“Who I am is not as important at this moment as what I am. Just as who you are is no longer as important as what you are. My name is Lilith. I’m to be your handler. And you, Collector, are to be my little undead pet.”
“M-my h-h-handler?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“I d-d-don’t understand.”
She heaved an exaggerated sigh, as if she were a schoolmarm and I a particularly obstinate student. “You wouldn’t, would you? Your kind never seem to. It’s been forever since my last babysitting assignment — I would have thought you lot would be savvier by now. Too much for me to hope for, I suppose. So allow me to explain to you how your afterlife’s to work. It’s quite simple, really. Your job, for all eternity, is to collect the souls of the damned. My job is to communicate to you your assignments, and to ensure you do not step out of line. Do as I say, and you and I shall get along just fine. Disobey me, and I’ll be forced to take action to ensure you won’t again. Are we clear?”
None of this was making sense. I said as much. Lilith rolled her eyes like I was the crazy one.
“Look,” I said, my words coming easier now, requiring less concentration, though the din of the radio made it hard for me to hear them as I spoke. “I don’t know who you are, or what you’re playing at. But you’re going to have to play at it by yourself. I need to go find my Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth?” she asked, the faintest hint of a smile dancing across her perfect lips. “Ah, yes, your star-crossed wife. I assure you, she’s quite well. After all, those were the terms of your bargain as I understand them. But I’m afraid seeing her is out of the question.”
“Like hell it is.”
“Finally, Collector, you’re catching on.”
“Why do you keep calling me that? My name is Sam.”
“Was,” she replied.
“I don’t follow.”
“Your name in life was Sam. In death, I may call you anything I wish. And I prefer Collector. It suggests an air of professionalism, don’t you think?”
“I think this whole conversation suggests an air of flat-out crazy,” I replied, “and I’ve had about all of it I can take. Now you’re either going to help me up or not, but either way, I’m getting out of here — even if it means I have to crawl. I’ve got a wife to apologize to.”
“No, you don’t,” she said, not unkindly. “You have a widow. One you’re forbidden from seeing — unless, of course, you wish to nullify your deal and send the poor girl into an unfortunate state of relapse.” At that, I blanched, and swallowed hard. Lilith took note, nodding once to indicate her satisfaction that her message had been received, and then continued. “And I suspect by now your legs will work just fine. It always takes a while for a Collector’s vessel to acquiesce to its commands. Of course, unless this vessel’s a world-class swimmer, those legs won’t get you where you wish to go, working or no.”
“You’re telling me this ain’t Manhattan? So where, then? Brooklyn? Queens?”
“I think you misunderstand the nature of our relationship,” Lilith replied. “I am to be your master, not your tour guide. And this is your first lesson as a Collector, not some meet-and-greet. Now how about you do as I’ve suggested and test those legs of yours?”
Two-thirds of everything this chick said made no goddamn sense, but she was right about my legs at least. I 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?”
“Tell me, Collector, what’s the last thing you remember?”
“I 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.
“Would 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.
“How?” I asked her.
“Possession,” 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.”
“Wait– Did you say that I was buried last year?”
“That’s right,” she said. “You died this October past. It’s now April 1945.”
“But only moments passed for me.”
“Consider yourself lucky, then. Your time was spent in the vast, formless Nothing of the In-Between, while your fate was being debated. If you remembered it, you’d wish you didn’t.”
“Debated?”
“Yes. It seems someone on high — or perhaps on low — has taken quite a shine to you. There was much discussion as to your ultimate fate. Perhaps that’s why you were assigned to me, rather than simply to a demon, as are most Collectors. I confess I was surprised. My last foray into supervising your kind was not the smoothest of endeavors. Truth be told, I’m not sure if our pairing is intended to punish you or me or both.”