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There is a reaper. But Charles
V. De Vett doctors had given him

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just one month to live, a
month to wonder what comes afterward. There

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was one way to find out,
ask a dead man. The amber brown

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of the liquor disguised the poison it
held, and I watched with a smile

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on my lips as he drank it. There was no pity in my heart

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for him. He was a jackal
in the jungle of life, and I,

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I was one of the carnivores.
It is the lot of the jackals

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of life to be devoured by the
carnivore. Suddenly, the contented look on

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his face froze into a startled stillness. I knew he was feeling the first

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savage twinge of the agony that was
to come. He turned his head and

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looked at me, and I saw
suddenly that he knew what I had done,

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you murderer. He cursed me,
and then his body arched in the

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middle, and his voice choked off
deep in his throat. For a short

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minute, he sat tense, his
body stiffened by the agony that rode it,

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unable to move a muscle. I
watched the torment in his eyes build

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up to a crescendo of pain,
until the suffering became so great that it

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filmed his eyes, and I knew
that though he still stared directly at me,

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he no longer saw me. Then, as suddenly as the spasm had

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come, the starch went out of
his body, and his back slid slowly

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down the chair edge. He landed
heavily, with his head resting limply against

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the seat of the chair. His
right leg doubled up in a kind of

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jerk before he was still. I
knew the time had come. Where are

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you? I asked? This moment
had cost me sixty thousand dollars three weeks

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ago. The best doctors in this
state had given me a month to live,

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and with seven million dollars in the
bank, I couldn't buy a minute

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more. I accepted the doctor's decision
philosophically, like the gambler that I am.

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But I had a plan, one
which necessity had never forced me to

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use until now. Several years before, I had read an article about the

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medicine men of a certain tribe of
Aborigines living in the jungles at the source

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of the Amazon River. They had
discovered a process in which the juice of

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a certain bush known only to them, could be used to poison a man.

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Any One subjected to this poison died, but for a few minutes after

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the life left his body, the
medicine men could still converse with him.

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The subject, though ostensibly and actually
dead, answered the medicine men's every question.

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This was their primitive, though reportedly
effective method of catch and glimpses of

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what lay in the world of death. I had conceived my idea at the

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time I read the article, but
I had never had the need to use

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it until the doctors gave me a
month to live. Then I spent my

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sixty thousand dollars, and three weeks
later I held in my hands a small

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bottle of the which doctor's fluid.
The next step was to secure my victim,

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my collaborator, I preferred to call
him. The man I chose was

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a nobody, a homeless, friendless
nonentity, picked up off the street.

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He had once been an educated man, but now he was only a bum,

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and when he died, he'd never
be missed. A perfect man for

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my experiment. I am a rich
man because I have a system. The

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system is simple. I never make
a move until I know exactly where that

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move will lead me. My field
of operations is the stock market. I

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spend money unstintingly to secure the information
I need Before I take each step.

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I hire the best investigators, bribe
employees and persons in position to give me

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the information I want. And only
when I am as certain as humanly possible

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that I cannot be wrong, do
I move. And the system never fails.

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Seven million dollars in the bank is
proof of that. Now, knowing

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that I could not live, I
intended to make the system work for me

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one last time before I died.
I'm a firm believer in the adage that

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any situation can be whipped, given
prior knowledge of its coming and of course,

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its attendant circumstances. For a moment, he did not answer, and

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I began to fear that my experiment
had failed. Where are you? I

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repeated, louder and sharper. This
time, the small muscles about his eyes

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puckered with an unnormal tension, while
the rest of his face held its death

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frost. Slowly, slowly, unnaturally, as though energized by some hyperrational power,

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his lips and tongue moved. The
words he spoke were clear. I

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am in a a tunnel, he
said. It is lighted dimly, but

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there is nothing for me to see. Blue veins showed through the flesh of

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his cheeks, like water marks on
translucent paper. He paused, and I

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urged go on. I am alone, he said. The realities I knew

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no longer exist, and I am
damp and cold. All about me is

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a sense of gloom and dejection.
It is an apprehension, an emanation so

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deep and real as to be almost
a tangible thing. The walls to either

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side of me seem to be formed
not of substance, but rather of the

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soundless cries of melancholy, of spirits. I cannot see. I am waiting,

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waiting in the gloom for something which
will come to me. That need

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to wait is an innate part of
my being, and I have no thought

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of questioning it. His voice died
again. What are you waiting for?

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I asked. I do not know, he said, his voice dreary with

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the despair of centuries of hopelessness.
I know only that I must wait.

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That compulsion is greater than my strength
to combat. The tone of his voice

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changed slightly. The tunnel about me
is widening now, and the walls have

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receded into invisibility. The tunnel has
become a plain. But the plain is

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as desolate as forlorn and dreary as
was the tunnel. And still I stand

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and wait. How long must this
go on? He fell silent again,

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and I was about to prompt him
with another question. I could not afford

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to let the time run out in
long silences. But abruptly the muscles about

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his eyes tightened, and suddenly a
new aspect replace their hopeless dejection. Now

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they express the black, bottomless terror. For a moment I marveled that so

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small a portion of a facial anatomy
could express such horror. There is something

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coming toward me, he said,
a beast of brutish foulness. Beast is

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too inadequate a term to describe it, but I know no words to tell

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its form. It is an intangible
and evasive thing, but very real,

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and it is coming closer. It
has no organs of sight as I know

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them, but I feel that it
can see me, or rather that it

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is aware of me, with a
sense sharper than vision itself. It is

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very near now, Oh God,
the malevolence, the hate, the potentiality,

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of awful, fearsome destructiveness, that
is its very essence. And still

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I cannot move. The expression of
terrified anticipation centered in his eyes lessened slightly

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and was replaced instantly by its former, deep, deep despair. I am

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no longer afraid, he said,
why, I interjected, why I was

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impatient to learn all I could before
the end came, Because he paused,

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Because it holds no threat for me. Somehow, some day I understand.

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I know that it too is seeking
that for which I wait. What is

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it doing now? I asked.
It has stopped beside me, and we

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stand together gazing across the stark,
empty plain. Now a second awful entity,

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with the same leashed virulence about it, moves up and stands at my

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other side. We all three wait, myself with the dark fear of this

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dismal universe, my unnatural companions,
with patient, malicious menace. Bits of

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he faltered of I can only name
it Aura, go out from the beasts

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like an acid stream and touch me, and the hate and the venom chill

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my body like a wave of intense
cold. Now there are others of the

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awful breed behind me. We stand
waiting, waiting for that which will come.

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What it is, I do not
know. I could see the pallor

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of death creeping steadily into the last
corners of his lips, and I knew

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that the end was not far away. Suddenly, a black frustration built up

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within me. What are you waiting
for? I screamed, the tenseness and

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the importance of this moment forcing me
to lose the iron self control upon which

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I have always prided myself. I
knew that the answer held the secret of

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what I must know. If I
could learn that my experiment would not be

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in vain and I could make whatever
preparations were necessary for my own death,

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I had to know that answer.
Think, think, I pleaded, what

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are you waiting for? I do
not know? The dreary despair in his

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eyes, sightless as they met mine, chilled me with a coldness that I

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felt in the marrow of my being. I do not know, he repeated,

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I, yes, I do know. Abruptly, the plasmatic film cleared

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from his eyes, and I knew
that, for the first time since the

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poison struck, he was seeing me
clearly. I sensed that this was the

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last moment before he left for good. It had to be now tell me,

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I command you, I cried,
What are you waiting for? His

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voice was quiet as he murmured,
softly, implacably before he was gone.

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We are waiting, he said,
for you. End of There Is a

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Reaper by Charles V. De Vett