Jonas Saul: The Reaper

I turned around in my seat and gaped at Jacob. What could I say? It was the first time he had said that his delusions of another life included me. In this incarnation, he isn’t supposed to know why he’s here, and yet he focused on this town and even said he used to live here. Something weird was happening. Something I didn’t understand. I wanted no part of it. It fucked with my current reality. But should I react with how I was feeling about Novar? All I could do was turn back around and stare out the front windshield at the oddly familiar landscape. I was too close to the end to allow the ruse to be taken from me. No one could stop the killing now.

Jacob directed his dad to pull over. There wasn’t much of a shoulder on the narrow road, but John did his best to keep the car from going down the small embankment. He put the hazards on and we all got out.

The afternoon sun beat down but I took my sunglasses off. I wanted to enjoy every moment as the killing time approached, see everything, feel all of it.

I smiled to myself as John and I silently followed Jacob through tall grass and weeds. We walked across a small clearing, and then my pulse raced as if I was in free-fall. I felt faint. I grabbed my chest. John reached for my arm to steady me. What the hell was happening? This had never happened before in any of my thousands of incarnations. Maybe my age was catching up with me. Perhaps it was my soul that was to be stolen?

“We lived right here,” Jacob said, his arms wide.

In that moment, I realized he was right. The earth under my feet was once my garden. I could see everything and understand nothing. I should remember it if I had lived here before. I looked around and noticed indentations in the foliage that resembled a pattern. When I pushed a few shrubs aside, I could see pieces of the foundation of a building that once stood here. When I looked up, Jacob was thirty meters away and moving fast.

“Jacob. I mean Mark! Where’re you going?”

“I want to show you the tree. And then you can have your surprise.”

I’d had enough surprises for one day. I was having an involuntary epiphany. I didn’t want to know what I was discovering. A part of my rational side rebelled. Anger rose in me; violence too. The killing was coming, along with it the sweet rush of a murder. So delicate and yet so satisfying.

Humans do it every day. They kill each other. They kill animals for sport. Everything down to a fly swatter kills and they take great pleasure in it. I live on another scale, another plane, one greater than all the others. My pleasure in death is immense. Watching it, causing it, feeling it, being killed myself. Everything to do with it is why I exist.

I am, therefore I kill.

I followed Jacob another fifty yards, with John close behind. We came to a clump of trees and there, scraped into the bark of the largest one was the name Mark and the year 1931.

I looked at John. If he didn’t figure out who he was soon, he would wonder what all this meant. Was his son reincarnated or psychic? John would have questions. We were down to the end. I didn’t want to have to kill him without the knowledge of who he is. It hurt when their last breath came out, their eyes darkened, and they had no idea why. Knowledge is power. I love death when we know why. It’s a rich power. The only kind. That’s why I do what I do and I’m so good at it. The power.

“Can I help you folks?”

Nothing pissed me off more than being startled.

My human body jumped a foot and let out a small squeal as all three of us turned around and stared death in the face. The man standing with the aid of a cane was twenty feet away. He must have been at least ninety years old. The side of his face looked melted, like he’d kissed a fire and paid for it. He was simply gorgeous.

“I’m sorry, we were just looking around,” John said.

Do you realize how dumb that sounds? Oh, we’re just looking around in the middle of the tall grass and huge trees. We must’ve looked like complete idiots.

“I haven’t seen anyone this far off the road in a long time,” the old man said.

“Is this your property?” John asked.

“My papa owned it and it fell into my hands when he died in the fifties. I’ve lived here since I was born in 1934.”

I looked at Jacob. His head was down as he stared at something on the ground. I could tell he was thinking. Then my eight-year-old son spoke as he looked up at the old man.

“Your name is Kirk Sutton. I remember you because you always played with frogs. You actually had a few pet frogs that you wouldn’t let anyone near. We used to tease you about it.”

The old man looked at Jacob/Mark. He studied my son with a wry smile that turned to a scowl. A few seconds passed before he spoke. “How did you know my name? And how do you know about my frogs?”

“I know because I’m Mark. I used to live just over there in the thirties.” Jacob lifted his arm and pointed. Then he looked back at Kirk Sutton. “I also know about your other obsession.”

“Well, now, that couldn’t be possible, little man, since you’re only a boy. The family who lived in the house that burned down were the founders of our little village: Mr. and Mrs. Novar. They had a boy named Mark, but they all died in a fire in 1944.”

I caught a breath in my throat. In that moment, I recognized Kirk Sutton. It came to me in a flood, like the dam had surrendered. I remembered everything: the tree line, the landscape, even where the train tracks were. I saw men hammering spikes into the rails as they put the tracks in. My mind’s eye showed me the details of their clothes, their tools. What surprised me the most was why I hadn’t known any of this before.

I used to watch my son Mark and his friend Kirk catch frogs as I sat on my porch and sipped lemonade. The yellow dress that I’d worn was the same dress I had torn off on the day of the fire so I could protect my son from the smoke and flames that licked up the walls.

Mark and I died in the fire. I knew that now. We’d failed in our joint mission in that incarnation because of Kirk, the man standing before us. And we came back together to live the life that we never got the chance to. I stepped close to Mark/Jacob and reached for him.

Our eyes met and we could see the secret between us that had lasted seventy-five years. Jacob knew. All those years and he knew. Together we would kill today and together we would be killed.

Jacob stepped away from me. He reached into his pocket and moved farther into the foliage.

“Jacob, where are you going?” John asked.

Jacob ignored him as he moved deeper into the field. I would’ve ignored him too. He was a straggler now, the only one who didn’t know his part in all this.

“I know it was you,” Jacob said loud enough for all of us to hear.

The old man looked from Jacob to me and then back to Jacob.

“You couldn’t help yourself,” Jacob continued. “But you got burned too. I was told all about it, but I had to meet you for myself.”

I had stepped into a new realm and left behind my old reality. The gig was up. No more playing.

“Who told you about me?” the old man asked.

“Your brother. He’s coming today too.”

John, that’s you. Getting it yet?

“I don’t have a brother and I do not have to stand here and listen to this craziness.”

John yelled for Jacob to come back. I turned and rebuked John. “We’ll handle this,” I said.

The old man started away on his cane. I was ten meters away from my son but still close enough to see the matches he pulled out of his pocket. He flipped the top, lit one and touched the rest with it. They flared in his hand.

The old man turned hard to stare at the flames in Jacob’s hand.