The Grim Reaper Comes Calling

by Darrell Maloney

  Probably from a Big Chief or similar tablet.

  In the living room Kristy had taken a moment to examine the dead girl’s face.

  She tried to imagine what the girl looked like before she met her terrible fate. When she was alive.

  She tried to determine whether this was the same little girl who’d spent five afternoons at her house, working with Angela on a school project about Argentina. Whether this was the little girl Angela had introduced to her as Amy Martinez.

  But the decomposition was too far gone.

  This child was too bloated, too discolored, too much of her skin had rotted away.

  It was impossible to tell.

  So Kristy sought another way to answer the question.

  The first two papers atop the stack were just silly girl gibberish.

  THE WALE JUMPED OVER THE SEE SERPINT

  TRINE TO TOUCH THE SUN

  THE PIRAT IN HIS SHIP WATCHED

  AND TOLE THE SERPINT RUN SERPINT RUN

  They were poems made up by a young girl and put on paper, either to practice her handwriting or to amuse herself, with no need for such frivolities as proper spelling or grammar.

  But there was nothing to indicate who she was.

  On the third paper, though, in the upper right corner, was a standard grade school heading:

  Jessica Standish

  2nd Grade, Mrs. Lindstrum’s Class

  Missada Elementary School

  Jan 23, 2024

  No, this wasn’t Amy Martinez.

  That question was answered.

  Kristy would return to this house several times in the coming days. Until all the food and valuables she couldn’t carry today were moved.

  But she’d had enough of this house today, with its stinking, decaying corpses.

  It was time for her to get the heck out of here and go home.

  Chapter 48

  Blanco was a sleepy little town even before the blackout.

  With the exception of Friday nights in the fall, when practically every resident gathered at the high school football stadium to see their beloved Blanco High School Lobos battle another area team, they mostly kept to themselves.

  When the EMPs took away their electricity, it also took the town’s main source of entertainment and biggest time killer.

  Television.

  Of course, radio was silenced too. Seemingly forever.

  Video games started gathering dust.

  Old fashioned board games still worked, for those lucky enough to have them.

  Most didn’t, for with the advent of video games most of the better board games went the way of the dinosaurs.

  One thing nearly every household had, though, was a deck or two of old-fashioned playing cards.

  And most people in Texas knew how to play poker.

  Red and Luke Benson had known each other for most of their lives, having met in grade school. They became fast friends but never dated, and in all the years they knew one another their relationship was strictly plutonic.

  Red came to know Luke so well that she was the only one to understand when at the age of nineteen he declared he was going to become the town’s only nudist.

  It was a religious epiphany, he explained. God wanted all His people to be unashamed of their bodies, Luke decided, and free of clothing.

  It was Adam and Eve who ruined everything when they let the serpent talk them into eating that darned apple.

  If they had never done that, he said, there would be no such thing as clothing. Everyone would run around naked as jaybirds, nakedness wouldn’t be considered dirty, and everyone would accept each other as they were.

  And the world, Luke contended, would be a much better place.

  Some of the town’s residents thought Luke had been hit in the head too many times on Friday nights when he was the high school’s star running back.

  Some suspected him of smoking too much peyote or marijuana.

  Most thought he was going through a rebellious phase and would soon put it past him.

  A few agreed with him.

  But no one… not a single one of the town’s residents, doubted his sincerity.

  They didn’t see him as a sexual deviant or a nut case, because every one of them had known him for all or most of their lives.

  They knew Luke to have a kind heart and a helpful soul. They knew him as a man who was as truthful and honest as anyone else in town, including the ministers at the Baptist and Methodist churches.

  When Luke began walking the streets a handful of people anonymously complained to the local police and Luke was locked up in the town jail a couple of times.

  That didn’t faze him, for truthful and honest Luke admitted to everyone and to himself he knew not everyone agreed with his views.

  When he went before the town judge he argued his arrest violated his free speech rights. The old judge told him free speech rights didn’t apply. People in his town could say anything they wanted, he proclaimed, but they didn’t have to be naked to do so.

  He sentenced Luke to time served for the fifteen hours he’d spent in jail and released him.

  Then he took Luke aside and gave him a hint: if he’d argued he had a right to practice his religious beliefs as he saw fit, the judge would have agreed with him and thrown the case out.

  Two days later Luke was arrested again for pulling up weeds in his front yard naked.

  The following day he saw the judge again, proclaimed it was his religious right to do so, and all charges were dismissed.

  The judge told the police chief not to arrest Luke for such foolishness again.

  After that the town more or less declared a truce with Luke.

  He would stay home most of the time.

  When he took his twice daily walks, he would more or less stay on his side of town.

  Those residents who were offended by Luke kept themselves and their children away from that area.

  When he went to Mrs. Montgomery’s boarding house he would stay outside and Mrs. Montgomery would bring out his food. They would picnic together beneath an oak tree near her back fence.

  Mrs. Montgomery fancied Luke, you see, and didn’t mind his nakedness.

  Luke was an avid poker player.

  Poker was his passion, and had been for several years.

  Several nights a week he hosted poker parties at his house for various friends.

  On Monday nights, Preacher Johnson and his wife came over, along with a couple of high school buddies.

  On Wednesdays, the guests varied depending on who was available.

  On Tuesdays and Fridays, Lilly and Red came by. They didn’t always play poker, as Lilly preferred hearts and Red’s favorite card game was spades.

  Whatever they played on any particular night, though, they also enjoyed pleasant company and some of Luke’s home-brewed beer.

  On the Tuesday night after Sarah was released from the clinic, Red invited Sarah and Dave to join them for their poker date at Luke’s.

  Dave readily accepted, but Sarah begged off.

  “It’s been a trying day for me,” she said. “You go ahead, Dave. I think I’ll just go to bed early.”

  At first Dave, being a good husband, hesitated. But Sarah insisted and shooed him along.

  Absent working clocks, Luke’s poker games always started precisely at sundown.

  Dave walked with the two women west towards a rapidly setting sun, Lilly carrying a basket full of chocolate chip cookies she’d just baked and Red toting a bottle of Jack Daniels.

  Chapter 49

  “Should I have brought something?” Dave asked.

  “Nope,” Lilly said. “Luke only requires the two biggest winners from the previous game to bring refreshments. Last week Lilly was the big winner and I came in right behind her. Luke, he’d have lost his shirt. Only he wasn’t wearing one.”

  “Are we playing for money?”

  “Nope. It’s a friendly game. Everybody gets the same number of chips, and the ante is low.
So even crummy players like Lilly…”

  Lilly immediately objected.

  “Hey, hey, hey! This ‘crummy player’ was the top winner last time, remember?”

  “Okay, let me rephrase that. The ante is only one chip, so even players who usually play crummy but who got really lucky last time will be able to play for awhile.

  “When they run out of chips they can call it a night and go home, or they can hang around and watch.”

  “Anything else I need to know?”

  “At the end of the night the chips are tallied. The big winner and the second biggest winner have to bring something to snack on or drink the next time. Only they’re not allowed to tell each other what they’re bringing.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s more fun that way. We really have some odd combinations of snacks and drinks.

  “Tonight Lilly didn’t know I was bringing whisky and she brought cookies.”

  “Yeah… I was thinking that’s kind of an odd combination…”

  “It’s not the worst we’ve had. Last time we had Jell-O and wine. Before that it was tequila and tequila. We all stumbled home that night, but the game was lots of fun.”

  “Yeah. It got kind of hard to read our cards after awhile, though.”

  “Luke has a microbrewery in his basement and always has some homemade beer, but we have to drink it European-style.”

  “European style?”

  “Unrefrigerated.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. He makes a German-style pils and a wheat beer that are both amazing.”

  “Okay. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Attaboy.”

  As they walked up the steps to Luke’s house they heard voices and laughter coming from inside.

  “Sounds like somebody else is already here,” Lilly said. “I wonder who else came?”

  Red opened the door and walked right in.

  Dave asked, “You don’t knock?”

  Red laughed. “What are you worried about? It’s not like we might catch Luke changing or something. Besides, he says on poker nights everybody should come on in so he doesn’t have to keep getting up from the table to answer the door.”

  The three walked into the hundred year-old house’s parlor to find Luke and Tony dealing a few warm-up hands of Texas Hold ‘Em.

  Tony looked up and greeted them.

  “Hello, Red. Hi, Lilly. Hello, Dave.”

  A very surprised Red answered for all three of them.

  “Tony! What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I asked Luke the other day if he minded if I dropped by for one of his games. He said the more the merrier and that I was welcome to stop by anytime.”

  He couldn’t have been any more transparent if he tried.

  Every other person in the room knew of his love for Red.

  It was obvious he showed up on this particular night so he could spend time with her. And that more than likely he’d hang around after the game as long as she did.

  And just as likely he’d offer to walk her home.

  What was yet to be determined was whether he could really play poker.

  Chapter 50

  At the Spear house Robert woke up crying.

  He’d had a bad dream, as little boys sometimes do.

  Robert had been plagued with occasional nightmares for most of his life.

  Sometimes they were nonsensical: He might be chased across the deck of a pirate ship by a sea monster wielding a pitchfork and wearing a Chicago Cubs cap.

  Other times they hit closer to home.

  He might dream of his father beating him senseless while calling him stupid and worthless and yelling an endless stream of obscenities at him.

  He might dream of curling up in his mother’s lap, both his eyes blackened and a thick stream of crimson blood rolling from his nose. Trying to hide behind his mother’s skinny arms while she pleaded with his father to calm down, to back off.

  On this particular night he dreamed of neither of those things.

  He sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes and trying desperately to stop them from leaking.

  He softly sobbed and reached out to Amy as she came to his side.

  She sat on the side of the bed and held him, running her fingers through his hair to soothe him, as she’d seen her mother do a hundred times before.

  She sang silly lullabies to him, like Monica did when he was frightened.

  Robert was like most boys his age.

  He claimed to be all grown up and well past the stage when his mama’s hugs and silly songs comforted him.

  “That stuff’s for babies,” he’d proclaim loudly. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

  But on a stormy night, or after a particularly bad dream, he didn’t protest so loudly. Instead he went back in time to the days he was a babe in his mother’s arms, totally dependent on her to provide him protection.

  As Amy sang silly songs about itsy bitsy spiders and little stars that twinkle, he softly sobbed and tried to put the bad dream out of his mind.

  Amy, on the other hand, parroted the tactic their mother had always used.

  Monica always tried to get Robert to talk about his dream, so she could explain to him why it could never come true.

  “Your father’s not here anymore,” she might say. “And he’s never coming back. I promise you that if he does I’ll chase him away with his own gun. We don’t need him anymore, we don’t want him anymore, and we will not allow him back in our family.”

  Or…

  “Sea monsters don’t wear Cubs caps, you silly boy. They’re all Yankees fans.”

  Monica’s belief was that by talking openly about his dreams he could learn not to fear them.

  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But she almost always got a smile out of the boy by the time their discussion was finished.

  “Tell me, Robert,” Amy coaxed. “Tell me what you dreamed about.”

  “I… I don’t want to talk about it, Amy. Please don’t make me.”

  “You’re being silly, Robert. You need to talk about it. Momma says that by talking about it you can make the scariness go away. If Momma was strong enough to climb the stairs she’d tell you that herself. Now, tell me what it was, okay?”

  He hesitated.

  “Please?”

  He hesitated a bit longer, then took a deep breath and dove in.

  “I dreamed that we woke up one morning and went outside to see if Fluffy had her baby bunnies yet.

  “And when we got out there…”

  “Yes? What happened when we got out there?”

  “The hole… the one I dug for my swimming pool… the one where Momma said to put her when she died…”

  “Uh huh.”

  He sobbed a couple of times before he continued.

  “It was all filled in with dirt. And that closet door Momma wanted us to put over the top of her grave so the bunnies wouldn’t dig her back up? It was on top of the grave.

  “And you ‘member how Momma wanted us to decorate the door with crayons? How she wanted us to color all over it with pictures of happy things we all did together?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Well, it was colored all over with pictures and right in the middle was this big picture of Momma and the words ‘REST IN PEACE.’”

  Amy was just a tiny bit peeved that Robert found out about her plans to draw her mother’s portrait on her grave marker.

  She didn’t remember telling anyone about that. It was to be a special tribute to her mother for being the greatest momma in the world. Why, she didn’t even tell her mother of her plans. How in the world could he have found out?

  But she’d investigate later. Maybe he’d been snooping through the ultra top secret drawings she’d made to practice.

  She might have to pulverize him to get him to confess, but she’d find out.

  Right now there was something much more pressing to deal with.

  Ch
apter 51

  “Robert, don’t be silly. You had a dream that Momma died, but that hasn’t happened yet. And it won’t happen for a very long time.

  “Why, just yesterday Momma woke up all smiley and said she felt stronger than she had in weeks, remember?

  “She was even able to sit up and eat her breakfast. And when she went outside to check on Fluffy we were talking about how we both thought she’s finally starting to heal? And how someday she’ll be back to normal again and she’s gonna kick that mean old cancer’s butt?

  “Don’t you ‘member any of that?”

  His face brightened just a tiny bit.

  The sobbing stopped and he grew completely quiet.

  She said again, “Don’t you ‘member any of that, Robert?”

  “Uh huh.”

  She looked at the panels of black construction paper covering each of his window panes.

  Robert’s window, like Amy’s, faced to the east and caught the morning sun.

  They too, like Amy’s, lightened as the morning sunlight hit them. This morning they were still pitch black.

  Daybreak was at least an hour away.

  “Momma is fine, Robert. You’ll see. But she won’t be awake for awhile.

  “Would you like for me to hang around in here with you until it’s light outside? And then we can go downstairs together?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Okay. Scoot over so I can get under the covers.”

  There was a chill in the night air which wasn’t there a few weeks before.

  Monica had already warned Amy that winter was not far off.

  She really didn’t expect it for several more weeks, but she wanted Amy to get into the habit of watching out for the first time they saw frost on the ground. For in the absence of a calendar, it was essential she make note of that day.

  “When that happens, honey… the first day you see ice, I want you to start counting the days. And when you count ninety days from that day, I want you to start checking that big thermometer in the garage at the hottest time of each day.”

  “Checking it for what, Momma?”

  “Checking the temperature, honey. Ninety days after you see the first frost start checking the thermometer. And the first time the thermometer hits sixty five degrees I want you to start planting your crops, just like I showed you. It’s critically important that you remember. Do you think you can?”