A Fate Worse Than Death

It was the third time Arizona had stopped for gas in the last two days. She always went inside to pay, since she always had to grab some type of caffeine now. She was surprised how quickly her life had changed, and exactly what parts of it were different, than they had been on Saturday.

Her sister was peacefully asleep in the passenger’s seat while Arizona pumped gas. That was almost all Micah did now. Arizona wouldn’t complain about it. Asleep, but alive, was just fine by her. While she sipped on the overpriced energy drink, she stared off into the distance, and her eyes fell upon him. Death didn’t look exactly like she’d expected him to.

The black robes and scythe that Arizona had always imagined weren’t even close to the image before her. He wore blue jeans and a muscle top, though he didn’t have much to fill it out with. He looked sunkissed, which had almost made her laugh during their first encounter, because she couldn’t imagine Death bathing in the sun. He crossed his arms and shook his head in her direction. Arizona looked to the ground while pretending she hadn’t seen him. They had a deal. He had assured her that he was honorable, and stood by his word, but she could tell he was tired of her trying to exploit that honor.

His voice brushed against her skin as clear as the wind. “Eventually, you will have to return. You can’t do this forever. You have a life to return to.”

Arizona hung the pump up and slid into the driver’s seat, buckling in. She turned the heater on to get rid of the chill of his voice. Micah turned and opened her eyes. She yawned. “We almost home?”

“Almost,” Arizona lied. “I found another cool mall to check out. They have a two story book store.”

“Cool.” Micah closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep once more.

Arizona sighed as she pulled out onto the road again. They were getting further and further from Norwalk. She’d hit the border of another state sometime soon. She would have done so already if she’d stayed in one direction the past two days, but that never crossed her mind. The only thing she’d been focused on was staying away from home. She wouldn’t even touch the county if she could avoid it, let alone the city.

“You can’t run forever.” Death’s voice again.

Arizona turned the heater up and focused on the road.

Saturday had been the first day in a long time that Arizona and Micah had the same day off of work. Micah had been pissed because her night sucked, so when Arizona suggested they take the day to relax and spend time up in Strongsville, her sister jumped at the chance. They went about once a month. Arizona always drove, because Micah hated highways and Arizona hated how long it took when they used the state routes and back roads. Everything should have been perfectly fine.

The trip to Strongsville was the same as it had always been. They grabbed coffee and shopped, spent money they shouldn’t have, watched a movie, and left while the sun was setting in a misguided effort to make it back to Norwalk before it was dark. Micah curled up in her seat despite Arizona’s complaints that if she had to stay awake to drive, Micah should have to as well. She spent about an hour after her deal with Death wondering if Micah being awake might have changed things. Maybe if Micah had been awake, she could have saved herself.

The truck didn’t come out of nowhere. Arizona had seen him, and she did her best to get out of his way. She was willing to put the car in a ditch to avoid an accident, but it didn’t work. The guy didn’t slow down, or move, so his truck just rolled into the ditch on top of them. She went unconscious, but it hadn’t been for long, since the wail of ambulance didn’t enter her earshot for another ten minutes. The guy that hit her fled on foot.

Micah’s face was littered with broken glass from the windows. Her neck was clearly broken. Arizona searched every possible place for a pulse, holding her own breath while she waited for her sister to release one. She prayed for even the smallest sigh or gasp. Nothing came.

Death appeared as Arizona crawled out of the car, scraping her knee on the glass in the window that hadn’t found it’s way into her sister. At first, she thought he was a bystander that came to help her as he offered his hand to pull her up. Looking into his eyes revealed he was much more. He didn’t smirk or grin, the way she thought Death would. He actually looked saddened, touched by Micah’s misfortune.

“She deserved more peace than this,” he sighed, kneeling to crawl into the car. “Plenty have crossed the rainbow bridge today. I’m sure they’ll love to keep her company.”

“The…rainbow bridge?” Arizona knew that phrase, but with everything that had happened, it took her a moment. “That’s for dead animals.”

“Uh-huh.” Death made it look effortless as he pulled Micah’s lifeless body from the car. Being a celestial being had to make everything easier, Arizona later figured. Micah looked like she was in a deep sleep, aside from her clearly fractured neck. Death looked to Arizona. “They should be here in time for you.”

“You can’t take her.”

“I’m sorry, honey. I have to. It’s my job.”

“But-but-” Her mind raced with thoughts, and her voice froze, until she blurted out, “But we’re not done yet.”

“No one ever is. Where do you think the idea of unfinished business comes from?”

“Please,” she begged. “Can’t this wait? Can’t you take her at home? She can’t die like this. I can’t be the reason she dies!” The wind of the night stung at her face as tears streaked her cheeks. “Please.”

Death nodded. “Alright. I see no harm in that. I will wait until you return home.” He laid Micah down on the ground, pressing his hands together as light began to encase his hands. “You have my word, which is as good as my soul, that I won’t take her until you make it home. However, she won’t be the same. Her soul will still be tired. She won’t be able to keep up with you forever, so don’t keep her away too long.” He mouthed something to himself before a radiant light engulfed all of them.

When Arizona blinked away the momentary blindness from the light, she saw that they were safely parked at a dollar store on the route. Micah was asleep in her seat, just like she’d been before the accident. Arizona jumped out of the car to examine it. There wasn’t even a scratch to indicate that anything took place. It looked better than it had before the accident. Everything was just fine.

“Micah.” She tried to wake her sister. Micah just continued to sleep. That was okay, Arizona assured herself. Alive and asleep was great.

She checked the gas gauge. Half-full. She’d stop at the next gas station and top off. The gas she did have left would at least get her back up to Strongsville. Where she went after that was a mystery, but she knew for certain that she would never touch Huron County again.

After three days of driving and living off of energy drinks, the need for sleep was starting to call to Arizona. She pulled into a Walmart and parked at the very end of the lot. The sun was high in the sky, beating down through the car window enough to keep her warm without the engine idling.

Micah had slept no matter what. Arizona hit a few curbs here and there, and had even fought a crazy Karen at a gas station over something she didn’t even remember anymore, and Micah hadn’t even roused. Aside from opening her eyes and asking Arizona how close they were to home every ten or twelve hours, Micah hadn’t done much of anything. She didn’t eat. She hadn’t made a single comment about needing to use the bathroom. She didn’t even move too much in her sleep, just turned from one side to the other.

Arizona curled up in the driver’s seat for a quick nap. She didn’t dream. She didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep until someone rapped on the window and scowled down at her. She thought it would be a cop telling her to move, or maybe an employee. It was some guy in scruffy clothes panhandling. She flashed her mace first, and when he didn’t see that as a threat, she reached for the dagger that Micah carried in the car. That sent him sprinting away. Arizona checked the time on the dashboard as she started the car up again. She’d slept for two hours. She felt like she could sleep for a lifetime and it wouldn’t be enough, but two hours would have to do.

“You can’t run forever.” Death lounged in the backseat of the car like he’d been invited. He didn’t even wear his seat belt. “What about your cats? What about your job?”

“I can get a job anywhere,” Arizona replied, focusing on the road and not on the entity that sat behind her. “I’ll call my neighbors to take care of the cats.”

“When you don’t return, they’ll think you’re a horrible owner.”

“Or they’ll think something awful happened to me.”

“What if they find out nothing happened? What if they find you online?”

“I’ll change my name. I’ll move to another state. I’m young. I can do anything I want.”

Death nodded, leaning in so he could rest his elbows on the center console. “Is this truly what you want? To stay running forever?”

“I want us to be fine.”

“She is unconscious for the majority of your time together. I granted you this gift so she could rest at home, not so you could take the shallow hull of who she was on a cross country trip. Go home.”

“No. You can’t have her.” Arizona slammed on the brakes, almost missing a red light.

“I come for everyone, honey. It is never personal. If it were, there would be much less evil and many more immortals in the world.” He was gone as sudden as he’d appeared.

Arizona took a deep breath as she pressed on. One more hour of driving and she’d hit the border to Kentucky. They had family there. Distant, and somewhat estranged, but family all the same. One of them would be able to help her find a job if she couldn’t get one on her own. She just needed enough to keep up paying for gas. She could be a server anywhere, flashing smiles and maybe a bit of skin for cash. That would make it easy to keep going.

“Are we almost home?” Micah asked. She didn’t even open her eyes this time.

“Almost.”

“This is the longest drive ever.”

“Yeah.”

Micah was silent, indicating she was asleep yet again. At least Arizona wouldn’t need to rent hotel rooms on the trip. That would help save money for gas. She finished the energy drink in the cupholder next to her, making a note to stock up on them at the next gas station. This would be her life, she’d decided. This was the new normal.

It happened again. Night hit, and Arizona was exhausted in the driver’s seat. She needed to rest, but she didn’t feel it was safe. She considered night to be the prime time for Death to strike, even though she knew he wouldn’t touch Micah until they made it home. She felt like she could only sleep during the daylight. Arizona told herself that as soon as the sun rose, she’d rest. The moment sunrise hit, she could curl up and sleep for the whole day. By then, she’d make it to a family member who could at least spare a couch or a floor for the day.

This time, the truck came from behind. It was visible to everyone paying attention. Arizona was too focused on what her next move was to even understand that the horn blaring behind her was supposed to be a warning, not some asshole riding her because she was going a little under the speed limit. It was a semi, rather than a regular personal truck, and by the time she noticed it, there was no defensive driving in the world that would save her. One moment it was bright lights and the next, she was staring at her own dead body on the ground, with Death shaking his head beside her. Arizona’s body was crushed in the car. Micah’s wasn’t even visible from this angle. Seeing her own body was such a strange experience. She wanted to reach out and touch her skin, her face, to reassure herself that she was dead.

“You won’t feel anything,” Death explained. “Your hand will just go straight through. You can’t touch anything in this world.”

“Where’s Micah?” She wondered, looking around them. She could see the ghosts of a few squirrels that had run out into the accident. The guy that had hit them wasn’t dead. He sat on the side of the road, crying into his phone about how he had just killed a young lady. A young lady? Just one? “Did she survive?”

“I wouldn’t call what happened to her surviving.” Death crossed his arms, nodding towards an ambulance on it’s way. “They’ll see that she’s breathing and rush her to the hospital.”

“And then she’ll die?”

Death frowned. “She can’t die, Arizona. You never went home.”

“But you’re Death. You can take her whenever you want. You are-you’re-” She felt like she was supposed to be choking on her anxiety, but there was nothing to choke on. She didn’t breathe anymore. She could sense emotions, but they didn’t feel the same. “What happens now? She just remains like that forever? Comatose to the world?”

“She will become a medical marvel. Eventually, they will deem her an organ donor. They will be amazed that she continues to live once they start going for the vital ones, like her lungs. Her heart, her brain, her lungs; they will all go to others and the doctors will be amazed to see her still alive. Asleep, but alive. That’s better than passing, isn’t it?” He sneered at her as he said it.

“You made the deal with me. Can’t we just make a new one?”

“I cannot make deals with the dead. Only with the living looking to escape or delay death.”

“Is there anything I can do from here?”

“You can do what all the dead who made mistakes in their life do.”

“What’s that?”

“Watch others make the same mistakes.”