The Big Reap Read Free Page A

flexed each of them in turn, wincing reflexively in anticipation of the broken-glass crunch of bone on bone in my bum knee, only to be surprised when it extended smoothly and pain-free. “But how could I… what did you do to me?”
    â€œTell me, Collector, what’s the last thing you remember?”
    â€œI was outside Elizabeth’s new apartment, waiting to catch a glimpse of her. She and I… we’d parted ways, but I hoped maybe I had a shot to change her mind. I saw her through the crowd, and called to her. Someone bumped into me, and the world went gray. At the time, I thought he reached into my chest and ripped out my goddamn soul. But that’s nuts, right? I mean, it was probably a stroke or something. A blood clot traveling from my heart to my brain, and making me think all kinds of crazy shit. Whatever it was, it hurt like hell. And then I woke up here. Next thing I know, I’m in that bathtub,” I say, nodding, “and now you’re here, talking some world-class crazy. You’re what – some kind of nurse? And all this nonsense is, like, one of them newfangled psychological treatments, meant to poke and prod me to see if my brain’s wired right?” After all I’d seen and done, it was a stretch – a fantasy – I knew. But I wanted desperately to believe it. It sounded better than I’d never see Elizabeth again .
    â€œWould that it were, Collector. I’m afraid the truth’s somewhat harder to explain, and harder still to swallow. Perhaps it would be better if I showed you?”
    Lilith extended a hand, delicate as a flower. I took it, and she lifted me off the floor as a parent would a child, damn near wrenching my shoulder from its socket in the process. She looked around a moment, and then – spotting what she was looking for – walked to the far end of the room and righted the toppled bookshelf. She kicked aside its former contents – a single dented pot, some bent utensils, a man’s shaving kit, the broken remains of several dinner plates – unearthing a small, face-down, paper-backed picture frame. A braided metal wire ran the width of it, frayed to splitting at the center. Above the sink was a square of darker plaster that matched the frame’s dimensions. At the center of it was a nail.
    Lilith handed the frame to me. I turned it over, and found not a picture staring back at me, but a strange man’s visage, a starburst crack distorting his fresh-faced Aryan features.
    I blinked in confusion. The stranger blinked as well. As one, our eyes widened in sudden realization. The constant patter of radio-German rose to a fever pitch, drowning out all rational thought.
    The mirror fell from my hand, and shattered into a million pieces on the floor.
    â€œHow?” I asked her.
    â€œPossession,” she replied. “Samuel Thornton’s corpse is, by now, no more than hair and bone – one of a thousand John Does interred last year in New York’s Potter’s Field. And it’s a good thing, too – we can’t very well have you slinking about for all eternity in a decaying sack of meat and bone, frightening the villagers. So, freed by death from the confines of your human body, you now require a living vessel. Well, that or newly dead, though I’d recommend against the latter. They are quieter, I understand, but after a time, they do begin to stink. And think of what would happen if you were to bump into any of their relatives? Believe me, it’s happened occasionally throughout the whole of human history, and it’s never been pretty. Half the time, your kind declares it a miracle, and the other half, they burn the poor undead bastard at the stake. Either way, it’s more attention than we care to attract.”
    â€œWait– Did you say that I was buried last year ?”
    â€œThat’s right,” she said. “You died this October past. It’s now April