Damn if You Do…by R.S. Nelson

Damn if You Do…

by R.S. Nelson

 

Grim Reaper # 17,000 (GR for his friends) hears the ping on his phone and pauses his video game. The photo and instructions for his next assignment are shown on his screen. He can almost read ‘Don’t screw this one up,’ between the lines. He removes his black sweatshirt and drops it on the floor, feeling the autumn’s chill in his bones. He slips into his ironed black cloak and looks at himself in the mirror. Scythe, check. Cloak, check. Drip look, check. He adjusts the cloak’s hoodie over his shiny skull and gives himself a toothless smile before leaving.

The sun is about to set when GR gets behind the steering wheel, turns on the ignition, and Googles the directions. “Crap,” he says when he realizes the long drive ahead, surely part of the punishment his boss, Death, has been planning for him ever since he fucked up the last assignment. “Break one more rule and you’re out,” Death warned him.

The blasting music distracts him from his thoughts.

The road ahead looks unusually empty for a Friday night and GR—sure he will be on time—takes the highway while singing the song’s lyrics. 

He’s not even five minutes on his way when the light on the car’s dashboard blinks, showing an empty gas tank. Shit. Not tonight.

He should keep driving but he’s still far from his destination. If only Death weren’t so petty, he thinks. It wasn’t enough that his boss placed him on an improvement plan, or that he had to report to HR and watch a video titled “How to be an Efficient Employee,” where a cheery Grim Reaper explained the rules the employees had to follow, #1 being “Always bring your scythe to work.”

Death didn’t care that GR accidentally forgot his scythe. Or that he took care of the situation by driving to his apartment to retrieve his tool, after promising the guy whose soul he was supposed to collect, that he would be right back.

“It’s not my fault,” GR told Death. “I was going to fix it if you hadn’t sent the crew to clean up before I could.”

Death left, mumbling something about ‘Damn Gen Z’s.’ After that, GR wanted to quit daily, but the pay and the benefits convinced him otherwise.

GR tracks the nearest gas station on his phone and sighs, relieved, when he finds one a few exits ahead. When he arrives at the station’s office, he’s prepared for the clerk’s terrified reaction; but the dark-skinned man has already seen worse in his twenty-something years of life. He nods at the Reaper from behind the glass window, grabs the cash, and continues browsing Tinder on his phone. 

While GR is filling the gas tank, two cars arrive. A red Tesla, and a black Mercedes. The Tesla driver, an older woman wearing yoga clothes, pumps the gas without looking in GR’s direction. The driver from the Mercedes—a tall, handsome man wearing a fancy suit—opens his door and walks toward the office. 

The tall guy hasn’t returned to his car when GR turns on his ignition, so he has to go around the Mercedes. When he drives by the passenger’s side, the window slowly rolls down and GR is face to face with a long-haired, olive-skinned woman. Her gold dangling earrings shake with the wind, like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Her eyes, contoured with black eyeliner and mascara, accentuate her deep green eyes, making them stand out like a lighthouse in the ocean. 

Dazed by her, GR doesn’t notice the tall guy coming out of the office, holding a bathroom key. When he finally sees him, GR presses hard on the brakes, the tall man’s hands already imprinted on the car’s hood. 

The Reaper has seen fear in the faces of the souls he collects, but none like this guy’s. After his eyes pop up cartoonishly, he drops the bathroom key, runs to his car, and leaves skid marks on the ground in his haste to leave the station.

He’s gonna pee his pants, thinks GR, shaking his head. 

GR drives slowly away, remembering that whenever any Reaper meets his assignment in any other place than the ‘Designated Place of Death,’ protocol dictates that he or she must notify their boss. GR grabs the phone, ready to call, but then stops. How can he explain that he stopped at the gas station—and crossed paths with tonight’s assignment—because he forgot to fill out his gas tank sooner? After all, ‘Go directly to your assignment’ is Rule #2 for a reason.

“SHIT.” GR hits the steering wheel with his fist. He vaguely remembers the other rules. ‘Always arrive on time,’ and ‘No talking to anyone during an assignment.’

He thinks about his previous job. The one that went wrong. He didn’t tell his boss that the man, lying down on the ground after being half-eaten by the mountain lion—his guts spread on the dirt—had stretched his hand toward him, his eyes begging GR to release him from his anguish. GR told him he would return soon, fully aware that the man would stay in agony—not alive but not quite dead either—until his return. But there was nothing that GR could do. Not without his scythe. He also failed to mention that he ran to his car filled with embarrassment, or that he dropped the keys on the ground a few times before he could finally drive away, and that he then imagined what would happen if he didn’t return, and kept driving forever and ever instead. 

Now he thinks that maybe he should confess and ask for forgiveness, but he knows damn well that Death doesn’t forgive anyone, so instead he presses hard on the accelerator. 

When he arrives at the address—tires screeching against the pavement—he parks across the street, turns off the ignition, and looks at the tidy house across from him. 

The black Mercedes is already parked in the driveway, and the couple is in the living room, fully in sight thanks to the bay windows. The man’s suit and well-trimmed hair are now in disarray. His eyes are red and bulging as if he’s going to have a heart attack. The beautiful woman stretches her olive arms to him, rubbing his back, trying to make him sit. 

GR averts his eyes, suddenly wishing he had driven away.

The woman offers the tall man a glass of water. The man—whose features don’t look handsome anymore—, pushes the woman away from him, and she, trying to keep the water from spilling, loses her balance and falls backward, hitting her head on the edge of the marble table. 

A puddle quickly forms on the white rug, around her head, framing her long, dark hair with a reddish halo. 

The tall man tries in vain to get her up, while GR slowly walks out of the car and into the house. He stops in front of the woman’s body and sighs. Her beautiful green eyes are open, and a tear rolls down her left cheek. 

GR wants to leave, run out the door, push the accelerator in his car, and text his boss saying, ‘I quit.’  

But the woman stares at him and he knows he won’t. 

GR sighs and steadies his hands. Then, he gently pushes the tall guy away, wields his scythe, and lets it go down swiftly. The beautiful woman’s chest opens up and her soul flies away in a cloud of light, ready to move on to wherever beautiful souls go. 

GR stares until the light is gone. He then bends down and closes the empty eyes. The tall guy sits on the floor next to her body, pulling his hair; his mind slowly slipping into madness. 

“I’m sorry,” GR tells him, fully aware that he’s breaking one more rule. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just surprised to see her at the gas station when I knew I would have to meet her here.”

Grim Reaper #17,000 leaves the house, walks to his car, and turns on the ignition. The music blasts away while GR thinks about his job, wondering how much they’re paying at fast food restaurants nowadays.

R. S. Nelson (she/her) is a Hispanic writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Spillwords, Afterimages, and Flash Fiction Magazine, among others. When she’s not juggling her many hats as a working mother, she is literally learning how to juggle.