Through the Valley Part 9: The Final Chapter
Parking lot revelations
Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I’m so glad you’re here. Below you’ll find the 9th and final part of my short story about death (and Death). It’s a riot.
Want to start at the beginning? Here you go:
She didn’t hold my arm as we walked into the gym. I’m surprised she let me hold the door open. I could feel the heat radiating from her hurt sense of pride, and it made me want to do everything in my power to make her happy.
Before I had to kill her, of course.
We took our seats near the front row as the lights dimmed. I did a quick look around, but saw no sign of Death. I was sure he’d be lurking around here somewhere.
Cindy was one of the first performers on the stage. She was dressed as a tree, her face coming out halfway up the trunk. The dance was a sort of interpretive… thing. Look, I know you’ve been to plenty of these before, so I’m not going to go into much detail. Some of the kids were great, some were only there because their parents made them. There were allusions to life, death, and the downward spiral of Western society. Cindy did her thing, we clapped where appropriate, and when it ended Victoria and I made our way backstage to congratulate her.
Cindy was very excited to see the two of us together.
“Victoria!” she yelled, then ran over to give her a big tree-hug.
“You were great up there sweetie!” Victoria gushed.
“Yeah,” I added, “that was the most tree-like performance I’ve ever seen.” They both gave me dirty looks, and I walked away for a minute to compose myself. How was I supposed to get Victoria alone?
Luckily, I was saved by ice cream.
“Uncle Jin?” Cindy asked. “We’re all going to Freddy’s to celebrate. You guys can come, right?” I looked questioningly at Victoria. She smiled and nodded, but her eyes said, “I’m still pissed at you.”
“Sure thing,” I said. “You go on ahead with your friends and we’ll meet up in a bit.” Cindy ran off to change and I walked Victoria back through the gym.
“So what did you think?” I asked her.
“It was cute,” she said. “What did you think?”
“I’m just happy I stayed awake…” That got a small chuckle out of her. No one should die pissed off, right?
We made our way outside. Most of the audience had left, so we had the parking lot virtually to ourselves. I wouldn’t get a better chance than this. I stopped walking about halfway to the car, just outside the radius of two streetlights. Victoria stopped a few steps ahead, then looked back at me.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to say something,” I said.
“In the middle of the parking lot?”
“It’s easier if we’re alone,” I answered. She walked back to me. “I was a jerk yesterday,” I continued. “I’m sorry about that.” Her mouth curled up in a wry smile.
“I guess I pushed you a little hard,” she said. “But I was getting some pretty strong signals…”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m kind of a mess. Truce?” I held my arms out, and she confidently walked forward into my embrace. I reached into the sleeve of my jacket and removed the scythe. “Close your eyes,” I said. “I owe you something.” She complied, and I took a small step back as I rose into the air. This was it. Yeah, maybe she’d changed in the past decade. Maybe what I was about to do was wrong, and I’d suffer some eternal punishment for it. But I couldn’t go on like this. Cindy was like a daughter to me and Victoria had already been dead to me once.
Then she opened her eyes.
My arms stopped, mid-swing. She looked at me questioningly. I tried to will my arms forward, to be finished with my task, but something was holding me back. Compassion? Love?
“Do it Jin!” Death emerged from the side of the building. “What are you waiting for?”
I looked back at Victoria. She looked so confused, so innocent. My shoulders slumped, and I let my arms fall to my side. Death exhaled audibly.
“I can’t do it,” I said. “You don’t deserve this, Victoria. I forgive you.”
In any other story, this simple act would have broken some sort of spell, released me from my torment. Death would have been sent back to the hell he came from, and Victoria and I would have lived happily ever after (once we went through some serious counseling sessions). Maybe we would have even bought a dog.
This is not any other story.
Victoria rolled her eyes. “You poor, stupid mortal.” She adopted a deer-in-headlights look, wringing her hands together. “Oh, Jin! I’m so glad we found each other again! I’m just a poor, helpless girl and I need you to take care of me.” Her eyes turned hard. “What a joke. This is how you kill someone.”
She grabbed the scythe from me, then whipped it around with practiced ease. It bit deep into my chest. A pain, deeper and hotter than any I’d ever known, engulfed me. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I fell, then lay still on the ground. Victoria threw the scythe down and turned away.
Cindy had forgotten her jacket and was coming back to grab it. She ran over to me instead, sobbing as the world began to go black.
The last thing I heard was Death speaking to Victoria.
“Alythia, Mistress of Night,” he said. “Goddess of the Hindu Underworld and Devourer of Souls. It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Now it is time to die.”
I was floating, my thoughts fuzzy and my body numb. Darkness surrounded me except for a faint light in the distance. It beckoned me onward. So this must be what death feels like, I thought. I worried briefly about Cindy, but couldn’t long ignore that light.
Peace, it whispered. Rest.
I started moving in that direction, happy that the last few days were finally over. Dimly I realized that I would most likely never have a pastrami sandwich again.
You win some, you lose some.
As I floated in the direction of the light, however, the air around me began to push back. Subtly at first, but with more vigor as I continued on. Eventually I could move no farther. Still the air pushed. I began to move backwards, and panic filled me. I strained, and kicked, and lashed out, but it made no difference.
It was not yet my time to be in this place. I experienced a sense of falling before everything went black again.
I was thrown back into my body, and it was not a pleasant experience. Pain assaulted my senses. I gasped, and my eyes flew open. Cindy was still kneeling next to me, watching something I couldn’t see. She turned as I started to move, then exclaimed and threw her arms around me.
“You’re alive!” she said. It was the most painful hug I’d ever experienced.
“Unfortunately,” I said. “Can you be… more… gentle?” I asked between painful breaths. She released me and sat back on her knees.
“What’s happening? She asked. “Victoria is… not herself…”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Help me up.” She slowly helped me maneuver myself into a sitting position. Death and Victoria were fighting. It looked like a mix of kung-fu and rugby. They would move smoothly, almost dancing, and then one would try to tackle the other. They flew around the parking lot, oblivious to Cindy and me. I realized how foolish I had been to get involved with Death; he was not someone to be trifled with.
Victoria was different now, too. How, you might ask? Well, for starters, she had grown several new sets of arms.
Also, she was blue.
Death was fighting valiantly, but it was plain that she was gaining the upper hand. Eventually she faked a kick, then struck out with all arms at once. One set pinned Death’s arms to his side, while a second pair of hands wrapped themselves around his neck. The two of them slowly floated to the ground, about ten feet away from us. Victoria’s back was facing me.
That’s when I noticed the scythe still lying by my side. I grabbed it, and slowly rose into the air. Victoria was delivering her victory speech as I moved toward her.
“You are getting sloppy,” she hissed at Death. “Sending a boy after me? After I had marked him as my own?” She seemed to be sucking Death’s essence into herself. He struggled weakly against her grip.
“I bow to your… superior intellect,” he croaked.
“You will bow to my power!” she screamed. “As will every other soul on this wretched planet!”
“There’s one thing… you didn’t plan for,” he said. He was starting to fade now. Victoria paused her… life-force sucking thing.
“And what’s that?”
“Me,” I said. She turned around, but it was too late.
I swung with all the anger and confusion the last few days had caused me. I swung, fueled by the physical pain I currently felt. I aimed it at her heart, assuming she still had one.
The blade passed through her, but this time it felt different. There was a cutting sensation, the way it feels when you drag a pair of scissors across a piece of paper. Some tether, some vital connection, had been severed. Victoria’s eyes widened in surprise, and she fell to the ground. Smoke rose from her blue body as she began to dissolve. Soon she had disappeared completely. I dropped the scythe, then sat down hard on the ground.
Death floated next to me, looking at the spot where her body had been. He’d stopped fading, and looked basically back to, well, not normal exactly but you know what I mean.
“Nice job,” he said. “Looks like you aren’t a complete screw-up after all…”
I didn’t look up at him. “How long have you been planning this?” I asked.
“Oh, several millennia, I expect. But this particular plan was hatched just before I pushed Molly off the play structure.”
“What?” I said, somehow still surprised by his lack of remorse for potentially killing someone. “Why would you do that?”
“Immortality, remember? By catching that little girl, you made yourself into my secrete weapon. I never expected you to be able to kill her before finding out what she really was. I needed her to think you were dead.”
“So you used me as bait?” I asked angrily. “Don’t you know how terrible the last few days have been? The things you’ve put me through…”
“You put yourself through it, actually. Those angry feelings you’ve harbored toward Victoria all these years. Alythia was drawn to them like a moth to a flame. It made you a perfect accomplice; helped to cloud her judgement because she wanted your soul so badly.”
“So Victoria was already… dead?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Death nodded.
“She fell under Alythia’s spell years ago,” he said. “Her body remained, under the Goddesses’ control of course, but her soul was held captive. Until now, that is. Now she’s mine.”
“That’s not very comforting…” I said.
Death shrugged. “I don’t make the rules…” Cindy cautiously walked over to us.
“Uncle Jin,” she said. “I think you have some explaining to do. Why did Victoria turn into a monster? And who is… this guy?”
Death spoke before I could. “My apologies, young one. I would not have hurt you. Your uncle can be…stubborn, at times. He needed some motivation.” Cindy looked at me, one eyebrow raised.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow? Also, maybe we can keep this from your mom?” She crossed her arms.
“That is going to take A LOT of ice cream,” she said. “And soda. And clothes…” I laughed, then winced at the pain. I turned back to Death.
“What happens now? Are we even?”
“We’ll meet again,” he said matter-of-factly. “No one escapes me forever. But for now, I consider your job done. However…”
I felt my blood pressure rise. “However?”
“How do you feel about cold weather?” he asked. “My… counterpart in Antarctica is getting too bold for my liking. I’m thinking about paying him a visit, and you have proven to be… not completely useless.
The laughter bubbled up from deep down inside. It exploded from my mouth like bats escaping a cave. The absurdity of the situation was the funniest thing I’d ever experienced. He was trying to hire me! Take that, high school counselor!
I laughed until I was out of breath. It felt good. I wondered briefly if I had finally gone crazy, then decided that it didn’t matter. I stood up and put the scythe into my back pocket.
“When do we leave?”
Suggested music for Part 9: Search and Destroy by 30 Seconds to Mars
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