Los Muertos

They say on the Day of the Dead los Muertos sometimes come to earth and take some of us back with them. I know. I was almost one of them. 
The fall of my college freshman year, the local schools got together to show their support of bilingual ed by organizing a big Día de los Muertos festival. We're Norteños from northern New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment, descended from Spaniards and Mexicans and Indigenous peoples. And although we share some traditions and customs and such observed by other Latin American cultures, this wasn't one of them. 
The two-day event had been set up in the normally empty field across the street from the river where multi-colored lights and papeles picados hanging from poles to trees made up the parameters, lined with vendors' booths filled with Catrina-inspired knick-knackery, toys, clothes, the usual at such events. They drew steady customers with their flashing neon lights and wafting aromas from cotton candy to carne asada. So did the arcades and games of chance set up to one side. On the other was a food court with tables and chairs, and in the middle, a bandstand complete with dance floor. 
Face painting booths operated like assembly lines. Everywhere I looked on my way to the festivities one last time, Catrinas, most in fiesta dresses, outnumbered the unpainted. I didn't expect to run into a woman who thought she was the original, la OG.
"Pssst," I heard. "Ven pa' ca."
"…the hell?" I looked around and heard a gasp.
"Ahhh, maldiciente." 
A Santa Muerte counterfeit sat in a wheelchair at the mouth of an alley behind the festival
grounds. I had grown up with Santa Sebastiana, AKA, Santa Muerte, as a big part of my culture. When I was a kid, she terrified me. How could she not? A skeleton effigy of her carved of wood, dressed in a black túnico and shawl, bow and razor-sharp arrow pointed straight ahead. I made it a point never to stand in her aim. Her eye sockets painted such an opaque black as to appear endless, those "eyes" held my fascination for years. Hell, all of her did. 
Surely this was damn good make up. Wearing la Muerte's signature black shawl over her head and the shoulders of her equally dark dress, the ghastly representation of Death sat immobile in front of me. I looked behind me to make sure I was the one she spoke to although I was the foul-mouth.  
"Yes, you. Do not run. I am not here for you." 
"You're real?" I scoffed.
"No need to be rude. You know I am. This is no costume." 
I assessed her from top to toe and up again. Her phalanges stuck out from beneath her dress, and her bony hands were covered in black gloves she didn't quite fill. Bet those skeleton feet are painted on socks, I told myself. 
She saw me looking at her foot and wiggled the phalanx of the big toe. I blinked a few times at what I thought might be a pretty good illusion. Seriously, is that bone or real looking ones woven into super black socks? Short of touching her, which I didn't dare, I figured I'd humor her a bit and then go on my merry way. 
"Convinced yet?" 
We have a mental institution in our town, so both patients and homeless stroll about. I thought she might be one. The least I could do was treat her to food and something to drink. I nodded.
"You are not going to scream or panic, are you?" I fought a laugh back by clearing my throat and then shook my head. She added, "We would not want everyone to know I am here, now, do we?" Her voice sounded wry, and I wondered at her sense of humor. I didn't know Death liked to laugh. I almost said that aloud but for her interruption.
"Of course, I do." 
She can't read my thoughts. She can't. Humoring her is one thing, but…and then I had a revelation: don't they say special people sometimes have an ability, like paranormal or telepathic and such? I'll have to be careful, I thought and winced when she chuckled. 
I just looked at her. A seed of apprehension sprouted in my gut, but I was more curious about her than scared. "You stopped me for a reason. Why?" 
"I would like an escort, and you were handy. I came upon this celebration and thought I would attend. I did not see you as the hysterical type who would give me away. I am right, right?" 
I didn't reply. You can read my mind, right? I "sent" out into the cosmos. I would've wandered around on my own anyway, so I grabbed the handles and off we went. She oohed and aahed at everything and everyone. The first time they responded in kind, she crooked a finger at me. I bent, and she whispered, "Pronto, don't let anyone touch me. I am too frail." I stepped in front of her and heard "and tell them I am Muda, so they don't linger," before relaying her last detail: mute. 
"Good thinking," I told her over my shoulder. 
Everyone obeyed her wishes per my request. Posing for selfies with the entire town practically, she was out for a good time. Until she wasn't. 
A particularly gruesome looking ghoul right out of any zombie movie caught her attention.
"Follow but be discreet." 
The fellow hobbled along, a constant but faint stream of smoke in his wake. 
"What's with the humo?" I asked.
"Vino del Infierno. Toxic smoke comes from Hell." Someone might be taken before their time tonight, she told me. I asked why she didn't intervene. "Mine is not to question who or why," she said, "but to deliver them to the afterlives they predestined by their earthly ones."
She really believes she's Santa Muerte, I marveled at the same time I also wondered if and how many and what kinds of meds she'd skipped. 
"Why is he here on the day when Muertos are honored?" I figured I'd get my money's worth, so to speak, and see how she replied. 
"You are truly ignorant, you know that?"
Before I could stop myself, I stood before her and posed in a huffy, fist-on-the hip stance, "Excuse me?"
"Whatevs, as they say." She waved me off, and I steered her away again. "The veil between the living and the dead lifts on November second. Satanas se cree rey. As 'king,' he orders minions to earth to populate his domain more on this day than any other. They can walk amongst humans from All-Hallows to today without detection, without disguise. These ghouls can manipulate accidental deaths through guile, so celestial spirits keep an eye out. You see any angel costumes, look twice. They might not be fake. Anyhow, they ensure only those whose time has truly come will perish on this special day. I am only here to collect and deliver souls if there are any."
"Kind of heartless," I muttered and then apologized for being rude. 
"I have no heart." Then she pointed with her chin at a young man who had captured the
dead one's attention. "What is that fellow up to?" 
Off to one side of the last vendor stall, some guy was doing his best to convince a girl to do something she objected to. The "saint" gestured me to get closer. We were maybe ten feet from them when he grabbed one of her wrists. The girl slapped him soundly across the face with her free hand and then raised her knee to hurt him enough that he fell. He curled inward and writhed and struggled to catch his breath as the girl took off. A crowd gathered. El Muerto closed in.
But a couple of guys thrust the man to his feet and clapped him soundly on the back until he recovered. The dead one stumbled off. The escalofrío crawled down my back. He really did make a convincing zombie.
"Close call," Santa Muerte muttered, followed by "food court."
"You eat?" 
"You are ridiculous, you know that, right? People choke on food more than you know." 
Again, I wondered at how she didn't once break character. And again, another thought made me shiver. If she truly believed she was Death, what was she capable of? I figured I was safe in the crowd if she tried anything. And so far, she'd been downright entertaining. I was along for the ride, for now, anyway. We stood off to one side of the eating area and watched the dead one meander from vendor stall to stall until he spotted us. At least, I think he did from his abrupt turn around. He headed to the arcade and carnival games. So did we. The entire afternoon we spent guarding the citizens of my town against el Muerto, none the wiser. I wondered if my saint had a caregiver out looking for her, or if a van waited to take her and the other patients back to the asilo or rooming house. I didn't see any anywhere, no one calling out anyone's name, no alerts of any missing person on Facebook which the whole town used to connect. I really wanted to go home, preferably not in the dark alone. My good deed done for the day, I just wanted a beer. Right before streetlights came on, we followed el Muerto to the parking lot next to the river. "You never know if some pedestrian might kick the bucket beneath the vehicle of a careless or drunk driver," the woman said. "Humans don't wander about guarding their backs as they ought."
We should have been watching our own backs. A man I later found had caught his shoelace on the gas pedal plowed into me from behind and sent us over the bank of the river, swollen with floods. The woman flipped into the water with the wheelchair over her right after, and they flowed off with the current. I followed. El Muerto jumped in right behind. He caught my left arm while la Muerte gripped my right. 
"Déjala," she commanded as we all bobbed down river. "Let her go. I have her now. Your job is finished here. Vete. Go."
In the middle of trying to keep muddy water out of my mouth, I freaked out for the first time since "Death" accosted me. I watched this strange man's ghoul mask disintegrate and leave only skull. I screamed but gagged with water. As the current carried us, he lost his grip from the slippery flesh falling off his bones before he could readjust his hold. Hers held onto mine like the tightest of handcuffs. He disappeared in pieces beneath the water, the wheelchair beyond floating away as Santa Muerte tugged me toward shore where a pool had formed away from the current.
Choking and spitting dirty water, I slid and slipped and finally crawled retching toward the sodden bank. A hollow sound like bamboo followed my movement. I looked down at the saint's bony hand still wrapped around my wrist and heard a harrumph.
I turned back and saw something that made me a believer of the unbelievable. The woman had broken apart from the collision with the water, the chair, and me and now floated in several skeletal sections amongst singular bobbing bones in that shallow pool. I plopped down right on the mud and awed at this spinning whirlwind of bones rising into the air. Her hand let go of my wrist and attached itself to the arm bones and shoulder socket. The vortex grew longer and whirled faster until Santa Muerte stood, assembled and clothed, before ascending into the night sky with arms and hands open like saints in pictures and statues until I no longer saw her. 
"No era tu tiempo," she yelled. "It was not your time." 
Blaring sirens closed in, and people shouted from beyond the reeds, but above the cacophony I heard, "Told you I was real." 
I almost shivered myself into pieces like the legend of my folklore had by the time rescuers arrived. Sopping wet at dusk from icy water and spending the afternoon with ghosts do that to a person. 
The town mourned the loss of a stranger whose body was never recovered. Only the mangled remains of the wheelchair came to light amongst debris after the waters receded. My miraculous washing up on shore made me a hometown hero of sorts. I did a lot of deflecting at first when asked why the selfies with her, each and every one, blurred her features. Telling the truth I knew no one would believe would probably make me a resident of the asilo too.