Reaper

I sighed and sat up on the bar, thankful that it was close to closing time. Everyone had cleared out of the bar except for two men who did this every Saturday night, slumped over in their seats in the corner of the dining room. The wood paneling shone in the dim lighting, bright from a recent cleaning. I smiled at the homey-ness of it all.

I watched as Jesse swept the floors near the bar, looking for dust that wasn’t there. We were both bored out of our minds, due to a relatively slow night – no need for us both to be there – and nothing to do or take care of.

I was not, however looking forward to going home tonight.

It was the first night I had been back to work on the late shift. Jesse knew precisely why, and Troy didn’t ask or care, as long as someone was there when he needed them. I decided that a week would be long enough to get what happened out of my head. And then, at least, Jesse wouldn’t think I was avoiding him.

But then I ran into Sawyer this afternoon.

Everything I had thought about the world, the city, was turned just a little bit sideways by what he had said. He wasn’t human. If someone had told me that 8 days ago, I would have laughed in their face. And maybe I still might, if they said it completely like that. But after seeing those… those things on the subway, and knowing that Jesse saw them too, and then talking to Sawyer...

It was something I couldn’t deny anymore.

I glanced around the bar, bored. My eyes landed on a shiny object – Jesse’s laptop was on one of the shelves behind the bar. He had come rushing in from class today. I remembered him mentioning earlier in his shift that he had a massive paper due Monday, and therefore was toting his laptop everywhere with him so that he could work on it when he had a second to spare. I bit my lip – I had an idea, but I’m not sure it was a good one.

“Hey, Jess?” I called. He looked up, a little surprised. “Can I borrow your laptop for a sec? I need to check something.” I played with a strand of my hair in hopes that I wouldn’t look like I was up to no good.

He chuckled a little under his breath. “Yeah, sure.” He thought for a second, and then added, “But don’t open the files on my desktop. They’re… uh… private.”

I froze with one hand on the laptop, regretting this idea entirely. God knows what was in those.

“Um… Alright.”

As I opened the computer and launched the browser, my brain was screaming with second thoughts. Not about what might be in Jesse’s hidden files, but what I might find in the world’s knowledge database – the internet. If something exists, it has to be on there somewhere. The problem was – did I really want to find it?

Before I could talk myself out of it, I started typing.

Glowing eyes|

I stared at it for a second, thinking about how pathetic this was. This really was stupid. I bit my lip and hit enter, crossing my fingers that nothing would come up. As I combed through the results, I found nothing all that useful to what I had wanted. Most were pictures of cats and poor reflections, others were Photoshop tutorials, and even still some were just cartoons. Nothing to do with people.

I let out a small sigh of relief.

But then, as I scrolled down to the bottom of the first page, I noticed a link that made my blood run cold.

Reaper.
A human-like creature. Nocturnal – doesn’t sleep. Eyes glow in the dark. Source of energy: human spirit. Location: Unknown.

I suddenly felt my breathing become shallow as I read the definition. With a shaky hand, I clicked on it, which brought me to a website that I never imagined. It was dark, with red and white text, and it was completely about supernatural beings. There were articles about vampires, werewolves, anything in myths a person could think of. And there, nestled in with all these made-up descriptions, was an article about something that I had seen for myself.

My head began to spin. Reaper? I’d never even heard of something like that. Why would a creature like that even exist?

I began to read on, curiosity suddenly sparked. But there was a strange feeling in my stomach, a feeling of nausea – afraid of what else there was to know.

‘Reapers emerged during the bubonic plague,’ the article read. ‘It is believed that they are, in fact, the cause of it, which was hidden from public record after the present generation of historians died. Eyewitness accounts report of human beings, super humans, with glowing eyes who appeared after sunset in large villages. There are no existing reports on how Reapers attack, only that, when they do, it is always fatal. The name Reaper was originally derived from the Latin word rapina, meaning a robbery, because the creatures rob their victims of their souls. The word later evolved to Reaper, due to the popular saying “reap what you sow.” All that is known for sure about these creatures is that they are everywhere, and should be avoided at all costs.’

“Red?”

I gasped and slammed the laptop shut, clutching my chest.

“Jesus, don’t do that!” I hissed, barely able to get the words out.

Jesse smiled sadly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were so wrapped up in it.” He thought for a second, watching, as I straightened out my now-wrinkled shirt and tried to calm my erratic breathing. “What were you looking up, anyway?”

I bit my lip, internally debating whether to tell him the truth or not. On one hand, he had experienced the attack with me – he knew these creatures existed. I had seen the way he jumped at loud noises, how scared he was the morning after. Surely I owed him an explanation if I knew something about the night that had been haunting the both of us for a week, right?

On the other hand, I had promised Sawyer I wouldn’t say anything. To anyone. Despite the fact that I barely knew him, there was something about him that told me that I should listen, at least this once. There was obviously a lot that I didn’t know… Maybe it would be safer to keep the information a secret. Perhaps more problems would arise if Jesse knew. Perhaps he’d be in danger. I couldn’t handle that on my conscience.

“The weather report,” I lied, opening the computer and quickly closing the browser before he could check. “It’s supposed to rain again. Can you believe this? It’s only September.”

Jesse gave me a funny look. “Why are you flaring your nostrils?”

My eyes widened and I quickly covered up my nose, cursing silently. “Look, Jess, I have to head home, it’s getting late, and I –“ I cut off, suddenly unable to finish the sentence. I don’t want to be out this late.

He seemed to understand. He nodded slowly as I handed him his laptop. I patted him on the shoulder and walked away, heading towards my backpack and my coat, completely ready to leave for the night. As I stepped out into the cold, brisk air, my thoughts began to wander again.

It had been a week since I had really, truly, been alone at night. Though Mandi and Fitch didn’t know the whole truth, they knew that I had been acting strange since the attack, and made sure that one of them was around at all times, just to be sure. They didn’t press for details, but they knew that I had been on the subway at some point on the night of the attack. They just didn’t know how very close I was to it. This, I realized later, was a good thing, but it put a strain on Mandi’s relationship with me.

Mandi had always been my confidante, the one person I could trust with everything. It killed me, just like it killed her a little, that I was hiding something from her, even something dangerous. She wanted to be there for me in the only way she knew how. But I didn’t want her involved in all of this. I couldn’t stand it if something were to happen to her.

I was jolted out of my thoughts as I got on the subway. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There were two people in my car, both average people. It was as if nothing had happened a week ago, but it had. And it seemed as though I was the only one who remembered.

As I studied the man sitting down the bench from me, I noticed his clothes were covered in grey paint. I was reminded then of Fitch, and his tendency to always be covered in the stuff. Fitch had been so good to me over the past week – he was constantly around, even taking days off of work to be with me. I hadn’t asked him to, but when I talked to him about it, he just said something about needing a vacation anyway. I smiled a little at the thought of him.

I got off the train without issue. My inner conscience breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that now, at least, I’d be able to carry on with my life at least somewhat in the same way I had before.

I had walked three blocks from the subway station when I glanced behind me, more out of habit than anything.

A man walked about thirty feet behind me, wearing a studded jacket and smoking a long, ashy cigarette.

I didn’t think much of him at first – people walked around in this part of town all the time.

But then his footsteps got decidedly closer. I glanced behind, and the distance between us had halved. Facing forward, I began to understand that this guy was following me. I felt my breath quicken slightly as I clutched my bag closer to my chest, ready to act. I had mentally prepared myself for this before moving to New York.

He was five steps away. Four. Three. Two. One.

And then he passed me, walking by me without so much as a sideways glace.

I exhaled loudly, stopping dead in my tracks. I felt myself blush with embarrassment, even though no one had known what was going through my head. How could I be so stupid? I was just being paranoid, that’s all. I was still jumpy from the subway ride. I couldn’t seriously think that everyone was out to get me, could I?

I smiled to myself. No, I couldn’t.

But just as this thought passed through my brain, four rough hands seized my biceps, yanking me into the alley that I was passing by. I screamed, but it was soon muffled by a gag, and I came face to face with two dirty, burly men.

“What a pretty little thing you are.”