Expiration Date

by Nancy Kilpatrick

  By the end of the week, my mom began laying down comments about Scooter maybe not coming back this time. That maybe this time he was gone. “Gone for good,” was the line she used, though I could see nothing good about it.

  That weekend, we stopped by George and Carol’s place. By now, the apologetic refrain had been memorized, but they really stepped it up. I didn’t say anything, because I knew if I did, I’d yell at how they hadn’t replaced his collar with something he couldn’t slip out of and escape a half-dozen times. But I also knew no one had taken it seriously, so the blame rested with all of us.

  Instead, I walked to the back yard. I found his collar, still attached to the end of a length of plastic-covered wire clothesline. And hanging from the collar, Scooter’s dog tag. Without really thinking about it, I unhooked the tag and, with a quick rub between my fingers and a whispered, “Please come back, Scooter,” I pocketed it.

  Over the next few weeks, the drudgery of day-to-day living, work for mom, school and homework for me, crept back and did its best to pluck thoughts of my lost dog out of our minds. It mostly worked for my mother, who mentioned him less and less. But for me, I entered into a ritual that would ensure I would never forget my dog.

  Each night, as I got into bed, I pulled out the dog tag from its hiding place under my bedside light and I rubbed it between thumb and forefinger and whispered, “Please come back, Scooter.”

  * * *

  Three months later, I was over at George and Carol’s, having spent the afternoon playing with Debbi. It was a warm, drowsy afternoon and we were both sprawled on the couch watching an old Tarzan movie. Debbi always had a thing for Johnny Weissmuller so I guess watching him jump around in nothing but a loincloth worked for her.

  My eyes were closing as I settled in for an afternoon nap when I heard a faint noise at their front door. I ignored it and shifted to get more comfortable. Then I heard it again. Scratching.

  Like a dog scratching at the aluminum screen door.

  “Scooter!” I yelled, and ran for the door.

  My dog lay at the front door, his sides heaving. He couldn’t stand, but George, hearing my excitement, came running and picked him up and brought him inside. I noticed the streak of blood on the screen.

  His paws were bloody and his tongue lolled lifelessly, but he looked at me and his eyes spoke to me: I came back to you. You believed I would and I did.

  George took off the new collar and the five feet or so of chain lead that Scooter had dragged with him from wherever he’d come from. Then he examined my dog and said that, aside from his paws, he seemed fine, just exhausted. He was going to be all right.

  Tears came quickly to my eyes and I thrust my hand into my pocket and clutched at the dogtag. Squeezing my hand and eyes tight, I whispered a thank you to whatever force brought my dog back to me.

  That was the last prison break.

  * * *

  That was back in 1968. Today, over forty-five years later, I watch Scooter as he pulls his old, old bones up and makes his way over to his food dishes to listlessly lap at the water. Most of his fur is gone now, and what’s left is white. His flesh hangs off him like the skin of a rotted fruit. It’s pulled down from his eyes, leaving those once-clear brown eyes recessed into sagging folds that constantly run with waxy fluids. I hear his bones clicking as he walks or moves.

  But by far, the worst of it is whenever he lowers his hindquarters in preparation to lie down. Every time he does it, Scooter’s hips break. I hear them. I see his body jerk with the pain. But somehow, things go back to normal and, after a couple of hours or so, he’s able to slowly get up again. Somehow the bones knit and the sockets are reslotted.

  I know it has something to do with that dogtag.

  It’s something that I should have taken care of years ago. Decades ago.

  I should have let go.

  But Scooter’s been my dog now for over forty-seven years. And it’s hard to let go of the pet that taught you that miracles can happen.

  He watches me as I take my coffee out to the back porch. I don’t take him with me anymore as he can’t make it down the three stairs to the deck, though his fleshless tail sways from side to side in a parody of its youthful exuberance. I give him a sad smile as I walk around the corner of the house and settle into the porch swing and sip my coffee.

  I get myself ready. I’ve decided. Today’s the day.

  I reach into my pocket and pull out the worn dog tag. I’ve rubbed it so much over the years that only the S and the R are still visible.

  I put down my coffee cup and look at the tag intently.

  And then, before I can think about it anymore, before I can talk myself out of it yet again, I rub the tag between thumb and forefinger and I whisper, “It’s time to escape, Scooter.”

  And this time, as the tears come once again to my eyes, I add, “I love you, Scooter.”

  I can only hope that will help him on his last prison break.

  * * *

  Tobin Elliott is a Creative Writing teacher, a freelance editor and writing mentor, and a writer of horror. He has one published short story; three novellas: Soft Kiss Hard Death, The Wrong and Vanishing Hope; and No Hope, his first novel, will be published this year.

  This Strange Way of Dying

  By Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  ~ 1 ~

  Georgina met Death when she was ten. The first time she saw him she was reading by her grandmother’s bedside. As Georgina tried to pronounce a difficult word, she heard her grandmother groan and she looked up. There was a bearded man in a top hat standing by the bed. He wore an orange flower in his buttonhole, the kind Georgina put on the altars on el Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.

  The man smiled at Georgina with eyes made of coal.

  Her grandmother had warned Georgina about Death and asked her to stand guard and chase it away with a pair of scissors. But Georgina had lost the scissors the day before when she made paper animals with her brother, Nuncio.

  “Please, please don’t take my grandmother,” she said. “She’ll be so angry at me if I let her die.”

  “We all die,” Death said and smiled. “Do not be sad.”

  He leaned down, his long fingers close to grandmother’s face.

  “Wait! What can I do? What should I do?”

  “There’s not much you can do.”

  “But I don’t want grandmother do die yet.”

  “Mmmm,” said Death tapping his foot and taking out a tiny black notebook. “Very well. I’ll spare your grandmother. Seven years in exchange of a promise.”

  “What kind of promise?”

  “Any promise. Promises are like cats. A cat may have stripes, or it may be white and have blue eyes and then it is a deaf cat, or it could be a Siamese cat, but it’ll always be a cat.”

  Georgina looked at Death and Death looked back at her, unblinking.

  “I suppose… yes,” she mumbled.

  “Then this is a deal,” he said, “Now, have a flower.”

  He offered her the bright, orange cempoalxochitl.

  * * *

  That first encounter with Death had a profound effect on Georgina. Fearing Death’s reappearance, and thinking he awaited her behind every corner, Georgina took no risks. While Nuncio broke his left arm and scraped his knees, Georgina sat in the darkened salon. When Nuncio rode wildly on his horse or jumped into an automobile, Georgina waited for him by the road. Finally, when other girls started swooning over young men and wishing one of them would sign his name on a dance card, Georgina refused to partner up and join the revelry.

  What was the point? She was going to die any day soon, why should she fall in love? Death would come to collect her tomorrow, maybe the day after tomorrow.

  She selected the dress that she would be buried in and asked her mother for white lilies at the funeral. She walked around
the mausoleum and inspected her final resting place. Morbid scenarios of murder assaulted her. She wondered if she would die struck by a carriage, or by lightning, or in some other more remarkable fashion.

  This is how seven years passed.

  * * *

  On the seventh year grandmother died and they took her to the cemetery in the great black hearse, then gathered in the salon to drink and mourn. Georgina was standing by the piano, considering death and its many possibilities, from a bullet to an earthquake, when Catalina came over with a satisfied grin on her face.

  “You’ll never guess what I heard,” she said. “Ignacio Navarrete is going to marry you.”

  “What?”

  “I heard him speaking to Miguel. He’s going to ask for your hand in marriage.”

  “But he can’t!”

  Georgina craned her neck, trying to spot Ignacio across the room and finally saw him in his double breasted-suit, hands covered in white silk gloves. Reptilian. Disgusting.

  “I wish I would die,” she whispered, angrily, like a bride that has been left at the altar and only now reads the clock and realizes the groom is late.

  * * *

  When Georgina woke up, it was dark. A rustle of fabric made her sit up and a man stepped out from behind the thick velvet curtains. He wore a long coat, a burgundy vest and sported a little moustache. Though different in attire, and looking younger than she recalled, she recognized him as Death.

  “I didn’t really mean it,” she said at once, all the scenarios of her own demise suddenly pieced together in her brain.

  “Mean what?”

  “Today, during the party. I didn’t mean I really wanted to die.”

  “You sounded rather honest.”

  “But I wasn’t.”

  “Then you want to marry that man?”

  “No,” she scoffed. “I don’t want to die either.”

  “Good. I don’t want you to die or marry him.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “What do you want then? I mean, if you haven’t come to kill me.”

  He produced a bouquet of orange cempoalxochitls, his arm stretched out towards her.

  “I’ve come to collect a promise. Any promise, do you recall?”

  “Yes,” she muttered, uncertain.

  “It’s a promise of marriage.”

  Georgina stared at Death. It was the only thing she could do. She was not sure if she should laugh or cry. Probably cry and start yelling for her father. Wouldn’t that be the natural reaction?

  She pushed her long pigtail behind her shoulder and pressed both hands against the bed.

  “I don’t think I can marry you,” she said cautiously.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “You’re Death.”

  “I’m one death.”

  “Pardon me?”

  He grabbed the lilies that were next to her bed and tossed them to the floor, then placed his cempoalxochitls in the flower vase.

  “A few hours ago you were calling for me and now you refuse me.”

  “I was not… even if I was… it’s late,” she said, reaching towards her embroidered robe. In her white cotton nightgown with the ruffles and lace trim Georgina was practically naked and she didn’t think this was the best way to confront Death, or anyone else for that matter.

  “Just past midnight.”

  “Please go,” she said, quickly closing the robe, a hand at her neck.

  “I cannot leave without the promise of marriage.”

  “I will not marry you!”

  Had she yelled? Georgina pressed a hand against her mouth and immediately feared the maids would come poking their heads inside her room. And what would she say if they found a man in there?

  “We have a problem. We made a deal and now I must head out empty-handed, which is impossible in my line of business.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry,” he said and smiled, white teeth flashing, “Sorry does not suffice. No, dear girl. You are indebted to me. You exchanged seven years of life for a promise”

  “It isn’t fair! I didn’t know what I promised.”

  “A promise is a promise,” he said and pulled out his black notebook. “What do you have that you can give? A cat. That is no good. A parrot. Well, they do get to live for a century but I don’t think I can stand—”

  “I don’t want to marry a dead man.”

  “I’m not dead. I am Death. Particularities, details,” he said scribbling in the notepad. “As you can clearly see, your hand in marriage should solve this debt of ours.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Let us be reasonable. Would you like to discuss this tomorrow? Shall I meet you around noon?”

  Georgina was certain she could hear her mother’s sure footsteps approaching her door. Terror greater than death seized her. She wanted the stranger out of her room, out of the house before anyone realized there was a man there.

  “Yes, just go!” she whispered.

  Georgina went to the door, her ear pressed against it. She waited for the door to burst open. It did not. The house was quiet. Her mother slept soundly. She let out a sigh.

  Georgina looked around the room. He was gone. The flowers remained, but in the morning they had turned into orange dust.

  * * *

  Georgina’s pigtail was carefully undone and her hair just as carefully swept up and decorated with jeweled pins. She descended the stairs in a tight-waisted blue dress and sat quietly at breakfast, fearing Death would knock at the door and ask to be invited in.

  “Will you look at this?” her father said, brandishing the morning newspaper up. “It’s deplorable. Who does this Orozco think he is? I am telling you Natalia, it is simply deplorable to see such people causing a fuss.”

  Georgina’s mother did not reply. Her father was not asking a question, merely stating his opinion, and he expected no replies. He had been a Porfirista before, now he was a Maderista and God knew what he might become the day after. At the table, his wife and his two children were supposed to nod their heads and agree in polite silence: father was always right.

  “So then, what are your plans for today?” her father asked as he tossed the paper aside.

  “I want to get some new dresses made,” Georgina said.

  “Nuncio, will you be accompanying your sister?”

  “Father, I’m heading to the Jockey Club today,” Nuncio said, slipping into his childish, thin voice even though he was a year older than Georgina.

  “I want to go alone. I don’t need him with me,” Georgina said curtly.

  Everyone turned to look at her, frowning at the tone she had just used.

  “Young ladies do not go out of their houses without proper escorts,” her mother reminded her, each word carefully enunciated; a velvet threat.

  “This is hardly going out,” Georgina countered, knowing well her mother would scold her later for using such a tone with her.

  But it would be worse, much worse, if Death were to show up at her home. Perhaps if he found her outside of the house she might speak to him quickly and get rid of him for good, her family never the wiser.

  “I’ll meet you at El Fenix in the afternoon,” Georgina said. It wouldn’t do at all if Nuncio kept an eye on her all day. “Rosario can accompany me to the seamstress.”

  * * *

  Rosario chaperoned Georgina, but she was old and tired. Most of the time she would just stay inside the carriage with the coachman, Nicanor, while Georgina hurried into a store. That day was no exception and Georgina went alone up the narrow steps that led to the seamstress. Death, his dark coat spilling behind him, appeared at her elbow.

  “Good day,” he said, tipping an imaginary hat towards her. “Is today a better time to talk?”
>
  “A little better,” she muttered and quickly hurried to the ground floor, where they stood beneath the stairs, hiding in the shadows.

  He reached into his pocket and took out a dead dove, trying to hand it to her. Georgina shoved it away. The dove fell on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, staring at the mangled corpse of the bird.

  “I thought you’d like a proper engagement present.”

  “Engagement? You’re Death. I’m alive. Isn’t that a problem?”

  “Of no particular importance,” he shrugged.

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to marry someone who is dead?”

  “Who do you take me for? Do you think I want to go dancing with a cadaver?”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “Easily solved. Let us go to a bar and…”

  “A bar?!”

  “Let us get to know each other somewhere, anywhere.”

  “Nowhere,” she whispered, scandalized by the suggestion.

  “Well, then it’s back to the beginning,” he said and took out of his notebook and a pencil. “I guess I’ll have to take fourteen years of your life then…”

  The pencil dangled in mid-air.

  “Fourteen?”

  “Compound interest.”

  “Wait,” she said. “We can negotiate this.”

  “Marriage.”

  “What would you do with a wife? Have little skeletons and make me cook your meals?”

  “Do you like to cook?”

  “No!”

  “Look, it’s a simple matter. Balance and algebra. Duality and all that. Lord and lady. Do you know what I mean?”

  She didn’t know what to say. She had to talk to the seamstress, had to meet her brother afterwards and maybe Rosario would wake up and wander into the building.

  “It would be beautiful,” he told her.

  Death wove a silver necklace around her neck with vines and birds. The dove fluttered back to life and landing on her hands transformed into a hundred black pearls which spilled onto the floor.

  It was all wonderful.