The Missing Boatman Part 47

"Told you before. Some folks resist. Scared of crossing over. Scared of what's beyond."

"She's ready now."

"You think she is," Death stated. "You think. Did she tell you she's ready?"

"Not in so many words."

"Hm," Death grunted.

Outside the wind sighed, and somehow, a snow flake found its way to Tony's eye. He blinked. He looked over at the dark lump bundled up on the couch. "What do you want me to do?"

"To do?"

"For you to take her. You know. End her suffering. For a long time Death did not answer. Tony grew impatient, irritable. "Well?"

"I don't do deals. That's someone else."

"You f.u.c.king p.r.i.c.k," Tony swore quietly. "You f.u.c.king, self-righteous p.r.i.c.k. Who are you to decide who goes, and when and how much they're supposed to suffer. How many people have you f.u.c.king taken that didn't deserve to go over? Huh? Went over too soon. Went over without even being born? Went over too late? I don't think you realize what you're doing, do you? Oh, you think you do, but you don't, and the sorry thing is you see it every day all over the f.u.c.king globe! You don't know what it's like to be human. You might look like it, but you're not. You don't know."

"You got that right," Death commented dryly.

"No, you don't have the faintest G.o.dd.a.m.n clue. All you know is how we whine. How we p.i.s.s you off cuz we groan or cry or refuse to go with you when it's time. How we all want to die in our sleep. Or, okay, we blame you for s.h.i.+t that you don't decide on or aren't responsible for. Well, I got news for you. Let me give you an idea of the life of your regular Mundane. We're born into a life of s.h.i.+t, of uncertainty, with the only certainty being death. So, okay, we whine; we b.i.t.c.h and resist. With some of the s.h.i.+t we put up with, I think we're okay to do a little of that. You don't know anything about life. Not a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing. You said to me yourself you're just the delivery man, and you've been hearin' the same thing over and over. Well, we're only here for a f.u.c.kin' short time, and to make matters worse, we get old. You say we're asked what we've learned. Well, s.h.i.+t, we only have a short time to learn anything, and those that learn it all don't have the time to pa.s.s on what they know cuz you f.u.c.kin' take 'em. We hurt. We go blind. Go deaf. Lose body parts. We can't eat what we want, and when we do, we put on f.u.c.king weight or start feeling s.h.i.+tty! We got diseases that rot us out, eat us up and give us the s.h.i.+ts. Diseases that turn our kids into old men and women, and smart people into idiots. We shoot each other, torture each other. Some never see the light of the day cuz their existence is in a hospital. Some s.h.i.+t in a plastic bag all their lives. Some have a life of misery and win the f.u.c.kin' lottery and find out that their friends and family are nothing more that greedy b.i.t.c.hes and b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who want their cut and threaten them if they don't get it. Some of us would f.u.c.king make war on the entire human race if they could get away with it. We got neighbours that would make better leaders than the ones we got, and we got leaders that we would f.u.c.kin' shoot dead if we had them as neighbours. Our loved ones die. That's right up there man. Watching someone you care for f.u.c.kin' croak. We got it f.u.c.king tough if you ask me, man. Just think about that for a minute, will ya? Just think. We got it p.i.s.s pot poor. What's that s.h.i.+t about the candles burning bright or long or the brightest gets smoked out or some s.h.i.+t? It f.u.c.kin' sucks donkey c.o.c.ks to be us, man. It really sucks! We got tons of s.h.i.+t against us, and when you decide that you're p.i.s.sed at us and had enough just cuz we complain too d.a.m.n much, well, see, that just makes our existence all the more miserable cuz then it'll never end. It'll never end. You see what I'm saying?"

"So, what then?" Death asked, his voice edging on annoyance. "You saying you don't appreciate life or what?"

"I..." Tony hands clawed at empty air. "No... I... I don't know. Look, I'm just a regular guy. I made mistakes. But other people don't. They do what they can with what they got. It works out for some more than others. But even then, there are problems. Some people got it really f.u.c.kin' good, and then, they die. All that goodness, whether they deserved it or not, gets taken away. And some people deserve it all. Everything good, they deserve it. Life can be great, I know, but..."

"You're ranting here, man."

"Sorry, but, well, it's like this," Tony directed at the dark lump on the couch. "Life can be good and bad for us. Good s.h.i.+t happens as well as the bad. Fair and unfair. I guess what I'm saying is... you are the only certainty in life. We need you. At the end of it all. Yes, we can be b.i.t.c.hes and b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, but given our daily routine... can you blame us? Can't you give us a break, man? Sure, we s.h.i.+t the bed and get upset when you take someone who we think isn't ready to go, isn't ready to die or shouldn't have died. But we still need you. Live forever? f.u.c.k that. Without you... facing what we have to face, life would be h.e.l.l."

Silence. The wind blew into the room, and Tony s.h.i.+vered. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw moving shadows in the room.

"Even if you were rich, could never grow old and were surrounded by hot women all the time?"

An interesting thought. "Well," Tony supposed and smiled in the darkness. "Even that could grow old."

Across the room, Death tsked. "Fool."

"Maybe," Tony said quietly, thinking of Lucy. "Maybe." Then, he collected himself. "Did I give a good argument there? Cuz it's all true, man. All of it."

But Death did not answer.

He merely lay in the cold darkness and thought.

Chapter 65.

In Barcelona, Spain, a madman's plot to poison a day-care centre's children with a deadly homemade concoction succeeded. Paramedics arrived on the scene to witness the staff in hysterics while thirty-three children squirmed in their own pools of blood that seeped from every bodily orifice and tried to cry out from throats where the vocal chords were eaten away.

In Iraq, in the southern district of Baghdad, a car bomb went off blowing apart fifteen women, children and men. Limbs, torsos and an immeasurable amount of blood cascaded down in the aftermath, covering the living and the streets. The fifteen caught in the blast were still conscious, moaning miserably and begging for a.s.sistance. Those people not affected by the blast shock screamed just as loud as the should-be-dead upon seeing shredded remains of people wriggle in the b.l.o.o.d.y street like gutted fish.

Off the coast of Sao Paulo, a group of seniors were swept overboard by a rogue wave. The wave flipped their twenty person private yacht and spun it underneath the water as if it were in spin cycle. Some seniors underwater spiralled with it, quickly disoriented by the motion and trying desperately to swim to the surface. Any and all air pockets filled within seconds. The bobbing vessel became a piece of dead wood in the water. Unable to hold their breaths any longer, the last of the seniors gagged and inhaled sea water, filling their lungs as their limbs and brain convulsed.

But they did not die.

Instead, they drowned, again and again, eventually screaming out for release of their lives. The submerged yacht grazed some of the undying, raking the flesh from their bones and filling the water with blood.

And still they would not die.

Not even when the rogue wave released them, their deathless forms bobbing to the surface with their limbs and sanity twitching.

Not even when the sharks appeared to feed.

In New York, sitting in a room illuminated by a wide screen TV and the white noise of an off-the-air channel, an utterly smashed Ted Myer held his father's snub nosed .38 to his temple and took a breath. As the night dragged on, and Ted's senses became more and more blasted by booze, he had placed the gun to other parts of his body, only to lower the weapon and grimace. He could not do it. What if he were wrong? He'd be committing suicide. Suicide. Wasn't that bad? He had a good job! Great benefits and occasionally got laid by nurses. Why should he gamble all that away?

Because, a voice said in Ted's head, it was the truth.

He could not die.

Yet d.a.m.n if he could bring himself to squeeze that trigger.

He took a deep, deep breath and looked about the darkness of his living room. It would be dawn soon. He would probably lose his job if he didn't have a good excuse. What was better than this? This experiment. Maybe he should do it at the hospital? That would be smart, Ted conceded. He looked about himself. He was a mess. He couldn't go to work like this. Hitching up one corner of his mouth, he decided against it. He would do the deed here. He would do it now.

Ted brought the gun up again and tucked it underneath his chin for maybe the fifth time. Under his chin seemed the best choice out of all the other places he had considered earlier. In his drunken state, thoughts of his condition after he had pulled the trigger had been forgotten somewhere during the night.

This was it though, Ted knew it.

He c.o.c.ked the hammer and increased the pressure on the trigger.

He waited for the bang.

After a few seconds, he started to weep. Again. Then, grimacing, he lowered the gun and cursed himself.

And he thought Med school was difficult.

Chapter 66.

They walked along the highway, heading into a wind that felt like it was branding their exposed flesh and deep freezing their cores. Snow smacked into their faces and eyes. It coated them in crystalline beads. White drifts as perfect as the rolls of an ocean came up to and beyond their knees. The flashlight beam illuminated their path ahead, and when they finally came to the side road, it was Fear that took charge.

"Turn here," he called out, raising his voice above the wind.

The three men did as they were told.

With her arms folded tightly across her chest and her hands deep in her pits, Lucy made a face and followed. Cold. She believed her tear ducts had frozen shut. She could spit flecks of ice if she wanted to open her mouth. Her limbs, especially her legs, felt like something carved from arctic ice. Why did Death have to come to Canada? Why couldn't he have taken time off in Mexico? Cancun? Someplace topical? She was not made for such cold weather. Cold? No, the word did not do. Freezing? Closer. A deep s.p.a.ce freezing cold that would root her to one place if she stopped moving for longer than five seconds.

"How much further?" Lucy shouted to Fear."

But he ignored her.

She was really starting to dislike Freak Boy.

Chapter 67.

They sat in the darkness, sometimes quiet, sometimes not. Tony eventually became aware of the cold in the cabin, so he went upstairs to the bedrooms. He found several heavy cotton blankets and stripped them from the beds. On the way back down, he went to the window he had dived out from earlier and squinted outside. There was nothing to see, so he returned to Death.

"Here," he said, dumping three thick blankets on Death's paralyzed form. "Don't ask me to tuck you in."

Death gazed up at the black shadow before him. He did not switch on the flashlight. "Well, how else am I going to get these things on me if you don't. I'm paralyzed here."

Tony supposed that was true. "f.u.c.kin' Death," he swore as he dropped two blankets he had for himself on the floor. He then made quick work of covering Death from his toes to his chin, tucking the ends in where he could.

"Feel better?" Tony asked him when had finished.

"I'm f.u.c.kin paralyzed here man," Death grated. "I don't feel s.h.i.+t below my waist."

"But you're okay above your waist?"

"Well, I did down the bottle of Jack."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n alchie," Tony grumbled with a smile. He went back to his side of the couch. He sat and wrapped the blankets around himself. He was cold, but the blankets protected him from freezing. But then, he didn't have to worry about freezing to death. Or so he was led to believe. He still felt cold though.

"You know what it's like to freeze to death?" Tony asked.

"You ain't gonna freeze to death. You ain't gonna die unless I say so."

"What about frostbite? Don't they amputate s.h.i.+t that's been badly frostbitten?"

"Only the genitals." Death remarked and smirked at the sudden silence of his companion. "Not like you've been using it lately."

"I get plenty of opportunities," Tony said.

"Yeah? Lucky guys."

"f.u.c.k off. I almost got a b.l.o.w.j.o.b from someone we both know."

"Yeah? Who?" Death asked. "Lucy?"

"Mhm," Tony said and regretted it. Though it wasn't entirely true, he supposed it was as good as any other almost. A little exaggeration wouldn't hurt.

"You almost got one, right? Doesn't surprise me," Death commented. "You ain't that lucky. She's a popsicle tease if there ever were one. Ever see her work an ice cream cone?"

"Well, no..."

"A thing of beauty. She'd make eunuchs take out loans for d.i.c.k and nut transplants."

That she would, Tony thought. That she would. But he took offence at Death's comments. He didn't like Death talking about her that way. He wanted to change the subject.

"Anyone you ever regret taking?"

Silence.

"Frank?"

"Yeah?"

"Anyone"

"I heard you."

For a moment Tony thought he might have said something wrong. He felt that vibe of wrongness when someone says something they shouldn't.

"Lots," Death said, reflecting on the faces he escorted across on the last day before he decided to go on sabbatical. How many did he save from Pain? In just that one day? How many places had he travelled in the world answering the call when it came? How many did he deliver to the other side when it was their time?

He didn't bother counting anymore.

"Why do you think I drink?" Death asked him.

"Thought you enjoyed it," Tony answered.

"I do, I do. Too much maybe," Death confided. "It relaxes me."

"Don't think I could drink enough to get over what you do," Tony said. "Not ever."

"Well, then," Death gave him a nod, "that's a first step in realizing what I go through. I won't go into details. If you watch the news, you understand what I mean. Some of the s.h.i.+t I see. The craziest s.h.i.+t. It's a wonder I don't do heavier drugs."