Jack Cavanaugh - Death Watch

It fell upon Sydney to make the final arrangements with WBBT, the network affiliate in Chicago, for a film crew. A woman with a soothing voice confirmed that the crew would arrive an hour before airtime. She sounded more like a receptionist for a mortuary than a news station. She said they were sending a makeup person too.

The combination of voice and mention of makeup spawned an image in Sydney’s mind of an open coffin with the corpse wearing a thick layer of cosmetics, as they often do. It takes a lot of effort to make death presentable. Sydney couldn’t shake the feeling the network was so worried about the appearance of the soon-to-be-dead that they were sending a mortuary cosmetician to ensure that Hunz would be presentable.

Brushing aside the thought like a cobweb, Sydney gave the woman at the station the hotel room number.

The arrangements made, there was little for her to do but wait.

She stared at the closed bedroom door. A part of her knew it was best to respect Hunz’s wishes. But there was another part of her that wanted to go in there, to do something, to say something that would ease his suffering.

Defying herself, Sydney looked at her watch. She couldn’t help herself. She remembered doing the same thing sitting next to Lyle.

We celebrated too soon!

Going to the phone, Sydney called the front desk. She asked for the exact time, to the second. The desk clerk gave it to her.

“What’s your source?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“What instrument are you using? Is it accurate?”

“We have a clock in the lobby, ma’am.”

“Not good enough. I need the exact time. Get me the naval observatory.”

“Ma’am?”

It took some explaining, and then longer for the desk clerk to find a phone number, but eventually he gave her the phone number for time, the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

She placed the call. Just as she’d feared. Her watch was a minute and four seconds fast.

Correcting the digital readout of the minute was easy enough, but she didn’t know how to adjust for the errant four seconds. She called the automated time number three more times, just to make sure her watch wasn’t gaining or losing seconds.

The four-second differential held.

Hunz’s official death watch time was now 8:47 a.m. and four seconds.

Sydney’s heart was racing.

At first it seemed absurd that it would be. She’d set her watch hundreds of times before without anxiety, but add death to the operation and everything changed.

A phrase came to mind.

When time shall be no more.

She didn’t know why it came to mind, or from where. A hymn? The Bible? She couldn’t remember. She did know, however, that it was a phrase she associated in some way with church.

When time shall be no more.

Poor watchmakers. Eternity will put them out of business. But then, who would want to keep time in paradise? And for those not in paradise, where time would drag insufferably, they wouldn’t want to be reminded constantly of the time, would they?

“For an eternity,” Sydney said aloud.

Another thought came to mind. Another link to something she’d heard in church.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell . .

“For eternity,” Sydney said again.

She was certain that was in the Bible somewhere. But where? Hunz needed to see that verse too. But where to begin looking?

All men die, Sydney.

Suddenly, she understood what Billy had been trying to tell her. It was not what happened at 8:47 a.m. and four seconds that was important, but what happened after, when time was no more.

All this outcry over Death Watch. It was absurd, wasn’t it? All the media attention. All the panic. Nations scrambling for an answer, a solution.

All men die.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body. Fear the One who can destroy both body and soul.

Why the outrage over something that threatens the part of man that grows old and decays? Where was the outrage over the threat against the part of man that is timeless?

I’ll tell you what’s nuts. Believing in a supernatural God and not believing in the supernatural.

Sydney went to the table by the window. She stared out at a world that was being tricked, diverted into placing too much emphasis on the wrong death.

Then she did something she’d been too busy to do for years.

Sydney prayed.

With two hours and forty-four minutes remaining on Hunz Vonner’s life clock, at 6:03 a.m., Sydney turned on the television.

Death Watch dominated the airwaves. Reruns of Family Ties and Cheers were preempted by special reports featuring terrorism specialists who gave updates on the latest developments—which meant they rehashed old news—and psychologists who advised parents how to talk to their children about death and terrorists.

In the bottom right-hand corner of every station in every region of the country, the Homeland Securities Awareness system indicated the nation was now on Level Four, the highest alert. Terrorist attack was imminent.

A news segment aired on WBBT. The morning anchor, a middle-aged brunette, looked more like some kid’s mother than a media professional. However, she had a warmth and sincerity that came across nicely, and to Sydney, it was obvious why the station had hired her. People tended to adopt news personalities into their families, and this woman had “understanding friend” written all over her.

Reports of death watch-related deaths are coming in from all over the world.

Sydney had turned the television on too late to get the woman’s name.

In Italy, a young couple, both nineteen years old, committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of the Leonardi Edera Hotel in historic Rome. The police found a note in their room in which they compared themselves to Romeo and Juliet. The young Romeo was a death watch recipient with less than an hour to live. His Juliet wrote, “I refuse to live in a world without my true love.”

The news anchor paused, moved with motherly emotion for the young lovers.

And closer to home, in Peoria, Illinois, veteran storyteller Homer Blakely, a nationally acclaimed, award-winning storyteller, fell dead just as he was completing his story, “Terror at the Top of the Stairs.” Blakely, a regular at the Chinquapin Folk Music and Storytelling Festival, which is held annually at Camp Wokanda, was performing at the Ghost Story Concert. According to eyewitness reports, he was just about to reveal the terror that lurked at the top of the stairs of his childhood home when he fell over dead. A death watch notice was found in his pocket.

Meanwhile, around the world, reports attributed to the death watch terror continue to escalate at staggering proportions, prompting several countries to declare themselves under attack, while here at home, the president has scheduled a national address for this evening. It is believed he will at that time explain the rationale behind raising the Homeland Security Awareness system from Level Three to Level Four, the highest level possible, indicating severe conditions. This will be the first time in our nation’s history the risk level has been set at Level Four.

And finally, here in Chicago, another first. Visiting international newscaster Hunz Vonner, on assignment from EuroNet news, will broadcast a live death watch Special Event from the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare International Airport. Vonner, a death watch victim, will share the thoughts of a dying man as the clock counts off the final minutes of his life. This WBBT Special Event will be.the first live broadcast of a death watch death aired on national television. Here, on WBBT at 10:00 a.m.