Reapers

‘What the fuck do you mean I’m dead? Is that supposed to be some kind of a threat?’

Graham hated it when they reacted like this, it always made things very awkward. He took a step back and assessed the man, who he knew to be John Reginald Daley. Mr Daley appeared to be in his mid-thirties, (Graham knew he was actually 38 years 7 months and 3 days old) with blond hair, which looked like it had recently been completely shaven. His features seemed to be vying for room at the centre of his face, as if he had inhaled too heavily through his nose, and sucked them closer in. The nose itself had been broken more than once, giving him the overall appearance of an ex-boxer or street thug. He was in fact both. His stance was aggressive, chest thrust out, hands clenched into fists, elbows slightly bent, ready to attack. Graham could smell the testosterone coming from him in waves. The only thing that shattered the image was the gaping, bloody hole on the right side of Daley’s head, which Graham could have fit his entire fist in. Mr Daley appeared to be blissfully unaware of his condition.

The alley way in which stood looked like the natural environment for this sort of character. In fact, if you were making a nature documentary about native street thugs in the wild, this was just the kind of place you came looking for them. They were sandwiched between the back of a snooker hall, and the delivery area for three or four shops. Two just had large metal roller doors, and the others a heavily reinforced backdoor, and one a barred window. It was quite gloomy, the only light being cast from a dirty, oval caged wall light over the snooker hall’s rear door.

Graham sighed, took a deep breath, and began to speak.

‘I’m afraid Mr... er,’ Graham made a point of flipping over a couple of pages in his notebook. He knew the man’s name well enough, but always felt this action gave him a more detached, authoritarian vibe. ‘Ah, here we are, Mr Daley. Yes, I’m afraid, Mr Daley, that you have recently been rendered deceased, and I am here to collect you.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about you Muppet? You on drugs?’ Came the almost predictable response from Daley. Graham sighed, inwardly this time, and tried again.

‘No Mr Daley, I’m not on any form of narcotics, nor would they indeed have any effect on me even if I were. I am here in my capacity as a member of the reaper squad, to collect you for processing into the afterlife. My name is Graham Reiper, the name is purely co-incidental I assure you, and I am an authorised agent of Death Inc. a registered subsidiary and contractor to the Afterlife Reaper Squad Emergency Division. I realise that ARSED is not the best acronym in the world, be it the physical or spirit world, but that’s what we’re stuck with.’ He reeled this off with the monotone disinterested of someone who had said this a thousand time before.

‘What the fuck are you prattling on about?’ Came Daley’s repetitive response.

‘I will assume that having started the previous three sentences with the phrase “What the fuck”, that you are either, A: Of a very limited intelligence and vocabulary, and are having difficulty grasping the concept I’m presenting to you. Or B: Your death has left you confused and disorientated, and therefore you are unable to process the information yet. Or C: A bit of both.’

‘My monies on A.’ came a gleeful sounding voice from behind Graham. He turned to see his apprentice, Eddie Carver, grinning back at him. Graham gave him what he hoped came across as a stern look, he’d never been particularly good at those, and returned to the matter at hand.

Daley was still standing bewildered, like a deer in the headlights, before them. Judging by what he was muttering under his breath, John Daley was making a painfully circuitous series of connections to lead him to the inevitable.

‘I can’t be dead; I play snooker on a Tuesday.’

‘Flawed logic but give him credit for trying.’ Whispered Eddie, earning a Sssh! from Graham.

‘Wait a minute, I was playing snooker, with Knuckles and Razor.’ Daley continued.

‘Otherwise known as the cuddly twins I expect.’ Eddie continued his commentary, much to Graham’s annoyance.

‘Then, I came back from the bar, and caught Razor moving the pink ball out of a snooker, so I thumped him.’ Deep concentration was etched across the dead man’s face, along with some brain matter and general gore.

‘Come on Johnny, you can do it.’ Urged Eddie, earning another Sssh! from Graham.

‘Then before I knew it, Knuckles had pulled a shooter and….’ John Daley’s voice trailed off, and he looked up at Graham. ‘I’m dead, aren’t I?’

‘And there we have it ladies and gentlemen, the penny has finally dropped. Who had five minutes and twenty-one seconds in the sweep stake? Anyone?’ Eddie continued merrily.

‘Shut up Mr Carver, I ‘m trying to work.’ Graham Reiper’s voice carried a steely, cold edge to it making Eddie instantly close his mouth and back off. It worked much better than the stern look, and Graham took note of this.

Without speaking another word, Graham bend down and opened a briefcase, which until now had stood unnoticed on the floor beside him. Firstly, he withdrew a handheld shaving mirror, and then a clipboard containing several printed forms, and a pen tied to the clip with a piece of black string. Despite the lack of illumination in dark alleyway, a strange blue luminescence radiated from the papers. Turning back to John Daley, Graham said,

‘Mr John Reginald Daley, I am about to approach you to verify for you, your status as deceased. I will hand you the mirror, and then you are required to sign the necessary forms to enable us to complete the death transition process. I must warn you that any attempt to impede an agent of the reaper squad, can lead to a review of your current afterlife assessment index rating.’ Without waiting for a reply, Graham moved towards Daley, holding up the mirror as he went.

At first cautiously, and then with mounting horror, the dead man began twisting his head to the left then to the right, trying to get a good look at the gaping hole in his skull. Daley grabbed the mirror from Graham and spent several seconds trying various angles and positions. It was much like watching a barber’s customer admiring his new haircut. Then he shouted angrily.

‘There’s a fucking great hole in me ‘ead! I’m gonna kill that bloody Knuckles.’

‘Hmm, I’m afraid he beat you to it Mr Daley. You are deceased and as such are allowed no interaction with the living at any time, except in exceptional circumstances, with the express written permission of the relevant department head. Now if you would just sign here, here aaaand here.’ Graham requested, marking three x’s on various pages of the document, before handing the clipboard over.

Daley took the clipboard and stood looking at the papers with a glazed expression. After a few moments a voice piped up from behind them.

‘If you can't write, just put a cross next to the cross.’ Eddie offered helpfully.

Graham glared back over his shoulder at his young apprentice, who returned his glare with a “what did I do, I was only trying to help?” shrug of the shoulders, hands held out palm up. Graham turned back to his client, just as he was signing the last page, and he then passed the clipboard back to Graham.

‘What now?’ came the simple question, in a totally resigned voice.

‘Well, that’s our bit pretty much done,’ Graham replied, ‘It just remains for us to transport you to the relevant area. Let me see, ah yes, Eddie, would you summon a dark portal for Mr. Daley please?’

‘You want me to summon a portal?’ the young man asked nervously, all his bluster and bravado now gone.

Graham looked around at the young man again. ‘Yes, a dark portal, you must have covered this in training, it’s one of the most basic requirements of a reaper.”

Eddie noted the exasperated tone in Graham’s voice and replied, ‘Ah let me see, yes, ok.’ He commenced mumbling in an arcane language under his breath, whilst weaving his arms and hands through the air, in elaborate gestures. Graham turned back to the deceased man. Daley was peering curiously, and somewhat apprehensively over Graham’s shoulder at Eddie’s exaggerated movements. Still watching Eddie, Daley spoke slowly, ‘You, said, a, dark portal, that doesn’t sound good.’ Graham made an expression which he hoped came across as half grimace, half sympathetic, but in fact looked like he was suffering from a combination of terrible indigestion and a stroke. ‘I’m afraid, a man with your history, there wasn’t really any other option. There are records of violence, theft and general nastiness Mr Daley.’

Behind Graham, Eddie had opened a portal, of sorts. However, this one, instead of being black, was fluorescent green, and large squid like tentacles were currently writhing through the breach and wrapping around Eddie’s torso and legs. Panic stricken, his gestures became even more flamboyant and wild. Graham was oblivious to all this, continuing his spiel to Mr Daley, who’s eyes were fixed in horror on Eddie’s struggles. ‘Furthermore, your general disregard for any kind of law and order are bordering on the anarchic. You even continued claiming your mothers pension money for 5 years after she died, hiding her body in the cellar.’

‘She had a lot of debts to pay off.’ John Daley replied, not looking away from Eddie’s continuing struggles. Then he continued, ‘Are you sure that boy knows what he’s doing?’ Behind Graham, Eddie had won his struggle with the tentacles, but was now beating off a swarm of what looked like giant bees with the heads of bunny rabbits, which were streaming through a pink portal.

‘I have every confidence in my apprentice Mr Daley. All reapers are highly trained individuals, masters of the black arts, and would not be passed out of the academy unless they were fully ready for service.’ Said Graham proudly.

From behind him, Eddie’s voice came in a strangled squeak, ‘Or if their father is the Master Reaper, and the instructors were too scared to fail him.’

Graham’s shoulders slumped, and he slowly turned around. Eddie was lying on the floor, almost entirely cocooned in a spider’s web. The webs creator was an enormous, orange spider-like creature, who could only fit part of its enormous body through the now orange portal Eddie had created. Unfortunately for Eddie, it was the part that shot out webbing.

Graham muttered half a dozen words under his breath and the creature and portal disappeared with a “pop!”, as did the web which was encasing Eddie. The apprentice struggled to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster, which in the circumstances wasn’t much. He smiled sheepishly at Graham.

‘Almost had it.’ He stated, trying to instil confidence in his voice, and failing miserably.

‘No, it almost had you.’’ Came Graham’s deadpan reply. Without saying another word, Graham summoned a dark portal behind the recently deceased Mr Daley. This instantly sucked him backwards, and then snapped closed, without a whisper of sound. It was for all intents and purposes, the world’s most efficient, supernatural vacuum cleaner.

With his work completed, Graham went about packing away his paperwork and equipment in silence. Eddie sidled up quietly and bent to pick up Graham’s clipboard, which was laying on the ground next to his briefcase. Without looking up, Graham said sternly, ‘Leave it.’ And finished clearing everything away, including the clipboard. After a long silence, he spoke again. “Mr Carver, I think you and I need to have a long talk once we return to headquarters. Your KPI review is coming up shortly, and you are currently skating on extremely thin ice.”

“My KP whats?” Eddie spluttered.”

“KPIs Mr Carver. It stands for Key Performance Indicators. A review of your ability to reach certain standards and predesignated goals in your career. This also involves, as your supervisor, a written report of my findings and recommendations to my superior.” Reiper finished with a pointed stare, and a slight smile towards Eddie as he spoke these final words.

As realisation dawned on Eddie’s face, he simply replied, “Dad?” His shaky reply was more of a statement than a question. Graham Reiper smiled and replied, not without some relish, “Yes indeed. “Dad””.

To Be Continued…