Prelude One: Death as a Boy

by J.R. Rodriguez



  PRELUDE ONE:

  DEATH AS A BOY

  (A “Keeping Up with the Deadlanders” Prequel)

  by J.R. Rodriguez

  Copyright 2011

  By J.R. Rodriguez

  This book is for use for personal use only.

  No part of it may be reproduced or distributed

  without express permission of the author

  PRELUDE ONE: DEATH AS A BOY

  The cold heavy darkness lifted slowly. Pale white light began to filter through and penetrate the emptiness that held him tight. An image began to take form. He was looking up at something rough and gray. A blink of the eyes helped bring things into sharper focus. He was staring at was the ceiling of building…a very old stone building. Flickering light danced upon it like a mad horde doing a frenzied tarantella. He tried to move but pain shot through his body; it felt as if a blade were slicing him down the middle. He heard himself groan as he fell back onto the hard surface on which he lay.

  “You shouldn’t try to move just yet, boy,” said a deep resonate voice off to his right.

  He tried to turn his head but a dull stiffness in his neck stopped him. A quick look out of the corner of his right eye showed nothing but a wall made of the same masonry as the ceiling. The light was coming from a large wooden torch. “Where am I?” he asked. His voice was weak. It hurt to talk.

  “How do you feel?”

  His body was cold, rigid, and hurt all over. The searing pain had stopped and now his form pulsed with a dull ache. “I feel like awful, mister.”

  “That’s to be expected. It’ll pass soon.”

  Slight anger burned within his chest and he tried to speak more forcibly but it came out as a raspy bark. “I asked you where I was. Tell me.”

  “All in good time, boy. First you have to realize a few things.”

  There was silence for a few agonizing seconds. The boy was finally able to move his head and he turned it in the direction from which he had heard the voice. There was no one there. He could now see a great swath of cobwebs extending from the floor to the ceiling. There was an arched doorway, and beyond it was darkness as black as the night. “Where are you? Show yourself!”

  “You have to promise me something first.”

  “I’m not promising you anything!”

  “I’m trying to avoid you any further distress.”

  “You haven’t succeeded so far, mister, what’s stopping you now?”

  “Very well, I did try to warn you…”

  Within seconds, a shadow fell over him. He looked up and what he saw next was beyond his comprehension. Standing there was a tall figure dressed in a flowing tattered crimson cloak with a large pointed hood. Beneath the hood was a gleaming skeletal face. The thing’s toothy mouth opened and the voice of the stranger came from it. “Hello, I’m The Grim Reaper. But you probably already know that.”

  Screaming wasn’t an option as the ability to make sound had died in the boy’s throat. He tried speaking and a tiny squeak came out instead. The Reaper chuckled and bent at his knees. He put a bony arm around the youth and gently lifted him to a sitting position. “There you go. How’s that? Better?”

  After a few seconds of staring deep into the eye sockets of The Reaper, the boy found his voice. It was trembling and soft. “Am I dead?”

  “I wouldn’t be here with you if you weren’t.”

  “Is this Hell?”

  The Reaper looked around the room and shook his head. “I know it’s not the fanciest place but it’s not that bad. I need to dust…the décor is a bit outdated…”

  So the man, if he were a man, had a sense of humor. It didn’t sit well at the moment, however. The boy pressed on with questions. “If it’s not Hell, what is it?”

  The Reaper pulled the young man unsteadily to feet. He swayed but the Face of Death kept him from falling. “This, boy, is my home. Well, actually it’s a mausoleum but you get the idea. I like it. How do you feel now?”

  “I think I feel okay for being dead. My head’s clearing up. I don’t remember anything, though.”

  The Reaper let go and stepped back to look at his guest. He put his arms over his chest and nodded. “You don’t look bad. I’ve certainly seen worse. I imagine you want to know what’s going on.”

  The youth glanced down at himself for the first time. He was dressed in a soiled silky white shirt and equally soiled gray cotton pants. His skin was extremely pale and clammy. It was stretched tight over the jutting bones in his hands and arms. He reached up and felt his face. It was had the same tightness; he didn’t need a mirror to tell him that it was almost as skeletal as his host’s. He could also see strands of dirty straw colored hair hanging on his shoulders. It seemed familiar. Perhaps it was what he had when he was alive. “Yes, what happened?”

  The Reaper turned and headed out the arched door way. “Follow me, I’ll get you to your room. We’ll talk on the way.”

  Without a word, the boy followed the catcher of souls. Once they passed through the door, they entered a smaller room much like the first. A stone staircase sat at the end. There was more light was streaming down from a room above. “You already know you’re dead. I was out doing my job…you know…reaping and what have you. I was coming in for the night when I ran across you. You were in a real bind. I couldn’t go by without helping.”

  The Reaper started up the stairs, his voice keeping the same casual tone. “I won’t go into boring details but let’s just say that I couldn’t resist bringing you home after I helped…”

  The boy kept close behind his host. It was getting a little warmer as they went up but not by much. “Brought me home? What am I? A stray dog or something?”

  “Oh, nothing like that,” The Reaper said, “You see I live alone. It gets lonely sometime. I want someone to talk to.”

  They reached the top of the staircase. The pair was now standing in a large open hallway with vaulted ceilings, more cobwebs, and an odd collection of decaying, moldy furniture. A couple of equally decayed Oriental rugs lay on the dusty stone floor and the gray walls were adorned with lit torches, some ancient cloth canopies, and a few strange paintings. The boy couldn’t tell what the paintings’ subjects were; he was still too far away. It took a couple of seconds for him to react to The Reaper’s last statement. “What are you, some sort of weirdo? You brought home a teen-age boy. If that doesn’t sound weird, I don’t know what is.”

  The Reaper turned to face him. “Please don’t think that. If you really must know, I’ve always wanted a kid. I’m not one to follow the usual steps. You know, get married and all that sort of thing. Besides, who’d marry me, right? When I saw you, I knew you would be just the sort of boy I would want if I did have a kid. Besides, you were dead. You were in no position to argue.”

  Not only was he dead but he was now the adoptive son of the Grim Reaper. It just couldn’t get any weirder than that. Life had a funny way of working out. Although now that he wasn’t alive anymore, perhaps a more proper saying would be “death has a funny way of working out”. It didn’t have the same ring but it would have to do in this new situation. “No, I wasn’t. It doesn’t look I’m in any position to argue about staying here, either.”

  “We’ll discuss that later. Let’s go to the kitchen, I imagine you’re hungry.”

  They continued deeper into the room and turned right through another arched doorway. The kitchen was like any other. A small wooden table sat near the entry; the boy imagined it was for dining. On the other side sat an avocado green refrigerator, an old fashioned wood burning stove, and lastly, a porcelain sink. The countertops were made from the same masonry as the walls and floor. A rectangular stained glass window above the sink revealed, through a clear
opening at the bottom, a portion of a darkened graveyard beyond. A doorway and flight of stairs stood in the far corner.

  “I would’ve never thought The Grim Reaper needed a kitchen. Hell, I didn’t even know you ate.”

  The Reaper went to the refrigerator and opened it. Dull light poured out, outlining his figure like some odd eclipse. “There’s a lot about me people don’t know. It keeps the mystery of death alive…for lack of a better word.”

  He whipped around with a small jar in his hand. An odd glowing liquid swirled and pulsed within its confines. “I think you might like this…”

  It didn’t look appetizing in the least. “What is it?”

  The Reaper opened the jar, sniffed its contents, and nodded in approval. “This is Soul. Well, it’s actually the essence of The Soul. It’s sort of like an energy drink.”

  “How do you mean,” asked the boy twisting his face in confusion.

  His host sat the jar on the dining table and pulled out the worn wood bench that had been sitting beneath it. “You see, the soul as you know it is actually an energy force. It keeps humans alive. They’ll say that Soul is what makes humans what they are. That it sets them apart from everyone else. That’s all a bunch of shite…”

  “A bunch of what?”

  The Reaper moved his arm in a swing arc to indicate it was okay for his newly adopted son to have a seat. “I’m sorry. It’s a colloquial term I picked up