The Legend of Death

Thanas sat at his workstation in the animal cloning lab, a sympathetic frown creasing his face as he tried not to look at the ghost that hovered over his coworker’s shoulder. Patrick’s mother had passed away a few months ago. Thanas could see the weight of her dragging him down. Dark circles under his eyes, hands shaking, Thanas had already put in a complaint but his boss had simply shrugged his shoulders. They needed every available scientist they could get. Avoiding eye contact, Thanas carefully put in his ear plugs, blocking out the incessant mumblings of the spirit in order to better focus on his work.

Cloning animals was delicate business and growing increasingly more urgent with each passing day. Death, the Grim Reaper, or whatever you wanted to call them had abandoned this world shortly after the beginning of the first world war—you could still die of course, but you would forever remain, haunting your prized possessions or loved ones like Patrick’s mother. For those not ready to let go, it was seen as a blessing at first but over time those trapped spirits lost all sense of humanity. They became a faintly glowing curse, forever hovering just over one’s shoulder—for war veterans this curse became immediately apparent. Spirits often chose to haunt their murderers. Murder rates dropped off almost immediately as the globe put a halt to the war, refocusing all efforts on solving this new phenomenon. Unfortunately, birth rates had also steeply dropped off—which was how Thanas and many other blue-collar workers had made a career of cloning animals.

Soon it will be clones cloning clones, Thanas thought as he delicately injected sperm into eggs while looking through a microscope. Lost in his work, Thanas didn’t hear the rotary phone ringing until an icy chill went up his back, Patrick’s mother briefly phasing through him. Shivering, Thanas pulled the plugs from his ears and answered the phone, glaring daggers at the ghost but, as the words on the other end of the line began to sink in, he felt a much deeper chill come over him. We regret to inform you your father has been placed into our care here at the Black Pine Cemetery. Time is short and we urge you to act immediately if you have any last words to exchange.

He let the phone drop onto the receiver with a clink, making his way to his locker to change out of his pristine white lab coat into an azure blue jacket and a matching ski mask. Thanas had not seen his father since he had left home at the age of fifteen. The hauntings had simply proven too much. Memories flooded through him as he walked from Ghost Lake Cloning Lab to his old electric La Salle car and started the three hour drive out to the cemetery. The ski mask felt hot and itchy on his face but Thanas kept it on as an unproven ward against specters.

The drive took him from the prairies of Alberta, west into the Rocky Mountains. The landscape gradually shifted from grassy plateaus to pine forest, the snowcapped mountains looming silent and serene. Located deep in those mountains, far from living people, massive black cubes containing thousands of nearly dead people stuck in cryosleep rested. Officially they were still called cemeteries, but everyone referred to them as the Death Houses. The closer he came to the houses the more crowded the road became with ghosts. He slammed on the breaks as a glowing specter of a barn owl appeared in the middle of the road. Its pale oval face turned to look at the car before it hopped forward, wings flapping. The owl gradually rose from the ground, silently gliding straight through the windshield. He felt a cold feather brush his cheek as it passed, but when he looked in his rearview mirror the bird had vanished. His heart thudding, Thanas continued driving—the dead had a tighter grip on earth than the living now.

As Thanas pulled into the empty parking lot the fog thickened, obscuring the mountains and gigantic black cubes. Parking close to the door he hurried across the line of salt at the doorway and ripped the ski mask from his face. It was like a tomb inside, the only audible sound being the persistent hum of machinery keeping thousands of aged and dying people in suspended animation. Thanas, wiping sweat from his face, approached the desk. Behind a wall of bullet proof glass, a beautiful blonde receptionist about his age sat in front of a console, jabbing at a typewriter.

“May I help you?” she asked, pausing mid finger.

“Yes, I’m Thanas Farmar. Someone called for me,” he said into the slits in the glass. He combed his fingers through his hair.

“May I see a piece of identification?”

Thanas pulled his wallet from his pocket and pressed it against the glass. The woman smiled, her perfect lips red with lipstick, and pointed at the slot where the glass met the edge of the desk. As he struggled to pull his driver’s license from his wallet, he wondered why such a beautiful woman would want to work in a death house, and who was the make up for? She probably didn’t see very many living people.

“Thank you Mr.Farmar, I am sorry to inform you that your father has already been put to bed. He has some personal effects that he wished to give to you.”

Thanas felt his knees weaken, the hum of machinery invading his mind. Somewhere, beyond the tastefully decorated reception room his father lay in a box among a stack of other identical boxes, suspended between life and death. His father would remain there indefinitely. Or until the power failed. Many consider it a more desirable alternative than becoming a spirit doomed to haunt a person, place, or thing for eternity but even the half-dead could still haunt the living. The receptionist appeared before him suddenly, “Mr. Farmar, would you like to speak with a grief counsellor?”

She wore red shoes, the same shade as her lipstick. Thanas could see his stricken reflection in them, he wiped his face, “No, I just need a minute.”

“Let me help you,” she said, pulling at his arm. He let her direct him to a sofa. He wondered where all the specters that haunted a person went when someone entered cryosleep while the receptionist sat quietly next to him, one hand on his thigh as he crumpled tissues in one hand. Blowing his nose Thanas sucked in a breath, “Does this happen often?”

“From time to time,” she had a soft voice with a heavy drawl, unusual for so far North.

“Isn’t it dangerous for you to be here alone?” He liked the way she smiled.

“I’m not alone. Security is watching on the cameras, plus we keep a counsellor and doctor on hand at all hours,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. Maybe one of them was who the makeup was for. He wiped his nose, embarrassed. Thanas had not noticed the cameras until she pointed them out. She stood, “I will collect your father’s belongings and get the paperwork.”

When he signed the paperwork, she placed a package wrapped in brown paper in his hands, “Take as much time as you need Mr. Farmar. You’ll find a pamphlet in there explaining the next steps.”

He sat with the box in his lap for a long time before asking her, “My father…”

It was difficult to form the words. He cleared his throat, the receptionist looking at him expectantly, “Were the ghosts with him?”

The receptionist furrowed her delicate brow, “We are very careful about keeping the salt lines intact.”

It looked like she was about to say more but then her brow smoothed, “Drive safely Mr. Farmar.”

Thanas nodded before shuffling out the door into his car. Unable to bring himself to open the package he tossed it on the seat next to him and pulled the ski mask over his face. At least it was cooler than before. To distract himself he thought of the receptionist the entire drive home, the thick fog enshrouding his car.

When he did finally arrive back at the Ghost Lake community, Thanas pulled a flashlight from the glove compartment of his car and circled the property. He surveyed the thick line of salt just as he did every night, but his mind was elsewhere as he clutched the box in his other hand. Despite being raised by a single dad, Thana’s had had a happy childhood for the most part. His father, John, often indulged him with ice cream in the park, fishing and camping on the weekends in the summer. Typical boyhood memories until the day of the accident.

John was a bus driver, driving the straight highway from Calgary to Edmonton. He used to say he loved the roar of the engine when people would ask him what he did—it was supposed to be one of those dad jokes that didn’t make people laugh. Electric buses made more of a whine than a roar. Shaped like a hot dog bun on wheels his bus could barely maintain the speed limit. Thanas couldn’t remember the circumstances around the accident. He had only been eleven. What he could remember was his father bringing a busload of specters home from the hospital with him. Unable to work and wracked with guilt over the accident John slid into a deep depression, never leaving the house. All of Thanas’ happy memories ended shortly after that. At first, he enjoyed having a house full of company—kids, parents and grandparents but the ghostly figures quickly became malicious.

They no longer spoke in a human language, cupboards would slam open, objects would be strewn all around the house. Thanas had woken up with scratches on his body. One of his schoolteachers took him in for a few years, and Thanas had simply never gone back home. He sent his father money whenever he could but that was it—and now his father would remain in cryosleep.

Exhausted by the long drive Thanas quickly found himself in the middle of a dream, having not even remembered getting into bed. The sky was completely black and starless, not even the moon was visible and yet he could see hills of blood red poppies stretching out in every direction. The air hung heavy and still. His pant legs brushed against the flowers as he spun around, slowly scanning the hills for some sign of movement, “Death! Where are you?”

A bone white horse skull flashed into his mind, sharp and clear, “I am here.”

Thanas looked again, this time seeing an equine skeleton, the hooves brushing just above the flower petals. The skeleton remained rigid as it hovered towards him, leaving a trail of dead poppies in its wake. When it stood a meter away from him, he asked it about his father, “Where is he?”

Death raised its head, bones clacking against one another. Then Deaths voice echoed in his skull, “You know.”

Gasping, Thanas startled awake, bolting upright in bed. Sweat made his button up shirt stick to him, his tie still clutched in one hand. The room was completely dark, not even the streetlights that normally shone through his window were on. Was the power out or was he still dreaming?

“Hello son,” a glowing ghost seated at the end of his bed said. Thanas screamed. He continued screaming as the room filled with more and more specters. What were once kids, parents, and grandparents were now gaunt and twisted victims of a bus accident, doomed to haunt their killer for eternity. Now they would haunt Thanas too.

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Written by Kelsey Reich on January 19/2021 in Ontario, Canada. Edited July 7/2021.