by S. L. Baum
She was going to expire. The unknown date was looming in her near future. She was the milk that was about to turn and be thrown away. Marlene hugged her knees into her chest and squeezed them as tight as she could. “It’s not fair,” she whispered aloud.
Ben started pacing around the living room. Marlene could hear the stomps of anger as his boots slammed into the hardwood floors.
“You’re going to leave marks,” she continued talking to herself. “And I’m too damn tired to get down on the floor to clean them up. And you’re too damn incompetent to do the job properly. You always have been a worthless cleaner. Can’t load a dishwasher properly to save your life,” she laughed softly. “But you’ve always done your best to give me a good life. The best life. I can’t believe it’s going to end so soon.” Marlene closed her eyes and let the tears flow. She decided that she had to get it all out of her system, as best as she could. She’d give herself an hour, no more. Marlene wanted to be able to put on the strongest face possible when Ben looked at her. After all, there was still a chance. They’d cling to that chance together.
“I’m going to go out and get you something to eat, honey,” Ben called up the stairs. “There’s nothing in the house and you need to keep up your strength. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Okay,” she croaked through her tears. She was glad he was leaving.
“I love you, honey.”
“Love you.” She decided to give herself until Ben came back with dinner, then she’d wipe away the tears and summon her remaining strength.
Krista and Pete were pulling out of the parking lot of the Downtown Diner as Ben pulled in. Krista could see the tears in his eyes and the anguish in his face. Her breath caught in her throat. Ben had learned the truth.
“Wow. Did you see Ben Richardson? He looks like a wreck,” Pete noted after the two vehicles had passed. “I bet it has to do with Marlene.”
“I bet you’re right,” Krista agreed.
“Poor guy. I wonder if she needs heart surgery or something. You think? That’s gotta be hard for him to process.”
“I hate throwing around guesses, but whatever it is, he’s not happy about it.”
“Those are definitely not happy tears,” Pete agreed. “But you’re right, no use in trying to guess the prognosis, especially not when we are around other people. For example: Adeline. The misinformation would start flying around this town so fast your head would spin. Gossip is definitely a favored pastime.”
“I’m starting to figure that out.”
Krista drove back to Cedar Creek Medical Center so Pete could get his bike and get himself home. She waited for him to take off before she left the parking lot. But instead of turning toward the Webber estate, she headed down a road she hadn’t been on before. Behind the CCMC, over a small bridge, and then down a dirt road, Krista drove until she came to the house that sat alone in the wooded area.
She got out of her vehicle and approached the front door. It opened before she could raise her hand to knock on the intricately carved wood.
“Krista, what brings you out here this evening? What can I do for you?”
“I need to talk to you about something. Something that won’t make any sense to you, and something that you might think I’m crazy for even saying out loud. But I have this feeling that I can tell you about it.”
Doctor Baker stepped to the side. “Well, come on in. The evenings are starting to take on a slight chill.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Krista said as she entered his house. “You walk from here, every day?”
“Most days. Walk or bike. Exercise is one of the major ingredients of a healthy life. But I do have my truck, for when the weather gets the best of me. Can I offer you something to drink?”
“A glass of water, please.”
Doc motioned toward the couch. “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”
Krista sat down on the soft brown leather sofa and sank into the cushions. It was a well-worn and extremely comfortable piece of furniture. It was the exact couch that she would picture the doc having.
Doctor Baker reappeared with a glass of water in one hand and a glass of amber colored liquid in the other. “I hope you don’t mind if I have a small scotch. I have a feeling I might need it.”
Krista gave him a half-smile. “You might.”
“So, what is it you came to tell me?”
“You drove into Greenville yesterday, to be with Ben and Marlene when they got the news from the cardiologist, didn’t you?”
Doc looked at her, but didn’t say a word.
“I just passed Ben on the road. He was clearly upset about something.”
Doc took a sip of his drink and leaned back against the cushions. “I can’t talk about that with you.”
“I know you can’t. I just want to tell you what I know.”
“What do you know, Krista?”
“Marlene’s heart is failing her, and she doesn’t have all that much time left. I’m going to bet that she isn’t a good candidate for a transplant, and even if she was, there’s only a slim chance that a match would be found in time.”
Doc swallowed the rest of his drink. “Anything else?”
“Marlene is going to die. Soon.”
“Should I ask you how you know all this, or are you going to offer up the information?”
“I could smell it on her when Ben brought her into the medical center. I caught the scent of it on Ben’s clothes, days before that. In fact, the first time he came near me I knew that he lived with someone who was dying. I can smell bodily decay and death in a way that no normal person can.”
“That’s quite a nose you’ve got there.”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
Doctor Baker stared at Krista, trying to figure out what to say next. She was absolutely correct about Marlene. He’d heard it himself from the specialist in Greenville.
“Trying to process?” Krista asked him.
“Yes.” He gave a single nod of his head.
“Trying to decide if they told me all about it?”
“Not something either Ben or Marlene would do. They can barely come to terms with the diagnosis, let alone tell a newcomer.”
“I’m not a computer hacker. I haven’t bugged any homes or offices with recording devices,” Krista offered.
“Didn’t even cross my mind.”
Another minute of silence passed.
Doctor Baker got up from his seat and disappeared, glass in hand. He returned with another scotch. “You have a sense about these things.”
Krista nodded her head. “I do.”
“I believe that about you. I’ve said it out loud. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“You can smell death?”
Krista took a sip of her water. “I can. But there’s more.”
“What more could there be?”
“This is the part where you need to suspend disbelief.”
Doc laughed. “This is the part? Because the smelling death part was entirely believable?”
“Fair enough. You’ll need to suspend it a little longer then.”
“Lay it on me.”
Krista took a deep breath before she continued. “I can take that death away. I can help them. Ben and Marlene. I can take on that death, instead of her, and she will be healed.”
“Instead of her? Does that mean you will die?”
Krista nodded her head. “At first, yes. But then I’ll come back. I won’t stay dead, because that particular death, Marlene’s death, it isn’t intended for me.”
“And what will happen to Marlene?”
“She’s healed, like I said, but afterward she’ll need to stay far away from me, because all sickness and death is drawn back to its original host. It wants to go back to where it grew, the place it knows as home.”
“We are referring to sickness and death as an entity that lives in a body, and it calls that body home.” Doc took a small sip of his second scotch.
“I told you that it was going to sound crazy.”
“And that it does,” he confirmed.
“I’m not crazy.”
“Up until this exact moment, I would never have claimed that you were. Sounds like I could be persuaded into changing my tune.”
“Could be, but not quite?”
“I’m almost inclined to believe you, but the scientific part of me is resisting. That and all the common sense I have,” he told her.
“What if I told you that I’ve taken someone else’s death, that I’ve done it four times already, that my mother can do it, that my grandmother could too?”
“I’d say insanity seems to run in your family.”
“There is a name for what runs in my family, and insanity may well be part of it,” Krista said with a wink, “but the gift, as my grandmother always referred to it, that’s passed down in our family is that of being a Deathtaker.”
Doctor Baker set his empty glass on the table next to the couch. “That’s my limit for the evening. Let’s hope I don’t feel the need for more.” He ran his hands through his hair and locked his fingers behind his head. “I’m not sure if I should fire you and run you out of town, or if I should sit here and talk to you some more about this gift of yours.”
“I vote for talking. Cedar Creek is growing on me. I’d sure hate to leave it so soon.”
“Could I talk to this grandmother of yours?”
Krista shook her head. “She’s passed.”
“How about your mother?”
“Took off when I was one. Couldn’t handle both the gift and the small child that demanded attention. Grandma raised me.”
“No father?”
“Never even met the man.”
“Well, you’re a sad sack, aren’t you?”
Krista kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs up underneath her. “I guess I am.”
“Alright, I’ll humor you. How does being a Deathtaker work?”
“I start spending time with someone as they are approaching the end. Once I’ve made my choice, and it’s nothing more than a mental agreement within myself, I start feeling their pain and I share the experience with them. I know when their time is nearing, because once I’ve locked on to someone, death accelerates, it quickens its pace.”
“You feel the pain of their death?”
“I do. My body deals with it quite well, and it isn’t until the last moments that I’m unable to do little more than lie still.”
Doctor Baker’s curiosity got the better of him. Even if he didn’t believe her, it was a great story. “And then what?”
“I isolate myself with the patient and usually one other person, to monitor the situation. My presence causes the dying person to go into a deep sleep while my body prepares to consume that death. I start to get tired. Eventually I close my eyes, and then I die. The moment my eyes close, the dying person’s eyes open and they must immediately remove themselves from my presence. Once they are gone, my body will consume the death, and within twenty-four hours my heart restarts. I wake up.”
“You come back to life?”
“Yep.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “What happens if someone finds you before your heart restarts?”
“Hasn’t happened to me. My grandmother warned me all my life about the dangers of that. I try my best to make sure that no one finds me before then. It is a risk. I could be stuck in a morgue somewhere if I’m found without a beating heart. Heck, I could wake-up on an autopsy table with my chest open and a doctor standing over me in complete and utter shock.”
“So why not have the people stay with you, or at least nearby, until you wake back up?”
Krista shook her head. “Sickness and death are always drawn back to their original host. If that person were to be around me before my body has fully processed the death, he or she would die instantly. And distance must be maintained afterward for fear that the sickness takes root again. I’ll carry a little piece of it inside of me forever.”
“So, you’re a Deathtaker and you can smell death.”
“And bodily decay. Aging, basically,” Krista added.
“Why do you want me to believe you?” Doc asked.
“Part of being a Deathtaker is the ability to gain the trust of people. Something in my words rings true to those around me. I can’t be deceitful. I can be deceptive to protect myself, but not deceitful. But it takes time. And from what I can tell, Marlene doesn’t have that kind of time.”
“She doesn’t.”
“I want to help her, but I need you to help me gain their trust quickly. The Richardsons wanted to leave Cedar Creek before Marlene’s symptoms took over. If I take her death for her, they can relocate to Charleston.”
“And you can stay here.”
“One of us has to move on after I’ve taken any death, to put that distance between me and the patient. But if Ben and Marlene are willing to leave Cedar Creek, then, yes, I can stay. Plus, I want you to be around when it happens. That way you can make sure Marlene is okay, and you can keep my body safe until I come back again. I won’t have to worry about being discovered without a heartbeat.”
“Krista, all I can think about is that you’re weaving webs and telling fairy tales. There is no sane person who’d believe you.”
“So far, there have been four sane people who’ve believed me. My grandmother convinced over seventy, before her death. She was eighty-one when she died.”
“You’ve healed four people?”
“I, personally, don’t heal them. I just take the death from them. Their body is healed after the process.”
“Don’t you think it’s the same thing?” he asked. “You give someone back his or her life.”
“The miracle of life is not mine to give. I can only spare the agony of death. If I were to claim I was giving life, then one could say these people owe me something in return. But I am, in fact, taking something from them, so in that way they owe me nothing. I take their death, end of transaction.”
Doc stood up from the couch and began to pace the room. “What does death smell like?”
“I’ve always referred to it as sour and stale, decayed and desperate. But each kind of sickness has a specific smell. Grandma and I experienced it differently. I don’t think there are individual smells that are well recognized by each and every Deathtaker.”
“How many of you are there?”
“There’s only one of me,” Krista replied. “But if you mean, how many Deathtakers are there, I have no answer for you. I’m only aware of my particular family line. Which currently consists of my absentee mother and me. But whenever I hear stories on the news of an unexplained miracle healing, I tend to think that a Deathtaker was involved.”
Doc stood in front of Krista and reached for her hand. “I want to believe you.”
“I want you to believe me.”
“This defies logic.”
“I realize I am asking you to have faith in my words. What could I do to convince you that I’m telling the truth?”
“What if we went to the retirement home I make rounds in over in Greenville? If we were to walk around those patients…”
“I could tell you what sicknesses have invaded their bodies,” Krista answered before he was able to finish his question.
“Can you heal the elderly?”
“Grandmother said that I should never take the death of a person nearing the end of a normal life. She told me to reserve my strength for those people who could benefit the most from the extra years.”
“How many times can you do it?”
“Right now, two maybe three time a year,” Krista answered. “It takes time to recover, so the time between will need to lengthen as I age. But I’m young, so that’s not an issue for me yet.”
“You’ve given me quite a lot to think about tonight. Don’t be too surprised if some fellas in white coats show up at your door in the morning.”
Krista opened her purse, which was sitting be
side her on the couch, and took out a small pad of paper and a pen. She carefully wrote a name and a phone number, before tearing off the page and handing it to Doc. “This is the mother of a little girl who no longer worries if her daughter will reach her seventh birthday. If you call her, she’ll probably hesitantly answer a few questions. When you hang up, she will call the phone company and request a new number.”
Doctor Baker took the paper from Krista and set it on the end table. “Maybe I’m the crazy one for starting to believe you.”
“We’re all a little crazy. I’ll go now… give you some time to think.” Krista stood up, slipped her shoes back on, and went to the door.
“What if I just don’t believe you?”
“I don’t know. You’re the first non-patient or non-caregiver I’ve ever told this to. Right now, I’m just hoping I made the right choice.”
On the drive home, after Krista and Doc said their goodbyes, she replayed their conversation in her head. She tried to decide if there were any signs from Doc that she should worry about. But right before she left, he’d said he was starting to believe her, so she held on to a small spark of hope that she’d done the right thing.
Krista turned down the gravel path that led to the guesthouse of the Webber estate and followed it around to the back of the main house toward the creek. She stopped in front of the garage and got out to open the doors. The barn style doors required her to get out of her vehicle every time she wanted to park her truck inside. Sam had cleared out all but a few boxes, and the remaining had been pushed up against the back wall so she could easily park inside. Oh how she longed for a garage door opener; it would make life so much easier.
She swung open the doors, maneuvered her truck into the space, and went back out to close the garage again. It was dark out, the air cloudy and misty from a rain that wasn’t quite ready to fall, and she hadn’t noticed the figure waiting on her porch. When she put her key into the lock, a cloud moved just enough to let the moonlight illuminate the outline of a man sitting on a chair near the door. Krista screamed. The man snorted, loudly, and then bolted up from the chair.
