Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala (28 page)

Why would Death have to stand there and wait?

Didn’t all of the poets say that Death waits for no one?

It was a foolish notion, John knew, but every night it filled him with cold dread deeper than any dread he had ever experienced before, even after what had happened to Sarah and the girls.

Of course, John knew what had happened to his wife and two daughters wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t even been in the car that night, and if he had, he no doubt would have died, too.

But try as he might, he couldn’t stop thinking about how if
only
he had been there, he might have done
something
different … something to save them. The slightest variation might have meant the difference between life and death. Even if all he had done was drive one mile per hour faster than Sarah had driven … or if he had slowed down incrementally, it might have—it
would
have made all the difference in the world. The car wouldn’t have gone into a skid when it did. The town snowplow would have passed by or not gotten there yet, and he would still have his life with his wife and two daughters.

If only I had been there … If only I had been there … If only
…

That had become John’s mantra over the last three years as he took his late afternoon walks that, when evening fell, always ended with him on the black iron bridge.

There were times, make no mistake, when John would have willingly embraced Death. He knew he was depressed, and for the last three years he had been seeing a therapist to help him cope with his tragic loss, but no amount of talking … no dosage of antidepressants …
nothing
was going to change the single, terrible thought that circulated in his brain like the water that whirlpooled around the huge cement stanchions that supported the railroad bridge.

If only I had been there
…

But he
hadn’t
been there, and no amount of wishing and hoping was going to change that. He was going to have to deal with his grief and loss as best he could if he was going to keep on living, no matter how tempting it was to think that Death was waiting for him there at the end of the footbridge and would willingly embrace him. All he had to do was find the courage to walk over to Him and tell Him—yes, he was ready to go now.

It was late autumn, and thin collars of ice had formed at water level around the rocks below. The river gurgled faintly as the black water slid by, unhurried in its run to the
Atlantic. John focused on the river about fifteen feet below him until he could just barely make out his rounded silhouette in the dark water. He asked himself … as he had so many nights before … why he didn’t dare to do it.

Why couldn’t he bring himself to vault up onto the thin railing and be done with it?

All he had to do was balance there for less than a second before he could let himself fall forward into the water below. His clothes would get saturated within seconds, and the weight would pull him down, and then … then … just maybe he would find the peace he so desperately sought.

But not tonight.

No, like so many other nights before, John couldn’t bring himself to jump, no matter how much he wanted release from his grief and agony.

If Death was waiting for him in the shadows at the far end of the bridge, then He was going to have to come and get him.

No matter how much despair and gloom filled his life, John was determined to cling to whatever tattered shreds of his life remained.

He froze when a heavy footstep sounded on the metal grating. The low vibration shook his feet, and a chill reached inside his jacket and took hold of his stomach, squeezing his heart. His teeth chattered as he waited with bated breath, listening … waiting as another step … and then another … and another came closer.

Rotating his head slowly, he looked down the length of the walkway toward the man—

toward Death

—walking toward him.

Tonight—finally—Death was coming to meet him.

A cold, heavy lump formed in John’s throat. He would have cried out, but his breath was trapped in his chest. His throat made a funny clicking sound that matched the steady cadence of approaching footsteps. John shivered within his lightweight jacket, drawing his collar around his throat as he waited to feel the icy sting of Death’s touch on his shoulder.

“’Evenin’” a voice finally said, sounding low and hollow in the darkness. Its tone wasn’t nearly as threatening or frightening as John might have expected. He still hadn’t taken a breath as he turned slowly and looked at the person, standing less than ten feet from him. Death was silhouetted against the dusty night sky, but enough light lingered in the sky so John could make out the man’s features.

It
wasn’t
Death.

There was no skull face … no empty eye sockets … no ghastly grin …

Just a face of flesh and blood, with eyes opened perhaps a little too wide as though in fear or anticipation. The man smiled at John with a tight smile.

“’Evenin’” John replied, surprised by the way his voice echoed from the cement walls of the abutments at the far end of the bridge. A cold, hollow note sent a silver-edged shiver racing through him.

The man—and it was, indeed, a man—hesitated. John was positive, now, that he was human even though he still wanted to believe he was facing Death in the face.

“You … ah, you come out here often?” the man asked.

There was a curious tightness in his voice, and John didn’t have to wonder long why the man might be nervous. He could just as easily have been convinced that
John
was Death as John had been sure
he
was Death.

“I, uhh … Yeah. I do.” John lowered his gaze so he was staring down at the water below. “I—umm, usually take a walk in the evening, you know, to … uhh … to clear my mind.”

“This is a really beautiful spot to watch the sunset,” the man said, sounding more relaxed. “A little spooky, kinda, but nice, too. You can … just let go of all your cares and worries …. let them float away on the river’s current.”

“If you’re lucky,” John replied as a bitter wave of sadness swept over him.

“What’s that?” the man said. “You have problems?” When John didn’t respond right away, he continued, “Hey, Bud, we
all
have problems. Everyone—even the richest man in the world has problems …”

“I suppose you’re right,” John said simply as he clasped his hands together and leaned over the railing. Looking down, he felt suddenly dizzy. It was as if the water were calling to him, luring him to jump … right now … and end it all.

“I see you here just about every night,” the man said, “and you wanna know something funny?”

John grunted but didn’t speak.

“You scared the be-
jezus
out of me. Every night I’d see you, and I was more than half-convinced you were, like, maybe a ghost or something.”

“’S that a fact?” John said, slightly amused by the idea. His laughter echoed in the night with a rolling hollowness that, when it ended, sounded like the concussion in the air after a sudden clap of thunder.

John finally took a deep breath and tried to look away from the black water rushing by below him.

“Do you want to know something funny? I thought pretty much the same thing about you, only I was convinced you were Death.”

“Death? … You mean, like, the Grim Reaper?” The man followed this with a tight chuckle that had not a trace of humor in it.

“Uh-huh,” John said. “I was convinced you were waiting for me … waiting to take me away.”

“It’s that bad, huh?” the man said.

“What is?”

“What happened to you.”

“You have no idea.”

As he said this, John rotated his head slowly and looked at the man. He didn’t know why, but for some reason he could see the man’s face more clearly, now, and his expression sent a bolt of panic through John. The man’s eyes shot wide open, too, and his jaw dropped, making him look like he’d been hit on the head with a baseball bat. He took several staggering steps back. John could tell the man wanted desperately to run but didn’t dare turn his back on him.

“Holy shit … Oh my Jesus,” the man muttered. He raised his hands defensively in front of his face and started shaking his head from side to side as he backpedaled a few more steps.

John wanted to ask him what the problem was, but the stark terror he saw on the man’s face stuffed anything he might say back down into his throat. The man was trembling, his body out of control. A dark stain spread across the front of his pants. His eyes, wide and glistening, looked like drops of shivering quicksilver in the darkness.

“What the …? What is it?” John finally managed to ask, but he noticed something was wrong with his voice. It was harsh and grating, and his teeth made loud clicking sounds in his head when he spoke. The man was still backing away from him on legs that looked as stiff and unbending as wood.

“You … Oh, shit … Oh,
Jesus!
… You’re a—” but the man’s voice twisted off into a low-pitched moan. His feet made the metal footbridge ring like a tuning fork as he stumbled a few more steps away from John.

When John raised his head to look at the man, something in his neck made a loud snapping sound. He felt a terrible stiffness in his bones. Raising one hand to his neck, he was surprised how thin and bony it felt beneath his touch … as if there was no flesh there whatsoever. Confused and frightened, John lowered his hand and looked at it. Even in the darkness, he could see that it was much thinner and whiter than it should have been. It looked like it was made of two thin bones that protruded from the sleeve of his jacket. His knuckles were big, white knobs of bone.

John tried to speak again, but his face was numb. It was like he didn’t have any lips or tongue to form words. He raised a trembling hand to his face and touched his cheek. There was no fleshy resistance. The only thing he could feel and hear was a harsh grating sound that sounded like bone rubbing against bone.

What the hell is happening to me?

With the tips of his fingers, he probed his face, poking at his cheekbones, which protruded in large ridges below his eyes. When he ran his hand further up his face, he was stunned to feel his forefinger enter his left eye socket without any resistance.

This can’t be happening!
he cried inside his mind but was unable to say out loud.

As crazy … as impossible as it was, he had to believe the evidence of his own senses. The skin on his face and hands was gone, leaving nothing but exposed, rotting bone. And his eyes … his eyes! … How could he see when there were no eyeballs in his eye sockets? How could he even
be
here unless he was a …

“No,” he whispered, his voice a faint, feeble gasp that was lost beneath the rushing sound of the dark water moving beneath the black iron bridge.

“This … this … can’t …
be
…”

The man was still backing away from John, step by terrified step, all the while staring at John. When he was at the end of the bridge, he suddenly turned around and started running. His high-pitched scream trailed after him as he disappeared into the darkness, leaving John alone on the bridge … alone to face the terrible truth.

It suddenly made perfect sense.

For the last three years, his life had been nothing but an illusion … a death dream. Shortly after his wife and children died, he had actually gone through with what he had been thinking about doing. He didn’t have a reason to live—not anymore, so he must have climbed up onto the railing of the bridge and then jumped.

And every night, that’s why he found himself here on the bridge … because that man who had just fled from him was right.

John
was
a ghost, and for the last three years he had been haunting the site of his suicide. And he would continue to haunt this place until …

Until …
when?

The thought terrified him until he realized he would haunt this bridge every night until—finally—he could bring himself to accept the terrible, desperate thing he had done.

Focusing on his senses, John realized he could no longer feel the cold of the metal railing when he gripped it with his skeletal hands. No air came into his chest as he struggled to pull himself up onto the railing. His shoes, black with river mud and rot, slipped from his feet, exposing the rotting bones of his feet. They clattered and clanged against the metal and then fell with a dull
plop
into the river.

Finally, balanced on the edge of the railing, he paused … but only for a moment. Staring down into the swirling darkness below, he saw faces looking up at him … the faces of his wife and daughters. Without thinking, he leaned forward as if to embrace them and let himself fall.

He was suspended in the air for what seemed like an eternity.

And then, in a blinding instant, he hit the water.

The splash sounded as loud as a gunshot in the night, but an instant later, all sound and light were muffled, and John was left with his own terrifying thoughts and fears as his rotting clothes quickly became saturated with water and dragged him down below the surface. Like a twisted piece of rusting black iron that had fallen off the bridge, he plummeted down … down … and down … until—finally—he settled in the muddy slime of the river bottom.