Sunday, November 1, 2009

Chapter One

The only time I´m gonna be easy´s when I´m killed by death - Motörhead





Chapter One


In the shadows of a dark doorway, a skeletal hand clicked the button which started the clock on a plastic stopwatch. The stopwatch had cost one dollar and seven cents, with sales tax, at a nearby bargain store. Although Death loved the elegance and drama of an antique hourglass quietly counting down the time until her target’s final moment with the hiss of rushing sand, a cheap stopwatch kept more accurate time and was much better at surviving the rigors of the job. Orchestrating an appropriate death, after all, was hardly a sedate pastime, and a stopwatch does not shatter when dropped, leaving an awful mess of sand and glass. Plus, cheap plastic stopwatches are much easier to come by than ornate hourglasses in this day and age.


At the current moment, Death’s target was walking ever closer to the crosswalk and his imminent demise. Four blocks away, a small red car full of drunken teenagers was speeding toward the same intersection, eager to reach the Taco Bell before the drive through closed for the night. Death ticked off an item on her clipboard. The soon to be dead man stopped at the edge of the crosswalk, as the light had just changed. He knelt down and retied his shoes. Death made another check mark on her plan. So far, everything was right on schedule.


The man stood again, and waited for the light to change. On the far side of the intersection, a Lincoln Towncar from the early 1980’s wheezed and squeaked to a stop. An older gentleman drove the towncar. He was also drunk, though much better practiced at the art of drunken driving than the carful of teenagers. He was on his way home, to an empty house and his empty bed. The car full of teenagers was now two blocks away from their first, though far from last, meeting with destiny.


The light changed, and the man waiting to cross the street walked forward into the crosswalk. The old man in the Lincoln noticed his light was now green, and gently stepped on the gas. The Lincoln’s tired motor struggled against its own weight, and the car crept forward into the intersection.


The small red car raced on towards the intersection. Its pilot had not noticed the light had changed, nor did he noticed the man in the dark grey suit crossing the street. He did notice the clock on the dashboard said it was 9:56, and the Taco Bell drive through would be closing in four minutes. He stepped down on the gas pedal, and accelerated to fifty miles per hour.


Death checked her stopwatch. Everything was moving according to plan. She ticked off another item on her list.


The man walking had nearly reached the center of the intersection. The Lincoln was just passing behind him when the small red car struck the man in the crosswalk at fifty miles per hour. The man bounced up onto the hood and through the windshield of the red car, terrifying its occupants. Then the red car, still moving at fifty miles per hour, plowed into the side of the Lincoln. The man was thrown back out of the car, and over the town car, landing in the road on the far side of the intersection, dead.


Death clicked the button on her stopwatch to stop the timer, and made a final check on her list. She put the stopwatch in one of the pockets of her black cloak, stepped out of the doorway, and walked towards the body in the street.


The Lincoln had been pushed most of the way through the intersection and had spun one hundred and eighty degrees. The old man driving the Lincoln was rattled, and would discover some interesting new bruises the next morning, but was otherwise OK. The red car had come to a stop a short distance from the actual impact. The driver, an eighteen year old man, was hysterical, as were his passengers.


“I didn’t see him! I didn’t even see him!” he said, looking frantically to his friends for reassurance.


“None of us did. What do we do now?” another one of the passengers asked him, equally frantic.


“I don’t know!” the driver said. He rubbed his face. “God, my parents are going to freak out.”


The dead man’s soul stood next to his body, alternately looking down at the corpse, and around at the vehicular wreckage. He could hear the old man cursing about these damned kids and their bad driving, as well as the teenagers panicking about how much trouble they were going to be in. Then he saw the figure in a black cloak walking towards him. The figure resolved into an impossibly thin woman, with bone white skin and black hair.


“Hello, Jonathan Moore,” she said. He voice was warm and compassionate. “Would you walk with me?”


“What about my body?” he asked. “Shouldn’t I stay here?”


Behind them, the old man was yelling at the driver of the red car “You stupid kid, look what you did to my car!”


“I didn’t see the light change,” the kid said in reply, weakly.


Death and Jonathan ignored them. In the distance, sirens approached.


“No, you no longer need to worry about your body. It’s someone else’s problem now. Walk with me, won’t you?”


“Well, what about the people in the cars?”


“They’ll take care of themselves.”


“Oh,” he said, then noticed the clipboard Death carried. “Is that a checklist?”


“Yes.”


“You mean, you planned out my death?” he asked.


“In excruciating detail, yes.”


Jonathan Moore, recently deceased, pondered this new information for a moment, then said, “Nicely done! I didn’t even see it coming.”


“Thank you. Would you walk with me, please?” Death held out a hand to him then.


“OK,” he said, and took her hand.


Death led him out of the street, and then out of this world. The two of them stood quietly, for a moment, in the nothingness between our world and the next.


“What now?” Jonathan Moore asked Death. He felt somewhat anxious, but also soothed by Death’s presence.


“Now you will go on to whatever fate awaits your soul,” Death said, kindly.


“Heaven?” he asked.


“I couldn’t say,” Death replied.


“Oh.”


A brilliant light appeared in the distance, and grew as it rushed towards them.


“What’s that?”


“That,” Death answered, “is the door you must walk through.”


“What’s on the other side?”


“I couldn’t say. My job is simply to bring you here.” Death said.


The light reached them then, and resolved into a gateway. The doors of the gate swung open, and a slight wind pulled the soul towards the gateway.


“Goodbye, Jonathan Moore,” Death said, and smiled.


“Goodbye,” the soul said, and stepped through the doorway. The light disappeared, and Death stood alone in the dark once again.


Death made a few notes on the checklist she’d made for Jonathan Moore, and stepped back into our world. She was hungry, and tried to think of a place nearby she could get something to eat.


A small, electronic beeping came from one of the pockets in her cloak. She sighed, and reached into a pocket, pulling out a cell phone. She turned it on, and saw she had another appointment immediately. So much for eating. She removed Jonathan Moore’s checklist from the top of the clipboard, and placed it on the bottom of the stack. She then looked at the name and location on the fresh checklist: Maria Stevens, 68, 367 West Lindsey Street, Los Angeles, in the living room.


“I hope there’s a donut shop near this one,” she mumbled, and disappeared.


Death appeared, unnoticed, in the living room at 367 West Lindsey Street with her stopwatch already in hand. Maria Stevens was yelling at someone on the phone. Death listened to Maria for a moment, then click the start button on her stopwatch after Maria called the person on the other end of the line a bastard. She made a mark on the checklist, then checked the stopwatch. Twenty five seconds and counting.


Maria was turning bright red in the face, and increased the intensity of her ranting.


“Now you listen here, I know how much money I’ve got in my bank accounts, and you’re the only one who could be stealing it, you ungrateful little shit. I never should have trusted you! It’s bad enough that things keep disappearing around here, I...” Maria paused and listened for a minute. She blinked several times and started to yell again.


“That’s not true! There’s no one else who could be getting in here. You just wait until I tell your sisters about this. They’ll clear this mess up, you wait and see. Why you...” Maria paused again, but this time, dropped the phone and fell to the floor.


“Mom?” the tinny voice from the phone said. “Mom, are you OK?”


Maria’s soul stood looking down at her body and at the phone. Her eyes were clear, and she looked deeply regretful.


“Hello,” Death said to her.


Maria looked at Death and said, “I can’t believe I said those horrible things! Why did I think he was stealing from me?”


“You couldn’t help it,” Death said. “Don’t worry, he knows you were ill. Would you come with me, please?”


This seemed to calm Maria. Death held out a hand to her. Maria took it, and they walked away from the living room.


“Say, is there a decent burger joint around here?” Death asked Maria.


“No, the closest restaurant is a few miles away,” Maria said.


“How about a grocery store, or a 7-11?” Death asked.


“No, there’s nothing, I’m sorry. You could have something from the fridge, though,” Maria said.


Death was tempted, but then considered the horror that was probably lurking inside of the fridge belonging to a senior citizen with Alzheimer’s.


“No, thanks, I’ll be OK.” Death said, and the two of them vanished.

1 comment:

  1. Awesome! I actually have the courage to go edit my own book now. And I can't wait to read what happens next. You did the thing with this one! (At least what I read so far)

    ReplyDelete