Roughly ten years ago I was diagnosed with a terminal illness I will not specify. The doctors tried to give me a second chance at life. I took medication and the latest state-of-the-art drugs and went for enough surgeries and chemo to make me look like a monk.

But it wasn’t enough.

I remember when the doctor called me in to tell me the inevitable news. It was a cold January afternoon. The sky was gray from the clouds gathering thick on the horizon and at some point they had opened up and started to pour.

I waited in the reception, my heart in my throat. I had a book with me, but I didn’t feel like reading. Instead I stared at the rain sliding down the window on the other side, my fingers tapping rhythmically on the sofa couch.

The door opened and the doctor’s voice floated inside. It sounded far away.

“Come in.”

He didn’t need to say any more. His face told the whole story.

“How long more do I have?” I asked.

His fingers twisted and twiddled and tangled into each other. He looked more nervous than I was.

“Sixty days,” he answered finally.

Sixty days. That number echoed in my mind for days to come, and even when I walked out everything seemed far away.

“Sixty days…” I repeated hollowly to my granddaughter, Bertha, who sat there smiling at me. But I knew that smile. That smile that wanted to reassure me that everything would be okay but actually was filled with too much worry and fear in her young heart.

“You’ll be all right, Grandpa,” Bertha said, squeezing my hand. Poor thing. Gone through so much in just seventeen years of age, and now she would lose me too. One more candle in her life, extinguished.

Still, I couldn’t help but worry as the days slipped by. Life is like an eternal nightmare, I suppose, one that I could not wake up from. Bertha tried to comfort me, reading to me every day like I did with her when she was a baby, but I knew it was no use.

I would be gone.

Bertha would be alone.

Bleep

I glanced at my phone, breaking myself out of my thoughts.The message came from an old friend. His name was Thomas Carver and we met at a retreat years ago. I was surprised he even remembered me.

I heard about your plight he said. Meet me at Louie’s at 8.

“Don’t go,” Bertha pleaded as I pulled on my coat. “I’ve heard of this Carver fellow. He’s bad news.”

“I have to,” I said. “I have no choice.”

Bertha sighed in frustration.

---

He was already there when I arrived, waiting for me at a table in the corner. I sat with him, watching the bursts of life from the rest of the cafe. Families laughing, babies crying, there was even a live band playing the sax.

A tear slid down my face. In less than a year all that would be robbed from me.

Carver slid me a vial. The contents sloshed around the tube, and it was a vivid green. It looked like something a mad scientist would cook up.

I certainly am mad for accepting this.

“I got it from a friend of mine,” Carver whispered. His eyes darted nervously about, as if certain the police would catch us any minute.

“Just drink everything,” he reassured me. He gestured to himself, the way his head nearly hit the ceiling, and the bushy mustache he trimmed exactly the way he liked it.

“I know it worked for me.”

I thanked him and returned home, clutching the vial tight. I couldn’t help but stare at it, weighing my decision.

Would it be worth it in the end?

I finally set it down after a while. Maybe it was because everything was going so fast, but I…I needed to think. I needed to clear my head.

Most of all, I needed to sleep.

But ten seconds after I showered and got into bed I heard it.

Scritch scritch scratch

The walls were shivering. I got up and turned on the light and examined it further. I saw it bulge and flatten as whatever was underneath squeezed through.

“Bertha?” I screamed. “There…there’s something in the walls!”

I heard Bertha murmur in response, but I knew she wouldn’t get here in time, and especially not at this hour. I reached for my phone, praying the pest control company was still open, but then I heard the wallpaper rip.

The wall was cracking like an egg. I gripped my phone, and felt all my muscles freeze up. All I could hear was my heart throwing itself against my chest.

It was squeezing itself out. Little by little. Like black, slimy toothpaste.

Then it fell onto the floor.

It was a large black beetle.

And it was dead.

The wall collapsed onto itself then, giving way to more of those black, shining corpses. Then I saw it rise and float in the cool night. Rearranging themselves.

Into a warning.

Don’t drink it! Accept your fate!

“DON’T DRINK IT! ACCEPT YOUR FATE!”

That wasn’t the bugs. It was something else entirely. A primal call. Unearthly.

Howling into the night like a wolf.

I felt my skin prickle, and I dared to look outside.

The trees had withered up. The houses had bowed down to some unearthly force until you could see cracks in the roof and in the walls. I could hear animals howling and baying at the moon, their paws scratching the flooring.

They repeated the call, all of them, a chorus of nightmares that hissed in my mind forever.

Don’t drink it.

Accept your fate.

The green potion bubbled. I hesitated then, thinking of the promise of eternal life. To be able to take care of my granddaughter Bertha and all of her children that followed. To bounce them on my knees.

To be there for them.

It was so tempting. I could already feel this illness wrecking my body, the time ticking away in front of me. I could be strong. Unbreakable.

I wanted it.

I needed it.

But then I heard it.

Bertha’s scream.

“NO!”

My voice sounded far away. Fear gripped my heart, ice-cold.

“BERTHA!”

I rushed to her room, throwing open the door. The moon shone in, illuminating the ghastly scene in front of me.

Bertha was squirming in bed. Zombie beetles were crawling all over her, their pincers deep into her flesh. I ran over and saw the whites in her eyes as her face paled.

My skin crawled.

“DON’T DO IT!”

Bertha was staring at me now, even when the beetles had marched inside her mouth I could see them feasting on her tongue and sliding out of her nose.

“ACCEPT YOUR FATE!”

She was screaming it out. Over and over again.

“DIE! DIE! DIE!””

The beetles clicked in solidarity.

“No.”

My voice was strong, steady. I glared at Bertha—or whoever was holding her and making her like this. It was trying to convince me to die, to be with it forever. To give up on life. On hope.

Well, I wasn’t going to play its games any longer. I would be here. With my family. To hear them laugh in joy, like sweet bells tinkling in the wind.

I had made my choice.

I downed the vial. It tasted awful, like the most bitter medicine you could think of mixed with smelly socks. But I forced myself to finish every drop, my eyes continuously on her. On my precious granddaughter, who I couldn’t afford to lose.

Bertha’s eyes widened.

“NOOOOO!!!” she screeched, and she thrashed in her bed for the last time, and then she collapsed onto the floor.

The bugs all disappeared. The animals had stopped howling. It was just me and her in an empty house.

“Bertha?”

I held her in my arms, and saw her eyelids fluttering under the moon. I held my breath, listening to my heart beating against my chest.

“Please,” I whispered. “Wake up…”

THUMP

I cradled Bertha, and felt my skin break out into a cold, clammy sweat. The moon was flickering like a lamp, pulsing like a heart. The street lights went out, plunging us in eternal darkness.

THUMP

Words had started to appear on the wall opposite me, as if written in blood. It flickered weakly in the darkness.

A chill ran up my spine as I read it.

I tried to warn you…

THUMP

Now He comes for those who defy Death.

THUMP

THUMP

I could feel it coming closer, its hot breath on my cheek, scarlet eyes glowing in the darkness. It was hissing my name, and my euphoria and courage withered away and died.

I started packing. I needed to run. It was the only sane option I had, the only one I could think of. Fleeing. Running. Moving.

For eternity.

It does feel like eternity. Ten years. Ten years since I drank that potion. Ten years running from whatever was worse than Death. Whatever snaps up those who try to cheat Him.

Honestly, I don’t want to know.

I’m huddled up in a corner typing away. I don’t dare sleep. Every time I stop moving I can feel it getting closer, its invisible drool on my shoulder.

THUMP

I can’t die. The potion has worked too well. It is near. Always near.

Too close for comfort.

THUMP

Will this be the end?

SK