Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Introducing Death.
Chapter 2 - Introducing James
Chapter 3 - In which a deal is struck between Hephaistos and Ares.
Chapter 4 - In which James makes a discovery
Chapter 5 - In which Death has a near dinner experience
Chapter 6 - In which James gets a second chance
Chapter 7 - In which Death gets a small surprise
Chapter 8 - In which James has a very good day indeed
Chapter 9 - In which Death has a rough day
Chapter 10 - In which Scroat is depressed
Chapter 11 - In which a suicide irritates Death
Chapter 12 - In which James screws everything up and doesn't die on time.
Chapter 13 - In which we meet an attempted suicide. Or a superhero.
Chapter 14 - In which no one, for no apparent reason, dies.
Chapter 15 - In which Scroat starts to get out of his funk.
Chapter 16 - In which shadowy men plot shadowy doings
Chapter 17 - In which things start going downhill.
Chapter 18 - In which we find out where Death has been lately
Chapter 19 - In which Ares is frustrated, Hep is unimpressed, and Father Adamson is surprised
Chapter 20 - In which Jill gets fed up with the new James and goes home
Chapter 21 - In which Hep delivers a motorcycle to a whole new Ares.
Chapter 22 - In which Hep tries to straighten out Death
Chapter 23 - In which James has one hell of a morning.
Chapter 24 - In which Hep assumes his new temporary duties
Chapter 25 - In which Hep starts getting the hang of things, with some help from a friend
Chapter 26 - In which an unlikely group plots dark deeds
Chapter 27 - In which Hep and Scroat conscript Ares
Chapter 28 - In which some morticians are disgruntled
Chapter 29 - In which Hep and Scroat force Ares to help them out

Chapter 30 - In which James's debauchery leads him to enlightenment

Chapter 31 - In which a lot of crazy stuff goes down.
Chapter 32 - In which Ares causes a lot of inconvenience for Hep and Scroat
Chapter 33 - In which James tries to win back Jill
Chapter 34 - In which Ares comes around
Chapter 35 - In which we reach the thrilling conclusion!

Official Nanowrimo word count: 50,002.
I Conquer.

Check back tomorrow for the bonus discussion questions! For now, I've got to do some laundry.

Chapter Thirty Five

Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. - J. Robert Oppenheimer recalling the Bhagavad Gita while watching the Trinity nuclear test.

Chapter Thirty Five

For the last couple of days, since the visit by Nubbins, Death had been feeling increasingly concerned that, perhaps, her depression was less about her frustration with work, and more about her own selfish desires. She fought the idea, insisting to herself that her job actually was pointless. And it was true that she would never complete her work. At least, not until all of humanity was wiped out and that, in itself, was probably going to be something of a drag.

As she was digging into a fresh tube of cookie dough, however, she had a thought. More of a realization, really. A revelation.

Her work, she realized, was what kept the world moving. Those who achieved largely did so because they realized they had little time and wished to make the most of it. Without her, there was no balance to birth. There was no reason to fear anything.

It was possible, she thought, that her work was ultimately the greatest force for good. She did have a purpose. Her work was what gave life value.

She dropped the spoon and tube of cookie dough, and got out of bed. She had to get cleaned up, and get back to work at once.

“Oh, fuck. Poor Hep!” she exclaimed. She hurried to the shower.

#

Ares had gone home the night before. Hep and Scroat were currently in the foothills of a mountain range just outside Phoenix, where James Robert Quiggley, Jim-Bob to his friends, was about to blow hisownself the fuck up with a homemade bomb in a fifty gallon drum.

Hep and Scroat waited and watched as James wired up the detonator box. He was very careful to make sure everything was wired correctly, and that all the fail safes were in place. His safety plan would have been immaculate if he’d correctly figured the dangerous blast radius of the bomb. He was about two hundred feet too close.

Hep checked his watch. Two minutes to showtime.

#

Death toweled herself off quickly and threw on the first clothes she could find that looked presentable, then pulled her cloak on over them. She grabbed her spare stopwatch and clipboard, turned off the TV and checked her appearance once last time in the mirror before disappearing.

#

Jim Bob had satisfied himself that all the necessary safety steps had been taken. He attached the last two wires to the detonator, and put on his hearing and eye protection. He looked around his immediate area through a pair of binoculars, to make sure there weren’t any bystanders he hadn’t noticed. He didn’t see Hep and Scroat, waiting patiently well outside the blast radius.

“One minute to detonation!” Jim Bob hollered through an electronic bullhorn. He flipped the power switch on the detonator, and watched the seconds tick by on his Timex.

“Thirty seconds to detonation!” he hollered, then “twenty seconds!”

He flipped up the safety cover keeping the trigger button from accidentally being pushed.

“Ten seconds and counting to detonation! Ten.... Nine... Eight...”

Hep and Scroat were surprised by the appearance of a strikingly beautiful woman in a black cloak. She was just in front of them, smiling and holding a stopwatch and a clipboard.

“Seven... Six...”

“I’ll handle this one, guys. Thanks for all your help,” Death said.

“Three... Two... One...” then there was a terrific explosion. The fifty gallon drum was ripped to shreds, sending shrapnel flying one thousand yards in any direction. Jim Bob was torn to pieces by the flying debris and sheer force of the explosion. His hearing protection and safety glasses were thrown from his head. There was a mini mushroom cloud at ground zero.

When the dust and debris had settled, Jim Bob’s soul stood where his body had been two seconds earlier.

“Well that ain’t right,” Jim Bob said, and scratched his head.

Then he saw a very pale, very beautiful woman in a black cloak smiling at him.

“Hello, Jim Bob. Would you walk with me?” she asked him.

“Well, yes ma’am. It would be my honor,” he said and took her hand.

#

On battlefields, remote and urban, all over the world, the gunfire and explosions suddenly stopped. A great many soldiers who had been terribly wounded during the course of the fighting looked at one another, confused, and fell down properly dead.

Car crash victims, people consumed by diseases, drug users, old people, babies, professionals, construction workers, doctors, patients... everyone who should have been dead, suddenly was.

Clean up of all the bodies was going to be quite the logistical nightmare.

#

Death found James King in his old house. The one he’d lived in before he became a rich and powerful businessman. He was playing in the basement with a chemistry set, amusing himself by changing the color of a clear solution green by adding another clear liquid, and then back to clear again with the addition of a different chemical.

“Hello, James,” Death said.

James put down the beakers he’d been holding and said, “Hello. I’ve been wondering when you were going to show up again.”

“I was delayed by a personal crisis,” Death said.

“That’s OK.”

“From what I’d heard, you’ve become quite the business success story. You have a mansion in L.A. and a collection of expensive cars. What are you doing back here?”

“I realized that stuff didn’t really matter. It was a lot of fun, but it didn’t make me as happy as my chemistry set in my basement.”

“I see,” Death said. “And what happened with your lady friend?”

“I let her get away,” James said. He looked at his hands.

“You have regrets,” Death said.

“Oh yes.”

“Good. A life without regrets is one that was not truly lived,” Death said.

James smiled.

“Are you ready to go now, James?” Death asked him.

James stood up, and said, “Yes, I suppose I am. I’ve gotten more life than I deserved, and I achieved almost everything I wanted to. With a couple screw-ups.”

Death smiled all the wider. “You know, it really seems to be a shame to kill a man who’s already invented a cure for cancer, and has finally figured out what he wants from life.”

James looked extremely puzzled, but excited. “Really?”

“Yes. I’d suggest you make the most of what time you have left, James. You might try to, oh, rekindle an old flame, perhaps? Maybe invent something new. I’ll be seeing you around,” Death said, and winked at him.

Then she disappeared.

James’s jaw worked up and down a couple of times. He looked at his chemistry set and his watch, as though they might provide him with some vital clue. Then he ran upstairs and picked up the phone.

#

Hep and Scroat were sitting in Ares’s living room. He had replaced the cushions and pillows with proper furniture, albeit it was mostly made of black leather.

Ares was making a huge racket in another room, looking for something. “Ah ha! Here it is!”

Ares came back into the room, beaming, and carrying an ornate and perfectly wrought shield and armor. Achilles’s armor.

Hep stood up, and Ares handed the shield and armor to him.

“As promised, sir.”

“It’s just like I remembered it. How did you find it again.”

Ares looked away, and touched the side of his nose. “It fell off a truck.”

Hep was about to say something more, when he was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a pale woman wearing a black cloak.

“Uh, hi,” is what he said.

“Hello, Hephaistos. I didn’t really properly thank you for all of your help. You really did more than should have been expected of you, and I wish I had a way I could repay you.”

Scroat mumbled, “I could think of a way...”

Ares clouted him on the back of the head.

“It’s OK,” Hep said. “I’m always happy to help a friend in need.”

“You’re far too kind,” Death said. She leaned over and kissed Hep on the cheek.

He blushed deeply, and mumbled a lot of nonsense before saying “thank you.”

“Well, gentlemen, I have a lot to do, so I’ll be on my way. Ares,” she looked at him and smiled, “try to stay out of trouble.”

“Sure thing. I hardly ever get into any trouble,” Ares said.

“See you around, Scroat,” Death said.

“Yep, later,” Scroat said, and put his hands in his pockets.

“Oh, hey, wait!” Ares said. “I wanted to give you something. It’s not really much use to me any way.”

He lead Death, Hep and Scroat out to his garage and opened the door. There, gleaming and perfect, was the motorcycle Hep had built for him. Thankfully, Ares had not ruined it when he was a confused hippie. Its paint was black as the darkest cave, and its chrome shone like the stars at night. It sat, long and low, begging for someone to master it.

“I want you to have this. I hear riding helps when you’re feeling down, and I’m a terrible fucking rider to be honest. You need some proper transportation, anyways,” Ares said and handed Death the keys.

She looked at Hep “Your handiwork, I presume?”

“Yeah, all me,” Hep said, proudly.

“Very nicely done,” Death said. She swung a leg over the seat, and lifted the bike off its kickstand. The key slipped into the ignition switch as though it had been longing to go home. Death thumbed the starter button, and the motor roared to life.

“Death’s mighty steed,” Death said, almost to herself, as the bike rumbled underneath her. “See you around, then, guys.”

With that, she and the motorcycle were gone, as though she’d never been there.

THE END.

Chapter Thirty Four

To himself, every one is an immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead. - Samuel Butler

Chapter Thirty Four

Hep was tired from trying to keep Ares under control. He’d thought keeping a hippie under lock and key would be easy, but he’d forgotten that hippies still talk. A lot. Especially if they’re locked up.

So, he told Ares that he wasn’t going to keep him locked up any more, and he wouldn’t have to go to anymore deaths if he didn’t want to, but that he would be very grateful if Ares stuck around for a bit.

“Will you apologize for locking me up?”

Hep rolled his eyes, and said, “Yes, Ares, I’m sorry I locked you up.”

“OK. I’ll hang out for a while,” Ares said.

Hep unlocked him and then asked him if he wanted something to drink.

Ares rubbed his wrists where the handcuffs had been and said, “Have you got any mint tea?”

“Um. No. I have beer. I have liqour. And, I guess, I have coffee.”

“Can I just have a glass of water?”

“Sure, come on,” Hep said, and led Ares out into the living room where Scroat was watching porn.

“Dude, do we have to watch this?”

Scroat looked at him.

“I thought you fucking hippies were all about, you know, fucking. Free love, right?”

“Yeah, but porn is just degrading to everyone.”

“Fuck. OK. Since you are our guest, I will watch something else. You want to see if the Care Bears movie is on cable?”

Ares didn’t answer. He sat down on the couch. Hep came in with a glass of water for Ares and a beer for himself.

Hep had just sat down when the phone buzzed in his pocket. He had set it to vibrate to keep Ares from freaking out and vanishing when it went off.

Hep excused himself and went in to the bathroom, where he checked to see who was due to die. It looked like he had to collect a guy named Floyd White from a nightclub. He was supposed to overdose on cocaine in the V.I.P. room. Hep put the phone back in his pocket and went out to the living room.

“Hey, anyone want to go to a nightclub?” Hep asked.

Scroat immediately said, “Fuck yeah!”

Ares, being too trusting for his own good, also agreed that going to a nightclub sounded like a fun idea.

Five minutes later they were on their way.

There was already a line down the block when they arrived outside the club.

“I didn’t know there were any decent clubs in Arizona,” Ares said.

“There aren’t,” Hep said. “No one here knows the difference, though.”

They waited for half an hour before the line moved at all.

“Man, I don’t want to hang out in line all night,” Ares said. “Maybe we should go find a different club.”

“No, we definitely want to get in to this club,” Hep said.

“Why, I thought there weren’t any decent ones here anyway.”

Hep thought quickly and said, “Yeah, but the other ones are even worse than this one.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Scroat said. “Come with me.”

He walked towards the bouncer standing at the velvet ropes. Before they had even stopped, the bouncer said, “Wait in line, gentlemen, there’s no room inside.”

“Aw, come on, don’t you remember us? We went to school together,” Scroat said, and flashed a one hundred dollar bill at the bouncer.

“Oh, hey, yeah. It’s been a while fellas,” he reached to shake Scroat’s hand, and Scroat deftly handed him the cash. “Come on in, no cover charge for old friends.”

“Thanks man,” Scroat said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Ares said. Hep said nothing, but went inside with the other two.

As soon as the door was shut behind them, he asked Scroat, “Where did you get that?”

Scroat laughed and said, “out of the pocket of the douchebag in the blue suit back there.”

“Oh,” Hep said, and considered this for a moment. Then he said, “Nicely done.”

“Thank you.”

The three of them went in to the club. Hep was immediately overwhelmed with disgust by the level of douchebaggery in the club. Every which way he looked was another asshole with goofy, gelled hair and a tacky t-shirt with metallic art on it or a silk jacket. Or both, in many cases.

“Wow,” he said.

Ares was equally disgusted by the macho posturing of the clubs patrons, as well as the equal slutty posing of many of the women present.

“Do these people act like this all week?” he shouted to Hep over the BOOMBOOMBOOM of whatever crappy dance track the DJ was spinning.

“No,” Hep said, “the rest of the week they pretend they aren’t assholes.”

Some guy with bleached tips and pumped arms (with no chest muscles to speak of) ran into Ares.

“Watch it, fuckhead!” he said to Ares.

Ares stared at him, incredulous. “You ran in to me!”

The asshole grabbed Ares shirt, “You got a problem? I’ll wipe the floor with you, asshole!”

Several of the bouncers were now paying attention to the douchebag picking a fight with a gigantic hippie.

“No problem here,” Ares said. The asshole smirked and let go of Ares.

“I didn’t think so, pussy,” he said, and wandered off.

Scroat was staring at Ares with his mouth hanging open.

“Dude, who the fuck are you?”

Ares said nothing. Scroat wasn’t sure, but he could swear that Ares had been wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt when they came in. But now it was black.

They continued through the club, Hep leading the way, trying to reach the V.I.P. room.

They passed a couple more douchebags who looked just like the first douchebag. One of them shoved the other and shouted “Stay the hell away from my woman.”

The other one was coming back, when Ares stepped between them and said “Fellas, you can handle this reasonably.”

The one who had been shoved punched him in the jaw, to his own dismay. He clutched his hand in pain and tried to keep looking tough.

“That wasn’t cool,” Ares said, and stuck a finger in the douchebag’s face.

The other douchebag, the one who had started the fight, shoved Ares then. Ares turned around and grabbed the guy who had shoved him. He picked him up by his shirt, and pulled him close to his face.

“Dude, did you really wax your eyebrows? Shameful.”

He then tossed the guy back to the floor, and walked away. The jerk tried to keep looking tough as he got up off the floor, having been overpowered by a hippie. His friends were looking away and trying not to laugh at him.

Ares caught up with Scroat and Hep. Scroat had turned to ask Ares something when he noticed Ares was wearing a couple of leather cuffs around each wrist. He was certain Ares had not been wearing those earlier.

“Man, a lot of assholes here tonight,” Scroat said.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Ares said and cracked his knuckles.

They had nearly reached the V.I.P. room, and Hep was trying to formulate a more elegant plan for getting in that just braining the bouncer with the nearest convenient object and rushing in, when the first douchebag who had bumped into Ares, unbelievably, ran into him again.

“Hey, fuckhead, I told you to watch yourself,” he said.

This time Ares grabbed the douchebag by the hair and said “You had better check yourself, friend, before I wreck you.”

He then pulled the guy by his hair and sent him stumbling into a crowd of look-alikes with spiky hair and big biceps.

Hep had turned to ask if Scroat or Ares had any ideas for getting into the V.I.P room, when he saw Ares wearing a black t-shirt, black leather cuffs, black pants and black boots. He was about to comment on Ares’s new attire when the jerk he’d just tossed came running back at him. Ares wasn’t looking, and the douchebag punched Ares in the back of the head.

Hep saw fire blaze in Ares’s eyes, and then Ares turned around to confront the guy who had punched him.

“You’re gonna be in a world of...” the douchebag began saying, when Ares seized him by the head with both hands. The guy grabbed, uselessly, at Ares’s hands.

“Pain?” Ares asked. The douchebags eyes went wide, and Ares pulled his head down and lifted his knee, driving his knee into the douchebag’s face. He then pulled a bloodied douchebag up and twisted his neck around until he felt something snap and the douchebag went limp.

The guys friends watched all this with horror, and decided that there was no time like the present to get the hell out of there.

The V.I.P. bouncer hustled over, being the closest, to try and get Ares under control. He tried to put Ares in a choke hold, with disastrous results. Ares pulled the bouncer off of him and flipped him up over his back. The bouncer landed flat on his back, knocking the wind out of him.

“Where the hell were you when that asshole was trying to bully me earlier?” he asked the gasping bouncer, and walked away.

Scroat was impressed Ares hadn’t killed the bouncer, until a keg came flying from behind the bar amid various screams and landed on the bouncer’s head. So much for not killing the bouncer.

Hep felt it would be an excellent time to get in to the V.I.P. room and find Floyd. He was easy enough to spot - he was the one sprawled backwards on the couch, dead. Floyd’s soul stood next to his body looking very embarrassed. Hep could now also see the souls of the douchebag and the bouncer, and it looked like he was going to have one hell of a collection to bring to the other side, at the rate Ares was going.

Scroat came over to where Hep was, partly to see if he could help, but mostly to get out of the way.

“Is that what a murder pumpkin looks like?” he asked Hep.

“Yes.”

“Man, you were right, then.”

Ares was twirling a guy in a silk jacket and a t-shirt over his head. Scroat was pretty sure it was one of the guys who had been fighting over a girl earlier.

“What? Don’t you like playing airplane?” Ares asked him. The guy responded by throwing up.

“Oh, fuck. That’s nasty, dude,” Ares said. He threw the guy across the dance floor, where he knocked over a large number of people and came to rest when he slid headfirst into the bar.

The club’s patrons then learned that, strictly speaking, the club shouldn’t have passed the fire inspection, as there weren’t nearly enough doors for everyone to safely exit. Several people were trampled as glammed up women and men pushed and shoved to try and get out of the club before Ares’s wrath turned upon them.

After about fifteen minutes, the club was empty except for Hep, Scroat, Ares, and about twenty bodies (and their souls). The music had stopped, and they could hear sirens approaching.

“You guys might want to split,” Hep said to Scroat and Ares. “I’ll catch up with you at home later.”

“Right,” Scroat said, and he and Ares slipped behind the bar in search of a side or back door they could use unobserved.

“Now, you guys,” Hep said to the twenty souls, “come with me.”

One by one, the souls slowly walked away from their bodies and over to Hep. They were in a large group around him when the police and firefighters burst in to the club.

“Hold it right there!” one of the officers shouted at Hep.

Hep smiled, and said “See ya later.” He and the souls then stepped out of this world.

Chapter Thirty Three

When you think you are going to die, say to yourself, “So much the better! I am about to behold the Adorable!” - Abbe de Tourville

Chapter Thirty Three

After his epiphany while in bed with Tiffani with an i and what’s her name with the perfect 26 Cs, James had gotten out of bed as soon as he could politely do so (after two more tumbles) and threw everyone out of his house.

“Party’s over! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!” he repeated as he walked through his house.

Tiffani with an i was the last to leave. He saw her to the door.

“Good luck getting your life back on track,” she said.

“Thank you for pointing out I was going the wrong way,” James said.

Tiffani kissed him on the cheek, and was gone.

James shut the door, locked it, and hustled over to the phone. He quickly dialed it, and waited for someone to answer.

“I need a ticket to Oregon, as soon as possible.”

He was able to get a ticket for a flight leaving in three hours, which gave him exactly enough time to stuff his toothbrush, a couple of t-shirts and a spare pair of jeans into his backback and head for the airport.

Parking was something of a hassle, but James made it inside and on to the plane with relatively little difficulty. The flight was quick, but cramped. James was stuck sitting in a middle seat in coach, in between a college football fan and a cranky older woman who was wearing enough perfume to disguise the odor of a goat.

He did his best to avoid breathing and discussing football. As such, he arrived in Portland at five in the afternoon with an incredible headache.

At the airport, he rented a car. All that was available to rent was a Chevrolet Aveo, so that’s what he rented. There was barely enough room inside for him and his backpack, but it would have to do. He needed to get to Gold Beach.

The Aveo proved to be a horrible car, at least compared to what he was used to. It was maneuverable, of course, but had no power to speak of and passing tractor trailers made James fear for his life.

He arrived in Gold Beach just after midnight. He was happy to find a motel which had a room to rent. After checking in, he went straight to his room and tried to call Jill.

“We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is not available,” is what the automated operator told him.

“Shit!” James said. The phone lines must be down. Honestly, the lines were down more often than they were up at Jill’s compound along the Rogue river. It was difficult for the linemen to get out there, for one thing, and the other problem was that the linemen just weren’t in that much of a hurry to get out there even if the line was broken in an easily accessible spot.

He was going to have to try and catch a lift with a fisherman in the morning, or rent a boat.

At six o’clock the next morning, James was already down at the docks, hoping to find a boater who was planning to head up the Rogue. He had no luck, so at eight o’clock he was waiting outside the boat rental office when the old man who ran the place showed up.

“Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll be with you,” the old man said as he unlocked the door, slipped inside, and locked the door again. James saw him turn on the lights, set out the day’s newspaper, and then wander in to the back room. He came out again, fifteen minutes later. The old man went to the front door, unlocked and opened it, and said, “Well, come on in,” to James. He walked back behind his counter and waited for James there.

“Are you looking to hire a guide, or do you just want a boat?”

“Just the boat, please,” James said.

“Good thing. My guide up and moved to Newport yesterday. Said something about making more money as a guide on the ocean taking executives out for three hours to catch marlins or whatever it is they want to catch. I asked him where the fun in that was. He said fun didn’t make his truck payments.”

“That’s too bad,” James said, not sure what else to add.

“Well, it’s no big deal. There are ten more guys here in town that need a job to do during the day before their shift at one of the restaurants. Hell, between you and me, I expect you could be a guide, and I’ve never seen you in my life. If you can drive a boat and spin some stories about the river while you putter from spot to spot to try fishing, well, you’ll be a fine guide.”

James laughed and said, “I’m afraid I’m not much for spinning stories.”

The old man looked up at him, “yeah, and you don’t look to me like you’ve fished a day in your life. So you need a boat, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, I rent to fisherman and fishermen, mostly. If you aren’t going to fish,” here he paused and eyed James’s khaki slacks and white oxford shirt, “what are you going to do with my boat?”

“Oh. Well, I just want to explore the river a bit,” James said.

“Well, nothing wrong with that, I suppose.” The old man paused again, then said, “I got a boat for you. $120 gets you the boat, motor, gas, life vests, seat cushions and oars for the day. Fill this out, and then let’s head down to the dock.”

He handed James a clipboard with a form on it. The form said James would agreed to pay for any damage to the boat or motor, and was liable for any damage he caused on the river. He paid for the rental with his mastercard, and the proprietor led James out the back door of the office and down to the docks. They stopped at the first boat, a spartan, twelve foot aluminum boat with a nine horsepower motor and a fiberglass seat for the pilot.

“It’s got an electric starter, and there’s a pull-starter backup. You can float in two feet of water, but I’d keep to the deeper areas as much as possible if I were you. Keep an eye out for kayaks, canoes and jet boats, and stay out of their way. Don’t make a wake when you’re passing other boaters, by the way. We close at five in the afternoon, so plan on being back by then. Other than that, have fun and stay out of trouble.”

“Great, thanks!” James said. He tossed his backpack into the boat, and climbed in. He started the motor, untied and pushed away from the dock. Five minutes later, the dock was out of sight and he was on his way up the river.

As he powered up the river, he was amazed at the sheer beauty of the wilderness around him. He regretted not paying closer attention on the previous trips to Jill’s place. Of course, most of those trips had been by helicopter, so the view was significantly different.

He passed a number of canoeists heading downstream, whom he waved to as he passed. He also waved to a number of fishermen, who looked at him somewhat quizzically as he passed by in his boat with no baseball cap and no fishing gear.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he called to them.

“Sure is!” they’d call back, and resume what they were doing.

After about three hours, he reached Jill’s dock. He recognized her boat, and pulled his boat up to the dock just in front of hers. He tied up as quickly as he could and shut down the motor.

James grabbed his backpack and climbed out of the boat. He hoped Jill would be happy to see him, and also that she would be willing to feed him, since he was quite hungry. After a few seconds, he reached the stairs that led up to her home, and started climbing.

A couple minutes later, he reached the top, sweaty, out of breath. He was also, to his great surprise, surrounded by ninjas.

“Oh, hi guys,” James said. “Is Jill home?”

The ninjas moved in closer, without saying anything. James noticed they had blue eyes. Two ninjas he hadn’t noticed came up behind him and grabbed him.

“You,” one of them said in a low whisper, “are not invited or expected.”

James would have replied, but one of them hit him over the head with a club then, and he fell unconscious. One of the ninjas spoke into a radio, and moments later Jill appeared to see who her ninjas had caught.

She looked at James briefly, then said, “You know what to do,” to the ninja who had radioed her. Four of the ninjas took James to the hangar where Jill’s helicopter was waiting. Thirty minutes later two ninjas and James were in the air, heading east.

James came to in the air over eastern Oregon, just as they were coming in to land for fuel.

“What the hell? Hey! Where am I? Where are you taking me?”

One of the ninjas held up a taser before James, and put his finger over his lips.

“OK, then,” James said.

They landed and fueled the helicopter. In another fifteen minutes they were flying east once more.

“Look, would you please tell me where you’re taking me?” James said. The ninjas ignored him.

After a couple of hours, they landed next to a crossroads just outside of Nampa, Idaho. James, of course, had absolutely no idea where he was. One of the ninjas threw his door open, and pulled James out of the helicopter. He marched James into the middle of the crossroads, and handed him a twenty dollar bill and a slip of paper.

James looked at the slip of paper and saw it was a coupon. For the Sizzler.

“Do they even have the Sizzler around here?” James asked the ninja, who turned away without answering and walked back to the helicopter. “Hey, wait!” James shouted.

The ninja paused, and turned to face James.

“Will you just tell her I’m sorry?”

The ninja waited a moment, then nodded. He walked the rest of the way to the helicopter, got back in, and they flew away, leaving James in the middle of nowhere.

“Well, that didn’t go as planned,” James said to himself. Then, as he walked to the side of the road, he thought of something.

“I hope they’ll return the boat, too.”

Chapter Thirty Two

The company you keep at death is, of all things, most dependent on chance. - Keri Hulme

Chapter Thirty Two

Ares was a much bigger pain in the ass than Hep had ever expected him to be. He was starting to get a little rough around the edges and fighting back when they tried to move him around, which was good, but also bad because he could never be sure how much fight Ares had in him at a given time.

Hep had learned pretty quickly that hanging around for a long time waiting for someone to die was a drag. Unfortunately, that was the only way they could be sure they’d get there in time, since Ares kept finding new and interesting ways to slow them down.

Hep, Scroat and of course Ares were running late for a death. This one was a construction accident of some kind at a site where a skyscraper was being built. According to his notes, Scott Shermer was going to be hit by falling debris in thirty seconds. The three of them were easily thirty minutes away from the construction site, and that’s without factoring in the extra road time the construction itself was causing.

Hep was hoping that Scott would be nicely impaled on something and waiting for them to collect him. It would be a relief, and a nice change of pace if they didn’t have to chase somebody down.

“Hep, I still don’t want to do this. Could you just stop and let me out?” Ares asked.

“I know you still don’t want to do this. No. You’re still coming with us. We’re trying to get Ares back.”

“That was the old me. The new me doesn’t go in for death and suffering, just peace and love!”

“Yeah. We all liked the old you better,” Hep said.

He couldn’t believe how much the construction of the new building had screwed up traffic. They could see the structure about a mile away, but the impact of closing two lanes on the road was huge. They rolled along at under five miles per hour.

Ares started fighting against the handcuffs again.

“Will you cut that out? It’s just making you tired.”

Between grunts, Ares said, “Well, it’s annoying you as well, so it isn’t a completely wasted effort. Jerk.”

“I thought you hippies were all about passive resistance,” Hep said.

Just then was a loud CLANG as one of the welds holding the grab bar Ares was handcuffed to broke loose.

“Ha ha!” Ares said, and leapt out of the sidecar. He ran through the slow traffic to the sidewalk and fled in the opposite direction. His hands were still cuffed together.

“Shit!” Hep said. He was almost as irritated with himself for the bad weld as he was with Ares getting away.

“Fuck!” Scroat said.

Hep did a hard u-turn and hopped his motorcycle up on to the sidewalk Ares was running on. Scroat followed Hep, and the two of them sped down the sidewalk. Pedestrians leapt out of the way as Hep called “Sorry!” as he roared past them. They quickly caught up to Ares, who jumped back into traffic and started running down the centerline between two lanes of oncoming traffic.

Scroat followed him, flinging his motorcycle from side to side to dodge traffic and get in behind Ares again. Hep kept pace with them on the sidewalk, doing his best to keep an eye on Ares and avoid running over other sidewalk users.

They were approaching an intersection, and Hep sped up in order to get ahead of Ares. He turned hard to the right, bounding off the sidewalk onto the road and coming to a stop in front of Ares. Ares wasn’t quite able to stop in time, and stumbled over Hep’s sidecar.

Scroat hopped off of his bike and was on Ares in a matter of seconds.

Traffic around them was now thoroughly messed up.

“Well, Ares, I’d tried to make sure you were comfortable in the sidecar, but you messed that up. Now I’ve got to handcuff you to the spare,” Hep said.

In order for Ares to be handcuffed to the spare wheel, he had to face backwards and kneel on the seat in the sidecar. This meant that oncoming traffic saw the ugliest biker they would ever see and his passenger - Ares’s ass in tan cargo shorts.

When Ares was secured and thoroughly uncomfortable, Hep decided that they might as well not waste any more time, and rode right back up on to the sidewalk.

The three of them reached the construction site in a matter of minutes, leaving behind them a wake of frustrated motorists and terrified pedestrians.

Hep and Scroat did a quick tour around the construction site, looking for some kind of clue as to where the dead guy might be. There were a couple of workers around, but not many, and they all looked very alive. They also looked somewhat freaked out.

The reason they looked freaked out was not, as you might suspect, because two motorcycles had ridden up the sidewalk into their construction site and one of the riders was handcuffed backwards in a sidecar. They hardly seemed to notice that.

What they were freaked out about appeared to be the not inconsiderable amount of wreckage caused by a collapsed crane. Bent and broken chunks of metal lay scattered about the site. The operators cockpit was absolutely destroyed. Hep had a sneaking suspicion that Scott had been the crane’s operator.

While Ares was carrying on, yelling things like “Hey, some one help me,” to the construction workers, who ignored him, Hep walked over to the guy who looked the most like the foreman.

“Hey, is there a Scott Shermer here?”

“Naw, they sent him home when the crane collapsed,” the foreman said. “He was pretty shaken up. That was a two-hundred foot fall in a steel and glass box, and he walked away without a scratch on him.”

“Son of a bitch!” Hep said. The foreman misunderstood Hep’s frustration as amazement.

“Yeah, pretty incredible, I know. Look, Scott will be back tomorrow, but you’d better get out of here. This isn’t a safe place at the best of times, and you don’t have a hard hat on.”

“Yeah, all right. You have a good day,” Hep said.

“Not likely,” the foreman said, and walked away.

Ares and Scroat were waiting back by the entrance to the site, where Hep had left his bike.

“Well, thanks Ares, now the guy isn’t even here,” Hep said as he climbed on his bike.

“Good. I told you I didn’t want a part of this,” Ares said.

“Yeah, well, you’re still going to have to be a part of it, we’re just stuck going to Scott’s house now.”

“Where does he live?” Scroat asked.

Hep pulled out the phone and pushed a few buttons. “Well, according to this, about an hour away,”

“Fuck. Ares, you shithead,” Scroat said.

“I thought you liked to ride as much as you can,” Ares said.

“Yeah, for fun. Not chasing after some guy who is supposed to be dead already.”

“Let’s just get moving,” Hep said.

Ares was fairly subdued for the trip to Scott’s house. His relative calmness was probably because kneeling for a couple of hours straight gets uncomfortable quickly, and thrashing around doesn’t do much to help that.

They arrived at Scott’s house. Hep was disappointed to see that Scott’s house was a single floor rambler, with no pool. It was going to be tough to fabricate an accident. There were, however, tall hedges on either side of his property, which meant his neighbors would be unable to see what was going on in his yard.

Scott lived alone, which made it fairly easy for Hep and Scroat to sneak around and keep tabs on Scott without being seen.

After watching Scott watch TV for three hours, they saw him go into the bathroom, and could hear water running. He was filling the bathtub.

“Maybe he’ll slip?” Hep said.

“I fucking hope so,” Scroat said.

“Mrfle mrfle mrf” Ares said. Hep had apologized profusely, and gagged Ares before letting him out of the sidecar. Ares calling for help would probably ruin their attempts at stealth.

They waited, and listened for a nasty thump from Scott falling in the tub. No such luck.

“Aw, fuck this,” Scroat said and marched off.

“Where the hell are you going?” Hep stage whispered to Scroat. Scroat did not answer.

A few minutes later, Hep peeked through window and saw Scroat wander into Scott’s kitchen carrying an orange extension cord. Shortly after that, Scroat came back out of the kitchen carrying the extension cord which was now attached to a toaster. He walked towards the bathroom.

Scroat stopped in the hallway and plugged in the extension cord. He pushed down the lever to turn the toaster on, and kicked open the door to the bathroom.

Scott shouted, “Who the fuck are you?”

Scroat didn’t answer, just casually tossed the toaster into the bathtub. It sparked and hissed, and a few minutes later the circuit breaker went off somewhere in the house leaving him in the dark with a toasty, dead Scott.

Hep came into the bathroom a few seconds later.

“You know, we’re really not supposed to be doing the actual killing,” Hep said.

“Well, how long did you want to wait? I want a fucking beer already, and it’s getting late.”

“What the hell is going on?” Scott’s soul asked.

“You’re dead. Let’s go,” Hep said.

“Aw, man. That totally sucks!”

“Yep. Get used to it,” Hep said, and grabbed the soul’s arm. “Let’s go, now.”

Hep and the soul stepped out of this world, while Scroat wandered back outside. He saw Ares was now chained to Scott’s gas meter.

“Mrfle mrf!” Ares said. His tone was quiet irritated.

“Yeah, it was a pain in the ass,” Scroat said. “But, now we can go get some beer. I’ve got a powerful thirst tonight.”

Hep appeared again next to the two of them. “All right, that’s over with. Let’s go get a drink and relax.”

“Fuck yeah!”

“Mrfle!”

“Yeah, give me a second Ares, Hep said. He unlocked Ares, then removed the gag.

“If you ever gag me again, I’ll rip out your spleen and feed it to your mom,” Ares said.

“Hey, that sounds a little more like the Ares I know,” Hep said.

“Whatever, Hep. Let me go back to California,” Ares said.

“Nope. You’ve got far too much hippiness lingering. You can go when I’m sure that you’re going to resume hunting down the family and friends of everyone who wrongs you in order to play volleyball with their heads.”

“I told you, that’s the old me!”

“Yep. Good old Ares. Come on, new sucky Ares, let’s get a beer.”

“I don’t like beer,” Ares said, petulant.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Scroat said. “Everyone likes beer.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Hep, we gotta get him cured quick. Or else mercy-kill him.”