Chapter Eight

Photo By Eirik Newth

In Seaford, Delaware, Philip Hopkins was about to die.

Philip was not aware of this, and he was also not aware that his death was being watched by Death herself, and a recently deceased college student named Andi.  It’s hard to say for sure if he would have wanted to know or not.

Philip was working on his roof.  He knew it was stupid to be up there in the winter, when the roof was covered with snow.  He’d grown up in North Dakota and knew a thing or two about snow and ice.  All the same, there he was, trying to figure out what had gone wrong with his satellite dish, since the satellite company didn’t seem to have any interest in actually fixing the problem within the next few months.

Death and Andi were standing on the edge of the roof, over the concrete patio that was about twenty feet down.  Seconds earlier, they had been in Andi’s dorm room.  Philip was a little further up the roof, muttering curses and poking at the cables coming out of the satellite dish with his Leatherman.

“Whoa, so he’s not dead yet?” was the first thing Andi said.  “I kind of assumed…”

“No, he’s not dead yet,” Death said. “You might want to look away, or go somewhere else.”

Andi looked around for the first time, and realized they were on the edge of a snowy, icy roof, a long ways up.  Her eyes got very wide.

“Uh huh.  And where, exactly, do you think I should go?” Andi said, still staring down at the ground, wondering just how high up they all were.

Death looked around then and said, “Oh, right.  Well, I guess you might just want to look away.”

Philip was getting a little bit worked up.  He dropped his Leatherman into the snow under the satellite dish, and cursed rather loudly.

Death had her stopwatch out and running, and was keeping track of the events leading up to Philip’s demise, as usual.

What wasn’t usual happened next.

“I don’t know, seems kind of rude to be present at someone’s death and not watch,” Andi said.  She peeked over Death’s shoulder at her clipboard.  “What are you doing?”

Death pulled the clipboard to her chest, as if Andi were trying to copy answers off of her test, and gave Andi a mildly reproachful look.  “This is none of your business.”

Andi stepped aside, careful not to step back off the roof, and said, “OK, no problem.  You’re the one who brought me along though.”

She turned and watched what Philip was doing now.  What he was doing was yanking vigorously on one of the cables that had apparently frozen into place.

Death stopped focusing for a second on Philip, and instead focused on Andi.

“What did you mean, that it would be rude not to watch?” Death said.

Andi was still watching Philip closely.

She said, “Well, I don’t know.  I don’t mean it should be entertaining or anything like that.  It just seems wrong to let it happen unobserved.”

Death considered what Andi had said for a moment, then said, “I think so too.”

She waved her clipboard slightly, and said, “This is the plan for Philip’s death.”

Andi stopped watching Philip in order to look at Death then.

“There’s a plan?”

“Of course. You don’t think something like this just happens, do you?  What if something goes wrong?  There’s a saying I’ve adopted recently, though I’ve always felt this way: perfect planning prevents piss poor performance.  Can’t recall who coined the phrase, but I like it.”

Andi wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the last bit, she was stuck on the fact that there was a plan for Philip’s death.

“Wait, so does that mean you had a plan for my death?” Andi said.

“Of course.”

“So you decided to have me drop dead in my dorm room, alone?”

“Well, there’s more to it than that,” Death said.  “Believe me, your death was the perfect death for you.  I put a ton of effort into making sure everyone dies in exactly the right way.”

Andi said, “So… cancer is the right way for innocent children to die? You know, you’re kind of an asshole.”

Death grimaced.  She enunciated each word carefully as she spoke. “There’s more to it.  I didn’t say everyone dies in a just way, or a fair way.  Just the right way.”

Andi realized she’d just hit close to home.  “Sorry, I didn’t understand.”

“It’s OK,” Death said.  She checked her stopwatch, looked at the plan, and hoped that the last several items had happened as intended.

At the moment, Philip was crouching and not really paying attention to his footing.  He was cursing a blue streak under his breath about the stupid god damned satellite company and their no good lazy bum asshole techs who are too precious to come out and fix the god damned dish so he could watch some god damned hockey like any red blooded American would want to in the middle of god damned winter when there’s nothing else to do.  Damn it.

A few thoughts were gathering steam in Andi’s head.  After a couple moments, she spoke again.

“So you plan everyone’s death?” Andi said.

Death ticked off an item on her list and said, “Yes, pretty much everyone.”

Andi’s brow creased.  “Pretty much?  So there are some people whose deaths you don’t plan?”

“Right, there are a few people out there, well, more than a few from your point of view, that aren’t in my jurisdiction, so to speak,” Death said.

“You have a jurisdiction?  Are there are other Deaths?”

“Not exactly.  But there are other gods of death, angels of death, and the like.  They run their own shows.  Then there are the special cases.  Sometimes, one of the gods will get an urge to smite someone.  There’s nothing I can do about that.  Smote is smote.  My plan goes out the window then.  And then there’s those idiot suicides.  Don’t get me started on them.”

“OK, cool,” Andi said. She, in fact, had every intention of asking Death what her beef with suicides was, when there was a sharp intake of breath, a thump, and sliding sound.  She looked just in time to see Philip slip over the edge of the roof, with a panicked “shit” and fall to the patio.

He landed exactly wrong, or exactly right, depending on your point of view, and died instantly.  Andi and Death saw Philip’s soul appear next to his body.

“Well, son of a bitch,” they could just barely hear him say.

“So now what?” Andi said.

“Now we go and get him, and I bring you two to the other side,” Death said.

Andi took a good look at the drop between them and the patio below, and said, “How do we do that?”

Death cracked a little grin, and said, “Dead and afraid of heights?”

“Not heights, just falling.”

A fraction of a second later, the two of them were on the patio next to Philip’s soul.

“You forgot you’re with me.  I can be where ever I need to be whenever I need to be there, more or less.”

“That’s pretty convenient,” Andi said.

“Who are you two?” Philip asked.  He looked pretty upset.

Death smiled at him, kindly, and said “I’m Death, this is Andi.  Would you come with me?”

“Is Andi like your sidekick?” Philip asked.  Death wasn’t sure she liked his tone.

“No, she’s just dead too,” Death said.  “Would you come with us?”

Andi started talking, very excitedly, “Did you know she had your death all planned out?  Isn’t that cool?”

Philip did not appear to think it was cool.  In fact, Philip looked downright offended.

“It was planned?  So you decided to kill me by causing me to fall off my roof like a chump?” Philip said to Death.

Death gave Andi an annoyed look, and silently resolved not to tell anyone else the secrets of her trade again, even if they did seem particularly interested and sympathetic.  Now she was going to have to try and drag this guy along after calming him down.

“Hey, ease up on her there, Phil,” Andi said.  “She’s doing the best she can.  There’s no need to be a tool about it.”

“Tool? Did you just call me a tool?” Philip said.

“No, I called you Phil,” Andi said. “Lighten up, you’re dead.”

Philip closed his eyes and looked like he was doing his best to contain his temper.

“Philip, it was simply your time to go.  Would you come with us, please?” Death said.

Philip lifted his chin and said, “What if I don’t, Ms. Doing the Best She Can?”

Death fixed Philip with an icy stare.  Coming from, you know, Death, that’s pretty icy indeed.

“If you don’t, you’ll get to enjoy watching everything you ever loved or cared about waste away, die, rot and be replaced, until you eventually succumb to madness during an eternity of solitude.”

Philip took a breath to answer, and then what Death had just said appeared to sink in.

“Oh.  Well, in that case, I’ll just come with you,” he said.

“Good decision,” Andi said.  She was mildly horrified by the prospect of an eternity alone as well.

Death breathed a sigh of relief, quietly.  If someone refused to come along, she could always just drag them to the doorway and throw them in if she had to.  She didn’t really care for doing so, however.  The real challenge came when someone bolted.  In the old days, she’d had time to chase them down and convince them to come along with her before they succumbed to madness.

But now there wasn’t even time for her to grab lunch, much less hunt down and sweet-talk a soul on the run into coming along with her.

There had been a few runaway souls who had been smart enough, or lucky enough, to be around when she was in the area for another collection.  They invariably begged to be brought along if enough time had passed since their demise.

It troubled Death knowing that there were souls still out there, slowly going mad.  Some of them had found ways to interact with the physical world again, in a last-ditch effort to hang on to their time and place. Luckily, word of hauntings got around pretty quickly now, and she was usually able to go and collect them when she could find a spare moment.

“Yes, thank you, Philip,” Death had begun to say, when her phone rang.  The corner of her mouth twisted a bit, and she took her phone out to see how much time there was.

The next passing was due in one minute and thirty seconds, in Chula Vista, California.

“Well, you two, it looks like we’re going to be making a stop in Southern California.  Take my hands, please,” Death said.

Andi and Philip each took one of Death’s outstretched hands, and the three of them were gone.

Twenty minutes later, one of Philip’s neighbors happened to look out their window and see his body sprawled out on the patio.  The neighbor rushed to help him, but it was, of course, far too late.