Reapers
Published by F Michael Rodriguez
Copyright © 2017 F Michael Rodriguez
Description: After losing the love of his life, a man contemplating suicide is interrupted by Reaper, a demon who delivers souls to the Angel of Death. Upon realizing that he can make a deal by killing to be rewarded vengeance, he embarks on a killing spree.
Reapers
Sam didn’t know what woke him, and no matter how many times he relived that night, no matter where the nightmare chased him, he never would.
Summer turned the air into a wet, simmering stew, one that smelled of sweat and old socks. The humming fan on his dresser stirred it and it was like he slept on the sand under a blazing sun.
Still, he was used to that, resting on top of summer-moist sheets that haven’t been washed for weeks at a time, with the windows opened wide to the relentless traffic along the freeway—and the faint hope even a tiny breeze would generate from their speeding by.
The heat didn’t wake him, and it wasn’t a soft rumble of thunder from a storm that formed in the distance. Sam went from sleep to awake in a blink of an eye, as if someone had blown a horn into his ears.
Sam shot straight up in bed, blinking at the dark, trying to gather some coherent thoughts together. He felt that heat, like a tea bag simmering in hot water. Sam wished the sun would rise up already so that he could begin his day and wash away thoughts of her that lingered.
Then he heard that rumble of thunder. Delighted, he scrambled out of bed to rush to his window. There was a certain comfort about storms that attracted Sam, the way they whirled and swung through, the way the sky darkened, the way lightning slashed and flashed.
And maybe this storm would bring rain and wind and cooler air. Maybe.
Sam knelt on the floor, his arms folded on the windowsill, his eyes on the crescent of moon hazed by heat and clouds.
Maybe.
Sam wished for it—a man who turned thirty four two days ago and still believed in wishes. A big storm, he thought, with lightning like tree branches and thunder like nuclear explosions.
And lots of rain.
Sam closed his eyes, tipped his face up and tried sniffing the air. Then, in his Batman T-shirt, he pillowed his head on his hands and followed the shadows.
Again he wished for sunrise, and since wishes were free, wished it was the day he first met Amber for breakfast. Sam wanted her love so bad, and she’d given out plenty of hints.
Sam knelt, wanting morning to ease his head of all the shadowy memories of hurt and loneliness that remained since she left, a girl short and voluptuous, who—he was convinced—liked him just as much as he liked her. The heat had his legs itching. Annoyed with it, he scratched until it bled spots.
But the sun may never rise again for Sam, at least, not the kind he looked for….
Sam stared down the city where dreams faded into the void because he wanted it to be the last thing he ever saw; the flicker of streetlights, the occasional flashing headlight of a vehicle, the peaceful neighborhood sleep in the middle of the night, gave him one last look at what comfort felt like. But there was no turning back. It was already 2:48 am. They said 3:00 am was the time evil spirits roamed the streets.
He reached a crossroads in his life yesterday and chose the easy way out.
Sam stood on the rooftop of a project in Harlem, stories above the nearest exposed human being, ready to jump and end it all. He waited for a sound like a gunshot that told two gunslingers it was okay to blast away. Only here Sam was alone. No blaze of glory, no cheering crowd, just him screaming all the way down. It would be a terrifying way to go, but Sam had made up his mind.
Sam had no future. His life was a series of machines by which a succession of identical items were progressively assembled. Every decision Sam made had to be calculated to N-th degree and every idea measured by a micrometer. Besides that, if it were a skill, Sam had none; no talent and much less inspiration. Even worse was the idea that someone could love him just as much as Sam loved that person. There were a lot of times when Sam wanted to slap his own face with his leather belt and ask if he was truly happy with his monotonous life. Sam believed he was.
He was wrong.
The woman Sam loved and thought loved him back, left him six and half months ago.
They started at the donut shop where they first met. Where Amber declared her undying love for him two years ago and told him her parents arranged a fixed marriage and set a wedding date for her.
Sam was banned from showing up.
The rest of the events that lead up to this point were blotted out of his head. Sam had no idea how he ended up on top of that brown-brick skyscraper, staring down at the scraps of a night-life below.
Nobody would miss him. Nobody cared for him. Nobody would recognize his name if it appeared in the papers or his face in the evening news.
Sam had nobody to claim his body at the morgue. In just about a minute, he’d be a clump on the bushes, as inconvenient as ever. The people who’d be hired to scrape him off the grass and branches would curse him as Sam lay there bloodied, bruised and contorted, mumbling that he made them get up from their baby sleep to go work.
That was him, the last face you’d want to see at any part of the day.
A cold wind blew and goosebumps erupted on his skin. If he knew it’d be this cold he’d put a sweater on, but the brand new wife beater Sam wore gave him a sense of style at first. The worse thing that came to his mind was committing suicide with a stained, stretched out shirt.
What if I took long to die and froze first? Sam thought.
Next to that was tumbling about thirty window sills and satellite dishes down. Sam preferred a jump into the sea, but the nearest decent body of water was miles away and his feet burned just as much as his eyes. Sam steeled himself and looked down again. He imagined the rush of wind against his face as he fell, the swirl of colors and noises he’d see if Sam kept his eyes open and how it would all end in a sickening splat.
Dying wasn’t the hard part, falling was.
How would the life ebb out of me? What if he’d somehow survive and just lay there bent over the iron rail unable to call for help? Would colors and sounds around him gradually fade, like when you can’t hear the television anymore because you can’t stay awake anymore?
Would it hurt?
It was time to find out. The cold air had more to do with that than being ready. Sam stepped closer onto the edge. He left a penciled Farewell My Love note in case anyone cared to know why anyone would have chosen such a hideous way to die.
Sam took in deep breaths. That was it. He assumed a runner’s lunge pose to sprint his way over to the pearly gates.
Sam closed his eyes.
Goodbye cruel bitch, Sam thought.
“Dam, that’s a long way down, son,” said a gentle, friendly voice to his left.
Sam’s eyes shot open and he turned to see who had spoken. It was a boy that spoke with one leg on the ledge, elbow on knee. At first glance, he looked like any normal teenagers you’d see lounging around at a mall or any public place for that matter. Black beannie, dark skinned, earphones trailing from an ear and a Smartphone in his hand, which he swiped his fingers on. He walked on to the ledge with his sharp coned hood, jeans and boots, weather perfect.
There was just one problem … he had a tail.
“What the fuck?” Sam said.
It wasn’t a bandana or belt strap Sam confused for a cute, curly doggy-tail. Picture a bright red, whip-like appendage, three feet long that swung around. The tip of the tail was like a snake’s head and as Sam watched, it lifted up and made a motion like it sniffed the air or stared at something and fell back down.
Sam blinked hard a few times and still saw the boy.
“Quit staring,” said the boy. “Dag.”
Sam looked from tail to face and back to the tail again. His brain whirred like an old motor, trying to explain how anyone could have a tail.
Of course, it’s some sort of costume. Teens and their fads these days, it was probably just a fashion statement to raise awareness about cutting off dogs’ tails for PETA or something, that’s it…
“No, it’s not a PETA thing. It’s a real tail,” said the boy, as he stared towards the moon. “Touch it. You’ll see it’s real.”
The tail shot off the ground, quick as a whip and the tip hovered in front of his face, like a cobra staring him down to sleep.
Sam wondered if it was a good time to jump off that moment, but the sight of the tail intrigued him. That was much more interesting than the fact his longest relationship left him to marry some fat blob who’s parents decided to engage her to just because he was manager at Costco.
Gasoline guzzling hypocrites.
His eyes filled with adrenaline.
Sam could have screamed bloody murder and ran off the edge, but this story was more important than a washed up middle aged white man who somehow snuck into the blackest projects in Manhattan undetected just to jump off. Maybe this was his salvation.
“What the hell is that?” Sam asked.
Sam stood up slowly.
The boy turned his head around and looked at him in the eye.
“It’s a tail, man. What else does it look like?”
Amber was going to have to wait. That was the name of the woman who came into his life and ruined his heart for good. Sam needed to figure this out first.
Sam shook his head and turned back, looking to move a bit towards the staircase that would lead him back to face suicide another time. On the off chance the boy wasn’t an illusion, Sam didn’t want him thinking he jumped because of a bad combination of crack cocaine and ecstasy. There was no chance of editing the last chapter of your life.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said the boy. “At least not for another eight minutes.”
Sam stopped dead.
The wind which blew stopped suddenly, and the air quieted. Sam turned back slowly and faced the boy, who stepped down from the ledge and peered into his phone.
“What?” Sam asked.
He glanced up at me.
“What are you deaf? I said you don’t have to jump for another eight minutes, unless you want to spend your last moments on earth writhing in agony.”
His heart beat faster in his chest. The way he said those words, the tilt of his head and the slightest hint of the smile at the corner of his mouth, told Sam the boy was demented. If that wasn’t the worse case of bad luck Sam didn’t know what was.
Sam could have asked any question in those last eight minutes of his life.
“What’s in eight minutes?”
The boy raised an eyebrow.
“The Soul Reaper app shows an incoming collision.”
“The what? Do you live in this building?”
“The Soul Reaper app tells me when, where and how many people are going to die.”
“Okay, look. I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff in my life alright and I can accept a creepy teenager with a tail on a project rooftop, but there’s no fucking way an app tells you when people die.”
Sam shook his head and returned to springing position. Sam was actually motivated to jump like it was something much more responsible to do.
“It must’ve been hard when the love of your life chose money over you.”
Sam whirled around to look at him. He put the phone down and looked at him steadily into his eyes.
“What the … Amber sent you, didn’t she?”
“Nope. Your profile is updated on the Find A Soul app.”
He pointed the screen of his phone at me.
“What is this shit? Hey, you think this is funny?”
“Look for yourself,” he said.
Sam expected him to throw him his phone, instead an incoming text notification rung on his.
Sam picked it up hastily and looked at the screen, which had his name and his photo on it. It had all his moments on earth like dots on a green-lined GPS map and the last known location was a building in Fifth Avenue between 112th and 115th Streets. One of the worst places you’d ever want to be in at that ungodly hour.
It had details; his thoughts, feelings and things he’d done from offering Amber a cherry filled pastry at 8:48 pm all the way down to this. Sam scrolled down with shaking fingers and saw his whole life story. Even the most discreet of things he’d done, stuff he forgot he’d done was neatly organized in this Uber-styled app.
A red circle beeped over his location. Sam tapped it and it opened a text box, which read,
‘Abandoned by ex-girlfriend, ponders suicide on a bridge…’
His entire body trembled.
Sam looked at the boy, who snapped his fingers at him, like he called a puppy. The phone flew from his hands and into the boy’s hand, and he resumed peering into it.
No words sprang into his mind.
Sam tried to ask about the app, the tail or whatever the hell was going on, but he guessed there was only one question that mattered.
“Who are you?”
The boy smiled. His cheekbones went back and revealed a set of pearly-white teeth, and he lifted a side of his beannie, and his tail perked up again like it had a mind of its own.
He looked at Sam.
“I’m Enibe, a dog-demon. I make sure Croaks die and deliver their souls to the angel of Death.”
Sam went from nearly jumping to his death, seeing a tail on a human body and reading his life’s history on a social utility app, Sam thought he’d heard it all, but when this kid said he delivered souls to Death, Sam cocked his head to one side and looked at him quizzically.
“You don’t believe me, huh?” Enibe said.
“Okay, that would explain the tail and the app,” Sam said as he tried to sound brave, though his insides quivered like a drying machine. “But why are you here?”
“To make sure nobody ruins it or snatches the breath.”
“The breath?”
“That’s what souls are called, technically, the breath of God.”
Sam was deafly enlightened. He walked towards him to stand on the ledge, too, but not to jump.
“I get the notification and go to Reap Souls. That’s why I’m here right now,” he said, and looked at his wristwatch.
Enibe moved closer to Sam and tapped on the screen as he swayed his body side to side anxiously, and held the phone in front of his face.
Sam looked at the screen. It was black and red, and it said Soul Reaper on the top with a photo of a crime scene. In the middle of the screen, one line kept flashing – Two, Dead On Fifth Avenue.
“See?” said Enibe. “It says there’ll be two deaths on this block, which is…” he tapped on the screen…“About four minutes from now.”
Sam gulped, as Sam heard his supposed time of death.
“So… that’s supposed to mean…”
“You, yes,” he said and grinned again.
“But it says two deaths,” Sam said. “Unless you’re jumping down with me—.”
“Lol,” he said and shrugged. “The second victim should come around shortly, the app never lies.”
Sam gulped.
“So you work for the angel of Death. I thought he was the one going around reaping souls with his scythe.”
Enibe laughed.
“That’s old school. The angel of Death is with Jesus and he can’t be everywhere at once.” He said. “That’s why we, the Reapers, have to deliver the souls up there by the Egress.”
Sam just felt so stupid, but he’d never learned anything so interesting in his life, but Sam concluded that Egress was just another word for Exit so he didn’t ask about it.
“So even if I jump now, I’m not going to die until a four minutes later?”
“Three and twenty seconds and yes, you’ll just lie in a pool of your own blood, unable to scream from a crushed throat, and generally experience excruciating pain, until you eventually snuff it. I thought you deserved a heads up, and I had some free time, so here I am,” he said.
Suddenly Sam’s mind surged with thousands of questions. He opened his mouth to ask him more, especially about what the afterlife was like.
But Sam didn’t.
A part of his mind told him some things were left best unanswered.
“Mh-hmm,” Enibe said, with his face buried in the screen.
Suddenly, Enibe looked up and said, “Did you know I reaped a couple of souls around this time two years ago?”
Sam stared at him, not prepared to answer, but apparently, the question was rhetorical.
“A pair of drunk Devil’s Angels bikers rammed into a married couple down there.” He pointed at a spot near the corner of the street. “Hit and run. Rammed them straight against a park car. I saw a Reaper, too, like you. I saw him reap their breaths. A happily married couple, too.”
Enibe seemed to be deep in thought.
Enibe continued: “The bikers escaped were never seen again…..they were my parents.”
Enibe sighed.
“Two minutes to go, by the way,” Enibe said, as he glanced at his cell phone. He got off the ledge and stretched.
“Aren’t you going to ask me anything?” Enibe said, as he kicked his legs around.
“Well… Do you usually appear before people like this?”
“Like a boy, you mean? Yup, that’s how I died.”
“Do you often warn people they’re going to die?”
Enibe – the Reaper – raised an eyebrow. He looked up and considered it deeply in thought.
“This is his first time. Funny isn’t it?”
“Why did you do it for me?”
Sam expected him to look him in the eye and tell him how he would be the key piece in an event that would change history of the world as we knew it.
Instead, he shrugged and said, “You’re a bonus. Plus, this hood is crawling with Reapers.”
Sam clasped his hands through his hair and looked at Enibe. He smiled a creepy smile, his face hungrily bored into Sam like a junkie waiting to cash in a winning lottery ticket. Sam sighed again. His life had been one big joke, and now it looked like his death would be the same.
“Okay, one final question, just curious,” Sam said.
“Jump. One minute left,”
Enibe smiled.
“What happens if I don’t jump? Does it mean I cheat death?”
Enibe stopped smiling. The air froze and Sam shivered.
Drops of sweat trickled down his back as he fixed his eyes on mine.
“Oh no, you never cheat death. Death is cold, calculated, final and not up for discussion. Death will send for you when you least expect it, you’re done. If you’ve got an appointment with Death, you keep it, or else…”
Enibe frowned and sounded angry, his words cut through the air like a knife.
Sam’s heart beat more wildly every second that passed.
Sam swallowed and looked up at the night stars. They were beautiful. He took a breath and prepared to run as fast as he could. A bell alarm blasted from his cell phone.
Sam waited.
“Why am I still here?” Sam asked.
“Because you didn’t jump.”
“But times up.”
“That doesn’t apply to suicides. You have to actually kill yourself in order for your notification to come through, for us to collect. I just hoped you did.”
A loud scream filled the air and then it was abruptly cut off.
Sam stopped and hung his head over the ledge, to see where the scream came from. In the dim light of the streetlight, Sam could barely make out some people against the side of a curb.
Enibe tucked his phone back into his pockets and watched with a relieved expression on his face. Sam moved a little closer, and the full sight of what happened hit him like a short circuit.
Two men were stabbed to death near the corner grocery store.
“Sweet justice!” said Enibe. “Peace, I’m out.”
And just like that Enibe disappeared.
After a quiet moment, Sam saw Enibe shoot up into a tiny wormhole in the sky that swallowed him.
Sam didn’t know what to say or what to do. Sam just stood there confused. All that seemed clear was that Sam tried to die once, and it didn’t quite work out for him.
Now, Sam was ready to live.
Sam’s cell phone appeared again in his front pocket. He pulled it out to stare into its boring wallpapers and useless icons for no good reason. Sam had no social media, no contacts that gave him an occasional hey how are you doing? Nothing. That’s when Sam realized what he really wanted to do.
Sam wanted to be a Reaper and the first soul on his mind was the fucker who stole Amber.
“What if he made me his reaper’s helper?” Sam said to himself. “ I’ll get him souls, by letting him know when I’m going to kill them so he can take the soul and I get what I want in return?”
Sam wanted nothing more than for his ex girlfriend to love him again.”
A memory of Sam kissing Amber melted his heart and a tear fell over his eyelids.
I’ll just kill them as quickly as I can, Sam thought.
“Wait,” Sam called out in the open air, presumably speaking to Enibe who wasn’t really there. “What do you get for reaping souls anyway?”
But Enibe’s voice entered his mind and said, “I get sweet memories. Hell is a torturous prison, a Prison for your mind. But remember, what you ask for will cost you something. I don’t’ know what it will be, but don’t worry. Just dial 119 on your cell. I’ll answer.”
Sam was left with a deep sense of hope and felt ready to deliver the first next soul.
***The End of Reapers***
Thank for you reading Reapers. Your reviews are welcome.
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