"Before the Fall" This issue was originally supposed to be "#0" as a sort of prologue issue to the meat of the story. I used to offer this for 99 cents on Amazon and free(?) on Gumroad, both in digital format (I say free with a ? because I can't figure out how to make it absolutely free, it asks for a donated amount.) But I figured I would share it here. You can also listen to the story on the Occult Archives Podast here: 667 Children of the Beast: Issue #1 "Before the Fall" (Pardon any font inconsistencies. These files were formatted for paper printing and had fancy fonts in certain places, like for scene breaks and at the top of chapters so, if there is a random symbol or letter floating around, that's why. I can't get Scribd to populate those fancy ass fonts.)
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I was walking down an old highway, no running cars in sight, just old burnt out shells of pickups and dusty Priuses. I was just kicking rocks and minding my own business when I heard the usual sound: zombie gurgles and people hollering, gunshots fired, and then the whacking sound of metal on bone. Someone was being attacked by the undead and I wasn’t about to help because the last time I tried, I got shot at and had a festering wound in my gut for three weeks. But the sounds of the undead grew louder and then I heard something that I hadn’t heard in a really long time… A child crying. Now, even in my prior devolved zombie state, I never once maimed or ate a child. Even though my mind wasn’t quite functioning properly, I knew that somewhere deep inside that you just don’t eat kids. And now that my brain was working again, I wasn’t going to let a fellow zombie eat a kid either. I took off running toward the sound, pulling the hood of my jacket up over my head to try and minimize my horrendous appearance. Closing in on the scene, I could see two men, a woman, and what looked like a little girl no more than seven years old. They were standing in the bed of a battered pickup truck, a rifle in one man’s hand and a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire in the other. They were surrounded by a small horde, two of which were trying to climb into the bed as the woman swatted at them with a duffle bag. The little girl was clinging to her leg and trying to hide behind her, but the encroaching zombies seemed like they were winning. It was obvious that the gun had no ammo and the bat could only do so much. I didn’t want to get too close, so I whistled. It was a high-pitched sound through the teeth that got the attention of all zombies involved and they turned to me, cocking their heads to the side in unison. “Hey, you shit-stains! Over here!” I hollered, waving my hands over my head. They looked at me, back at the living in the truck, and then over at me again. I guess they decided that I didn’t look like anything good to eat, and went back to harassing the people in the truck. Well, it looked like I was going to have to get closer than I wanted to. I broke into a run and made it to the truck just as one of the brain-eaters climbed into the back and took the man with the rifle out with a quick chomp to the face. The woman screamed and the man with the bat began beating at the zombie chowing down on his friend. I elbowed my way through the other rotten mouthed zombies and tore the one in the truck clear off his feet. I noticed that the back window to the cab was open and began shoving those still living inside. “Close the window!” I instructed them as I took the bat from the last man standing and started bashing heads. One, two, three, four, and five. Five down in a putrid bloody mess, but more were coming. I could hear them off in the distance as they caught the scent of a fresh kill. “Shit.” I cursed under my breath, hopped out of the bed and came over to the driver’s side window where the man was sitting. “Does it start?” I tapped on the window, looking over my shoulder for the throng of zombies that were closing in. “There’s no keys.” The man spoke through the crack in the window. I didn’t have any idea how to hot-wire a car and I’m sure if that man did, he would have. If there weren’t any keys, we were in trouble. But then a thought struck me. I knew that some people kept spare keys in little magnetized boxes under the wheel-wells and fumbled around for one while the zombie pack closed in on us. “What are you doing, lady?” The man asked me, “There’s a whole bunch of them coming!” I held up my finger with my free hand and felt around with the other until—there it was! I yanked the box out from under the car and slid the top back to find just the key I was looking for. “Take it, take it!” I thrust the key through the cracked window and the man took it from me. God, I hoped that there was still usable gas in the damn truck. And then it sputtered a bit before roaring to life. The zombies were a few feet from me as I banged my fist on the door, “Go! Go now!” “Get in!” He responded and I knew that I was making a funny face. “What?” Why the hell would he be asking me to get in? “Get in! They’re gonna eat you alive. Get in!” He pointed at the bed of the truck. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I would be fine, but he kept insisting and looked like he wasn’t going to leave until I got in the truck. I nodded and hopped into the bed before he sped off just in time. A dark cloud of exhaust plumed into the faces of the zombies close enough to the truck and I gave them the middle finger as we floored it down the empty highway. That man was the first person to speak to me in five years and he had no idea what he had just gotten himself into. (*) “Here, let me help you down.” The man reached for my hand, but I just shook my head and hopped out without assistance. We were parked just outside a twelve foot fence that surrounded what looked like a boarded up farm house that had been converted into a communal lodge and was surrounded by a few smaller out houses and a large red barn. “I’m Griffin, by the way. This is Lonnie and her niece, Sam.” He introduced me down the line. “I’m—I’m Callisto; Calli for short.” I stuttered. No one had addressed me personally in—well, you know. “Nice to meet you. When was the last time you ate? You’re looking pretty gaunt and sallow.” Griffin gave me a once over. “Uh, a few days ago.” It wasn’t a lie. I had scavenged the brain of someone I found on the side of the road. “Come in for a bite, won’t you? I’m sure everyone would be happy to have you.” Lonnie smiled at me. “I’m ok, but thank you. I have to get going.” I pulled on the straps to my backpack as I started to walk. “At least come in and spend the night. It’s going to get dark soon. You saved our lives; it’s the least we could do to thank you.” Griffin urged me. It was a bad idea. I hadn’t been this close to another untainted human being since I was still actively hunting and killing them. “I really shouldn’t.” I protested. “Please, Calli. It’s not safe to be alone.” Now it was Sam’s turn to chime in. I hesitated. “You aren’t infected, are you? Is that why you don’t want to come in?” Griffin asked. I should have said yes and walked away, but being this close to someone who didn’t have a penchant for brains was nice. “I’m not. Just—just used to being alone, that’s all.” I tried to be as honest as I could. “Understandable. At least come in for a bite and maybe a good night’s rest.” Griffin tried again. He had no idea how unsafe it was to ask a zombie to come in for a bite, but I accepted. Griffin took a high-powered laser pointer from his pocked and began flashing it up the hill. Soon two armed men came strolling down from the house and let all of us in. “Where’s Dan? And who is this?” The larger of the two men asked. “Dan didn’t make it, but Calli here saved our lives. We figured it would be ok to invite her in for some food and shelter for the night.” Griffin smiled, but the two men scowled at him. “Bite check.” The large man insisted, grabbing me roughly by the wrists. “Hey, watch who you’re man-handling, Sasquatch.” I growled, but I didn’t protest. He jerked the sleeves up on my jacket, yanked down my collar, made me pull up my pant legs. But there was nothing. I hadn’t ever been bitten or scratched. “I’m not going to pull my pants down or take my shirt off, sicko.” He was still eyeing me warily. “She’s good. You feeling ok, though? You look really—pale. And your eyes…” The other guard was squinting at my face. “I have allergies. Bad ones.” I shrugged, pulling my hood down low over my face. “Alright, she’s good. Get her something to eat and maybe walk her around a bit because she looks like she could use some sun.” The big one nudged me forward as I followed Griffin, Lonnie, and Sam up to the big house. “Carl is harmless, just a bit of a douche. Where you from?” Griffin inquired as we made it up to the house and I noticed there was actually a good bit of people living wherever it was that we were. “I was in NYC when the outbreak started, but I’m originally from Virginia.” I found myself carrying on a conversation. “What’d you do before all this shit?” He probed further. “I worked for a fashion magazine. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it was a living.” I grimaced as I remembered my last day at that stupid job. “I was a bio-chemist before all of this and Lonnie here was a high school Lit teacher. Little Sammy was only three.” Griffin gave the run down about who they were prior to all of this. “She was so young.” I commented on her age, surprised that she was able to survive this long. “Lonnie’s sister got knocked up by some idiot a few years before all of this started. He stuck around surprisingly, but got bitten about a month after the outbreak and then Lonnie’s sister passed about a year ago from a bad infection after she cut her leg on a rusty pipe trying to escape a horde.” Griffin glanced wistfully at the woman and the little girl who had broken off from us to go greet a few others. “What were you all doing out there on the highway with a little girl if this is home base?” Obviously they lived here. “Picking up Lonnie and Sammy. They got separated from the old group I was with about six months ago. I ended up here and we routinely check radio transmissions for any survivors. Happened to pick up a distress signal from a CB radio and Dan and I went out to pick them up. We didn’t make it very far down the road before those brain suckers got ahold of us. Poor Dan; he was a good guy, but not very bright.” Griffin shook his head slowly. “I’m so sorry.” I really was. I didn’t exactly lose anyone in all of this, but I killed plenty in the beginning. “It’s sadly the norm now. It’s hard to get attached to people in this, even though things aren’t as bad as they used to be. You—you leave anyone behind?” Griffin got personal. “Nah. It’s been just me from the beginning. I don’t get attached for obvious reasons.” Yeah, obvious reasons being that attachments were basically dinner. “I hear that. Enough chit-chat, let’s get you something to eat.” Griffin patted my back and led me into the big house. It had once been a large plantation home it seemed, but the residents had converted it into a communal home for at least twenty-five people complete with an industrial kitchen, large dining hall, and rec room. “This is really nice.” I commented on how well-kept everything was. “Yeah, it took them a while to put it all together, but it was worth it.” Griffin gestured to a chair in the dining room and I took a seat while he flagged someone down to grab me something to eat. I wasn’t going to stay long. I figured I would force some regular food down my gullet and then slip out the back undetected and be on my way. If any of them found out that I was one of the walking dead, I’d be dead dead and that would be an unfortunate end to my five year survival. “How does PP&J sound?” Griffin set a sandwich down in front of me and I thanked him before taking a bite; it tasted like dirt. Peanut butter and jelly used to be one of my favorites too. I muscled my way through the sandwich, leaving the crusts, and got up from my seat. “Hey, Griffin? Where’s the head?” I was going to pretend to take a piss and take off. “Down the hall and to the left.” Griffin was snacking on a protein bar as I left the room and started to make my way down the hall. I saw that there was a door in the kitchen and I figured that would be my easiest route out of here. No one was in sight and it seemed like leaving undetected would be a sure thing, but then a sound signaled that I wouldn’t be leaving just yet. Someone was screaming out front, screaming like I hadn’t heard since the day I turned and I knew that they were in trouble. “Really?” I sighed loudly. I couldn’t let anyone get hurt if I could stop it. The stupid zombie vigilante that I was. I turned around and made a beeline for the front door where Griffin was waiting with a shotgun. “What’s going on?” I peered out the window as a group of men went running towards the front gates. “The horde followed us from the freeway. They’re trying to break through the gate. Lonnie can’t find Sam.” Griffin spoke frantically as he loaded his gun. “I’ll go look for her.” I patted his shoulder and took off through the front door. “Don’t you need a weapon? Hey!” Griffin called after me, but I didn’t need a gun or a bat. I ran past the militia and made it to the front gates before anyone else. There were at least fifteen zombies clambering at the gate, throwing their limp bodies against it with all their might while groaning loudly. “Go home, you fucks.” I yelled at them, smacking at hands that were thrust through the bars, waving frantically at the air, trying to catch anything that came too close. But I hadn’t seen the break in the gate. The bars had been pried back and something had clearly made it through. Others were now slipping through themselves and I wasn’t enough to keep them all from getting in. “No. No, no, no.” I shoved several away from the bars while looking around wildly for something to cover the gaping entry in the gate. But there wasn’t anything and now I could see no less than five zombies loping up the hill. What the hell should I do? Try to board up the bars or go after the ones already inside? Obviously, covering the hole would be the smartest option so no others got in, but I had nothing at my disposal… Oh. I felt like such an idiot as I turned back to face the gate. A zombie muscled its way in, so a zombie could repair what had been done with equal strength. “Back up, ladies and gentlemen. Hey! Watch where you’re putting those things. Stop it.” I shoved the undead as I pulled the bars back together with every ounce of strength I had. I wasn’t quick enough, however, because the sound of gunshots and bedlam was echoing down to me from the top of the hill. I turned heel and raced back up the hill, ready to kill whatever had made it through. I tried to not do that sort of stuff as it always made me feel guilty, but if actual humans were being threatened—that was far more important than those that I couldn’t help. “How’s the gate?” Griffin called out to me as he tried to corral people inside the big house before firing off a shot towards the yard. “It’s fine.” I let him hand me a gun that I had absolutely no idea how to use. “I wonder how they got in.” Griffin waved his hand for me to follow as someone else took over his position. “No idea.” I shook my head, “Did they find Sam?” I walked quickly in step with him as he fired off another shot, drawing the few zombies on this side over to us. “No. Lonnie is beside herself, but I made her stay in the house. I told her that I’d find Sam.” A zombie was limping quickly towards us as Griffin raised his rifle and put one between its eyes. Two shots rang out from behind the barn as a group of men emerged and gave Griffin the thumbs up. “How many were there?” Someone hollered out to us. “I saw five come up the hill all at once.” Griffin called back. “We just got two.” They replied. “I got three.” Griffin held up his fingers. I counted in my head. I saw five get through—but that was after I noticed that the bars had been pried open and watched them slip by. “There’s more. At least one more.” I blurted. “We got all five.” Griffin assured me. “No, there’s one more. At least.” I insisted. “And what makes you think that?” Carl was part of the small band of men we met up with and was giving me this look like I didn’t know what I was talking about. “I saw another one?” I made a face at him. The wailing of a child caused us all to turn and look at the barn. “Sam.” Griffin looked scared as he broke into a sprint towards the brick red structure, all of us following behind him. He yanked open the doors as the screaming grew louder and I could see Sam up in the hay loft as a zombie at least twice Carl’s size began shaking the support beams that held the loft up. “Hey!” I cried out to get its attention, but it didn’t bother with me. “Shoot it.” Griffin commanded and the men opened fire, striking the undead man multiple times in his chest and head…but he didn’t go down. “What the fuck.” Carl uttered, shouldering his gun to shoot again. The zombie shook the support beam hard and I heard the wood crack and then splinter as it gave way and Sam began to slide closer to the grasp of this invincible zombie. “Sam! Back up towards the window!” Griffin barked, but it was too late. She had lost her footing and was now sliding down towards the waiting arms of Frankenstein’s monster along with the loose hay. I didn’t think. I just charged forward, shoved the zombie hard as it lost its balance and crashed into another support beam. I held my arms out wide and caught Sam as she came tumbling down. But the damn zombie was already back on his feet and coming for us. I set Sam down in a hurry and shoved her forward, urging her to run as it grabbed me about the waist and hoisted me up in the air. “I can’t get a clear shot!” I heard Carl call out as I fought to keep myself from being crushed. “Dammit.” Griffin returned and I could see him aiming his sight at me, but Carl was right—there was no clear shot. “Just shoot!” I bellowed. If I got hit it was a 50/50 chance that I would either live or die right along with the undead that was now crushing my bones. “No, goddammit.” Griffin was obviously upset from what I could hear. I could get away, but if I did I would expose myself and die. If I didn’t, I would probably die anyway. This zombie was unlike any other I had ever seen and it wasn’t just his abnormally large size. He wasn’t as crazed as some of the others I had encountered, he seemed just a tad more sentient, but he was clearly a lot harder to kill if that was even possible with the amount of bullets that had been pumped in to him. Then I saw a possible way out. The beam that he had broken, the one that had ejected Sam from the hayloft, was basically destroyed, but the other one I had shoved the zombie into was still partially standing. I was close enough to kick it out and bring the whole loft down. This would give me the advantage of cover and I might have been able to kill this thing without anyone seeing and play it off as it meeting its demise in the avalanche of wood and straw. I kicked out with both legs, the zombie teetering with the movement, and my feet connected with the beam and brought the whole house down. I heard Sam scream again and the men all talking at once as I finally took my opportunity. I reached my arms up behind me and grabbed the undead by the neck and pulled with all my might. The chaos I had caused disoriented it and I braced myself as its body lifted up off the ground and came over my shoulder, crashing right down on the blades of an old tractor, impaling it. It still gurgled, reaching out its hands to take me, but I ended it quickly with a pitchfork straight through the face. “Calli! Calli!” I could hear Griffin calling my name as I stood there, covered in blood and wet hay, my chest heaving up and down as I tried to catch my breath. “I’m—I’m ok.” I answered, crawling through the hay and back into the dim sunlight that seeped through the rafters above. “Jesus Christ.” Carl was shaking his head as I wobbled out. Yeah, it was quite a feat that I survived, I suppose. But that wasn’t what he was commenting on. “We need a medic!” Griffin looked terrified as he yelled over his shoulder. I felt fine, but the problem was I didn’t look fine. I had a pair of large gardening shears imbedded through the top of my shoulder that protruded out my back. So much for hiding what I was. “She’s in shock; get her to sit down.” Griffin instructed, but I wouldn’t let Carl or any of the other men get close to me. “I’m fine.” I tried to convince them, but Carl tried to touch me anyway and I felt myself redline. I growled at him, swiping his hand away from me as I hunkered down, the muscle in my shoulder audibly tearing. “Calli, you’re in shock. It’s ok. We have someone coming to take a look at you. Don—don’t do that!” Griffin pleaded with me as I gripped the shears and tore them from my body with a sickeningly wet squelch. Everyone gasped and Griffin scooted Sam out of the barn and commanded her to run back to the house as I tossed the shears to the ground. “I said I’m fine.” I growled, a low rumble in my chest as I stepped back a few paces, ready to strike like a cornered animal. “She’s not bleeding, Griffin.” Carl’s eyes darted to the man that was trying to calm me as he picked his shotgun up and aimed it at my head. “Did she get bitten? Scratched? Maybe she’s turning.” Another man spoke, readying his own gun. “Stand down. Let’s not get hasty now. She needs medical assistance and until we can assess the damage that has been done, we don’t need to act rashly.” Griffin was still on my side as he locked eyes with me. I hadn’t realized what a gentle face he had until this moment, his stormy grey eyes catching my attention. It reminded me of the first day that my mind had put itself back together and I lay out in a field of wildflowers staring up at a swirling grey sky as the rain fell. I could feel it as it hit my skin in icy wet plops, drenching my hair and clothes, but I didn’t care—I could feel it and that’s what mattered. I felt my breathing even out and the tension in my muscles slack as I pulled myself upright. I wasn’t in shock, but I guess I had to play like I was and I let my knees buckle as I went down to the ground, Griffin scooping me up before I “passed out”. “What happened? Is she ok? Sammy said that there was a zombie here in the barn and Calli saved her again.” It was Lonnie that came rushing into the barn with a First-Aid kit in hand. “We thought we got all of them, but there was one still left. It was huge, Lonnie, and practically indestructible. I’m not sure how, but Calli killed it. The whole hay loft came down and I think there must have been pair of rusty shears up there.” I played faint as Griffin filled Lonnie in, showing her my shoulder. “A First-Aid kit won’t help tha—where’s the blood, Griffin? There isn’t much for a wound that deep.” Lonnie lowered her voice at the end of her sentence. “That’s what I’d like to know. We need to get her inside to the infirmary and give her a medical check-up. Something isn’t right.” Griffin turned to me, “Can you walk?” “Mmhm.” I nodded as he slung my arm around his shoulder and hoisted me up. His body was warm as I leaned against him and I almost started to cry. When was the last time someone had even touched me? This wasn’t going to last. I’d have to find a way to leave and soon. When they strapped a blood pressure cuff on me or went to take my temperature, they’d know. The comfort of home here was definitely going to be short lived. You could call us a few things: Revenant, Ghoul, Undead, Lych…Zombie. Pick your poison, but they were all the same on some level. Soulless, mindless, stark-raving mad, flesh hungry creatures with not a drop of supposed morality or self-control and only one uncontrollable urge—to consume. Whether it be brains, or blood, or fleshy muscle and sinew, we had the need to consume everything in our paths. We were cannibals, only wanting to taste the sweet, succulent flavor of human tissue as we gnashed and sucked meat from bone and brain from skull. We were pariahs, devils, evils from the darkest corners of human thought, but we were human too…or we were at some point. Everyone acted like it was our fault that we wanted to hunt them down, rip limb from body, and feast upon the meat that coated their bones, but that wasn’t a fair assumption. We never asked to be this way. We never asked to lose our humanity and be forced to only eat that which was once ourselves. But we had no choice. Something made us this way and we had no ability to control it. I didn’t know how it worked. I didn’t know what it was that had infected us and dumbed us down to the point that the only thought in what was left of our minds was to eat—and to eat our own kind. I used to love meat as much as the next zombie—er, person, but that was when I craved a nice rare hamburger or a piece of fried chicken…not my next door neighbor’s brain meat. When it first happened, when the virus or whatever it was hit me, I didn’t understand. I wasn’t attacked and bitten to be turned like some of the others, I was unfortunately chosen by the virus and most likely one of the first ones to turn. I was minding my own business, waiting for the bus so I could hopefully get to work on time when the lady sitting next to me puked on my shoes. I thought it was just my luck that this would happen on a Monday after I had already lost my keys, discovered I had a flat tire, ended up with gum in my hair thanks to my shitty roommate and her habit of falling asleep drunkenly on the couch while she chawed away on Juicy Fruit. I spilled coffee on my laptop as I woke up late, frantically trying to finish my presentation before I had to go and stand up in front of my colleagues to pitch my latest idea for the magazine. It wasn’t an ideal job, I wanted to be doing something else, not a columnist for a fashion magazine. It just wasn’t my thing, but it was money, and in that world, you needed money to survive, to eat. I didn’t need that now. Everything that walked on two legs was food. I wasn’t proud of what I had become, but like I said—I didn’t have a damn choice. But I digress. Back to the woman that retched all over my new boots… “Hey!” I jumped up off the bench as putrid chunks of that morning’s breakfast hit my shoes. “I’m—I’m so sorry.” The middle-aged woman apologized, rifling around in her purse for a handkerchief. “It’s ok.” I softened, trying to shake the vomit from my boots. “I haven’t been feeling well. I should’ve stayed at home, but you know how it is.” She tried to mop the slop from my feet. “Yeah, Mondays.” I shrugged, helping her clean up my feet with a napkin I found inside my own bag. “I hope your day goes better than I assume mine will.” The woman cast me a half-smile that I returned as the bus pulled up and we both climbed on board. The ride to work was uneventful, even quiet, as everyone sat silently in their seats reading books or listening to music with their headphones on. I spent my time looking out the window at the buildings and city trees that passed by me in a blur. This isn’t what I wanted for my life, this isn’t what I had planned that I would be doing by now, but it was all I had and something was better than nothing. The bus made its stop a few blocks from my job and I hopped off and power-walked it down the sidewalk before jaywalking over to my office building and rudely shoved past someone who was more focused on their phone than they were on actually getting to their destination. I scrambled into the elevator and made it up to the thirteenth floor before bolting to my cubicle to prepare my presentation which was in less than fifteen minutes at that point. “You’re late.” Mariah hovered over me as I tried to get my laptop to boot up and do what it was supposed to do. “Yeah, I know. It’s been a bitch of a morning,” I replied as I mashed buttons angrily, trying to get the computer to fucking work. “ Mr. Markle was asking where you were. They changed the meeting to 8:30.” Mariah looked over my shoulder as my computer crashed and I tried not to scream. “But it’s—” I checked my watch, “Fuck! Almost nine!” I slammed my laptop shut, working or not, and hoofed it to the conference room where Mr. Markle and the rest of the advertising and writing team was waiting for me. “Miss North. You’re late.” Mr. Markle spoke flatly as I took my seat and attempted to get my computer to boot up again. “I’m so sorry; I didn’t know that the meeting time had been changed.” I apologized, repeatedly punching keys on my keyboard. “Maybe if you checked your e-mails like you’re supposed to.” He scolded me and I cringed. “I’m so sorry.” I apologized again. “Is your presentation ready? You’re up first.” He pointed at me. “Um, it was—is. I’m just having some technical difficulties.” I continued to try and get the laptop working and I could feel myself sweating as I panicked. “Any day now, Miss North.” Mr. Markle stood at the head of the table as all eyes fell on me. “Ok. I may just have to start without my Powerpoint. My computer seems to be having issues.” I could see where the sugar from my coffee had crystalized in my keys. I got up from the chair and rounded the table to where Mr. Markle was standing as he took his seat to my right and I pulled a rolling white board from the corner to start sketching out my ideas. “So, I was thinking that with this new issue and Fashion Week coming up, maybe we could focus on some local designers and artists and maybe do a section where we can interview them on their inspiration and their process, maybe showcase a few of their favorites pieces and—” “Mm, I don’t think so. No one is interested in local designers. They want to know what is going on in the world of High Fashion, not what Sally Dress-Maker is doing in the Bronx.” Mr. Markle shook his head. “Uh, well…maybe if we talked to them about what High Fashion designers influenced their work—” I started down a different track, while still keeping my idea alive. “Nope. No. You don’t have anything else, do you?” Mr. Markle had his pen to his mouth as I stood in front of him and a room of at least twenty of my colleagues with a dry erase marker in my hand. I wasn’t a person who cried at the drop of a hat, but with the stress that the morning had put me under, I was swallowing hard so as not to blubber in front of everyone. I opened my mouth and closed it a few times like a fish out of water looking for a response, but something outside the office saved me. “What’s that sound?” My colleague Brenda stood up from her seat and craned her neck to see past Mr. Markle and out through the window that faced the street. He turned and glanced behind him, did a double take, and got up from his chair. “Jesus Christ. Someone call 911.” He waved his hand behind him as he stood plastered to the window. Everyone got up from their expensive ergonomic chairs to see what he was looking at, myself included. There had been a car wreck—no, a pile-up, right outside the office. There was a mangled bike and a cluster of people on the sidewalk screaming. I thought that maybe someone had gotten struck at the crosswalk and others swooped in to help, but that wasn’t the case. The man in the bike helmet had a woman pinned on the ground and was howling as he swiped at other people who tried to pry him away. One man finally did and I could see that the woman had her throat torn out, her eyes wide and glassy as she stared up at the blue sky. “The police are on their way.” Mr. Markle’s assistant came to inform him as the deranged cyclist leapt on another man and began tearing into the meat of his face. Everyone in the room gasped and Brenda screamed as I took a step back from the window. What the hell was this guy on? Steroids? A new performance enhancing drug? High on a new blend of kale and wheatgrass juice? Then the most impossible thing happened… The woman who had previously had her throat torn out and was very clearly deceased, began to pull herself up from the sidewalk and surprised another bystander with an ungodly strong bear hug. “Holy—did anyone else see that?” Brian, my cubicle mate, asked. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from what was happening. “Call down to security and have them lock the building down. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is too close for comfort.” Mr. Markle stepped away from the window and instructed whoever was listening to make a call. Everyone was talking all at once, mumbling to one another about what was going on and my first thought was to run…so I did. I left the conference room amidst the hub-bub and went back to my cubicle, packed my laptop, and made my way to the emergency exit just as I could hear the sirens of an ambulance and police vehicles pulling up out front. I came out through the side entrance that was usually used for emergencies only to see the rotating blue and red lights as I turned the corner of the building. “Hands up where I can see them! Get on the ground! Get on the motherfucking ground!” An officer yelled as I peered out into the street. He was yelling at the throatless woman, but was paying no attention to the cyclist, the soccer mom with her coifed pixie, and the sign guy that usually stood on the corner doing tricks with his advertisements for the Deli around the corner. All of them were behaving in the same manner and began to charge towards the officers, grunting and spitting as they tackled one after the other and took them down to the pavement screaming. What the fuck was happening? I could feel myself begin to sweat and I assumed it had something to do with the panic that was bubbling inside me as I witnessed what was going down. “Keep it together, Calli.” I whispered to myself as I pulled my bag in close and booked it in the opposite direction. I was probably going to be fired, or at the very least penalized for leaving work without telling anyone, but I had this sense of urgency; something was telling me to get away from everybody…and fast. I made it to the closest bus stop and waited impatiently with shaking knees for the first bus to pull up and take me home. But the bus didn’t come. There was supposed to be a ten AM bus, but there wasn’t one. I was now hearing multiple wails from ambulances, fire trucks, and cop cars, but no sound of the diesel that usually accompanied the bus. “Fuck.” I cursed, picking my feet up to keep moving down the street. I was at least twelve blocks away from my apartment, but I had this need to get home and to get home now. I wasn’t feeling so well as I hobbled down the sidewalk clutching my messenger bag. I was sweating more now, almost drenched from head to toe even though it wasn’t more than sixty degrees out and I felt my head pounding as I began to cough like I had smoked two packs a day for my whole life. My gut was churning, my knees were weak, and my throat was raw as I came to a crosswalk and just missed getting hit by a damn bus as it ran the red light and crashed into two taxis and an SUV. I jumped back on the sidewalk and lost my balance as I landed hard on the pavement, my laptop crunching beneath me as I fell. I felt sick, like I had the flu, but worse… My hand flew to my face as I tried to pick myself up and wipe the sweat from my cheeks…but it wasn’t sweat. There was blood covering my hand and I began to panic as people got out of their cars to check on the victims of the wreck and I pulled my compact from my bag. I almost screamed as I saw my own reflection. My eyes were bloodshot, but somehow jaundiced at the same time and the irises were dark like they had been injected with black ink. Blood was running from the corners and dripping down my face like tears as I began to cough violently, more blood staining my other hand as I covered my mouth. “Ma’am, have you been hurt?” There was a man standing next to me on the corner who had obviously seen the bad wreck. “No, I’m—ugh uuuuuck—I’m fine.” I coughed and wheezed, holding my stomach as I felt it churn like it did that one time I had eaten bad shrimp. “You don’t look fine.” He replied, laying his hand on my shoulder. I could smell him, and despite the fact that I was feeling sick to my stomach…he smelled like a wonderful, delectable meal. “No, I’m ok.” I jerked myself away from him and ran in the opposite direction, away from my apartment and the people gathering on the streets. I could now hear helicopters overhead as I jogged down the street, leaving my busted laptop behind. I passed people running in a completely different direction as they screamed, crazed individuals hobbling closely behind them with constricted limbs and gnashing mouths. I wanted to stop, but I was too scared to help as I sprinted across the street and holed myself up in an alley. “What the hell is happening?” I fumbled for my phone in my bag as I attempted to find a livestream for the city that would give me some sort of information. “Bedlam has broken out in New York City as citizens are being violently attacked by crazed individuals that are assumed to be under the influence of some sort of super street drug. Multiple deaths have been reported totaling close to a hundred as police respond to the scenes. Many officers have either been killed or injured and aren’t sure the exact cause of the violence.” I watched as the news anchor debriefed the populace, “In other news, cases of a highly contagious flu strain are being admitted to Bellevue and Lennox hospitals. Doctors are working around the clock to come up with a temporary treatment, but so far any sort of solution seems resistant. Individuals with the following symptoms are urged to make a trip to the emergency room as soon as possible: high fever, intense body sweats, nausea and vomiting, uncontrollable coughing, migraines, and bleeding from any orifices. More information to come as it is reported.” I felt my breathing quicken. I was sick. I had almost all of those symptoms. Now was not the time to be making a trip to the ER. Something crazy was going on in the city and I didn’t want to be stuck in the hospital. More screaming was heard outside the alley as I emerged and continued to make my way home. The sound of crashing cars, people shouting, and gunshots were ringing out around me. My knees were becoming weak as I coughed harder and wiped the blood from my eyes…then the nausea got the better of me. I stopped dead in my tracks on the sidewalk and evacuated everything that was in my stomach and then some. A soupy red mess came pouring from my throat as I purged the contents of my stomach, my hands to my knees as I gasped for air. Everything was happening so quickly. I had felt fine this morning, albeit a bit pissed off, but not ill. Though, here I was, vomiting on the corner of Carmine and Bleecker, drenching the sidewalk in what looked like bloody coffee grounds. My insides felt like they were melting as I tried to move forward, but my stride was slowed as my body weakened and I sucked in air to inflate my lungs that were sore and feeble. Where had I gotten sick? I was usually so good about not getting the crud and it was past flu season… The puking lady at the bus stop. That bitch. I tried to keep going, but my vision was getting blurry and my feet were heavier than normal. Even though my stomach was churning and the bile was sloshing around in it like a tumultuous ocean, I was hungry. And not for bagels or a Reuben sandwich slathered in sauerkraut—I wanted something a little more fresh and enlightened. I hungered for thoughts, urges, dreams, ideas, emotions… I wanted the gray matter. “No.” I shook my head hard and trudged forward down the street like I was walking through a snow storm, but the thought of fresh brain meat, all pink and squiggly with knowledge and ideas made my stomach twitch with hunger pangs. I vomited again, so hard I thought my eyeballs were going to eject from their sockets and roll down the street. Then I felt my body seize, the locking of joints and that rigid sensation your muscles feel when you start to get a charlie horse. I collapsed in the street, slipping off the lip of the sidewalk and right into the gutter as my body locked up. I started to lose consciousness as I began to vomit thick dark blood once again. This wasn’t the flu, it was fucking death and I couldn’t stop it. The last thing I remembered as I flailed on the asphalt was that intense craving for human flesh and sticky sweet brain meat. That was just the beginning of it, though. I’m pretty sure I died, or my body did at the very least, and when I “woke up” I was still lying face first in the gutter with sirens wailing all around me and blood curdling screams of people in the distance. Something was really wrong. My body felt like it was vibrating at such an accelerated level. I couldn’t control my body movements, my arms jerking about at my sides as I tried to use them to push myself up off the asphalt. My knees were shaking and my legs wobbled like a baby calf fresh from its mother. An explosion to my left that would have normally caused me to duck and cover my head, didn’t even make me flinch. The air was hot now. Hot and thick with a scent I had never had the pleasure of inhaling before. It was raw and sweet like burning cedar and scorched cherry. I needed it. Whatever it was, I needed it. No, I wanted to eat it. Like the smell of burgers on the grill or bacon in a skillet permeated my surroundings and I felt myself hobbling towards it at a slow speed. Eventually I became accustomed to the vibrating within me and began to sprint down the vacant street to the nearest intersection where I was sure the smell was coming from. And I was right. That’s where the smell originated from…but it wasn’t coming from a hot dog cart or falafel stand. It was wafting from a group of people who were stuck in a multi-car pileup, panicking as they tried to lock their doors and roll up their windows as other people frantically tried to break into those cars while gnashing their teeth. They looked—weird. Not like uniquely dressed or with rainbow spiked hair…I mean, weird. Like, oddly similar to the way I looked before I face-planted in the gutter. And then it hit me. I was hungry and the woman in the soccer mom van that was frantically trying to get her car started despite the fact that the front end was smashed all to hell, smelled like fresh steak. Then, there I went. Rushing forward as I slammed my full body up against the driver's side door, banging my fists into the window as I let out incoherent groans, clicking my teeth furiously. I was starving and she looked like a fucking snack. None of the other weirdos were paying her attention so I didn’t have to fight for my food as I finally cracked the window and punched my fist through the glass. The woman was screeching, clawing at me with her perfectly manicured nails as I yanked her through the busted glass, the sharp edges tearing at the flesh on her face and arms. The smell of the blood was just an appetizer to the meal that I was about to enjoy. She was screaming bloody murder as I finally pulled her portly body completely from the vehicle and cracked her head against the door a few good times so she would stop with the goddamn screaming. Whimpers and feeble protests still came from her as I opened my mouth as wide as it would go and bit down on the side of her face. Who knew that my teeth were strong enough to tear right through the top of her cheekbone? I felt the eye socket crumble, ejecting the eyeball from her skull as she began to scream again. Oh my God, if she wasn’t the most scrumptious thing I had ever tasted! I slurped her optical nerve into my mouth like a piece of spaghetti before crunching down on the eyeball itself, the insides squishing between my teeth. But that wasn’t enough, that was just a hor d'oeuvre compared to the meal I was about to have. I gripped the wound I had just created in her face with both hands and yanked, cleaving her skull in two like you would tear a tail from a lobster. Theeere was that smell that had beckoned to me from down the street. Her brain was still pulsating in her skull as the blood continued to course through her body and I began to feast on the grey matter. It tasted like chocolate cake, rare steak, fried potatoes—a slimy pink, cranial Everlasting Gobstopper. She finally stopped making noise at this point and I ate my fill before tossing her body into the side of her vehicle and wandered off to find the next meal because… I was still hungry. No—I was starving, and I needed to fill the void in the pit of my stomach lest it drove me insane. But nothing would stop that hunger, that bloodlust, that need for food that would satiate nothing. I was a monster, but at that moment nothing mattered more than finding the next brain that I would devour. And that leads us to now, or sort of to now. I wasn’t sentient enough at the time to get the full effect of what happened, but apparently it was straight out of a Romero film. People who were infected ate people who weren’t and if they survived then they became infected too and the cycle perpetuated on down the line till there weren’t many people left that weren’t infected. And when I say many, it seemed that over 85% of the population in any given place had become either infected or dead, leaving the living a minority in a quickly crumbling world. Those left alive fought for their lives at first and then eventually fought each other to preserve their lives, or so they said, and everything went to shit. I survived all of this. I mean, I survived not getting a bullet to the brain or a knife through the skull, but I would hardly call what I did for the last five years living. I mean, I’m a zombie for Christ’s sake. I’m no one’s favorite person and generally considered to be a threat or, at this point, a social pariah. And yes, I know that sounds ridiculous to call myself a social pariah because zombies don’t exactly have social structures or even people skills for that matter, but I was different. There was no one like me that I knew of. I was the only one. The only zombie in existence who evolved from a devolved lifeform that had once been the highest evolved being on the food chain. Sound confusing? Yeah, I’m still confused about it. Why was I still infected, still craving brains, still clearly dead-ish—but I was walking, talking, and thinking like a normal human being? Where had things changed? From terrifying brain eating monster to somewhat normal human-like monster with the mental faculties and cognitive functions like the regular humans. I didn’t know where things went wrong…or went right. But life goes on. And that brings us to now-now. Five years after the initial outbreak, years of munching on brains and wandering around alone, years of supposed survival and here I am. Except now I was a sentient zombie. I was still ugly, still brain-hungry, still infected, but I could talk and make conversation if people didn’t run away screaming or try to shoot me between the eyes when they saw me. I was lonely. It was fun at first, though. When my brain started to right itself, when I first snacked on the brains of some asshole who was trying to shoot at me and thought, “Gee, this does taste really good, but holy fuck am I ashamed of myself.” I knew something had changed. All the zombie movies I watched hadn’t prepared me for that one. I dropped the body and I ran. Yeah, I actually ran. Not limped, not scuttled, not loped or meandered…I ran. It felt good to be able to do that. Then I realized that I was alone and I liked being alone when I was living, so why not now while I was undead? I sang loudly and badly as I wandered through the woods, found old spray paint cans and painted awful graffiti on the crumbling walls of vacant buildings, raided long abandoned thrift stores for new clothes that weren’t bloodstained and put on a one woman fashion show. It was fun for a while, but then talking to myself and having single tea parties lost its novelty and I longed for human companionship, except that wasn’t a damn option. No one wants to be friends with a zombie and no one stays around long enough for me to even let them know I could say more than two words. But then the unbelievable happened… 562 Knows What to Do “Your first week, over two thousand souls missed their train to their afterlife. Some of the ones that were supposed to go to Hell almost ended up on the train to Heaven and the last few car loads were all destination Heaven and now they are sitting in limbo waiting for the next train! What the heaven to you have to say for yourself?” Babylon bellowed at me and I took it. They were right even if it was bullshit. “I fucked up?” I held my hands up and shrugged. “You fucked up…of course you fucked up! You have one job, Umbra and you are royally screwing the pooch here. I don’t want to have to send someone down every hour just to make sure that you aren’t asleep at the computer. I wasn’t even aware that your kind slept.” Babylon scoffed and it elicited a chuckle from the rest of HR. “Sometimes even we have to sleep too, Babylon. Constantly working as hard as we are for you and your ilk.” I spat with a smile. “Oh, quit your bitching, Umbra. We made things easier on all of you: streamline, perfect. Your kind wasted too much time with the humans when what you should have been doing was lording over them. Just look at them, fighting for a place in heaven.” Babylon smiled and the rest followed suit. “More like fighting each other for domination. You ruined them, Babylon.” I could feel myself beginning to boil with anger. “You have such a narrow scope of view. We didn’t ruin them, we ruled them and when you rule with an iron fist, you’re able to fill your quota. We’re filling quotas, Umbra, do you understand that? You can’t be late, you have to pick up the clients and take them to the station. From there they go to Heaven or Hell. Don’t give us anymore trouble because we already have to deal with the mess your friend Lucinda is making at the moment.” Babylon seemed irked with the disobedience of us beings that wanted out from under HR’s thumb. “I told you not to call it that and how is Lucy? I haven’t talked to her in forever.” I dug in to their obvious discomfort with my apparent fondness of a friend that they wished I didn’t have, thought we hadn’t spoken in over a millennia. “She’s causing a lot of problems on Earth and making things very difficult for us, not to mention the rebellion of those on the bottom floor. It’s chaos and we can’t have more chaos with you allowing the dead to wander around unchecked. Get your shit together, Umbra, or you’re fired.” Babylon stood tall again and I felt myself shrinking away. I didn’t want to be afraid of them, but they could be brutal. I wanted to express my happiness with Lucinda being a massive pain in their ass, but I needed to keep a low profile before I got myself into some real trouble. I hated that feeling, the one of helplessness in a situation that you can’t currently change, but I was glad someone was doing something about it. “Of course, Babylon. I’ll make sure not to take such long naps on the job.” I still couldn’t help myself as I winked and went about my business. (*) The parking lot was still vacant. It was such a strange place to be because you could walk out to the perimeter where parts were open to the elements around the incline and I could see a city below me that stretched into the distance, but it was always dark. Was it just a fabrication to make this position more comfortable? I thought that was hardly the answer because Death was one of theirs, not ours, and I didn’t think they really needed that sort of creature comfort. They weren’t of this Earth like we were, they didn’t understand the subtle nuances that made it so perfect so I highly doubted that this was just a facsimile. I had to be somewhere, but I didn’t know if I could just wander off or not. They probably had put some sort of strange magick on the place that would keep me from leaving unless I was in the Fiat. “This is making my existence miserable. I would almost rather be fired.” I hung out one of the openings in the concrete so I could experience the cool night air. Even though I came from a completely different realm of existence, Earth was our neighbor and it held a very special place for me. Even the beings that occupied it had become a soft spot for me over the generations. Not all of them were bad, but they seemed to have gotten worse once HR got involved with their lives. I don’t know how any higher being could ever think what they were doing was right, but it wasn’t about anything other than power and control. It made my skin crawl at just the thought of the things they had coerced humans to do in their name, even though they had them convinced otherwise. There was no real Heaven or Hell, not like they made it out to be. No “God” as they put it, no real redemption, only punishment. There were various ways to torture people and the faith that they developed and implemented gave them options on how and where to torture. I knew what they were doing, but I was only one and there wasn’t really anything that I could do. I was glad that Lucinda had gotten away when she had because at least she could help them. There was nothing that I could really do in my current position. “Hey, Umbra.” The voice didn’t startle me this time because I was becoming used to it. “Hey, Stuart. What do you want?” I grumbled, not bothering to physically acknowledge them. “I heard about what happened.” Their voice was getting closer. “Yeah, and? Did you come to gloat or something? Oh, I forgot—you care about me.” I snapped, ready to rip his shiny ass to shreds because I needed to take it out on something. “Yeah, yeah I do. I care about you and I care about what happens to the humans. Lucinda is right in what she’s doing and did you know that Vanth joined her?” Stuart was talking about things that they shouldn’t have been talking about given what they were. “Vanth, I remember that name. I’m glad she was able to still do some good.” I nodded. I did remember that name and I remembered that she hadn’t been treated fairly, just like the others. There were so many of us that were just wandering around now without a purpose, if they even still existed at all. “You don’t remember much, do you?” Stuart had now come to stand close to me, their ridiculous suited hand placed too near to mine. “I remember bits and pieces. I remember that we were here first, I was here first. And then I was allowed to keep my space and take a fraction of those that died. You know, who would they give my position? I was so upset about losing it that I didn’t even think to question who would carry that mantle…not one of you, I suppose.” I pulled my hand away from Stuart and pointed at him. “That’s part of the problem—they did appoint one of us to your position.” Stuart had really caught my attention now. I had to think about it for a moment, but none of it made sense, so I went on, “Why? How can an Angel do my job? It has to be another one of us, right? And come to think of it, why make me Death? You have several of those.” It was like I was starting to wake up from an everlasting nap. My mind had been so foggy, but now I had questions. “There aren’t any more Deaths. That was the last one; all the others went off the rails. Think, Umbra, think about why they would want to appoint an Angel to your position?” Stuart pleaded with me to really think. So, I did. And it didn’t take long before it all clicked. “They’re trying to take my souls. But why? They can’t use Hell, so I took them. I know I didn’t do what I was supposed to do with all of them, but I punished the ones that were truly bad. How can they do this? It isn’t fair?” I blurted abruptly, grabbing Stuart’s hands anxiously. “I told you that it wasn’t fair.” Stuart just shook his head. “Do you know for sure? Did they just stick me here so they could take over and I wouldn’t cause any problems? Is that why Death left?” I was full-blown panicking now and it was the oddest sensation because I hadn’t ever felt it before—at least not in a long time. Stuart gripped my hands hard and forced me to look at them, “I don’t know for sure. I’m just an errand boy, but that works to my advantage because they talk a lot and don’t even bother to hide it from me.” “Because they don’t deem you as a threat. Are you a threat, Stuart? Is that what this is about? You’re defecting.” I finally understood why Stuart had been behaving the way he had. “Yes. And I’m coming to you because I don’t know where else to go. They won’t let any of us out of HR unless we are running errands. There seems to be too many of us rethinking what is going on here and HR assumes the safest place to keep us is up there. They have us leashed, Umbra. But I digress…I came to you because you can wander about freely as long as you are picking up souls. I need you to get me out of here; I can’t stand being here any longer. They need help out there and I want to be on the side that gives it to them.” Stuart pointed out to the city below us. “But if you’re leashed, as you put it, how can I take you anywhere? They’d know.” I was willing to help because Stuart seemed more than genuine, but I didn’t know how that would be possible. “Let me handle that. Just, when you see me next, will you promise that you’ll take me with you?” Stuart’s eyes pleaded with me as he waited for an answer. “Sure. Sure, I’ll take you with me.” I nodded, unsure how that was even going to be possible. “Good. Uh, do you mind if I take a look at your computer? HR said it needed some updates and figured that you could use them so that you don’t—mess up again.” Stuart stepped around me and headed toward the parking booth. “Sure. That thing is prehistoric so anything that you can do to help would be great.” I thanked them as they left me alone to a new type of musing. I didn’t know how Stuart planned to escape, but I would help them in whatever way that I could. I should have been wary, considering what they were, but I had this feeling in my gut that told me they didn’t want to have anything to do with what was possibly going on. We had no game plan either, but I hoped that when Stuart came back, that I would know more. I wasn’t used to being stressed, so this was all new for me. “Stuart?” I called out, wanting to ask a few more questions, but when I turned around, they were gone. There was no sign of them in the booth or the parking lot, nowhere at all. I guess the update hadn’t taken very long and they had to go. Stuart was always running late. I would just go about doing my new job, albeit now with much more caution, until Stuart came back. Then maybe I wouldn’t have to worry so much. (*) The dead were being slow and the phone hardly rang. I could take few messages before I needed to head out and pick up the clients to drop them off at the station. I wondered who was going where and if any of them would lead a happy afterlife after what Stuart had told me. Who knew where they were going, not them and not me, and it made me ache not knowing their fate any longer. I had just started to nod off when the phone rang and I answered it. “He-llo.” “Encrypted Client Id code. Please, refer to the Program for details.” An automated voice cautioned me and I immediately went to the program to check. I pulled up the list, there was only one Client ID and it was indeed encrypted. I hit print and a slip of paper rolled out from the little printer and I grabbed it to see who was so important that their punched ticket was encrypted, something I had never seen before. “562. Only three numbers? And no name?” I had never seen one like this, but I had this feeling that it would be better to pick this one up alone without any other clients in the car. “Alright, 562. Let’s get you to the station.” I spoke to myself as I grabbed the keys from their peg and put what little belongings I had into my bag. I sprinted to the car, hopped in, turned it on, and punched in the number. I had gotten the hang of everything and made sure that the car was in drive before it sped off towards the mystery client. (*) The car seemed like it was floating on forever when it finally rolled to a stop in front of an apartment building on a street that was full of life, people walking up and down the sidewalks with masks on and shiny plastic beads hanging around their neck. There was no sign of my pick-up, but I felt like I had to go inside for this one and I let my gut take me through the apartment gate, around the back, and up two floors still I was standing at a door with a gold 562 tacked to the front of it. “An apartment number. Fuck.” I had a horrible feeling that I wasn’t going to like what I found inside. The door was ajar and I felt my hand reach out, my fingers gently pushing the door all the way open. The apartment was vacant, no furniture, just a sliver of light cascading through the open window, illuminating a body on the floor. I noticed a bottle of pills on the counter, all but two were missing. It seemed like I had walked in on a suicide and I wondered how long before the living realized they had passed and the body removed. There wasn’t anything I could really do about that but I could get the soul out of here before it had to watch its own body rot. “Hello?” I called out, wondering where my client was. “In here.” I heard a voice from the other room that sounded all too familiar. I didn’t even bother looking at the body and instead made my way to the bedroom where the voice had emanated from. They were obviously aware that they were dead since they had taken their own life; that was good because it would make things easier on me, despite the scenario. I pushed the bedroom door open and was met with a face that I hadn’t expected to see. “Stuart?” My eyes began to water. I was confused, but something was telling me that what I was seeing wasn’t right. “Hey, Umbra.” Stuart smiled, sitting there in his ridiculous tweed suit. I didn’t say anything else. Instead I stepped back out of the room and walked over to the body lying on the floor. It was all in slow motion as I came up to the crumpled husk on the floor and immediately noticed the loud geometrically patterned tie that hung loosely around the body’s neck. “Stuart!” I screamed, suddenly feeling the urge to throw up, hyperventilate, or both. “Calm down, Umbra. It’s going to be ok.” Stuart had come out of the bedroom and was now standing next to me, both of us looking down at their lifeless body. “I don’t understand? What happened? How? How can you be dead? How do you have a soul that would get—called up—this way?” I deflated at the end of my sentence, not sure exactly what I was witnessing. “Can we talk about this in the car? I don’t want to be here when they come to get my body.” Stuart took my hand and led me towards the front door. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from their lifeless body, so they turned my head gently and led me outside, back down the stairs, and out to the car. They helped me get into the driver’s seat before they climbed into the passenger seat, but stopped me before I put it into drive and punched in our destination. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I could have come out here to the curb, but I didn’t know how all of this would work.” Stuart stared at his hands as he spoke. “How is any of this possible, Stuart? How can an Angel die and come through the system like that?” I was shaking, but there was no stopping that. “Because I’m not—full Angel. I’m what’s called a Nephilim and that means that I am part human and part Angel. Because of that, I can die.” Stuart explained and I felt my jaw drop. “Have you known all this time?” I couldn’t believe that they had, but I didn’t know what to think at this point. “No. Somehow, Lucinda was able to get me a message that explained everything. There’s a lot to go over, but I’m just going to tell you what happened with me for now. I think there are others in HR’s ranks that don’t agree with what they are doing, those that side with Lucinda and the others—they must have known that I was having my doubts which triggered Lucinda’s need to get ahold of me. I had to figure out a plan of escape, and because of what they had done to me, I knew what my only option was. Our kind can die and there is usually a special place that Lucinda has made for us to keep us safe, other than Heaven, Hell, or your home. But since I’m part human we figured out a way to get me into the system, so when I died, my number was punched, encoded, and sent to you. I’m untethered now, but I won’t be taken to the station or sent to the Neither. I need you to help me find Death.” Stuart finished and I knew that I must have been catching flies because when they finally turned to me, they gave me the strangest look. “Ok, so we need to find Death because you think that they gave me this new position to get at my souls? And Death knows this?” I thought I could see where this was going. “We think so. Most of the Death Angels have defected at this point, but they are accounted for. Our most recent Death is the only one that is missing.” Stuart explained. “Right. And HR checked their home, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and put me in the interim position.” I kept trying to convince myself this was only temporary, “And you saw it. They didn’t move anything around much before I got there from the looks of it? The parking booth was pretty neat and put together.” Stuart snorted, if that was even possible for a ghost, and spoke, “Death didn’t live in the parking garage; they had an actual house.” “What? They were allowed to leave that boring ass place? And I’m stuck there?” I exploded, smacking the steering wheel. “You’re a flight risk. And I never saw Death’s home; just HR. I don’t know what their idea of undisturbed is, though. Maybe we need to take a ride over there and look for ourselves.” Stuart replied. I had never seen them so bold. “Sure. And how do we get to Death’s house?” I was up for whatever at this point if it kept me out of the parking garage. I just needed to get back in time to check voicemails and pick up clients. I had found what looked like a dated pager in one of the drawers of the desk and soon (after much searching on the archaic computer) discovered that it was connected to the soul system and would notify me if I was getting backed up in my duties. At least it gave me some sort of warning. Stuart took the keypad and faced it in such a way that we both could see the small screen. “451208.” Stuart’s fingers glided along the numbers as they hit each button lightly. “Death. That’s such a simple cipher. Idiots.” I scoffed as the car groaned beneath my foot on the brake. I let up and the car took off at its break-neck speed. It bounced around a few times before I felt that familiar jerk as we met resistance before punching a hole in the fabric to arrive at our destination. We were squeezed in between rows of dense pines in a darkened forest that went on for what appeared to be miles. It was darker here, much darker than it had been where I had picked Stuart up. I feared that the car wouldn’t be able to maneuver through the pines, but what was I really thinking? We were in the Death-Mobile and I was pretty sure that it would go wherever the hell it wanted to go. And it did. The trees were like vacant space for the car as it puttered and popped forward, weaving in and out of the thickest trunked trees I had ever seen. There were even points where I thought the branches might come shattering through the glass, but I didn’t know what I was so afraid of. I couldn’t die and these branches surely weren’t going to be able to harm me. Stuart had been quiet through the whole ride until we finally came to a clearing and they pointed out, “There. That’s Death’s house.” And there indeed was a house, more like a nice vacation cabin, set in a circular area of grass, the trees on the perimeter as cover. It seemed to me that no actual being could get this far into the forest unless they were dropped from a helicopter. But where exactly were we? “Before you ask, because I know you’re gonna, we’re in the Black Forest.” Stuart read my mind before I even had a chance to open my mouth. “Oh, Brothers Grimm?” A smile spread across my face thinking about the delightfully dark stories that I had spent countless hours reading. “Death was fond of those stories too. They chose this place because it was far away from most other places, but still on Earth.” Stuart went on as the car came to a stop in front of the cottage with darkened windows. As soon as the passenger side door opened, the lights came inside, warm and orange like a fire in a fireplace. “So cozy.” I whispered as I climbed out of the car, following behind Stuart to the front door. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary as I stepped onto the porch and the house itself looked fairly normal…but the door was ajar. “You think HR left it open like that?” I pointed at the knob before Stuart placed their hand on it. Stuart furrowed their brow, “You’d think they’d lock up before they left.” “You’d think. What are the chances they never even looked for Death?” I wondered aloud, already knowing what the answer would most likely be. Stuart glanced over at me with a worried expression. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. They never looked for Death. This place doesn’t even smell like them; they were never here.” I pushed past Stuart and opened the door as I spoke. The inside was even cozier than the outside; rustic cabin set up for that much awaited holiday that would never come. There was a fireplace, lit up warmly while candles and old kerosene lamps cast that eerie orange glow that I saw when we pulled up. There was normal furniture: several plush chairs, a driftwood coffee table, a wooden futon, a small table and chairs in the open kitchen, a tea kettle still on the stove. Everything looked normal , nothing looked off, except for maybe the lone kettle seemingly ready for tea, but I checked it and it was empty; only waiting to be filled with water when someone was ready. “Even if HR never came to check on Death, it still looks like they said it did. Maybe they were here.” Stuart spoke aloud as he flipped pillows and rifled through drawers. “Maybe.” I muttered, my attention being drawn to the back of the house. I bypassed any other rooms that may have been on my way and walked straight to the back door. It was black as pitch outside, but for some reason there was an unnatural glow that lit up the back yard like fireflies in the summer. I felt my hand reaching for the doorknob, twisting, pulling, until it was open and a rush of cold air met my face, causing my skin to erupt in goosebumps. Something smelled familiar out there, a scent that tickled my nose like electricity and felt like home was calling me. I sniffed long and hard at the air as I stepped out onto the back porch, almost identical to the one in the front. The electricity was now crawling over my skin, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. “Hello?” I called out into the darkness, not really sure if I was expecting a response or not. I didn’t get one, not a verbal one anyway, but what I did get was a collective hum as the shadows started to shift out in the trees and the glowing grew in size until it started to split and break off into individual forms that floated from the tree line and closer to the porch. “Who—who are you?” A voice called from one of the glowing masses. “I’m called Umbra.” I responded, my feet carrying me to the edge of the porch. “Are you friends with Death?” Another glowing mass asked and I turned my attention to it. “I don’t know if you would say friend, but I guess so. Who are you?” I returned, not feeling at all put off by the fact that I was talking to a giant glow worm. But I knew that these were no glow worms… “I remember my name. Lucas. They used to call me Lucas. And this is Enrique and I think her name is—is—Ai. Her name is Ai.” The same glowing thing responded to me. These were people. Well, they were still people, just not live ones. They were ghosts, spirits, specters. I was talking to the dead. “What are you doing out here?” I asked. I could feel my bare toes gripping the wood of the porch. I didn’t even remember taking my boots off. The masses started to come nearer, joining together into a tight group as they stepped closer and closer to the cabin, stopping a few yards from the porch. It was now that I could see them, I could make out features. There were men and women, some children too, I even thought I saw a woman in the back holding an infant. I tried to make a mental note of how many there were and I counted about fifty before I started to lose track. My assumption was that these were souls who had wondered out into the Black Forest and perished, but there were some inconsistencies in the audience. Besides that fact that the races of the people standing before me were as varied and diverse as that of Earth itself, none of them were wearing any dated or period clothing. Everything they wore was modern and even if it had an air of antique, it was clearly a recreation. These people hadn’t wandered into the forest over decades and got lost, perishing in the elements, these people had all recently died and from the looks of it, not here in the forest. Finally, Lucas decided to speak again. “Death brought us here.” I felt my nose scrunch up. But, why? “Do you know why Death would do that?” I felt my toes wanting to leave the porch as I spoke, but I forced myself to stay put because I didn’t know what I was dealing with yet. “To keep us safe.” Ai spoke to me now in what sounded like Mandarin, but I understood her regardless. “Keep them safe from what?” Stuart inquired from behind me; I hadn’t even heard him come out on the porch. “Your kind.” Enrique spat, backing up from the porch, the other glowing bodies following his retreat. “Wait! Stuart isn’t one of them, not completely. They’re dead, just like you.” I grabbed Stuart by the shoulders and pushed them over to the edge of the porch and down the stairs. I could feel them resisting against my grip, but they knew that it would do them no good. I directed them out into the unearthly glow of the back yard and they were set alight just like the other wondering spirits that occupied the clearing. The other ghosts gasped as Stuart lit up like a freaking Christmas tree, much brighter than the rest. They slowly crept closer to them, but Stuart didn’t budge. They stood there as the others approached, reaching out their hands. They weren’t threatening grasps, more out of curiosity as their spectral fingers met Stuart’s non-corporeal body and they began to fawn over them. “See? Stuart is the result of the Angels fornicating with human women. They are partially like them, but more like you and they are here to help.” I explained to the others as they listened while examining Stuart. Stuart turned to look at me with a smile, “You don’t have to call me they anymore, Umbra. I know a lot of the others can be seemingly genderless, but I’d like to think of myself as a man.” I felt a little sheepish as I was so used to referring to the others neutrally due to their appearance and how they conducted themselves. I assumed Stuart was like the rest, but I was wrong. “Sure, of course. My apologies.” I waved slightly, feeling a little misplaced now in the circle of ghosts. “Don’t apologize. You know now and that’s all that matters.” Stuart spoke to me but tried to politely back away from the others. “You said that Death was trying to protect you from the Angels?” I figured that we had earned their trust enough to ask. “Yes. Death picked us up and was supposed to take us to a train station, to the afterlife. But they didn’t; they brought us here. Death told us that we were slated to go to Heaven, but that they were bringing us here instead. Said that the Angels lied about Heaven and it that it wasn’t a place we wanted to go. They told us that we would be safe here.” Lucas went on to expound. “We didn’t believe them at first, but there was nothing we could do. We thought we were being kidnapped. Soon, we realized that Death was looking out for us, taking care of us, trying to keep us sane. But they said that we couldn’t stay long in this realm because there wasn’t enough room; too many energetic bodies in one space according to them.” Enrique picked up where Lucas had left off. I wasn’t sure what I was hearing. Heaven wasn’t safe? Of course, I never assumed it to be perfect because I was rather biased, but I didn’t think that it was necessarily unsafe. I figured the Angels had some sort of rewards for them, even if their whole religion was a lie. But who was I kidding? I knew better. I knew. “What was Death planning on doing with you?” I asked, needing just a bit more information. “They said that they were going to bring us to a place that the Angels called Hell, but only because they didn’t have another name for it. It wasn’t the Christian Hell, but another place where we would be safe.” Ai spoke now. Death was going to bring all these souls to me. Like I said, I had counted maybe fifty or so, but now that I looked out further into the trees, I could see thousands upon thousands of glowing orbs in the darkness. “But then Death stopped coming. Death came every day and took care of us, but they haven’t come in days. Did they send you? Do you know where Death is?” Lucas pleaded with me, reaching out to catch my hands in theirs, but I recoiled, curling up my fingers to draw them away. “No. No, we don’t know where Death is. We came here to try and figure it out.” I was slightly stunned by all of this and my words had begun to fail me. “Death was going to bring you all to—to Umbra’s realm. But Death is missing and Umbra has been given their position.” Stuart went on. “You’re no longer in charge of Hell? But then who is? Can you take us to this place?” Ai pleaded, clearly distressed. “It’s not called Hell, though I can’t quite remember what it was called before the Angels came. And I’m not in charge of that world anymore, like Stuart said; an Angel is. If Heaven isn’t safe, then my former home isn’t either.” I shook my head, now feeling a pain in the pit of my stomach. Something was so very wrong; I could feel it. “Then what do we do? We can’t stay here forever.” Enrique’s eyes glowed with silent spectral tears. These souls were lost. Gathered in a dark forest on a realm that they no longer belonged to, all alone and with no direction. Death was trying to do good, but they hadn’t been able to finish. This was no vacation of theirs and I had the sneaking suspicion that they hadn’t gone off on their own accord. Something had happened to them and I knew that it had something to do with the Angels. “No, you can’t, but I don’t have an answer for you right now. We weren’t prepared for this, prepared to encounter all of you, so there is no game plan. Let us figure something out and we will come back for you.” I promised, but I didn’t know if it would be enough. A low hum started to reverberate through the crowd, starting with the spirits closest to us. It rippled across the small grouping and out into the forest, the hum rising in pitch as it shook the trees. They were angry, and rightfully so, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it, not me and Stuart alone. “Please, calm down. I’m not saying we’re going to abandon all of you, but there is literally nothing that we can do for you all at the moment. We just need you to be patient while we figure it out.” I held my hands out, trying to calm them down. But it didn’t seem to be working. What once were semi-solid human like forms, were now starting to dissolve into hideous ghouls, their fear and anger manifesting negatively because they had no idea how to process what was going on. They had been directionless for too long and I wondered how long they had actually been waiting here. It couldn’t have been too long because Death had sent me a whole load of souls only a week ago or so, so why hadn’t they just brought me everyone here in the forest? Death had let them fester too long and if the Black Forest wasn’t already haunted, it surely was now. “We need to go, Stuart. They’re angry and there is no way we are going to calm them down. Come on.” I grabbed Stuart by his coat and yanked him away from the swelling wrath of the ghostly mob. They were starting to close in on us and we didn’t have much time before they overthrew us. “But we haven’t finished looking through the cottage. Maybe there’s a clue that we missed.” Stuart protested, but I wasn’t going to let him linger. “We’re not going to find it now.” I shook my head, still clinging to his arm. I snapped my fingers and we heard a honk, the Fiat appearing in the backyard as the two of us climbed in and sped out of there before the spirits even had a chance to stop us. First Day on the Job My stuff was packed and ready to go well before nine, as a matter of fact right when I got home, and then I just sat there and stared into eternal oblivion, wondering what my existence was going to be like now that I no longer was what I was. It probably wouldn’t be hard, but that would be part of the problem. I liked to be challenged and playing Uber driver to the dead didn’t seem like it would pose any difficulties for me. I was going to be bored, under stimulated, and beyond cranky and the only upside to any of this was how miserable I planned to make Babylon and his cohorts.
I spent my last night at home wandering around the different landscapes, checking in on the dead, making last minute adjustments and repairs before the new person came to steal my job; I wanted to make it easier on the dead, not necessarily on the new employee. When I was finished it was time to go and meet Stuart, so I took the one bag that I had and made my way to the river on foot and just waited. “Umbra? I brought you coffee.” I heard Stuart’s voice behind me as I absentmindedly stared out across the rushing river, my bag still in hand. I turned to see him standing there in that stupid suit with a ridiculously large coffee in his hand. “Thanks, Stuart.” I took it from them and had a sip; it was perfectly sweet and dark like home. “I—I’m sorry, Umbra. This isn’t fair to you, but you know you can’t change their minds once they’re made up. I suggested that maybe they wait a little bit and see if Death came back, but they were insistent. How many people can really die in a day?” Stuart was apologizing to me, seemingly trying to make me feel better, and it oddly put me off. “An estimated 151,600 people die a day worldwide. I would say that’s not a number to take lightly.” I replied and that’s when it really hit me. For every soul that I took in on a daily, Death had to ferry that soul to me. That was a lot of driving. “Yeah, I guess that is a lot. And in just a few days over millions—I tried, though. I tried to see if they would choose someone else, but it almost got me fired, so I shut my mouth. I’m sorry.” Stuart went on, taking my bag and leading me to a sleek black Jaguar that was waiting parked by the bank of the river. I couldn’t take how nice they were being and finally snapped, “Stuart, why the hell are you being so nice to me? We don’t really like each other; we’re just colleagues at work, right? We don’t even have idle water cooler chit chat, so why were you trying to help me keep my job?” Stuart stopped dead and looked over at me with an unreadable glance, “Because that’s like firing someone from the company they have been at for over fifty years of their mortal life and not giving them a pension. Your kingdom has been ripped from you and I just didn’t think that was fair.” Stuart replied, finishing his walk to the car before he slipped my bag into the trunk and got in the driver’s seat. Weird. Just weird. What did they care about job stealing? They were notoriously known for that, so why was one of their kind so keen on me keeping mine? I got in the car without another word and positioned myself so that my body language made it quite apparent that I didn’t want to have a conversation. Stuart’s kindness was making my skin crawl and I didn’t want to blow my top while in the car and cause a wreck. I just wanted to zone out and come to when I was at the new job site. I didn’t have anything to say to anyone at the moment, at least not anything nice. It was just better if I kept my mouth shut even though I felt like there was something decidedly off about Stuart’s demeanor. I’d figure it later when I had time to think. (*) I don’t know how long the ride was. I just remembered speeding by a trillion stars in an inky black sky and then the car stopped and Stuart got out, going straight to the trunk for my bag. Now that the car had come to a halt, the space scenery melted away into vacant parking deck with flickering fluorescent lights in the ceiling and a small parking booth set right in the middle. I climbed out of the back seat and took my bag from Stuart before he could carry it away. “Please, please tell me that this isn’t it.” I shook my head, looking at the parking booth with its one dangling light from the ceiling, swinging around the shadows that hid whatever the booth was housing. “Well, all of this is yours. The parking lot…the booth. The—the, uh,” Stuart’s eyes darted to the ceiling as he pinched the smooth skin of his chin. I sighed loudly, rolling my eyes, “Stop. Just stop, Stuart. You’re only making it worse.” My bag was starting to feel heavy in my hand as I stepped into the booth and stretched my arm up to stop the light from swinging. I set the bag down in the dilapidated office chair that sat in front of a small desk. There was an old computer on top and at least six small monitors that were continually rotating through scenes from what appeared to be people’s funerals peppered in with car crashes, natural disasters, murders, cold hospital rooms—the flashes of the end of people’s lives just cycled by before my very eyes. To the right of the desk was a tall filing cabinet, floor to ceiling, with at least a dozen drawers that I didn’t even want to peek in because I am sure it was files from all the deaths in all of time; I already knew these people. Except, I only knew what was sent to me when I checked them in. I knew their names, I knew where they had been assigned, but that was about it. I never needed to ask how they died, because it was irrelevant for me…until now. At least it seemed that way, but I knew there was a point in time where things were different, I just couldn’t remember how. “You need anything?” Stuart’s voice behind me caused me to start and I whirled around with a look of incredulity on my face. I took a few calming breaths before I replied, “Nah. I’m good.” I wasn’t going to take it out on Stuart. For whatever reason he was being uncharacteristically nice for something that considered itself above my kind. They had never been overly friendly before, not like this, and it was really starting to irritate the living hell out of me. “Cool. Well, I have to get back to work, but if you need anything, there’s a little red button on the console that will connect you straight to HR if there are any issues. The computer is in sleep mode, but if you wiggle the mouse, it’ll wake up and there’s a training simulator that you can run to give you a step-by-step how to for the job.” Stuart explained. “I know how to work a computer, Stuart, but thanks. I’ll figure it out somehow.” I waved at him before I took my bag from the chair and set it in the corner so I had a place to sit. “Oh, ok. Good. You’ve got this. Uh, see you later, Umbra.” Stuart gave me a strange smile as he backed out of the booth, but I stopped him. I had to ask again. “Why? Why the hell are you being so nice to me? I know you said something about having my job ripped out from under me, but why?” I hadn’t even let my butt hit the chair before I was back up and dangerously close to Stuart. He flinched, thinking I was going to strike him, and it caused me to recoil a bit. “I just—it’s not fair to you, what they’re doing. It’s not fair to be forced into a job that you don’t want or don’t like. It’s just not right. You’ve been doing that longer than anyone and they just—took it. They pushed you around because they can and that’s bullshit.” Stuart blurted and now it was my turn to flinch, but out of confusion. “Stuart, you’re weirding me out. Why do you even care? You’re one of them, not one of us, isn’t that what your kind does?” I was confused and that feeling was foreign to me. “Some of us, yes. But…I’m not like some of us.” Stuart puffed his chest up a bit as he spoke. “Sure, isn’t that what they all say? I guess, I appreciate the gesture, it’s just making me uncomfortable.” I responded and watched Stuart deflate. “Sorry. I have to go; I’m late. Just make sure you answer the phone when it rings. You can only let it go to voicemail so many times before HR has a hissy fit and sends someone down—and you don’t want that.” Stuart made the rest of his words short, gave me a slight nod, and then walked back to the Jaguar. It was gone before I blinked and I was now alone in Death’s parking deck. I wondered how time flowed down here, if there would be a lot of waiting in between calls, what was I actually supposed to be doing when the phone rang? Did I walk to the client? Did I need a scythe? Was that even a thing? What sort of paperwork did I need to fill out? I got so wrapped up in all the questions that I had, that I forgot there was a training tool right in front of me on the computer. I wiggled the mouse and I heard the machine whirr as the screen lit up and there in front of me was a rudimentary computer program titled, “So you think you can Death?” “Who the hell comes up with this shit and how old is this computer program?” I complained to no one as I sat down in the office chair and scooted closer to the desk. I clicked start with the mouse and the first thing that popped up was a short video shot in the sixties style of old sex-education videos. I let it play, hardly paying attention as the voice of Babylon droned on about Death’s history and subsequent duties, before the video ended and I was left with—1,268 questions about the video. “Wha—are you kidding me?” I made an exasperated sound in the back of my throat and banged my head on the keyboard before my hand found the mouse and I answered the first question. This was going to take forever as each question had about ten parts and at least five sub-parts underneath each one. I could feel myself getting a headache and I was pretty sure that that wasn’t even possible. I just kept ticking off bubbles mindlessly and the next thing I knew… “UMBRA! Do you not know how to answer a damned phone?” I was being screamed at from the darkness and sat bolt upright in the office chair, trying not to flail about in such a small space. “Phone? What phone?” I blubbered, wiping drool off of my mouth. “The phone. The red one right in front of your face that has been ringing off the hook for the past three days. What in heaven have you been doing down here?” The voice was screaming at me again and I was finally with it enough to turn my head to see who had the audacity. “Sleeping, obviously.” I closed my eyes hard when I spoke and then quickly opened them wide as I stretched my mouth. I must have been out for some time. “Check your voicemails. You are backed up by at least five-thousand clients. They’re starting to get impatient and restless. You need to go pick them up and bring them all to the station. NOW!” The HR crony kept yelling at me. I was right there, I could hear them! “Pick them up and take them to the station. Ok. What am I picking them up in and where is this station?” I started to get up from my chair as I narrowed my eyes at them and winced. I knew that I was about to get yelled at again. “Bless your stupid ass. You didn’t finish the training program, did you?” They tapped their shiny loafered foot on the concrete floor. I scrunched up my face and sheepishly shook my head. I didn’t really give a damn either way, but I didn’t want to upset my clients. “How you got anything done—” They murmured before addressing me directly, “There’s a car over there in the corner. You go to the address that was sent to you, pick them up, and then take them here.” They reached into the booth and pointed at a big red dot on a map hung on the wall. I hadn't even noticed it was there. But I recognized the area where the dot was and I knew exactly the station they were talking about. I scooted past them in the booth to peer out for the car that I would be picking up clients in and the only thing I saw was a beat up black 1960 Fiat 500. “Wait, I’m picking people up in that? Does it even run? You all have AAA, right?” I started to walk over to it when they stopped me. “Don’t get distracted. Hit print on the keyboard and it will give you a client list. You can fit about three other souls in there with you before have to make a drop off at the station so you’re looking at around,” They checked something on their palm-pilot, “1,666 round trips.” “Holy shit, that’s a lot of driving. Do I have to stop for gas? Is there a company credit card?” This was a lot of information that I wasn’t prepared for. “Fuel up at the station after every trip; that thing gets terrible gas mileage but they didn’t allot enough in the budget for something more fuel efficient. Payment is by blood; no company card.” They shook their head, punching the print button for me. They handed me the list and tossed me a set of keys that had been hanging by the map. “I take it I don’t need GPS.” I took the keys and the list, throwing my bag over my shoulder. “What do you think? The car is an extension of Death so it knows where to go. You just punch in the Client ID number and it will go straight to them. Good luck, because you only have about twenty-four hours before the train leaves the station.” They closed up the booth for me and just stood there in front of the door. “Twenty-four—I only have a day?” That wasn’t a lot of time to pick up that many souls. “You would have had more time and been ahead of the game had you not fallen asleep and let the phone go to voicemail so many times. You better go because Babylon won’t be happy if that many souls miss their train.” They warned me before I blinked and they were gone. “Great. Awesome. Perfect first—however many days on the job. Starting this new position off right.” I sarcastically gave myself a pep-talk as I marched over to the little Fiat and unlocked the driver’s side door. It smelled of embalming fluid and brimstone inside and I wondered if I should stop for an air-freshener or five before I picked up my first client. The keys gave me some problems as I tried to fit it into the ignition, but after a fit of cursing and a few punches to the steering wheel, I got the key in and the engine started. It sputtered and popped as the engine grumbled to life, apparently just as done with this shit as I already was. A little key-pad with the basic numbers of zero through nine was crudely wired to the radio and I figured that this was where I typed in the Client ID. “First on the list. Allison Stokes, age thirty-five. 7726532487765281. Fuck, that’s a lot of numbers.” I speedily punched in each number and the screen above the pad lit up green with each stroke, just like a cheap calculator. After the last number was keyed in, the car jerked, but went nowhere. It kept jerking, shaking me back and forth like a margarita and after I felt like I had been whipped around enough, I realized that we were still in park. “Oh, seriously? You can go wherever on your own, but you can’t put yourself in gear?” I grunted, stomping down on the break as I shifted from park to drive. Apparently, the little shit had no problem applying the gas, because as soon as I got it into drive, it took off with tiny screeching tires through the parking deck at such a speed that I thought I might get ejected through the windshield if it abruptly stopped. Without much warning it picked up even more speed and before I knew it, we were quietly humming along to our destination because the wheels were no longer rolling across pavement. I wondered how instantaneous these sorts of trips were, and before I could finish my thought, the little car had rolled out onto a badly paved road in a terrible part of town. The road was dark and my headlights barely pierced through the fog that was rolling along with me. There were no street lights, no stop lights, the only light was the illumination of a bus stop and there was a woman standing there alone with nothing in her possession. The car slowly puttered to a stop in front of her and I rolled down the passenger window. “Allison Stokes?” I asked, not hesitating. I didn’t have time to question myself. “Y—yes. Who are you?” She was quiet, calm as she spoke. She looked lost and unaware that she was dead. “I’m your ride to the station; you have a train to catch.” I tried to broach the subject as subtly as possible. “No, I was waiting for the bus.” She shook her head and then nodded in agreement with herself. She wouldn’t look at me, though. “You may have been, but—you’re not going to catch that bus now, hun.” I felt my mouth draw into a line after those words. I had never had to tell anyone that they were dead because they knew it by the time they got to me. “I missed it? I thought I had made it here on time, but—but I don’t remember. I was running as fast as I could because if I missed that bus, I’d be waiting around forever to catch the next one and I have to get home to feed Missy Prissy. She’s probably screaming at the door, waiting for me to come home. Hopefully, my roommate will feed her if I’m not back on time…” Allison rambled, wringing her hands together and still not making any sort of eye contact with me. “Allison, I don’t know how to say this but you’re—you’re dead, sweet heart.” I couldn’t sugar coat it. If I wasn’t blunt about it, we could be sitting here at the corner of nowhere for days while I try to convince her to come with me for other reasons. “Dead? Am I?” She finally locked eyes with me as she cocked her head in confusion. “Yes, I’m certain. I’ve come to pick you up and take you to the train station. You’ll travel on the train from there to the afterlife.” I tried to keep it broad and neutral because I didn’t know where she would go exactly because that wasn’t my job anymore. “Oh. You know? I think I may have had an asthma attack. I kind of remember reaching for my inhaler and then nothing. Do you think I suffered?” Allison had ducked her head into the car, much more talkative now. “I don’t know. I wasn’t here like I was supposed to be when you died. I’m late—very late—and I have so many of you that I need to pick up and get to the train station. I’m sorry there isn’t anything more I can tell you.” I was suddenly ashamed as I spoke, feeling guilty about the fact that I was going to ferry them to the next place with absolutely no answers to give them because I was so damn late. “That’s ok; I was late too.” She gave me a wistful smile as she opened up the back door and climbed in. “I’ll get you to where you’re going next on time though; I promise.” I turned over my shoulder and gave her a smile. She returned it before I grabbed my client list and punched in the next ID. “How many more stops before the station?” Allison asked. I could see her settling into the back seat through the rearview mirror. “Two more. Then I have to go get the rest.” I lowered my voice with my second sentence as the Fiat puttered off into the fog on the way to its next destination. I didn’t know if I would make it on time for all the rest, but I wasn’t going to let Allison miss her next ride. I had this sinking feeling that others wouldn’t be so fortunate. Death Didn't Come Into Work Today... Prologue I’m not Death. People used to get me confused with Death, but I’m not Death. I don’t show up on your doorstep to take you to the afterlife, one touch and you’re worm food, bye-bye forever, scythe over my shoulder kind of deal. Why? Because I’m not death.
I’m not death, I’m death adjacent. People only know Death. People only remember Death, but I’m not Death, so I was forgotten. Which is complete bullshit because if it wasn’t for me, Death wouldn’t have a damn job. You can’t just let the souls of the dead run all willy-nilly across space and time…you have to put them somewhere. And when you have to put them somewhere, you need someone to watch them because the Dead can be unpredictable and just like they were forgetful in life, they’re even worse in death. This means that they tend to forget who they are, where they come from, and what they are doing without their meat suit to drive them across the physical planes of existence. They get cranky, they get mad, they can even get so upset that they start tossing shit around like they own the place, throwing a huge temper tantrum because SOMEBODY didn’t do their job right and send those souls straight to me. How am I supposed to get anything done? How can I do my job if Death farts around and lets souls just do whatever they please because they got “bored”. Really? But death usually picks back up eventually once they have had their little vacation across the great divide, and things will go back to normal, more or less. At least that’s how it usually goes. I can’t take lives; not my department. That’s Death’s duty. I’m just here to babysit at this point. I used to love my job, the position I was given so along ago when the worlds were fresh and new and people feared death, so they needed that comfort of the soul once they were gone. Death would punch their ticket and send them on the train to me where I would get everyone settled in and make sure that they had what they needed till it was time to go elsewhere if that’s what their itinerary detailed, or if they were in it for the long haul, I tried my damn best to make them comfortable, no matter how long they stayed. Like I said, some are allowed to leave me and start fresh in a new vehicle, others would get day-passes to visit loved ones or places they frequented often while living, but they always come back, they have to come back. But here’s the kicker—the only way for the dead to make it to me is through Death. They are the only one allowed to taxi souls down to me; their position unique and individual as no one can do Death’s job, but Death. They were made for that job. Literally. Don’t see the problem yet? You know how in the mortal world, if you’re a “no call, no show” to your job, you get fired. Well, you can’t fire Death. So, what happens when Death doesn’t show up for work? There isn’t anyone else to fill that position. If Death doesn’t come to work, people don’t die, right? Wrong. Maybe I should have been more clear about Death’s actual duties…Death doesn’t kill anyone. Death doesn’t just show up at brunch, take the mimosa from your hand, and POOF your dead. I know what the folklore says and all that, but it isn’t true. People die. And when they die, that energy that powers the organic side of them has to go somewhere and Death is just a glorified ferryman. He takes them where they need to go and that’s it. It’s a really simple job, if I do say so myself. So, if Death doesn’t show up to work, the souls of the once living are basically sitting around at the bus stop waiting for the next line to come, but it won’t. Eventually those souls are going to get bored, they’re going to wander, and they will become frustrated if they can’t get home or they can’t find peace. And that’s never a good thing, the dead without direction. Do you see where I’m going with this? Death didn’t show up for work today…or yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that. It’s been so long at this point that I’ve lost track. No one can find them, everyone has looked. It’s as if Death just shuffled off this mortal coil (oh, the irony) and I’m left holding the responsibility that none of us ever had clearance for. Why? Because I’m the dead’s keeper, not Death itself. And now I’m kind of screwed. * * * Just another day in Paradise. And by paradise, I mean Earth. I needed a break from work and decided to crash my favorite hole-in-the-wall diner for a cup of coffee and a Danish. Not like the Danish people, I don’t eat people, not my job, but the soft, flaky pastry by the same name filled with sweetened cheese. Human food is something else, but I digress. Where was I? Oh, coffee and a Danish at my favorite little diner. I had been going non-stop, taking in clientele for the past several weeks and at an exceedingly high rate, but that’s to be expected when there’s a natural disaster. So many to take in and care for, answer all their questions about what happens after death, get them situated in their new existence, make sure they don’t try to escape (there’s protocols for leave and escape isn’t one of them) and all the other fluff that comes with being the keeper of the dead. Oh, this probably sounds really weird out of context, but it will make sense soon. I had just finished my second cup of coffee and had bitten into my Danish when the bell above the front door to the diner tinkled and someone came in that I hadn’t expected to see. They were wearing their favorite suit, the same gray tweed suit heavily padded in the shoulders with the brightly colored geometric patterned tie that they had been wearing for the past forty years. They stuck out like the sore thumb that they were, but who was I to critique anyone else’s fashion sense? I was more concerned with how they had found me than with the obvious fashion crisis that had now slid into the booth in front of me, their expression completely unreadable. “What’s up?” I asked casually around an obscene mouthful of pastry. They furrowed their brow at me, “What’s up? Do you have any idea what is going on?” They lowered their head and their voice as they spoke. “Yeah, a magnitude eight earthquake on the Richter scale that sent me over a thousand dead at one time. I just finished checking everyone in and I needed a break.” I defended myself before it was even necessary. “We all know that you come here; it’s no secret. But that isn’t what I’m talking about, the earthquake that is.” They shook their head before grabbing my cup of coffee, not getting much but the undissolved sugar granules at the bottom. “Then what is so goddamn important that you had to interrupt my Danish with your Miami Vice looking ass?” I didn’t have time for niceties; I had to get back to work. “Miam—really? This is a suit, a nice one, and I’m not wearing wicker shoes…you’re-you’re throwing me off topic,” They sighed agitatedly and went on, “Death didn’t come in yesterday.” “And? Did you call them?” I raised my finger in the air for more coffee and kept eating my snack. “Of course we called them, but there was no answer. We’ve been calling them. They didn’t come in today either.” My ridiculously suited friend was visibly worried as they lowered their voice some more. “Two days in a row? Still nothing? Have you sent anyone over to see if they’re ok? There’s a possibility that Death went on vacation again, especially after that earthquake; we all need a little break from time to time.” I was more or less talking about myself, but it extended to everyone. “Yes, but they weren’t there. There was no note or anything and their space seemed off; everything was as it should be.” My suited friend’s eyes were darting about as he spoke. I was starting to think that maybe here wasn’t the right place to be having this conversation. “Well, what do you want me to do about it, Stuart? I don’t know where Death is either, but if I see them I will make sure to tell them that they’re in big trouble with HR.” I tried to end the conversation as my server, a middle-aged woman in a frilly apron, came over with more coffee. “That’s not it. We’re not pissed off, we’re worried. Something isn’t right and we have this sneaking suspicion that Death isn’t coming back. That’s a big problem, Umbra.” I didn’t like the way Stuart had just said my name. I bit my tongue before speaking, “Like I said, what do you want me to do about it?” “Well, we…” They left their sentence unfinished and started a new one, “Why don’t you just come up to HR tomorrow and we can talk about it.” “Nope. Nuh-uh. You can’t just start a sentence and not finish it only to tell me I need to come visit HR so they can tell me what you so clearly already know. Just fucking tell me, Stuart. I’ve lived far too long to be dealing with childish bullshit.” I finished the last bit of my never-ending Danish, brushed the crumbs off my fingers, and stood up. “I—I don’t want you to shoot the messenger, you know.” Stuart got up to follow me because I wasn’t sticking around. I had already left money on the table and was almost to the door before I felt Stuart’s cold hand on my shoulder. “Umbra, stop.” They tried to keep their voice down, but I didn’t have time for this. They weren’t going to tell me anything and I wasn’t going to stick around to argue. “Sir, could you please stop harassing me. I do not want to see the pet anaconda that you have hiding in your pants.” I raised the tone of my voice, making sure that I was loud and obnoxious to get the attention of everyone in the diner. They all turned around to look at Stuart and me, so I made sure to make my best sweet and innocent face as I backed out the door, leaving Stuart to deal with the embarrassment and impending explanation he would most certainly have to give. I had a lot to think about. My good friend Death was missing and from the sound of it, wasn’t turning up anytime soon. Stuart and the rest of his HR buddies seemed to have figured out a temporary solution, but he wasn’t giving up any of that information. And I wasn’t going to HR, or I didn’t want to go to HR, but if I didn’t turn up, they’d send their thugs looking for me and that was another headache I just didn’t have the time to deal with. Fuck HR. Always so fucking demanding. I knew that we had to be a well-oiled machine and all, but HR was constantly breathing they icy cold breath down our necks at every turn to make sure we were doing things smoothly, properly, and without any hiccups. But it wasn’t always like this. HR wasn’t always a thing. How they became a thing, I don’t even remember, but it had something to do with the natural progression of human migration and we had to get better organized. A necessary evil, I suppose. But I wasn’t going to go back home and wait around for tomorrow to go see HR. It was better if I just went myself and got it over with, especially because they wouldn’t be happy that I had gotten Stuart into trouble. They should have known better than to send him to fetch me anyway… (*) “Mx. Babylon, Umbra is here to see you.” The receptionist spoke to no one in particular as she eyed me warily over her computer. Even though they wouldn’t admit it, they were all spooked by me up here. There was no immediate response from anyone on the other end, so the receptionist continued to sit there, staring at me with wide eyes and a disgusted expression. I felt my lips curling into a smile and I couldn’t help myself. “Boo!” The receptions squealed, almost falling out of her seat when I hear that familiar bell that said HR was ready to see me. “You can go back now, uh,” The receptionist faltered, opening and closing her mouth stupidly like a gold fish, “Umbra. Mx. Babylon will see you know.” I winked at her before sliding past her desk and down a long hallway that didn’t seem to have an end, just door after door after door…after door…before I knew it, I came to a dead end and there in plain black lettering on the door was Mx. Babylon. “Come in, Umbra.” I heard their voice on the other side and took a deep breath before I opened the door to find Mx. Babylon at a round table, surrounded with the rest of the bodies that made up the HR department. “Everyone.” I bowed rather sloppily before crossing one foot over the other, arms in the same position, waiting for whatever it was they were going tell me. “Have a seat, please.” Babylon gestured with their hand and I felt the cold plastic chair hit the back of my knees. I reluctantly sat down and waited impatiently for them to go on. “I assume you spoke with Stuart?” They asked. Good, news hadn’t made it back yet about what I had done at the diner. I just nodded my head. “We hoped that you would come see us in the morning so we had more day to work out the kinks, but we shouldn’t have expected any less from you.” Babylon smiled, but I could tell they weren’t happy. “I don’t have time tomorrow and I was free now. What do you need from me?” I was already irritated as hell and wanted to go, but I had to at least hear them out. Babylon sighed, glancing at their colleagues before they went on, “As you know, I’m sure, Death is gone. We don’t know where, we don’t know why, and from the looks of it, they aren’t coming back. Do you see why this is a problem?” Obviously, I did. “Of course, I do. But like I asked twice of Stuart, what do you want me to do about it?” I shrugged slightly. This wasn’t my problem because it wasn’t my department and it sure as hell wasn’t my job. I already had my hands full. “Well, we’re going to need you to—step up to the plate for a new position.” Stunned silence on my end. “Excuse me?” “We need you to pick up the slack on Death’s end. That position can’t be left vacant; it’s too important. You’re the closest to Death we’ve got, so naturally we’re promoting you.” Babylon went on to explain further. Whoa, what? “I don’t want to be promoted; I like the job that I have. I’m really good at it too and I can’t juggle Death’s duties and mine.” I protested. I already didn’t have time and that was infinite. “I don’t think you understand, Umbra,” Babylon went on, “We’re giving your old position away to someone else. You might actually have more free time now.” Free time? I know that was what I had been thinking about, but now all that was running through my mind was losing the position that I had held for ALL OF ETERNITY to pretty much be demoted to Death, a job that I had NO idea how to do. I mean, it couldn’t be too hard, but it isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to take people as their souls slipped from their body, I didn’t want to see their deaths. By the time they got to me they all had been cleaned of their wounds and ailments and were ready for a long term vacation or imprisonment, depending on what had been decided about their souls. I’m not Death, I’m just of death. “No? No. I can decline this promotion, right? It’s not like you’re going to fire me if I say no. Oust me, maybe, but then you still have no Death so I’m going to go ahead and say no thanks.” I declined as politely as my mouth would allow. “This is non-negotiable, Umbra. You’re taking the Death position and someone else will be taking your old one.” Babylon was firm. “Why can’t you train someone else to be Death? Why does it have to be me? I have had the same job for longer than you have been in the picture and now Death takes one of their mini-vacations and I get fucking demoted? I don’t fucking think so.” I stood from my chair and kicked it away from me. I wasn’t playing with these infant beings. Babylon immediately stood from their chair and towered over me and the rest of the beings in the room. Their belly rumbled and I knew what was coming next, so I braced myself. Babylon opened their mouth and the sound that came out shook the whole office, leaving the other beings covering their ears despite what they were. Babylon was the biggest and the best of HR and for a good reason. The sound didn’t affect me like it did the others, but it still annoyed me to no end and I let out a booming “Stop!” and the room went quiet. Babylon continued to stand, glowering at me from behind their gleaming mahogany desk, waiting for a response. “And what if I still refuse? What are you going to do then?” I was pushing it, but I had to know if there were any other options for me. “We fire you.” Three words was all it took. I wasn’t ready to be fired. “Wow. I would say I’m surprised, but really, I’m not. You fucking HR thugs think you are so slick, just rustling the fabric and sliding in all nice like, as if none of us would ever notice what sort of beings we took on as bedfellows. I don’t know how you did it, how you claimed supremacy and convinced all of us to work for you, work under you, but I don’t have to fucking like it. I’ll take the position, but working with me won’t be a delight, Babylon. I know that as long as I take the job, you won’t fire me, so I don’t really have to behave if I don’t want to. Clearly, you need me too badly.” I was giving in, but I wasn’t going to make it easy on them. “Like I said earlier, I wouldn’t expect any less from you. We need you to have your things packed and moved out of Hell by the morning. Stuart will pick you up by the river around nine.” Babylon finally sat down and I could feel my lips curling around my teeth. “I asked you not to call it that. You have your name for it, but remember that it was ours before you ever came along.” I spat, trying to keep myself steady before I exploded, “I’ll be waiting by the river at nine. Tell Stuart to bring me a coffee; large, black, extra sugar.” And then I left. I had nothing else to say to them and I didn’t want to hear anything more about my new job until I started. I was angry, viscerally angry, and I could feel my body begin to boil at just the thought of being ousted from the position I had held since before any of HR was even a blip on the universe’s radar. How dare they? How dare they take advantage of me like this? Of us? I wasn’t just angry for myself, but for all the others that were being treated just as poorly by these invaders. I wanted to be done with it, but I didn’t want to be fired. Firing was not an option for me because that meant that I had given up and they had won—I wasn’t going to go out like that. I was going to take this new job, no matter how violently upset I might become… They’d just have to deal with it. |
E.M. MoonStories from the World Wide Weird Archives
December 2021
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