A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares by Krystal Sutherland

Author:Krystal Sutherland [Sutherland, Krystal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin eBooks
Published: 2017-08-26T18:30:00+00:00

19

A NICE DAY FOR A WHITE WEDDING

IT WAS late morning on October 4, 1982 when Jack Horowitz, the Man Who Would Be Death, rang the doorbell of Reginald Solar’s house and asked him to be best man at his wedding. Reg, now the father of two sons and a daughter, took one look at the familiar pockmarked face on his porch—who, as you might remember, he believed to be long dead—and promptly fainted. When he regained consciousness half a minute later, Horowitz was crouched over him, fanning him with a handkerchief.

“Goodness, I thought I scared you to death. It would have been very awkward if my master had arrived to reap you. I called in sick today. Hello, Lieutenant.”

“You’re dead,” Reg said, staring up at Horowitz’s ghost, which looked remarkably alive. The scars on his face were red and pitted and far more inflamed than the skin of a ghost should be. Could ghosts even have skin?

“Quite the opposite.” Horowitz extended his arm. Reginald didn’t take it, instead remaining stationary on the floor.

“I don’t understand. You were murdered. You drowned in a river in Vietnam.”

“Oh no. I was down there for some time, though. They tied me tight, you see. I was down there fumbling around in the rocks, looking for one sharp enough to cut my bindings for quite some time indeed.”

“You . . . Why are you here?”

Horowitz smiled serenely. “I find myself in the position of needing a witness at my wedding. A best man, if you will. You were the first and—I hope you’ll forgive me for admitting this—only person I thought of. I don’t have a great deal of friends.” Horowitz glanced at his still-extended hand. “Do you intend to spend the rest of this conversation horizontal?”

Reg let Horowitz help him up, then said, “Best man? Horowitz, you don’t know me. We only met once, the night before you died.”

“Yes, but you mourned me. You fought for my honor to be reinstated. I suppose I have developed something of a soft spot for you, Reginald Solar. And since the state requires there be a witness at my wedding—someone who knows who I am—I would like for that person to be you.”

“I thought you’d been murdered on my watch.”

“Alas, as I tried to explain to you in 1972, I am very hard to kill.”

Reg, of course, still did not believe that Horowitz was Death’s apprentice—even if his survival was remarkable. Still, he invited him inside and they drank milk together as Horowitz explained that Death, too, could love, and indeed, he had swiftly fallen for the young Vietnamese woman who’d discovered him floating facedown in the river, too weak to swim to the bank after several days of trying to free himself.

“Several minutes, you mean,” corrected Reginald.

“I assure you, Lieutenant, it was several days.”

Reginald shook his head and poured them both another round of milk. Horowitz continued. It was frowned upon for the Grim Reaper to take a lover, he explained. During his tenure as Death,

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