The autumn wind formed the crisp leaves into a mini twister. They brushed against her face and collected in her hair.
A flash of green— the tip of Tegan’s dress as she ducked behind a car, giggling quietly to remain hidden.
“We’re in a parking lot,” Tegan’s mom cried. Her voice had lost the playfulness and was taking on the stern parental tone. “This isn’t a game.”
Tegan’s blonde hair was swept off her face and fastened with a jewelled hair clip. She peeked over a hood, saw her mom, and dashed into the parking lot. She didn’t see the minivan, didn’t register the pain as the grill broke her clavicle, then shattered several ribs and speared them into her heart. She died within seconds.
Connie gasped, took a step back to distance herself from the image.
She drove home to her apartment, the car windows open. She gripped the wheel tightly, afraid that if she didn’t, she’d experience another of the images. She wondered if she was losing her mind— if the trauma of killing Tegan had somehow fractured her psyche.
She saw the man in the Cordoba, the windshield free of glare. He had a perfectly trimmed goatee and close-cropped hair. A heavy silver chain hung around his neck, matching the chunky bracelet on his wrist.
A car honked and Connie startled. She idled at a four-way stop, alone except for the vehicle behind her. She waved and headed the last few blocks to her home, a converted church made into a series of apartments. She didn’t own the place— she couldn’t afford to own anything right now. Her credit wasn’t bad— worse, it was nonexistent. This place was the one piece of luck she’d had over the past six months. She was house sitting— no rent, just utilities, which she could afford with her design job.
Once inside, she peeled off her clothes and took a shower so hot that her skin reddened. She towel dried and climbed into bed and then stared at the ceiling and tried to block out the sound of Tegan hitting the bumper.
Instead of thinking about Tegan, she saw the man in the Cordoba. She tried to remember when he had arrived. Did he push through the crowd and get into his car? Or was he already there? The more she thought about it, the more she thought she knew him.
She fell asleep, and dreamed of the man. He was different this time, wearing a black overcoat with matching hat. He looked taller but that could’ve been because he was thinner. He watched by the woods, one foot in the car, the other firmly on the pavement, as if unsure whether he was coming or going.
She woke with a start.
That wasn’t from the scene of Tegan’s death!
Ten years ago, Connie and her sister had gone to their family’s cottage up at Shouldice Lake. Connie had convinced her sister to go to the Singing Sands beach because their lake was infested with blood suckers. The waters at Singing Sands were calm, and the beach was shallow. But Jennifer, never a strong swimmer, disappeared beneath the surface. By the time Connie got to her, Jennifer’s skin was blue and her lungs had filled with water. Connie didn’t know CPR. She screamed until others came running. One of the other bathers was a nurse who performed chest compressions. Jennifer never coughed up water and never took another breath. Her blue skin turned white.
Connie replayed that day, just like she was replaying Tegan’s death. What she could’ve done differently, how she could’ve saved her sister’s life.
Connie’s skin tingled with the realization that the man in the black overcoat had watched from the parking lot by the picnic tables. She hadn’t remembered him, or rather, she hadn’t attached importance to him, but now she did.
There was no reason to believe it was the same man just because he drove a Cordoba, except all her instincts screamed that it was.
Why would that man be at both incidents? What were the chances that he’d be watching, each time an impartial observer? She didn’t assume that he was involved in their demises— both were random tragedies. Instead, it was almost as if the man anticipated the accidents, and was there waiting for them.
What type of person could anticipate a fatality?
She laughed at the absurdity. She was so wracked with guilt that she was beginning to concoct crazy stories. And yet, she couldn’t let it go. She crawled from bed, her body electrified.
Connie paced, trying to recall all the details of her sister’s death. That man… what had he done? Had he approached? Did she see his face? The more she concentrated, the more the memory distorted and she was unable to differentiate between the real memory, and her wish fulfillment.
She cursed, willed away the disjointed thoughts. She pushed aside the doubt as it threatened to derail her. Some things you couldn’t prove, but you simply knew to be true.
That man wasn’t the mythical grim reaper who brought death, cutting the living down like wheat with his black-iron scythe. Was this Death the boatman, who ferried the deceased to the afterlife? Heaven? Hell? Shangri-La? Hades? Connie didn’t think it mattered. He was the collector of souls.
What if she found him? Then what? Hold him hostage? Threaten him with a gun until he agreed to release Tegan from the afterlife?
Connie knew this really wasn’t about Tegan or Jennifer. This was about her, and her desire to tell Tegan how sorry she was for killing her. Then to confess to her sister how she regretted tormenting her when they were kids by setting her doll’s hair on fire. How she wished that at the age of twenty-two, she hadn’t whined because she was afraid of a few leeches.
Connie wanted something simple but impossible— a chance for closure.
All she needed to do was trap Death.
How would she find Death? Did he show up at every accident, every death? If so, then she assumed that she was one of the few that could see him, if death was even a him. Because Death drives a Cordoba. She pushed those thoughts to the side, to cling with her nails to the slim ledge of plausibility.
Hang out in the ICU? What if she threatened to kill someone? Could Death be fooled so easily, or would he know that she was never going to pull the trigger?
The more she schemed, the more she realized how crazy she sounded. There was no way to cheat Death, or to negotiate better terms. Did she plan on driving around, hoping people killed themselves in front of her, or wishing for a loose support wire on a window-washing scaffold?
She laughed bitterly.
She was losing her mind.
Bargaining was a stage of grief. Except in this case, there was no bargaining with Death.
There was no coming back from that.
* * *
Connie decided to give work another try, because that was what happened in the real world.
She pulled across the street from the condos into a cafe’s parking lot but then rested her head on the steering wheel, hoping that working wasn’t a bad idea. Sarah had given her some leeway, but that compassion wouldn’t last long, and she couldn’t afford to lose this job.
She was so tired. The stress of the past two days and her sleepless nights left her exhausted, and hearing things. She leaned back and watched people meander down the sidewalks.
A woman walked a massive Rottweiler, though really the dog dragged her down the street.
An elderly couple stopped at a boutique window, never speaking, but nodding, pointing, communicating wordlessly then moving on to the next window.
An eaves-trough cleaner stretched out his wooden ten-foot step ladder. He clambered up, a length of aluminum over his shoulder. He climbed to the top step, the ladder trembling.
Connie saw it happen before it happened. The Rottweiler spots a squirrel, then chases after it, pulling easily away from the owner. The dog sprints down the street, dragging its leash behind. It hits the ladder and the man begins to fall.
She blinked, trying to clear her faulty vision. The woman had a firm grip on the leash and the dog wasn’t free. The man on the ladder was fitting the trough into place. He teetered on the top step, the one that usually
says ‘not a step’.
Then the Rottweiler barked, pulled on its leash, and was free.
“No!” Connie yelled. She opened her door, desperate to warn the man.
Too late.
The dog dashed down the street, then hit the ladder. The man dropped the trough and scrambled for a handhold. The step ladder folded. The man caught a length of flashing, but it only held him momentarily. He reached for the window sill, missed, driving his arm through the window. The glass shattered, and his full weight came down on his wrist. The glass sliced through his flesh, severing tendons, ligaments, arteries. His blood squirted in an arc. His legs kicked, trying desperately to gain a traction.
Someone screamed, then the man fell backward onto the sidewalk, his head smashing against the concrete. His hand was attached by a few flimsy cords. He wasn’t moving, his blood pooling on the sidewalk.
A crowd quickly gathered around him.
“He’s thirty-eight-years old. He’s not going to survive. He’s lost too much blood and he’s hit his head on the concrete. He’s going to die.” The thought didn’t belong to her, but it didn’t feel alien or obtrusive. In fact, it felt comforting, like it belonged there.
Connie wanted to rush to his side and help, but there was no helping him. The details of his life came to her in a dizzying torrent of information, but now she wondered if they had always been there and she was just remembering.
She glanced around the accident scene, at the chaos, at the people snapping pictures on their cell phones, of others turning white from seeing a man die. He wasn’t dead yet, but he would be shortly.
“It is his time.” that voice said again. “He is frightened and alone.”
The woman with the dog stood motionless, shell shocked. Pale, expressionless, confused. Her gaze settled on Connie.
Connie stood at her minivan, one foot in, and one foot out. The eye contact was brief, Connie looking away. She slid back into the minivan, hands on the wheel. The woman continued to stare, but Connie could tell by her furrowed brow that she must not have been able to see past the glare on the windshield.
“His time is over. Take him home,” the internal voice said.
The passenger door opened and the eaves cleaner climbed in. As he’d approached, she noticed he walked with a hitch in his step from a motorcycle accident years ago, though the slight limp was out of habit as he didn’t have any injuries. Not anymore. He glanced at his wrist, then at the body on the sidewalk.
They sat in silence for a long moment.
“I’m not ready,” the man said, leaning back into his seat. “My wife’s expecting me. I can’t leave her like this. And my job…” He explained the list of goals and dreams left undone, and of commitments broken.
“He is weighted with the burdens of the living. Soothe him so that he casts off these bonds for the world of the living is unimportant now. His time is gone,” the voice said.
“How do I do that?” she asked the voice.
“You have the gift to assuage his distress. He must accept that his time is gone, and yet his journey is just beginning.”
If she concentrated hard enough, she saw the man’s guilt and fear pooled at his feet like a vague shadow, the tendrils of his earthly life holding him back.
Connie put her hand on his arm. He startled, but then calmed, and the shadow receded. “She’ll understand,” Connie said. “They’ll all understand. Your time has passed. This isn’t a sad thing, but a change from one existence to another.”
He visibly relaxed and said, “You’re not what I expected.”
“They say that every time,” the voice said.
He didn’t seem to hear it, so she said, “Everyone says that.”
“Why you?”
Why was she chosen to drive him? Why had the man in the Cordoba driven Tegan, and Jennifer? She smiled, as she realized that neither Tegan nor Jennifer had died alone and confused. Each had someone to walk the path with them.
“Because you were confused and maybe frightened, and needed someone you could trust. Because sometimes, we just need a friend.”
He contemplated this for a long moment before saying, “I’m not afraid. At least, not anymore.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” she said. And it was true. She didn’t know what waited for him at the end of the journey— it wasn’t her time yet, so like all of the living, she wouldn’t be allowed into the afterlife.
“My name is Ronald.”
“I know,” she said.
She put the vehicle in drive. Their journey, mapped out in her mind, was a long one, and she estimated it would take several days. She wasn’t scared either, but she was nervous. Because at the end of the journey, she would be granted the impossible— Tegan and Jennifer would be waiting to talk with her.
* * *
Ryan McFadden is a two-time Aurora winning writer from London, Ontario. His most recent writing credits are stories in the anthologies When the Villain Comes Home and Blood and Water. He is currently working on the 10th Circle Chronicles— an ebook series.
Prison Break
by Tobin Elliott
The first time Scooter escaped, I was six years old.
My mom and dad had split up a year before and we’d had to move. My dad wouldn’t take my dog, Scooter, and mom and I couldn’t have him in the apartment we moved to. The next best thing was to give him a good home so we arranged to have him live with George and Carol Black, friends of ours with a house not too far away. I hung out with their daughter, Debbi — and yes, there were the inevitable comments about how nice it would be if we grew up and got married — that always got our eyes rolling. But at least I had a place to visit my dog. And make no mistake, no matter where Scooter lived, he was my dog.
We’d got him three years earlier, back when mom and dad still talked nicely to each other. Dad came home with a small, black, brown-eyed squirming bundle of joy and it was love at first sight for both of us. Though he was a black Lab, he had a small white patch over the toes of both hind legs that, in my mind, just made him even more fascinating. When my parents asked me what I wanted to name him, I picked Scooter. Don’t ask why. The fog of time has eradicated whatever reason my three-year-old brain may have come up with.
Then my parents split up. We moved into an apartment, my father moved in with his sister, and Scooter went to my friends. I don’t think any one of us were happy with the new status quo, but the only one that actively protested it was Scooter. Every few months, he’d slip his collar and head home. Well, what he thought of as home.
And to be honest, it was still the place I considered home as well. The place with the backyard, the small pond, the wooded area that was safe for a six-year-old to roam in… all of it now replaced by a cramped apartment with a balcony and hallways that smelled of old fried food and damp laundry. There was a park across the street now, but I couldn’t play hide and seek in an area with no trees and a battered swing set. I missed my magical woods.
I guess Scooter did too. The first time he left the Black’s, they phoned in a panic, but it wasn’t even an hour later we got the call that Scooter was sitting in his old dog house back at our old house, now owned by someone that I felt couldn’t ever understand how great the place was. They didn’t have a dog. They didn’t even have kids.
When we went to get Scooter that first time, he seemed quite pleased with himself that he’d been able to draw everyone back home. His thick black tail thumped the wall of the dog house as we approached, gently admonishing him. Then his big brown eyes seemed to radiate disappointment when we bundled him into my mother’s sky blue ‘62 Pontiac and took him back to George and Carol.
A few weeks later, he did it again. I’m sure in his little doggy brain he was hoping this time he’d succeeded.
It happened a third and fourth and fifth time. By then, it was a routine. We smilingly referred t
o them as Scooter’s “prison breaks”. George and Carol would first call us to alert us, then call the residents of the old house to keep an eye out. By the fifth time, we just drove over and waited for him to show. When he came bounding through the woods and trotted across the yard to me as I waited by his dog house, I could almost read it in his eyes, in the way he loped across the lawn, in the set of his mouth as his tongue bobbed out making him look for all the world like he was smiling. Finally! I’m sure he thought. I finally got them trained!
We took him back to George and Carol who, as usual, apologized profusely. I never minded. I got to spent time with my dog in the back seat of mom’s car. But handing him over to George and Carol… Man, it was like giving him up all over again. Every time.
I made sure that, each time I walked Scooter back to the Black’s back yard and slipped the collar over his head and tightened it up, that I stroked his shiny black head, looked directly into his eyes and told him how much I loved him and how, someday, we’d be able to live together again in a nice house with a nice yard and some woods to walk in. I didn’t realize until the fourth or fifth time that I also had a grip on his dog tag, the one with his name on it, and I was rubbing it between my thumb and fingers.
* * *
The last time he ran away, it started the same as every other prison break. We got the call from Carol. Mom and I hopped in the Pontiac and headed over to the old place and then we waited.
We’d never had to wait over an hour.
This time, we were there almost four hours before we gave up. I didn’t like the lines in my mother’s forehead or the set of her mouth.
We called the old place when we got back, sure that Scooter would have shown up just after we left. No, they hadn’t seen him yet. They’d keep an eye out and call as soon as he showed.
The next day, I came home from school and before I could say anything, I knew mom hadn’t heard anything. The lines in her forehead were etched a little deeper, the set of her mouth a little more engrained.
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