the trick? Deadman existed in torment; he’d said so. If he couldn’t find a woman to release him, how would that existence ever end?

I walked up to the Winchester and ran a finger along the stock, careful not to put fingerprints on the barrel that might rust it. It was shiny and the stock had been recently oiled.

“I take care of it,” said someone behind me in a quiet, amused tone. For a moment I thought it was the rider and turned with a jump in my heartbeat. But although the voice was low and masculine, it wasn’t Deadman’s.

Aitch stood in the open door with a smile on his heavy-browed, handsome face, arms folded and his blond hair loose around his shoulders. “There’s still some good huntin’ around here.”

“Oh.” I dropped my gaze for a moment; his smile was just a trace too warm, but looked up again immediately, not wanting to seem timid or anxious. He might have been dead, but he didn’t look like a man who let any sort of advantage or opportunity pass him by. Notwithstanding his large nose he was attractive when he smiled, with a well-developed body and a deep chest, an incisive discernment flickering in his hazel eyes. But his lips were thin and brutal. I knew I’d have to be very careful around him.

“You like guns, ma’am?” he asked innocently.

“Um…my Papa taught me to shoot.” It was a question why Aitch was now so much friendlier than his wife, but I had some idea what the answer was.

“No kiddin’? My wife won’t even touch a gun. I have to keep ‘em out in the barn here.”

“I’m not afraid of guns.”

“No, I don’t guess you are,” he replied. “You’re probably not afraid of much, not if you can ride with ‘Taker and stay so calm and collected.”

Oh, I had a very good idea what the answer was; he was cocking a hip at me, perhaps unconsciously, and trying to disguise the fact that he was estimating my cup size.

As I always did in situations like this, I calculated the possible advantages of letting him encourage himself. I caught myself brushing back a lock of my unconfined hair and decided not to cut him off at the knees yet; being on good terms with one of the denizens of the place might be useful.

“Matter of fact, I heard a couple of shots a while ago,” said Aitch.

“Did you?”

“Uh-huh. In the house.” He held up two fingers. “Don’t tell me--I’m not so bad at guessin’. Sounded like a small caliber revolver. Twenty-five or thirty-two?”

I looked hard at him; he did know what he was talking about. “Thirty-two.”

“Good for you, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “Though I guess it didn’t do what you might of thought it would.” His manner grew serious. “Why’d ya shoot at him?”

I was silent, veiling my eyes. “Oh, Jesus. That must have pissed him off. Did he hurt you?” Aitch was doing an excellent job with the deep voice of concern.

“He hit me.” I touched the sore side of my face. “But he was more interested in finishing what he’d started.”

“He tried to, uh…sleep with you, ma’am?”

“That’s right. It must be the whole reason he brought me here. I said no and I asked him to stop, but he didn’t.” This seemed like the right approach; if Aitch thought I was aligned with Deadman, he would probably clam up and leave. I could tell he had something to impart to me--asking the caliber of my gun hadn’t been random conversation. “I shot him. When the wounds vanished and I realized what he was, I was petrified. He dragged me upstairs and…”

“That son of a bitch!” he said with conviction. “He’s finally gone off the deep end! Are you OK?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m perfectly all right. He didn’t beat me up while he was doing it.”

Aitch’s expression of outrage didn’t quite cover up his delight that I had a significant complaint against Deadman. “Good Christ, ma’am! If I’d known what was goin’ on--”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, my voice breaking a little. “I don’t think anything would have stopped him.”

He made an angry gesture, as if he put himself in a category of upstanding and decent men obligated to shoulder the burden of women’s defense against the unworthy members of his sex. I found it difficult not to roll my eyes. “Maybe not. I’ve never yet taken him down. But that don’t mean I don’t want to try.”

“Yes, you tried right when I got here.”

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry we lumped you in with him. Wouldn’t have no self-respect if we didn’t put up some kind of a fight once in a while. We all heal up fast anyway…well--”

“Ah…your wife told me your family are all in the same state he is. Undead. That you’d been living here like this for years, and that he takes advantage of you.”

He smiled tightly and rubbed his short beard growth with a thumb. “You could put it like that.”

“So you really want to get rid of him. Probably more than anything else.”

“Well, that’s easier said than done.” Still not giving much away--he was admirably cautious, but I knew he was anxious to get something off his chest, if he thought I was a safe recipient of his confidence.

“Yes, I gathered that. Since he’s a walking dead man and invulnerable and a servant of Hell and all that. I’m sure you know more about it than I do, of course.”

“I’m damn impressed,” said Aitch with a genuine smile. “You’re a tough lady. He forced you to go to bed with him, and you shrug it off. And even though everyone ‘round here knows what we are and shoulda got used to us a long time ago, they run inside and pull down the blinds when we come into town. You ain’t scared of me at all. I like that.”

I allowed myself a small smile of self-congratulation. “Can you tell me something about him? About ‘Taker?”

“Sure,” Aitch said. He began to approach me, putting his hands in his pockets. “What do you want to know?”

“I hear that there’s a condition for his release from Hell. That he has to find a woman who’s always loved him and always will remain faithful, and if he doesn’t do it in another day or two, he’s going to be bound to Hell forever.”

“Yeah, that’s true. He’s got to marry her, point of fact, and she’s got to be true to him ‘til she dies. Makes me laugh, ma’am, ‘cause I’m damned if I know how he’s going to accomplish that in the time he’s got left.” Aitch checked his watch. “Yeah, thirty-six hours. Day and a half, and it’ll be fifty years since he smashed himself all to hell out on the highway. I know, ‘cause I saw him do it, and I saw him get up again and I lost my lunch--he was in that many pieces.”

“You saw it? Fifty years ago?” Of course--the family had to be as old as Deadman. “I understand. Tell me what happened. How he became what he is.”

“If you want to hear about something that happened so long ago. This is way before your parents were even born, ma’am, I reckon.” This was flattery; I was sure he could tell how old I was. His own apparent age was about the same as mine, but of course I had to add half a century to it to have any idea of his birthdate.

“I do want to hear it. What was he like before that?”

Aitch chuckled, tilting his head back. “Crazy mother. He never could pass up a race.”

“A racer?”

“Uh-huh. Had himself a real fine bike that he’d warmed up something amazing, and I swear he came up behind me once doing a hundred and seventy. I was going fifty in a Buick and thought I was a hotshot until he passed me like I was standing still.”

Aitch drew a line through the air over his shoulder, back to front. “Like a streak of fire with that red hair of his in the sunshine, and he was laughing like he’d nothing more to ask of life than to let him go so fast.”

I had a little quiver; it was both excitement and a weird regret. I knew that reckless laugh.

Aitch caught his lip in his teeth for a moment and considered. “We had a sight more population out here back then, not so long after the war, and lots of guys had learned to ride a bike in the Army. We used to have drag races out by the Last Chance. He beat the pants off all comers, every single damn time. We’d have racers coming from far as Dallas or even Los Angeles just to give it a try. He swore he’d beat the devil himself if the devil knew how to pull a Harley ‘round a blind curve. And one night the Devil took him up on it.” Aitch smiled at me.

“Somebody came to challenge him to a drag run. Tall guy, even a little taller than ‘Taker, and shoulders as big. He had a helmet with a face mask on, though, which you didn’t see much in those days, and he was all in red and black, covered head to foot. Never took the helmet off, so we never saw his face. He spoke a little odd, like his throat was bad, and a couple folks said he smelled of burning, but that was afterwards, so I don’t know about that.

“He came into the Last Chance and he said he’d got a bike that would put any other bike to shame, and ‘Taker jumped up on a bar stool and hollered that he’d lay a hundred dollars he hadn’t no such thing, and we all went outside and lined up by the road to take a look. And the stranger got on his bike, which was black as anything, and he said that he wouldn’t accept no bets for money. All he would take was a soul. We laughed, ‘cause it sounded like a joke, and he said it again. He’d race for a soul and nothing else. ‘Taker said he didn’t need his none anyhow, and he’d bet whatever he had to bet, but he’d beat that black bike on any day of the week and Sunday included. We laughed our heads off.”

“You laughed at the Devil?”

“I don’t know that it was the Devil in person. I get the impression that he’s the kind to prefer a messenger to do his work. Just for instance, ‘Taker himself, as he is now.”

“What was ‘Taker’s name?”

“Well, I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know. I knew him, but he wasn’t a particular friend of mine, and he went by a handle even then. We all called him Deadman--yeah, before it happened. Think it was a name he got in the Army. Just one of those weird damn things.”

“Go on,” I said.

“So…we watched the two of ‘em ride back a quarter mile west, with the finish line being right in front of the bar, and a couple guys went with ‘em to fire the starter pistol and certify it all fair and above board, and they got ready and lined those bikes up nose and nose, and the gun went off and they started. We saw the headlights coming at us like two bats out’ve hell. I don’t know how fast they were going, but they went past the bar and they didn’t stop for another half mile at least, though it’s uphill past that point. It was too equal to call.

“They went back and they did it again, and it was the same thing. No one’d come that close to beating ‘Taker, ever, and he was hopping mad. Swore he’d beat that bike if it was the last thing he did, and he’d keep riding ‘til doomsday if that was what it took. It was like the weather changed when he said that. Something in the air wasn’t the same. We’d all been laughing and joshing him for doing no better than a tie twice in a row, but we kind of sobered up at that point. He was looking grim. Zipped up his jacket tight and combed his hair back, and he got on his bike again and they lined up for one more go. And they were going faster than ever, greased lightning on a roadrunner’s back, coming up on that finish line neck and neck, and there was a red flash like fire, and ‘Taker’s front tire blew.”

Part Thirteen

I gasped and Aitch nodded solemnly. “Saw that bike take a hell of a tumble with him still in the saddle, end over end and the sparks flying off the pavement like a welding torch. The stranger crossed the finish line a moment later, but we didn’t pay him any mind. We all piled into our cars and went to look. I could see him in my headlights when I got up to the spot. Still all tangled with the bike and blood spreading out around him on the pavement. I’d seen a man hit with a grenade or blown up with a shell more’n a few times over in Italy, and I knew he was dead.”