“Look,” she insisted, leaning over from the back seat and shoving her laminated driver’s license in his face. “I’m only fifty-six, for God’s sake. Don’t look at the picture—that makes me look a hundred. Just look at my birthdate. This right here—”
If there was one thing Death didn’t have time for right now, it was a talker. And one of those lost-in-her-own-world type talkers like Norah who actually believed that she carried her own private reality around everywhere she went.
“And look at me. I exercise. I’m not overweight. I keep my mind active in community groups and reading clubs at the local library. I mean, just last week I read Anna Karenina from cover to cover in only one week. Does that sound like the mind of a woman knocking on Death’s door? Or, in this case—”
If Death didn’t dislike Norah already, he definitely disliked her now—especially the way she looked disfavorably around at the broken side window covered with gray duct tape, and the red and yellow fast food wrappers littering the floor. Then she pursed her lips, as if she tasted the shape of her next words before she spoke them.
“—riding around in the back seat of his … is this a Chevy Sundance? I didn’t even think they built those anymore.”
Norah had insisted on dressing up before they left her one-bedroom apartment in Van Nuys: a frilly Easter bonnet with a big pink bow knotted under her chin, stiff cardigan that looked fresh out of a gift box, and patent leather pumps. I guess she wants to look good when we get there, Death thought. But if she only stopped to think about it for two seconds, nobody ever looks good when they get there. To themselves or to anybody else.
The road was growing longer and murkier, and even the crooked high beams couldn’t penetrate the blackness coming down on them like a stage curtain. Death took a deep breath; his chest rattled with a thin, strained ache. He was pretty certain he was developing a case of asthma, but he had been postponing his visit to the doctor on account of the deductible.
“Look, Norah,” he said finally, as if he were laying down the law to a gentle, attentive pet. “I don’t make the rules. I just do what I’m told. And I definitely don’t get paid well enough to listen to you complain. Now, if you could move over and make some room, I haveta stop by Pizza Hut and deliver several large pepperonis to some college kids in Burbank. But don’t worry about us being late or anything. It’s on our way.”
Most mornings, Death lay alone among his cold unwashed sheets in his unheated basement apartment, gazing up at the bare-beamed wooden ceiling and preparing his fuddled energies for the long, complicated day ahead. There was a gas bill due, and the cell bill, and he still needed to pick up his dry cleaning. He was supposed to meet his girlfriend at the Westfield Mall to pick out a wedding gift for her sister, but couldn’t remember which of his credit cards was still viable. Then he needed to pick up his payroll check at Dominos and send his invoice to Uber. And there was that smog inspection before he could pay the new registration fee, and something else … something else he kept intending to do.
Oh yeah. Call his parents.
“Hello, hon,” Mom said when she picked up. It was her frosty voice, like frozen peas in a plastic bag kind of frosty, reminding him he probably hadn’t returned a call since Christmas. “Are you okay? Have you spoken with your father? I’d put him on but he’s taking a nap.”
And something had been nagging at the back of Death’s mind since the last requisition schedule came through from central processing in Peoria… .
After taking a moment to digest, Death asked, “How’s Dad doing, anyway?”
And then another long period of static on the phone line. It might have been his mother thinking, or an echo from inside Death’s own eardrums.
“He can’t keep down solid foods,” Mom said. “That nodule on his colon is worse than they thought. He’s on so many different types of painkillers I can’t tell them apart, and I’m pretty sure he’s addicted to opioids, though I’m not sure if those are the ones in the red bottle or the ones in the green bottle, maybe both. I asked him to try this medicinal marijuana thing I ordered through Doctor Rosen, but you know your dad. He never tries anything new.”
On Friday, Death’s girlfriend, Cherie, took him to a Halloween Party at the home of a colleague, where they were greeted by the usual medley of conventional monsters (Frankenstein and Dracula), conventional superheroes (Spider-Man and Wonder Woman), and the slightly unconventional “joke” costumes, such as The National Debt (a ruptured papier-mâché pink piggy bank) and Obamacare (a twisted gray-haired Obama mask riding atop a surgical gown and stethoscope.) Costume parties always made Death feel self-conscious, since he had to either pretend he was somebody he wasn’t, or deliver himself to a series of disappointed expressions.
“Who are you supposed to be?” asked a buxom Marilyn Monroe wannabe.
She wore a birthmark on the wrong cheek that resembled one of Dad’s recent melanomas.
“He’s Death,” Cherie said, with a faint wisp of pride. “He doesn’t have to wear a mask since Death always comes as who he actually is. Right, honey? And he makes no bones about it. Get it? Makes no bones about it?”
Cherie had come dressed as one of her childhood heroines, Hilary Clinton, in a Mao-red pantsuit and a hard helmet of dirty blonde hair. Unlike Death, Cherie loved dressing up as somebody she wasn’t. It even seemed to make her horny.
“I still don’t get it,” Marilyn Monroe said, sipping what smelled like gin out of a plastic party cup. “You got these ragged jeans. Your Nikes have seen better days. You still owe my boyfriend ten dollars since September for your share of the bowling fees, and suddenly you’re this Master of Darkness and Despair and so forth. Next year, blow a few bucks on a Trump mask or something. It’d sure as hell be a lot scarier.”
It was a terrible party. The punch was so weak you could barely taste the vodka, and the so-called “snacks” amounted to one cracked ceramic bowl of gummy bears, and another ceramic bowl of crumbly barbecue-flavored Lay’s potato chips.
“I got them at the Dollar Shop for like fifty cents per liter bag,” the host said. His name was Jimmy Something (a friend of Cherie’s from work), and he had slapped on the usual white collar, fangs, and gooey substance that made him look as shabby and complacent as last decade’s aluminum Christmas tree. “They look like somebody dropped a safe on them. So you’re Cherie’s boyfriend, huh? I’m Mitch.” Then he dispensed the sort of manly but not-to-make-a-big-deal-of-it handshake that Death would have expected from a man named “Mitch.” “And I was wondering. Do you do private contract stuff? Like snuff people out and all that? Good way to pick up a few extra bucks, right? I’m asking for a friend.”
He was a bit lean, Death thought. And he had dark patches around his eyes. But he sure didn’t look like a potential client. Yet.
“You see, I work like sixteen hours a day and can’t make a dent in my student loan,” Mitch told a green gummy bear pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “This house looks nice but it’s my mom’s, and when she gets back from Maui I go straight back to a hammock in the tool shed. My good-looking girlfriends keep leaving me for their bosses at work, and the only ones who stick around are like the really unattractive girlfriends, like Marilyn Monroe over there with the fake tits, and that’s bad for the soul. So maybe we could make a deal. I can’t pay you now, but once Mom’s out of the picture, I’ll take the house and you can have the car. It’s a Lexus.”
By this point, they were both gazing at the same pincered green gummy bear, as if only he could save them. Then, almost as a taunt, Mitch lifted the small unstruggling creature to his nose, sniffed, and popped it in his mouth.
If only they all went that easy, Death thought. Then heard a clamor at the front door, the buzzer buzzing, and a rush of loud urgent voices converging in the front hall.
Then, after another moment:
“Hey! Death, where are you? You got company!”
It was a busload of elderly men and women from the Suncrest Senior Living Comple
x out for an afternoon of pumping buckets of quarters into slots at the Mohegun Sun. Their bus had hit an icy patch on 84, slid down a flinty hill, and ignited against a power line. At a hundred dollars a head, Death could see those new steel-belted snow tires being ratcheted onto his rear axles already. But there was only room for six or seven passengers in his car at a time, depending on the size of their hip-replacements. He would have to make several trips.
It was almost impossible to tell them apart. They all smelled like dirty laundry. And all they did was complain, complain, complain. Turn up the heat! Roll down the windows! Roll up the windows! I can’t find my medication! Can’t you play anything but smooth jazz? Death thought they would never shut up.
Until, of course, they reached their Final Destination—at which point they did what all of Death’s clients did when they reached their Final Destination.
They screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed.
Thribbbbb-buh-buh.
Thribbbb-buh-buh.
After the last group of screaming seniors had been sucked into the maw of Mindless Dissolution, Death was brushing the charred roaches and pretzel fragments from his seats. He took the phone between his ear and shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“Hi, hon. Me. Look, I’ve got some good news and some bad news, and this isn’t meant to be a joke or anything, it’s just that lately I can’t decide which is which anymore. The ol’ clock on the wall tells me your dad’s time is up, but since it qualifies as both a workday and a personal day, I’m paying you twice the normal commission. Satisfied? Bye.”
It was always the same at Mom and Dad’s house. Death was actually glad to see them for about five seconds. Then they started arguing.
“Where’s my razor?” Dad shouted from his private bedroom in back, where he served out every evening in solitary confinement on account of his snoring.
“You don’t need a razor, Dad. You’re dead.”
Mom didn’t look up from the vintage Samsonite brown hard leather suitcase propped open on the living room sofa. It exuded a smell of mothballs and tobacco.
“He said you don’t need a razor, dear! You’re dead!”
“I’m not deaf, for crying out loud! Where’s my hearing aid?”
“You’re wearing it!”
“And anyway, Dad. You don’t need it. You’re—”
“I know already. I’m dead. But what if somebody asks me something? And where are my good socks? Hon, did you pack my good socks?”
Mom looked at Davey with her customary “your Dad” expression—it was located somewhere between sucking on an uncrackable sourball and moistening her lipstick.
“I packed them, hon. Six pairs.”
“He doesn’t need his socks, Mom. In fact, I can’t fit that suitcase in my trunk. He just brings what he’s wearing. They’ll have anything else he needs when he gets there.”
After they finally lodged Dad into the cramped, crooked passenger seat, Death kissed his mother goodbye.
“Be careful on the roads. Don’t let your father get too cold. And make sure he calls when you get there. You know how I worry. Oh, and another thing. I don’t mean to embarrass you, but this is probably the last chance I’ll ever get to say this. I know your dad can be difficult. I know your dad can be inflexible. And I’m sure your dad would have attended more of your school concerts as a child if it hadn’t been for his drinking, but it’s just not the way your dad was made. But however he may have behaved, your dad always loved you. And if he acted disappointed with your current, you know, occupation and all, it was just because he always expected more from you. He wanted to brag about you to his friends at the Senior Center, and, well, the opportunity to brag about you just never materialized, did it?”
Death blew his nose with some crumpled Kleenex from the dashboard, buckled up, and backed out of the driveway.
“What about my seat belt?”
“It’s broken, and anyway—you’re dead. Just help me look out for kids, will you? It’s Halloween.”
There were still several small, ebbing tides of children drifting through the streets in ragged, broken clouds of shiny fabric. They carried hand-worn brown grocery bags, and wore skull-slung plastic masks of Spider-Man, Thor, and Donald, and were pursued lackadaisically by minor Hell-spawned demons who were finding it hard to keep up. “Boo,” they whispered, slumped over with low-swinging claws and dragging their forked tails in the littered streets like departed glory. “Ooooh-eee-oooooh!” It sounded like an evil cacophony being read out loud phonetically by drama tryouts at a primary school production of Paradise Lost. “This is the night when evil walks the earth. You better watch out, kids, or we’ll drag your souls straight to Hell. Ooooooooooh.” They clearly felt no enthusiasm for their jobs, having been hastily bumped up from low-ranking administrative positions after their superiors had been headhunted off to glitzy, six-figure salaries at places such as Blackwater, Koch Industries, and the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Is there anything to eat?” Dad said, rummaging through the glove compartment. “I didn’t have dinner.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. If you didn’t eat, you didn’t eat. I wish I could do something about it but I can’t.”
When they arrived at their destination, Death did something he never usually did: he parked across the street, shut off the engine, and turned on a soft rock station on the dashboard radio. Then he offered Dad a Parliament from a pack left behind by a former client, and provided him one last opportunity to apologize for all his bad deeds. Unfortunately, Dad didn’t feel like apologizing for anything.
“I kept my job, even when I hated my boss and all he stood for, just so you could go to college and sleep with all those nice girls who eventually dumped you. I lived with your crazy mother for five decades, even while all the sensible guys from my generation were buying sports cars and sleeping with young girls. I built up a good credit score so I could buy a big house I couldn’t afford so that I could help you buy a house that you couldn’t afford and, hah, fat chance, you couldn’t even come up with a share of the deposit, so why’d I waste my time? And then I spent almost the entirety of my old age listening to you and your mother complain about all your lousy breaks and what a tough time you were having. ‘Things aren’t as good for our boy as they were in our day,’ your mother kept saying. ‘Nobody can afford decent health care, and when they leave college, they owe tens of thousands of dollars to cutthroat corporations.’ Well, whoop-de-dooh, as my old man used to say. That’s life, kid; get used to it. Which reminds me: when I’m gone, don’t even think of taking my Oldsmobile. Your mother’s going to say, ‘Hon, why don’t you take your Dad’s Oldsmobile,’ and you’re gonna say, ‘Sure, why not,’ and let me tell you why not. I donated that Oldsmobile to NPR, which shows just how pissed off I was when you didn’t bother to call me on my birthday last year. And you know how much I hate those bastards at NPR.”
It was a disused industrial road just outside Hartford, featuring a rusty mailbox, a rusty Ford Fairlane, and the rustily broken awnings of the Eternal Self-Storage warehouse. Death couldn’t help noticing that things were quieter than usual. The minor functionary demons weren’t standing outside the wide-panel doors, passing back and forth loosely rolled cigarettes. The high klieg lights flickered indecisively with a soft, phosphorescent glow, as if they couldn’t tell whether to illuminate the scene or simply retreat into their own interior gloom. And even the faint clamor of lost souls rattling around inside the warehouse had diminished to a soft, conch-like susurration that, after a few moments, Death recognized as the sound of cars passing distantly on I-84. In the midst of these slow recognitions, Death noticed that Dad had finally stopped blathering. In fact, he seemed to have completely run out of things to say.
He called Mother Nature’s office but the line had been disconnected. He called her cell and got a message.
“Hola!” There was always something at once sultry and parched about Mother Nature’s voice, like that of a vulture on ap
hrodisiacs. “It’s little ol’ me, y’all. I’ve reached one of those major life-decisions that can only be achieved after several Happy Hour margaritas at Berrigan’s, and here it is: I’m semiretiring immediatamente, and heading off to a lucrative consultancy gig at Whole Foods, where I’ve been offered an offer I could refuse—but then what would happen to all that nice money? I’ve done my time in public service, and let me tell you what I learned: public service sucks. Especially with people like me running things. So this is one of those ‘to whom it may concern deals’; write it down. I left the keys in the top drawer of my office desk. The safe combination is written on the door, but don’t bother. I stripped the pension funds, the payroll, and whatever looked halfway decent in the Lost & Found, such as a couple iPhone cases that I can probably sell on eBay, and a genuine mahogany frame umbrella. Don’t bother to write and I won’t bother to read it if you do. Mother Nature is off to enjoy the remainder of her life while she still can.”
As Death quickly realized, there isn’t much you can do with a company—however ancient and well-regarded—that has been asset-stripped down to the floorboards. He tried selling off the warehouse space, only to learn it had been mortgaged into the next millennium. He discussed the possibility of a merger with Big Pharma and was told he didn’t have anything they didn’t already own. He even tried to sell off some of his most lucrative subsidiary contracts—to the Pentagon, Blue Cross, Monsanto, and the prison-for-profit industry—but nobody was buying; they already had too much of everything. Death was no longer the only doom-merchant on the block. He wasn’t even listed in the Top Ten.
In fact, it got so bad that even the lost souls were packing up their bags and vamoosing off for parts unknown.
“Toodle-ooh, toots!” shouted the senior citizens, piling onto their battered and algae-streaked yellow bus. “We got an appointment with endless rounds of Bingo in whatever Indian casino will have us! Which, by our calculation, would probably be all of them!”
The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories: Terrifying Tales Set on the Scariest Night of the Year! Page 38