Grim Reaper 01 - Embrace the Grim Reaper

icing flower.
    “Thank you. Who’s birthday was it? One of the children?”
    “Oh, no, baby,” Loretta said. “It was Eric’s, the dear boy.”
    “And how old is he?”
    Johnny pursed his lips, and Loretta stared at Casey’s cake. “Somewhere in his twenties. Or is he thirty now? He didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but he’s such a precious child of God we didn’t want to miss it. Thank you Jesus!”
    Casey ate her cake, but didn’t ask any more questions.
    Now she stood outside after retrieving her bag from the locker room, and for the second time in one day she had a full belly. The air in the darkening evening had chilled, and Casey pulled a jacket from her pack, zipping it up to her chin. She looked back into the building, but the lights were off, and everything was quiet.
    Time to find somewhere for the night.
    She heaved her bag onto her back and started down the sidewalk. She should’ve asked the others where to stay, and wondered why she didn’t. Forgot. Or didn’t want to sound needy. Whichever it was, she was paying for it now as she cast an eye toward the starless sky. She hoped it wasn’t about to rain again.
    A few blocks down the street she found an enclosed—and apparently unused—bus stop, and she stepped in to look at the map on the wall. An X designated where she stood, but no names, other than streets, gave her any information of which colored square might be a hotel. Giving up on that, she perused the information sheets taped to the wall. Advertisements for baby-sitting, with phone number tabs to pull off, an announcement of a church fish fry for the previous Friday, and a schedule of the local high school’s fall sports. There was also a call for garage sale items to benefit the family of a woman named Ellen Schneider, who “left us before her time.”
    Casey sucked in her breath as she read the fine print below the announcement. Ellen, a resident of the town, had died suddenly the week before, leaving her two school-age children parentless, with no father in the picture. No details about her death. No explanations. Casey gritted her teeth. Death must’ve been especially bored. A young single mother? Sudden death? Casey’s breath came fast and hard, and she pulled her eyes from the poster, concentrating on her heartbeat. a - One. a-Two. a-Three.
    She forced herself to look beyond the garage sale notice, and continued past a homemade sign depicting a lost cat named Snowball, to yet one more faded announcement, this time for play auditions, held almost two weeks earlier. Twelfth Night . A rather strange choice for a dying town. But then, maybe they needed all the humor they could get.
    The paper fluttered in the breeze, two of the four corners ripped from the tape, and Casey held it down to read it. Open try-outs, it said. Anyone interested was to come by the Albion Theater one of the two nights. Rehearsals would begin the next week. Which would be last week, Casey thought. She found the theater on the map, its address plainly stated on the announcement. She looked at the sky. Wasn’t raining yet. And maybe they were rehearsing. It would give her something to do other than camp out in a hotel room, watching cable and being angry with Death.
    It wasn’t hard to find the Albion. In fact, she’d already passed it when she first got to town, only she’d thought it was a movie theater. It probably had been, in its earlier days. Posters covered the front windows, with photos of past productions displayed prominently. The Foreigner, Little Women, Cheaper by the Dozen . Casey swallowed. Looked away. Found the front door, and went in.
    The lobby was dark, with only emergency lights illuminating the open space. Benches lined the walls, and a display stand held an unfinished board showing a few of the play’s cast. A stack of loose photos lay on the floor, waiting for positioning on the sign. Community production, Casey thought, the visible headshots just missing the mark of professionals.
    Voices seeped through the double doors from what Casey imagined was the theater space. She stood with her ear against the crack, listening for a moment before easing one side open and slipping in.
    The musty smell hit her, almost a physical assault, and she closed her eyes, memories cascading through her mind as she stood in the aisle, her hands grasping one of the seats. The voices of the actors drifted over her, underscored by the quiet hum of the house lights, and slowly she