A Day Better Spent

January 15, 2010

in Horror

by Kat Heckenbach

It started as a tingling in my hand.

I looked at the clock. Nearly midnight. No wonder. I’d been working since eight a.m. I was exhausted. Four hours of meetings, followed by lunch—which of course is just another word for a meeting with food. My ear actually started ringing from being on the phone for so long in the afternoon. And the paperwork that needed to be done for this account had taken over my office.

I should have at least taken a break for dinner, instead of swigging reheated coffee and eating that granola bar I’d found in the back of my desk drawer.

But the deadline loomed, so I flexed my fingers, shook my arm, and went back to scribbling on the notepad next to my computer.

The tingling didn’t stop. Instead, it grew in intensity and began to move up my arm and into my shoulder, which was when the pain in the middle of my back hit as well.

I would have screamed if I could have breathed properly. The room swayed as a vice tightened around my chest. My right hand flew up and clawed at my shirt. Sweat poured from my face and neck.

I’m going to die. I’m having a heart attack, and I’m going to die…

The chair surged out from underneath me, and I landed on my knees, gasping. The room swayed again, and my head hit the edge of the desk. Oh, God, I’m dying. Not now…not today! Why today?

And then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I needed to shout, to cry out and let them know what was happening. Why weren’t they speaking? Why weren’t they helping? Don’t just stand there holding my shoulder! Call 911!

My forehead seared from the pain as it pressed harder into the edge of the desk. I tried to push myself up, but my strength had fled.

Please, not today…I don’t want to die today…

And then, suddenly, it stopped. The pain, the tingling, the pressure—it all disappeared. I gulped in a breath. The sweat on my face, neck and chest felt cool. I pushed myself back, and knelt on the floor in front of my chair.

The person who had touched my shoulder was cloaked in black so that I couldn’t see his face. My shoulder felt unusually warm where his hand had been. I blinked and willed myself to speak.

“Who are you?”

Without seeing his face, I knew he smiled. It sent chills down my spine.

I expected the man to speak in a haunting, gravelly voice as images of the Grim Reaper played in my head. But the voice that emanated from underneath the black hood was melodic and deep. I would even say beautiful.

“That is not important. And it’s not something you would understand anyway.”

I looked around the room, trying to absorb what was happening. Something wasn’t right. Everything was monochromatic, shades of sepia like an old photograph. I scrunched my eyes shut and then opened them again, but nothing had changed.

Maybe I did die.

That would’ve explained the sudden change. No more pain, no more tingling, and the presence of the cloaked figure.

I looked back at him and forced the words out. “Am I dead?”

His laughter was like the roar of the ocean. Frightening and calming at the same time.

“No,” he said. “I’ve…put a stop to that. I’ve come to offer you something.” He didn’t move, and didn’t speak again until the silence became maddening. Finally, as I was about to ask him what the offer was, he continued. “I can give you today to live over again. But you must tell me where you would spend it.”

I scanned the room. Mountains of paperwork piled on my desk. A wall of file cabinets. Shelves full of books, not one of them containing anything fun. My wife’s picture on the corner of my desk.

Ex-wife, I reminded myself. Karen had left me.

“Why?” I had asked Karen when she made the announcement two days ago.

She had looked at me with empty eyes. “I can’t compete with your work anymore.”

The movers came this morning while I got ready for work. I did nothing to stop them.

I looked up at the figure and ran my hand through my hair.

“You can do that?” I asked. It sounded stupid. But I knew without a doubt this was no human in front of me. I felt his presence in my mind, as though we were speaking out loud only as a formality.

“You’re correct,” his voice said in my head. “We don’t need to speak out loud. And, yes, I can do that.” I felt him smile again.

I didn’t need to think about the question. Not for a split second. This was my chance to start over. I’d quit my job and stop Karen from leaving. I’d do anything to make it up to her. We had enough money in the bank to live comfortably for years, if we sold the mausoleum we called a house and bought something smaller. We could move to the country and start the family she had always wanted.

Again, the sensation of smiling.

“Make it so,” came his voice inside my head.

* * *

My eyes opened to the familiar surroundings of my bedroom. I’d been dreaming, of course. It felt so real, but I shook my head. Ridiculous. The Grim Reaper visiting me and promising to let me live the day over. Yes, it was only a dream.

I felt a smile, and deep, beautiful laughter echoed in the back of my mind.

I turned and looked at my still-open laptop sitting on the nightstand. With a touch of a key the screen flickered to life. And there it was in the bottom corner—yesterday’s date.

Clanging noises carried through the wall. Familiar noises. They were exactly as I had remembered from yesterday morning. This morning. Karen was in the kitchen making scrambled eggs. And the movers would be here in twenty minutes.

I opened my email and typed a quick note to the president of the company, informing him of my resignation. If I’d called, his secretary would have put me straight through and he would have argued. Maybe even offered me more money to stay. I laughed, jumped up and ran to the kitchen.

“Karen, I need to talk to you. It’s really important.”

She kept her back to me as she stirred eggs around in the skillet. “The movers will be here any minute, John. There’s nothing more to say.”

“I just quit my job.”

Her arm stopped moving. “Very funny. Do you really think telling me that is—”

“I’m serious.”

She turned around. I stepped closer to her and leaned against the counter. I wanted to grab her, hug her, kiss her…but it was too soon. The reality of what I said needed to sink in.

“I just sent an email to Ted. I quit. No more job. No more competition.”

She blinked and stared at me. And blinked again. The eggs began to smoke and I reached over and turned the burner off, but Karen just kept staring.

“We can sell the house. I’ll call a realtor and we’ll put it on the market today. We can get in the car and drive to the country and start looking for another house.”

Karen put her hand in front of her mouth.

“You’re serious? You quit your job? For real?”

I nodded.

Karen’s eyes glistened with tears. I wrapped my arms around her and felt her head lean into my shoulder. I realized it had been ages since she’d done that.

* * *

The movers were rather disgruntled about us canceling at the last minute. But after I stuffed several twenties into each of their hands, their moods lightened. It was nothing compared to my mood, though. Another day, another chance at life. No more crazy hours or stress. No heart attack. I whistled as I showered and shaved.

Karen rustled around in the second bedroom, and then her footsteps echoed down the hall toward the living room. When I joined her, she was sitting on the couch with her hands folded in her lap and her foot tapping nervously. She looked—and I felt—as though we were heading out on our first date.

As promised, I called a realtor and gave her all the information she needed to put our house on the market. Contracts would have to wait until the next day. Karen grabbed my hand and practically dragged me to the car.

“Let’s head north on Main,” she said, “toward that cute little town with the big, white church. There’s a house I saw in the paper the other day. It’s on ten acres, and it’s got a huge front porch.”

“You’ve been looking for houses in the paper?” I asked as I turned the key and the car’s engine roared to life. Her smile dropped, and I realized, of course she’s been looking at houses.

“I’d rather have been looking at them for us,” she said. “I was really only looking for apartments…for me…but I always seemed to wander—” Her voice cracked, and she cupped her face with her hands.

“Karen, please don’t cry. I totally deserve everything you’ve done. But things are different now. Nothing is going to be the same anymore.”

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, and smiled at me.

“There’s something about your voice that tells me you really mean that, John. Can you tell me what caused this big change?”

I put the car in drive and pulled forward. As I turned out of the driveway onto our road I said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

* * *

The house turned out to be everything Karen wanted, and we contacted the realtor and told her to offer the owners full price. Then we headed off to the nearby state park and walked the nature path for two hours.

The trees surrounding us felt like an enchanted forest. Karen clung to my arm as we walked, chattering away. The brightness I had loved so much had returned to her eyes, and my heart sank with the knowledge that I was the reason it had dimmed for so many years.

We ate lunch at a bistro we hadn’t been to since college, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off Karen’s smile. How long had it been since she’d smiled like that? At me? I reached over and took her hand, and noticed she still wore her wedding band. Even after telling me she was leaving, she would have left it on until the day the divorce finalized. I’m not sure how I knew that, but I knew. I vowed to make sure that band never left her finger.

The day passed with laughter and tears, shopping, a walk downtown, and dinner at our favorite sushi bar. Karen never looked more beautiful. I thought of all the days we could have spent together, doing these very things. All the wasted hours, buried in paperwork, ignoring Karen’s calls when I was on the other line, romantic dinners I missed because of late-night meetings.

I thought of the empty fourth bedroom that Karen had talked about wanting to use as a nursery. But children never came. At first, it may have been providence that had kept us from conceiving, but for months it came down to one thing—I no longer shared a bed with her.

Her voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

“What are you thinking? You have the strangest expression…”

I set down my chopsticks and gripped her hand across the table.

“There’s one more thing that would make today absolutely perfect.”

Her left eyebrow rose, and her head tilted. She smiled, and then bit her lip. “And….what would that be.”

I felt her toe slide up the inside of my calf.

* * *

Karen’s hair felt like silk. Her breathing was deep and steady, and sweat glistened on her forehead in the dim light. In two hours we’d made up for months of no love-making. She had warned me as we’d slipped under the covers that she was still tracking her cycle.

“I don’t even need the stupid thermometer anymore,” she’d said. “And it’s only fair to tell you that I’m ovulating.”

“Perfect,” I’d whispered.

As I stroked her hair, I hoped more than anything she’d get pregnant. I swept a strand of hair behind her ear, and ran my thumb along her cheek.

My fingers began to tingle.

I glanced at the clock. Almost midnight.

Nooooo…

A vice squeezed my chest. I pulled the sheets off and slid over the side of the bed. Gasping, I crumpled on the floor.

A shadow appeared in my peripheral vision, and I felt someone smiling. I looked up, breathless, digging my fingers into the carpet.

I couldn’t speak, but I knew he could hear my thoughts.

Why? I changed everything! You said you were giving me another chance!

“No, I said I would let you relive today.”

But—

The frightful, soothing feeling of the ocean roar overcame me.

“Quit whining, John. You must admit, it was a day better spent.”

horror

About the Author

Kat Heckenbach is a freelance writer, homeschool mom, and magna cum laude graduate of the University of Tampa (Biology). Her short fiction ranges from light-hearted fantasy to dark and disturbing. You can enter her world and learn about her novels and other writing at www.findingangel.com and www.kat-findingangel.blogspot.com.

©2009 Kat Heckenbach

It started as a tingling in my hand.
I looked at the clock. Nearly midnight. No wonder. I’d been working since eight a.m. I was exhausted. Four hours of meetings, followed by lunch—which of course is just another word for a meeting with food. My ear actually started ringing from being on the phone for so long in the afternoon. And the paperwork that needed to be done for this account had taken over my office.
I should have at least taken a break for dinner, instead of swigging reheated coffee and eating that granola bar I’d found in the back of my desk drawer.
But the deadline loomed, so I flexed my fingers, shook my arm, and went back to scribbling on the notepad next to my computer.
The tingling didn’t stop. Instead, it grew in intensity and began to move up my arm and into my shoulder, which was when the pain in the middle of my back hit as well.
I would have screamed if I could have breathed properly. The room swayed as a vice tightened around my chest. My right hand flew up and clawed at my shirt. Sweat poured from my face and neck.
I’m going to die. I’m having a heart attack, and I’m going to die…
The chair surged out from underneath me, and I landed on my knees, gasping. The room swayed again, and my head hit the edge of the desk. Oh, God, I’m dying. Not now…not today! Why today?
And then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I needed to shout, to cry out and let them know what was happening. Why weren’t they speaking? Why weren’t they helping? Don’t just stand there holding my shoulder! Call 911!
My forehead seared from the pain as it pressed harder into the edge of the desk. I tried to push myself up, but my strength had fled.
Please, not today…I don’t want to die today…
And then, suddenly, it stopped. The pain, the tingling, the pressure—it all disappeared. I gulped in a breath. The sweat on my face, neck and chest felt cool. I pushed myself back, and knelt on the floor in front of my chair.
The person who had touched my shoulder was cloaked in black so that I couldn’t see his face. My shoulder felt unusually warm where his hand had been. I blinked and willed myself to speak.
“Who are you?”
Without seeing his face, I knew he smiled. It sent chills down my spine.
I expected the man to speak in a haunting, gravelly voice as images of the Grim Reaper played in my head. But the voice that emanated from underneath the black hood was melodic and deep. I would even say beautiful.
“That is not important. And it’s not something you would understand anyway.”
I looked around the room, trying to absorb what was happening. Something wasn’t right. Everything was monochromatic, shades of sepia like an old photograph. I scrunched my eyes shut and then opened them again, but nothing had changed.
Maybe I did die.
That would’ve explained the sudden change. No more pain, no more tingling, and the presence of the cloaked figure.
I looked back at him and forced the words out. “Am I dead?”
His laughter was like the roar of the ocean. Frightening and calming at the same time.
“No,” he said. “I’ve…put a stop to that. I’ve come to offer you something.” He didn’t move, and didn’t speak again until the silence became maddening. Finally, as I was about to ask him what the offer was, he continued. “I can give you today to live over again. But you must tell me where you would spend it.”
I scanned the room. Mountains of paperwork piled on my desk. A wall of file cabinets. Shelves full of books, not one of them containing anything fun. My wife’s picture on the corner of my desk.
Ex-wife, I reminded myself. Karen had left me.
“Why?” I had asked Karen when she made the announcement two days ago.
She had looked at me with empty eyes. “I can’t compete with your work anymore.”
The movers came this morning while I got ready for work. I did nothing to stop them.
I looked up at the figure and ran my hand through my hair.
“You can do that?” I asked. It sounded stupid. But I knew without a doubt this was no human in front of me. I felt his presence in my mind, as though we were speaking out loud only as a formality.
“You’re correct,” his voice said in my head. “We don’t need to speak out loud. And, yes, I can do that.” I felt him smile again.
I didn’t need to think about the question. Not for a split second. This was my chance to start over. I’d quit my job and stop Karen from leaving. I’d do anything to make it up to her. We had enough money in the bank to live comfortably for years, if we sold the mausoleum we called a house and bought something smaller. We could move to the country and start the family she had always wanted.
Again, the sensation of smiling.
“Make it so,” came his voice inside my head.
***
My eyes opened to the familiar surroundings of my bedroom. I’d been dreaming, of course. It felt so real, but I shook my head. Ridiculous. The Grim Reaper visiting me and promising to let me live the day over. Yes, it was only a dream.
I felt a smile, and deep, beautiful laughter echoed in the back of my mind.
I turned and looked at my still-open laptop sitting on the nightstand. With a touch of a key the screen flickered to life. And there it was in the bottom corner—yesterday’s date.
Clanging noises carried through the wall. Familiar noises. They were exactly as I had remembered from yesterday morning. This morning. Karen was in the kitchen making scrambled eggs. And the movers would be here in twenty minutes.
I opened my email and typed a quick note to the president of the company, informing him of my resignation. If I’d called, his secretary would have put me straight through and he would have argued. Maybe even offered me more money to stay. I laughed, jumped up and ran to the kitchen.
“Karen, I need to talk to you. It’s really important.”
She kept her back to me as she stirred eggs around in the skillet. “The movers will be here any minute, John. There’s nothing more to say.”
“I just quit my job.”
Her arm stopped moving. “Very funny. Do you really think telling me that is—”
“I’m serious.”
She turned around. I stepped closer to her and leaned against the counter. I wanted to grab her, hug her, kiss her…but it was too soon. The reality of what I said needed to sink in.
“I just sent an email to Ted. I quit. No more job. No more competition.”
She blinked and stared at me. And blinked again. The eggs began to smoke and I reached over and turned the burner off, but Karen just kept staring.
“We can sell the house. I’ll call a realtor and we’ll put it on the market today. We can get in the car and drive to the country and start looking for another house.”
Karen put her hand in front of her mouth.
“You’re serious? You quit your job? For real?”
I nodded.
Karen’s eyes glistened with tears. I wrapped my arms around her and felt her head lean into my shoulder. I realized it had been ages since she’d done that.
***
The movers were rather disgruntled about us canceling at the last minute. But after I stuffed several twenties into each of their hands, their moods lightened. It was nothing compared to my mood, though. Another day, another chance at life. No more crazy hours or stress. No heart attack. I whistled as I showered and shaved.
Karen  rustled around in the second bedroom, and then her footsteps echoed down the hall toward the living room. When I joined her, she was sitting on the couch with her hands folded in her lap and her foot tapping nervously. She looked—and I felt—as though we were heading out on our first date.
As promised, I called a realtor and gave her all the information she needed to put our house on the market. Contracts would have to wait until the next day. Karen grabbed my hand and practically dragged me to the car.
“Let’s head north on Main,” she said, “toward that cute little town with the big, white church. There’s a house I saw in the paper the other day. It’s on ten acres, and it’s got a huge front porch.”
“You’ve been looking for houses in the paper?” I asked as I turned the key and the car’s engine roared to life. Her smile dropped, and I realized, of course she’s been looking at houses.
“I’d rather have been looking at them for us,” she said. “I was really only looking for apartments…for me…but I always seemed to wander—” Her voice cracked, and she cupped her face with her hands.
“Karen, please don’t cry. I totally deserve everything you’ve done. But things are different now. Nothing is going to be the same anymore.”
She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, and smiled at me.
“There’s something about your voice that tells me you really mean that, John. Can you tell me what caused this big change?”
I put the car in drive and pulled forward. As I turned out of the driveway onto our road I said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
***
The house turned out to be everything Karen wanted, and we contacted the realtor and told her to offer the owners full price. Then we headed off to the nearby state park and walked the nature path for two hours.
The trees surrounding us felt like an enchanted forest. Karen clung to my arm as we walked, chattering away. The brightness I had loved so much had returned to her eyes, and my heart sank with the knowledge that I was the reason it had dimmed for so many years.
We ate lunch at a bistro we hadn’t been to since college, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off Karen’s smile. How long had it been since she’d smiled like that? At me? I reached over and took her hand, and noticed she still wore her wedding band. Even after telling me she was leaving, she would have left it on until the day the divorce finalized. I’m not sure how I knew that, but I knew. I vowed to make sure that band never left her finger.
The day passed with laughter and tears, shopping, a walk downtown, and dinner at our favorite sushi bar. Karen never looked more beautiful. I thought of all the days we could have spent together, doing these very things. All the wasted hours, buried in paperwork, ignoring Karen’s calls when I was on the other line, romantic dinners I missed because of late-night meetings.
I thought of the empty fourth bedroom that Karen had talked about wanting to use as a nursery. But children never came. At first, it may have been providence that had kept us from conceiving, but for months it came down to one thing—I no longer shared a bed with her.
Her voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
“What are you thinking? You have the strangest expression…”
I set down my chopsticks and gripped her hand across the table.
“There’s one more thing that would make today absolutely perfect.”
Her left eyebrow rose, and her head tilted. She smiled, and then bit her lip. “And….what would that be.”
I felt her toe slide up the inside of my calf.
***
Karen’s hair felt like silk. Her breathing was deep and steady, and sweat glistened on her forehead in the dim light. In two hours we’d made up for months of no love-making. She had warned me as we’d slipped under the covers that she was still tracking her cycle.
“I don’t even need the stupid thermometer anymore,” she’d said. “And it’s only fair to tell you that I’m ovulating.”
“Perfect,” I’d whispered.
As I stroked her hair, I hoped more than anything she’d get pregnant. I swept a strand of hair behind her ear, and ran my thumb along her cheek.
My fingers began to tingle.
I glanced at the clock. Almost midnight.
Nooooo…
A vice squeezed my chest. I pulled the sheets off and slid over the side of the bed. Gasping, I crumpled on the floor.
A shadow appeared in my peripheral vision, and I felt someone smiling. I looked up, breathless, digging my fingers into the carpet.
I couldn’t speak, but I knew he could hear my thoughts.
Why? I changed everything! You said you were giving me another chance!
“No, I said I would let you relive today.”
But—
The frightful, soothing feeling of the ocean roar overcame me.
“Quit whining, John. You must admit, it was a day better spent.”

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