Fic: It's Already Tomorrow in Australia (Dead Like Me)
Title: It's Already Tomorrow in Australia (or Win Some, Lose Some, H7, N1)
Author: amand_r
Fandom: Dead Like Me
Rating: R (language and uh, well, I'm using MPAA standards)
Pairing: None! Totally Gen!
Warnings: None. See summary.
Recipient: lyl_devil in the apocalyptothon
Request: George, Mason and Roxy get transferred to the Plague Division.
Summary: Was this the big one? Was this the end of the world? It was hard not to suddenly go apocalyptic when your reap count for the day was probably three hundred.
Do people even put these on their fics anymore? Thanks to idyll for the beta. Apologies to any Seattle based fen-I played fast and loose with the street geography a bit. The title, "It's already tomorrow in Australia," is stolen from a quote by Charles Schultz. Yeah, that dude who drew Peanuts.
It's Already Tomorrow in Australia (or Win Some, Lose Some, H7, N1)
"Do you know who I am" she said/ "I'm the one who taps you on the shoulder when it's your time." (Tori Amos, 'The Beekeeper')
When I was a kid, I never understood the saying "be careful what you wish for." I figured that if I were ever going to wish for something, I'd be very careful about it. In fact, I had a list of things. The first one was no more school. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure that there's a reason no one has wishes granted.
Ah, breakfast at Der Waffle Haus. If I hadn't already eaten my way through the menu three times I might have been more tempted to order. Then again, we ate pretty much the same thing for breakfast our entire lives, didn't we? We might bitch about leftovers or having meatloaf twice in one month, but dammit, we needed the same cereal every morning.
I, however, needed a coffee, a post-it and a ride to work.
I poured half of the sugar dispenser into my coffee. "I wish I could be in the plague division," I said wistfully. Mason reached behind us to the adjoining table and flailed his arm about blindly.
Roxy rolled her eyes. "You'd get bored so quick."
Daisy finished filing her nails and drummed them on the tabletop. "Oh, I don't know, immortal life, no reaping-"
"No money, eternal nine to five grind-"
"Only you, Roxy." Daisy smiled. "I prefer to think of it as a refreshing opportunity to dedicate myself fully to my career."
I smiled. Sometimes it was useful to have Daisy around so that she could defend my more scattered statements from Roxy.
This wasn't to say that I hadn't thought about the niceties of being free from reaping. I could make a life for myself. I could…work at Happy Time forever. Suddenly my coffee tasted a little too sweet, like one of those flavored crappucchinos that Delores bought me every Tuesday afternoon.
Mason finally turned back around and released the contents of his loot on to the table: the jelly packet rack. It was the first time I noticed that our rack was completely bare.
"What happened to all our jelly?" I asked. Kiffany made eyes in our direction, and I wished that Rube was here so that he could do that 'come hither' thing with his fingers and summon her. I wanted a muffin to go. "And where's Rube? I'm late for work."
Roxy readjusted her holster and sighed. "Mason *ate* all our damn jelly, and Rube will be here when he's here."
Daisy had finally decided that her nails were up to snuff and started polishing the rock in the ring on her finger. Mason stopped peeling the foil from a jelly packet to stare at her. I wasn't entirely sure what Mason and Daisy had going on, or what he had to do with that ring, but I figured that I'd never know.
"Good news," Rube said quickly, sliding into the booth and summoning Kiffany with an eyebrow. The eyebrow meant that he was in a hurry; otherwise he would have waited for her to eventually get to him. I was late for work, and I didn't have any more excuses. If I used cramps one more time Delores would figure out that I'd had my period fifteen times in the past four months.
Mason ate another jelly packet. "I get the week off?"
Daisy stirred her tea with her straw. "I get to reap Tom Cruise?"
Rube looked at Roxy. She shrugged. "What? I'm not dumb enough to guess something that ain't going to happen in the history of ever."
"Any other takers? Jokes? Further attempts to waste my time?" Rube turned to Kiffany. "Banana Bonanza, a side order of bacon, extra crispy-"
"Lemonade, uh huh." Kiffany didn't even bother to write down his order. As a matter of fact, she didn't even bother to stay for the rest of it. Was he that predictable?
I stopped trying count how many times Daisy was going to buff that ring on her coat, and Mason finished his jelly packets. Roxy waved a hand in distaste. "You better pay something for all of those."
Mason looked indignant. "They're free. Rube, tell her they're free."
Rube didn't even look up from his planner. He was reordering a small stack of pink slips, but I couldn't see what was on them. There wasn't a yellow post-it in sight. "Jellys are free when they're used as a condiment. When you eat them as a main course, you should pay."
Mason stacked the empty plastic containers. "They don't say anything about that. Where does it say that the jellys are free only sometimes?"
I dug around in my purse for gum. I had gum in here somewhere. Banana raspberry gum. Yum. "I guess if you wanted to eat that much jelly, you would buy a jar."
Mason made a circle with his fingers. "And I have a supreme lack of funds, which is where Der Waffle Haus and their free jelly packets come in. We have come full circle."
Daisy rolled her eyes, crunched a bit of ice in her mouth and set her glass down. "I have a facial in thirty minutes." I knew for a fact that she'd had a facial yesterday and that today she was going to see a tarot reader. "Can I have my post-it?"
Rube reached into his breast pocket and looked at the two post-its in his hand. "Here."
Daisy plucked the post-it from his fingers and examined it. "The docks? Ruben? Again? I'm becoming a permanent fixture there."
I didn't want to say anything to say to that. In fact, Roxy looked like she was trying hard not to; she looked out the window and sipped her orange juice. I finished my coffee and covered the top of the mug with my napkin. I reached out a hand for my post-it. Instead Rube handed over a small pink slip. I had a hard time believing he'd run out of post-it notes. Rube distributed the remaining pink slips to Roxy and Mason, who smeared his with red jelly.
"Transferred?" Roxy muttered. "Oh hell no-"
Rube held his hands up in front of him. "I have no say in any of this. It comes from above." Kiffany brought his plate and he tucked his napkin in his lap. "You better get out of here."
I examined my pink slip:
Name: Lass, Georgia
Department: External Influences
Transfer to: Plague
Effective: Immediately
Primary Base: Golden Gardens Park
"Plague?" I said, waving the pink slip. Roxy had already put her hat on and stood, throwing a few bills on the table. "Plague, Rube? Don't they have, like, a bunch of guys who've been around for, forever?"
Rube sipped his lemonade and made a face. "It's a strange world. They want you transferred to Plague, you go to Plague." He shuffled his bananas around on his plate. "Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why."
Daisy waved her post-it note conspicuously. "People are suddenly going to die from a disease that's treatable with penicillin?"
I wanted to laugh, but it wasn't funny. Mason had once said that the plague boys had been around for six hundred years. I wasn't too keen on playing an everlasting game of bocce with a bunch of guys whose "remember when" stories involved the invention of the zipper.
"How come she doesn't get transferred?" I asked, pointing to Daisy, who still managed to look sickeningly pleased with herself.
Rube waved Kiffany over. "I need coffee, black, and another order of bacon, extra extra crispy. This--" he waved the floppy bacon around in between his fingers. "--not so crispy." When Kiffany left, I shoved the pink slip back to Rube on the table. He raised an eyebrow. "We've had this sort of discussion before, and I'm not sure you really want to have it again, Peanut. Besides, people don't stop murdering each other or having accidents just because there's a plague going on. Daisy and I will be working overtime."
"Now Ruben, that was not the thing to say," Daisy tsked. "No one asked me if I wanted to work-"
"I didn't ask because the matter is not up for discussion." Rube wiped his mouth, accepted a cup of coffee from Kiffany and slammed the flat of his hand down on Mason's hands, which were in the act of peeling the top from another jelly packet. "Jelly is not a breakfast. Put it down."
Mason dropped the packet and crumpled the pink slip in his hand. "I'm not hungry anymore anyway."
"Good. Now go away and don't keep Guy waiting. He gets cranky when people are late." I rose and dug in my pocket for some change while Mason tried to swipe some of the packets from the table. "Starts talking about punctuality and the invention of the wristwatch." Rube kept eating, but as we all stood, he unfolded the newspaper and smoothed it out on the table next to his plate, scanning the front page.
Roxy straightened her jacket, drained her juice and sighed. "I'll give you a ride to the park." Mason stood to follow us. "You," she said to him with a pointed finger, "ride in the cage."
Mason sighed. "Again?"
"Forever. Or until you learn hygiene."
"But I have to go to work!" I said as Roxy yanked my arm. "I'm already late!"
Rube flipped the page of the paper and for the first time I saw the headline: Mysterious Illness Claims Four More Lives. "Call in sick," he mumbled. "Everyone else is going to."
***
28 Minutes Later:
Delores picked up the phone on the first ring. "Thank you for calling Happy Time, this is Delores, how may I help you?"
Delores didn't usually answer the phone. "Where's Crystal?" I asked.
"Millie? Is that you?" Delores sighed. Truth be told, she sounded distracted. I heard multiple lines ringing in the background. That she couldn't answer them all at once must have been driving her crazy. "Oh please don't tell me that you're sick too."
I paused for a second. "Oh, I am, Delores," I muttered and coughed. "Sick." Roxy tapped her watch and thumbed off into the park. Coughed into the pay phone receiver again. "Sorry."
Delores sniffed. "Oh thank goodness I take herbal supplements. Half of the office is out sick, Millie." I heard papers rustling in the background, and the phones continued to ring. I didn't know we had that many phone lines. "You really should start taking Echinacea. Even Crystal is sick."
If Crystal wasn't in the office then something horrible had to be coming. Roxy waved her hands and started walking down the path without me. Mason was already out of sight.
"Yeah, I'm sorry Delores, but I have to go. Something's…" I struggled for something to say. "Leaking."
Delores tsked. "Well, you drink lots of fluids and stay in bed. I'll need you back here as soon as you start feeling better."
It hit me just then that I might not be back at Happy Time when I 'started feeling better.' I stared out at the park in front of the phone; all the trees were green, the grass was verdant, and squirrels frolicked. Everything seemed completely fine. I wished I knew what was going to happen, and why I felt so suddenly scared of the stillness and perfection of the bright June morning.
I mumbled something to Delores on the phone that must have sounded reassuring and affirmative, because she hung up, probably to answer one of the many phones that had never stopped ringing. The fact of the matter was that if Happy Time was half-empty, then all the places we stocked with temps were probably working on skeleton crews as well.
Huh. Skeleton.
***
2.8 Minutes Later:
There was a small group of people around the bocce lanes by the time I got there, though no one was playing anything. Roxy was trying to look like she'd never met Mason, who had stuffed a sausage roll in his mouth. Three other men I'd never seen before milled about, talking animatedly in something, maybe Italian.
"Are you sure you're not a cop?" Masons said brightly to a balding man.
The man smiled and shouldered a heavy looking bag. "No. I just play one on TV."
"This is Guy," Mason said to me around a full mouth.
Guy shrugged up his bag again and winked. "Guiseppe, really, but Guy's okay." He looked past Mason where three other men were walking towards the group. "Looks like we're mostly here." Guy opened his bag and dug around, coming up with a stack of spiral bound notebooks.
One of the men whistled as he took the notebook Guy handed to him. "Geez, we're really back in business, aren't we?"
"Si. San Luis, Raphael. Harvey, Roxy. Mason...Mason? Lass, Georgia." Guy read the name on the cover of the notebook then looked up at me when I raised my hand. "Toilet seat girl?"
That was probably one of the more irritating things about being undead. That final indignity never died. "Yeah. What's this?" I held the book gingerly. Part of me already knew what it was, but I didn't want to admit it. Roxy was already flipping through hers.
"I already miss the post-its," Mason moaned, his finger running down a list of dates and times. "These are all one minute apart. Don't tell me that these people all drop dead in the same room."
Guiseppe handed out books to others as they arrived, some of them the men I had seen way back when I started as a Reaper. One of them flipped through the pages in fast forward like a stop motion book and chuckled. "No bocce today?"
Another man next to him chuckled. "With luck, we won't be here at the end of the week."
"With this load, try the end of the day."
Once I got past the first page of the notebook, it was easier to let the reality of it set in. Each page had about twenty names on it. At the top of each page was a location, a date and times. I turned the page: different location and times, same date. Same with the next page.
"We don't worry about when the souls need to be taken so very much," another man said. "If we tried to be there at the moment of death for everybody, we'd never get it all done."
I snapped my book shut. Roxy tucked hers into the inside of her jacket. "Mine start over at Northwest Hospital in less than an hour." I tried to act as if I didn't know when mine started or where, but I'd seen the first two pages, and it wasn't something I wanted to talk about.
Mason was already gone. It was funny how no one had really discussed what was about to happen. Maybe the plague boys were too hyped. I mean, face it-after being stuck here for a few hundred years, I might have been eager to start punching my ticket onward too. I wondered just how long until I might fade out and go…wherever.
I'd always wondered just what the quota was on reaps. If it was totally arbitrary, were there some people who did like, maybe four reaps and then moved on? Was it tied to karma? If I did weeks of these reaps, would I be promoted? And was it heaven? And who would be there? Would I see the people I'd reaped? And would they hold it against me? Would Betty be there? I hadn't thought about her in months.
Was this the big one? Was this the end of the world? It was hard not to suddenly go apocalyptic when your reap count for the day was probably three hundred. Then again, had Guy once thought that the bubonic plague was the end of the world?
It took me a second to realize that nearly everyone had left, and I was still standing there with a vacant expression and a book in my hand. I glanced at my watch. Fuck, and fifteen minutes to get downtown.
***
By the time I got downtown, rode the elevator down, and made it to the Happy Time office, I was already cutting it close to the time on the second sheet of what I had decided to call The Book.
I'd been busy all morning. I'd gone to a lobby and reaped five people in succession, none of whom died at that second, though they looked horrible. I wondered how their souls would find me so that I could help them to move on. I started to have the sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't bee seeing them again. Could a soul move on without a reaper to be there? And would I have a giant mass of souls following me around for the rest of the day?
I imagined Mason with a mass of fifty souls hanging out in Der Waffle Haus and almost laughed.
The elevator smelled funny. Funnier than usual, actually, like bad breath and cough drops. And no one was waiting for the elevator, or even in the elevator, for that matter. I stepped out onto the office floor and glanced around. Delores had been a little conservative when she'd told me that half of the office was out sick. No one was here. But I heard coughing and besides, the book didn't lie. It knew where, who, and when.
I passed the motivational posters without my usual smirk. They didn't seem funny now. I wish they were true, all smiling faces and perseverance. I did manage to retain a healthy perspective: this was the suck.
"Millie," Delores said, and I found her peeking over the reception desk. She looked horrible, clammy and pale, her hair horribly mussed. She clutched a wad of tissues in one hand, a manila file in the other. "Feeling better already?"
I ran a hand along the reception desk top. "Where is everyone?"
"Sent everyone home," Delores said. "was thinking of going myself, but it's almost five, and I can make it until close." She stood and sagged against the counter. I lunged forward to catch her.
"Do you want me to take you home?" I asked, leading her to the couches in the waiting area. She sank into one of them with a sigh. I was being completely impractical. I didn't have time to do anything more than help her to the sofa. I really wasn't looking forward to talking with her after she died. I wished, just a little bit, that she would just…move on.
"It's so hard," Delores said slowly, her voice ragged. "It's hard to be chipper when you're so tired, Millie." She leaned back on the couch. "I'm not fond of naps in the middle of the day, but I think I should sit down just a smidge."
I unbuttoned the top of Delores's blouse and fanned her face with my hand. "I think the phones have stopped ringing. Someone ought to be here for the phones." I didn't tell her that I had unplugged the phone in the main reception room.
"I'm here, Delores," I said. I wasn't good at comforting the dying. Every reap I'd ever done had been faster than this. They'd all been murders, accidents, things like that. Lingering disease, even one as fast as this, was too slow. Or maybe if I hadn't known her it could have been easier.
Delores's eyes glazed over a bit, and I wondered if this was the end, if she saw something I didn't. Instead, she smiled. "Georgia Lass. Intelligent but unmotivated."
It was surreal, and sad, and fitting. Delores wasn't dead yet, but I had fifteen more reaps in the next twenty minutes. "You should get some rest," I said, running my hand down her arm. It was surprisingly easy to let her go, really. She looked so tired, and if I really thought about it, Delores didn't want to see what I thought might happen next. I'd seen The Stand and Outbreak. It didn't fit in with Delores's perspective on the world, and she didn't deserve to be disillusioned.
"I worried about you," she said, and I wondered if she was talking to me or someone else. "I worried that you wouldn't see the-oh my, that's awfully bright." The manila folder she'd been holding fluttered to the floor.
And then she was gone. I waited for her soul to appear, hale and healthy, but it didn't. Instead, something warm and golden congealed at her sternum, swirling for a few seconds before separating from her body and rising towards the ceiling. I watched it absorb into the tiles, soaking in, moving up as if magnetized.
"Thank you, Delores Herbig, with your big brown eyes," I whispered, then picked up the phone and dialed 911 before walking out the door.
***
28 Hours Later
The booth in Der Waffle Haus was dirty. In fact, the whole place looked kind of dingy. I settled in anyway and waited. Mason slept with his head on the table. Roxy wasn't coming, something about barricading the hospitals.
I was exhausted. I'd tried to go over to my parents' house, but there simply hadn't been time. I wondered if my family's name was in a spiral bound notebook somewhere. Maybe Guy had it. Maybe Mason. I glanced at the puddle on the top of his notebook pillow and decided that I didn't want to check.
Kiffany wasn't there. In fact, only Casey was, and she didn't look so good. I wondered when they would finally realize that this wasn't a bad flu and would just close the restaurant. Until then, I wanted an infusion of caffeine and maybe the International Platter and its three different kinds of meat.
"Bacon, extra extra crispy," I muttered to myself.
"It's funny how I had a hell of a time getting you here so often, and then when you're not supposed to be here, you show up," Rube said, sliding into the booth across from me. He nodded at Mason. "He drunk or tired?"
Mason moaned something about chipolatas when I poked him. "Drunk, tired, whatever," I answered and put my menu down, the international sign that I was ready to order my International Platter. Three kinds of meat and hash browns. No jelly packets anywhere. I thought about the six hundred dollars I'd looted from the dead I'd reaped that day and wondered why I didn't feel bad about that anymore.
Would we even need money in the New World Order? Oh hell, I might not even be there, so it didn't bear consideration. Plus, I was going to order three different kinds of meat and pancakes. How that made the platter international, I didn't know.
"Shouldn't the International Platter have something, I don't know, international in it?" I asked.
"Yes," Rube said, looking up from his planner full of post-it notes. "The International Platter has blintzes, crepes and a Belgian waffle. You're looking at the Lumberjack special, right? Three different types of meat." He reordered three post-its and sighed. Where the fuck is your little pal? I'm getting tired of waiting on her."
It didn't take a scientist to realize that he meant Daisy. I hadn't seen Daisy since the last time I was in Der Waffle Haus, especially since I hadn't gone home. Part of me wondered if I ever would. I wondered if I might have to scrounge clean clothes from a reap closet.
Part of me was pleased at such a Betty-like thought.
"Darth Vader won't save you from the wheat!" Mason screamed, throwing his head up and smacking the back of his skull against the wooden divider.
"You seen Daisy?" Rube asked, eyes never leaving the post-it pile up or remarking about Mason's rude awakening. "Because I had a feeling you were her stalker."
Mason sighed and expanded his fingers to their maximum span. "Rube, if I had even five minutes to spare in the past twenty-four hours, I probably would have used them to locate and imbibe a fifth of Jameson's."
Rube grunted and slammed four post-it notes on the counter. "In the old days, people had courtesy."
I was thinking of replying to that, of saying that Rube would know if Daisy had moved on, but then, he hadn't known about Betty. Then again, Betty had been one hell of a surprise to oh, I don't know, everybody. I suddenly missed the ring she gave me, and all my stuff. I just wanted to go home and curl up on the couch that smelled like Mason-puke and old lady and sleep for the rest of the End of the World. Or the end of whatever. I could be making a mountain out of a molehill, or maybe I was just letting the two hundred reaps I'd had in the last twelve hours get to me.
But I didn't have to say anything because there was a sudden silence, and it took a minute for me to realize that the music had stopped. There was a crash, and a large plastic casing flew out from the back. A few seconds later, Casey reemerged, breathing heavily.
"Corporate can kiss my ass. I hated that shit."
***
28 Days Later:
I was in the middle of the intersection of University and 6th Avenue when the lights flashed and I knew they'd seen me. I was out of quarantine. Explaining that death never takes any sort of holiday and doesn't have a bedtime didn't do much for my street cred, as far as the cops were concerned. Mason liked to travel the sewers when he did reaps out of quarantine, but I still couldn't take the smell. Daisy waltzed through checkpoints like they were nothing, and Roxy still used her police uniform to get around. Rube…who knew where Rube was, or if Rube was anymore.
I tucked my notebook into the inner pocket of my jacket and ran for it. The cops didn't do much but yell at you when you went out of the quarantine area. They were much more concerned when you tried to get back in, but I had five days with of reaps in my notebook, and I figured that by that time I could get Roxy to let me in. If worse came to worst, I could always beg Mason.
Guy and most of the plague boys were finished and had been promoted a few weeks after the plague began; Roxy had woken one morning to find that the notebooks had been delivered to her front door. Her front door was now well outside of the quarantine area, but she still received the notebooks; they arrived at whatever shelter her unit was staying in that night. I saw her and Mason for fleeting moments in the morning once a week in the park.
I made my way towards the I-5 overpass. It had become a common shelter from the rain that poured down on the city for the past week. It was especially hard to reap these days because people didn't want to give away their names. Anyone who asked questions was with the CDC, National Guard or Police Quarantine Squad, and those people who went with them never returned. I figured that if someone went somewhere other than a trashy overpass shelter, they may not necessarily want to come back.
Most of the time if you were new in the non-quarantined areas, people stayed away until it was obvious that you weren't sick. That took about a day. Then if you were still there, they might rough you up for any food or useful stuff you might have. I had a big knife. Mason had given it to me. I'd used it twice, and not in the good fruit cutting way.
I suddenly wanted a Banana Bonanza.
My reaps were E. Hausmann, D. Hausmann, and P. Hausmann. Not a good sign. Families usually meant kids, and I still hated reaping kids. Daisy and Mason said that it was better this way, that I was a release, but I never understood how that was supposed to make it easier. I started looking for families and tried not to make eye contact.
Sometimes it helped if I offered food. I pulled out the bag of potato chips I'd tucked in my jacket and waved it about. I'd gotten more fearless; plus, I was armed. "I'm looking for Hausmann. E. Hausmann. Anybody know anyone like that?" This worked nine times out of ten; people were hungry. Either that or I was about to be mugged.
No one moved. Shit. This was probably going to be the one in ten, dammit. I waved the bag about so that the chips inside crackled against each other. "Hausmann," I repeatedly firmly. I thought of mentioning that they were family friends, but I'd seen the Police Quarantine Squad use that tactic before, so it wasn't particularly trustworthy.
I turned around in a circle, partly to show off the chips and partly to make sure that no one was sneaking up on me. I was in luck. Some kid with a grubby face, the kind you saw in those commercials for charities in third world countries sidled up to me and made a grab for the chips.
"Hey!" I shouted, raising the bag beyond his reach. "You know the Hausmanns?"
The kid, a boy, I think, though sometimes it was hard to tell under the dirt and heavy coat, didn't say anything, but his eyes slid to he left. I followed his gaze to a corner of the overpass that was bare, except for a door, probably to a maintenance closet or access area.
This was the dilemma. If I rewarded him and he was jerking me around, I lost my leverage. I held up a finger, edged to the door and opened it. "Hausmann?" I said into the darkness. Keeping the bag held high, I let go of the doorknob and dug about for a flashlight. It was a bold move, since flashlights were worth their weight in gold. Just how much did a flashlight-weight worth of gold really amount to?
The flashlight revealed a mass of huddled bodies, some of them dead, some of them still shuddering. Most of them coughing. The smell wasn't fantastic. I'd been rather good at not puking the last two weeks. This wasn't a good sign.
Sometimes I got here too late. It was one of those things that made plague different. No shepherding, no ETD, just approximates and releasing souls. I'd asked Guy after Delores had simply expired, mostly because I had been scared that I'd made a mistake.
Nope, we just released the souls, he'd told me, and they go on their own. Of course, he, like Mason, had used some sort of convoluted metaphor to explain it, and I'd sort of tuned him out. I really wished, most of the time, that Rube had gone with us. Roxy didn't want to know why. She just wanted to fill her quota. In fact, I think that she took extras just because she was sick and tired of the sick and tired.
She had a point.
I hoped that the Hausmanns weren't dead. I wondered if it hurt to be trapped inside a dead body. I dropped the bag of chips into the child's waiting hands, walked through the door, and let it shut behind me. I should have been scared shitless. That I wasn't scared should have scared me even more.
Instead, I glanced around. "Hausmann?" I called again. If I didn't figure this out soon, I was going to have to dig around for wallets. Strangely enough, most men still faithfully carried them, even outside of the quarantined area, trapped or hiding from the police. Maybe they didn't want to die unknown.
There was a wracking cough and then a weak "here." I followed the sound to the corner. A pale little woman lay on a dirty blanket, her arms around a larger swathed lump.
"Hausmann?" I asked, squatting down beside her.
The woman blinked. "Esther. Are you here to help? I tried to keep him warm." She shook the bundle. "Peter. Peter, help is here."
The bundle didn't move. I reached out and ran my hand along it, taking with it the soul. Peter was dead, and Esther didn't seem to see the pale gold light that rose up into the room and through a wall.
"I'm sorry," I said to her. "Is there anyone else?" I looked about for D. Hausmann. Sometimes I was so late that they'd abandoned the body and I had to go looking for it.
Esther shook her head, then buried her face in the bundle. I wondered if Peter was her husband, or father, or brother. Maybe he was a cousin or uncle. I wasn't about to ask. These days I didn't want to know. But I would have rather found D. Hausmann and gotten out of there.
Finally Esther looked up and sighed. I wasn't sure what that meant. She coughed, and the barking sound of it echoed in the small room. I heard rustling in the corner. "Over there, Damien, I-" more coughing. "I couldn't-"
I followed her pointing her finger to the opposite of the room, to another bundle, smaller, much smaller, mercifully covered with a blanket and draped with a child's winter coat. I had to crawl over to it to touch him, the force of the release like a rubber band snapping, the soul shooting from it in a flash of red sparks. That was what it was like; the longer the soul stayed in a dead body, the more force when it was released, like opening a can of soda after it'd been shaken.
"What's happening? Outside? Is there help?" Esther hugged Peter's body to herself and shivered. She wasn't looking at me.
I touched her arm and felt the slow hissing, the gradual release of her soul. "I'll get help. Stay here."
It was the best lie that I could tell, actually. They always fell for it, and then I could get out of there. I was peaceful. Well, as peaceful as this could be. Esther grimaced and buried her face in Peter's blanket again. I wasn't sure if she believed me or not. At one time I might have tried to convince her. Now I was just happy she stayed put.
On my way out of the access room I heard the rustling again and then a soul shot out of the darkness and up into the ceiling. I shot my flashlight over. If Mason or Roxy or even Daisy was here, the day might be looking up.
Crystal ran her hand down the arm of the man and glanced up at me. I hadn’t seen her since my last day at Happy Time. The silver gleam of a notebook spiral peeked from her coat pocket.
Well fuck me.
I left the confines of the overpass maintenance room and closed the door. I wasn't sure where to go now. I had three hours before I had to be anywhere for a reap, and it was just down the block. I had learned not to go too early, because then I had to interact with other people. In fact, interaction usually meant violence. I had never been too fond of the average person, and now the deteriorated state of things hadn't improved that view.
I leaned next to the door and watched people shuffle around a trash barrel fire across the dirty trail. They eyed me nervously. A sneeze tickled my throat and I fought it back. If I sneezed now, they might act before they realized that I wasn't sick. I really hated being stabbed. I made me lose all my shit.
Instead I sat outside the door and stared at my nails. It occurred to me that I hadn't really processed Crystal and what she was doing here. In fact, the less I wanted to think about it, the more I did. Then suddenly, the idea seemed brilliant. Crystal was the perfect reaper, but she'd never left her desk at Happy Time. When did she have the time? I could barely hold down a part time job.
I heard the door open, but I wasn't too concerned with looking up. Crystal sat down next to me and handed me something in a wrapper. "Power Bars. Not very tasty, but filling." I grunted, non-committal. "You need a drink?" She filled my other hand with a warm bottle of Gatorade. Ah, dinner of champions.
"All those post-its you stole-"
Crystal shrugged. "Got to get them somewhere."
I sighed. "Were you originally plague?"
"Executions."
"No way. Aren't those murders?"
Crystal shrugged. "Depends on the execution." Even after the big reveal, Crystal wasn't very forthcoming. She didn't wear her hair up anymore. I was down to her shoulders and curly. I'd never really seen Crystal out of work clothes, so her crusty jeans and sweatshirt seemed foreign but familiar. Mysterious and reassuring.
"So, uh, what are you doing now?" I said quietly. I wasn't sure what there was to do, right now, outside quarantine, with everything, dead people and all that, but it seemed like the logical thing to ask.
Crystal shrugged. Really, it was like being at Happy Time, except that I wasn't-
"Delores is dead," I said suddenly. I didn't know what Crystal was supposed to do with that information. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that information.
"Your friend Roxy," Crystal said, digging into her pocket and retrieving another Power Bar. "You still see her?" I hadn't even tried my dinner. I imagined it sitting like a lump in my stomach.
I mirrored her shrug. "Every now and then. She's with the police."
Crystal nodded. "That has to be useful. You saw Delores, then?"
It was a crazy shift in conversation. If it had been anyone else, I might have wondered about it. Instead I peeled the wrapper from my Power Bar and broke off a piece. It smelled like chocolate chalk. "Yeah."
Crystal considered this and nodded, even though I hadn't asked anything. "You have time now?"
"Three hours."
"Wanna play cards?"
I ate the first bite of Power Bar and wondered what Rube would have done. Rain poured down the edge of the overpass. Crystal turned towards me, dragging a bit of flat wood on her lap. She dug around in her bag and produced a worn deck of cards.
"Okay," I said, wrapping up the bar and shoving it inside my coat. I could use it later to bribe another person. It felt horrible to use food as a bribe when I should have just been giving it away, but somehow I'd taken Daisy and Mason inside me a bit and become…just practical.
Crystal shuffled the cards. "You know Gin?"
"No." I heard sirens off in the distance.
"I'll teach you." The people around us murmured, the fires in the barrels crackled, and the potato chips continued to be passed around.
I took the cards she offered. "Okay."
END
Author: amand_r
Fandom: Dead Like Me
Rating: R (language and uh, well, I'm using MPAA standards)
Pairing: None! Totally Gen!
Warnings: None. See summary.
Recipient: lyl_devil in the apocalyptothon
Request: George, Mason and Roxy get transferred to the Plague Division.
Summary: Was this the big one? Was this the end of the world? It was hard not to suddenly go apocalyptic when your reap count for the day was probably three hundred.
Do people even put these on their fics anymore? Thanks to idyll for the beta. Apologies to any Seattle based fen-I played fast and loose with the street geography a bit. The title, "It's already tomorrow in Australia," is stolen from a quote by Charles Schultz. Yeah, that dude who drew Peanuts.
It's Already Tomorrow in Australia (or Win Some, Lose Some, H7, N1)
"Do you know who I am" she said/ "I'm the one who taps you on the shoulder when it's your time." (Tori Amos, 'The Beekeeper')
When I was a kid, I never understood the saying "be careful what you wish for." I figured that if I were ever going to wish for something, I'd be very careful about it. In fact, I had a list of things. The first one was no more school. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure that there's a reason no one has wishes granted.
Ah, breakfast at Der Waffle Haus. If I hadn't already eaten my way through the menu three times I might have been more tempted to order. Then again, we ate pretty much the same thing for breakfast our entire lives, didn't we? We might bitch about leftovers or having meatloaf twice in one month, but dammit, we needed the same cereal every morning.
I, however, needed a coffee, a post-it and a ride to work.
I poured half of the sugar dispenser into my coffee. "I wish I could be in the plague division," I said wistfully. Mason reached behind us to the adjoining table and flailed his arm about blindly.
Roxy rolled her eyes. "You'd get bored so quick."
Daisy finished filing her nails and drummed them on the tabletop. "Oh, I don't know, immortal life, no reaping-"
"No money, eternal nine to five grind-"
"Only you, Roxy." Daisy smiled. "I prefer to think of it as a refreshing opportunity to dedicate myself fully to my career."
I smiled. Sometimes it was useful to have Daisy around so that she could defend my more scattered statements from Roxy.
This wasn't to say that I hadn't thought about the niceties of being free from reaping. I could make a life for myself. I could…work at Happy Time forever. Suddenly my coffee tasted a little too sweet, like one of those flavored crappucchinos that Delores bought me every Tuesday afternoon.
Mason finally turned back around and released the contents of his loot on to the table: the jelly packet rack. It was the first time I noticed that our rack was completely bare.
"What happened to all our jelly?" I asked. Kiffany made eyes in our direction, and I wished that Rube was here so that he could do that 'come hither' thing with his fingers and summon her. I wanted a muffin to go. "And where's Rube? I'm late for work."
Roxy readjusted her holster and sighed. "Mason *ate* all our damn jelly, and Rube will be here when he's here."
Daisy had finally decided that her nails were up to snuff and started polishing the rock in the ring on her finger. Mason stopped peeling the foil from a jelly packet to stare at her. I wasn't entirely sure what Mason and Daisy had going on, or what he had to do with that ring, but I figured that I'd never know.
"Good news," Rube said quickly, sliding into the booth and summoning Kiffany with an eyebrow. The eyebrow meant that he was in a hurry; otherwise he would have waited for her to eventually get to him. I was late for work, and I didn't have any more excuses. If I used cramps one more time Delores would figure out that I'd had my period fifteen times in the past four months.
Mason ate another jelly packet. "I get the week off?"
Daisy stirred her tea with her straw. "I get to reap Tom Cruise?"
Rube looked at Roxy. She shrugged. "What? I'm not dumb enough to guess something that ain't going to happen in the history of ever."
"Any other takers? Jokes? Further attempts to waste my time?" Rube turned to Kiffany. "Banana Bonanza, a side order of bacon, extra crispy-"
"Lemonade, uh huh." Kiffany didn't even bother to write down his order. As a matter of fact, she didn't even bother to stay for the rest of it. Was he that predictable?
I stopped trying count how many times Daisy was going to buff that ring on her coat, and Mason finished his jelly packets. Roxy waved a hand in distaste. "You better pay something for all of those."
Mason looked indignant. "They're free. Rube, tell her they're free."
Rube didn't even look up from his planner. He was reordering a small stack of pink slips, but I couldn't see what was on them. There wasn't a yellow post-it in sight. "Jellys are free when they're used as a condiment. When you eat them as a main course, you should pay."
Mason stacked the empty plastic containers. "They don't say anything about that. Where does it say that the jellys are free only sometimes?"
I dug around in my purse for gum. I had gum in here somewhere. Banana raspberry gum. Yum. "I guess if you wanted to eat that much jelly, you would buy a jar."
Mason made a circle with his fingers. "And I have a supreme lack of funds, which is where Der Waffle Haus and their free jelly packets come in. We have come full circle."
Daisy rolled her eyes, crunched a bit of ice in her mouth and set her glass down. "I have a facial in thirty minutes." I knew for a fact that she'd had a facial yesterday and that today she was going to see a tarot reader. "Can I have my post-it?"
Rube reached into his breast pocket and looked at the two post-its in his hand. "Here."
Daisy plucked the post-it from his fingers and examined it. "The docks? Ruben? Again? I'm becoming a permanent fixture there."
I didn't want to say anything to say to that. In fact, Roxy looked like she was trying hard not to; she looked out the window and sipped her orange juice. I finished my coffee and covered the top of the mug with my napkin. I reached out a hand for my post-it. Instead Rube handed over a small pink slip. I had a hard time believing he'd run out of post-it notes. Rube distributed the remaining pink slips to Roxy and Mason, who smeared his with red jelly.
"Transferred?" Roxy muttered. "Oh hell no-"
Rube held his hands up in front of him. "I have no say in any of this. It comes from above." Kiffany brought his plate and he tucked his napkin in his lap. "You better get out of here."
I examined my pink slip:
Name: Lass, Georgia
Department: External Influences
Transfer to: Plague
Effective: Immediately
Primary Base: Golden Gardens Park
"Plague?" I said, waving the pink slip. Roxy had already put her hat on and stood, throwing a few bills on the table. "Plague, Rube? Don't they have, like, a bunch of guys who've been around for, forever?"
Rube sipped his lemonade and made a face. "It's a strange world. They want you transferred to Plague, you go to Plague." He shuffled his bananas around on his plate. "Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why."
Daisy waved her post-it note conspicuously. "People are suddenly going to die from a disease that's treatable with penicillin?"
I wanted to laugh, but it wasn't funny. Mason had once said that the plague boys had been around for six hundred years. I wasn't too keen on playing an everlasting game of bocce with a bunch of guys whose "remember when" stories involved the invention of the zipper.
"How come she doesn't get transferred?" I asked, pointing to Daisy, who still managed to look sickeningly pleased with herself.
Rube waved Kiffany over. "I need coffee, black, and another order of bacon, extra extra crispy. This--" he waved the floppy bacon around in between his fingers. "--not so crispy." When Kiffany left, I shoved the pink slip back to Rube on the table. He raised an eyebrow. "We've had this sort of discussion before, and I'm not sure you really want to have it again, Peanut. Besides, people don't stop murdering each other or having accidents just because there's a plague going on. Daisy and I will be working overtime."
"Now Ruben, that was not the thing to say," Daisy tsked. "No one asked me if I wanted to work-"
"I didn't ask because the matter is not up for discussion." Rube wiped his mouth, accepted a cup of coffee from Kiffany and slammed the flat of his hand down on Mason's hands, which were in the act of peeling the top from another jelly packet. "Jelly is not a breakfast. Put it down."
Mason dropped the packet and crumpled the pink slip in his hand. "I'm not hungry anymore anyway."
"Good. Now go away and don't keep Guy waiting. He gets cranky when people are late." I rose and dug in my pocket for some change while Mason tried to swipe some of the packets from the table. "Starts talking about punctuality and the invention of the wristwatch." Rube kept eating, but as we all stood, he unfolded the newspaper and smoothed it out on the table next to his plate, scanning the front page.
Roxy straightened her jacket, drained her juice and sighed. "I'll give you a ride to the park." Mason stood to follow us. "You," she said to him with a pointed finger, "ride in the cage."
Mason sighed. "Again?"
"Forever. Or until you learn hygiene."
"But I have to go to work!" I said as Roxy yanked my arm. "I'm already late!"
Rube flipped the page of the paper and for the first time I saw the headline: Mysterious Illness Claims Four More Lives. "Call in sick," he mumbled. "Everyone else is going to."
***
28 Minutes Later:
Delores picked up the phone on the first ring. "Thank you for calling Happy Time, this is Delores, how may I help you?"
Delores didn't usually answer the phone. "Where's Crystal?" I asked.
"Millie? Is that you?" Delores sighed. Truth be told, she sounded distracted. I heard multiple lines ringing in the background. That she couldn't answer them all at once must have been driving her crazy. "Oh please don't tell me that you're sick too."
I paused for a second. "Oh, I am, Delores," I muttered and coughed. "Sick." Roxy tapped her watch and thumbed off into the park. Coughed into the pay phone receiver again. "Sorry."
Delores sniffed. "Oh thank goodness I take herbal supplements. Half of the office is out sick, Millie." I heard papers rustling in the background, and the phones continued to ring. I didn't know we had that many phone lines. "You really should start taking Echinacea. Even Crystal is sick."
If Crystal wasn't in the office then something horrible had to be coming. Roxy waved her hands and started walking down the path without me. Mason was already out of sight.
"Yeah, I'm sorry Delores, but I have to go. Something's…" I struggled for something to say. "Leaking."
Delores tsked. "Well, you drink lots of fluids and stay in bed. I'll need you back here as soon as you start feeling better."
It hit me just then that I might not be back at Happy Time when I 'started feeling better.' I stared out at the park in front of the phone; all the trees were green, the grass was verdant, and squirrels frolicked. Everything seemed completely fine. I wished I knew what was going to happen, and why I felt so suddenly scared of the stillness and perfection of the bright June morning.
I mumbled something to Delores on the phone that must have sounded reassuring and affirmative, because she hung up, probably to answer one of the many phones that had never stopped ringing. The fact of the matter was that if Happy Time was half-empty, then all the places we stocked with temps were probably working on skeleton crews as well.
Huh. Skeleton.
***
2.8 Minutes Later:
There was a small group of people around the bocce lanes by the time I got there, though no one was playing anything. Roxy was trying to look like she'd never met Mason, who had stuffed a sausage roll in his mouth. Three other men I'd never seen before milled about, talking animatedly in something, maybe Italian.
"Are you sure you're not a cop?" Masons said brightly to a balding man.
The man smiled and shouldered a heavy looking bag. "No. I just play one on TV."
"This is Guy," Mason said to me around a full mouth.
Guy shrugged up his bag again and winked. "Guiseppe, really, but Guy's okay." He looked past Mason where three other men were walking towards the group. "Looks like we're mostly here." Guy opened his bag and dug around, coming up with a stack of spiral bound notebooks.
One of the men whistled as he took the notebook Guy handed to him. "Geez, we're really back in business, aren't we?"
"Si. San Luis, Raphael. Harvey, Roxy. Mason...Mason? Lass, Georgia." Guy read the name on the cover of the notebook then looked up at me when I raised my hand. "Toilet seat girl?"
That was probably one of the more irritating things about being undead. That final indignity never died. "Yeah. What's this?" I held the book gingerly. Part of me already knew what it was, but I didn't want to admit it. Roxy was already flipping through hers.
"I already miss the post-its," Mason moaned, his finger running down a list of dates and times. "These are all one minute apart. Don't tell me that these people all drop dead in the same room."
Guiseppe handed out books to others as they arrived, some of them the men I had seen way back when I started as a Reaper. One of them flipped through the pages in fast forward like a stop motion book and chuckled. "No bocce today?"
Another man next to him chuckled. "With luck, we won't be here at the end of the week."
"With this load, try the end of the day."
Once I got past the first page of the notebook, it was easier to let the reality of it set in. Each page had about twenty names on it. At the top of each page was a location, a date and times. I turned the page: different location and times, same date. Same with the next page.
"We don't worry about when the souls need to be taken so very much," another man said. "If we tried to be there at the moment of death for everybody, we'd never get it all done."
I snapped my book shut. Roxy tucked hers into the inside of her jacket. "Mine start over at Northwest Hospital in less than an hour." I tried to act as if I didn't know when mine started or where, but I'd seen the first two pages, and it wasn't something I wanted to talk about.
Mason was already gone. It was funny how no one had really discussed what was about to happen. Maybe the plague boys were too hyped. I mean, face it-after being stuck here for a few hundred years, I might have been eager to start punching my ticket onward too. I wondered just how long until I might fade out and go…wherever.
I'd always wondered just what the quota was on reaps. If it was totally arbitrary, were there some people who did like, maybe four reaps and then moved on? Was it tied to karma? If I did weeks of these reaps, would I be promoted? And was it heaven? And who would be there? Would I see the people I'd reaped? And would they hold it against me? Would Betty be there? I hadn't thought about her in months.
Was this the big one? Was this the end of the world? It was hard not to suddenly go apocalyptic when your reap count for the day was probably three hundred. Then again, had Guy once thought that the bubonic plague was the end of the world?
It took me a second to realize that nearly everyone had left, and I was still standing there with a vacant expression and a book in my hand. I glanced at my watch. Fuck, and fifteen minutes to get downtown.
***
By the time I got downtown, rode the elevator down, and made it to the Happy Time office, I was already cutting it close to the time on the second sheet of what I had decided to call The Book.
I'd been busy all morning. I'd gone to a lobby and reaped five people in succession, none of whom died at that second, though they looked horrible. I wondered how their souls would find me so that I could help them to move on. I started to have the sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't bee seeing them again. Could a soul move on without a reaper to be there? And would I have a giant mass of souls following me around for the rest of the day?
I imagined Mason with a mass of fifty souls hanging out in Der Waffle Haus and almost laughed.
The elevator smelled funny. Funnier than usual, actually, like bad breath and cough drops. And no one was waiting for the elevator, or even in the elevator, for that matter. I stepped out onto the office floor and glanced around. Delores had been a little conservative when she'd told me that half of the office was out sick. No one was here. But I heard coughing and besides, the book didn't lie. It knew where, who, and when.
I passed the motivational posters without my usual smirk. They didn't seem funny now. I wish they were true, all smiling faces and perseverance. I did manage to retain a healthy perspective: this was the suck.
"Millie," Delores said, and I found her peeking over the reception desk. She looked horrible, clammy and pale, her hair horribly mussed. She clutched a wad of tissues in one hand, a manila file in the other. "Feeling better already?"
I ran a hand along the reception desk top. "Where is everyone?"
"Sent everyone home," Delores said. "was thinking of going myself, but it's almost five, and I can make it until close." She stood and sagged against the counter. I lunged forward to catch her.
"Do you want me to take you home?" I asked, leading her to the couches in the waiting area. She sank into one of them with a sigh. I was being completely impractical. I didn't have time to do anything more than help her to the sofa. I really wasn't looking forward to talking with her after she died. I wished, just a little bit, that she would just…move on.
"It's so hard," Delores said slowly, her voice ragged. "It's hard to be chipper when you're so tired, Millie." She leaned back on the couch. "I'm not fond of naps in the middle of the day, but I think I should sit down just a smidge."
I unbuttoned the top of Delores's blouse and fanned her face with my hand. "I think the phones have stopped ringing. Someone ought to be here for the phones." I didn't tell her that I had unplugged the phone in the main reception room.
"I'm here, Delores," I said. I wasn't good at comforting the dying. Every reap I'd ever done had been faster than this. They'd all been murders, accidents, things like that. Lingering disease, even one as fast as this, was too slow. Or maybe if I hadn't known her it could have been easier.
Delores's eyes glazed over a bit, and I wondered if this was the end, if she saw something I didn't. Instead, she smiled. "Georgia Lass. Intelligent but unmotivated."
It was surreal, and sad, and fitting. Delores wasn't dead yet, but I had fifteen more reaps in the next twenty minutes. "You should get some rest," I said, running my hand down her arm. It was surprisingly easy to let her go, really. She looked so tired, and if I really thought about it, Delores didn't want to see what I thought might happen next. I'd seen The Stand and Outbreak. It didn't fit in with Delores's perspective on the world, and she didn't deserve to be disillusioned.
"I worried about you," she said, and I wondered if she was talking to me or someone else. "I worried that you wouldn't see the-oh my, that's awfully bright." The manila folder she'd been holding fluttered to the floor.
And then she was gone. I waited for her soul to appear, hale and healthy, but it didn't. Instead, something warm and golden congealed at her sternum, swirling for a few seconds before separating from her body and rising towards the ceiling. I watched it absorb into the tiles, soaking in, moving up as if magnetized.
"Thank you, Delores Herbig, with your big brown eyes," I whispered, then picked up the phone and dialed 911 before walking out the door.
***
28 Hours Later
The booth in Der Waffle Haus was dirty. In fact, the whole place looked kind of dingy. I settled in anyway and waited. Mason slept with his head on the table. Roxy wasn't coming, something about barricading the hospitals.
I was exhausted. I'd tried to go over to my parents' house, but there simply hadn't been time. I wondered if my family's name was in a spiral bound notebook somewhere. Maybe Guy had it. Maybe Mason. I glanced at the puddle on the top of his notebook pillow and decided that I didn't want to check.
Kiffany wasn't there. In fact, only Casey was, and she didn't look so good. I wondered when they would finally realize that this wasn't a bad flu and would just close the restaurant. Until then, I wanted an infusion of caffeine and maybe the International Platter and its three different kinds of meat.
"Bacon, extra extra crispy," I muttered to myself.
"It's funny how I had a hell of a time getting you here so often, and then when you're not supposed to be here, you show up," Rube said, sliding into the booth across from me. He nodded at Mason. "He drunk or tired?"
Mason moaned something about chipolatas when I poked him. "Drunk, tired, whatever," I answered and put my menu down, the international sign that I was ready to order my International Platter. Three kinds of meat and hash browns. No jelly packets anywhere. I thought about the six hundred dollars I'd looted from the dead I'd reaped that day and wondered why I didn't feel bad about that anymore.
Would we even need money in the New World Order? Oh hell, I might not even be there, so it didn't bear consideration. Plus, I was going to order three different kinds of meat and pancakes. How that made the platter international, I didn't know.
"Shouldn't the International Platter have something, I don't know, international in it?" I asked.
"Yes," Rube said, looking up from his planner full of post-it notes. "The International Platter has blintzes, crepes and a Belgian waffle. You're looking at the Lumberjack special, right? Three different types of meat." He reordered three post-its and sighed. Where the fuck is your little pal? I'm getting tired of waiting on her."
It didn't take a scientist to realize that he meant Daisy. I hadn't seen Daisy since the last time I was in Der Waffle Haus, especially since I hadn't gone home. Part of me wondered if I ever would. I wondered if I might have to scrounge clean clothes from a reap closet.
Part of me was pleased at such a Betty-like thought.
"Darth Vader won't save you from the wheat!" Mason screamed, throwing his head up and smacking the back of his skull against the wooden divider.
"You seen Daisy?" Rube asked, eyes never leaving the post-it pile up or remarking about Mason's rude awakening. "Because I had a feeling you were her stalker."
Mason sighed and expanded his fingers to their maximum span. "Rube, if I had even five minutes to spare in the past twenty-four hours, I probably would have used them to locate and imbibe a fifth of Jameson's."
Rube grunted and slammed four post-it notes on the counter. "In the old days, people had courtesy."
I was thinking of replying to that, of saying that Rube would know if Daisy had moved on, but then, he hadn't known about Betty. Then again, Betty had been one hell of a surprise to oh, I don't know, everybody. I suddenly missed the ring she gave me, and all my stuff. I just wanted to go home and curl up on the couch that smelled like Mason-puke and old lady and sleep for the rest of the End of the World. Or the end of whatever. I could be making a mountain out of a molehill, or maybe I was just letting the two hundred reaps I'd had in the last twelve hours get to me.
But I didn't have to say anything because there was a sudden silence, and it took a minute for me to realize that the music had stopped. There was a crash, and a large plastic casing flew out from the back. A few seconds later, Casey reemerged, breathing heavily.
"Corporate can kiss my ass. I hated that shit."
***
28 Days Later:
I was in the middle of the intersection of University and 6th Avenue when the lights flashed and I knew they'd seen me. I was out of quarantine. Explaining that death never takes any sort of holiday and doesn't have a bedtime didn't do much for my street cred, as far as the cops were concerned. Mason liked to travel the sewers when he did reaps out of quarantine, but I still couldn't take the smell. Daisy waltzed through checkpoints like they were nothing, and Roxy still used her police uniform to get around. Rube…who knew where Rube was, or if Rube was anymore.
I tucked my notebook into the inner pocket of my jacket and ran for it. The cops didn't do much but yell at you when you went out of the quarantine area. They were much more concerned when you tried to get back in, but I had five days with of reaps in my notebook, and I figured that by that time I could get Roxy to let me in. If worse came to worst, I could always beg Mason.
Guy and most of the plague boys were finished and had been promoted a few weeks after the plague began; Roxy had woken one morning to find that the notebooks had been delivered to her front door. Her front door was now well outside of the quarantine area, but she still received the notebooks; they arrived at whatever shelter her unit was staying in that night. I saw her and Mason for fleeting moments in the morning once a week in the park.
I made my way towards the I-5 overpass. It had become a common shelter from the rain that poured down on the city for the past week. It was especially hard to reap these days because people didn't want to give away their names. Anyone who asked questions was with the CDC, National Guard or Police Quarantine Squad, and those people who went with them never returned. I figured that if someone went somewhere other than a trashy overpass shelter, they may not necessarily want to come back.
Most of the time if you were new in the non-quarantined areas, people stayed away until it was obvious that you weren't sick. That took about a day. Then if you were still there, they might rough you up for any food or useful stuff you might have. I had a big knife. Mason had given it to me. I'd used it twice, and not in the good fruit cutting way.
I suddenly wanted a Banana Bonanza.
My reaps were E. Hausmann, D. Hausmann, and P. Hausmann. Not a good sign. Families usually meant kids, and I still hated reaping kids. Daisy and Mason said that it was better this way, that I was a release, but I never understood how that was supposed to make it easier. I started looking for families and tried not to make eye contact.
Sometimes it helped if I offered food. I pulled out the bag of potato chips I'd tucked in my jacket and waved it about. I'd gotten more fearless; plus, I was armed. "I'm looking for Hausmann. E. Hausmann. Anybody know anyone like that?" This worked nine times out of ten; people were hungry. Either that or I was about to be mugged.
No one moved. Shit. This was probably going to be the one in ten, dammit. I waved the bag about so that the chips inside crackled against each other. "Hausmann," I repeatedly firmly. I thought of mentioning that they were family friends, but I'd seen the Police Quarantine Squad use that tactic before, so it wasn't particularly trustworthy.
I turned around in a circle, partly to show off the chips and partly to make sure that no one was sneaking up on me. I was in luck. Some kid with a grubby face, the kind you saw in those commercials for charities in third world countries sidled up to me and made a grab for the chips.
"Hey!" I shouted, raising the bag beyond his reach. "You know the Hausmanns?"
The kid, a boy, I think, though sometimes it was hard to tell under the dirt and heavy coat, didn't say anything, but his eyes slid to he left. I followed his gaze to a corner of the overpass that was bare, except for a door, probably to a maintenance closet or access area.
This was the dilemma. If I rewarded him and he was jerking me around, I lost my leverage. I held up a finger, edged to the door and opened it. "Hausmann?" I said into the darkness. Keeping the bag held high, I let go of the doorknob and dug about for a flashlight. It was a bold move, since flashlights were worth their weight in gold. Just how much did a flashlight-weight worth of gold really amount to?
The flashlight revealed a mass of huddled bodies, some of them dead, some of them still shuddering. Most of them coughing. The smell wasn't fantastic. I'd been rather good at not puking the last two weeks. This wasn't a good sign.
Sometimes I got here too late. It was one of those things that made plague different. No shepherding, no ETD, just approximates and releasing souls. I'd asked Guy after Delores had simply expired, mostly because I had been scared that I'd made a mistake.
Nope, we just released the souls, he'd told me, and they go on their own. Of course, he, like Mason, had used some sort of convoluted metaphor to explain it, and I'd sort of tuned him out. I really wished, most of the time, that Rube had gone with us. Roxy didn't want to know why. She just wanted to fill her quota. In fact, I think that she took extras just because she was sick and tired of the sick and tired.
She had a point.
I hoped that the Hausmanns weren't dead. I wondered if it hurt to be trapped inside a dead body. I dropped the bag of chips into the child's waiting hands, walked through the door, and let it shut behind me. I should have been scared shitless. That I wasn't scared should have scared me even more.
Instead, I glanced around. "Hausmann?" I called again. If I didn't figure this out soon, I was going to have to dig around for wallets. Strangely enough, most men still faithfully carried them, even outside of the quarantined area, trapped or hiding from the police. Maybe they didn't want to die unknown.
There was a wracking cough and then a weak "here." I followed the sound to the corner. A pale little woman lay on a dirty blanket, her arms around a larger swathed lump.
"Hausmann?" I asked, squatting down beside her.
The woman blinked. "Esther. Are you here to help? I tried to keep him warm." She shook the bundle. "Peter. Peter, help is here."
The bundle didn't move. I reached out and ran my hand along it, taking with it the soul. Peter was dead, and Esther didn't seem to see the pale gold light that rose up into the room and through a wall.
"I'm sorry," I said to her. "Is there anyone else?" I looked about for D. Hausmann. Sometimes I was so late that they'd abandoned the body and I had to go looking for it.
Esther shook her head, then buried her face in the bundle. I wondered if Peter was her husband, or father, or brother. Maybe he was a cousin or uncle. I wasn't about to ask. These days I didn't want to know. But I would have rather found D. Hausmann and gotten out of there.
Finally Esther looked up and sighed. I wasn't sure what that meant. She coughed, and the barking sound of it echoed in the small room. I heard rustling in the corner. "Over there, Damien, I-" more coughing. "I couldn't-"
I followed her pointing her finger to the opposite of the room, to another bundle, smaller, much smaller, mercifully covered with a blanket and draped with a child's winter coat. I had to crawl over to it to touch him, the force of the release like a rubber band snapping, the soul shooting from it in a flash of red sparks. That was what it was like; the longer the soul stayed in a dead body, the more force when it was released, like opening a can of soda after it'd been shaken.
"What's happening? Outside? Is there help?" Esther hugged Peter's body to herself and shivered. She wasn't looking at me.
I touched her arm and felt the slow hissing, the gradual release of her soul. "I'll get help. Stay here."
It was the best lie that I could tell, actually. They always fell for it, and then I could get out of there. I was peaceful. Well, as peaceful as this could be. Esther grimaced and buried her face in Peter's blanket again. I wasn't sure if she believed me or not. At one time I might have tried to convince her. Now I was just happy she stayed put.
On my way out of the access room I heard the rustling again and then a soul shot out of the darkness and up into the ceiling. I shot my flashlight over. If Mason or Roxy or even Daisy was here, the day might be looking up.
Crystal ran her hand down the arm of the man and glanced up at me. I hadn’t seen her since my last day at Happy Time. The silver gleam of a notebook spiral peeked from her coat pocket.
Well fuck me.
I left the confines of the overpass maintenance room and closed the door. I wasn't sure where to go now. I had three hours before I had to be anywhere for a reap, and it was just down the block. I had learned not to go too early, because then I had to interact with other people. In fact, interaction usually meant violence. I had never been too fond of the average person, and now the deteriorated state of things hadn't improved that view.
I leaned next to the door and watched people shuffle around a trash barrel fire across the dirty trail. They eyed me nervously. A sneeze tickled my throat and I fought it back. If I sneezed now, they might act before they realized that I wasn't sick. I really hated being stabbed. I made me lose all my shit.
Instead I sat outside the door and stared at my nails. It occurred to me that I hadn't really processed Crystal and what she was doing here. In fact, the less I wanted to think about it, the more I did. Then suddenly, the idea seemed brilliant. Crystal was the perfect reaper, but she'd never left her desk at Happy Time. When did she have the time? I could barely hold down a part time job.
I heard the door open, but I wasn't too concerned with looking up. Crystal sat down next to me and handed me something in a wrapper. "Power Bars. Not very tasty, but filling." I grunted, non-committal. "You need a drink?" She filled my other hand with a warm bottle of Gatorade. Ah, dinner of champions.
"All those post-its you stole-"
Crystal shrugged. "Got to get them somewhere."
I sighed. "Were you originally plague?"
"Executions."
"No way. Aren't those murders?"
Crystal shrugged. "Depends on the execution." Even after the big reveal, Crystal wasn't very forthcoming. She didn't wear her hair up anymore. I was down to her shoulders and curly. I'd never really seen Crystal out of work clothes, so her crusty jeans and sweatshirt seemed foreign but familiar. Mysterious and reassuring.
"So, uh, what are you doing now?" I said quietly. I wasn't sure what there was to do, right now, outside quarantine, with everything, dead people and all that, but it seemed like the logical thing to ask.
Crystal shrugged. Really, it was like being at Happy Time, except that I wasn't-
"Delores is dead," I said suddenly. I didn't know what Crystal was supposed to do with that information. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that information.
"Your friend Roxy," Crystal said, digging into her pocket and retrieving another Power Bar. "You still see her?" I hadn't even tried my dinner. I imagined it sitting like a lump in my stomach.
I mirrored her shrug. "Every now and then. She's with the police."
Crystal nodded. "That has to be useful. You saw Delores, then?"
It was a crazy shift in conversation. If it had been anyone else, I might have wondered about it. Instead I peeled the wrapper from my Power Bar and broke off a piece. It smelled like chocolate chalk. "Yeah."
Crystal considered this and nodded, even though I hadn't asked anything. "You have time now?"
"Three hours."
"Wanna play cards?"
I ate the first bite of Power Bar and wondered what Rube would have done. Rain poured down the edge of the overpass. Crystal turned towards me, dragging a bit of flat wood on her lap. She dug around in her bag and produced a worn deck of cards.
"Okay," I said, wrapping up the bar and shoving it inside my coat. I could use it later to bribe another person. It felt horrible to use food as a bribe when I should have just been giving it away, but somehow I'd taken Daisy and Mason inside me a bit and become…just practical.
Crystal shuffled the cards. "You know Gin?"
"No." I heard sirens off in the distance.
"I'll teach you." The people around us murmured, the fires in the barrels crackled, and the potato chips continued to be passed around.
I took the cards she offered. "Okay."
END