The Man Who Wouldn't Die A Special Posting For Veterans Day by BJ Neblett
Wishing all a happy and healthful Veterans Day. Here is one of my most popular short stories. Let's all learn from it.
Peace,
BJ
The
Man Who Wouldn’t Die
BJ
Neblett
©
2009, 2015, 2021
The subject known as X was a healthy
extremely fit and tone young man of about nineteen or twenty years of age. X
first came to see me a week ago. He was agitated and under extreme duress.
Refusing a mild sedative, he demanded he be given a complete check-up,
including some procedures not normally associated with a routine physical
examination. When he returned to my office yesterday, I had the results of
those tests.
And X had a most unusual tale to
tell.
“It is good to see you again.
Please, sit down.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“How are you feeling? You seem much
more relaxed today.”
His gaze passed through me. It was
the one striking feature on an otherwise ordinary appearing individual: his
eyes, black and dull. Even as I think about them now I am filled with an
unexplained dread. Hollow and empty, his eyes were those of a corpse.
“Yes, Doctor… better, calmer… for
now. The tests… do you have the results of the tests?”
“I do. But as I suspected and told you,
they show nothing out of the ordinary. There is nothing physically wrong with
you.”
He looked up at me sheepishly, as if
afraid to ask. “Tell me, Doctor, please.”
“Very well… all of your vitals are
fine. Heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, and respiration… all fine. Blood work
came back negative as did toxins and other samples. The only thing which stands
out is that your vitals and counts are slightly elevated; stronger than normal.
This is certainly no cause for alarm.”
His voice turned anxious. “Go on…”
“Your reflexes and motor skills
scored better than average; eyesight is remarkable. And I have never seen
muscle tissue or bone as dense as yours.”
“And the rest…?” With the question,
X once again became somewhat agitated. I was struck with the feeling he knew
the results before I gave them.
“Well… brain activity and function
did test elevated, but normal. You can rest assured you are strong; healthy.
Why I wouldn’t be surprised if you lived to be one hundred and twenty!”
With that X began to fidget
nervously. My words, which certainly should have assuaged any fears, seemed
rather to trouble him. He looked at me intently, those dark eyes studying,
piercing. Finally, X reached into his pocket, withdrew a photograph, and
presented it to me. It was the picture of a man with graying hair and other
signs of impending middle age.
“How old would you say he is?” X
asked.
“Oh, perhaps forty or so, I guess.”
It was then I realized the figure in the picture possessed the same chilling,
dark, dead eyes. “Is this your father?”
X tensed in his seat. His mouth
pursed, and then slightly curled in what I can only describe as a failed
attempt to smile. “No… no, Doctor. That is not my father. The man in the
picture is me.”
While his words were delusional, X’s
posture remained alert, attentive. “You do realize the person in this picture
while bearing a striking resemblance to you, is easily twice your age.”
This time the smile broke through
the stoic demeanor. It was a half crooked; I’ve got a secret sort of
smile which sent chills throughout my body. Combined with those hollow, dead
eyes it was a look I shall never forget.
“But it is me, Doctor,” he began
calmly, with an icy detachment of fact. “This is what I look like when I… if
I…”
He paused.
We sat for an indeterminable,
uncomfortable time studying each other. Finally, X seemed to make up his mind.
“It’s the curse you know… the curse...”
“Perhaps you should tell me about
this curse.”
He arose slowly, his hands finding
the bottom of his trouser pockets, and wandered over to the window.
And so began X’s strange tale.
“War,” he said at last, “war is the
curse, Doctor. War… killing… from the moment Cain killed his brother man has
been marked. Marked with the blood of Abel, and cursed, cursed with the thirst
to make war; to kill his fellow man. It is as normal as breathing. There will
always be wars, Doctor. And there will always be young men to fight them.”
Those empty, hollow eyes glazed
over, turning inward… seeing… remembering.
“I was a sergeant in the cavalry,”
he continued. “We’d been engaging the enemy all day long, pointless hit and run
skirmishes that slaughter men and gain nothing. Ironically, it was the day of
my birthday. By late afternoon everyone was exhausted, the fighting scattered
over a quarter-mile of rough ground. A cannon shell landed nearby knocking me
unconscious. When I came to it was dark and I was alone, the battle had moved
on.
“Slowly, cautiously I began to make
my way through the unfamiliar terrain. After a time, I became aware of something
in the woods. It seemed to be following me, marking my progress, moving as I
did.
“I turned.
“Suddenly, there was a flash of blue
steel in the moonlight. Leveling my pistol, I fired twice. A figure staggered
from the brush and collapsed.
“I approached my victim. To my
horror, he was just a boy, maybe twenty years old. And he was unarmed. Clutched
in his fingers was a crucifix. It was the shiny metal cross that I had mistaken
for a weapon.
“I knelt beside the lad, struck by
my detestable deed. Then, without warning, his eyes flew open wide! Clutching
at my shirt, his mouth contorted into a soul-searing scream. He thrust the
damnable silver cross into my hands.
“And then…”
Beads of perspiration dotted X’s
forehead. He trembled and began to pace.
“… then an incredible expression,
one of total and unimaginable peace, settled over him, and he died quietly in
my arms.
“It was then and there that I knew I
was cursed; that I would never again find peace.”
It became obvious to me that X was
suffering from some sort of severe post-traumatic stress. The cause of his
stress seemed obvious. “It is not unusual,” I suggested, “for a young man as
you to have lingering feelings of guilt about tragic events in their lives.”
X turned suddenly, his face now ablaze
with the most insipid grin. He laughed aloud. “Young man… young man, indeed!
But you don’t understand, Doctor. I wasn’t a young man. I was thirty-five
years old! And the year was sixty-three… eighteen sixty-three! I was a sergeant
in the 16th Texas Cavalry with Jeb Stewart. It was the Battle of
Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, what became known as our Civil War!”
He laughed again, the terrifying
baying of a mad man. And yet, throughout his discourse, it became evident that
he believed what he was saying.
“You said it yourself, Doctor. You
said you wouldn’t be surprised if I lived to be one hundred and twenty! If only
that were true! If only that was where it ended…
“But no… not at all…
“After the war, I returned home.
Things settled into a comfortable routine. The war was all but forgotten. Then,
on my sixtieth birthday, it began to happen. The changes were slow, subtle, and
nearly imperceptible. It was my wife who was the first to notice. But within
ten years it was frighteningly obvious – I was aging but aging backward; growing
younger! My grey hair gave way to its natural dark color and was growing again
where it had ceased. My skin seemed to shrink, smoothing itself over my body,
erasing the telltale traces of time. Old scars healed and disappeared. Even my
eyes grew stronger; I put aside my glasses. And I began to feel as I did in my
twenties: strong, healthy, and alive again. And young! My God, I was… I was
young again… a young man of twenty!”
This time his laugh was sardonic;
bitter.
“Providence has its price, Doctor.
“On the day of my seventieth
birthday, I awoke to find myself once again in uniform. I was a new man but
with a familiar role to play in life’s capricious game. All that remained of my
former life was this…”
Reaching into his shirt, X tore a
metal crucifix and chain from around his neck, flinging it to the floor.
“…this cursed cross. Before I could
comprehend what was happening, I was on horseback; charging up San Juan Hill
with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. I was twenty again, Doctor, yes. But
I was twenty and brandishing revolver and rapier; fighting on foreign soil, and
forced once again to slay my fellow man!
“Returning to the states, I tried to
make some sense of this maleficent manifestation. I had a new identity, a new
beginning, a fresh start at life. At first, I thought myself blessed.
“How wrong can one man be? How very,
very wrong… not blessed at all but cursed…
“About the time of what would have
been my eighty-fifth year, although I carried the looks and constitution of a
man just thirty-five, I began to regress again, to age backward. Only the
process progressed with amazing rapidity. Changes seemed to take place overnight.
In three short years, I was back to being a young man of twenty again! This
time on my birthday I awoke huddled in a mud and blood-soaked trench near
Verdun, France. All about me, weird, mechanized monsters spewed fire and destruction.
We had created even more efficient means of dispatching our fellow man. It was
the war to end all wars. Only it didn’t… and certainly not for me.”
X returned to his seat. A tormented
look of determination, which was that of a man desperately baring his soul,
shadowed his grim face.
“Life became a nightmarish roller
coaster ride. I would live and age as anyone for a time. Then, one morning,
there’d be one less grey hair, one less wrinkle staring back at me from the
mirror. And I’d know it would be just a matter of time.
“It was my one hundred and
thirteenth year on earth. I was forty-five again but looked not a day over
twenty-one. I awoke, transported in space and time once more, an Ensign aboard
the U.S. Battleship California at Pearl Harbor as the Japanese attacked! Now the
devastation reached to the heavens, as airships rained death from above.
“I tried abandoning my conspicuous
companion, dropping the insidious icon into the ocean; burning it; even burying
the regenerating relic in a graveyard by moonlight. But to no avail…
“… I became a twenty-two-year-old
lieutenant at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea. Nightly, endless waves of human
mayhem descended like locus, obliterating everything in their path. A decade
and a half after that war I awoke in a rice paddy. I was a nineteen-year-old
corporal caught up in the hopeless chaos of Vietnam during the Tet offensive.
“For a time, it seemed I had finally
beaten the curse. Ten years slipped by… fifteen… I was aging normally again.
But it didn’t last. Soon I began to once more regress. I found myself manning
the gun turret of a deadly desert tank. Incredibly, our fight was not over
borders or principles, Doctor, but for oil! Then, not long after, I was back
fighting in yet another desert war, defending ideals I couldn’t comprehend.
“And I survived, doctor. Each time I
survived the nightmare to awake and to kill again; the bewitched crucifix
hanging about my neck like an albatross.”
He slumped into his chair, exhausted
from his startling confession. Burying his head in his hands, X began to softly
weep. It was my duty to help this poor tortured being climb from the depths of
his delusional mind. I touched his shoulder.
“Well,” I encouraged, “whatever it
is that is troubling you, I am sure we can get to the bottom of it.”
“No!” X screamed, knocking aside my
hand. Looking up, his countenance became that of a man possessed. “No! You
don’t understand!” He snatched the photograph he’d shown me, from the desk.
“This picture… it is me! This is how I was not very long ago. But look
at me, Doctor… you said it… you said I appear to be around twenty!
“From cannons to tanks to airplanes
to Scud missiles… where does it all end?
“And tomorrow… tomorrow, Doctor… is
my birthday, and I will be once more constrained into battle!”
By now X was raving, near violent.
With some assistance, I was able to administer a strong sedative. I placed him
in the quiet ward of the hospital, taking precautions to secure him to his bed.
The enigmatic crucifix, which appeared to be ancient and perhaps gothic, I
locked in my safe. When I left, X was sleeping peacefully.
Arriving at the hospital this morning,
I discovered X was gone. We searched the grounds thoroughly but to no avail.
Further investigation revealed that the crucifix, too, had mysteriously
vanished. And then word came that war had broken out.
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