The Reaping

It was dark. Not yet morning, but the deepest part of the night. The place where light is far enough away to seem imaginary and monsters are very much real. Her ears were ringing and her body was humming. It was hard to focus on anything else. She could clearly see her room around her—pale walls covered in art, messy desk, piles of books and clothes in the corner. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing but that terrible buzzing and ringing between her ears. It was a nerve-wracking white noise and it felt as if her brain had tuned into the static between radio stations. Something was very wrong. Moving to sit up in bed, she noticed how heavy her body felt. Like wading through waist-high mud, she worked herself out of the covers and to the door. On the way she saw the bright red numbers of her alarm clock blinking 12:00. The power must have gone out. That’s what woke her. The AC must have kicked off when the power went and pulled her out of sleep. It was too quiet. She hated quiet—especially at night.

She opened the door and leaned out to look down the hallway. Everyone’s doors were closed as if to protect them from the strangeness creeping through the house. She had an immediate feeling of vulnerability in that moment. She should have stayed in bed. But it was too late now. She had exposed herself to the strangeness and it knew somehow that she felt it there. She stared blearily at her older brother’s closed door. There was no safe haven to be found there. If she woke him in the middle of the night because the power went out and she “had a weird feeling” she’d never hear the end of it. He would tell mom she was freaking out. Mom would hover. There would be questions about feelings. Or worse, church. She knew better than anyone there was no safety in the long-commercialized house of the Lord. It was like selling someone a parachute with holes in it. Useless and cruel.

Suddenly a light blinked on in the kitchen and illuminated the far end of the hallway. Someone was up. But there was no noise. Nothing but that damnable buzz in her brain. She sucked in a breath, as if coming up from a dive in the pool. She’d been holding her breath. And just like opening her door, she felt that gasp of air only served to pull her further into the awareness of that strangeness. Whoever was there knew without a doubt she had noticed them, now. Her pulse pounded in her neck. She wanted to shut the door and go back to sleep, but then they would only follow her. If she ran, they would give chase, and for some reason she knew that if she forced them to come to her, it would be much worse than confronting them head on. Better to fight than fly. It was a matter of respect between predator and prey. This person, whoever it was, had a very old and important feel about them. Running would be insulting to both of them.

She took another deep breath in and let out a sigh, then swallowed the lump in her throat. With arms wrapped around her chest, and hands fisted under her armpits, she padded down the hall silently toward the kitchen. Her dark reflection moved across the mirror hanging over the linen closet, and she refused to look at it. Mirrors at night were never welcoming. She knew what she should see looking back at her—a mass of curly hair framing a sharp, nearly gaunt face, eyes and skin blue-black in the dark. A tall, boney body, barely holding up oversized pajamas. Stress-induced weight loss had turned her into a husk of her former self. But at this moment in time, that would not be what she saw. Not in this strange place that was her house and at the same time was not—with deep pits of darkness pooled in every corner and seeping into every surface. No, she would not find herself looking out from that mirror.

As she rounded the corner, she was greeted by the empty kitchen. Her stomach began to twist itself into knots and she felt warmth blossom out from her chest, down her arms and into her legs, like a thousand needles across her skin. She hunched into herself and forced her legs to carry her through the kitchen, and past the blue marble island. Shiny metal appliances reflected the yellow lights, and the microwave blinked a familiar 12:00 in muted green. There was a quiet squeak of metal on metal and she froze just before the carpeted floor of the living room. She curled her toes inward on the cold kitchen tile, away from the carpet. That line was the point of no return. Someone was sitting in the old recliner. A barely audible repetitive creaking was coming from further in the living room. Now, they were rocking in the old recliner. She slipped one fist out from under her arm and crushed the front of her shirt in it, trying to hold herself together.

Swallowing another lump in her dry throat, she stepped onto the plush carpet of the living room, and turned to watch the recliner bob in the dark. Just enough light spilled in from the kitchen to shine across pointed leather dress shoes, which shone like polished onyx. Her shadow obscured the face of who sat in the chair. It was clearly a very tall man, made of sharp edges and angles, which suggested he wore a suit. She could make out the shape of one of the glass tumblers from the cupboard in his hand and she listened to the ice jostle within it. He stopped rocking and sat forward in the recliner, seeming to grow just a bit larger with the movement, as if he were trying to break out of his confining mortal form. The buzzing in her head turned into a high pitched whine, like she’d been hit over the head by the force of his complete attention. The floor tilted under her feet, like a boat on unfriendly tides, before righting itself, and the loud whine cut off in her head, leaving her in disorienting silence.

She let go of the death grip on her shirt and rubbed a damp palm over her pounding temple. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her speechlessness was met by a deep, rumbling chuckle, grating on her ears like cracked glass and gravel. The man waved his drink in a slow circle and she flinched as light flooded the room. Her eyes were drawn to his face instantly. It was like looking at the 3D motion bookmarks she had liked to collect as a child. At once his face was a grinning pantomime of glee and a pale skull with gaping eye sockets. She could see death in his face. Her mind knew him for what he was. She choked on air, but by some miracle words fell from her mouth.

“Good evening.” she said.

“Is it?” His voice was deep, layered, and it echoed—a base chorus calling out from the dark.

She watched as he brought the glass in his large, long-fingered hand to his mouth and drank. No steam rose where ice touched his lips, but she felt there should have been. This man was damned.

“Well? Is it a good evening, dearie?” He grinned over the rim of his drink.

She cleared her throat. “I…,” she looked at the DVD clock on the entertainment center, blinking that same unhelpful 12:00 as all the others in the house, and croaked, “I suppose not.”

That earned another guttural chuckle. “No, We dare say not.”

She winced at that layered voice and turned back to him, her eyes catching the play of skull-face-skull-face across his features. She held his unnerving dual gaze. She felt all of two inches tall and stupid in his presence, like a whimpering babe under the harsh gaze of something far older and much more cunning than herself.

“Can I help you?” At the very least she was going to be polite. It couldn’t hurt her chances of leaving this meeting somewhat unscathed. Though, she knew already she was doomed. His eerie grin grew even wider than she thought possible and he unfolded himself from the recliner to stand before her. She hunched further into herself as she watched him lift himself up and up, until he was nearly at full height. Nearly, because he had to bend forward slightly so his head didn’t hit the ceiling. He was impossibly tall. Nightmarish, would be a more accurate description of his appearance. She could feel her shoulders trembling. She very much wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. She was frozen with fear. Petrified.

“Now, there’s an offer We rarely get these days. However, it’s not Us who needs help. Is it, dearie?” He tipped forward, towering over her and she fell back hard on her ass and scuttled away a few feet. It made no difference. He seemed to encompass the entirety of the living room, eclipsing the ceiling lights and throwing her into the abyss of his shadow. Time stopped, but her pulse raced on.

She shook her head, dumbly.

“No-no-no, dearie. We never need help. Tell Us, do you know who We are?”

It felt like someone had her heart in a vice and she couldn’t get enough air to her lungs with each breath. Tears were gathering at the corners of her eyes and she tried desperately not to hyperventilate. She sucked in shaky gulps of air and heard her voice crack unintelligibly on her words.

“Come now, come now. Give Us an answer. Who are We?”

She couldn’t think beyond her fear. It was as if she were no longer in control of her vocal chords. She gasped and covered her face. “Reaper.” She whispered.

“Hmm. We will accept that, yes.”

His voice reverberated in her head and chest, as though he were speaking right into her. She curled her legs to her chest and buried her face in her knees. “Are you here to take me?” She mumbled into her legs.

That terrible laugh of his beat against her skull. It made her skin crawl and hurt to hear. It was a noise that went straight to her teeth, like nails on slate.

“Yes.” He breathed out and she could feel it, colder than cold against her hair and over her hands and arms. “Your time is up. Frail as you are, dearie, it was generous to wait this long to call on you. You treat yourself terribly.”

“Will it be better, where you will take me?”

“Better than here? No.”

“Will it be easier, at least?”

“Hah! Easier, she says.” He paused as if thinking it over. “No. But, you don’t want easier…Not really.”

She sniffed and raised her head from her legs, but only high enough to see his pointed leather shoes.

“You don’t want easier, pet. You want happier. That’s what all you tadpoles want. Whiney little things that you are. All this opportunity wasted. Wasted!”

She flinched. His yell was like the crack of lightning and the boom of thunder at once. It cut through the air like a knife and brought silence crashing down around her ears. In that moment all was still.

She watched the shoes move closer and closer to her, until they stopped right under her nose, and she felt a cold, cold hand settle on her head. Its fingers curled around to the nape of her neck like animated ice cycles.

“Are you afraid?”

She couldn’t speak. She dropped her face back into her knees, shaking and shivering. Icy air brushed the shell of her ear and the sound of him inhaling rocked against her eardrums in the silence.

“You should be.”