Embrace the Grim Reaper (2 page)

Chapter Three

“Any chance I could hitch a ride for a while?” Casey stood beside the truck, her heart pounding.

The trucker, clean from his shower, hesitated, his foot on the running board. “Where you goin’?”

She jerked her chin toward the road. “That way.”

The trucker pursed his lips, his eyes narrowed. “I’m going down southeast. Ending up in West Virginia.”

“That’s fine.”

He shrugged, switching the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other. “Gonna be a few minutes. Need to fill up on gas, check the tires.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go in and use the ladies’ room.”

He nodded, and swung himself up into the cab.

The restroom was a typical one-person affair, smelling of industrial-strength air freshener, with a stack of paper towels sitting on the sink underneath the broken dispenser. Casey locked the door and set the backpack on top of the closed toilet lid. Digging through her bag, she found her brush and yanked it through her hair, ripping through rats’ nests, bringing tears to her eyes. Slipping a ponytail holder off of the brush’s handle, where she kept a collection of them, she pulled her hair back and banded it there, out of her eyes. She should’ve done that before going anywhere on a motorcycle.

The water from the tap was surprisingly cold, and heated up slowly. When it finally reached lukewarm she splashed it over her face, rubbing her eyes until she saw spots. She finished off with her toothbrush, scrubbing her teeth in circles, the way they taught in elementary school.

So, not perfect, but better. At least she felt human again.

The trucker was waiting for her beyond the gas station, chewing on his toothpick and glancing at his watch.

“Sorry,” she said.

He lifted his chin in response. “You can stash that—” he gestured to her backpack “—behind your seat.”

She walked around the front of the cab, freezing when she reached the passenger door, staring at the handle. Months, it had been. Many of them.

Door buckling, air bag punching her face, the smell of smoke and rubber and oil, the sound of someone screaming
…

“You getting in or not?” The trucker unlatched the door from the inside and pushed it open.

“Yes. Yes, I’m coming.” Casey took a deep breath. Held it. Climbed up into the cab, shoving her pack into the space behind her seat before strapping herself in. Only then did she let out her breath in a tightly controlled hiss of air.

Clenching her hands into fists on her lap, she kept her head down, swallowing thickly as the truck pulled into traffic. The air in the cab felt close, and sweat trickled down her scalp as she concentrated on not being sick.

“You okay?” The trucker squinted at her across the seat.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

She would be. She would be.

Several miles down the road she took another deep breath and licked her lips. This was a new day. A new day, with Death sitting in the middle of the bench seat, between her and the driver, looking for all the world like a ride in a semi was boring as hell.

Casey raised her head and looked out the windshield.

The road seemed different from where she sat, high above the smaller vehicles, looking down at the drivers’ legs as they passed. Once in a while she saw hands, busy with eating or talking or holding a phone. Sometimes even driving. Every so often she glimpsed a face peering up into the cab before she could turn away.

The trucker wasn’t talkative. No jokes from him about motorcycling in bad weather. In fact, the only time he spoke was to ask Casey to pull a CD from the glove compartment. A classical one. Beethoven’s Seventh.

After a few hours they’d passed through many small towns. Seen many courthouses and schools and churches. Neighborhoods of turn-of-the-century homes. Queen Annes. Victorians. Some repainted in original colors, some broken into apartments. Some just broken. Railroad tracks, taverns, the never-ending array of fast food.

Sometimes Casey would see a factory on the outskirts of town. New ethanol plants, car manufacturers, food conglomerates. This town, the one they were approaching, had an appliance factory. HomeMaker. Casey recognized the brand. Dishwashers. Refrigerators. Stoves. Anything to make your life more convenient. She hadn’t used any of them in quite some time now.

“We’ll be stopping here,” the trucker said. “Need to walk around a little. Get some coffee.”

“Sure.”

He found an old restaurant, The Burger Palace, with a truck turnaround, and parked out back. “You coming in?”

“In a minute. Think I’ll get out and stretch first.”

“Don’t make me wait.”

“I won’t.”

He left her there and walked across the cracked pavement, up the rise to the restaurant. Casey looked down the street toward what appeared to be the center of town. Glanced at the sky. Still no more rain. And getting on toward late afternoon.

She was tired of sitting.

Climbing back up into the cab—holding her breath in an attempt not to hyperventilate—she pulled her backpack from its crevice, found another crumpled twenty in her pocket, and wedged it into a corner of the CD player. The trucker should find it there.

By the time she’d made it partway down the street, to where she would turn a corner and be out of sight, she looked back to see the truck pulling out of the parking lot, headed her way. She ducked behind a tree to watch him go by.

He didn’t even glance in her direction.

The old Midwestern town—Clymer, Ohio—was like many she’d seen already that day. Clean, quaint, but basically deserted. No mad rush of workers making their way home after a long day, or even neighbors talking in their yards. But she did come across an old-fashioned pharmacy, a bakery, a bank, and what looked like a seller of antiques.

A block past the center of town—a stoplight and Walk/Don’t Walk signs—she stopped and stared at a church, its sign proclaiming, “Strangers Welcome,” and “Feeling the heat? Try Prayer-Conditioning.” Casey let her eyes roam over the thick stone walls and up the front peaked roof to the bell tower. A chill ran through her, and she glanced sideways.

“Beautiful building.” Death stood beside her, hands linked loosely in front. “Do beautiful things happen inside?”

Casey shifted on her feet. “I don’t know. They could.”

“But you’re not going in.”

“It doesn’t look open.”

“Um-hmm.” A smile played on Death’s lips. “I don’t suppose you’ve tried the door.”

“Well…”

“I’m just saying…” The smile widened.

“You’re always ‘just saying.’ It would be a lot easier if you would ‘just do’.” The heat in her own words surprised her, and she swallowed forcefully.

Death’s eyebrows rose. “And here I thought I’d done more than enough.”

“Oh, you’ve done plenty.”

“But not lately. Not for you.”

Casey balled her hands into fists, her arms stiff at her sides.

Death turned to look down the street, at the businesses and homes. “It’s interesting to be in this town. It’s not unfamiliar to me.”

Casey jerked her head around. “What? You mean recently?”

Death shrugged. “Why do you think we chose this town to stop in?”

“We? What do you mean we? I—” A hot breeze hit Casey’s face, and she closed her eyes against the hair that had come loose from her ponytail. When she opened them, only a sense of displacement hovered around her.

She spun in a circle, grasping at the space. “You come back here. You come back!”

But the air, suddenly stilled, remained empty.

Casey rubbed her eyes, hard, and let out a deep sigh. Shaking her head and clenching her jaw, she continued down the street, muttering under her breath. In a few steps she was walking past an old movie theater, the kind with the ticket booth out front under the marquee. And then she smelled it. Something good. Stew, maybe? Or roast beef?

She followed the scent until she came to a place with Home Sweet Home painted on the window. She peered in the glass. Long tables, folding chairs…a soup kitchen? She stepped back and took another look at the empty street. Would a town this size have a homeless population? It was hard to imagine. She turned back to the building and tried to open the door, but the handle remained stiff under her fingers. Locked.

Shading her eyes with her hands, she leaned closer to the glass door and searched for any sign of people. She saw only one. A young man, his skin pale under the fluorescent lights, straightening chairs and picking up the occasional piece of trash.

Casey tapped on the glass, and he looked up. Seeing her, he left the chairs and came to the door, opening it. “Sorry. Supper’s not for…” He looked at his watch. “Another forty-five minutes. Five-o’clock.”

“I’m not here to eat. I was wondering if I might help serve.”

He took in her clothes and backpack, ending at her face. She couldn’t have deteriorated that much since she’d washed at the truck stop. Could she?

“Well, come on in. We can always use another pair of hands.” He held the door open wider, and she scooted past him, noting the fresh fragrance of laundry and something heavier. Cologne. But not a familiar kind. Once inside, the smell of the food was almost overwhelming, and the man’s scent was erased.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Um. Casey Smith.”

He nodded, his hazel eyes dancing. “All right, Ms. Smith. Nice to meet you. I’m Eric. Eric Jones.” He smiled, exposing perfectly straight and white teeth.

Casey couldn’t help but answer with a smile of her own. A small one.

“Actually,” Eric said, “my last name’s VanDiepenbos, but don’t tell anyone. It’s too hard for them to remember. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve been called.”

Casey held up two fingers. “I promise.”

“Why don’t you help me straighten up these chairs, first. Here, I’ll take your backpack into the staff room.”

She hesitated.

“It’ll be safe. Really. We keep it locked all the time. There’s even lockers if you want to use one.”

With a mixture of relief and anxiety she unloaded her burden and handed it over to Eric. To this young man, at least a decade younger than she ever remembered being.

While he was gone she studied the room. The tables were laid with brightly colored tablecloths. Blue and pink and yellow. Like a birthday party. Vases of plastic flowers decorated every section. Pretty flowers, clean and cheerful. This was unlike any homeless shelter Casey had ever seen.

Eric returned, and together they picked up trash and straightened chairs.

“It’s supper only,” Eric told her. “We’d like to do more, but it’s hard to find enough food for the meals we do, let alone a supply of volunteers. The Missionary church down the street offers lunches on Wednesdays, but other than that people need to fend for themselves.”

Casey could feel his eyes on her face, as if gauging her reaction.

“Really,” she said. “I’m not here to eat.”

She could tell he didn’t believe her, but there was nothing she could do about that. “I’m curious…”

“About what?”

“You’ve got a small town here. I didn’t see… Do you have that many homeless people? Folks who need meals?”

He squatted to pull a wadded napkin from under a table. “Not homeless, necessarily. But we’ve added a lot of place settings during the past year. And it’s only going to get worse with the plant leaving.”

“What plant?”

He stood up. “You’re not from around here?”

She shook her head.

“I should’ve figured that. Sorry.”

“What plant?” she said again.

“The one on the edge of town. HomeMaker. It’s closing. Moving to Mexico, actually. About a quarter of the employees were laid off last Christmas—nice time for that, huh?—and it’s shutting down completely within three months. This town, it’s just going to— Anyway, we’ve got lots more people coming for supper than we had even six months ago. But not any more supplies. People can’t afford to feed their families, let alone have anything left over to give away.”

“What happened? With the plant?”

He held out a trash bag and she dumped her handful of garbage into it. “The usual. You know. The union wants more money, better wages for the workers. The owners say, ‘screw you,’ and move to Mexico to get the tax breaks and cheap labor. Nothing new.” He tied the top of the trash bag and heaved it over his shoulder. “Come on, I’ll put you to work with the food.”

Casey followed him through a narrow door into a steaming hot kitchen. A skinny elderly woman stood at a stove in an apron, her hair scraped back into a hairnet as she stirred something in a big pot. Her coffee-colored skin shone in the moist heat, and she wiped at her forehead with her sleeve.

“Loretta, this is Casey. She’s going to help out with serving tonight.”

Loretta glanced up. “Well, thank you Jesus, that’s good of her, um-humm. You just make yourself at home, baby, okay? Praise God!”

Casey met Eric’s eye, and he turned, smiling, to the other person in the room. “Johnny, this is Casey.”

Johnny grabbed Casey’s hand and shook it enthusiastically, his smile almost as wide as his face. His eyes had the slant of Down’s Syndrome, and he stood several inches taller than Eric. He was stockier, too. “Eric always finds nice ladies to help,” Johnny said. “I wrap all the silverware in the napkins. Everyday.” He waited expectantly.

Casey cleared her throat. “I’m sure you do a great job with that, Johnny.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, I do. I’m the best at it, want to see?”

“Well. Sure.”

He bounded back to his station and returned, clasping a smooth bundle of silverware encased in a white paper napkin. “You see? You put the knife at the back, then the fork, then the spoon so they fit together right, and then you put them in the middle of the napkin and wrap the napkin around them. I’m the best at it.”

“I can see you’re very experienced.”

“I’m the best.”

“Okay.” Eric clapped Johnny on the shoulder. “Better get back to work, buddy. The folks will be here before too long and we want to be ready for them.”

“Oh, yes, Eric, yes, we do. I’ll get to work. I’ll do them all. I’m—”

“—the best at it. Yes, you are.”

Johnny smiled angelically, gave Eric a bone-crushing hug, and lumbered back to his spot.