The Passing

The sound of the rain hitting the windowpane drowned out most of the dull mumblings coming from the people in the house. To be perfectly honest, Lisa couldn’t care less about what the rest of the family had to say about the events that had taken place that evening. She took a seat on the lumpy red armchair next to the window, and continued to stare outside.

It was dark outside, and the only lights came from the faint glow of headlights being emitted from the cars parked messily in the enormous driveway, most of them with their engines still running. In fact, everything about the place was huge and eerie. The walls of the house had been painted a dark, murky red, while the furniture remained a tired shade of brown. It brought to mind the image of old haunted houses you see in crappy horror films.

They were all gathered in the sitting room, a grandly furnished area that, judging from the number of people currently in it, could accommodate a lot more that she had first assumed. From the high greyish ceiling hung a magnificent chandelier that looked like it could use a thorough scrub. A giant flat screen television was perched on the right wall, while expensive-looking leather couches formed a neat square. On one of those couches, lay the very recently deceased body of her granduncle.

Uncle Ed had been found stone cold and unmoving on his couch by one of his maids a few hours prior. The poor young woman had panicked, called his notoriously annoying sister Aunt Terri, who then proceeded to call everyone else. And there they sat, all forty-three members of the family, making small talk and eating canapés. Uncle Ed’s body lay in the midst of it all, completely forgotten by his kin.

Aunt Terri was, in Lisa’s humble opinion, the most gossipy and insensitive woman on the face of the earth. All she cared about was a good scoop, and nothing fazed her, not even the death of her only brother. She continued weaving through the crowd of people, pouring tea and acting as though she were hosting their annual family Christmas party. Not that it mattered all that much to Lisa, seeing as they weren’t close anyway. Actually, Lisa never liked any of her extended family members. She found them to be the biggest collection of busybodies, who by some stroke of fate, happened to be related to one another.

In fact, the only reason that the entire dysfunctional family was gathered in Uncle Ed’s house in the first place, was due to the mysterious circumstances in which he had died. The fact that he had passed so unexpectedly left the family with the need to come together and compare their theories on the matter. You see, Uncle Ed was a millionaire bachelor. He lived alone in his enormous house, save for his two maids and his butler, most of whom had been away on the evening of his death. He didn’t drink or smoke, and as far as anyone knew, he was in perfect health. Then suddenly, he was found dead in his home at the tender age of 42. It wasn’t exactly hard to guess why the family was so invested in finding out what happened.

Lisa found the need to stay out of all the hypocrisy that was going on around her. Her parents, too, had joined in the gossip, leaving her to her thoughts. Whilst everyone else sat around waiting for the ambulance to arrive, passing the time by arguing about their ridiculous speculations, Lisa sat quietly in an armchair near the doorway, wondering how she could be part of a family that was so odd and so very different from herself.

So far, no one had shed a single tear over the death of a loved one. They didn’t seem to be bothered by the presence of a dead body in the room either. Lisa, on the other hand, was trying very hard not to breakdown.

It wasn’t that she was all too upset over the death of Uncle Ed, he had always been cordial to her, but would often forget her name or confuse her with one of the other grandkids. Needless to say, his death did not impact her all that much. No, it was more because he was now a dead object, and dead things had a tendency to give her the creeps. Loved one or not, dead people frightened her to no end. She supposed she suffered from a mild case of necrophobia, but it made her senselessly afraid that Uncle Ed was going to get up, brush himself off, then proceed to attack them all. It was an irrational fear, but a gripping fear nonetheless.

Lisa tried her hardest not to show it. Each time someone attempted to make small talk with her, she would grimace and nod silently till the person grew tired of her unresponsiveness and moved on. Throughout the time spent waiting for the arrival of the medics, she was trying to distract herself by counting and recounting the toes on her trembling feet, but was so shaky and jittery she’d miscounted four times.

When the ambulance finally arrived at the house, they swiftly examined Uncle Ed, pronounced him dead, and prepared to remove him from the premises.

Lisa was a mess by then, with sweating palms and an overall sense of uneasiness washing over her. She felt nausea coming over her in waves, but pushed the thought of throwing up to the back of her mind with deep calming breaths. Of course, she was glad that the body would be taken away from her general surroundings, but the fact that it was taking so long didn't help her situation.

Finally, the people nearer the door parted slightly to make way for the medics to wheel the body out the door. Uncle Ed lay on his back, his eyes now closed and his expression serene. But as they pushed him past the spot where Lisa stood, leaning unsteadily against the doorway, she noticed something a little odd.

It was happened quickly, maybe less than a second, but she could have sworn she saw the fingers of Uncle Ed's left hand twitched and ball up into a half-closed fist. She blinked, but the hand was still. Lisa felt her head start spinning.

It was probably nothing.