“I don’t want to admit what’s happening,” he told his therapist.571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsNqW38dEkj
She watched him struggle for words and intervened, “How long was this?”
He looked up at her, “For a while. In fact, I can’t be sure when it started. Long ago, or I hope to god, just recently.” It happened at the first funeral, the grandfather’s, the farthest back he could remember once he noticed something was eerie. It was always thought it was just the morbidity of the music, just the shine in the tears in the majority’s eyes. “Or it was just the maroon in the building that I never liked.”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrdLCL4VbRY
It was when someone was unfortunately caught smiling. A cousin had said something too wry. He writhed his hands, distraught in his face, “I remember the ill shock. At having never been given the chance to wash or return the clothes we wore to the interment several days before. At how could one of us have died so suddenly? It was almost too much. Garrett was so young. He drove recklessly over a bridge.” Rumors of either suicide or stupidity had spread like a whispering wind. “Then his ex-girlfriend smiled.”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ7H7kcWGMm
She wound up dead the next day, swollen from anaphylactic shock. Peanuts. The irony wasn’t lost on her snide older sister, who was pictured smiling in the background. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcQZrKqvkj7
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“That was when I realized why I was feeling déjà vu,” he started to insist before the counselor cleared her throat, saying: “Are you telling me that every time someone smiled at a funeral, they died?”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmh30dZBVnk
“Yes, that is what I’m telling you,” he paled. “I kept an ever watchful eye for who was next to smile, and who was watching, because somebody had to know. Somebody responsive enough to be pushed over the edge. Maybe somebody was testing them, making them smile on purpose. Then I overheard the theory of death being contagious in the family had casually gone around at Sharon’s funeral and it made me smile before I realized what I had just done. I looked around, rather wildly. When I was becoming certain that no one saw, Father Cade smiled at a quiet repartee in his ear. Everyone saw it.”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYqvGydVgGl
“Don’t tell me the priest died,” the counselor leaned forward, engrossed.571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlLwG6kSQ8U
“They had to summon another to do the funeral,” he rubbed his forehead, as if it could drive the headache away. “By now, half of us had given up on going to funerals. It baffled me. Is there an act more offensive than smiling at a funeral? Does this one get you murdered? Who’d kill for this small justice? The undertaker? Family? A ghost?”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8hyA5z6pd8
“So you think this is a string of correlated murders?”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhH0bBpGXNJ
“Doctor, what else could it be?” he insisted. “That’s why I’m here. To warn you.”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnfpmMEm6ru
“Me?” she froze, her eyes calculating.571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4U64jArGet
“You smiled at the last one,” he slowly nodded, “when I tried to tell you that something was unusual.”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeertKfOlXV
“You weren’t speaking about the food,” it dawned on her as she clutched her chair.571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjJUjpX5tfP
“At least several watched you from afar,” he said sorely. “I couldn’t make out who.”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzQ173epeRU
There was a moment’s pause. He caught a twitch in her taut face, a blink of her steel-colored eyes. She was thinking about her home in the mountains and her three children in her ex-husband’s custody. She was coming up with a plan of action. He murmured something that threw her off, something she never forgot. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1epHAdhVfY
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“Strange, though.”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN7U4gHTMWF
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Her steel eyes transfixed on his serene stare. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKkryhH1MiM
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“What’s strange?”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAmE5auS4nN
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“Every time I caught them smiling, the killer did too.”571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwHCKP7qbZy
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