'Are you going to kill me?' Grim blurted. The question had clearly been on the tip of his tongue for some time.
The Judge bobbed his head left and right. 'Well... yes and no, technically. You see, Derek and I got a bit shit-faced last night and selected the wrong man for the job. You didn't do well with your application at all, you understand. You were... Derek, what did he do wrong again?'
'I believe he walked funny, sir.'
'That's it! You walk funny. Reapers can't walk like you.'
Grim moved his foot out from under the table and took a look. 'Oh, my feet are larger than average, a bit out of proportion. I could look to change it if-'
'No, no. Not an option. You need to go back in the ground.'
'Okay...' Grim tucked his foot back in.
'Aw, don't be like that. I am sorry. Mistakes happen, even to me, and I'm terrific. Look, I bought you a frappuccino and everything. We're tickity-boo here.'
'...Right.'
'It'll be like going to sleep. No guns, knives, nothing like how you died first time round.'
'It-it was a car-crash.'
'Of course it was, now if you'll sign this piece of paper,' he clicked a finger at Derek, who had prepped for the job. He leant over, slid the opt-out form in front of Grim and returned to his seat.
The Judge tapped the paper with his index finger. 'You sign right here, finish your drink, and we'll head back to the Courthouse to get you on your way.'
Grim stared at the form.
The Judge reached inside his coat, produced a bronze pen and placed it on the table.
Grim stared at the form.
'Carry on. I’ll even let you keep the pen. You pop that in your pocket and carry it off into the afterlife. I'm human, I make mistakes, I gave you a pen and bought you a frappuccino. All is forgiven.'
The Judge sat back in his chair and lifted his drink for another sip, apparently oblivious to something obvious to Derek: Grim had no intention of signing.
Grim shuffled around in his seat, scratched his ear, picked up the pen, sighed, shuffled again, put the pen back down, pawed his hair back over his skull and said, 'what if I- eh, what if I don't sign the- this here form?'
Derek looked from Grim to the pen to his boss and watched the smile fade from his face.
'Well, ah, oh-ho... that won’t do, chum.' He tapped the page again. 'You go ahead and sign, get on with it.'
'I'm sorry, I'd rather not. I don't want to die again.' Grim slid the paper and pen across the desk. 'Here's your pen back. Sorry.'
Judge Rabbit tried his smile back on. 'Son, I'm not sure you're aware of who I am, but, oh-ho... I just executed a man to keep your existence under wraps. Blew the brains straight out his head. You were there! If I offer you a chance to go to sleep peacefully, you should accept. Cricket?'
Grim looked, shaking and hopeless, at the ceiling. 'Oh, oh my, well- okay I'm sorry but... well. Okay, I'm sorry, but I think you shot Matthew because you could, and I feel like if you could shoot me, you would have already. I'm sorry. This is making me nervous. So you haven't shot me already, and you're trying to flatter me with a drink and a-a-a lovely pen, then you probably can't shoot me because I'm a Reaper now and Reapers are immortal, so you need me to voluntarily sign the thing, this thing here and I don't want to and I'm sorry.'
Derek had left The Judge's gun in the car. He realised that may be a problem.
His boss's face didn't move. It showed no tell-tale signs of impending rage. He took a long, slow sip of his drink without taking his eyes off Grim.
When he finished, he smiled and held his arms up in mock submission. 'You got me, Sherriff. I give up, take me in! Oh-ho...'
'Thank you,' Grim responded, and Derek didn't know why.
'So, let's come to an agreement.'
'Oh?'
'Yes, an agreement. You wield a degree of power at the moment, you'd be silly not to extort me somewhat. Fair's fair.' The Judge uncrossed his legs and leant over the table. With one arm hovering around between them, pointing where necessary, he said, 'you're in charge of your mortality, but I'm in charge of your wellbeing. My gal Derek over there has your folders and suitcase. This means we have your new name, bank accounts, house deeds, a car, the lot. You stopped existing when you died, your new existence belongs to the Court. Anything you want has to come through your Guide - who I shot - or me, and I'll approve you nothing. Plus, you're seventeen years off your time and have no idea where you are. So I too, wield a degree of power.'
Grim hesitated. Grim nodded.
'So, what do you want? Why do you want to be alive again?'
'My daughter,' Grim replied immediately. 'I want to spend some time with her, I want to know she's okay.'
'Grand, nice and straightforward. Well, I want you to die, so we need a middle ground. That middle ground, off the top of my head, would be for you to spend a limited amount of time with your daughter, then come back to me to be buried, yes?'
Derek lifted an eyebrow.
Grim gave a single nod.
'Great. Now that leaves us a problem. Wilson's Well needs a Reaper in the meantime. I could get into a truly outrageous amount of bother for selecting you, and given that the man tasked with training you on the job has no head, I do need to minimise your exposure to the role.' The Judge closed the gap between his face and Grim's, speaking slowly. 'I'll give you one day. I'm willing to give you twenty-four hours with your daughter and in that time-frame, you must, you must, be a fabulous Reaper.'
Derek didn't like that idea. He didn't like it at all. It made him spray a mouthful of coffee back into his mug.
Both men at the other table offered him only a glance before they turned back to each other.
Grim backed off. 'One day?'
'I feel like I'm being more than fair. Realistically I don't have to give you any time at all, do I?'
No, Derek thought. He didn't have to give him any time, and he absolutely should not give him any time. No good would come from letting Grim out onto the streets.
'Okay... but let's say... what if... what if I turn out to be really good? Would you consider leaving me in the job if I turn out to be really good?'
The Judge chuckled. 'That won't happen. Derek interviewed you. I was there. I saw you knock your head on the same table twice, at the same spot, doing the same thing. You will not be naturally good at this job.'
Derek tapped his foot. A whirlwind of terrible possibilities swarmed his head, only interrupted by The Judge asking him to pass the suitcase. Derek did so in his usual manner of utmost professionalism, but his mind was far off.
Derek was prone to little attacks - little over-reactions to moments that might not be worth the hassle - when he neglected his medicine in the morning. As a result, he couldn't tell if what he thought was at all logical or a side-effect of his lack of medication.
David had said The Judge was getting reckless. Derek brushed it aside because The Judge had always been reckless.
To be fair, all Judges had immortality. They all treated their body like it would never die on them because it never would. They could drink all day every day, and eat the worst (read: best) food, and whore themselves out to anything that would have them if they were so inclined. All the Judges flirted with madness. Immortality and a fat bank account will have that effect on anyone.
But Judge Rabbit was worse.
Judge Rabbit was the beautiful bastard lovechild of a bull in a china shop and a dog chasing a car: always dumb, always careless, and a murderer to boot.
He fancied killing someone, he killed someone. No rhyme, no reason. Judge Rabbit was sick. Derek was happy to look after him. That's what he signed up for, after all. He had the most well-paid babysitting job on the planet.
But this, this was downright silly.
There had to be a plan, a method to the madness, a reason Judge Rabbit found it acceptable to let Grim go.
He had to know, but his rules were in the way.
~
Ten
Crash
I started by making a mistake.
I didn't generally make mistakes. I'm too excellent to make mistakes. The rest made mistakes and got their heads beat in. Whether it was a missed note, a broken string, a mental breakdown, or a failed escape attempt, they all made mistakes, and they all died.
Not me, not usually, not unless I had a theory to test, which I did.
The six of us stood around our tiny practice room which shared the same concrete walls and low ceilings as our living space. The light was slightly better, I suppose, but there were still shadows - big, dirty, homicidal shadows living in the corners.
My band patiently waited by their instruments for me to count them in.
I sat at the drums and rolled the sticks around my hands, staring at the shadow in the corner opposite.
That shadow was the reason mistakes were not tolerated.
My nemesis.
'We're aimed at each other, big man,' I mumbled.
'Kit?' Bass brought me back to the room. He attempted a charming smile that was a trademark of his. He failed. 'Ready?'
I guessed so.
I counted four and started to play.
I hadn't thought about the nature of the mistake I wanted to make. I didn't think it would be hard to fuck up.
We played Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart with Vox and Bass trading vocals. It wasn't a technically challenging song, but I think that’s where the problem lay. I trained my limbs to be perfectly on the beat all the time, so if I didn't concentrate on making a mistake, then my arms would naturally play the song right. I got into the second verse flawlessly. My body wouldn't listen to me. It knew people died when they made mistakes.
We argued about it:
I assured it I had a plan.
It asked me if I was sure.
I insisted yes.
Two beats later I raised both sticks in the air and hammered them down into my crash cymbals.
CSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Right in the middle of a subdued verse, the whole band immediately stopped playing and turned to me with matching looks of horror.
I looked at the shadow.
His name was Mute.
Bass, Keys, Six and the lovely Vox each took two steps back to accommodate him.
We saw him every day, but he never failed to leave us in awe.
He was fucking huge.
As I watched with clenched teeth and tight fists around frail drum-sticks, he stood. The floorboards groaned. He climbed in feet, past seven of them. Wide as a truck, fists the size of mallets, legs like trees, a mass of tangled, manky, blonde hair down his back and a beard of the same down his front. Tiny black eyes looked down on me.
He never spoke; we assumed he didn't have a mouth. We assumed he was a cyborg. Or a creature from a lagoon somewhere. Or a dragon. Or a fucking cartoon. We didn't know.
He took three steps forward.
WHOMP. WHOMP. WHOMP.
He stood in the gap in the centre of the room, the gap the band had made for him. He glared right at me, eyes narrowing, nostrils flaring, forehead creased.
I heard the gears that ran his fingers shift as he manoeuvred them into a single finger pointing at the ground.
Showtime.
I spun around in my seat, stood up and shuffled my way out of my corner. I squeezed past Bass on my way. He looked at me like I was mental.
Debatable, I guess.
Past Bass, I entered Mute's orbit. I stood exactly where he told me to.
He rotated to face me.
I looked up, past the strangely clean, black shirt and utterly filthy beard into those frighteningly-small eyes.
It was a classic hero-villain stare-down. Before the day ended, I would have three of those with him. In one of them, I didn't get hurt; I like that one best.
That happened later.
He breathed, waiting.
I wanted to say stuff. I had this thing I muttered a lot about how we were aimed at each other, and we were gonna smash into each other one day. In my head, I stood a chance against him, but it didn't matter. I just wanted him to know he didn't scare me, not really.
I was too excellent to be afraid of him, but for some reason, I couldn't tell him.
He demanded an explanation without saying anything.
I shrugged. 'Whoops?'
He huffed out one enormous breath and punched me in the stomach so hard I felt my insides leap into my throat. The fist whoofed the air clean from my lungs and threw me to the ground.
THUMP.
Flat on my back.
I coughed, I struggled. 'F-f-fkk-fucking-'
Everything went fuzzy, but he didn't give me time to straighten out. He grabbed my entire skull with one massive hand and hauled me to my feet. It didn't seem fair a man that large could be so fast.
Standing, barely, he hit me again. Right in the ribs.
They cracked.
My legs kicked out from under me and I went barrelling to the ground.
He let go of my head.
I hit the floor.
And that's pretty much all I remember.
To be honest, I'm kind of impressed by myself. Two punches from that monster? Come on.
I woke up later in a fair bit of pain, but I woke up. Waking up meant success. I only had to survive, after all.
So I guess I won? I'm going to keep telling myself I won.
~
Eleven
Death at his Door
Tom woke up and hoped his park "episode" had been a nightmare. Sadly not. He had shit and vomited all over himself in public. It happened. He couldn't go back to a world where it hadn’t.
He was in a dreadful way. He couldn't tell whether he was drunk, or hungry, or horny, or thirsty, or alive, or dead.
He focused on the possibility that he might be hungry, for now, but his kitchen was empty. From bed, he thought about the kitchen cupboards and mentally pawed through each one, looking for anything his hangover could handle.
There. The cupboard above the sink held one pack of instant noodles, years old, right at the back.
He concentrated and managed to move his limbs out of bed. He lumbered to the kitchen through a fog of alcohol and disbelief, butt-naked. In the kitchen cupboard, as he thought, he found the noodles. They were smashed to bits against the back wall by tins over the years, but they were (probably) still edible. They ended up in the microwave shortly after, in a bowl used recently for porridge.
Back in the living room, Tom found an unopened can of lager that somehow evaded him last night.
As he cracked it open, Paddy plodded in looking thoroughly unamused.
'Mornin' Paddy.'
The dog kept going. Tom embarrassed the mutt in front of all his friends earlier; he was in a huff.
Tom shrugged and watched him go.
He faced the window with a can of lager and his cock to the world, looking at the kind of day he would have to venture out in if he wanted to go to the pub. Nobody walked by, thankfully. Tom still carried his body like he did when he exercised obsessively. He still showed it off like he was twenty-five and not forty-five and especially round; like he hadn't stopped grooming the thick, black hair on his back and chest (like a jumper); like there wasn't shit caked to his arse; like he didn't stand over the chair of Grandpa, a man he once respected. That chair had been empty for a while.
Tom lived in Mum's house, in my house, but he did so alone.
My sisters started families elsewhere, Gran died, Grandpa died. I vanished. Mum left.
Tom had been stripped of his family.
He had made a pit of Gran's house. The whole place was freezing because it cost a fortune to heat like his in-laws. A collection of blankets and quilts were scattered across the floor year-round, and he lived amongst dirty dishes, empty cans, a carpet he never hoovered and dust that gathered like nobody's business, teaching him why Gran always seemed to be cleaning the place.
The microwave pinged, and he wandered back into the hall, past th
e table on which the abandoned land-line sat. His feet crunched through the dirt on the carpet, passing the staircase he never went up and his bedroom, which used to be the computer room.
~
Apparently, in the nineties, computers had their own rooms or something. Weird.
~
Gran's kitchen had been turned upside down, emptied and replaced mainly with pizza boxes and Chinese containers. Tom pushed through the debris and collected his bowl from the overused microwave. He couldn't find a dishtowel to guard his hands against the bowl and figured he could make the trip back to his room without scalding them too badly.
~
Boys are the dumbest.
~
About half-way down the hall and surprising not even himself, the bowl got too hot to bear. He targeted the phone stand to put the bowl down and skipped towards it. Feeling his fingers start to cook, he lurched forward and planted the bowl down on the edge, but it tumbled off and spilt his breakfast all over the floor.
'MOTHERFUCKER,' he cried, beaten.
Tom smacked and kicked at the hall radiator for a bit, and then he sheepishly clawed the noodles off the carpet and put them back in the bowl.
Back in bed, he ate the lot. They'd collected some gristle and a generally musty aftertaste that affected him at the back of the throat, but they filled a hole.
With that out the way, he lay down and shoogled into his mattress further. He considered having a wank, but his brain didn't function well enough to imagine a scenario which would get him going. The computer room no longer had a computer, so he couldn't look something up to help him along. Instead, he opted for sleep.
His day was straight-forward now.
He would sleep comfortably until the pubs opened. It wouldn't be hard. Afterwards, he would grab Paddy and make the trip back through the park, the scene of the crime. He hoped - as he dozed - nobody in the pub knew about the incident. Or maybe if they did, they found the story funny enough to buy him a couple of beers as he told them all about it.
That wasn’t a smart bet, but stranger things have happened.
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