Chapter Six: A Good Day to Die
Sam drove into town with all the good intentions of getting that haircut that he had been putting off for weeks. The nights had been unusually cold for this time of year and a little extra hair kept the wind off the back of the neck. Sam could use all the help staying warm that he could get. He still missed the heat of Em’s body next to his.
As he approached town he saw a couple people running toward the sheriff's office. Calgary Creek boasted one sheriff and one deputy, neither of which were the brightest crayon in the box. Sam pulled into the closest parking spot down from the sheriff's office. As he stepped out of his truck, he almost ran right into Hetty Martin.
“What’s all the commotion, Hetty?” Sam asked.
“Gotta little girl gone missing. Sheriff is asking for people to go a looking for her and talking about calling in the state police.”
“How long she been gone?” Something was tickling Sam’s memory, something that he remembered being “off.” It was just out of his reach in his mind.
Letty walked as he talked and Sam followed. The door to the sheriff’s office was overflowing with concerned citizens.
“Seems she never made it to school.” Letty’s voice drifted back over his shoulder.
The Sheriff was passing out flyers with the little girl’s picture on it and people were scattering here and there canvasing the town.
“She has to be in town somewhere. She is blond, wearing a flowered dress and blue windbreaker. Her name is Abby Masters. If you find her, report back here by radio or phone immediately.” The Sheriff looked calm but a fine line of sweat was beading along his hairline.
Sam walked over toward Poppy’s Diner and as he walked by Toodle’s old delivery van that distributed the local paper, an image of a blue van popped into Sam’s mind. Out on Southbound Road, coming into town, Sam had glanced toward the old Coulter farm and barely glimpsed a blue van behind the old deserted chicken barns of the “Coulter Chicken Farm.” That old farm had been abandoned for years and Sam could never remember seeing anyone around that old place. The rumor of snakes taking up residence in the old chicken barns kept most people away, that, and the fact that there was just nothing to see. The house had burnt down a year after the Coulters left town for greener pastures. The old barns, already rotting from decay and chicken damage, were barely standing. This made it easy for Sam to spy the van.
Sam, not wanting to raise any false hope decided that he would just ride by there and check it out himself. That haircut could wait another day or week.
The tail end of the van was still poking out from what was left of the main chicken house. Sam approached slowly. He never really gave any thought to what he would find. Kids often found places to park and cuddle around this area, the threat of snakes kept most of the teenagers from baring body parts around this old farm but you never could tell.
Sam did not see anyone as he came around the side of the van and decided maybe he better give any indecent youngings a chance to cover up before the sheriff and the search team made it out this way. Chances are though, that little girl is already getting a scolding from her mom at this moment.
“Hello?” Sam yelled to no one.
Suddenly the van‘s side door opened and man looking like a disheveled accountant stepped out.
“Ah, I was just, ah resting. I thought this place was deserted and looked like a quiet place to rest before getting back on the expressway.” The man pushed back his hair with a nervous shake to his hand.
Sam felt a chill travel up his neck and his gut told him that something felt wrong.
“Just checking up, seems there is a little girl missing in town and everyone is out combing the area so I just thought I would stop by here on the way home. Real sorry to have bothered your nap.” Sam started back toward his truck. Sam waved as he rounded the bumper with a bump of his leg. Sam jerked his head up suddenly. A small moan escaped the interior of the truck. Before he could turn or run, he felt a pain shoot through his head and Sam sank to the ground.
He awoke to find Logan squatting in front of his.
“Get up Sam.” Logan said commandingly.
Sam rose, head confused. Where was he and what was going on, his mind searched for the answers. Then he saw Abby Masters small body about three foot from his. Her dress torn and her porcelain body black and blue in places. She looked like a broken doll. She looked dead. Sam groaned. His head swam and Sam blacked out.
“Get up, Sam.” Logan stated again. This time when Sam awoke he was leaning up against the wheel of his own truck.
“The little girl, is she ok?” Sam asked.
“Well, Sam, I guess that would be up to you.”
Sam looked up to Logan with questions in his eyes. “What....”
Logan pointed back to the place where the van had sat and where the little Masters girl still laid silently, her blond tendrils of hair blowing up in the wind. But before Sam could scream out to Logan to help her, Sam noticed someone else there on the ground beside the small girl.
“Is he dead” Sam asked Logan.
“Yes.”
“Is the little girl is she....”
“Not yet.”
Sam felt his anger rise. Why was Logan just sitting there and not helping that little girl?
As Sam’s mouth opened to demand that Logan get help now, Logan pointed back to the adult body on the ground.
“Look again, Sam.” Logan spoke softly and stood from his crouching position beside Sam.
Sam studied the body. Reality began to dawn on Sam but what kind of warped reality is this. He must have taken a heck of a hit on the head. The body was him.
“I don’t understand, I’m dead” Sam's voice almost a whisper.
“Yes.” Logan nodded.
Then it came to Sam light a light from Heaven.
“I can see Emily.” Sam had waited for this moment since losing Em. Sam was giddy with happiness, he was ready to go.
“Wait, Logan are you dead too?”
“Not in the sense that you would know or understand.” Logan leaned against the truck.
Sam suddenly remembered why he had been here in the first place. “How are we going to get help for Abby?” Sam almost felt guilty at his happiness to being on his way to see Emily and forgot about poor Abby.
“You have to help her, Sam.”
“How? I’m dead, remember?”
“You have to go back.” Logan looked down at Sam sitting on the ground with his legs spread out in front of his and watched as Sam began to sob.
Sam’s sobs slowed. Who the hell was his stranger to be telling him that he had to live? Why him. Why not Logan?
“You go back. You help her. You have too. I....I’ve been waiting so long.”
Logan knelt beside Sam and Sam knew by the look in Logan’s eyes that this was all on him.
“Who are you really?” Sam almost feared the answer.
“You would know me as Death, I believe, but I have many names. But Logan will still do.”
“That little girl, she is going to die too” Sam whispered the question, not wanting to hear the answer but the answer was one that he would have never expected.
“No Sam, not unless you choose it.”
“What? NO!” Sam shook his head and jumped to his feet. He stared then at his own body laying on the cold ground.
“What do I have to do?” Sam asked with reluctance.
“Just live Samuel Livesay, just choose to live.”
“Emily....” Sam muttered. “I can’t. I …..but....why me. I mean, I don’t understand.”
Logan sighed.
“Sam, people make choices all the time to sin or not sin, to die or not die. A little thing called free will has a lot of power. You want to die but I need you to live. Abby needs you to live.”
“Let someone else do it. You can handle that surely, you are Death.” Sam sounded bitter
.
“Not that easy my friend. I have no control over people’s will. I am merely an …....overseer.”
‘You collect souls.” Sam was trying to make sense of all this. Maybe he was dreaming.
“No, you would not want to see the things that collect souls. Most souls have a natural progression to the other side but some souls have to be collected. Their sins hold their souls to the earthly side and they are, well, retrieved.” Logan said this last word with a tone of disgust.
“I want to see Emily.” It was merely a statement.
“Your choice, Sam, but you must hurry now. The sun is setting and the cold will come on fast.” Logan spoke in a monotone as if he were just stating facts instead of talking about a man’s life.
“Why, what is back there for me. What does the world need with another old man?” Sam cried out. “What can the world need me for God -dammit!” Sam had only taken God’s name in vain two other times in his life. Once trying out his new teenage status and he wound up with his Dad’s hand in the back of his hair and in his other hand, a bar of soup. The other is upon waking up the first morning without his Emily by his side and realizing it was not all just a bad dream.
“Not you, Sam. The world needs Abby. But if you do not choose to go back then Abby will not live. Your will to die is stronger than your will to live. Make your choice Sam.
“You help her!”
“Can’t Sam, don’t work that way.” Logan was stretching his back and starting to move closer to the little girl still lifeless on the cold ground.
“”Emily...” Sam whispered.
Almost Heaven
The first thing that Sam was aware of was a light in the distance. Dark surrounded him. He was shivering. The moon was bight and full overhead. Sam lifted himself up on his arms and his head pounded. Darkness had fallen and the temperature had dropped to the point that Sam could see his breath.
Sam could see his breath. Abby.
Sam pulled himself up and crawled over to that small lifeless body. He took off his shirt and wrapped around her. As he lifted himself and her on his shaky legs, he heard her moan. She was alive and Sam knew that hypothermia could already be setting in and she had to get medical help soon. He loaded her in the passenger side of the ruck and jumped in and started the truck. He sped toward town with a prayer on his breath.
By the time that Sam arrived at Calgary Creek city limits, the state police had arrived. Sam’s truck skidded as it came to a stop.
“I got her! I got her!” Screamed Sam frantically and waving his arms out the truck’s window before darkness overcame him as it had been threatening to do for the last several miles.
Sam was overtaken by people and as he realized that he had gotten Abby to safety: he promptly passed out.
Chapter Seven: Death Takes a Detour
Sam looked at the bright white light that was threatening to blind him. Am I dead, he wondered? Then he heard an intercom hailing Dr. Harris. No, he was not dead. He closed his eyes to go back to sleep.
“Wakey wakey! eggs and bakey! said a sing song voice. “You have been sleeping long enough, Hero and it is time to come back to the world and greet your fans.”
Sam opened his eyes once again and there blocking out the promising white light was a blond nurse with Winnie the Pooh on her scrubs.
“Welcome back, Sam,” said a voice that Sam was more familiar with. Logan sat in a chair in the left corner of the room. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles.
“Been here long?” Sam inquired.
“Long enough. Not very nice of you to keep me waiting.” Logan drawled. He stood and stretched his arms above his head and crossed over to Sam’s bed. “The little girl is going to live, thanks to you.” Sam was silent. “She wasn’t raped. Just badly bruised up and scared.”
Sam finally spoke, “Is this what life is all about, the things we do for others?”
“Sam, I could say pretty things like ‘yes, it is all about loving each other and the good deeds we do’ but each life is what we make it. That seems to be what I have observed.” Logan leaned in a little and rested his crossed arms on the bed railings. “I do know that good or bad, we each pay our own dues in the long run, some here and some, well, in other places.”
“That’s it? What about the big epiphany I should be having?” Sam wanted to scream in his frustration.
“You watch too many movies.” Logan said. He was still leaning in looking at Sam. Logan reached his large hand out and placed it on Sam’s chest. Sam closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep again. “Rest Sam, I must go. I have a blue van to catch up with…”
Chapter Eight: The Departure
As 1969 hearse drove out of town, Sam was meeting a little girl in a wheel chair that the orderlies had brought into his hospital room to meet her hero. She reminded him of Emily and for the first time in years, Sam felt his heart flutter with the hope of a new day. He knew Emily would understand that he still had things to do here and he knew that no matter how long it took, she would be waiting for him and he smiled. Life was good.
A blue van was parked just outside a rural elementary school and a tall man, in an out of style duster, lit a cigarette…. and listened to the screams of a man paying his dues.
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