Free The Reaper Plague by David VanDyke Page B

as they took the turns at twice the limit. They’d raced up and
down the California coast, Mount Tamalpais gazing down on them, a
benevolent god. She’d laughed squealing, delighted, until the blind
curve at the top of the hill.
    He’d slowed the big Kawasaki, but not enough
to miss the bicycle that appeared out of nowhere, rider boy
pedaling joy madly within his own cocoon of speed, a mirror of
Skull’s. Only Skull wasn’t Skull back then, just plain Alan. But
his crotch rocket had taken the kid’s leg off and the crash had
thrown Linde high, a freak flight of physics ended with her chest
spitted on a bent old signless post.
    He’d tumbled clear into soft earth and grass,
had rushed to her in time to watch the light fade from her eyes.
Clamping down on his grief to save the boy, he’d ignored his
fiancé’s corpse impaled there, an offering to some twisted and
vengeful spirit.
    His belt was a tourniquet for the boy's
severed leg and he held the kid’s shaking body in his arms by the
side of the road, jacket wrapped around both of them. He despaired
of help until an antique Mustang convertible piloted by a
ruthlessly cheerful young Special Forces lieutenant drove up,
picked them up and hauled them in to Marin General in a mad
screaming rush.
    The boy had lived, but Linde’s death robbed
all humanity from Alan’s heart. He and Lieutenant Ezekiel Johnstone
had returned with an ambulance to pull her lifeless corpse off of
the rusty pole, shoving the paramedics away to place her gently on
the gurney and lift it onto the truck themselves, premature
pallbearers.
    He’d sat stoic through his abortive court
martial for negligent homicide, deadlocked by Zeke Johnstone’s
testimony and eventually pleaded down to loss of a stripe and
Alan’s motorcycle license. The only good thing to come out of the
whole crippling circumstance was the unwavering friendship between
the two men, a bond that lasted almost thirty years.
     
    ---
     
    For the first time since, he replayed the day
in his head without descending into a cold killing rage. A black
bird flew free, the death-crow carrying its carrion stench away.
Skull watched it go with fearful regret but he found himself unable
to hold on to it in the face of his new sanity.
    And he realized what that must mean. He could
think of no other explanation.
    Angrily barging through the iris into the
control room he leaned down over her seated form. “I don’t know
how, but I’m a God-damned Eden now.”
    She put a hand up to his chest, but didn’t
push. “You shouldn’t swear. It’s uncouth.” Raphaela’s tone was
light but her eyes weighed him down. “I’d say ‘thank God’ if it’s
true.”
    He seized her hand, bringing a wince. He
shoved it away then and rolled his eyes, trying to hold on to the
edge of his of anger and failing. “Not you too. To hell with God.”
His voice held little conviction. “Do you even believe in God?”
    She shrugged, massaging her fingers. “Not
really. But I believe in being thankful for what I have, and in
getting along with people. If it takes a plague to do that…is that
so bad?”
    “ Yes, it’s bad. It takes
away your free will. If you can’t choose evil, is it a
choice?”
    “ Edens can choose evil. We
still have cops and courts and jails. Just a lot fewer of
them.”
    Skull snorted skeptically. “Same difference.
I didn’t want this. Now I’m useless.”
    “ Useless how?” she
asked.
    He thought for a moment, trying to frame his
arguments. “Look, I’m a killer – and now I can’t kill.”
    “ You sure?” Her tone held
no trace of sarcasm or taunting, for which he was thankful. His
walls, his emotional armor so recently cracking, now seemed to have
disappeared entirely.
    She went on, “How do you feel about all the
people you killed?”
    He thought about it for a moment, then
shrugged. “Not terrible. No burden of guilt. Is that what you
mean?”
    “ Then you’re not really an
Eden.”
    “ How can you be