Danse Macabre: Close Encounters with the Reaper

by Nancy Kilpatrick

  Herr T. seemed even more youthful while they danced, tall and strong, actually, and painfully cold. She reached up to touch his face and he stopped humming, and the dance ended on his breath.

  This is what I thought it would be like, she thought.

  Her fingers laced through his hair, pulling his head down to hers until their lips met. The air in her lungs froze; she struggled for breath, desperate for oxygen but not wanting the moment to end, not ever. Even as she clung to him, Herr T. pushed her away with such force that she crashed into the wall.

  “What am I doing?” Drea cried. But he remained silent, withdrawing into the shadows as if he’d disappeared into thin air.

  Drea grabbed her things and ran.

  “I can’t believe you lost a job that wasn’t even paying you. How do you do that?” Paul said. He stomped through the crowd of people who marched along with the Geisterzug.

  It was a spectacle. Dancers were dressed in black gowns and white face paint with hollowed out eyes. Others wore rags and glow-in-the dark makeup. Mixed in were people in gauze shrouds; others, holding sticks that dangled skeletons from gossamer thin string; and others who carried drums and struck the solemn beat of the death march.

  A bone-white full moon shone above, casting light upon the dancing shadows. Drea looked around, half expecting Dead Michael Jackson to moonwalk out of the crowd.

  “Are you listening?” Paul said. He grabbed her wrist and spun her around to face him. He was a handsome man, but a grim and ugly look distorted his face.

  She didn’t tell him that she hadn’t lost the job. She hadn’t even quit it. She had simply decided not to go back. No one from Firme Köln had called, not even Herr T. And why should he?

  But she’d thought he might. She’d hoped he would.

  “Paul, it was for the best,” she said. “I promise I’ll find a paying job.”

  Paul snorted. “For the best? How are you going to find a job that pays when you can’t even keep one that doesn’t?” He smirked. “You think you’ll live for free after we get married, is that it?”

  And suddenly she thought, I won’t live at all. I’ll die if I marry you. I’ll be buried alive.

  She stepped away from Paul, finding herself in the flow of the Ghost Parade, surrounded by tall bony figures in black that looked strangely familiar. They were graceful and silent — except for the sound of their beating drums and the clicking bones of the skeletons that dangled from their sticks.

  Goosebumps prickled Drea’s skin, and she moved her feet in an unthinking succession of steps as she danced through the Geisterzug in a perfect waltz. Figures capered after her for a few seconds, as if she were the leader of the parade; their silhouettes were thrown against brick, plaster, and steel, and she stopped inches away from Paul, who watched her in shock.

  “Drea,” he said touching her face. “You can dance as well as you fuck.”

  She knocked his hand away, and then turned, stalking off toward the streetcar.

  They glared at each other from either side of the aisle of the streetcar. The lights flickered as the streetcar snaked through the city, casting Paul in ghoulish light. He looked devilish.

  “It just seems strange that you can dance all of a sudden,” he said after a while. “Denkst du, das ist lustig? Are you having a joke at my expense?”

  “No.” Drea stood and walked toward the far end of the streetcar. Paul followed after her. She tripped, stumbling, barely grabbing onto one of the metal poles in time to break her fall.

  “There’s the Drea I know. Two left feet. No balance at all,” he said, laughing. The lights flickered again casting the train in darkness. “Let’s dance, baby.”

  He pulled her against him as the lights flickered back on, and they spun in a circle with Paul humming the weird little waltz. She couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t.

  He looked at her bleary-eyed. “You don’t want to dance? Maybe you want other things?”

  He grabbed her ass and pressed against her. The lights flickered on, off, and as she stared past him, she saw a white face looking in at them through the window. Dead Michael Jackson’s face! That was impossible!

  At the same time, the streetcar lurched, throwing Drea and Paul to the floor. A whine shrieked high-pitched and wild, like the little girl who had nearly fallen off the curb. The terrible sound of metal scraping and crumpling pierced the night as the streetcar tilted to the left, sending passengers flying, tumbling into the aisle, onto each other. Sparks filled the darkness, creating grotesque orange shadows throughout the car as it buckled and rolled to a stop.

  People all around Drea were crying and screaming, begging for help. Dazed, she lay on something soft, comfortable in spite of the pain that lanced her side.

  The dim emergency lights flickered on, giving her just enough light to see that the car was on its side. Passengers were covered with blood, some sobbing and scrambling over other people, others lay very still.

  Drea struggled to sit up and something — no, someone — beneath her groaned.

  “Paul!” she cried, rolling off him.

  His legs were bent, and half of a metal handrail pierced his abdomen, pinning him to the door. There was blood everywhere. She scooped up his neck, cradling it, forcing down sheer panic.

  “I’ll get help,” she said.

  “Fräulein Armstrong,” said a voice, as a gentle — but cold — hand gripped her shoulder. Everything around them froze; all the screaming stilled.

  It was Herr T. And his blond hair curled around a face that was vibrant and young.

  Dead Michael Jackson stood slightly behind him and peered over his shoulder.

  “Herr T! Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “Only by your absence,” he said, “but in a terrible coincidence, I can no longer stay away from you.” He gazed at her, and despite her terror, she saw the longing there, the sadness. “I had an account to balance tonight,” he said, nodding toward Paul, who stared up at him in horror.

  Beside Herr T., Dead Michael Jackson held up the two euros she had put in his coffin that first morning. “To pay the ferryman.”

  “Nein. Nein, bitte!” Paul said, groaning. His head lolled. “Help me, Drea. Help!” He coughed; blood spurted from his lips over Drea’s fingers as he struggled for breath.

  Then, as the German teenager moonwalked through the frozen figures of the other passengers, Herr T’s face vanished into the hooded cloak he now wore that hid his features in shadow. The cloak enveloped him, and in his hand he held a scythe. The skin on his hand melted, and skeletal fingers gripped the wood.

  Drea couldn’t speak. She told herself she was going into shock. She wasn’t seeing the things that she was seeing.

  “Just as you did not see what a lecherous bully your fiancé is,” Herr T said. He swept a courtly bow. “I am Tod. Death to you. And it is very unfortunate that you have danced with me.” He smiled sadly at her. “And that I, after all these millennia, have fallen in love with someone so … temporary.”

  She just kept staring, even as he knelt down next to her and Paul. He rested a finger on Paul’s forehead. Her fiancé was suddenly cold to the touch, almost icy.

  Herr T got to his feet. He held the scythe like a staff, looking down at the two of them like an executioner taking their measure.

  “No,” she pleaded. “Let us live.”

  “Your account is not being debited,” he said. “You saw me check my ledger when you came into my office. That little girl was due to be hit by a Mercedes Benz, but you saved her. I thought to take you then, at the interview, to balance things out. But I found I could not.” She sensed that in the darkness beneath the hood, his eyes gazed at her, and he held out his free hand, made of bone. “I was drawn to you even then.”

  And I to you, she thought, holding Paul’s head as he panted and writhed.
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br />   Dead Michael Jackson crouched beside Paul, holding up the coins to show to Death, as if waiting to be given the word to perform his task.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she begged Death. “Please.”

  “My job is not to inflict pain,” he replied. “It is to kill.” He wrapped both his hands around the scythe. Dead Michael Jackson leaned over Paul and pressed the coins onto his open eyes.

  “Tun Sie das nicht! Lieber Gott, bitte nicht!” Paul cried, limply batting at the teenager. His hands went through the young man and he grabbed onto Drea. His face was pasty, and his lips were turning blue. “Nehmen Sie sie, wenn Sie sie möchten. All you need is someone, right?”

  “Take me?” she said stunned, repeating Paul’s words. Drea looked down at him, her face burning as if slapped. He didn’t look at her, keeping his unblinking gaze squarely on Herr T.

  “I need to balance my book, yes,” Death said. “But I would never take you, Drea. I will set you free.”

  “Oh, God, no. She’s got nothing to live for anyway,” Paul babbled.

  “You have everything to live for,” Death said quietly to Drea. “Soon you will see that. And this soulless creature—” he gestured toward Paul, “—will be a footnote in your very long and happy life.”

  “What happened to the little girl?” she asked.

  From beneath his hood the faint glimmer of teeth shown through as Death smiled at Dead Michael Jackson. “This one balanced the account. He died of a drug overdose shortly after he led me to you. And you see? He is fine.”

  “Nein,” Paul begged. “Nein, bitte.”

  Letting go of Paul, she placed both her hands over Death’s two bony hands on the scythe. Michael Jackson watched them, then looked back down at Paul.

  “I danced with you,” she whispered. “I danced beautifully.”

  Death averted his head. “A breach of etiquette. A blunder.” He sighed. “There is so much gray now. People on life support, demises avoided for decades.” He turned back to her. “And there is you.”

  The hood bobbed as he lowered his head, almost as if she were the one with the scythe, and not he.

  “If he is spared, he will have scars and will not dance again. He will not even be able to walk,” he said.

  “Oh, God,” Paul whispered. “Drea, tell him not to do that.”

  “Life has its price, but it is not up to me,” Herr T said to Drea. “It is up to you.”

  Though he had heckled and bullied her, Drea found herself pitying Paul. Maybe such a life would make him kinder.

  “Yes, his afterlife will be better for it,” Death concurred, as if he was reading her mind.

  Drea put her hands on either side of the hood and drew it away. Herr T smiled at her, handsome and young. The icy feel of Death’s skin warmed against hers.

  “What you’re saying is that you can take me instead,” she said, searching his face. “Paul is right. As long as the books are balanced … credit, debit.”

  He tried to look away, and she held his face between her palms. “You need me at the firm.”

  “I need you.” His smile was tentative, then radiant.

  “Then … hire me.”

  “Very well,” he said, throwing back his head and laughing, lifting her to her feet.

  Grinning, Dead Michael Jackson put his euros in his pocket and stood.

  “What about me?” Paul shouted.

  Together, Death and Drea walked off the streetcar, leaving the sounds of breaking glass behind them as rescue crews invaded the twisted cars. Through the falling snow, the Geisterzug appeared, everyone dancing, swaying in a mummers’ ballet.

  A single scream echoed through the night. For a moment she thought the sound resembled the ringing echo of her name. Then Herr T took Drea in his arms, both of them smiling as they waltzed into the shadows of Köln Karneval.

  * * * * *

  Nancy Holder is a New York Times best-selling and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author, and a short story, essay, and comic book writer She is the author of the Wicked, Crusade, and Wolf Springs Chronicles series. Vanquished, in the Crusade series, is out now; Hot Blooded, the second book in the Wolf Springs Chronicles, will be out soon. She has written a lot of tie-in material for “universes” such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, and many others, and recently won her fifth Bram Stoker Award for the young adult horror, The Screaming Season. She lives in San Diego.

  Erin Underwood is a writer, columnist, and blogger. She has a degree in creative writing and literature from the Harvard University Extension School and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program. For her, the seed from which ”Totentanz” grew was rooted in the question: How would Death adjust to modern times? What would that mean for him, for us? Erin lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts with her husband.

  Out of the Sun

  By Gabriel Boutros

  Two riders were approaching.

  They came from the east, out of the desert. The rising sun had begun to creep over the horizon and it cast their shadows far ahead of them like tentacles. Even at such a distance and with the sun at their backs, the miners realized who these riders were, and each man felt a chill pierce his soul.

  For the taller of the two riders was certainly Death sitting arrogantly astride his black charger. Beside him, riding jauntily on a pony so small it could have been a donkey, and with his dangling feet almost dragging in the sand, was the Joker.

  They always rode together, Death and the Joker. The former rarely spoke, performing his tasks with a grim professionalism that many might have mistaken for indifference if it weren’t for what was at stake. As for the latter, he was in many ways the crueler of the pair. His greatest joy was to tease and mock the people they sought out, giving them false hope that their time had not yet come.

  The miners were seven, surely a lucky number they had told themselves the previous night when they gathered around the campfire, some of them still bandaging their injuries. They had hoped to delay the arrival of these travelers, if not postpone it indefinitely, but neither their medicine nor their superstitions were strong enough. Every man gulped down his own fears and looked surreptitiously at his comrades so that none could accuse him of casting an evil eye.

  Each man hoped that it was not his time, that the danger might yet pass. Each quietly prayed that another might be taken instead. There was always someone else who deserved it more, maybe for cheating at cards or for not attending mass when the priests passed through the camp. None would ever admit to wishing ill on a fellow miner, although at a time like this such wishes lay in all seven hearts.

  The eldest among the miners coughed, covering his mouth, and then coughed again. He spat out a thick black stream of phlegm, his weakened body trembling. He looked around him and saw the others turn their eyes away, some of them ashamedly, for a hint of hopefulness had come to their faces. He straightened his back and walked wordlessly to his tent. He closed the flap behind him to hide the fear he felt because he was old and had breathed the poisoned air of the mines longer than anyone else. Yet hadn’t he moved quickly when the alarm had sounded? He felt that his bravery should count for something, but doubted that his opinion in such matters held much weight.

  Behind his back a few of the others nodded meaningfully, the old man’s ill health a portent that they might not be the ones taken after-all. One man sat down and began to stir the fire in preparation for his breakfast, suddenly remembering how hungry he was. Those who watched him took confidence from his actions, the fate of the eldest seemingly settled in their minds.

  The youngest among the miners, however, turned to look at the tent into which the old man had disappeared. He still felt fear for himself, but the possibility of losing the old man filled him with sadness. He said nothing to the others, though, the throbbing pain in his hea
d making it difficult for him to speak or to move.

  The riders were almost at the camp now, and the wind that had blown heavily during the night suddenly died down. The birds that lived in this arid land, and who loved to flit about and sing in the cool of each dawn, were nowhere to be seen or heard. The clop-clop sound of the horses’ hooves drowned out the buzzing of the cicadas, and it was many days before their song was heard again.

  Despite their brief moment of confidence, none of the miners would turn to look at the new arrivals. The one who had stirred the fire fiddled with a frying pan for a bit, but couldn’t make up his mind whether to break any eggs into it or to put it back down.

  One miner stood up, deciding to take off his hat in greeting, but try as he might he could not raise his eyes above the leather-booted feet that rested in stirrups on each side of the black horse. He looked at his compatriots for encouragement but found none, each man busying himself, adjusting a bloody bandage or examining some stone or other on the ground that he had never noticed before. Finally the miner put his worn hat back on his head and slid down into a cross-legged position, deciding that greetings were probably not appropriate at this time.

  It was then that the Joker, who had been eyeing the miners with a mischievous grin, jumped down from the back of his pony. The animal was so short that the Joker was the same height standing as he was when sitting upon it. Perhaps it was this realization that struck him as ridiculous, for he let out a piercing peal of laughter which froze the six men in their places. A sad and hopeless moan soon followed from inside the old man’s tent, clearly audible to everyone’s ears, although none of the other miners reacted to it.

  Instead, their eyes turned for the first time to the Joker, and he stared back at them with an exaggeratedly stunned expression. From where each man stood they could see that the Joker was of average height, except to those for whom he seemed quite tall, or others who found him short. His hat, the pointy kind which may have been flopping down over one or both ears, or standing straight up depending on one’s point of view, was all yellow, and all red, and all blue, and a mix of all the colors they could think of. His expression was like that of a naughty child, or a demented madman, or maybe even a playful clown, taking into account each man’s state of mind.