When Nathaniel Brown awoke, he wanted to scream. He felt the burning pain of the bullet, as if it were striking him now instead of at some point in the past, but he could not scream. His body would not cooperate.
      Brown was cold, but he thought that it was summer. He tried to remember the battle. Yes, he was sure that it was summer. Why, then, was he so cold?
      Gradually, he forced his eyes to open. He looked down at his body. There was a bullet hole in his chest. There was very little blood on his faded Army jacket. He wondered if perhaps the bullet had punctured a lung.
      As his mind struggled to clear, he became aware of a terrible noise, somewhere between a wheeze and a rattle. He realised that it was his own laboured breathing. Yes, he concluded, the bullet definitely punctured a lung. Unless someone arrived soon, he would face a painful but bloodless death.
      He struggled to lift his head, to see if there was someone he could call out to. If someone were there, that person might not realise that he was alive.
      He was surrounded by corpses, by bodies and pieces of bodies. Some were wearing the green fatigues of the Allied Army, others the grey of Nazi soldiers. Lying there in the charred remains of the small French village, they all seemed the same.
      Brown was startled by a noise. He thought it was coming from somewhere in front of him, which was good because he was too weak to turn. Yes, he decided, someone’s coming. He listened to the crackling of twigs on the ground as someone walked toward him.
>      After a minute, Brown saw that the stranger had the erect bearing of a soldier. He strained to see the man’s uniform, to determine which side he was on.
      The sight of a stranger in black, out here on a battlefield so far from home, sent a chill up his spine. Black was the colour of the Nazi’s infamous SS Troops. But why, he wondered, would a lone SS Trooper be here?
      Brown looked harder. Yes, the stranger was wearing black. But no, it wasn’t a uniform. It was a shawl, wrapped around the tattered and bloody remains of a uniform. Brown could not make out the colour of the uniform. The shawl also concealed the stranger’s face.
      Brown made a half-hearted attempt to get up from the ground, but his body still would not cooperate. He could only hope this was a friend. If it was an enemy, there was nothing Brown could do except wait for him. If it was not a friend, Brown was sure, he would be dead soon anyway.
      Brown tried to call out, but he couldn’t find the air. He thought surely the stranger would hear the breathing that was ringing out in his own ears. But the stranger gave no indication that he was aware of Brown’s presence.
      "Hello," Brown managed to gasp weakly. He tried again to suck in some air and his voice was firmer as he repeated his greeting. "Hello."
      The stranger did not reply.
      "I’m over here." Brown coughed. "Can you hear me?"
      The stranger wordlessly walked to Brown and stopped before him.
      "Who are you?" Brown asked.
      "A friend." The stranger offered his hand. "Come."
      "Who are you?!" Brown repeated, in a fair approximation of a scream.
      "I have come to take you to a peaceful place."
      Brown grabbed at the shawl and snatched it away. Then he saw that the face of Death was his own.
      "No!" he screamed. "No!"
      ****
      Brown awoke shivering in his bed. His sheets were soaked with sweat. His mind was filled with images of his recurring nightmare vision. He lay back down and tried to control his breathing.
      A noise from another room fell upon his ears. He silently arose from his bed, his mind alert for any sound as he moved to his dresser. Opening the top drawer, he pulled out a Luger and cocked back the hammer.
      He heard the front door slam and he cautiously peered out the bedroom door. In the dim light of the fading moon, he could barely make out the figure of a man. The intruder took a shaky step forward and then fell to the floor.
      Brown cautiously entered the living room and turned on a lamp. The intruder on the floor was a young boy, perhaps a teenager, dressed in jeans and a light denim jacket. He was tall and thin, with close-cropped dirty blonde hair and an angular face and dark rings under his closed eyes. On his back was a growing red splotch. He was bleeding to death.
      Indecision filled Brown. He did not want to see an innocent man die, but he did not want to die himself. He wrestled with his conscience a moment before deciding to take the risk.
      Brown slipped the gun into the back of his waistband and knelt down beside the kid. He was no doctor, but he’d had some first-aid training. He was able to lift the bottom of the jacket without moving the kid and to determine that the injury was only a knife wound in the back. Painful, but not fatal if treated properly.
      So why, Brown wondered, had this kid passed out? Later, as he was gently turning the kid over to tape a bandage around him, he smelled the alcohol on his breath.
      "I risked my life for this?" he mumbled. "No, it’s best not to judge. Maybe there’s more to this kid’s story than meets the eye."
      ****
      The munitions dump exploded in a flash of light. A cloud of thick black smoke rose into the sky as the forest crackled and burned. Another explosion hurled lifeless bodies through the air. Brown almost felt that he could hear the screams of the dying.
      Brown gazed at the destruction and waited for the fires to burn down. Then he crept through the brush to examine the wreckage. Seeing no signs of movement, he rose to his feet and walked. He held his gun poised and ready.
      The crackle of machine gun fire whizzed by his ear and he turned to see a German soldier lying on the trail. The Nazi’s body was ripped open and his guts were splattered about him. Brown sprayed the dying atrocity with machine gun fire and its arm slumped to the ground.
      Brown paused a moment to shake off the vision before moving on. He wiped the sweat from his face. Then he saw that his hand was covered with his own blood.
      "Nathaniel," a voice behind him said gently.
      Brown spun around to see the cowled soldier. He opened fire on the apparition. He fled backward in terror, throwing all caution aside and firing his gun until it was empty. The soldier continued slowly walking toward him.
      Dropping his weapon, Brown fled from the evil being. Thorns stung his face and cut his skin, but he continued running. Fleeing faster, he tripped on a vine and fell to the ground.
      "Come. It is better on the other side."
      "Leave me! I do not want to die!"
      "Take it easy," said another voice.
      Brown opened his eyes. He was not in the woods, racing away from Death. He was lying on his couch. The boy who he had saved from Death was at his side. He was maybe twenty years old. Brown could scarcely remember having been so young himself.
      "Are you all right?" the kid asked.
      "Yeah."
      "Thanks for what you did. Are you a doctor or something?"
      "No."
      "Oh, here's your gun. Were you in World War I?"
      Brown accepted the Luger. "Now I know I don't look that old."
      "Thanks for staying up with me too, man."
      "I wanted to make sure you didn't steal anything."
      "Sure, man. Got any food in here?"
      Brown glanced at his watch. "There should be some groceries on the porch."
      "Huh?"
      "I get them delivered every few days. Go check the porch."
      Recognition dawned on the youth. "Oh yeah. You're Old Man Brown, aren’t you?"
      "They call me that?"
      "They say you're crazy and that you won't let anyone in because you hate everybody."
      "Then why are you here?"
      "Well..."
      "You were running. There was a knife wound in your back."
      "Are you gonna call the cops?"
      "No."
      The kid opened the front door and brought in two paper bags. "I don't guess you've got any beer in here."
      "No. What’s your name?"
      The kid thought a moment. Brown was finally able to see his eyes. A pale shade of brown, with little gold flecks. They darted from place to place, never meeting Brown’s gaze firmly. He decided that he didn’t like this kid.
      "Dennis," the boy finally answered.
      "I’m Nathaniel. Nice to meet you."
      "Yeah."
      "So how did you get stabbed?"
      "It’s none of your business!" Dennis shouted, then turned away from the old man and moved toward the kitchen.
      "I could call the cops."
      Dennis whirled to face Brown. "Don’t do that," he warned.
      "Or I could just shoot you," Brown added, cocking the hammer on the Luger.
      After glaring at the old man for a long moment, the kid clamped down on his temper. "Fuck it. You do what you want. I’m going to cook some breakfast."
      As Brown watched the kid carry the bags into the kitchen, he wondered just what in the hell he had let into his house. He sat on his couch, the gun still in his hand and watched the kitchen. Finally, Dennis returned with two plates of food.
      "Sorry about the rug," Dennis said as he entered.
      Brown simply stared.
      "I’m sorry about getting mad, too. I’ve got a bad temper sometimes."
      "Is that how you got stabbed?"
      "Yeah. Here, man, have some food."
      "I'm not hungry."
      "It's not poisoned. If I was gonna bump you off I'd have done it when you were sleeping. I gave you back your fucking gun. Remember?"
      After a moment, Brown set the gun down on a nearby end table and accepted the food. "Thanks."
      Dennis sat down in a recliner and began eating. Brown watched him for a moment, then began eating the simple meal of scrambled eggs and bacon.
      "I’m not much of a cook," Dennis admitted, in response to Brown’s expression. "I wonder what's on the TV."
      "What, are you moving in?"
      "No. Where’s your TV, man?"
      "I don't have one."
      "Really?"
      "Yes, really. Don't you think there was life before TV?"
      "Sure. But it was boring. I mean, what did you do for fun?"
      "What do you think we did?"
      Dennis thought a moment. "My mom's got seven brothers and sisters," he said finally.
      "We couldn't do that until we learned what it was."
      "Because you couldn't watch it on TV."
      "Right. We worked, read, listened to the radio, danced sometimes. But mostly, we just talked. We could sit around and fill hours that way. People don't talk to each other anymore."
      "So what do you do for fun? I mean, you never leave the house and no one comes in, so that leaves out talking and sex. And no beer. You don’t have any drugs, do you?"
      "Hell no!"
      "Take it easy, man. I was just wondering what you do for fun."
      "I remember. Sometimes people need to slow down, to just sit back and think about things."
      "You got a radio?"
      "Over the fireplace."
      Dennis walked over to it and switched it on. "This is an old one, isn't it?"
      "My father gave it to me before I went to France. I remember sneaking it into the barracks and listening to it after hours every night. One night my sergeant finally caught us. He agreed not to report it if we'd stop using it after hours and if he could join us to hear Amos and Andy."
      When the vacuum tubes finally warmed up, the radio started playing "That’s The Way Love Is" by Bobby Darrin. Dennis started to get up and change the station. Then he noticed the faraway look in Brown's eyes.
      The music seemed to bring back some memories for the old man. He looked sad, but he started to smile. The kid quietly walked back to the old leather recliner.
      ****
      Brown awoke sitting in his chair. He looked at his wife. She was lying on a hospital bed. Her cold hand was still tightly wrapped in Brown’s strong hands. Her face was twisted into its familiar grimace, the paralysis having frozen it in that position.
      Brown's tired eyes moved across the assorted tubes that kept his wife alive. Polio had stricken her down in the prime of her life. She received all her food intravenously because she was too weak to eat.
      The doctors had urged Brown to leave, but he couldn’t abandon her in her hour of need. He wanted to reassure what little remained of her. The doctors would find a cure. He had to believe that. Maybe, if he stayed at her side, she would find the strength to hang on until they did.
      Her pale, seemingly lifeless eyes gazed in the same direction, unseeing. But he knew that somewhere, deep within the frail body, his beloved wife still lived and that she saw him beside her.
      Brown’s eyes filled with horror. The tube in her neck had slipped loose! He desperately paged the nurse, then frantically checked his wife’s wrist for a pulse. He put his ear to her chest and heard nothing. She had died while he slept. If he had been awake, she would have lived.
      Brown’s will collapsed. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed bitterly. The only thing left for him to live for, his only source of joy or purpose, was gone forever.
      ****
      "Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown."
      "Huh?"
      The kid glanced at the old man to see that he had awakened. "I was just looking at this medal. Awarded to Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown, for conspicuous heroism above and beyond the call of duty. So what did you do to get this?"
      "I killed three Nazis while they slept," Brown quietly replied. "Does that sound heroic to you?"
      "I'll bet you were quite a fighter back then."
      Brown did not reply.
      "So what happened to you? I mean, why are you living like this?"
      "I got wiser in my old age."
      "It sounds like you're afraid."
      "At least I don't go hiding in strangers' houses."
      "You're afraid to die, aren't you? That's why you live like this. You're afraid to die."
      "Nobody wants to die."
      "No, it goes deeper than that. You've seen Death and now that you're old, you're afraid you'll see it again."
      "You don't understand."
      Dennis was silent a moment. "You have seen Death, haven't you?"
      "Yes, I've seen him. Many times. I've sent men into his black embrace and I've been mere inches away from that embrace myself. We know each other well."
      "Why do you fight it so much?"
      Brown rose to his feet and faced the lad angrily. "Death is evil! I do not fear Death. I despise him."
      "Is there only one Death doing all the killing? I'd think he'd have his hands full with a stubborn old geezer like you."
      "No, there's not one Death. Death comes from Satan and he uses the souls of the damned to claim the old and the sick and the weak."
      "You're nuts. When you die, you rot. You don't get one throw of the dice and then pay with all eternity. That's stupid. When you die, that's it."
      "Then how'd we get here?"
      "I didn't study physics, but it happened somehow because here we are."
      Brown sat back down in his chair and sighed. "That's brilliant. Don't you even care?"
      "No, I don't. You old farts are all alike, sitting on your asses asking dumb questions nobody can answer instead of going out and living."
      "That's better than you young yahoos who don't know how to think anymore. Are you that stupid, or are you just too damn lazy?"
      "Don’t talk to me like that," Dennis warned.
      "People like you are destroying this great nation -"
      "That you fought and died to defend. I've heard it before, old man."
      "You act like the world owes you a living. We busted our tails for you, gave you everything we could -"
      "- And this is the thanks you get. I've heard that too, old man. But you don't even know what living means because you're too busy hiding."
      "I'm not hiding!"
      "Then what are you doing?"
      Brown's voice grew quiet. "Death had me down twice. Both times, he asked me to take his hand. But I didn't. It's been a long time, but he'll be back soon. I know that. He knows that I won't take his hand. So he'll try to trick me somehow. Maybe he'll change his looks. But if I stay here and then someone comes in, I'll know it's probably him. If I never touch him, I can live forever."
      "You're sick."
      "I knew you couldn't understand. You're just a young punk."
      "I don't like that word. I'm a man, not a punk."
      "Is that supposed to scare me? I've beaten punks like you -"
      "But now you're old."
      "I'll never be that old, punk."
      Dennis turned away. Brown reached out and grabbed his arm. Dennis spun around with a switchblade in his hand.
      "Don't grab me, man."
      Brown took a step backward. "Hey, put the knife away."
      "Are you scared? I thought you were gonna live forever."
      "There's no reason for this."
      "You get on my nerves."
      "You would kill me for getting on your nerves? After I saved your life?"
      "Yeah, I would. Nobody does nothing for nobody unless they want something!"
      "What do you have that I could possibly want?"
      "You want to preach to me, old man and I don't need your damn preaching. When I first came in here, you were afraid that I might be Death. Let's just say you were right."
      Brown reached for his gun, but the boy was quicker. He thrust his knife at the old man's stomach. Brown skipped back to dodge the weapon. Dennis thrust it at him again. Brown caught his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. He turned the boy’s wrist so that he could feel the knife blade pricking against his skin.
      "I could kill you right now," Brown stated.
      "Then why don't you?" Dennis challenged.
      Brown applied more pressure to his shoulder, forcing him to finally drop the knife. Then he released the boy and pushed him away.
      "I think you'd better leave. But first, some advice. A lesser man would have -"
      Dennis kicked Brown in the groin. The old man doubled over in pain. Dennis pushed him away, picked up the knife and thrust it into his chest.
      Brown gasped in pain, but then his jaw stiffened as he stood firm and proud. Pulling the weapon from his chest, he offered it to the boy.
      "And still I live," Brown said quietly. "Here, take this and leave. You can use the sink to clean off the blood."
      Dennis reached out to accept the weapon. At first he was stunned, but then he chuckled. "Oh, I'll leave eventually. But first I'll look around and see what's worth taking. And you'll leave too, old man, but it'll be in a pine box."
      Brown took a step toward the boy, but he suddenly stopped and coughed up blood.
      "You're a fool, old man. That's why I survive - I kill old fools."
      Brown's strength of will failed him and he slumped to the floor.
      ****
      Brown opened his eyes to see a tall figure standing before him. Oddly, he felt no pain from his injury, only a vague recollection that it had pained him before.
      "Kid?"
      "I am not young."
      Brown jerked to his feet. He was not in his living room. Rather, he stood on a bridge. Behind him was a vast green landscape. Before him was only mist. He looked down, but there was no water, only an endless fog. He turned back to the figure beside him. Its face was concealed beneath a cloak.
      The mist before him cleared to reveal a hospital bed. In the bed was a clock and around the bed hovered other clocks. Each clock was unique and their hands moved at varying speeds. Moments later, a clock appeared that Brown somehow knew represented himself.
      The entire vision moved at this rapid pace. There was no real action or meaning to it all, only congregations of clocks. The only sound that Brown heard was the combined ticking of them all.
      Time spent learning at home, or at school under the guidance of an antique grandfather clock. Time spent labouring and resting, laughing and crying, thinking and feeling, seeking and finding, loving and hating. The whole of his life was replayed in the mist, but in the vision all was time, only time. Time wasted and time well-spent - the vision made no distinction. Through it all, time continued to move forward, ever forward.
      The final scene was also in a hospital bed. The clock that was himself lay there and two other clocks stood nearby. His alarm rang out sharply, the ticking ceased and the scene faded to black. As the mist swirled to become mist once more, Brown turned to see that Death wore the face of the clock that was himself.
     

Back To Dark Truths--Stories