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Speaker 1: There is a reaper. But Charles V. De Vett doctors

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had given him just one month to live, a month

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to wonder what comes afterward. There was one way to

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find out, ask a dead man. The amber brown of

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the liquor disguised the poison it held, and I watched

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with a smile on my lips as he drank it.

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There was no pity in my heart for him. He

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was a jackal in the jungle of life, and I,

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I was one of the carnivores. It is the lot

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of the jackals of life to be devoured by the carnivore. Suddenly,

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the contented look on his face froze into a startled stillness.

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I knew he was feeling the first savage twinge of

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the agony that was to come. He turned his head

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and looked at me, and I saw suddenly that he

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knew what I had done, you murderer. He cursed me,

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and then his body arched in the middle, and his

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

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he sat tense, his body stiffened by the agony that

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rode it, unable to move a muscle. I watched the

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torment in his eyes build up to a crescendo of pain,

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until the suffering became so great that it filmed his eyes,

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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

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spasm had come, the starch went out of his body,

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and his back slid slowly down the chair edge. He

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landed heavily, with his head resting limply against the seat

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of the chair. His right leg doubled up in a

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kind of jerk before he was still. I knew the

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time had come. Where are you? I asked? This moment

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had cost me sixty thousand dollars three weeks ago. The

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best doctors in this state had given me a month

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to live, and with seven million dollars in the bank,

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I couldn't buy a minute more. I accepted the doctor's

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decision philosophically, like the gambler that I am. But I

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had a plan, one which necessity had never forced me

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to use until now. Several years before, I had read

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an article about the medicine men of a certain tribe

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of Aborigines living in the jungles at the source of

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the Amazon River. They had discovered a process in which

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the juice of a certain bush known only to them,

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could be used to poison a man. Any One subjected

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to this poison died, but for a few minutes after

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the life left his body, the medicine men could still

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converse with him. The subject, though ostensibly and actually dead,

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answered the medicine men's every question. This was their primitive,

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though reportedly effective method of catch and glimpses of what

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lay in the world of death. I had conceived my

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idea at the time I read the article, but I

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had never had the need to use it until the

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doctors gave me a month to live. Then I spent

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my sixty thousand dollars, and three weeks later I held

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in my hands a small bottle of the which doctor's fluid.

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The next step was to secure my victim, my collaborator,

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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

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was only a bum, and when he died, he'd never

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be missed. A perfect man for my experiment. I am

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a rich man because I have a system. The system

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is simple. I never make a move until I know

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exactly where that move will lead me. My field of

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operations is the stock market. I spend money unstintingly to

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secure the information I need Before I take each step.

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I hire the best investigators, bribe employees and persons in

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position to give me the information I want. And only

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when I am as certain as humanly possible that I

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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,

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knowing that I could not live, I intended to make

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the system work for me one last time before I died.

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I'm a firm believer in the adage that any situation

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can be whipped, given prior knowledge of its coming and

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of course, its attendant circumstances. For a moment, he did

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not answer, and I began to fear that my experiment

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had failed. Where are you? I repeated, louder and sharper.

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This time, the small muscles about his eyes puckered with

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an unnormal tension, while the rest of his face held

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its death frost. Slowly, slowly, unnaturally, as though energized by

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some hyperrational power, his lips and tongue moved. The words

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he spoke were clear. I am in a a tunnel,

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he said. It is lighted dimly, but there is nothing

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for me to see. Blue veins showed through the flesh

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

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and I urged go on. I am alone, he said.

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The realities I knew no longer exist, and I am

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damp and cold. All about me is a sense of

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gloom and dejection. It is an apprehension, an emanation so

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deep and real as to be almost a tangible thing.

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The walls to either side of me seem to be

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formed not of substance, but rather of the soundless cries

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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.

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That need to wait is an innate part of my being,

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and I have no thought of questioning it. His voice

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died again. What are you waiting for? I asked. I

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do not know, he said, his voice dreary with the

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despair of centuries of hopelessness. I know only that I

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must wait. That compulsion is greater than my strength to combat.

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The tone of his voice changed slightly. The tunnel about

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me is widening now, and the walls have receded into invisibility.

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The tunnel has become a plain. But the plain is

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as desolate as forlorn and dreary as was the tunnel.

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And still I stand and wait. How long must this

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go on? He fell silent again, and I was about

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to prompt him with another question. I could not afford

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to let the time run out in long silences. But

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abruptly the muscles about his eyes tightened, and suddenly a

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new aspect replace their hopeless dejection. Now they express the black,

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bottomless terror. For a moment I marveled that so small

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a portion of a facial anatomy could express such horror.

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There is something coming toward me, he said, a beast

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of brutish foulness. Beast is too inadequate a term to

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describe it, but I know no words to tell its form.

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It is an intangible and evasive thing, but very real,

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and it is coming closer. It has no organs of

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sight as I know them, but I feel that it

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can see me, or rather that it is aware of me,

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with a sense sharper than vision itself. It is very

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

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

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still I cannot move. The expression of terrified anticipation centered

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in his eyes lessened slightly and was replaced instantly by

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its former, deep, deep despair. I am no longer afraid,

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he said, why, I interjected, why I was impatient to

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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

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I understand. I know that it too is seeking that

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for which I wait. What is it doing now? I asked.

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It has stopped beside me, and we stand together gazing

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

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with the same leashed virulence about it, moves up and

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stands at my other side. We all three wait, myself

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with the dark fear of this dismal universe, my unnatural companions,

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with patient, malicious menace. Bits of he faltered of I

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can only name it Aura, go out from the beasts

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like an acid stream and touch me, and the hate

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and the venom chill my body like a wave of

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intense cold. Now there are others of the awful breed

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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

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the pallor of death creeping steadily into the last corners

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of his lips, and I knew that the end was

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not far away. Suddenly, a black frustration built up within me.

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

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the importance of this moment forcing me to lose the

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iron self control upon which I have always prided myself.

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I knew that the answer held the secret of what

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I must know. If I could learn that my experiment

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would not be in vain and I could make whatever

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preparations were necessary for my own death, I had to

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know that answer. Think, think, I pleaded, what are you

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waiting for? I do not know? The dreary despair in

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his eyes, sightless as they met mine, chilled me with

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a coldness that I felt in the marrow of my being.

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I do not know, he repeated, I, yes, I do know. Abruptly,

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the plasmatic film cleared from his eyes, and I knew that,

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for the first time since the poison struck, he was

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seeing me clearly. I sensed that this was the last

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moment before he left for good. It had to be

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now tell me, I command you, I cried, What are

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you waiting for? His voice was quiet as he murmured, softly,

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implacably before he was gone. We are waiting, he said,

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for you. End of There Is a Reaper by Charles V.

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De Vett