The Last Testament of Crighton Smythe

  THE

  LAST

  TESTAMENT

  OF

  CRIGHTON SMYTHE

  Gavin Gardiner

  Copyright © 2021 Gavin Gardiner

  Content compiled for publication by Richard Mayers of Burton Mayers Books.

  Cover design by ebooklaunch.com

  First published by Burton Mayers Books 2021.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  The right of Gavin Gardiner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  A Print version of this book is available:

  ISBN: 1-8384845-5-2

  ISBN-13: 978-1-8384845-5-2

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.BurtonMayersBooks.com

  To those who so relentlessly support me in my pursuit of the nightmares of my mind, I salute you.

  Heather, Dad, Jamie, Hannah, John, Kyle, Derek, Rayner, Liliana, Miguel, Alana, Sibby, Miriam, Lari, Elliot, Becky, Tori, and everyone in between, I thank you all.

  A special thanks goes out to Craig and the team at Close to the Bone Publications for taking a chance on this tale in the first instance, and helping make Crighton what he is before his eventual emigration over to his current home at Burton Mayers Books. Crighton and myself owe a tremendous amount to the talented, dedicated, and patient professionals in both camps, and we offer our unending gratitude.

  And Mum: you’ve spent hours, days, weeks, and endless phone calls meticulously trawling through every word I’ve ever written. Amongst much else, thanks for always egging me on to ramp up the gore. Crighton’s your baby as much as mine, I’m afraid.

  A brutal and distressing strain of horror has been poured into the pages of this novella. Anyone reading should take a moment to consider whether this is a depth into which they should dive.

  I believe it is.

  I remember waiting for Mr. Rivera, who will die from a brain hemorrhage fourteen years and seven months from now, to return to his office so I could sneak out of Pleasance Heights. How odd to know the exact time and manner of everyone’s death but your own. Didn’t see mine coming and now here I am.

  My name is Crighton Smythe, and this is the story of how I died.

  Might as well start with Baby Buggy Lady. So I’ve left our apartment building and there I am, making my way down Delphi Street, trudging through the snow. It’s hard not to bash into people when you have your earplugs in and you’re looking up at the rooftops. See, I had this knack where I could see in folks’ faces exactly how and when they were going to die. It worked with hearing just a voice most times, too. Sometimes I felt like my brain was going to explode with all the death, so I wore the earplugs and kept my eyes to the rooftops as a way to dull the knack. I liked rooftops, so it was okay. You could get out onto the roof of our apartment then all the way down our street and round onto Jocasta Avenue if you followed the buildings. Livvy and I used to sit out on our roof all the time. Before we died, that is.

  So it’s pretty cold with all the snow, but I’m wearing the parka, gloves, and hat that Livvy – crappers, sorry, that’s my ma – gave me for our nights on the roof. Anyways, I’ve come out here to do something so I better get it done. I take a big bite of butter, pop the plugs out of my ears, and lower my eyes to the streets. The sound of the city rushes in. Some guy (Cardiovascular disease, fifty-third birthday!) is standing on a crate barking through a megaphone about all that crummy ‘Nam business. There’s always someone yacking on about that these days. I got enough death buzzing round my head without having to hear that. But that’s when I see Baby Buggy Lady, entering stage left out of some department store. Nearly walk right into her but I’m pretty quick on my feet, despite my size, so I skip a step to avoid her then stand aside and let her pass. I wince as the usual earache throbs in the sides of my head, but I manage to turn the grimace into a big goofy grin, spread right across my face for Baby Buggy Lady. Her eyebrows arch warily. She smiles back.

  Then I see it.

  Garbage truck, twenty minutes!

  Or bus. Or something. I wasn’t sure at that moment to be honest, but I knew it was big, and I knew it was soon. Didn’t much like the thought of seeing someone die, but this knack of mine was getting so intense I had to see if there was any truth to it. This was just what I’d been traipsing around looking for: someone on their way out soon whose death I could see for myself. If I was right, Baby Buggy Lady’s time was only minutes away.

  So I follow her, keeping my distance. Besides my boots in the snow I don’t make a sound. Never have. Livvy always said I was quiet as a fox. But yeah, I pick up my pace to match the woman’s. Getting a bit nervous I’ll have one of my stupid lousy blackouts before I get to see what I need to see, but I’m feeling all right. I’m taking another bite of butter from the block in my parka pocket (starting to melt) when Baby Buggy Lady suddenly disappears round a corner. I hurry. Not that I need to. There was still another few streets before the life was demolished from her and her baby.

  Then I hear it, the bellowing of the eighteen-wheeler. I start to feel dizzy, as anyone would gearing up to see something like this. Don’t black out, I keep telling myself. Don’t black out, don’t black out, don’t black out.

  So I keep to the shadows while I wait for the inevitable. Baby Buggy Lady must be deaf, dumb, and blind to step in front of the semi, but she does. I must sound like a piece of work to you, but she had it coming. I’m telling you, everyone in this city’s the same. Anyways, it’s all too fast for me to make out much detail, but I do see Baby Buggy Lady’s baby buggy fold in on itself in much the same way as they get folded up on the bus. Can’t say the woman folds up quite as neat; her whole body kind of wraps around the front of the truck, the way a water balloon might hug around a baseball bat before it explodes. Jeez, I dunno. It was over so quick. All that mattered was that the vision had come true.

  The death I saw in people’s faces and heard in their voices, it was real.

  ***

  Right, so I’ve seen Baby Buggy Lady and Baby Buggy Baby smash into a zillion pieces. Livvy – remember, that’s my ma – doesn’t like me leaving the apartment on account of my blackouts, so I head home quick before she gets back from work. Another reason she doesn’t like me leaving is that I have a bit of black in me from Pa, and she doesn’t want me going the way he went. People don’t always like ‘half-casts’ like me, or even blacks – Pa’s death made that clear. I know she’d like to move us to Bordeaux where she grew up (‘France is so safe and the French are so gracious,’ she likes to remind me) but we just don’t have the money for moves. Instead, she pulled me right out of school when he died and told me I was best staying in the apartment. Talk about paranoid. So I’ve been practically locked up these past years, but I started to wonder more and more if my knack was real. Wouldn’t you? It’s not nice, having visions of death shoved in your face like that, but I had to get out and see if there was any truth to it, and Baby Buggy Lady was enough to convince me there was. So yeah, Livvy preferred me to stay in and write. I was a playwright, you see. Well, I hoped to be. But we’ll get back to that.

  After the mom and baby thing I chuck my butter (gone slimy; hate it when it’s slimy) and head back to our apartment building. I’m stepping into the lobby of Pleasance Heights – that makes it sound like a fancy hotel, but it’s actually a dive – and I hear Livvy tearing up hell on the landing. She’s running door to door, screaming her darned head off looking for me. I follow the sound of the commotion. She spots me. Runs straight at me like a heat-seeking missile. I look down and see dots of blood speckling the arm of her blouse.

  ‘What did you do to yourself, Livvy?’ I ask her, genuinely shocked but pretending I don’t already know about the cutting, a habit I thought she was finally done with. She grabs me by the shoulders with a strength that contradicts her size.

  ‘Why did you leave the apartment, Crighton?’ she squawks. ‘Why, why, WHY?’

  I’m trying to play it cool, as I do around Livvy, but she’s shaking me and shouting and going a bit nuts. I always get a bit nervous when she gets herself worked up, on the grounds of the episodes she used to have when she was a girl. Oh, sorry. We’ll get to that, too. Anyways, things have been weird with her lately, and we’ve not been quite as close as usual, so I’m a little on edge. Luckily she calms down, then leads me along the landing to our apartment. In we go, but there’s another scare on the cards for poor old Crighton.

  Stacks of flattened cardboard boxes. Everywhere.

  ‘Son, I’m sorry I’ve been so distant with you,’ says Livvy, the usual gentle strain returning to her voice. The remnants of her French accent slip through, such serene inflections. Music to my ears. ‘It’s just we’ve been a bit behind on the rent. Mr. Rivera has bills to pay, too. I’ve told you how important it is to pay what you owe.’

  Yeah, yeah. Rent can’t go unpaid. Taxes help those less fortunate, give them so
mething when they’re down on their luck. Heard it all before. Livvy’s the smartest person I know, and I get the rent part, but the rest is such garbage. She spends her life running around town caring for all the old crones – crones that are just older versions of the scum on the streets. There’s a plague out there, a plague of criminals, rapists, and vermin. That’s it, vermin. Have to remember that one. Anyways, we don’t owe them nothing, that’s for sure. But I smile and nod and play it cool. She’s still the best person I know. How could she be anything else?

  ‘I understand. But you’re sure you’re all right, Livvy?’ I glance again at the dots of blood on her sleeve.

  ‘Oui, mon chéri,’ she says lightly, putting her hands behind her back. ‘But Crighton, you know I prefer you calling me Mom.’

  ‘Okay, Mom.’

  A pause lingers in the air, a tiny vacuum waiting to be filled with more bad news.

  ‘My love, he’s asked us to leave.’

  So here I am, standing amongst all these boxes, being told we’re out. What’s going to happen? Won’t have my ma sleeping in one of those shelters with the – what was it? – vermin. Where’ll we go? What’ll we do? My head’s spinning. Can’t take all the uncertainty, all the questions. Feel like a blackout’s on the way, until I suddenly remember what I know.

  I look deep into Livvy’s delicate face, past her make-up that’s all smeared and blotched from her crying and carrying on. Deeper than anyone can look into any face.

  And there it is.

  She’s lying on a sprawling super queen size bed back in Bordeaux. Queen size for a queen. Her dying seconds are playing out right in front of me. She’s surrounded by warm faces smiling down at her, those of the family I’ll come to raise. The glowing faces are all right there with her in these final moments, but it’s my face she’s looking up at. In her eyes: gratitude. I see it clear as can be, how grateful she is for all I’ve given her. See, my playwriting is going to make us rich. Big house, big family, and a peaceful death for my sweet Livvy in unlimited comfort. No more pain, and certainly no more cutting.

  So you see, I know everything’s going to be okay. I’ve seen it.

  At least I thought I had.

  Livvy’s looking at me like she’s seen it too. Finally I see that smile, the one missing these past few weeks. You haven’t met her so you don’t know, but that smile is like nothing you’ve ever seen.

  Anyways, her anger at my leaving the apartment has fizzled out. Even though our home’s being taken from us, the future I see in her eyes reminds me that all we need is each other. I hated my knack when I was alive – it was a curse, really – but at the time I was grateful it had shown me how she was going to pass. Nothing else mattered other than getting to where I knew we were headed. She pulls a pine cone from her coat and places it in my hand, pressing my fingers around it. Always did love pine cones, my Livvy.

  Suddenly, from the open door, the sound of a man clearing his throat.

  ‘Mr. Rivera,’ says Livvy, ‘Crighton and I were just about to start packing. I wanted to ask you how long we have to—’

  ‘Please, Olivia,’ he interrupts, those beady eyes locked on her, ‘no more “Mr. Rivera”. Call me Art.’

  This is the Hispanic guy that owns the building. Lives down the hall with his old ma. The smell of burritos or enchiladas or some other Mexican food from their apartment always makes my stomach rumble. Loves to cook, loves Christmas, and loves to make my blood boil.

  Always starts wearing his lousy Christmas sweaters months too early, so there it is, a goddamn Christmas tree standing right in our front door that’s no longer our front door. As if there wasn’t already enough Christmas everywhere. Seems like the kindest man you’ve ever met at first, but he’s not. He’s stroking that creepy goatee and staring right into my Livvy’s eyes. She looks down at the floor like a shy schoolgirl, and in that moment he catches my gaze over her shoulder and mouths the word, that word. The same word he always mouths in my direction.

  Leech.

  I tighten my trembling fist. I feel the blood rush to my face.

  Brain hemorrhage, brain hemorrhage, brain hemorrhage, I keep reminding myself. Just you wait. Brain hemorrhage’s on its way. Only fourteen years and seven months to go, you crummy old bonehead.

  ‘Olivia, you and Crighton have always been such pleasant tenants to have in the building. Pleasant tenants… Just what we need in Pleasance Heights!’ His shoulders bounce as he guffaws at what I surmise to be his idea of a joke. Livvy giggles, keeping up the schoolgirl act. ‘Reliability: that’s the only issue. But I’ve been wondering if that really must spell the end of your residency.’ (Yeah, the creep really does talk like that.) ‘After all, it is Christmas.’

  And so what followed was their first stroll down the landing together, the start of their little ‘arrangement’. Don’t get the wrong idea about Livvy; my ma would never have done anything like this unless she absolutely had to, and I guess she must have felt she did. She believed in my playwriting, and that when I finally hammered out the play to end all plays everything would change for us. She just figured this was one more thing she had to do in the meantime.

  So there they go, Mr. Rivera leading her down the hall, exiting stage right into an empty apartment. Once he’s closed the door, I slip down the landing and stand outside to try and hear what they’re talking about. He’ll say something and then there’ll be this long pause, before she says something back, after which he’ll fire out some muffled, probably-smooth reply. Then another long pause, and the whole thing repeats. It goes on like this for a while until I hear movement from behind the door.

  I don’t really like to think about what came next, if it’s all the same to you. I mean sure, I’m a virgin. Let’s get that out in the open right now. I never had any interest in those squalid whores on the streets below – prostitutes or otherwise – and I’m certainly not ashamed of the fact, although maybe I can only talk about it like this now since I’m dead and everything. There was only ever one woman for me, and you should know by now who that was. Once I’d made our fortune I’d planned on finding myself a wife, but not anyone from this rancid city. So yeah, I’m no fornication expert, but I know sex sounds when I hear them. What came from behind that door once Mr. Rivera and Livvy’s hesitant little exchange had ended…well, they were sex sounds.

  I, Crighton Smythe, the leech, turn and run back to our apartment, face burning. I slam the front door, then knock back a handful of painkillers for the earache. I grab my manuscript and sit down at the beaten up roll-top I use as my writing desk. The pain inside my ears begins to fade. In go the earplugs, out goes the world.

  That’s when I realized time was against me.

  How many hours had I spent over the years looking in the mirror, trying to figure out when my own death was due? Too many to count, but that information was always beyond my knack. Guess that instilled in me this feeling that I had all the time in the world, but hearing Livvy and Mr. Rivera’s sex sounds, the sounds of what she was doing for me, that’s when I knew time was running out. I had to finish this play and start us down the path to riches. I was going to get her out of this apartment, out of this city, and away from that scumbag. It was all down to this scribbled play-in-progress in front of me. My little characters and their little lives – mother of four Kathleen Cantu and her quirky, hypochondriac, out-of-work husband Archie Cantu – were going to get us out of here.

  So I got writing.

  ***

  Livvy was pretty into all the usual God stuff, but it never really did much for me, despite what I’d tell her. Nevertheless, when you find yourself still breathing and thinking and existing after you’ve died, you pretty much have to believe in the afterlife. At first I thought this place might be Heaven, but then I remembered everything I’d stolen. Then I thought maybe Hell, but I’m not that bad a guy. So I settled on Purgatory. It’s too, sort of, ‘in-between’ to be anything else. I mean there’s others here; angels, demons, I don’t know who you all are. It’s not like I can see or hear anything. Sure, you’ve prodded and poked, maybe even tried to communicate with me, but you seem to have gotten the hint. There’s only one person in the world I would ever want to talk to, and she’s gone. So thankfully you mostly leave me alone, but now you give me this pen and paper? I suppose you want me to write what happened to me. I’d want to hear the story too, to be honest. I’ll write it. If only because there’s nothing else to do.