28 Jan Smoking Kills

It’s been almost twenty years since I had my last cigarette. For a long time, I was certain that I’d never have one again. I never stopped wanting them, though.

Tonight, I’m ending my long wait. I’m finally going to smoke a cigarette. I suspect this one really will be my last one ever, so before I do, I want to relate what happened.

It started in an alley behind a 7-Eleven. I was fourteen and hanging out with my friend Derek, who was sixteen and looked old enough for the store clerk to sell him cigarettes. I’d been smoking for almost a year at that point. My parents had caught me just a week before, which is why I was smoking behind the 7-Eleven now. They’d cut off my allowance and thrown out the pack I had at the house, which was a hefty financial hit for a fourteen-year-old.

“Go get my soda from the car,” said Derek. As far as last words go, they were pretty lame.

I trotted off around the corner, then realized I needed his keys. I spun on my heel to ask for them.

“Hey, I—”

In that instant, Derek exploded.

It was horrifying. One second, Derek was standing there, cigarette to his lips, taking a deep drag. Then he was just gone, nothing but a whispered blast of red mist. It coated the brick wall and spattered over my face, stinging my eyes. I could taste the coppery flavor of blood.

A man stood there where Derek had been. He was taller and slimmer than Derek had been. He wore a neatly tailored black suit, covered now in a fine mist of gore. He shook himself like a dog, sending red spatter in all directions, where it joined the rest of Derek on the asphalt. It was a practiced gesture. He was not at all surprised to be lightly coated in blood.

I, on the other hand, was still standing with one hand on the corner of the building, mouth agape. My cigarette dangled limply from my other hand. Even with the blood on my face, I had no understanding of what had just happened. I remember thinking that maybe Derek had transformed, like in Power Rangers—except instead of turning into a cool warrior, he’d changed into a lawyer.

The man locked eyes with me. His lips quirked into a smile. Nothing about his attitude suggested that anything abnormal was happening. That was part of what made it so hard to process. He was acting like this was all perfectly ordinary.

“I really thought you were heading the other way,” he said. “Tsk. I’m usually much better about that.”

“Wha—?” was about all I could manage. I had too many questions that I needed answers to. Where was Derek? Who was this man? Was my friend okay? What was going on?

“Witnesses are such a complication,” he said. He took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, tapped one out and lit it. “Friends, though. You can trust a friend with secrets. Are we friends?”

I don’t think I managed any sound at all in response to that. The entire situation was surreal. I had to be dreaming.

The man put the cigarette to his lips and breathed in deeply. In one swift motion, the entire thing burned to ash, all the way back to his mouth. The man himself burned away at the same time. The disintegration started at his feet and sped upward, consuming his legs and torso and, finally, his head. The thin cylinder of ash, all that remained of the cigarette, dropped to the blood-soaked ground.

I had no time to gawk at this latest impossibility because suddenly, the man was directly in front of me, stepping through the narrow wisp of smoke wafting up from my forgotten cigarette. He ripped it open like torn fabric and grabbed me by my shirt, lifting and slamming me against the wall before I had even processed his arrival.

“Are you a friend?” he snarled. His face was bestial, demonic. Its unforgiving lines were everything every sculpture of a devil had ever tried to capture. “Or are you just a witness?”

“Friend!” I gasped out. The brick wall ground into my back. His knuckles were a rock against my chest. I could not breathe in. I was certain at that moment that I was about to die, so I said the only word that seemed like it might buy me a few more seconds of life.

“Very good, then.” He looked legitimately pleased as he set me down and brushed off the front of my shirt. “Then I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. You can call me Ash.”

“My—my friend…” I whispered.

“Yes, we’re friends now.” I was afraid to disagree with him, but he saw the slight shake of my head and realized that he had misunderstood my meaning. “Oh, you mean your other friend? He’s very dead, I’m afraid. Unless he had a particularly rare blood type, they’ll never even find enough to know what happened. He’ll just be marked down as missing. Tragic, but it happens.”

He sighed. “You’d think that being able to travel through smoke would be amazing. And honestly, it is. But the Grey World is so—well, there are a lot of complications. And once you make it through that and come back out, people always have so many questions. Who are you, where did you come from, and how did you do that? It’s exhausting, really.”

He picked up my cigarette from the ground and took a short drag. As the tip flared, I saw that the white paper was stained with Derek’s blood.

The man—Ash—didn’t seem to mind. He blew out a cloud of smoke and watched it drift away. “The thing about smoke is that it gets everywhere. And the Grey World doesn’t much care about inside and outside, or solid objects. You can just come through wherever. It’ll push things from the lesser world out of the way. As you saw. It’s a bit messy, perhaps, but so are all of those questions you get otherwise.”

He tapped me on the chest. “You don’t ask a lot of questions. I like that about you. It’s why we’re friends. Keep that in mind.”

Ash reached into his jacket pocket, and I flinched backward. I was certain in that second that he was going to shoot me. I don’t know why, after everything I’d seen, I thought he would do something as prosaic as that. I think it was just my mind trying to translate the overwhelming threat into something I could recognize.

He didn’t pull out a gun. Instead, he took out the pack of cigarettes I’d seen him use earlier. He pressed it into my hand.

“Here. A gift. From a friend. If you ever need me, just light one up. I’ll be there before the smoke clears.

“Don’t hold it in too long, though.” He smiled and winked, as if what he’d said was funny instead of a deadly threat. As if I hadn’t just watched him detonate my friend for the sake of convenience. As if I had any doubt that he’d do the same to me if it suited him.

I said nothing, though. I just stood there and stared as he breathed in the last of my cigarette, just as I had seen him do before, burning the entire thing at once and himself along with it. I stood there in the alley, dappled with blood and surrounded by the smell of cigarettes, staring at empty air until finally, the pack of cigarettes he had given me slipped out of my numb fingers and fell to the ground.

Something about that finally snapped me out of whatever trance I was in. I walked away, slowly and unsteadily at first, then picked up speed until finally I was running. Derek had driven to the 7-Eleven and we were at least five miles from my house, but I ran the entire way home without stopping once.

By the time I got home, I was completely out of breath, but I managed to make it up the stairs and into the shower before I finally collapsed. I got in fully clothed and sagged against the wall as I let the water burn over me. It swirled pink in the bottom of the tub, the last remnants of Derek.

I knew people would ask about him, and that I would lie. Friends kept secrets. I was not at all sure that I wanted to be Ash’s friend, but I was positive that I didn’t want any other option.

The last of my energy drained away with the stained water. I stumbled to my bedroom and was asleep almost before I hit the bed.

I woke the next morning to my father shaking me awake.

“We’re very disappointed in you,” he said.

“What? In what?” I couldn’t imagine how he knew what had happened in that alley, or what he would have expected me to do differently.

“Smoking again! Your mother and I made it clear how we feel about that.” Behind him, my mother was rummaging through my drawers, looking for contraband.

“I wasn’t—I didn’t—”

“Don’t lie to me! This room reeks of smoke. You could have at least opened a window. You’re stinking up the entire house.”

He wasn’t wrong. The smell of smoke hung heavily in the room. But I’d been asleep the entire time.

“Found them!” My mother triumphantly held up a package of cigarettes. My heart skipped a beat as I recognized them—not just the brand, but the specific package. The bloody smear on one corner made it clear that these were the ones Ash had handed me in the alley.

My father frowned. “All right. We’re going to try a little aversion therapy. This is what my father did when I thought I might try smoking. He took me outside and made me smoke the entire pack. Come on, let’s go.”

“No!” I panicked at the idea. Smoking even one cigarette would be foolhardy. The entire pack? Breath after breath of smoke in my lungs? I might as well throw myself out the window right now.

“You’re the one who wanted to smoke! So come on, let’s do it.”

I screamed. I cried. I flailed. My father ignored it all and dragged me downstairs by the arm, the dreaded cigarettes clutched in his other fist. I begged and pleaded as he sat me down on the porch. I clenched my lips and turned my head away as he tried to put the cigarette in my mouth. I think he still thought I was just throwing a tantrum about being caught, until he struck a match to actually light it, and I threw up all over his shirt.

He dragged me back inside with a disgusted look on his face. As we passed my incredulous mother, all he said was, “I think he’s learned his lesson.”

The worst part was, I hadn’t. I wasn’t going to smoke a cigarette, obviously, but I still wished I could. I craved them fiercely in the following weeks, and even when the physical need died down, I still missed what they’d represented. They were rebellion. They were freedom. They were adult.

The fact that they meant instant death stopped me from having one, but it didn’t stop me from wanting one.

My parents threw out Ash’s cigarettes, of course. Not that it did any good. I found more packs in all sorts of odd places: in my locker at school, stuck in the chain locking my bike, in one of my shoes in the shoe rack. The packs were always opened with one cigarette missing. If I looked around, I could usually find a long cylinder of ash.

I never knew what to do with the packs. I didn’t want to throw them away and offend Ash, but I certainly wasn’t going to use them. I mainly let them pile up in my school locker. It seemed the safest place.

I couldn’t have them at the house. I was terrified of my parents finding them and forcing me to smoke them to learn a lesson. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to die. I wanted my parents to stay safe. I knew how Ash felt about witnesses.

Every month or so, I’d see Ash, usually from some distance away. He’d step out of a doorway and catch my eye as he exaggeratedly shook red droplets from his hands. He’d take a cigarette from a pack and tilt it toward me in an obvious gesture of offering. I’d smile and shake my head. We were friends, after all. I had to look friendly.

This was all a game to him. It was obvious that he knew he held all of the power. Playing along kept me alive, though, so I performed my role.

“I never see you smoke anymore,” he said one day when he’d actually come close enough to talk. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” I lied. “But you said the Grey World is complicated.”

“It is.” His voice held the slightest edge of menace. He didn’t like where I was directing this. I bailed out.

“I just like things uncomplicated.”

“Smart,” said Ash. He tapped me on the chest, his usual gesture of approval. I didn’t like how it resonated in my lungs. I think he knew that. “You should do something with those cigarettes I bring you, though. Give them to your friends.”

None of my friends smoked. I’d cut ties with everyone who did. It probably would have been fine to hang out with them in groups, but I couldn’t stop picturing ending up alone with one of them one day, even briefly, and seeing them light up a cigarette and then—burst. Just like Derek had. There would be nothing but the mist, and Ash laughing about it.

I did start giving them away, though. I gave a pack to a homeless man who asked me for change one day. It wasn’t really on purpose. He asked for money, I patted my pockets, and I’d found the pack earlier that day and still had it on me. His eyes lit up when I handed it over.

“Thanks, man!” he said. I hoped he got to enjoy them. I tried not to think about Ash.

I saw him again a few weeks later, panhandling on the same corner. It gave me hope and a huge sense of relief—but also allowed me to give myself permission to hand out the other packs. He’d made it, after all. It wasn’t a death sentence. I could keep myself safe from Ash’s potential wrath without sacrificing anyone else. Necessarily.

I still didn’t give the packs to anyone I knew. I’d give them to clerks at gas stations or coffee shops. When I got older, I’d give them to people at bars. Most folks accepted them when I told them I’d quit and was getting rid of the rest of the pack. It was true enough. No one ever asked how long ago I’d quit.

Every pack held that nicotine temptation. It was made worse by the fact that I couldn’t possibly have one. Ash wouldn’t have spent years keeping cigarettes tantalizingly in front of me if he wasn’t waiting for me to slip up. Every pack was a sweating stick of dynamite, ready to explode.

Boom.

Mist.

Just like Derek.

I don’t know how many people I killed over the years. Looking back, I can admit that that’s what I was doing. Ash dropped off a pack or two every month, so call it twenty a year. That’s four hundred people I handed live grenades to, all without a word of warning. They were all smokers anyway, and there was nothing special about the cigarettes Ash brought me. They were all sorts of brands, all types. He could go through any smoke. They weren’t in any more danger than they had been before I gave them the packs.

That was my rationalization all along. But the Grey World is complicated. I have no idea if I was ever right about that. Maybe I marked every one of them.

It doesn’t matter much now. Ash is dead. I saw it on the news yesterday. His name wasn’t actually Ash, which shouldn’t have surprised me. I spent twenty years thinking of him by that name, though. It was strange to see another one on the chyron under his smiling, professional photo.

He was the CFO of a cigarette company, which is why his murder made the news. They said he’d been stabbed and that police were looking for any information. They didn’t provide so much as a sketch of the assailant, which meant that they had nothing at all.

They didn’t show the body, obviously, but I wonder what the stab marks looked like. Were they normal? Or was there something odd, like perhaps they’d come from the inside?

I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the Grey World. I never asked a lot of questions. Friends didn’t do that sort of thing. Not friends who wanted to stay alive.

But I do know that this wasn’t a random mugging. This had something to do with the Grey World.

When I saw the news, my first thought was: I’m free!

My second thought was: I can have a cigarette again.

The thought hit me like a bolt between the eyes. I could feel the cigarette in my mouth, the rush of smoke into my lungs. I hadn’t felt that sensation in two decades, but it was like it had never left. The smooth sensation of the nicotine taking hold, the utter freedom of it all. I wanted it. I’d been wanting it since I was fourteen. And finally, finally, I could have it.

I walked to the store. I went to the front counter. I asked the cashier for a pack. For the first time in my life, I bought my own pack of cigarettes from a store. I carried it outside, feeling the unfamiliar sensation of the plastic wrap under my fingers. Every pack Ash had brought me had been opened, missing the one he’d used to take himself back to the Grey World. This one was new. This one was mine.

Then, as I turned the pack over in my hands, it suddenly occurred to me: I didn’t want it. Cigarettes had always meant freedom, doubly so since Ash denied them to me. But now that he was gone, freedom meant freedom to choose. I didn’t have to make the choice I’d made at fourteen. I didn’t have to do things simply to rebel. I could make my own decisions. I was free to do whatever I wanted.

I threw the pack in a trashcan, unopened. I walked home feeling lighter than I ever had. I entered my house, flopped down on my couch, heaved a huge, relieved sigh—and saw the pack of cigarettes on the end table.

There was a note on these. It said, “To Ash’s pet.”

Pet is the right word. We were never friends. In all those years, he never even asked my name. I was just a thing he kept around for his amusement. And now that he’s gone, it seems that whoever killed him is planning on cleaning house.

I could still run, of course. I could start a new game and try to amuse whatever new thing is out there. I could stay alive a while longer, probably.

I think instead, I’ll have that cigarette that I’ve been waiting for all these years. I’m going to light it. I’m going to savor it. And then I’m going to breathe the smoke in and hold it in my lungs for a long, long time.

I suspect, for the rest of my life.