Prolonging Eternity

***Trigger Warning: Death and gore.

Death has many names—to me, he’s a pain in the ass.

It was my last night shift of the week. Nights were good, preferred, even, in my line of work. It was quiet, sure to be no lingering eyes, cries of miracles, or praises for being a hero. Because I was no hero—far from it. The only noise was a humming in my ear, a whisper of inevitability. Of death.

The next person in our ambulance was going to die.

“Equipment check complete. Think it’s going to be a slow night?” Grace said, poking her head through the gap from the back of the rig. She slid into the passenger seat next to me.

I gave her a playful shove. “Rule number one, G! Never, say the s-word. Or the q-word. Those are inside thoughts.”

“It’s just you and me, so it doesn’t count.” Her mischievous smile brightened even the darkest corner of the hospital parking lot. The cold that had settled deep within my bones loosened its grip. She took a breath, her expression falling. “Is it going to be a bad one, Hayes?”

I shifted slightly, fully aware of the gaze of those honey brown eyes. Grace and I stuck together since I first started this job. She was the only true partner I’ve ever had. But there were things I couldn’t tell her—wasn’t allowed to tell her. Believe me, I’ve tried. She figured most of it out on her own though, after some crazy theories. Did she still think I was a magic eight ball? Sometimes.

“Yes. But no one is going to die tonight. Not if I can help it,” I said, moreso trying to convince myself than her. Maybe tonight I would finally beat him.

The radio hanging on the main console hissed. Grace grabbed it. I turned on the engine and checked our GPS for live updates.

“Unit sixty-sixty, we’re dispatching you out for an assist. It’s a delta one, major pile-up right past exit 183 on I-64,” a voice spoke over the static.

Grace held the side button on the radio. “Copy. In-route.” She flicked on the overhead sirens and glanced my way. “Some things we just can’t control. It’s not worth obsessing over. Still, I hope you’re right."

The humming grew louder the closer we got to the accident, until it morphed into a stream of words. “John David, 22 years old. Mary Smith, 19 years old. Bennie Wu, 57 years old. Kari…”

“Shit,” I mumbled. It kept going. His eerie voice rattled off more names until they became a scrambled mess. I pinched the bridge of my nose, blocking off the lingering stench of decay that followed.

I slowed down through the sharp curve of the interstate exit. Dispatch warned us what was ahead, but when we arrived it was total chaos. Two vehicles seemed to meld together in the roadside ditch. The third one was embedded into the second floor of a nearby building, it’s hood barely visible, hidden beneath rubble and smoke. Red lights flashed from the first emergency vehicles to respond, illuminating the horrific scene as if we were mere actors on a stage and this was our performance.

How could I save them all?

Before the ambulance came to a full stop on the road, Grace was already jumping out. She ran towards the nearest paramedic. “Where do you need us?”

He stared in disbelief, hands trembling. “I-I don’t…We haven’t gotten to the building yet. We d-don’t know if anyone was inside or how the driver is doing.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. Is this your first shift? Why don’t you let dispatch know we need police to block off the exit. It’s a safety hazard being out in the open like this.”

He gulped and nodded, but Grace was already off.

Shadows danced in the red glow, inching closer and closer to the car at the front of the accident as if to say, here, death is here.

A pair of firefighters were wedging a hydraulic tool into the jammed driver side door. With a screech of metal on metal the door gave way, revealing an unconscious young woman. “She’s not breathing!” One of the fireman said, fingers pressed to her neck.

“Help me get her to the ground,” I yelled.

A faint thread of light seeped out of her body. I started CPR, but I knew she was gone. The light spread, colors warping into a human-like figure resembling the woman on the ground.

I looked around, hoping the firefighters were too distracted with the other passengers. “Psst…Hey, lady.” The figure, now fully formed into the spirit of the woman, stared down at herself. “Think, think. Ah, Mary, right? Mary, can you hear me?”

“Am I dead?” she said with a look of horror. I could imagine what she was seeing, and what version of me she was seeing.

“Yes, but you don’t have to be. You can go back. You can force yourself back to life. You just have to fight.” I said under my breath. I hoped she was a fighter. Those souls I could get to. Though people tended to give up, especially faced with their own mortality.

A baby cried in the backseat, drawing Mary’s attention. She collected herself, her face hardening. “Tell me what I have to do.”

“Touch your arm. Or your leg. Really any part of your body will work. And once you feel a pull back, let it overtake you. Whatever you do, do not get close to me unless you want to be gone forever.”

A few seconds later, the Mary that was on the ground started coughing. She took large gulps of air and stared at me wide eyed. “Thank…You.”

“Tsk, tsk,” the abrasive voice in my head said. My bones chattered, still not used to him always being there. “Are we really playing this game again, Hayes? It has been written. Take her soul.”

“Oh, shut up,” I snapped.

“It must occur. You know this better than anyone. I allow you to wander in the human realm under the condition that you complete your job.”

“And if I don’t?” I could tell I was getting under his skin—or his shadow, I guess…he didn’t have any skin.

He was Death. And I was his unwilling Grim Reaper.

“Do not mess with me. It will not go well for you or for the p-“

A loud crash had me off the ground in an instant. A heart wrenching scream. Metal and brick and glass smashed into each other.

The building.

Grace.

The shadows grew stronger as they reached for the building. I sprinted, my only thought her. The second floor must have given out from the weight of the car.

The click of heels came first, followed by an elongated woman appearing out of nowhere, blocking my path to the building. She wore a tattered black cloak, covering most of her face except shriveled lips curled upward in a smile. She waved a desiccated hand in greeting. This is what I must look like to those poor souls. With time, all of us end up decomposed skeletons, stuck in a limbo, forced to serve Death or, well, die.

I shivered. “Alice. This isn't your jurisdiction.”

She huffed. “If you did your job and stopped prolonging the inevitable, I would not be here on clean up duty.”

“We can change it. We can stop Death from getting his claws into people. If I can live, why can’t they?”

“You know it is different, Hayes.”

“Hayes”, a voice whimpered from behind Alice.

I pushed through Alice, dispelling her mist of darkness. She had not fully formed into a Being in this realm yet. It was all I needed, one second—a chance to fix everything. Grace stood by a gaping hole of crumbling brick.

She was translucent. A ghost.

“Oh, Grace,” I cried. I peered through the wall, but the floors had buckled, falling down into the basement. There was no sign of the third car, or of Grace. “Where are you? Where is your body?”

“Am I dead? And why do you look like that? So...hollow.”

“You’re dead, and so am I. I have been since before we met. I-I'm a Grim Reaper,” I confessed.

Tears streamed down her face. “Okay.” She paused. “If it’s my time, then I will go.”

“Stop, no, Grace, I can save you. You don’t have to die like I did. Please,” I pleaded.

“I’m down there,” she pointed to the hole. “Underneath the car.”

I ran my fingers through my hair. “You can do what I did. Make a deal with Death, then, you can stay.”

“This isn’t living, haunted by death. I’ve seen what it’s done to you, but I never really understood until now. Come with me, Hayes. Let's go, together,” she said, her hand hovering over my cheek.

I pulled her into an embrace, kissing her with all that was and could have been. Knowing it would be our first and last. And yet it felt like eternity.