Jack Cavanaugh - Death Watch

The elevator doors opened to a lounge that smelled of popcorn, cigarette smoke, and unwashed socks. Sydney was reminded of her university dorm. Same walls and bulletin boards, same furniture, same students draped over it. From the scene before them it was obvious that the students here took the word lounge as a command.

They found Jeremy Boles hunkered over a table in a corner with three other guys. The table was littered with beer cans, several kinds of chips, and candy wrappers. They were playing Texas Hold-em poker. A quick survey of the stacks of bills indicated Jeremy was losing.

The red-headed boy was short, barely five feet. His grin stretched wide when he was told news reporters wanted to interview him.

“Hey, where are the cameras?” A bare-chested boy, one of the poker players, trotted along on Jeremy’s heels.

“On their way,” Hunz said, taking charge. “Do you have the death watch notice? We’d like to see it.”

Eager to show them, Jeremy pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. Hunz took it.

“It’s an email,” Jeremy said.

As Hunz scanned it, Sydney read it over his shoulder. The sender was unidentified. The text was identical to all the other notices. Jeremy pointed to the time the email was transmitted.

“See, 10:59 p.m. Two days ago. I was supposed to die at 10:59 tonight and I didn’t.” He shrugged happily as though to say he couldn’t explain it, but wasn’t complaining.

“We watched you on the news tonight,” the bare-chested boy added. “Too bad about that old guy. That’s why we called the station. All the others have died, right? All except Jeremy here. Does he get some kind of prize or something?”

“Yeah, he gets to live,” someone said.

“For Boles, that’s not a prize, that’s a punishment,” someone else said.

Hunz handed the paper back to Jeremy. “Tell me exactly what happened when you got the notice.”

“When I first saw it?” Jeremy said. “I nearly filled my pants, man.”

Everyone around him laughed.

“I mean, this is some serious stuff, isn’t it? With all the people dying and everything?”

“Where were you at the time?” Hunz asked.

“Um. . the computer lab, over at De Neve Plaza.” He twisted his torso to point in the direction of the plaza.

“Then what happened?” Hunz asked.

“Well, as soon as I picked myself up off the floor

Another laugh. He was playing to the crowd now.

I ran back to my room and showed it to Tony here.”

He jerked a thumb at the bare-chested boy.

“Him and Fredo.” He looked around the room but couldn’t find Fredo. “The three of us, we share a room.”

“And after that?”

“Well, then I kinda just about fell apart, man. I mean, to be told you’re gonna die and all.”

“He was crying,” the bare-chested boy said. “Then he called his mommy, and she made him feel better.”

“Hey!” Jeremy said. “You don’t know what it’s like. This kinda thing puts a whole different spin on the world, you know what I mean? Until I got this thing, about the worst kind of note I ever got was from the IRS saying I owed them money.”

“Death and taxes,” someone said.

“IRS? Give me a death notice any day,” someone else said.

That got a laugh.

“What did you do when you got the notice?” Hunz said.

Jeremy looked a little sheepish. “Called my mom first,” he said, then quickly added, “but then I called the police.”

“What did they say?”

“They wouldn’t even send a squad car over to take a look at it. The dispatcher said that a whole lot of other people were getting them. Said the police couldn’t do nothing. Said I was to call them back if I died.”

Another round of laughter.

Hunz’s eyes bored in on him. “Do you have a phone in your room?”

“Nah. We all got cells.” He pulled his cell phone out of his front jeans pocket. It was a mini model, barely the size of his palm. “So are you gonna interview me on television now?”

“No,” Hunz said.

The finality of his response silenced the room. A round of groans came from those looking on. A couple of people walked away.

“Hey, why not, man?” Tony’s face fell.

“Simple. Jeremy’s notice is a fake. He was never under any real threat of death.”

“Fake? It’s just like all the others,” Tony said.

“Interesting that you would know that,” Hunz said. “You’re right, the text is identical to all the other death watch notices. It’s what happened afterwards that’s different. Something that hasn’t been publicized. Jeremy, I’m afraid you’ve fallen victim to a rather cruel practical joke. And if I were to guess I’d say that Tony here had something to do with it.”

Jeremy turned on his roommate. “Nah, he wouldn’t . hey, man, you didn’t.”

“No, man! I wouldn’t do something like that to you!”

“Yeah, you would.”

Tony grinned. “Yeah, I would,” he said, laughing. Then took off running.

Billy Peppers crawled under a fir tree in the front yard of a quaint two-story house on La Loma Road in Pasadena. Looking under the branches, he had a nice view of Brookside Park across the street—trees, benches, rolling grassy hills highlighted by a silver moon. From behind him the porch light filtered through the tree limbs. He liked that. Sometimes it could be too dark when there was no moon overhead and when businesses didn’t replace burned-out lightbulbs over back doors. On those nights Billy didn’t sleep much. Rarely did good things happen in the dark. It was a cover for all manner of evil. And on those nights time slowed and the darkness seemed to stretch into forever.

Billy settled beneath the tree. He had never been to Pasadena. Now that he was here, he liked it. It was quiet. There was no banging of dumpster lids. No freeway noise. No squealing tires. No gun-shots. The thick layer of needles and soft ground beneath the tree, though damp, would make a nice bed, so much nicer than a concrete alley with its odors of rotten meat or vegetables or urine. It smelled of pine here.

Stretched out, Billy scooted the shoe box in front of him. He removed the lid. Reaching inside, he pulled out a ceramic figurine of an angel. He smiled. This one was his favorite. Illuminated by the yellow porch light, the angel’s face appeared radiant. Its white wings were spread gloriously. It was obvious this angel was proud to be a messenger of God.

“Just like in real life,” Billy muttered.

He set the figurine down and reached for the other one. There were only two in the box. This one was broken. Its base was a cloud upon which the angel was touching down, or lifting off. Who could tell for sure? Half the cloud and the angel’s left foot were missing. This angel’s expression was serious, approaching stern. Billy called this one the “bad news angel.” When this angel appeared, plagues of locusts or some such disaster most surely followed.

Also in the box were pictures torn from magazines and posters and boxes. All the pictures were of angels. Some were realistic renditions; others were cute cartoon drawings. Billy lifted one and examined it. He’d found this one in a dumpster, torn from a box that had once packaged a Precious Moments Bible. This adorable little angel looked like a happy, plump two-year-old with wings. Billy smiled when he looked at it. He always smiled when he looked at this angel.

He set the little angel on the branches of the tree. One by one, he pulled the pictures from the Nike shoe box and similarly arranged them on the limbs of the tree. Soon he was surrounded by angels overhead. He placed the ceramic angels on two of the sturdier limbs. Then he lay back with his arms behind his head and stared up at them.