Reaper (11 page)

The woman’s apartment building sat at the end
of a cul-de-sac, behind which was a government mandated retention
pond. Bard waded knee-deep into the murky water and rinsed her
blood from their bodies. A small alligator slithered into the
pond.

Bard didn’t have a lot of time before he
would be called. It was happening after every reap now, and he’d
come to expect it.

He carried Oz to his apartment and laid him
across the bed. Using his knife, he cut a strip from the sheet and
wrapped it around the worst wound on Oz’s arm. Other than a few
gashes, the outside of the body was in decent shape. The damage had
been done internally, but that would fix itself before Oz came
back. He didn’t have a choice. None of them had a choice. Bard
checked that all of the windows were shut before leaving.

Rain clouds had yet to gather, but he could
smell it in the air. Bard walked until the ground opened up and
swallowed him.

He landed at the edge of a cliff at the
center of a grotto. Above him, roots wound around each other
closing the opening. Below was a lake, quiet and still as death.
Bard knew what he would find when he descended the cliff, but his
heartbeat pounded in his ears. He focused on breathing, counting
the seconds between each inhale. He liked to think that it
helped.

This body was old and didn’t take well to the
steep climb down the cliff. Adding to that the fights with the
woman and Oz, Bard’s fingers and calves cramped almost instantly.
He stopped every few inches to allow his muscles to replenish their
blood supply. The rocks were cold and numbed his hands making it
difficult to keep hold. Ten feet from the ground he lost feeling in
his hands and fell, smacking the ground in a heap.

“Never get used to that,” he muttered and
struggled to stand.

The lake was as it always was: muddy with an
opalescent sheen. Steam rose from the mirrored surface. On the
other side was a doppelganger of himself, leaning over the edge,
fingers dangling just above the lake surface. The other Bard was
the same Bard watching the scene, except different. Younger. His
hair was slicked back revealing a smoother, cleaner face. His
clothes were without cigarette burns or dirt.

Other-Bard reached a careful hand toward the
lake. His fingertips broke the surface and his hand immediately
shot out like he’d been shocked. Bard’s own fingers stung as he
watched.

Wolves manifested from the ripples in the
lake and came to rest along the shore. They observed with toothy
sneers.

Through the ripples, Bard saw her face. His
heart sank into his stomach knowing what came next.

Other-Bard stood and stripped naked,
carefully folding his clothes on top of his shoes. He jumped and
shook his hands and growled low. He yelled and leapt into the
lake.

Bard waited.

One second. Five seconds. Twenty seconds. A
minute.

Other-Bard broke through the surface, gasping
and screaming.

Bard’s skin burned. He could barely keep his
eyes open for the pain, but he knew that if he didn’t see it all,
watch it through to the end, they’d keep him here until he
could.

The wolves pulled Other-Bard from the lake by
his hair, ripping chunks of it from his scalp. He curled up into a
ball on the side of the lake, his body covered in angry, red
lashes.

Between the ripples Bard saw the girl, the
soft-named Emily or Maggie, open her eyes for an instant. Her mouth
opened and Bard knew she was screaming. The wolves snapped at
Other-Bard’s back and neck before diving into the lake. They drove
the girl to the bottom with them where they fed on her.

Bard wept.

* * *

It took Oz a moment to orient himself in The
Department. It hadn’t felt as though he’d been gone long—a few
weeks, maybe—but he knew time worked differently there. It might
have been years, or seconds. He easily navigated the rows of
cubicles until he reached the one he’d occupied until the lottery.
Oz stood over the desk, confused, when he found some woman
occupying his chair, typing on his typewriter. Writing the deaths
he should’ve been writing.

He’d been replaced.

Oz stalked through the cubicle maze until he
stood in front of Vlad’s office. The steel door was shut tight as
usual. Oz hurled a heavy punch. As his fist landed on the center of
the door, it eased open. Without pausing to wonder why, he stormed
into the office to find Vlad’s eyes transfixed on his computer
screen and the unique sounds of young, feminine moaning coming from
the speakers.

Vlad jabbed the power button on his screen
and turned his startled gaze toward Oz.

“Research,” he said. Then, realizing who was
in his office, he continued, “What the hell are you doing
here?”

“Who’s at my desk?”

Vlad shook his head. “Oz, you don’t have a
desk anymore.”

“Yes, I do.” The words sounded weaker than
they felt.

Vlad nodded at the seat across from him. Oz
didn’t sit. “C’mon, Ozzy. You know how this works. You get picked
in the lottery, you move on. No take-backs. No do-overs.”

Oz shoved the tray and computer monitor from
the desk. “I don’t want a do-over. I want a
back-to-the-way-it-was-er!”

Vlad didn’t blink. “Sorry, Oz. It’s either
this or...”

He tipped his head downward.

“Either I kill people or I go to Hell? What
kind of twisted-fuck choice is that?”

“It’s not a choice. This is your eternity.
Your end all and be all. You either get with the program or things
get really sticky for you.”

Her aroma preceded her. Sandalwood and lilac.
It summoned feelings of regret, of guilt, and of attraction—all of
which he squashed beneath the torrent of anger still mashing around
for room in his chest.

“Bard told me you’d be here.”

Oz pushed past Cora, forcing her into the
doorframe as he exited the office. The mention of Bard’s name only
fueled his righteous indignation. He couldn’t look at Cora or
acknowledge the possibility that, as a Reaper, she’d done it too.
She was too good for that, wasn’t she? There was nowhere to go—it
was either wander the cubicles and wait for them to force him back
dirt-side or give in. There was a third choice, but Oz shook the
thought from his mind. He couldn’t actually consider voluntarily
going
there
, could he? But then, could it really be worse
than what he was being forced to endure?

Oz watched the new tenant of his desk, a
greying woman with a large nose and plastic, black framed glasses,
type dutifully and efficiently. Oz wondered if she had passed the
point of acceptance yet—the point when you stop looking for
windows. That’s when Oz accepted his fate, but witnessing a lottery
had changed that. He could no longer accept anything about his
existence. He’d asked for a calendar shortly after because Oz
couldn’t truly believe that time didn’t matter. Then he won his own
lottery.

But this wasn’t what Oz wanted or imagined.
He knew that woman’s face would haunt him. How many more faces
would taunt him from beyond the grave?

Oz turned to the closet that he’d appeared in
only minutes before, closed his eyes and leaned his forehead
against the painted wood. It felt good to be supported.

“Hey,” Cora said.

“You kill people, too?” he asked without
opening his eyes.

“It’s not black and white like that.”

“Answer the question.”

“There are rules. Paths. Straying from the
path taints your Ba. That woman knew what she was doing when
she—”

“Cora.”

She paused. “Yes?”

Who knew one syllable could cause such
heartbreak?

Oz lost feeling in his forehead and Oz stood
up straight. “I need to think.”

“I could come with you.”

Oz stifled the urge to agree and shook his
head. “How do I get back to my apartment?”

Cora pointed to a door at the end of a long,
impossibly narrow hallway visible only from where they stood. An
illuminated “Exit” sign pulsed above it.

“I don’t remember that being there,” he
said.

“I imagine you didn’t notice much outside of
that cube.

He nodded, and walked purposefully for the
door. Without looking back, he opened it.

* * *

Dusk. The apartment was colder than usual,
and even less inviting. His body ached and his mouth tasted like
blood. A bandage wrapped the length of his arm. It felt okay to
move it, but his legs burned. He slid carefully from the bed and
took a step. It was painful, but bearable. He could at least
walk.

In the corner of the main room was the box
Cora had left. He pulled the typewriter from it and set it on the
desk. He brushed the ink ribbon to test for dryness, and then
threaded a piece of paper through the rollers. He typed one letter.
Then another. He’d typed a full paragraph before he stopped to
read. It was a hypothetical death—one that probably couldn’t happen
considering where he’d written it, but he tore it from the rollers
and ripped it as small as he could manage, just to be sure.

He opened a window and tossed the shreds. A
gust picked them up and carried them across the street, strewing
them over the sidewalk.

Oz sat back at the desk and stared at the
typewriter. In The Department, it was impossible not to work. Like
breathing, or making your heart beat, it was something that you did
naturally for being there. But here, the rules were different. The
world had gone crazy and dragged Oz into the insanity vortex and he
wouldn’t do anything about it. He had no say. If he was going to
get through this without losing his mind, Oz needed to get some
sense of control back. Do things on his terms.

Like this stupid typewriter. Here, he didn’t
have to write anything. It could sit and gather dust without having
ever contributed to someone’s death. Oz could refuse to kill
people.

“I refuse,” he said and shoved the typewriter
to the floor.

Chapter
Twelve

Oz woke with the sun. He showered and dressed
without thinking. He didn’t want to. Thinking would only take away
his nerve. Today, he required autopilot.

One perk to the reaper gig, Oz supposed, was
that you would always end up where you were supposed to be. He
walked slowly, hands in his pockets, with little concern paid to
the direction in which his steps took him. His thoughts wandered,
more than once to Cora. He’d been an asshole to her, again. She
tried to help, but what she didn’t understand was that there was no
helping him out of this. Her kind words and gentle encouragement
could do nothing to soften the blow of each new death, mounting on
the one before until they were a fucking goliath of
destruction.

Still, he thought, he ought to apologize or
something.

Oz passed a florist. Maybe he could find a
way to get her something. He frowned. No, he needed to push her out
of his mind before even the thought of her talked him out of his
plans.

There was only one cemetery in the area.
Circle Oaks spanned several acres with a towering oak tree planted
every hundred feet along the border. Oz stood at the wrought-iron
gate, staring through the bars, at nothing in particular. He knew
that he’d been buried in there. It was only a feeling, but it was a
strong one. From the moment he woke up, he was sure that he needed
to see his grave. Now, he didn’t know that he wanted to.

A bulky Lincoln parked along the curb closest
to the gate, and a woman—early seventies at least—rocked and
lurched her frail body out of the passenger side. Another woman
with a younger version of the same face stayed in the drivers’
side.

“I’ll only be a minute,” the older woman said
and brandished a bouquet of yellow roses from the dashboard.

“Take your time, Mom.”

Once standing, the woman was surprisingly
agile. She shuffled up to the gate and pushed it open. Oz knew he
could get inside on his own because, let’s face it, he would always
be able to get into anywhere that Death hung out, but he followed
her, wanting to pretend for a moment that they’d intended to walk
in together, like friends.

They crossed the winding concrete path that
branched into several networks of paths. He didn’t remember it from
his grandfather’s funeral so he figured it must be new. Probably an
attempt to keep foot traffic off the grass and lower the cost of
upkeep. The old woman continued onto a right fork until she stopped
at a simple, marble tombstone. The sun glinted off the face. Carved
into it:

Here Rests Marvin Canes

Beloved Father, Husband, and
Grandfather

February 8, 1941—May 15,
2011

“About damn time.”

The woman grazed the last line and chuckled
gently.

“The cheek,” she murmured.

Bracing herself on the top of the stone, she
eased herself into a graceful sitting position, legs tucked neatly
to the side. She stood the roses on their stems against the stone.
She sighed deeply and tears streaked her powdery, wrinkled
cheeks.

It felt wrong to continue to watch her
grieve, so Oz moved on. At the bottom of a hill, a little ways down
the same path he’d taken with Mrs. Canes, a stone cross stood out
among the other grave-markers. There was nothing remarkable about
it—it was plain, no taller than the others around it, but as the
hairs on the back of his neck and forearms raised, he knew it was
his.

He didn’t move closer to it, but stared at it
without blinking. The grass was neatly trimmed around the base of
the cross, but moss had crept up the sides. There were no flowers,
not even dead ones that’d been there a while, no ribbons... no sign
that anyone had visited him in a long, long time. Oz had never felt
so alone as he did at that moment.