Saturday, November 30, 2013

Chapter Twenty Five

Photo by Andy Franklin
Death was on high alert now.  Taking care of the souls on the cruise ship had been relatively easy, compared to the mess in the stadium.  She wanted her bike back, and she wanted to stop whoever had decided to start killing everyone.  And, somewhere in the back of her head, was a desire for pie.  However, Death did have her priorities straight: Order, justice, then pie.

Death’s phone beeped at her, and she was dismayed to see it was an immediate collection.  She was also mildly relieved that it was only one soul that needed to be collected, rather than hundreds or thousands.  One soul was pretty easy to deal with. 

However, if this Robert Svenson guy was a suicide, she was going to tear his frickin’ head off.  On the upside, it looked like he lived pretty close to the Bump & Grind. She might be able to go and get a cup of coffee, if she had a spare minute afterwards.

Moments later, Death was outside Robert Svenson’s apartment.  She went inside, expecting to find a suicide pacing around and looking forlorn and confused.  Instead, she found the soul of an enormous man, dressed in black with skulls printed on his shirt, with a shaved head, and incongruously dainty wire-framed glasses, reading a battered copy of The Illiad.  Something about him seemed familiar.  What was it, though?

Robert happened to look up, and noticed Death.  He calmly marked his place in his book, and then said, “Hi.  Who are you?”

“I’m Death. Are you Robert Svenson?” Death said. 

“Rob, yes, that’s me.  So you’re Death.  Andi said you’re pretty cool the first time she visited me,” Rob said.

Oh, of course, Death thought.  This was the friend Andi was visiting.  No wonder he seems familiar.

“I have to be honest,” Rob said, “I was settling in for a long eternity here.  I’d been expecting a bright light, or a tunnel, or, I dunno, the Raiderettes or something, but nothing happened, so I figured I’d get caught up on some of the things I’ve been wanting to read.”

“How long have you been waiting?” Death said.  “And did I see you holding a book?  How did you figure that out?”

“Huh?  Oh, yeah,” Rob said.  “It took me a couple of tries to get the hang of picking up a book, but I figured it out.  I’d guess I’ve been here for a few hours, maybe half a day.  I’d sat waiting for someone to come and get me, but no one did, so I decided I might as well use the time for something.”

Death was impressed.

“Hang on, half a day?” she said.  Her phone had just alerted her to his death, and said it was an immediate collection.  She hoped her phone wasn’t getting behind now.

“Yeah, Andi came and killed me earlier, then wandered off saying something about rescuing people,” Rob said.

He was going to continue talking, but Death interrupted him.

“Hang on, did you say Andi killed you?” Death said.

“Yeah, and she thought I’d be happy about it too.  Then when I wasn’t she left in a huff.  No apology or anything.  Just weird, I didn’t ever think she was like that before.  Man, I guess you never really know who people are going to grow up to be, huh?” Rob said.

Death looked at Rob, and said, “You weren’t supposed to die yet, either.  You were going to live a long life.  Hang on.  She thought you were going to be happy about it?”

“Yeah, she wanted me to help her kill, like, everyone.  She said something about rescuing everybody, and a whole new way.  Andi went off the deep end, I’d say,” Rob said.

“Things are a lot worse than I realized,” Death said, mainly to herself.  She took a breath to say something else to Rob, when her phone rang.  She took it out, looked at it with a slightly puzzled expression, and answered it.

***

Ares was in a bar and was, as usual, spoiling for a fight.  Actually, the place he was in billed itself as a sports pub, whatever the hell that was supposed to be.  The joint looked a little like an Irish pub, in that it had lots of dark wood and a staggering array of beers on tap.  And the menu featured beef stew, along with fish and chips.  However, it also had enormous televisions covering almost every vertical surface, and the waitresses were all wearing “kilts” that were less of a kilt and more of a bikini bottom.  The place must have been able to hold close to five hundred people, and there were at least three hundred people present.

Just about the right number for a good, proper bar brawl.

Ares had been working his way through the pub, visiting the tables, and getting the people sitting at each of them riled up about sports, politics, money, whatever it took.  At the moment, the place was bubbling with tension.  Ares noticed the bartender and the waitresses had all disappeared.  It was just going to take a final irritant to push the crowd into a collective rage, and then the fight would start.

Ares could barely contain his excitement.  He heard a motorcycle rumbling outside, and turned to see if the motorcycle had delivered the final ingredient to make his bar brawl recipe complete.

He was extremely surprised when he saw that, rather than a mean-looking biker, a cute little college-aged girl walked in.  He was extra surprised when he realized that he recognized her, and that she was Death’s apprentice.

He had his phone out and was calling Death to see if she knew that Andi was not in Death’s apartment the way she was supposed to be, but in fact at a bar.  And apparently on a motorcycle.

As soon as Death answered her phone, Ares started talking.

“Death, it’s Ares.  Did you know your little intern just walked into the bar I’m in?  Isn’t she supposed to be…”

Ares trailed off, because suddenly everyone in the bar dropped dead around him.

“God damn it!” Ares shouted, into the phone by accident.  “She just killed everyone!  I’ve been in here for a couple hours working this crowd and she just killed all of them!  What a fucking waste of my time.”

He continued, but Death wasn’t listening.  He didn’t notice the line had gone dead.

Andi had noticed him, however.  A large, muscular man in black leathers who is shouting curses really stands out in a bar full of people, all of whom are dead except for him.

“Shit,” she muttered, and hurried outside.

***

Death had hung up the phone as soon as Ares had said Andi was in the same bar he was in.  She looked at Rob, and decided that he might be useful to have along.

“Andi has been spotted.  I need to go stop her.  Are you going to come with?”  Death said.

Rob considered it for about half a second before deciding that tagging along with Death to catch the woman who had killed him sounded a lot better than re-reading The Illiad.

“I’m in,” he said.

Just then, Death’s phone started going off in her pocket, again.  She didn’t even bother to look at it this time, she knew what had happened.

She grabbed Rob’s hand and said, “Let’s go.”

***

Ares was still standing in the middle of the bar shouting about what a god damned inconvenience Andi had caused him when Death and Rob arrived.  Death took a look around at the room full of irritated souls, but didn’t see Andi.

She did see the bright daylight streaming through the exit door as it closed, however.  Death sprinted through the bar, threw the door open, and stormed outside.  In the bright daylight, she saw Andi looking back at her, frantically trying to get on the bike and get the kickstand up.  Death was on her in a fraction of a second, holding Andi firmly by the hair.

Distracted by the pain, Andi let go of the handlebars to try and pull Death’s hand out of her hair.  She tried to step away, but Death held fast.

Trying to step away had, however, gotten Andi far enough off of Death’s bike that it fell over on to its side, making a racket that made Death’s heart sink.

She pulled sharply up on Andi’s hair, lifting her off the ground until her feet dangled in the air.

“I was upset with you before,” Death said, “but now I am really, really pissed off.”

Death noticed Ares and Rob watching out of the corner of her eye, but paid them no mind.  She stepped out of the world, and held Andi up off her feet until the gateway appeared.  Andi kicked and thrashed and protested, but it really had no effect.

“You know,” Death said, “I’m not really one for the cruel, divine punishments.  I’ve never cursed someone to an eternity of pushing a boulder up a hill just to watch it tumble back down again.  That kind of thing isn’t my style.”

The gateway appeared and opened before them then.

“It’s not my style,” Death said, “but you have pissed off a lot of other gods, and some of them aren’t quite as nice as me.”

Andi had still been thrashing and protesting, but suddenly got very quiet. 

“What’s going to happen to me?” she said.

Death smiled her gentle smile, and said, “I really couldn’t say.”

She threw Andi through the open door.  It shut quickly behind her, and Death stood alone in the dark. 

She thought quietly for a moment, then seemed to come to a conclusion, and smiled.

“I want a steak, and French fries,” Death said. “And a beer.”

She stepped back into the world, and saw that Ares and Rob had righted her bike again.  They appeared to be examining the side it fell on, and were pointing at it now and then.

“Hey Death,” Ares said.  He looked concerned.  “Well, the good news is that your bike didn’t get beat up too badly.  You can see a few scratches here and there.  I bet Hep can fix that up for you, no problem.”

Death smiled, and said, “Excuse me a minute, I have to get all of the former patrons of this bar to the other side.  Stick around for a few, will you, both of you?”

Ares and Rob looked at each other.  Ares said, “Sure, no sweat.”

Death gathered the souls inside, who were still pretty pissed off about everything they had been pissed off about before they’d died, and brought them to the gateway.  When she was done with that, she went back to where Ares and Rob were. 

She checked her phone, and was absolutely thrilled to discover that she had an hour and a half until her next collection.  She wasn’t sure how that could have happened, but decided not to think about it too hard and just enjoy it instead.

“So, Rob, sorry to say it, but I can’t really do much to help you.  But, I’m impressed that you’ve figured out how to interact with the physical world again so quickly.  You know, there’s a lot of other cool stuff I could teach you.  Because of Andi’s little stunts there are a bunch of souls out there that still need to be found and delivered, and I can’t do that and keep up with my regular, scheduled work. Want to tag along for a while and help me out?” Death said.

Rob didn’t even think about it before saying, “Sure, that sounds great.  When do we get started?”

“Soon,” Death said.  She turned to Ares.

“I think you offered to buy me dinner,” she said, and smiled.


The End.

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