“I don’t want to admit what’s happening,” he told his therapist.569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡixFOayCAni
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.”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4EF172z3yd
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.”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyicexjDzyu
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. 569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjaCSk6IWYx
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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?”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRH0NNFNjAp
“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.”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnIfW1QyVjB
“Don’t tell me the priest died,” the counselor leaned forward, engrossed.569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEChL5jCuQq
“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?”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB6yRE1wniK
“So you think this is a string of correlated murders?”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3qT6u7Xeu6
“Doctor, what else could it be?” he insisted. “That’s why I’m here. To warn you.”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoKWkctEDZp
“Me?” she froze, her eyes calculating.569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsIODpecwnf
“You smiled at the last one,” he slowly nodded, “when I tried to tell you that something was unusual.”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKpezpGlvSS
“You weren’t speaking about the food,” it dawned on her as she clutched her chair.569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCAJUb3YS2g
“At least several watched you from afar,” he said sorely. “I couldn’t make out who.”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgmXvBg0VHL
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. 569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcf7De1lAVC
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“Strange, though.”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWAGkYippHY
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Her steel eyes transfixed on his serene stare. 569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNcWSdX49bh
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“What’s strange?”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbt883syeiY
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“Every time I caught them smiling, the killer did too.”569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBJ6LM3TTeo
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