“I don’t want to admit what’s happening,” he told his therapist.639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT0MAs9FpNB
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.”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrUOSCu12pn
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.”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡalSlc22DUq
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. 639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvr7CMhCUmc
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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?”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡydaWCPirfC
“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.”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4pYzlpOt6K
“Don’t tell me the priest died,” the counselor leaned forward, engrossed.639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuOIZdhW3yg
“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?”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCZ1bUKwvI2
“So you think this is a string of correlated murders?”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbZBa7DStzo
“Doctor, what else could it be?” he insisted. “That’s why I’m here. To warn you.”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ29vNT7c8uw
“Me?” she froze, her eyes calculating.639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ88f27SK7l0
“You smiled at the last one,” he slowly nodded, “when I tried to tell you that something was unusual.”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ47d7VDWBed
“You weren’t speaking about the food,” it dawned on her as she clutched her chair.639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ19LW28vDkW
“At least several watched you from afar,” he said sorely. “I couldn’t make out who.”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSKHLgnfsjj
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. 639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf8DYUGahgo
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“Strange, though.”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEPLrKXyIJ0
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Her steel eyes transfixed on his serene stare. 639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQAjIx7Fl1b
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“What’s strange?”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOq8piyGwTv
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“Every time I caught them smiling, the killer did too.”639Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwSWelYUepO
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