The Bet

Chapter 1.

1.

He walks into the bar. He hasn’t been in a bar in years and never before noon, until today. The place smells of old cigarette smoke and pine sol. He sits down at the bar and looks around. He is alone here except for two guys at the end of the bar and the old bartender.

One of them is middle-aged and wearing a white suit. He thinks the white suit is a bit odd of a choice for early October, but what does he know; he’s dying- the big C – Cancer. Prostate cancer, to be exact, and an aggressive form. Its already infected his lymph nodes and has spread to other organs. The doctor said it could be anywhere from a week to a few months, but it will be soon, and there is nothing they can do. He got the news about an hour ago, and now it’s all he thinks about anymore. He has tried to think of other things, like how the Guardians are in the playoffs; maybe they can make the series, but then he wonders if I will even be around for the series. He came into this bar to drink his troubles away, as the country songs say, to try and forget, at least for a moment. The other guy is significantly older, grandfather maybe; anyways, he is wearing a black suit as if he had just come from a funeral. I will be having one soon; wanna go to that one too, he thinks.

“Whatta you’ll have?” someone asked. He looks up at the old man behind the counter, and for a minute, he forgets where he is and looks behind the guy at the large mirror that says Hal’s Bar & Grill in a frosted glass look. He wonders if this is Hal. “Hey bub, you gonna order something? If not, you’re gonna have to scoot.” The man whom he believes is Hal said.

He remembers where he is; it’s a bar, probably the last bar I will ever visit, he thinks. “Whiskey, please.”

“What kind?” Maybe Hal, maybe not Hal, says.

“I don’t care.” He said. “Whatever is the cheapest.” He pulls out a credit card and drops it on the table. “And keep them coming.” What’s does he care? He probably won’t have to pay the credit card bill when it arrives, and it’s not like he will suddenly die of liver failure. He figured he would leave his car and call an Uber if he needed to. Like it mattered. Dying in a car accident would probably be better than wasting away. I’d probably survive it, he thinks, probably kill someone else instead. And how would that matter? I would be dead before the guilt set in. he thought. Also, he doesn’t have any cash, so the card will have to do.

“Excuse me, may I join you?” he looks up and sees the old man in the dark suit from the end of the bar.

“I would prefer to be left alone.” He said, looking back at his drink.

“I understand. If I were dying, I would also want to be left alone.” The old man said, “Prostate cancer, correct?” The old man said as he sat on the bar stool next to him.

“How, how did you know?” he said, curious but angry. “Who told you? Was it someone from my doctor’s office? I’ll sue; they’re not supposed to tell….”

“No, no, no, nothing like that, James.” The old man said.

“How did you know my name?” James asked, blinking incredulously, “How did you know about the …” he tried to say the word, to say cancer but couldn’t. “Are you a doctor?” he asked, trying to wrap his head around what was happening.

“I am no doctor, and I know a great deal about you, James.” The old man said. “I know how you think your baby sister’s death was your fault. SIDS was the diagnosis, I believe. I know how, at night, you would sneak into her room and watch her sleep. How you wished she was gone, that she was never born. And how one morning, she was gone.”

“I never wished her to die.” James said, trying to defend himself.

“Of course, you didn’t, but she did die, and you do feel guilty, don’t you?” The old man said. James nodded his head, trying to fight back the tears. He hadn’t thought of baby Michelle in years, which wasn’t true; she was always there in the back of his mind. “I also know how your parents died last year within minutes of each other as they slept.”

“How. How do you know all that?” James asked. He was scared now, and what little bit of anger there was, was gone.

“Because I was there, James.” The old man said. “I have had many names over the years, but the one I prefer comes from the Greeks, Thanatos. You may call me Than. But you may know me better as Death or the Grim Reaper. I never liked that one personally; it conjures up an image of an evil being. Do I look evil to you, James? Well, I am not evil, but I am necessary.”

James had gone pale, and he felt as if he would faint. He didn’t want to believe him, he wanted to believe that he was just some crazy old man in a bar, but he did believe. There was something about him that made James believe. “What do you want with me? Is it time already?”

“Oh no, not yet,” Than said. “I am here to offer you a proposal.”

“What kind of proposal?” James said cautiously.

“The Kind that could save your life,” Thanatos said.

“What do I have to do?” James said, sitting up now and looking hopeful for the first time since receiving the news. “Who do I have to kill?” James laughed a little at the joke.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Thanatos said. The look on his face was one of dreadful seriousness.

“I have to kill somebody?” James said, taken aback, ‘I can’t, I- I could never.”

“Not even to save your own life?” Thanatos asked.

“Not even then,” James said.

“Well, it’s a good thing you won’t have to then,” Thanatos said, grinning. James let out a huge breath as if he had been holding it for hours, and in a way, he had been. “No, you will not have to kill anyone, but someone will have to die.”

“What?” James said.

“Yes, well, you see, everyone has a death date, and that cannot be changed. Someone must die on your death date, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be you.” Thanatos said, the smile still stretched across his old face. To James, the man seemed to age when he smiled, and he wasn’t just old; he was ancient.

“I could never choose…” James began.

“OH, you misunderstand me, my boy.” Thanatos interrupted, “You do not get to choose; I do. You will never know who or when. I cannot reveal a death date to a mortal, not even his own. It’s against the rules. No. If you agree to my proposal, you will be healed and go about your life as normal.” The other individual with take your place and you theirs.”

“I won’t know who?” James asked, “or when?”

“That is correct,” Thanatos said. His smile was stretching even bigger now. James looked at the other man at the end of the bar, the one in the suit. He looked at him for reassurance that the man he was talking to was real or to see if he was crazy. The man in the white suit sat there watching with no expression on his face at all. He just watched. “Do not worry yourself about my friend; he is just that, a friend. He has nothing to do with our business. And make no mistake, this is a business deal that cannot be undone once agreed upon.”

“Wouldn’t that make me a murderer?” James asked.

“Did wishing your little sister to be gone make you a murderer?” Thanatos asked, “Of course not! Yes, you were a jealous child, but all children are jealous of their siblings. It’s natural, and you didn’t kill her, did you? No, you did not. And in this situation, all you would do is save your own life. You are not condemning anyone and won’t know who, when, or even where. Just because someone dies doesn’t mean you killed them.”

“I don’t know,” James said. “It kind of feels that I am killing them, ya know?”

“Hmm, I see,” said Thanatos, his smile now gone, “Let me ask you, James, what if I told you it didn’t matter, that they were going to die anyways? Would that Make a difference?”

“Yeah, I suppose it would,” James said, nodding his head slowly.

“Well, then there you go.” Thanatos said, “Everybody dies, James. You wouldn’t be killing anyone because, in a way, I already have.”

James looked at Thanatos and then back down at his drink. “Can I have some time to think about this?” James asked quietly.

“Of course, you can,” Thanatos said, smiling again. “But don’t take too long. Let’s say 24 hours. We shall meet back here in this fine establishment and seal the deal with a handshake. If you do not show, I will assume you have turned down the deal, and your life will continue as if this conversation never happened. You will die soon.”

James nodded, picked up his glass, and drained the brown liquid. It was harsh and made him cough a little. He stood to leave and realized his card was still lying on the bar. The bartender hadn’t picked it up, and James knew he would have to wait and pay for his drink. But he didn’t want to wait; he wanted, he needed to leave.

“Don’t worry about your drink.” Thanatos said, “It’s on me.” James nodded again and turned to leave. “Your credit card, my boy.” James turned to see Thanatos tapping on his card, which still lay in the bar. James returned to the bar, grabbed his card, and headed towards the door.

“So tomorrow..” James said, turning around and stopping mid-sentence. The bar was empty except for the bartender and himself; the old man, Thanatos, and his friend were gone. He looked at the bartender and asked, “Where did they go?”

The bartender, the guy he thought was Hal, looked at him, confused. “Where’d who go?”

“The old man I was talking to and his friend in the white suit?” James asked.

“Ain’t nobody been in here all day but me and you, bub.” He said. “You doing ok?”

James looked at him, then at the bar where he was sitting, and saw a hundred-dollar bill under his glass. James nodded and left.

2.

James walked into the front door of his one-bedroom apartment. He threw his keys in a little dish he kept on the stand by the door. Usually, he would take his jacket off and hang it in the little closet off to the right as he walked in the door, but today he flings it onto the back of the loveseat he uses as a couch. He entered his kitchen, opened the fridge, and stared into the cold white light as if he were staring into an abyss. After a few moments, the fridge began to ding, telling him he had held the fridge door open too long. The ding brought James back, and he closed the fridge. He wasn’t hungry; he just wanted to eat or drink something to take his mind off, off of what, the thing that was killing him or the thing that promised to save him?

It was still early afternoon, and he was still unsure what he wanted to do. That’s not true, he thought. He knew what he wanted to do; he was trying to find a way to justify his decision to himself. Because that’s all that matters, isn’t it? Nobody else would know but him, so he would have to live with it all alone. Could he do that? But someone will have to die. That thought kept running through his head. Someone was going to have to die in HIS place. What if it was a kid, he thought. But then another voice inside his head spoke up, a distant voice; what if it was a killer, someone like Ted Bundy? What if you're saving many lives, not just your own? And what if it is just your own life you’re saving, that would be self-defense, right? And you can't even go to jail for defending your life, let alone Hell. Hell, that wasn’t something he had thought of before. Would he go to Hell? Did he even believe in Hell? If Hell does exist, I’m probably headed there anyways, he thought.

He was thinking of his baby sister again. He remembered when his parents told him he was going to be a brother, he was so excited. He wanted a baby brother but instead had gotten a baby sister. At first, he thought it was a mistake, that the doctors had given the wrong baby to bring home. He remembered going into her room that night. He watched her; he could hear her breathing. She was alive, and he wished she was a boy; he wanted her to leave, to be gone, and never to come back. He remembered his mother's and dad's frantic cries calling 911 for help because he had gotten his wish.

“This is like that.” He said aloud to the empty apartment. No, it wasn’t. That new voice had spoken up again. That was a stupid kid being stupid. You’re not that kid anymore, and just like Thanatos said, you didn’t kill her.

Didn’t I? he thought. NO! the voice inside his head screamed at him. You remember, we remember. We could hear her breathe. Remember, we never even got close to the crib. We heard her breathing as we left her room, remember? And he did remember. She was breathing when he left the room and went back to bed in his room, but she wasn’t when he woke up the following day. You need to stop beating yourself up over something you didn’t do and couldn’t prevent.

3.

For the next few hours, the voices in his head wrestled and argued with each other. The new voice, was it really new, he wondered? No, it wasn’t. It was the voice he heard when he wished his baby sister to be gone. That was the last time he heard that voice; it had been quiet since then until now. Since that day, he heard the other voice, the guilty one; the one that said to give the bully his lunch money, which apologized to Mary when he caught her cheating on him in college with his roommate, and he had apologized for not being good enough for her. That was his last real relationship.

He didn’t want to listen to the new voice that wished his sister was gone, but that wasn’t true either. That new voice was his; he had done the wishing; it was wrong back then but nonetheless was correct this time. He was saving a life, his life, and he would be just defending himself.

He thought about eating the steak he had bought but wasn’t hungry. He thought about drinking but didn’t have any alcohol in the house, and he had never been much of a drinker. He didn’t want to leave, so he just called it a night and tried to sleep.

After tossing and turning, he got up and went to the bathroom to get a couple of Benadryl. He was hoping it would help him sleep, and for a while, it did, but it was a restless sleep.

That night he dreamed of the man in the black suit. He dreamed he was a kid again. He had gotten out of bed and headed towards the nursery. The door was slightly ajar, as always when his sister slept there. He slowly pushed the door open far enough so he could slip in. He could hear her breathing. He looked into the crib; she was lying on her back, watching as her chest rose and fell with each breath. Then he saw him, the man in the black suit, Thanatos. “NO!” he screamed again and again. He screamed for his parents to wake up. He screamed for them to come and stop him. He got in front of the man in black and tried to push him. He felt his skin through the suit; it felt rubbery and cold. It felt almost fake; it felt dead.

The man in the black suit walked to the crib as if James wasn’t there, and he wasn’t. It was a dream, a memory, and he knew it. He tried to wake; he thought maybe if he woke before Thanatos touched her, she would somehow be alive. But he couldn’t wake up. He pinched and slapped himself hard, but he couldn’t wake up, and he couldn’t stop death from coming.

He watched as Thanatos picked up his sister and carried her away. He watched as he left the room and disappeared. He then went to the crib and saw her, saw the body of his sister lying there. Her chest was no longer rising and falling; he couldn’t hear her breathe anymore. Death had come, and she was gone. He began to cry. Then he woke up.

Chapter 2.

1.

James opened his eyes and wiped the tears from his face as he sat up. He looked at the clock, which read 8:05 a.m. he was still almost 4 hours away before he needed to be at Hals Bar &Grill. He wondered if Hal/not Hal, as he had come to know him, would be there. He wondered if the man in the white suit would be there. Hell, he wondered if Thanatos, aka the man in the black suit, would be there. He wondered if it all were a delusion brought about by the trauma of learning he would die sooner rather than later. As much as he would like to believe that was true, he knew it wasn’t. He knew either he was going to die or someone else was, and why not someone else? The voice spoke up again.

He had already made his choice, and now he was rationalizing it; he knew that, but he couldn’t stop doing it. He went into the bathroom to take a leak and a shower. After he finished pissing, he bent over, turned the tap on in the bathtub, and pulled the little plunger that redirected the water to the shower head. Then he fell to his knees and vomited. What could I have left, he thought. He hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday morning and only drank a tiny bit. When he looked into the toilet, he saw what he had vomited up; it was blood. Any more questions about his decision left him when he saw the blood.

2.

After he cleaned up, showered, and dressed, he grabbed his keys and headed for his car. He still had a few hours left, but he couldn’t wait around his apartment for the time to pass. So, he decided to go for a drive; he had no real destination in mind, so when he drove into the cemetery, he was surprised but not shocked.

He parked along a long line of tombstones. It’s been a while, but he still remembered where to go as if it was yesterday. He got out of his car, walked towards the center of the rows, and knelt between a more prominent headstone. “Mom. Dad. I have something to tell you.” James said, and he told them everything. He told of meeting the man in black, told them of the dream, and told them about how he wished Michelle had gone. Then he looked to the tombstone just to the right of his parent’s double stone. This stone had a face of a baby smiling etched into it. Inscribed on it were the words:

MICHELLE ANDERSON

Beloved Sister and daughter

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.”

-PSALM 127:3

APRIL 10th, 2003 - July 24th, 2003

Tears ran down his face as he got up and left. It was time to meet Death.

Chapter 3.

1.

He pulled into Hal’s Bar & Grill's parking lot with five minutes to spare. He parked in the spot closest to the door, the same spot he had parked in the day earlier. Everything looked the same as when he was last there. He walked into the bar and, at first, just saw the bartender; it was the same old guy from before, Hal/not Hal.

“I was worried you wouldn’t show, my boy.” He heard a familiar voice from behind him say. To the right sitting in a booth, was Thanatos, dressed in the same suit as before, and next to him was his friend in the white suit. “Please join us.” Thanatos said, then looking at the bartender, “Hal would you be so kind as to get my friend here a drink? I believe he prefers cheap whiskey but bring him the good stuff. On me. the 1850 Glenavon, from my personal stock.” He then said to James, “You are going to love this.”

“Thank you,” James said as he sat down. James watched as the old man brought out a dark brown bottle with an aged label, uncorked it, poured two fingers' worth into a glass, and brought it to him. So that is Hal, James thought.

“Anything else, sir?” Hal said. James looked into Hal’s eyes and saw they were cloudy like he was in some sort of daze.

“Not right now, Hal, and thank you,” Thanatos said as Hal sat the glass down and walked away.

“What’s wrong with his eyes?” James asked, wondering if Hal was sick like him and, if he was, did death offer him a similar deal?

“Whenever I am out, the people who see or serve me are placed in a spell of sorts. Most of the time, they never recall seeing me, or if they do, they think it’s a dream of some sort.” Thanatos explained.

“that explains why he didn’t remember you after you left.” James said, “Has it always been this way?”

“Always, James, but that is not why we are here,” Thanatos said. “Shall we get down to business?” James nodded his head and took a sip of the 172-year-old whiskey. It was strong but excellent. “The older, the better, James, when it comes to whiskey and people. I am assuming that since you are here, you wish to get better, to get older, so to speak?” Again, James nodded his head. “I will need to hear you say it out loud, James.”

“Yes,” James said, his eyes never leaving his drink.

“Yes What, James?” Thanatos asked to no response. James just sat there looking at the whiskey. “Look at me, James… James, look at me!” James lifted his head and stared into the cold dead eyes of death. And they were dead; James could see that. They held no light or life in them at all. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, I want to live longer… I-I want to live.” James said, tears sliding down his face again. Thanatos stood up, and so did his friend in the white suit.

“Stand up, James,” Thanatos said, and James stood. “Then we have an agreement. You will live, be cured of all ailments, and someone else will die in your stead. Agreed?”

“Yes, agreed,” James said, never losing eye contact with Thanatos.

“Then let us seal the deal, James,” Thanatos said, raising a hand between them. James hesitated at first but then grabbed Death’s hand and shook it. When James shook Death’s hand, he could feel the rubbery skin; it was cold and dead, just like in his dream. He wondered if it was a dream at all or if it was a memory. He wondered if he had seen Thanatos that night and just didn’t remember him like Hal didn’t remember him yesterday. James was amazed by Death’s grip. Even though he could feel no life in his hand, he knew he was powerful and that if death wanted, he could tear him limb from limb with ease. “Good, then. I guess I will see you later, James. Have a good life.” James watched as the two men left the bar.

James sat back, drained his glass, and saw three hundred-dollar bills under the glass from which Thanatos was drinking. He looked back to the bar where Hal had placed the bottle of 172-year-old whiskey; it was gone. He wondered if somehow he had just made a deal with the devil.

2.

By the time James returned home, he was feeling a lot better. His stomach didn’t hurt anymore, and he was starving. He opened his fridge and saw the steak he had bought the other day. It was early, but he didn’t care, so he grabbed it, threw a potato in the microwave, and opened a beer as he began to prep the steak. He turned the radio on, turned it up loud, and sang along with James Brown as he cooked. “I feel good!” he bellowed along, and he did. No, he felt great. He even started to think about that girl that lived on the first floor and thought he would ask her out when he returned to work.

James sat down to eat while Bill Withers sang about the sun being gone since the mythical “she” had been gone. He opened his laptop and began to scroll through the news feed as he ate. Donald Trump was in trouble again, and James continued to scroll. Suddenly he stopped scrolling and dropped his fork, which still had a piece of steak on it. The headline read:

Over 400 die in plane crash

James clicked on the link. About an hour ago, a commercial flight carrying over 400 passengers and crew crashed into the side of a mountain. According to officials, the engines just cut out. Is this my fault? James thought. He began to wonder if Thanatos, death, killed all those people just to kill his replacement. That’s crazy. The new voice said inside his head. Death may take one person as your replacement, but no one life is worth over 400. It was just their time. James began to think the voice was right, so he clicked off the article. He didn’t pick his fork back up; the hunger that had pained him from the moment he got home was gone, so he pushed the plate aside and began to scroll again. What are you doing? He thought, but he knew the answer. He was trying to find who had replaced him on Death’s list. Didn’t the doctors give you months to live? The new voice asked so it stands to reason it could be anyone in the world that dies. The docs said three to four months, but they could have been wrong. Hell, you could live for a year or maybe longer. Not only that, not every death makes it onto the internet. So, there is no way to find out who your replacement is.

James knew the voice was right, but he couldn’t stop looking. In California, a woman died in a car accident around the same time as the crash. A man jumped to his death off a bridge in Texas. In South Dakota remains of five corpses were found in the basement of a guy. Neighbors say they couldn’t believe it; he was just the nicest guy you would ever meet. Then James found the one. The one he knew was his replacement.

In Ohio, a three-month-old girl died in her crib as she slept. The parents woke to find the girl not breathing and unresponsive. Michael James, the dad, is the one who called 9-1-1. Michael James… James!

James leaned back, put his hands to his face, and began to cry. “I-I can’t let this happen,” James said to the empty room through tears. That happened last night. The voice said that was before you even made the deal. Besides, as death said, there is no going back. James thought about it and realized there was a way to cancel the deal. You can’t be serious, the voice said. “I am; this one may not be my replacement, but the next one could be, will be. I know it.”

James stood up, headed to the bedroom, and brought out the .357 magnum his father had left him. He sat in his chair and stared at the picture of the baby who had died the night before. She was smiling, and to James, she looked just like the etching of his sister on her tombstone. He put the gun under his chin and squeezed the trigger.

Epilogue

“The same time, the same way. How do you always know Thanatos?” The man in the white suit said, staring down at James’ corpse.

“People are not as hard to read as you think, Lucifer,” Thanatos said.

“I get killing himself when he found out he was going to die anyways, but you had cured him. He had his whole life ahead of him.” Lucifer said. “Makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense, my friend if you take the time to get to know them.” Thanatos said, “James had been carrying his guilt around with him for years, and it affected everything around him. His whole life was a sort of self-imposed punishment. He was an intelligent and good-looking young man, yet he hated his job and did just enough to avoid getting fired. He never cared about receiving a promotion and never thought he deserved it. He lived alone with no prospect of a relationship. There were some young women he was interested in and some of them were interested in him, but he did not feel he deserved them. He never felt he deserved to be happy all because he has always blamed himself for his sister’s death.”

“Oh well, I guess you win this year.” Lucifer said, “Same time next year?”

“Most definitely,” Thanatos replied, smiling as the two shook hands.

“But next year, I choose the bet,” Lucifer said.

“Agreed,” Thanatos replied as he reached down, picked James up, and carried him to the afterlife.

The End