Premonition

It started happening sometime in middle school.  I saw someone on TV and I knew he was going to die. “Who’s that?” I asked.

“That’s ONLY Kurt Cobain,” my older sister answered, her voice dripping with scorn.  But by that time I was already distracted by the sudden overwhelming realization that the other person on the screen (Cobain’s wife, I later learned) was incredibly hot.

And four days later the lead singer of Nirvana had a bullet in his brain.

After that, these flashes of insight kept happening, although not with any kind of predictability.  I’d see someone, and get a strong feeling that they’d be dead soon.  Sometimes, it would be someone I saw on the street, sometimes on TV or the movie screen.  At first I tried telling my parents about it - that sure didn’t last long.  It was bad when they thought I was lying, but horrible when they started to think I wasn’t.

Once I got the feeling about my algebra teacher.  I faked flu symptoms for a week; I couldn’t face her every day knowing what was coming but not when or how.  Or why.  Mrs. Davidson was a favorite teacher.  She had a heart attack that Friday.  She was 43.

But that sick feeling was nothing compared to the time I got my “death sense” in the middle of a makeout session with Stacy Miller.  Stacy’s car got hit by drunk driver the next weekend.  After that, I kept to myself.  A lot.

I spent a lot of the time I wasn’t out having fun, on the computer.  This was early in the Internet, so there weren’t as many pictures (less chance of me seeing a lot of faces), but there were a lot of usenet groups.  Eventually I learned about dead pools.  Not the Marvel character - actual betting pools on when a certain celebrity was going to die.

Morbid?  You bet.  But for a second sibling with a meager allowance, college coming up soon, and a unique…talent…well, a big light bulb might as well have appeared above my head, is all I’m saying.
I started leafing through the magazines at the checkout counters, and in a couple of days had my first bet placed, for five bucks.  Six months later I was banned from most of the pools and had to start making fake account names.  Turns out nobody likes it when you’re never wrong.  I thought I was covering my tracks pretty good though.

I was wrong.

Summer after senior year, the summer I’m supposed to be having fun, getting ready to go off to college, I get this PGP-encrypted email.  When I opened it up, it looked like another dead pool, only I didn’t recognize any of the names on it.  A lot of them looked Russian, to me, anyway.  Okay, so somebody wants me to pick some Russian celebrity who’s gonna die.  I wrote back.  "I don’t know any of those guys. You got any faces to go with the names?“

In a few minutes, I get a picture for every name on the list, and there’s a number too…are those the payouts?  These numbers are huge!

I scrolled down the mail, and halfway through one of them set off my death sense.  Before I got to the end, another one.  I mailed in my picks, and forgot it.

And then six days later, there’s another PGP email, but this one says a lot more.

Incredible work. The boss compliments you.
Your fee is in the account listed below.
Change the password.

Wtf?

There were two links in the email.  One link lead to a news article about someone dying of food poisoning.  The other was about a guy killed in some prison fight.  Both of them were suspected of having ties to the freaking Russian Mafia.  There were pictures.  Both of them the guys I picked.
I checked the bank account, and learned that I was sitting on thousands.  More than my 18-year-old self knew what to do with, and it scared me.  But, what had I done, really?  I mean, betting in dead pools isn’t illegal.  So, I changed the account password.

By the time I started college, I figured out what was going on.  Whoever was sending these emails thought that they were hiring me for hit jobs.  They must have thought that I was really picky or something!  I’d get some names and faces once in a while, and if I got a tingle off one of them, somebody chokes on a chicken sandwich, then I got a payday, otherwise I’d just say, nah, not working this month.  Really, the hard part was figuring out how to enjoy having money without attracting attention.  I decided that pre-law and just might be a good plan for me.

What I’m saying here is, I had a pretty good freshman year.  I mean, yeah, I still didn’t socialize much, but by this time I was mostly okay with that, and the death was kind of…removed.
Then one final email arrived from my mysterious benefactor.

Lay low. There’s a contract on you.

A contract.  On me.  No, this couldn’t be real.  In a daze, I shuffled to the bathroom and flicked on the light, caught my reflection in the mirror.  And screamed. 

Mom, Dad, I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to tell you all this when I was younger.  I want you to know that I’m going to try to fight it.  I’ve bought a fake ID, a gun, a fast car, and emptied that account.  I kept some money, enough for a week of running.  You should get a wire with the rest soon.

 I checked all your pictures.  You and Sis are all okay.  For at least seven days.  Love you.