Dead by Dawn
I was home alone when they came. My boys were trekking up Mount Kyanjin Ri in Nepal and I was getting a little staycation. No cooking, minimal cleaning, reading, writing and sleeping without being awakened by earthshaking snores or multiple visits to the bathroom that didn’t coincide with my own.
I always thought I would have a heart attack and die if someone broke into my home in the middle of the night. Alternatively, I saw myself grabbing the surprisingly sharp pocketknife I keep by the bed and shocking said invader with a nicely placed jab to the neck…or wherever my flying fist might land.
I did neither.
It was my third night alone and I was sleeping like a baby when a hand covered my mouth, startling me awake for the seconds it took another set of hands to put pressure on my carotid arteries. At least, I assume that’s what he did. All I know is one second I was ready to bite a hand and scream, the next I was waking up in what appeared to be a one-room cabin. I was laying on a cot, hands and feet bound, while seven men sat watching me.
“I hope you don’t think you can actually get a ransom for me. We own a small business. We don’t have major profits. We pay our bills and have no debt. That’s it. You seriously chose the wrong side of town. You know we live on the blue and pink-collar side of town, right? I mean, you saw our house. What were you thinking?”
I babble when I’m nervous. Needless to say, I was nervous.
“You have been chosen,” said the only un-bearded fellow.
You can imagine where my mind went but all I said was, “Is this some kind of religious thing?”
“No,” replied a different guy.
“Kind of,” said a third.
Right. “What have I been chosen for?”
“To kill us.”
I giggled, also a nervous habit. “Great. Give me a gun and the keys to a car.”
“It is not that simple.”
“Of course it isn’t.”
“We were sent here long ago as punishment. We had to live and suffer as you humans…”
“Whoa, what. Wait. You humans? Um, I am sure I don’t really want to know, but, if you are not human, what are you?”
“There is no word for us that you would understand.”
“Fallen angels?” I said, giggling again while my skin had goosebumps and a sheen of sweat.
“More like gods, than the angels that come to your mind.”
“Well, if you are gods, how did you get sent here?”
“We angered the Creator. Our punishment is eternal damnation. Eternal damnation is living and suffering as a human without end. We cannot die.”
“Then how am I supposed to kill you?
“It is the night of the seventh moon in the seventh year of the seventh century since we were relieved of all that made us gods and forced to be but men.”
“Okay.”
“On this night alone, and not again for another seven hundred of your years, the barriers between this plane and ours will open for seven hours – from now until dawn. In that time, if we are killed, we will finally throw off the chains of our earthly imprisonment and return to our true existence.”
“And if I kill you, I get to go home?”
“Yes.”
“So, give me a gun.”
“As I said, it is not that simple.”
“Yeah, I remember. So, what’s the deal?”
“We cannot just let you kill us. We must run away from you, and we have to try not to die. You have to catch us and stab us seven times with this dagger,” the un-bearded one said, pointing to a very pointy knife with a bejeweled handle that I hadn't noticed on the cot next to me.
“Well, I guess you’re stuck here because there is no way I can do that. Have you looked at yourselves lately?” They were seated, but it was obvious they were all in the over six feet, six pack, I eat steak for breakfast and bench-press your mom group.
’While the barriers are down, you will be able to tap into energies and powers you’ve never dreamed of. But you must figure it out on your own or else it would be considered cheating, and we will continue to rot in this hell.”
“Tell me how you really feel.”
“I did.”
“Oy. Anyway, I have never killed anyone, and it is not on my list of things to do. Couldn’t you take me home and get someone else to do it? Why not hire a contract killer or something.”
“We cannot hire someone. That would be cheating.”
“And this isn’t?”
They looked at each other.
“You have been chosen by the Creator.”
“You are fricking kidding me. You must have really pissed him, or her, off.”
“Clearly since we are here.”
“No, I mean, I am the last person in the world to choose to kill someone. Seriously.”
“If you do not kill us, you will die.”
“As I said, last person. I’ve been suicidal since I was 12. Get it over with. Just shoot me now.”
“You do not want to die.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I definitely don’t want to stab seven men.”
“If you do not find and kill at least one of us an hour for the next seven hours, you will lose a finger each hour. If you do not kill us all by dawn, those you have killed will rise as we have ever done these last seven hundred years we have tried to die in the many wars that have plagued the earth, and you will be beheaded – by seven strokes of seven angry immortal men.”
“That sounds horribly painful.”
The only one who hadn’t spoken looked at me with haunted eyes and said, “It is.”
I wasn't certain we were talking about the same thing.
“Fine, I guess I have no choice. Untie me.”
They looked at each other with a sense of hope or dread, not sure which. “You must free yourself. And you must do it without one of your fingers.” As he said this, one moved quickly to flip me on my side and, using something that must have been made for cutting off fingers, he snipped off my pinkie.
I was still screaming when they left the cabin.
I wasted fifteen minutes of the first hour whimpering. Then I started to think. Okay, if the walls are down, so to speak, and those guys were supposedly like gods, I must be able to tap into some powerful energy.
Why would I be chosen? I thought. Well, because it had to be someone who didn’t want to kill, who had a healthy fear of a painful death if not death itself…what else? Maybe also someone who wanted to believe in other worlds and beings or varying layers of existence… who wasn’t power hungry.I suspect someone who sought power would have a field day figuring out what powers he could get tonight and how to hold on to them.
I just wanted to get home so I could see my boys again. I might even take off from work and hop on a plane like they’d wanted.
A half hour had gone by before I thought, so, if the walls are down, on this amalgamated plane, my pinkie is not gone and the bindings on me do not exist.
And it was so.
I took a deep breath. OMG, I thought. I wanted to think myself anywhere but there, but figured I would end up fingerless and headless, so instead, I grabbed the dagger and went out the door. I thought myself into the form of an owl, carrying the dagger in my claws. I flew above the surrounding forest and began my hunt.
I found the first within minutes. I landed in the branch above where he hid, retook a human form and landed a death blow before he knew I was there. And then I added the six to complete the seven stabs.
And yes, I meant “a human form.” Why take my normal, five foot seven, 120-pound form when I could be six foot six carrying two hundred fifty pounds of pure muscle?
I thought myself into owl form and set off to find the other six.
I found all but one within the first three hours, but I hunted all night for the seventh, flying miles of circles around the cabin. I finally flew back to the cabin to rest and think. As I was landing, I saw him through the window. He was sitting, looking at the door, a gun in his hand.
Hmmm, I thought. Either he doesn’t want to go back, or he has to make a good showing.
I flew up to the roof. I heard him speaking.
“I know you are near. I can feel you. You will not be able to kill me, and my brothers will come back, and we will have to stay here. We will take your head and we will have life still. I don’t want to return to the ether. I have grown to love this world. I do not want to leave it.”
Great.
I wondered how to get in the cabin without being seen. Then I thought, why go in the cabin? If there were no air in the cabin, he would suffocate and die. Bingo!
I could hear him choking from my perch on the roof. Within moments, there was silence.
I flew down and peeked in the window. He was on the floor, unmoving. I thought restraints onto his wrists, just in case, and removed the gun from the room. Then I entered, dagger at the ready. As I stabbed him for the seventh and last time, his body faded away or perhaps it was just me, for I found myself standing over my bed in my home. Alone.
The dagger was still in my hand.