"Tell me a scary story, Simon," said Marceline at bedtime.
"I'm afraid we're in one, darling."
Marceline was unperturbed. "Tell me one anyway."
Simon emptied out the books from his bag. He had kept them this long with the expectation that he would soon have to give them up: they'd end up being burnt as fuel, or thrown at a zombie, or actually eaten at this rate. He wasn't sure he would actually miss them very much. The classics of the horror genre may once have made ankle-fearing Victorians vomit into their top hats, but they had nothing on the actual apocalypse.
"I want that one," Marcy said, pointing to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
"No," said Simon, a little too firmly. "It would be much too frightening for you."
Marceline examined the others. "I read Dracula when I was younger," she said. "Until my dad took it off me."
"Because it was too scary for children?"
"No, because it wasn't scary enough." Marceline pouted at the memory. "And he said it also portrayed vampires unrealistically and made the whole world think they're sexy when they're just d-"
"Alright," said Simon. He wished he was spending his last night on earth doing something better for Marcy. Finding her mother or fixing the world or something. Instead, he was trading trivia about monsters, whilst turning into a monster, in the middle of a monster-filled world.
"Did you know, not all vampires suck blood, Marceline?" he tried.
"Good, cos that's gross."
"Or some just drink animal blood. Or who knows, maybe they just like red. In fact, you know…maybe they're not all bad." Simon said. His fingers twitched against the cold metal of the crown. "I read lots of stories about people who got turned into vampires, ended up staking themselves to stop them hurting people-"
"Simon," Marceline said patiently. "I'm not gonna become a vampire."
"A good life choice," Simon said. Sometimes he could feel something almost like a heartbeat when he touched the crown, and now the heartbeat was so loud it was drowning out his own. "But you understand why someone wouldn't want to be one…Marcy?"
"Yeah," said Marcy, giving him a weird look.
"Good." It was not nearly enough and it never would be.
As Simon put the books away again Marceline lit the campfire, first try, as if she'd lived in a dangerous wasteland all her life. Which she sort of had, although even seeing her competence depressed Simon immensely.
"Yeah. You should go to sleep now," Simon said. He wanted to add something on there. "Marceline-"
"Love you, Simon," Marceline said sleepily, lying down.
"And I love you," Simon said hopelessly.
Simon was a good lyricist and always had been. Please forgive me for whatever I do/when I don't remember you was undoubtedly one of his best, and it was going to be hard to top.
Marceline,
Please forgive me for leaving you
But it was something I knew I had to do
I can feel the crown is making me evil
And it's the worst damn thing in the world to feel…
"That barely even rhymes," Simon said bitterly to nobody.
I'm hurting myself and I'm afraid I'm gonna hurt you too
So please forgive me for whatever I do-
Musicians say the second hit is the hardest. Simon stared at his scrawled, mostly terrible lyrics for a long time.
PLEASE forgive me-
Something moved, somewhere, and Simon looked up.
On the other side of the fire was a man with a horse's skull for a face. Simon took this almost entirely in his stride, until it sat down next to him.
It sat uncomfortably near, and it carried a whiff of dust and rot about it. Up close, its skull was pale yellow and lumpy, and Simon felt the prickles on his neck rise as it turned to him. The monster looked into his very soul, slowed his heart and fogged his brain, and in a deathless voice it whispered:
"Whatcha doin', bro?"
"None of your business," said Simon to Death.
DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM.
"Yes," said Simon. "You're in books. There are loads of very good books written about you. Now go away."
I'M NOT JUST IN BOOKS, SIMON, I'M IN EVERY BOOK. EVERY STORY HUMANKIND HAS EVER WRITTEN FEATURES ME AS A MAJOR PLAYER.
"Well, go be a major player somewhere else. I don't want you around me…right now."
YOU'RE SAYING THAT LIKE I CAN CHOOSE TO LEAVE. LOOK AROUND YOU. YOU WALK IN THE DUST OF CORPSES, YOU IDIOT.
Simon thought about telling Death not to call him an idiot, but it seemed rather pointless. "What are you doing here? What do you want with me?"
"I'm here to help," said Death. "Believe it or not, that's my modus operandi. Or perhaps I should say…mort-dus operandi." He then laughed like a deranged hyena for what seemed like the best part of a minute.
"Heh," said Simon, despite himself. "Very good." His eye was suddenly drawn to Marcy, still asleep by the fire, and he felt the thud in his stomach that all parents feel at some point or other. "Wait! Tell me you're not here for her!"
"Well," said Death, "kinda."
"No!" Simon stood up so fast that his papers went everywhere, and the terrible song/rhyming suicide song hit the fire and burned up instantly. "Nononono! She's so young! I'll do anything to save her! A fiddle contest! Or you can take me instead! Actually, that would be ideal! Please!"
Death burst into hysterical laughter. "I love it when people do that! Chill, bro. I'm not here for her in that sense."
"I don't like you," said Simon, after a pause.
"Whatevs."
"What do you mean, in that sense?"
Death's physical form seemed to shift into something slightly less horrifying, although that wasn't saying much. YOU ARE GOING TO KILL YOURSELF, AND I'M HERE TO TELL YOU NOT TO.
"Oh."
YOU'RE GOING TO LEAVE THIS LITTLE GIRL BEHIND. IN AN APOCALYPTIC WASTELAND. I DON'T THINK YOU REALLY THOUGHT IT THROUGH.
"If I stick around much longer I'm going to kill her," Simon said. "Me. The thing inside me is going to…to freeze her or drown her or something terrible and I can't stop it! I'm going to walk away. Walk away…into something. A big pit, probably. The crown's getting stronger and I have a responsibility to stop it."
OOH, LOOK AT MR RESPONSIBLE HERE. I DON'T THINK THE LITTLE GIRL WITH NO PARENTS, NO FRIENDS AND NO CHANCE WILL SEE IT THAT WAY.
"We haven't seen a zombie in over two weeks. Marcy knows where to find food, how to bandage cuts, even how to kill animals – the biggest danger to her now is me. Hence all this."
'ALL THIS'. WHAT A EUPHENISM.
Simon changed the subject. "Why do you talk like that?"
LIKE WHAT.
"Like…that."
iS ThIS bEttER?
"No…if anything, that's considerably worse."
"You guys are no fun," said Death.
"It's like you have a million voices, all talking at once, and it's…really unnerving."
DEATH IS IN CONSTANT COMMUNICATION WITH ALL SENTIENT BEINGS, ACROSS ALL LEVELS, TIMES, SPACES, AND STORIES. :) I CAN SPEAK IN LANGUAGES A HUMAN TONGUE CANNOT FORM. I KNOW WORDS THAT HAVE NO EQUIVALENT ON THIS PLANET OR LIGHTYEARS BEYOND. I HAVE MORE VOICES THAN THERE ARE STARS IN THE SKY. :D
"Please stop doing that," Simon said.
DOING WHAT EXACTLY.
"Everything. Everything you're doing." Simon looked at the girl still sleeping near them. "You'll scare Marcy when she wakes up."
SHE'S FROM THE NIGHTOSPHERE. SHE'LL PROBABLY BE OKAY WITH ME.
"Just talk to me like I'm a human!"
ヽ(ｏ`皿′ｏ)ﾉ said Death.
"Please! I still am one!"
"FINE. Listen, I love collecting souls, okay? Let's get that out of the way first. It's my jam. But not yours. Not right now. You're gonna need it."
"It's on its way out whether I need it or not," Simon said tersely.
"You need to stay alive to protect lil' pointy-face here," said Death. "Otherwise, the nerps are really gonna hit the cheesegrater. Hunson Aberdeer will be back for his daughter before too long, and he'll be mighty annoyed to find her dead."
"Maybe he should have come earlier then," Simon said. It wasn't the first time he'd heard the name. "She could have died a hundred times over without-"
"Without the CROWN, yeah. Ordinarily I wouldn't give two breadballs about a human dumb enough to get himself cursed with insanity the one time humanity needs all the brains it can get," said Death, and Simon too glumly noted the irony, "but that's the ACTUAL DEV- Hunson Aberdeer's daughter, man, and I gotta intervene. So yeah, you can write the nicest note you like to her but she's like, eight. Without a caregiver she'll be dead in…ooh…two days. Three days tops. And horribly. I feel like I should mention that. Being eaten by oozing green goo zombies is spot #2 on the worst ways to die list."
"What's spot #1?" Simon asked, to distract himself from the thought of that actually happening.
"You don't want to know," said Death. "It involves eels."
"She won't be eaten by zombies, they're all gone…"
THEY'RE EVOLVING, YOU PLONKER. I CAN SENSE HUNDREDS UPON THOUSANDS OF THEM GAINING SENTIENCE, GAINING EMOTION. AN AMAZING PROCESS, A MIRACLE, LIFE AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL. MOST OF THEM DECIDED TO JUST BE BUTTHOLES ANYWAY.
Simon stared gloomily into the fire. Humanity has no real framework for Death itself turning up and telling you you're too important to die.
"You're not too important to die," Death said, since he could read minds. "She is. You're not. But you're her only protector now. It just worked out that way, dude."
"You know, maybe Marceline's father should come talk to me himself," said Simon, grinding his teeth and crumpling his remaining bits of paper in his hands.
HE DIDN'T SEND ME.
"Oh."
There was then a period of silence, which wasn't unusual. The world had been silent now for ages.
"I need to ask. In the course of your…work," Simon said, slowly and glumly, "have you seen a beautiful red-haired woman with glasses?"
"Literally millions."
"Figured."
More silence.
"I don't want to," Simon said, "but I'm going to have to leave Marcy eventually. You know that, right? Because before long there really will be nothing left of me. You're just prolonging the inevitable."
AREN'T YOU A CHEERFUL ONE. ANYWAY, HER DAD WILL BE BACK FOR HER, BEFORE YOU LOSE YOUR MARBLES COMPLETELY.
"When?"
I DON'T KNOW. I HAVE AN ODD RELATIONSHIP WITH THINGS LIKE PAST AND FUTURE AND GUYS WHO EAT SOULS.
"I can't do this," Simon said brokenly. "I just can't do this. The other night I spent two hours talking to a dead rat because I thought it was an intelligent penguin named Gunter. I always liked penguins. I tried to feed it soup, I made it a little coat, and I sang it Let It Go! I don't want to be the sort of person who spends hours feeding dead rat-penguins whilst singing Disney songs!"
WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO TELL YOU? SACRIFICE IS NOT ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL. HEROISM IS NOT ALWAYS DIGNIFIED. AND MY JOB IS VERY RARELY EASY.
Simon sighed. It was the sort of slow, determined, grown-up sigh that most people hear only once in their lifetime…if they're very lucky.
"I know," he said.
THEN I SUPPOSE MY WORK HERE IS DONE. STAY ALIVE FOR HER. STAY ALIVE FOR THE MEMORY OF YOUR FIANCEE. OR, YOU KNOW, Just… stay alive."
Simon blinked. For a moment Death had looked like a living human being, instead of an anthropomorphic personification of mortality.
"Would you say the same sort of thing to whoever my…what would you even call him…my Mr Hyde decides to kill one day?"
"Simon," said Death, in the same quiet human voice, "I really don't think you've got that in ya."
"Oh."
Death smiled, and it reminded Simon of when, in the course of a scuba-diving holiday with Betty, he had encountered a shark. He had been paralyzed in fear as it had swum closer; he had been shaking in his swimming trunks and hearing nothing but teethteethteethteeth pounding in his brain. Because the shark was hungry and it was powerful and it was grinning with its pointed teeth, and no human being could fight a thing like then suddenly it wasn't there, because Betty (who had Australian blood in her, she would tell him later) had grabbed it by its tail and swung it merrily away. Simon could still remember the look on the thing's face: whilst it was still hungry and powerful and grinning and every bit as fearsome as before, suddenly a much more human and almost relatable element had been added. Like it was saying "Oh No!" at suddenly being turned away from its food, by its food. Like prior to that moment it had just been living its life, just having its dinner, just existing within the parameters it'd been given…
Simon had felt his whole worldview change that day, watching his fiancée fight a shark, and not even just because he'd had to watch his fiancée fight a shark. Even monsters had an 'Oh No' face. Even nature's worst teeth were just…teeth.
Watching Death smile was like that.
"Well, I'll be off," said Death. "I have a date with the Cosmic Owl."
"Alright."
An unearthly cold blew through the empty trees but didn't touch the fire. DON'T FORGET, SIMON, YOUR TEETH ARE ALSO POINTED. AS ARE HERS.
Simon looked at Marcy. She was sleeping curled up around Hambo, and the sheer innocence of the scene temporarily broke his heart. He didn't care about her teeth. She could actually be a vampire for all he cared; she'd still be Marcy.
He thought Death had gone but he was still there, albeit fading out a bit. "How you doin' now, bro?" said the horse's skull perkily.
"Scared," said Simon. "I've been scared for a very long time. And I don't like it. But I guess I'll live with it."
IT'S NOT A BAD THING TO BE AFRAID, YOU KNOW. FEAR KEEPS US ON OUR TOES. I AM NO DIFFERENT. EVERY SENTIENT BEING FEELS FEAR.
"What in the world is Death afraid of?" Simon asked, before he disappeared entirely.
I AM AFRAID OF WAR AND WEAPONS. I AM AFRAID OF THE LICH. AND I AM AFRAID OF YOU.
It wasn't until quite a long time later that Simon wondered if he had meant 'you' in the abstract: humanity, not just him. He lay down on the ground next to Marcy -there had only ever been one sleeping bag, and it was hers- and ran his tongue over his teeth.
Blood in his mouth, he slept, relatively peacefully.