The Purger

  This story contains themes of death, murder, and sexual violence, with descriptions that might be considered gory by some readers.

           It is an average Thursday. Most of the world goes about their daily routines, blissfully unaware that, for the Stewart family, this Thursday is a life-changing day. Ashley Stewart, pregnant with her first child, is due to die—car accident. By all accounts, Ashley is a good person, a high school counselor, devoted to the children she serves, excited to start a family. The child, of course, has not even had a chance to experience life. Ashley’s death will cause ripples through the lives of her husband, her parents and in-laws, and the students who have come to rely on her at school. I hate taking the good ones, the young, and children, especially in something unexpected like an accident. The resulting grief and pain are difficult to watch, even for me, and often I end up returning to claim one or more from the same circle of friends or family. I try to make it as easy as possible on the person who has been chosen, taking them quickly with minimal physical and emotional pain. Still, though I know that my job is necessary, I am beginning to question the purpose behind it.

             I am what some call an angel of death. Appearing at the end of one’s earthly time to transition them from life to death, I have participated in more than my fair share of what humans call senseless deaths. I have begun to understand what they mean. Women during childbirth, children who have had too few years, sweet grannies and grandpas, men and women who have lived selfless lives contributing to their communities, these deaths make no sense to me. I have been assigned too few of those who deserve it—murderers, oppressors, warmongers, abusers, the hate-filled, the malicious, and the vile. If I must take a life, I would rather it not be a relative innocent. 

             Some say that death is a mercy. That premise rests on the assumption that there is something after death and that the something is good and pleasant, often described as heaven. I cannot speak to this. I am only an instrument of death. I never see any after other than the aftermath that befalls those who are left behind. For unexpected or seemingly premature deaths, the aftermath is never good or pleasant. Families fall apart when a child dies. Grief turns to anger that never leaves. Alcoholism, divorce, depression, and even suicide are all too common. I have watched it so often that I have begun to feel what I suppose is remorse about what I have done. Recently, I told my superior angels that I cannot handle these assignments anymore. I need my deaths to have a purpose, to better the world, not leave more destruction in their wake.

Thankfully, Ashley Stewart and her baby are my last assignments as a pure angel of death. I station myself at the intersection where I know the accident will occur and wait. Before long, I hear Ashley’s car coming northbound toward the intersection. Eastbound, the drunk driver, whose name I did not bother to learn, is speeding and weaving toward the intersection, oblivious to the light that has just turned red. To shield Ashley from what is coming, I distract her by beckoning a flash of light from the setting sun to the west at that exact moment, and I take her and her child immediately, so that they feel nothing but the comfort of my arms around them. Ashley sees and feels nothing of the accident. The transition is instantaneous and painless for both Ashley and baby. Singing gently to them like a mother bird, I wrap their souls carefully and lovingly in the prayers of their loved ones and safely deliver them to my superior for whatever will happen next.

Turning to the drunk driver, I listen for a while as he cries and moans in his mangled vehicle. I will not treat him as carefully as Ashley and her child. I can hear the human sirens approaching; they will try to save him. That is not going to happen today. The police and fire and rescue arrive, and I materialize as one of them. Explaining that Ashley appeared to be the victim of a drunk driver running a red light, I urge them to check on her vehicle first.

Meanwhile, I up the ante on the drunk driver. I know this was not his first time driving drunk nor was it his first time injuring someone. He paralyzed a teenager when he hit the boy’s car five years ago and is only one month into having his driver’s license back. Casually flicking my finger toward the engine block, an unearthly blue spark emanates from me and lights a fire beneath the mangled hood. The drunk driver begins to shriek and scream for help. A team of firefighters rushes over with their tools to work on his door. It is quite mangled, and I make sure that it is difficult to open, applying some invisible force against their efforts. His leg is broken and the door is pressed up against it, so every push and pull of the door causes him great pain. As the fire grows, he begins to hyperventilate and plead for his life, quite uselessly, though only I know that. Eventually, I tire of this game and allow them to pull him out of the car.

As he lies on the ground, with all the humans working on him, I return to my angelic form. Only the drunk driver can see me. I suppose I can be terrifying like this—tall, dark, hooded, with wings towering over me that can spread over twenty feet wide, scythe at the ready to rip souls away. Acting as if he is having a seizure, the drunk driver begins writhing on the ground, eyes wide, foaming at the mouth, attempting to get away from me. They all try to escape but never succeed. Pulling my scythe from beneath my cloak, I plunge it deep into his chest, seizing his soul and rending it from his body in one fell swoop. He shudders violently and then is still on the pavement beside the wreckage that remains of his life. I toss his soul in my “bad apple” basket and hand it to our apprentice angel to dispose of.

Returning to what serves as a home base for us, I begin to clean my scythe. I prefer to keep it clean in general, but especially so after the reaping of a “bad apple”. Their souls tend to defile everything they touch, even our gear. As I am cleaning, my superior approaches me with the news that I am being promoted. No more angel of death work for me. No more senseless deaths of innocents. Because of my special proclivity, and even flair, for the deaths of the “bad apples”, they are promoting me to destroying angel. I will now get to enact judgments and punishments full time. My subjects will be the truly vile and wicked, the predators, and the parasites of society, and my first assignment will be an absolute doozy – Brad Robbins.

Brad is a prolific serial killer, but the humans have not been able to catch him. He is responsible for 27 murders so far, raping and strangling young women and discarding their bodies in the woods like trash. His victims are underage runaways and prostitutes often not reported as missing or not high priority on law enforcement work lists. Brad thinks he is invincible. Tonight, death and his heart will have something to say about that.

Although it irritates me greatly, because I could not prevent it, Brad killed his last victim before I was promoted. Cheryl Marks was a beautiful, statuesque 17-year-old girl who had run away from an abusive home. Unfortunately, she ran right into Brad. One of my colleague angels, who has a heart for young runaways, took very good care of her. I know that her transition was as peaceful and painless as possible, despite Brad’s worst intentions. Brad will not have that luxury. I will make sure of it.

At 3 a.m., he lugs Cheryl’s body out of his house, wrapped in an area rug, and hoists it into the back of his van. I observe silently from the shadows. Wanting to make him feel uncomfortable, I dial up his heart rate ever so slightly. Brad begins to breathe more heavily, huffing and puffing as he works to get Cheryl’s body in the van. He knows dead weight is heavy, but he had thought the girl was fairly slender. Shaking his head, Brad returns inside for tools—a shovel, pickaxe, tarp. As he throws the tools into the back of the van, I point at his left arm, initiating a vague discomfort that at first he thinks is from lifting the body.

Brad hops in the driver’s seat, and I, unbeknownst to him, slip into the passenger seat. As he drives, I point at his head, starting up a cold sweat. Irritated, Brad punches at the controls of the van, trying to turn on the air conditioning. I smile to myself and slowly increase the pain in his arm and chest. Wiping at his brow and absentmindedly rubbing his arm, Brad drives distractedly to his graveyard in the woods.

When he arrives, he backs the van in as far as it will go. A little off his game due to the pain, Brad leaves the headlights on, shining through towards the road. There is still about a quarter mile to walk to the burial site. Brad takes the tools first and lays them out where he intends to dig Cheryl’s grave. As he walks, I increase his shortness of breath to the point where he must stop frequently to try to catch his breath. A nagging worry emerges in the back of his mind, but he brushes it aside. He has work to do. Pushing on, he returns and pulls Cheryl’s body roughly from the van feet first, allowing her head to smack on the ground. I am incensed by his insensitivity. He provides no dignity to these women even in death. He will receive no dignity, or mercy, from me either.

At this point, I cause his heart to spasm sharply as the blood vessels supplying it are blocked. A sharp, squeezing pain hits the middle of his chest, and he grabs at it as if at a life vest. The pain rips his breath from him momentarily, and he staggers wide-eyed and full of fear, perhaps for the first time in his life. I allow him to suffer this feeling for several moments, the pain, the inability to breathe, the sensations I am certain he hoped his victims felt. As he approaches fainting, I allow the sensations to ease up. The cold sweat returns, and Brad sits, breathing heavily.

“What in the hell was that?” he wonders aloud.

Brad sits quietly, gently breathing, testing the waters to see if the pain will return. When 10 minutes pass with nothing, Brad stands and returns to business. Grabbing Cheryl by the feet, he begins to drag her, gently this time, more out of fear for his health than out of respect, towards the burial ground. With each step, the body feels heavier. Alternately wiping his brow and clutching at her feet, Brad begins to huff and puff again. Once more, I increase his heart rate and the pain and radiate it into his jaw this time. As the pain becomes agony, Brad doubles over, unable to breathe, weak, and in severe distress. I send it in waves, intense, sharp, squeezing torment with cold sweats and lightheadedness that makes the earth spin. Unable to take any more, Brad collapses, heaving, across Cheryl’s body.

At that moment, I appear to him, dark and terrible, wings spread wide, brandishing my scythe. His eyes widen comically in a kind of terror that I suppose he has only witnessed and never experienced. His victims knew this kind of terror. It’s only fitting he should know it intimately as well. Brad struggles pathetically to breathe as the blood vessels feeding his heart close for good, the oxygen keeping him alive cut off.

I whisper to him, “This is how it feels to suffocate, Brad.”

I lift my scythe high into the air, towering above him, glinting in the moonlight. He stiffens and stares, his entire world reduced to the tip of my weapon.  

“And this is how it feels to die.”

I swing the scythe with all my might and plunge the blade deep inside him, hooking his soul, twisting and tearing it violently from his body in pieces. Unlike other souls I have taken, even the “bad apples”, his is foul—sour, sulfurous, and thicker than crude oil. I take my time with him, making sure it is painful, that he experiences every moment of terror, every moment without oxygen, every moment of knowing that death has won. When it is finally finished, I take the remnants of his slimy soul and toss them and the despoiled scythe in the trash bin I was given for my first day on the job. My assistant will take the trash to the incinerator at the end of my shift. Though it may seem wasteful, each of these judgment deaths require a new scythe – intensely sharp for maximum punishment and clean of the filth of the condemned souls that might interfere with my work on the next assignment.

The aftermath of Brad’s death was by far better than that of Ashley’s. The lights from Brad’s van catch the attention of a passing patrol car. The police find Brad’s body beside Cheryl’s. They search the woods and find his burial ground. The detectives who have been investigating him for years close their cases, and the families of his victims are finally able to provide their daughters with a proper burial. No one claims Brad’s body, and he receives a basic cremation with no mourners. On the contrary, the public practically celebrates his death, calling it karma.

However you describe my work, I am comfortable with it now. Meting out death in the most imaginatively painful ways to the detestable souls identified for judgment and bound for the incinerator is more fulfilling than I ever thought possible. I feel I am doing an actual service, taking out the proverbial garbage, as it were. Death is inevitable for all humans, but at least now I can feel as if my work strengthens the social fabric in some small way. I will never forget Ashley, or her child, but I am grateful that, because of her, I will never have to remove another shining light from the world again. Instead, I am here to purge the dross.