He Who Cannot Die

by Dan Pearce

  THE ODYSSEY OF CAIN

  BOOK ONE

  He Who Cannot Die

  by Dan Pearce

  Copyright © 2019 by Dan Pearce and Single Dad Laughing LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-9836473-4-8

  This publication is a work of total fiction and is not meant to provide accurate or authoritative information in regard to the content covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering any professional service or advice. All situations, characters, events, locations, names, and other parts of this book are fictional and any correlation with real situations, characters, events, locations, or names is purely coincidental.

  DEDICATION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book is dedicated to each of the women I have sincerely loved throughout the course of my adult life: Jenny, Sarah, Aleigh, Eryn, and Heather. Thank you, each of you, for the life lessons, introspection, and insights you have given me through the time we shared together. It was what I experienced with each of you, more than anything else, which helped me to formulate and write the story and thoughts I present in this novel.

  I also acknowledge my son, Noah, who even at a young age has always been one of my biggest supporters. As I typed out the final paragraph of the final chapter of this book, I attempted to explain to him just how incredible a feeling it is for an author to type out the final sentence of a new book. I then sat my notebook computer in his lap, asked him if he’d like to type this one for me, and he typed the words that I said aloud to him. My hope is that one day he will truly understand just how special a moment that was, and if he ever writes a book of his own that he remembers his Dad while he writes out his own final sentence of his own last chapter.

  I acknowledge my family members and friends who listened with helpful ears as I threw ideas around about this book for so long.

  I acknowledge the many who encouraged me to finally publish this book, even though the finished manuscript sat for several years gathering dust. I had many excuses, but the truth is my heart is interwoven into the fiction on these pages, and I needed an external push when all was said and done.

  CHAPTER 1

  It rained last night. Cold rain. I felt the temperature drop after we finished making love. As we lay exposed and entwined, comprehensively breathing one another in, there was no doubt that the air around us was suddenly colder.

  I held her longer than usual before she rolled her separate way. Samantha drifted-off to sleep quickly, unaware of the sadness that had so suddenly consumed me. I watched her in the moonlight for a couple hours before reaching toward her and tenderly running my fingertips up and down the inside of her thighs. She became awake and aroused enough to make love once more, and our bodies were soon entangled again. The temperature had dropped. Suddenly too aware of how few of these moments we had left together, I pulled her against me so tightly that I felt as if our bodies could somehow merge into one. We found an incredible symphonic rhythm, and a single tear unexpectedly rolled to my pillow as we climaxed together. I pulled the comforter up over us, and she fell asleep atop me. Finally, I slept.

  Just as I feared, the mountains to the East had become capped with snow while the sun’s warmth abandoned this side of the Earth just long enough to give way to a new season. Ten years, already. I wasn’t prepared to see those frozen mountaintops; not this soon. Of all the years for winter to arrive early, it had to be this year. My heart grew sad and heavy as I breathed in the first cold morning air I had felt in my lungs since spring. She and I had only until the sun touched the horizon to the west, four incredibly short days from now.

  Samantha didn’t know I would soon disappear from her life. She wouldn’t know why I must vanish. She isn’t allowed to know. These are the rules. These have always been the rules. I am bound to them. It took breaking each rule exactly one time to know that I could never purposefully be so selfish with another person’s existence again. I would be forced to depart without a whisper of why and without a trace of where I was going. It was the only option that was at least somewhat fair to her. Fuck that. There really were no fair options for my Sam.

  Standing on the terrace of my downtown apartment, draped in a mostly opened robe, my defeated attention remained fixated on the towering peaks in the relatively close distance. Only a few small straggling clouds remained from last night’s storm, and even those were quickly giving way to a perfect blue sky. The sun had flooded most of the city, but where I stood remained defiantly in frigid shadows, just out of the approaching warmth’s reach.

  I turned my gaze to the area of open sky beyond the mountains. Why can’t I find you, witch? Could she be in Peru? Perhaps. Dishon was so certain he had tracked her there, but after more than 8 months of searching, his last report was that he was still following less than reliable leads.

  Four days. Four days. Four days. And however long I can stay awake, I guess.

  “What’s wrong?” Startled, I jumped slightly then relaxed into Samantha’s still-warm hands as they scooped around my cold chest from behind, slipping into my robe. “You look so worried for some reason,” she said.

  I turned my body in her arms and gently pushed her back so that I could rest my palms on her hips. Her white silky pajamas caught hold of the sunshine that had just made its way around our side of the building as if she had brought it with her outside. Samantha’s long, messy blonde hair framed that face of hers that I still find perfect after ten years together. There were quite a few more lines and wrinkles than were there a decade ago. I had every square centimeter of her face memorized; every light freckle; every crease; every expression; every smile. She had 27 different smiles that I knew well. Two of those smiles I had only ever seen her make for me.

  Of course, she barely noticed that I hadn’t aged a day since we met; literally. “Men get old so much more gracefully,” she loved to tell me as she’d prod and pull at her own face in the bathroom mirror. I was always silently desperate to tell her my truth. I have always been desperate to tell every other woman before her that truth. After so much time on this Earth, I have come to loathe what dishonesty at any level brings to mankind, and especially to relationships, yet every day I am forced to live one of the world’s biggest lies.

  I squeezed her hips and pulled her closer. Lost in thought, I kissed her forehead and held her cheek against my bearded chin. “Dishon,” I muttered.

  She looked up at me with those blue eyes that could nearly mimic the crystal-clear water of Laghi di Fusine. “Huh?”

  I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. “I need to check on something. One sec,” I said, as I precipitously broke free and barreled my way through the bedroom and up the stairs two at a time to our loft. “Come on, be there. Be there,” I muttered as I grabbed the computer mouse and jiggled it harshly until the screen flared to life.

  I pulled up Facebook and opened Dishon’s page. “Sean Miller.” We both had changed our names many times as new languages and new cultures came and went. He was going by the name Sean. Currently I am Anthony, not that it matters; in a few days I will need to change it to something different.

  The tiny circle next to Dishon’s name was grayed out. Of course, he wasn’t online. Why would he be there? The man hadn’t had a place to call home in twelve thousand years. No phone. No Internet. Occasionally he would barter his way into an Internet café to update me on his search for Tashibag. Contacting him was worth a shot, though. At this point, anything was worth a shot. I began dramati
cally pounding the keys.

  Dishon, the mountains were capped in snow this morning. I don’t have to tell you what that means. Please get back to me if you see this.

  I can’t lose this one. Not her. Not my Samantha. Tell me you’ve found something. Anything. Time is of the essence, old friend. Four days. Four days is all we have. Hope you are well.

  I sent the message and closed my eyes. Please check your Facebook.

  I knew it would take some time – if he responded at all. He was likely slumbering late into the morning under a thick pile of mildewed cardboard, caked in a layer of dirt and pigeon shit, fully numb to the stares and judgments of those who passed him.

  “I made you some coffee, babe,” Samantha hollered to me from the kitchen below. No matter the decibel level, hers is a voice that soothes the mind and calms the troubled soul. I have come to truly appreciate voices like hers.

  I suppose I could attempt to describe the depths that my love for this woman reaches. My Sam. The woman whom I knew well enough to know that at that very moment was standing with eyes closed, relishing the hot steam from her own coffee as it swirled pleasant aromas against her nostrils. Yes, I could attempt to describe just what she means to me; what I would give-up or do to be with her longer; the lengths I would go to have just one more autumn together before all this had to end.

  I could attempt to describe just how deeply and purely I believe that she loves me in return. There is no doubt in my mind. I have loved enough women enough times to know when the love of two people is mutual, real, and has the potential to be lifelong. I could attempt to help any who read this to understand so many things about all of this, and about us.

  But I really should start at the beginning, if any of it is to make the slightest bit of sense.

  I suppose I’ll just say it…

  I am Cain.

  CHAPTER 2

  I don’t know whom it was that originally included some odd version of my story in the Old Testament. Like the children’s game of telephone, the legend of Cain was passed down over millennia – simplified, distorted, deconstructed, rebuilt, and summated – until someone somewhere stuck the condensed altered version of it into a holy storybook, and I became known around the world as the first murderer.

  Anyone who reads this probably knows the same version of the story that most people do. Mom and Dad were the first humans; I was mankind’s first naturally conceived son; I killed their second child – their golden child – during an immature fit of God-doesn’t-like-me jealousy; I was cursed to wander the Earth forever; my land would always be cursed; and any person who tried to kill me would perish. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” It’s probably among the most universally recognized quotes, yet I never said any such thing.

  I have come to accept the story is not actually mine at all. I’m at peace with it, and long ago stopped fighting it. I will never like it, though. My entire existence and worth were summed up for all mankind in 17 verses of misinformed scripture. Since the very nature of scripture forbids one who believes in it to question it, this has been and always will be a losing battle for me, so I’ve come to simply acknowledge that it is what it is.

  Did I kill my brother? That part is true. I don’t deny it now, and I never attempted to hide it or deny it then. He needed to die. I have questioned whether or not that is true so many times since, and I will tell you that after witnessing so many awful bullies and tormentors in my time on this Earth, a man like Abel was only going to hurt others until he finally did go. The world is a better and easier place for us and for those we love without certain people in it. Death happens. Everyone has to die. Abel would have died eventually. I’m not against the truly awful dying sooner than their rotting DNA naturally takes them. Life is difficult enough without being forced to deal endlessly with flagrant and indifferent assholes.

  Abel was no saint. My parents weren’t the first humans to be, either. We existed among a thriving, somewhat scattered population of rudimentary and undeveloped people. I’ve never known or talked to any one God. Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth… Those weren’t our names; not even close, but those are the names you know us by, so those are the names I’ll use as I share my story.

  I know with authority that I wasn’t the first murderer, nor was I the first to be cursed to walk the Earth forever. There are at least dozens of us now, all cursed by the same necromancer; each for different crimes; each made to roam among mankind without tasting death, each burdened with a different and very personalized disadvantage to haunt us. My perpetual burden is and will forever be loneliness. Any person who cannot die will dip in and out of loneliness, since he must watch everyone else die eventually, but my loneliness is something much greater. My loneliness deepens more with each broken heart I suffer.

  Our curses were placed upon each of us by Tashibag, the witch, the sorceress, the magician, the occultist, the original miserable immortal. I believe that woman has always been delusional, with a very real God complex. She loves to play both judge and jury, spreading her own sense of justice for the evil she encounters around her. It has been nearly 180 years since I last caught a glimpse of her. She is unquestionably still out there. Somewhere.

  Like I said, I wasn’t the first murderer. I was simply the first to be cursed by Tashibag for it.

  I do believe I was the first to love another at a level much deeper than survival and sex. The love that humans seek and desire today didn’t exist twelve thousand years ago. People weren’t that evolved. The human mind didn’t have so many layers. Humans stayed together because it made life, and avoiding death, easier. Eat. Mate. Survive. That was the sum of life, and in general it was easier when people were paired or grouped up.

  I first loved a woman named Racheele. She loved me. Others didn’t understand our connection. They would watch us grasp each other so firmly as we made love, looking into one another’s eyes, connecting, absorbing, becoming one, and they couldn’t wrap their reptilian brains around any reason for us to make our sex last, and to be so servicing to each other. Eventually Racheele and I began our love-making in private. I believe we were also the first to do that. Sex for us was powerful, and it didn’t take long for us to have the desire to keep that to ourselves.

  Abel used to ask about our love-making. He watched us with growing jealousy, and before long made it known to me that, as his brother, I should share Racheele with him. He always wanted what others had, and he would usually find a clever way to take what he wanted if his repeated request for it wasn’t honored.

  Abel and I were very similar in appearance. We both stood nearly six feet from the ground to the top of our heads, which at that time was much taller than all other men. We both were born with dark blue eyes, which also was an extreme rarity. I was much thicker-framed and more muscular than Abel, simply because he did as little work as possible, while I toiled in the fields and built things with my hands, day in and day out. Our black hair wasn’t all that notable, since it was usually caked with dirt, and everyone seemed to have black hair back then. Occasionally a child was born with something different, and it was always such a breathtaking sight, as long as you weren’t the kind who started whispering rumors of demons and devils. I’m pretty sure I was somewhere around the age of 30 when I killed Abel and was then cursed by Tashibag. He was probably 27.

  Seth was something like 11-years-old when it happened – he didn’t come later as the bible would have you believe. Seth was my little shadow, and I his protector. Though drastically different in age, we shared the big-little brother’s bond that Abel and I never did. Abel often found ways to make our lives difficult because of that.

  I more or less raised Seth, and together we helped Dad provide for the entire family. Mom became crippled after an embankment gave way at the Waters of Ona. Her legs were crushed and pinned beneath a boulder for nearly two days before we found her. Infection almost took her, but she survived and spent the rest of what life she had indoors with useless lower limbs. She never complained. She kept t
he fire going, skinned our kills, cleaned our food, and cooked for her family every morning and every night. She was the storyteller in the family, always sharing such fantastic tales with us before we slept. In the end, Mom (or Eve as you know her) died of exposure. One particularly brutal winter, just after I killed my brother, was too much for her.

  I always felt Mom got the worst of it in Genesis. I got pinned down with the story of the first murder. My story was short and annoying and mostly wrong, but Mom got much worse. My mother took immortality away from mankind. She was responsible for original sin. She became the mother of all living and was the first scapegoat for men everywhere to blame their bullshit on women.

  I don’t even know how the story of Adam and Eve originally came to be. Mom wasn’t perfect and was intelligent enough to be okay with that. She was adored by more or less everyone in our village. She was called Mother by many. Most days brought new and old visitors to our home seeking out her knowledge and wisdom. I like to think she was the first therapist. People, who were hardened and unfamiliar with the need for emotional sturdiness, would open up to her about anything and everything. Mom was well-known both in our village and out. I suppose that’s why she became known as the mother of all living. Why not? She was probably the earliest woman of significance to show up in any historical annals.