The Grim Reaper - Part II

Last week, we all did our own Part I of a story. This week, we had to pick somebody else's and write a part II... I picked out: 

The Grim Reaper by Priscilla King

Enjoy!

The more Blake worked on his Halloween costume, the less it seemed to feel like one. He tried it on to see if it fitted – to see if it ‘fell’ in the right places, felt right and didn’t pull where it shouldn’t and gave him the freedom to carry and swing a scythe – as well as carry a sickle in the folds of the long, dark and menacing robe he had created.

He had done more homework on the sickle and found out that the sickle was a part of the Grim Reaper’s costume – but nobody really called attention to is in paintings and prints as they should. So, in the last week, he had gone onto ebay searching for ancient farming equipment – and was amazed to find the very items he was looking for to complete his costume… the real deal, not the plastic hokey crap things at ‘Maddie’s Costume Store’ in town.

This pleased Blake to no end.

He was going to have the most original costume, “Hehehe, they’ll think it’s a costume…” in town. Yes, he was going to get his own back for what had happened to him…

Shrugging into it, he felt so comfortable. The robe seemed to mold to his wiry, tall frame; the bottom dressy part of it appeared as though it was lashing in amongst its own floor-level mini-tornadoes just above the floor that nobody could see.

Looking up at the full-length mirror in his bedroom, he noticed his face was mostly hidden in the shadow of the large hood. No, he wouldn’t need the white mask he thought he’d needed before; as the lower part of his face would be enough to freak out anyone if he grinned and said nothing to anyone.

Aaah, yes! That’s it… he even freaked himself out just a little when he did that, “Much better than that stupid mask. I’ll be able to see their faces when I…”

At the window lurked a sinister shadow, watching him. This shadow knew how much arduous pain Blake had been through – how much suffering he had endured – in his short, seemingly insignificant – life. It was time to call due all that was owed to this young man; after all, he was going to all this trouble to hand-stitch such an ornate costume on All Hallows Eve just to get even with everyone he knew… why not? He wanted to have some fun!

A sliver of a cold chill whispered down the Blake’s spine. He stopped and spun, listened for anyone who may be returning early tonight. When he didn’t hear a car or the front door slam, he shrugged away the weird feeling that he wasn’t alone (figuring that it was the robe he was wearing giving him the heebie-jeebies and nothing else) and turned back to the mirror.

Blake felt comfortable in this, yes, this was no longer a costume he had taken three weeks to stitch together by hand – this was now his uniform. This was how he felt on the inside every single day he was alive on this planet, in this depressing little town – where every adult treated him like he was their own play thing, sex toy and what he said never mattered to anyone. This was his Black Dog from deep inside his soul worn on the outside for all the world to see; and he was damned proud of it – and he never wanted to take it off.

Looking over at the scythe leaning in the corner of the room next to his wardrobe – behind his bedroom door – he knew in three day’s time, it would be slick with the blood of everyone who ever crossed him. On his desk, on top of his science text book, laid the sickle. It too was ready with a new leather cord through its handle, looped underneath it; to be used like a whip when he was ready to pull it free from the hidden folds of …

…there was that chill again, this time there was a voice: “Oh good, you’ve fully resigned yourself to who you truly are, Blake.”

“Who is that?” he turned looking into the semi-darkness of the bedroom, but seeing nobody.

“You’ve made my costume so well,” whispered a cool breeze in his left ear, “And collected together my items as well, and yet you do not speak my name?”

Blake turned in the direction of where the voice whispered, “Show yourself you coward!”

“Big words for such a little boy.” The shadow stepped behind him as it stood behind him, “However, you will learn to take me in. Now, it’s time for me to a well-earned holiday and teach you the ways of who I am.”

Blake felt an icy hand grip his left shoulder; and a deep, dark, ancient evil enter him. It was darker than the things that had happened to him when he was young; darker than any war he’d seen on the news; darker than what Hitler did to the Jews… and then it spoke again – this time, in his mind, “Good evening, Blake. I see your costume is coming along very well. I’ve been admiring you from afar for some time now, but from now on you and I are going to become very close. Allow me to introduce myself: I am the Horseman who rides the White Horse. Have you guessed who I am? Some call me Death… I’d rather be called The Grim Reaper – it’s much more poetic.”

Sweat prickled his skin as panic froze in his gut. Blake tried to take off the robe, but found it couldn’t be removed now, “No,no,no,no,no!”

“Oh but yes! You want to conflict pain, Blake, and I’m here to help you do just that. And while you do, I’m on holidays. All you need to do is hold out your hand to the scythe and it’ll do your bidding.”

As though Blake had no self-control, his hand shot out to the tall, rusty scythe in the corner of the room and it shot over to him. At first, he started to cry, then howl in the darkness of his bedroom…