Summer Stories: Natural Causes, by Tamara Berry
Until recently, arriving at the scene of a death was always my favorite part of being a Reaper. There was something so exciting – so full of possibility – about all that fresh grief and empty flesh. Why, the soul in my charge could belong to anyone. A politician. An actor. A kindly old man excited to meet his long-lost wife in the great beyond.
Or … not.
“Don’t be mad,” a familiar voice said as I stepped down from my chariot (drawn by four horses but not, contrary to popular belief, in reference to the apocalypse ones). “I didn’t kill him. He was dead when I got here, I swear.”
As much as I hated to admit it, I almost jumped back inside my chariot. All that plush red velvet and a door that locked, the charcuterie board I’d prepared in case the soul was feeling a little peckish – these were the things I valued. Cherished, even. There was nothing like a good, strong lock and a wheel of brie to take the edge off.
“I think he’s feeling overwhelmed,” the voice added. “He keeps trying to climb back into his body. It’s kind of gross, actually.”
It was, in fact, very gross. In this particular instance, death appeared to have been caused by an accident with a fallen tree – oak, from the look of it, and not one of the small ones. The only way he was fitting back inside his earthly vessel was if he took up residence in a toe.
I knew it. The person belonging to the voice knew it. The only one who didn’t seem to be catching on was the dear departed.
“Sir,” I said, trying my best not to sound like the harbinger of doom I was. “Please don’t touch that. You’re a ghost now. Ghosts don’t need a body.”
I picked up the train of my robe – black, naturally, but made of linen so I didn’t swelter in the August heat – and approached the scene. The less said about the physical realities of death, the better, but suffice it to say there was blood, splintered wood, and what looked an awful lot like ax marks in the trunk of the remaining stump of a tree.
Yeah, right. Dead when I got here, indeed.
“I know this is scary and a little overwhelming, but I’m here to help.” I smiled, but since I didn’t have any skin or muscles or even flesh, I doubt it brought the man much comfort. “Tell me your name, and we’ll get you squared away. I’ve got a lovely array of French cheeses waiting for you, and–”
“Not the baked one I like?” the voice asked eagerly. “With the puff pastry and honey?”
If I thought that turning my empty eye sockets onto that particular person would have had the least effect in quelling her enthusiasm, I’d have done it in a heartbeat – a thing I don’t have and never did, but that was beside the point. “As I’ve said before, Ms. McGregor, the snacks aren’t for you. They’re for my guest.”
“Jenny,” she said.
This was the point when I’d have pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration, but – again – no flesh. Emotions were very difficult to convey without it. “For the last time, I’m not calling you Jenny. You’re not eating my cheese. And if you don’t show me the ax you used to chop down that tree, I’ll…”
But here I trailed off. As a Reaper – aka Death, Hades, Ankou, or my favorite nom de plume, Peter – one would think my anger carried a terrible, powerful weight.
One would be wrong.
“Oh, to be able to unleash a plague of locusts or strike a bolt of lightning from the sky,” I muttered. “Even a sharp scythe would do the trick.”
“I could get you a scythe,” Jenny offered. She drew closer, her feet crunching on the scattered branches left by the fallen oak. “Just tell me where you live, and I’ll have it delivered by morning.”
I held up my long, bony fingers in the shape of a cross. Now, I know it seemed silly – how could I ward off evil when I literally was evil? – but my options were limited. I could drive my chariot to the scene of a death. I could (helpfully) load the ghostly remains of the deceased inside with all the snacks my meager paycheck afforded. I could even adjust the parameters of space and time to ensure a comfortable journey.
But I could not, would not, dare not interfere in the doings of a living mortal. That was the one rule that bound me like a rock pushed endlessly up a mountain or an eagle making a daily meal of my liver – both of which I would have found preferable to dealing with Jennifer Penelope McGregor for one more day.
“Wait.” The ghost finally gave up on trying to insert himself back into his body and blinked up at me, horror and realization starting to dawn. “Am I really dead? Jenny, what is this? You said we were just going to take a walk–”
“Aha!” I cried, just as Jenny released an angry snort and, “Samuel, how could you?”
Since Jenny could hardly murder the poor man a second time, I didn’t stop her from lunging at him with her arms outstretched. In fact, I rather enjoyed the way her hands swept through the hazy outline of his spirit before she went tumbling to the ground.
And then I did what I do best.
“Your name is Samuel?” I asked, my gravelly voice as gentle as I could make it. “Well, Samuel, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you’re dead. Very dead, from the look of things.”
I slung my arm around his shoulder and pointed him away from the wreck of his mortal remains.
“I’m sure you have dozens of questions about what’s going to happen to you, but there’s plenty of time for that. Why don’t you sit back, enjoy some brie, and let me handle your, ah, friend?”
Samuel seemed reconciled enough to his fate to cast a look of loathing at Jenny. She’d landed in a puddle and was picking off the wet leaves between prim fingers. “She’s not my friend,” he said. “She lured me out here and then dropped a tree on me.”
“Ah, yes. That’s … unfortunate.” I ushered the man into the chariot before he could change his mind. That was where the lock came in handy.
Well, that and keeping unwanted visitors out.
“Just be grateful your death was quick,” I added as I shut the door behind him. “She poisoned the last one, but it took her six times to get the dosage right.”
When I turned around to face my nemesis, it was to find her back on her feet and pouting up at me with blood-red lips. “Grimmy Bear, you know that bothered me just as much as it did you,” she said. “Internet arsenic isn’t as reliable as it used to be.”
“Ms. McGregor–”
“Jenny,” she insisted. “Call me Jenny or I’m cutting the brakes on a city bus next time. During rush hour.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again, feeling a chill seep into the bones that composed the bulk of my earthly form. I’d encountered a lot of terrible things during my tenure as a bringer of souls, but none scared me as much as this woman – slight of form and short of stature, so much energy inside her that she practically vibrated with it.
“You can’t do that,” I protested. “It’s not allowed.”
“Neither is seeing the dead, but I’ve been able to do that since I was born. Maybe you should take your complaints up with whoever made that happen.”
To be honest, I had done that. Several times, in fact. No matter how far I ran my complaints up the afterlife flagpole, the answer was always the same: “Deal with it. She’s just one woman. How much harm can she do?”
The answer, according to my tally, was somewhere in the region of 87. Eighty-seven deaths. Eighty-seven people murdered in cold blood.
Or, at the very least, 86 people murdered in cold blood. Even I had to admit that the first death hadn’t been her fault. A woman lost in childbirth was always one of my least favorite jobs, and the death of Jenny’s mother had been no exception. I’d even felt a pang of sympathy for the tiny, squalling baby lying amidst all that blood – the tiny, squalling baby who had, the moment she’d seen me, stopped crying and watched me with uncannily perceptive eyes.
I was willing to admit that maybe – just maybe – the subsequent nanny’s death when Jenny had been 3 was an accident. And the father’s a few years later. The elementary school teacher, too, might have been a fluke, though given the bloody pencil Jenny held clutched in her hand when I’d arrived, I had my doubts. Especially since she’d immediately tossed it aside and demanded I push her on the swings.
I started backing away from her, determined to put as much space between us as possible. “You have to stop doing this, Ms. McGre – I mean, Jenny. There are rules about this sort of thing. I’m forbidden from fraternizing with humans until they’re … you know. Dead.”
For once, my words appeared to have gotten through to her. She studied me through narrowed eyes. “Is that true?”
I mean, it wasn’t not true. Opportunities to chat with other Reapers were rare, but none of them had mentioned their concentrated efforts to stave off a stalker who resorted to murder every time she felt inclined for a chat. So the case could be made.
When I didn’t answer right away, she took a step toward me, her movements coiled like those of a snake. “So what you’re saying is … if I were dead, there’d be nothing stopping us from being together?”
In a flash, I saw a way out of my predicament. According to the standards by which my kind operated, I never saw a soul again after I delivered them to their final destination. They could fight, they could run, and they could plead (and believe me – they’d tried all three), but they eventually found their way out of my chariot, never to be seen again.
Gone. Disappeared. Free.
We both looked toward the ax at the same time. She’d hidden it in a nearby bush, but the glinting of the metal caught the light and sent it dazzling in a hundred different directions. With one word from me, this could all be over. I had no doubts about Jenny’s determination – and ability – to carry out a plan as terrible as it was just.
But then I sighed. “That’s not how it works. You can’t just chop off your head and get your happily ever after.”
“No?” she asked, taking me at my word.
“No,” I said as I prepared to enter the chariot with Samuel. I felt sure I’d see Jenny again sooner than I hoped, but what else could I do? Murder was too far, even for me.
I might have been evil incarnate, but I wasn’t a monster.