Two Deadly Cards

It all started with that goddamned cat. It had been staring at Caleb Hudson’s window for a week now, and on the 22nd of September, a Monday, it showed up again. Hudson had woken up at the usual time, 5:35 AM, and as usual had got up and had stared at the window. At the age of sixty-one he was retired, and he had all the time he wanted to watch the sunrise. He had so much free time and so little to do, that no matter the time he would go to bed- at 5:35 AM every morning he’d be awake, staring at the ceiling. The doctor said it was a natural thing, that it had to do with his circadian rhythms, and that if it bothered him so much he could as well try some over-the-counter sleeping pills. But it didn’t bother him at all, he knew it was a natural consequence of something. Actually, Caleb Hudson, who came from a rich family, owned a big house and a big car, and was involved in his town’s charity society, had never been bothered by anything but two things in his life: one was a game of cards he had played around three weeks prior, which had cost him a considerable amount of money, and the other was that goddamned cat.

At first Hudson had thought it to be a stray cat, but upon closer inspection, it looked too well fed and his black fur was too shiny. The Gunters, his only neighbours, didn’t own pets, for Mrs. Gunter was allergic to any kind of fur known to man, and maybe even the unknown ones. And yet, it was there every morning, at the same time, and it would sit in the same spot -under the tree in his garden- and look at the house for forty-five minutes. Then it would go away, without fail. But that Monday was different. The cat was outside, again, and right under the same tree, but right next to the cat there was a hole. A huge hole, too deep and too big for him to think the cat had dug it with its paws. Hudson frowned and went outside. The cat didn’t move, it looked like a statue. It was the first time in eight days that Hudson was approaching the cat, instead of waiting for it to go away after forty-five minutes. Hudson walked slowly, his knee would always bother him in the morning, but reached the tree. The cat looked at him and didn’t make a sound, it only started to wave its tail. As if it was satisfied to see that Hudson had come out, and the man didn’t know if it was a good sign. He reached the hole -there was no shovel, not even a branch from the tree with which it could have been dug- and looked inside. It was empty. Well, almost empty. There were one-hundred euros inside. One-hundred euros, in denomination of five! Hudson grabbed them so hastily he almost fell in the hole, and without thinking twice ripped them all, throwing them back in. The cat turned around, jumped above the fence and disappeared.

If one wants to resuscitate, he or she has to choose the time carefully. Nobody would want to rise from his grave disheveled and covered in dirt with somebody witnessing that, for example, so the nighttime is to prefer. Although dead and aspiring resuscitating people have no access to weather forecasts, it would be perfect to choose a clear night, so the awakening person can see clearly while also being hidden from indiscrete eyes by a blanket of darkness. No matter the conditions of the weather or the emptiness of the graveyard, the 2nd of November must be avoided at any cost by someone who wants to rise from the dead, because during that particular night certain graveyards are impossibly busy.

Jonathan Marlowe had followed the latter rule, but not the former. He had chosen the anonymous 8th of September for his comeback, but he hadn’t been lucky with the weather. At 11:43 PM, Jonathan Marlowe’s head was welcomed back into this side with a pouring rain. The man, a 27 year old guy who had been dead for a little over three days, was already in a bad mood because, even if not many are aware of it, coming back to life leaves you with a general feeling of sickness. He slowly got up, his joints creaking and his bones rattling, and decided that the fact he was alive was a sign, a sign he had to do something with that second time on Earth. He ran one bony hand across his chest. Two deep wounds where he had been stabbed, nothing else. It seemed he had been left in peace for those three days.

To be completely fair, Jonathan Marlowe had never really died. He had been stabbed, two times at that, but he hadn’t died. He had been buried nevertheless, and that meant he was dead for everyone on Earth. Or, rather, for everyone who knew him, which in his case wasn’t that big of a crowd. Only child of dead parents, only one person, at the time of the stabbing, was aware of his existence enough to care about it: And it was Caleb Hudson.

Jonathan got out of the graveyard and began walking home. He hoped it had stayed as he had left it on his last night alive. Maybe the morticians had had to sell some of his stuff to pay for the funeral, had there been one… One useless expense, thought the now alive Jonathan Marlowe as he entered the road at the end of which his house, isolated from everyone else, was. His only neighbours were the Gunters, but since they were both old and would go to bed early, he would rarely see them. Most of the time he would return home at 6:00 AM, and Mrs. Gunter, busy filling the water bottles outside of the house which were used to keep stray cats away, would jokingly say: “Oh Jonathan! Long time no see!”.

The night of the 8th of September, the Gunters were baffled to see Jonathan Marlowe return home much earlier than usual. Had his friends flaked on him? The Gunters had never seen Marlowe’s friends, but he obviously had to have some, he was twenty-seven after all. But they couldn’t be respectable people, or else they would have hung out in the afternoon, not in the dead of night.

-Isn’t that guy supposed to be dead?- asked Mr. Gunter to no one in particular, maybe to the newspaper on which he had glued his eyes.

-I don’t know. Young people nowadays are so unpredictable.- said Mrs. Gunter, as she returned to empty the dishwasher.

Jonathan Marlowe put the keys in the door of his house.

-Long time no see!- said a voice behind him, and it wasn’t Mrs. Gunter. The voice continued, even though Jonathan hadn’t given any sign of turning around to face its owner.

- It’s the man who stole the money I had put aside for charity!-

-I didn’t know what you would’ve used the money for!- Jonathan did his best to defend his position, then he turned around. He was facing Caleb Hudson.

-Look who’s there!- said Jonathan with feigned enthusiasm. -The old man who tried to kill me!-

Hudson’s gaze darkened. -You’re still alive.- he observed, sagacious.

-It’s good to know when someone truly cares about you.- Jonathan’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.

Caleb Hudson looked around. He had always thought the Gunters were his only neighbours, and now he discovered there was apparently someone else. And it happened to be the man he had tried to kill. It wouldn’t be good for his reputation if Jonathan had spoken. What if he could somehow prove that Caleb Hudson, who owned a big house and a big car and who volunteered in the town’s charity, had tried to kill him?

-Listen,- he began, taking a step forward. -We parted on the wrong terms. Let’s have another game tomorrow evening. Just you and me, so you can begin your new life without any spite.-

Jonathan thought it was a nice idea, so he accepted. Caleb Huson walked home. Jonathan Marlowe entered his house.

-He tried to kill me!- thought Jonathan while he turned the kitchen’s lights on. A black cat welcomed him by meowing enthusiastically. From the kitchen’s window, he could see one half of the Gunters’ beautiful garden. -He will learn a thing or two,tomorrow.- He decided he had to kill him.

-He mustn’t speak!- thought Caleb as he opened the door to his house, on the other side of the Gunters’ garden. -I will not let him!- He decided he had to kill him.

Despite being young and quite handsome, Jonathan Marlowe had no friends. Or rather, no friends his age. It was unusual for a young guy to hang out with a much older man that wasn’t even his relative, but Jonathan Marlowe could be seen every Wednesday and every weekend entering Caleb Hudson’s house for a game of cards.

Jonathan liked cards, especially when there were bets involved he could try to win, and he liked to play with Caleb Hudson. In a way, he was the father he had lost too soon.

The day he partially died, Jonathan was at Hudson’s house for the usual game of cards on Wednesday. It was an atypical Wednesday: on the way there, he had found a small, haggard black cat on the side of a road. He had taken it and hid it inside his coat.

-You’re a lovely guy,- Hudson had complimented him when he had arrived. -I don’t understand how you could possibly be still single.- Jonathan had simply laughed. -I can’t afford to ask a girl out, I could only bring her at a diner.- And that was how Caleb Hudson had discovered about Jonathan’s everlasting debts, his only inheritance from his parents.

The game of cards had begun. Jonathan, who had thought the evening would’ve gone his way because he had found a cat on the side of a road -he had always wished for a pet-, soon found out he was going to lose. Hudson and him liked to bet as much as they possibly could on their games, and the young Marlowe was about to lose his last one hundred euros of the month, which he had resorted to withdraw in small amounts of deliverance of five. He had to do something, he now had a cat to feed.

Stealing from Hudson had been easy. The man had drunk one too many glasses, too happy to have just won some money for his charity, and had fallen asleep on the couch. Snooping through his wallet had been a game, but it had been much less easy to get out of the house alive when Hudson had woken up, just in time to see Jonathan about to sneak out of the front door, with five-hundred euros still in his hand. Hudson hadn’t reflected. He had stabbed him two times in the chest with a paper knife, the first object he had found on the kitchen table. Horrified, thinking he had killed him, he had promptly buried him in the Marlowe’s family’s grave, which hadn’t been hard to find in the small town’s graveyard, and he had hoped for the best. After all, nobody but him had cared about Jonathan Marlowe while he had been alive, let alone now that he was officially dead. He looked at his pocket watch. It was 5:35 AM on a Thursday, the streets around him were empty.

The evening of the game, they decided not to meet at Caleb Hudson’s house. Hudson himself had called Jonathan, even if he now knew he lived just on the other side of the Gunters’ house.

-I think my house isn’t enough of a fancy place to celebrate your return on this side.- He had justified his decision to Jonathan.

I can’t kill him here, he had thought meanwhile, or it will be too hard to erase all the proof.

Jonathan Marlowe had accepted rather gladly. If he had killed the old man in his house it would’ve been hard to get out without the Gunters noticing, and he would’ve been the last person seen with Caleb Hudson while he was alive.

They agreed to meet in a small pub outside of the town. It was a quiet place, one of those pubs in the middle of nowhere, and during that phone call they both confessed to each other their preference for quiet places. Both parts ignored the actual reason behind that choice.

The first to arrive was Jonathan. He looked around. There was truly nothing around him, not a house or a minimarket or a church, only one old rail station. He entered the pub half an hour before 8:00 PM: Namely, half an hour before the appointment with Hudson. He was dressed better than when he had come out of the grave, but still soberly. He didn’t want to attract any attention to himself. Especially in the crucial point of the evening, when the head of Caleb Hudson would have fallen on the table with a thud, its owner poisoned to death.

Caleb Hudson was taking his time, driving slowly on the route to the pub they had designated for their meeting. His mind went over the plan, once again. He would have sat at the table with Jonathan. He would have offered him something, maybe a soft drink, just to relax any tense nerves and begin the night with the right mood. Then, in the middle of their game of cards, which he was planning to play majestically to win back the amount that Jonathan had stolen from him, he would have offered another drink (or, even better, Marlowe himself would’ve). At that point the only thing left would have been to discreetly pour something in the other’s drink… And Jonathan Marlowe would’ve been dead and silent forever.

At 8:00 PM sharp Hudson reached the pub. The two men greeted each other with enthusiasm, patting the other on the back.

-We’re starting over?- Jonathan asked, just to be sure.

-Of course!- Hudson’s tone was very similar to that of a grandpa, talking to the grandchild he had never truly had. -You shouldn’t even be asking. Now, now, let’s play some cards.-

They sat at a table and Jonathan took the cards out. The pub was almost empty: Nobody would look at them. The game began, and soon Jonathan realised he was about to lose a huge amount of money. Hudson, his mind already lightened by the soft drink, allowed himself to joke: -Three days six feet under and you’ve already forgotten how to play, John?-

Jonathan smiled. He had never been called John. The game kept going. All the hands were in favour of Hudson. They had decided for six hands: two more like that, and he would’ve lost all the money he had placed. It didn’t matter to him though, because for all he cared he had already won: He had successfully poured some rat poison into the drink Hudson was drinking.

In a pub, no matter how small it is, nobody notices when a man walks into the restroom. It’s a known and accepted statistic that the second reason people enter a pub is to use the restroom. That evening, even though there were at best two other people in the pub aside from Jonathan and Caleb, nobody cared when an old man stumbled into the bathroom. Nobody cared when no man came out of it after ten minutes, they had seen him drinking heavily. They started to care, though, when a newly hired waiter mindlessly opened the door, mistaking it for the inventory, and with a high-pitched scream announced to everyone that a man had died against the sink. Further investigations would have concluded he had been killed by rat poison.

A quarter of a mile from there, Jonathan Marlowe was running happier than ever, on the side of the street. Some cars would pass next to him at times, but he didn’t care. Even if someone saw him, he was just a young drunk person running on the side of a street. Yes, just a guy who had drunk a lot, especially because Hudson had offered him two drinks before disappearing in the restrooms. Plus, Jonathan Marlowe had been announced dead almost a month prior.

He stumbled on his feet and fell face first on the concrete. Further investigations would’ve said he had been poisoned with a lethal mix of medicines. When he opened his eyes and got back up, he was in a deserted train station. He walked a couple unsteady steps in the direction of a man, the only other person he could see around.

-Look who’s there!- he said when he squinted his eyes and recognized a familiar face.

Jonathan and Caleb spoke at the same time. -The man who killed me!-

Hudson laughed. A train announced its arrival in the small train station with a loud whistle. When it stopped and its automatic doors opened, both men knew they had to get in. They had no ticket, they didn’t know where they were headed, they just knew they had to get in, and so they did. There are certain journeys which don’t need not a ticket nor a destination.

Marlowe smiled sardonically. He had yet to forget both times Hudson had killed him.

-You’ll never get rid of me, Caleb.-

The man laughed again, with a laugh similar to a grandfather’s. After all, weren’t they now stuck together on the same train?