Contractor: Chapter - 26

Ash and dust pave the road to forever

I gasped awake again, this time my eyes flew open and I lunged forward up out of my seat. As I actually woke up I froze into the position I’d reached. I’d managed to pin Amy against the table, and the force had knocked the knife out of her hand. It felt like the thousandth try, but I’d finally managed to move enough to disarm her. I’d managed to move before but I hadn’t been able to actually get up until then.

“How many times was that?” I was a little out of breath from the excitement of finally succeeding. I couldn’t wait to move again, I never knew just how much it meant to experience the feeling of movement.

“Eighty-six.” Amy grunted as she pushed my body off her and back into the chair. “That was kind of a lucky break though, if the table hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have dropped the knife.”

“It still counts though, right?”

“I think we should try one more time, without the table in the way.” Amy turned my chair around so that I was facing the rest of the room. “Don’t think, just act. It needs to be instinctual.” Amy retrieved the dagger from the floor and held it at the ready. “You ready?”

“Do it.”

The pain was still excruciating. Dying isn't generally something people do more than once, so I doubt anyone ever bothered to come up with words to describe the feeling of having a knife thrust through their heart. Just like the eighty-six times before it took a second for the blood to stop pumping through my heart. Everything faded to black as death crept in, all levels of consciousness shut off. Like blinking everything turned back on again, only it had probably been a few seconds. This time I managed to stand, grab hold of the knife, by the blade, and rip it out of Amy’s hand before I froze again.

“That good?” I watched as my blood ran across the blade of the knife and back into my hand. The sensation of instant healing was a little painful and a little pleasant, like drinking water when you’re out of breath.

“I’ll get Death. Hold tight for a second.” Amy walked out of the room.

It took a minute for her to get back. It took a second longer for Death to walk in behind her. His constant slow pace was aggravating.

“Taking your sweet time I see.” I grumbled.

“How poor are they that have not patience…” Dante sighed. “You are free to move.”

I took a deep breath as I fell back into the wooden chair I’d been murdered in eighty-seven times. This time without having to be moved there.

“I’m glad to hear that you’ve developed a revival reflex so quickly, and I hope you’ve been humbled by this experience.”

“Screw you.” I might not have had control over my life any more, but I could still let him know I didn’t like it.

“Sam…” Amy had interjected but was interrupted herself.

“Definitely humbled. Good work.” He brushed his hair back, revealing his face as though he had just realized that it had been hindering his vision. “And thank you, Amy, for getting her ready. The uniform looks good. You can take a break for now, I’ll be taking Samantha with me for a little while.”

“Are you sure you want to do that? Hope said you should keep her here for a few weeks before you practiced on the job.”

“Did she say that?” Death grinned, it was so white it was a little creepy even if there was only a little bit of his teeth visible. Even though he was grinning his voice stayed as monotone as ever. “Oh well, it’s not really a job anyways.” He walked over to me. “Just a little field trip.”

“I can’t let you do that.” Amy frowned. It must have been a direct order to not let him take me. I didn’t really want him to take me either.

“Woops.” Death dropped his hand on my shoulder.

Like blinking we were somewhere else. It was disorienting in the extreme. I dropped to the ground, which was now grass and dirt, and bent over clutching my stomach. If revivals one through four hadn’t left me empty, I would have lost it all right there. Somehow gagging on nothing was worse.

“It’s a thing isn’t it?” Death grumbled. “Sorry I didn’t warn you.”

“I’m fine.” I hissed in protest. I was in fact, not fine. “So you can teleport or whatever?” Amy had left that little detail out.

“Or whatever.” He mumbled as he wandered off.

I took the scene in as I got up off my knees. It was dark but I could still make out a good bit of my surroundings. He’d brought me to a graveyard, and an old one by the looks of it. The graveyard lay alongside an old cathedral, the moon cast a shadow from the tallest steeple that landed at my feet. I could see the stars in the sky too clearly for us to have been near a city, or close to any artificial light for that matter. I felt like I could reach up and scoop out a handful of stars. It was amazing.

“Where are we?”

“A graveyard.” He answered over his shoulder. I frowned, I’d realized that already. “Here.” Death walked back over to me holding out a shovel. “You’ll need this.”

“We’re digging up a grave?” I knew he was Death but it still felt wrong. How could it not be wrong?

“Don’t worry, it’ll be an empty one. Mostly empty at least.” It was hardly reassuring, but it was enough to get me to take the shovel.

“Fine, which one?”

“I don’t know if the name will be correct, but there will be an old jar with a pristine white lily in it in front of the tombstone.” So many questions formed in my head at once I couldn’t tell which one to ask. I ended up not asking anything.

“Shouldn’t be too hard to find I guess. This place isn’t so big.” It was in fact, very large.

Death gestured to the first visible isle of tombstones and I started walking. Some of the graves still had flowers, despite their age, while others only had the remnants of things that likely had once held flowers for the departed. If I was lucky, I’d never end up under a place like this, although if I ever did this place looked pretty nice. On the surface at least. I wasn’t really paying attention when I noticed it, I was just entranced by how beautiful it looked.

“Found it!” I called out. Looking up, Death was nowhere to be seen.

“Good, thank you.” I turned to find him directly between me and the grave. “Too close?” He took a step to the side. “I apologize, there wasn’t much room between you and the grave and I don’t like appearing in front of someone. I’ve come to find it a tad unnerving myself.”

“Everything about that ability is unnerving.” I corrected.

“Perhaps you’re right, though the issue is trivial.” He looked at the gravestone. “Eleanor Hastings, 1836-1859.” The name Eleanor sparked a memory, in the apartment, the woman. It couldn’t have been the same Eleanor, could it? Now that I knew there were people that could live forever, it was possible. Why dig up her grave then?

“Who was she?”

“Not dead yet.”

“Who is she then?” His roundabout answers were annoying me.

“If you ever meet her, you can ask her yourself. It’s not my place to tell you about anyone that I’m not.” I didn’t like it, but it was an oddly respectful statement. “Now dig.”

“Could you please be more specific so I don’t end up in China?” It probably would have taken a few millennia but it may have actually been possible for me to do now that I couldn’t die and my body had already started moving.

“Fine, dig until you hit the coffin and then call me.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I have something else to take care of, I’ll still hear you calling though.” He vanished into thin air leaving me alone to dig a grave in the middle of the night.

If I hadn’t just died a few times, I might have been scared. I don’t think the old me would have ever done something like digging a grave alone in the dead of night. In fact the old me, might have actually been scared, even then I wouldn’t have admitted it. It almost bothered me how peaceful I felt while digging. There was no real effort in a task that would have once proven difficult to me, it was like I was on autopilot. I couldn’t escape getting covered in dirt, however, and as much as it bothered me I couldn’t get myself to stop and brush it off. It wasn’t until I cleared off the last layer of dirt covering the coffin that I was again truly in control of my body and able to wipe the dirt from my hair, face, and clothes. Amy had the right idea putting her hair in a braid.

“I got it!” I called out of the hole I’d dug myself into. There wasn’t exactly a good way for me to get out, but the hole served its purpose.

“Good, pry it open.” Death dropped into the hole next to me.

“Woah…” I hadn’t expected him to look like he did. His jacket was gone, his hair was disheveled and held back by sweat. On top of it all he was covered in dirt, which told me he’d been doing some digging of his own within earshot of the graveyard.

“What are you waiting for? Open it.”

I didn’t bother asking what he’d been doing, I just let my body do as it was told.  Positioning myself to be able to open the coffin was harder than I’d thought it would be. Once I finally managed to stick the tip of my shovel under the lid it was easy to pry the thing apart. Upon first glance at the contents of the coffin I thought he’d lied to me. Death had said that it would be empty and it most certainly was not empty. There was a woman lying perfectly still in the coffin. She was the spitting image of the woman from the apartment. The same beautiful yet unextraordinary face that looked so peaceful she could be sleeping. It took me a little too long to realize that it was impossible for her body to look the way it did with the date on the tombstone being so old. If it was actually her though, she couldn’t have been in the coffin for too long, which again made no sense because even the grass above the grave was well grown and undisturbed before I’d dug it up.

“What’s going on here?” Saying I was confused would have been an understatement, and even asking why things were seemingly as they should be felt strange. But there was no explanation for what was happening.

“In 1859, in a confused daze after a significant event in her life she faked her own death using this.” Death gestured to the timeless corpse. “Which served as a reliable duplicate for the time so long as it was undisturbed and not examined too carefully. However it served another purpose as well,” He lifted his shovel and slammed the flat side of it down against her face. I was frozen in shock, fortunately with my eyes closed. “A hiding place where no one would ever find whatever she hid in it.”

Much like a train wreck I couldn’t help but look eventually. When I finally did, I was surprised. The corpse had cracked and shattered like a porcelain doll. All that was left behind was a small box covered in shards of whatever the corpse had actually been. I reached out to pick it up but Death swatted my hand away and collected the box himself. I lifted my shovel to dig out a ladder or a ramp or something to get out, but Death just grabbed my shoulder and we were back at ground level. This time I only got a really bad headache from the disorientation.

“This box’s contents are invaluable.” He had already walked off to where he’d dropped his coat and had started wrapping the box up in it. “We’ve gotten what we came for here, fill in the hole so we can get going before the sun rises.”

I didn’t bother trying to complain about the lack of information I was getting and just let my body move on its own. I felt a little bad for not closing the coffin back up, but it was empty and I hadn’t been instructed to. It didn’t take me very long to fill the hole back in, it was easier than it had been to dig. With the coffin open it didn’t fill back in evenly, but it didn’t really matter as long as there was nothing and no one left inside.