The planet Earth hung in the void of space, a blue jewel shining against that blank backdrop.
Half-cloaked in its shadow, Death inhaled deeply, drinking in the radiance of this celestial sphere. Somewhere on its surface, a life had just faded. And so he fed.
At the same time, the gnawing pangs of hunger grew within him in frustrating increments like a cancer. The Earth had been caught in a snare called living beings, and it was slowly choking on it. He understood how that felt.
But Death was patient. He existed outside the circle of life that girdled this planet. Being so far removed from the living, he did not have to concern himself with the worries and frustrations that beset them every waking moment. He knew his place and was comfortable in it. Every living thing must walk the road to oblivion. It was then that he would feed. However long it might take, the Earth would eventually be stripped of life. Only then would the craving that beset him at every moment cease.
The fell spirit nodded in satisfaction. Yes, he could taste his inevitable success. The mortals might stave off their extinction with every new birth, but eventually, they must succumb. It was only a matter of waiting them out.
And unlike them, he had nothing but time.
Time passes…
And Death…
… is growing impatient.
The rat scampered towards a small bit of bread and cheese left on a rock. It sniffed the repast, instinctively mindful of the little girl in peasant blouse and dress crouched a few feet away watching it. A breeze stirred the lush grass of this tranquil meadow on the rolling slopes of Eastern Europe.
At last the rodent decided to take the risk. It lunged forward and began hungrily scarfing down its food. The girl smiled in delight. While intent on its meal, she stretched out a hand hesitantly towards the rat, hoping to pet it, only to hesitate.
Looming over them both, Death focused on their interaction with a desperate mania.
"Go on," he muttered, fleshless fingers agitatedly drumming against the handle of his scythe. "Go on! Play with the nice rat! Not like it's carrying the Bubonic plague that can wipe out half your stinking squalling species from the whole continent again!"
As he said this, a terrible groan came from his stomach, like the tortured moan of a ghost trapped in its tomb. Death ignored this sign of starvation as he urged the potentially lethal interaction on. Millions of years and thousands of generations later, and he was no closer to his goal than when he began. In fact, his hunger had only gotten worse! How did these things manage to breed so much when virtually everything on this planet could kill them?! They were worse than rats! No matter how many of them died, at the end of the day, his starvation still knew no bounds. They just kept coming! It was maddening!
"Come on! Come on! Give me something to eat!"
Those small fingers stretched out tentatively. The rat took notice and quickly turned its head, whiskers twitching, nose sniffing. The girl froze in place. Neither of them moved. Death held his figurative breath…
"Carrie!"
In a flash the rat was gone, vanishing into tall grass.
"No!" the Grim Reaper snarled in frustration.
He whirled around. Atop a hill, a woman stood before a small Gypsy caravan waving her arm. "Time to go!" she called to her daughter.
The little girl bounced up and went scampering off. Death watched her departure with irritation. So blasted close…!
A few paces away, however, the kid suddenly turned, tugged one eyelid down, and stuck her tongue out at him. "Naah!"
Death's jaw dropped. "You little…!"
He mastered himself quickly. A being of his carriage should not reduce to engaging in vulgarities. In that time, the young Romany returned to her troupe and the caravan set off.
Alone in the meadow, Death looked around to make sure he was alone. Then he said…
"… shit."
"Be not aggrieved, my children," the dying old man coughed in his deathbed. "Soon, I shall be at peace."
Standing clustered around the sickroom, the family wept and tore their hair in grief. Meanwhile, unnoticed among them, the Reaper tapped a foot impatiently. A wooden clock ticked away on the wall, serving only to emphasize his agitation. "Hurry it up, will you?" he urged the invalid on. "You've got one foot in the grave already, stop dancing around and take the plunge! Not like you're the only person dying in this flea-pit."
Despite this very reasonable statement, the old boy insisted on drawing out his last breath to a maddening degree. Like a failed actor putting on one final performance. "Heaven awaits, and I go there with open arms, and only a few regrets. Which I shall now list, in alphabetical order…"
Death threw up his arms in agitation and did a little half-turn. "Oh, give me a break!" The family sobbed loudly around him. The clock ticked away, tick-tick-tick.
"… which brings me to my favorite Bible verse: 'The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height…"
Tick-tick-tick…
Death strode over to glower down at him. "In the time it is taking you to die, a village in Mongolia literally doubled in population! Pick up the pace!"
"I am reminded of a poem," the old man mused philosophically. "It goes, 'Death is before me today'…"
"Will you just DIE ALREADY?!"
Tick-tick-tick…
"Oops!"
Everyone turned, as a plump woman bent down and came up smiling. "I just had a baby!"
Death jerked upright. "WHAT?!"
Sure enough, she held a crying newborn in her arms. Even as it began to wail, another woman gave a little, "Oh!" of surprise and came up holding another shiny babe. "I had a baby too!" she exclaimed.
"WHAT?!"
Tick-tick-tick…
"Oh dear!" the first new mother exclaimed. "I just popped out two more!"
"WHAT THE…?!"
"Oh, what a joy!" The dying geezer leapt up in bed and began to dance a little jig. "To be a grandfather four times over in one day! Why, I feel so good, I might live another thirty years!"
"THIRTY YEARS?!" Death screeched.
With joyous exclamations, the mob of humans and their seemingly ever-increasing brood went traipsing out the door, shouting well-wishes and exclaiming over the miracle of birth and all that.
Behind them, Death stood unmoving in the center of the room. The clock on the wall ticked away. Tick-tick-tick…
With every tick…
Tick… tick…
… the camera zoomed in a little closer on Death's empty eye socket.
Tick…
A little closer…
… tick…
"God…
… tick…
"… DAMMIT!"
Screaming uncontrollably, the Grim Reaper started smashing up the room. Tearing down curtains, breaking crockery, ripping out the mattress' straw stuffing; he tore the goose-down pillow apart. He yanked the clock from the wall and flung it out the window. He broke the wooden bedframe into firewood. And the whole time, the air was blistered with vilest curses.
"… CRAP MOTHER ASS-CLOWN HORSETAIL ANTEDILUVIAN CODPIECE GERRYMANDERING BACKWARDS SUNNUVABITCH!"
At last the room lay in shambles. Breathing heavily, fists clenched, Death looked wildly around for something left to destroy.
When nothing presented itself, he strode down the stairs and out of the house, snatching up a wine bottle as he did and taking a huge belt out of it.
Time to get serious…
Count Vlad Dracula Tepes sat in his study reading by candlelight, when a hand gripped his shoulder and spun him around, chair and all.
"Vlad!" the grinning specter before him hiccupped. "VLAD, m'boy! Waddaya say… you and me… we kill ALL the humans!"
"Death?" Dracula blinked, brow knitting in a frown. "Are you drunk?"
"No!"
They stared at each other for a while. Then at the same time, both looked down to Death's free hand, which was clutching an empty wine bottle.
The Grim Reaper swiftly hid the offending article behind his back, adopting a more conciliatory tone. "Listen, I've got it all planned out. What we do is… we build a huge pile of bread to lure them in! No, seriously, these people just love bread! I've seen them murder for a hunk of the stuff, it's absolutely mind-boggling. So anyway…"
"Come on, Death." The Lord of Vampires stood and took his inebriated friend by the arm. "Let's fix you up a place to sleep it off."
Death took little notice of this as he allowed himself to be led from the room. "We build the pile, and then, once they've all gone for it, we drop a mountain on them! BOOM!" He clapped his hands together, then brightened as a thought occurred to him. "Hey, what if we make the mountain out of bread too? That'd really stick it to the little buggers, wouldn't it? Bit of irony, give 'em a taste of their own medicine, always eating the stuff and that's what kills 'em. Pretty good, eh?"
Ten minutes later, Dracula and his wife Lisa stood in the doorframe of a previously unoccupied room where Death now lay spread out on a bed snoring.
"I don't like this," the fair-haired healer rubbed her arms as though to dispel a chill.
"Now, darling, don't be that way," her husband cajoled in defense of his friend. "He's really not all bad. We had some great times in the past! There was this one episode where we massacred an entire valley's worth of…"
When she shot him a disapproving look he immediately recognized his mistake. "Lisa, the thing is, I don't think he really has any other friends besides me! And this is only temporary. Just until he can get back on his feet! Trust me," the Prince of Darkness smiled winningly. "You won't even know he's here."
Reaching up to get a book off a shelf, Lisa turned and gave a small yelp upon finding Death standing behind her.
"How are you feeling?" he asked with a leer.
"Ahhh…" She clutched the tome to her chest and finally said warily, "Fine?"
"Not feverish?" He leaned closer. "Maybe a slight cough? Touch of the old dropsy, perhaps?"
"No." Wearing a scowl, she brushed past him.
"You'll let me know if you start to feel ill, right?" he called after her.
The door slammed behind her. Sniffing, Death popped the lid from a decanter and went stumbling off.
"Mother?"
Lisa looked up from the Persian medical treatise she was perusing and smiled. Before her, little Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes regarded his parent with solemn eyes for such a young face. He was growing up fast, almost alarmingly so. But the sweet little boy she had loved since birth still remained.
Turning in her seat, she stroked his hair with affection. "What is it, my heart?"
Those white-gold locks tilted to one side. "What does 'blue-balled' mean?"
Two minutes later, Dracula blinked as the book he was reading got slammed shut on the table. He looked up to find a very furious Lisa glaring down.
"I want that bony creep out of this house NOW!" she shouted.
Hurriedly he sought to divine the cause of this altercation. "But darling…!"
"Vlad?" Her eyes narrowed, and immediately he stopped talking. "Unless you want to sleep in an empty coffin for the foreseeable future, you will get it done!"
The vampire king had no intention of telling his wife how sexy she looked when she got really angry. So instead he just nodded mutely. With that Lisa turned and swept out of the room.
Heaving a sigh, he rose and got down to business.
"Death?"
The living skeleton gracelessly sprawled on a divan in what for a living creature would have been a very uncomfortable position. An empty wine carafe dangled from his grip.
Standing over him, the towering black-robed vampire tried again. "Death."
A snort, followed by a twitch, and nothing more.
"Death!"
The Reaper shot up. "WADDISIT?!"
He then leaned over the back of the sofa and proceeded to vomit. Nothing actually came out, but the carpet underfoot dissolved all the same, and the marble floor beneath it started to blacken and smoke.
Dracula took a seat beside him. "Death, we need to talk."
"Go ahead. I'm listening." Death righted himself and proceeded to guzzle from the bottle, which appeared to be empty already. Maybe he was actually drunk off the absence of wine? Was an empty bottle considered dead?
Brushing away these abstract thoughts, the lord of the undead got down to business. "I was just thinking, perhaps it was time you… looked into making other living arrangements?"
"'Living' arrangements? That's a good one, Vlad! Especially from you!" Death gave him a slap on the shoulder and laughed. He held out the flask. "Want a drink?"
"No." Dracula looked away for a moment, then back again. "You see, the thing is, I want you to stay here, really, but, well… it's not just my house anymore! There's my son to think of, and Lisa has her work, and… you know." He then gave the ageless immortal a pat on the knee. "So what do you say?"
For a moment Death only stared at him.
"Oh. I see how it is."
The Reaper stood up unsteadily. "Yeah, I get it. It's always the same! Everybody's like, 'Oh, if only jolly ol' Death would show up and help my rich Uncle Dicky sod off so that I can claim my inheritance,' then I'm the most popular bloke in the room! But as soon as the old sodder's in the ground, they're all, 'Who, Death? Never heard of the bloke! Now beat it, I'm counting my fortune!' I tell you, you're all the same!"
"Now, Death, don't be like that!" Dracula spread his hands helplessly. "It's out of my hands, really!"
"Oh, save it!" The spectral entity strode off a few paces and whirled around with a haughty air. "For your information, I was just planning to leave anyway! Yeah, that's right! You're not the only game in town, you know. I've got plenty of friends who'd be glad to put me up for a night! Death might not be a popular topic of conversation, but everyone's always happy to see…"
There came a brief realtering of form, and now in his place there stood a stringy-haired vampire dressed in greasy rags. "Varney of London!"
For his part the Count just stared at his friend sadly. He really didn't have the heart to try and explain to Death that this alter-ego might not be quite as beloved as he believed.
Still swept up in blind vanity, the newly minted vampire hobo gave a supercilious sniff and turned his back on him. "You have fun playing house with the missus, then. I'm off to find some real fun! And in case you missed the subtext, you're not invited! So thanks for nothing, Vlad Tepes!"
He took one last pull on the bottle and flung it to shatter against a wall. "Look out, world! Here comes Varney!" And with that he strode from the room.
A few seconds later, there came a loud crash followed by cursing.
"Who put this bloody settee in the middle of the hall, eh? Who was it!"
More salty grumbling diminished in the distance. Heaving a sigh, Dracula stood up. Rubbing his clawed hands together eagerly, he set off with a spring in his step. It was time to reap the fruits of his efforts.
"Lisa, darling? He's gone! It took some doing, but that'll teach him to call my wife a shrewish bitch!"
"HE SAID WHAT?!"
"Oh, dear, did that slip out?"
Yes, indeed. Nothing quite like angry sex!
Golden lamplight and gales of laughter emerged from a two-story tavern devoted exclusively to creatures of the night. Before the entrance to this rollicking edifice, Varney the Vampire stood ready to make his debut. Such vibrant frivolity usually made Death's undead flesh crawl. But now ensconced in his friendlier avatar, he was determined to show that backstabbing count how it was done!
Taking a deep breath, he flung the doors wide and came striding in. "Hey, everybody! It's VARNEY TIME!"
The sounds of merrymaking immediately ceased. Every head turned. If a scabrous beggar afflicted with leprosy and incontinent to boot had come slouching through the door, they could not have looked any less pleased to see him.
Standing with arms outspread, Varney wore an anxious smile while glancing around somewhat nervously. When no one made a move to greet him, he gave an uncomfortable cough, adjusted his travel-stained overcoat, and headed over to the bar.
He flopped down on a stool. Right away the people to either side of him stood up and left. Ignoring this, he signaled the bartender. "Oi, innkeep! Gimme a flagon of your best!"
The burly fellow complied by filling a pewter tankard. He brought it over and stood before Varney. Without making any effort to hide it, the innkeeper hocked loudly and spat straight into the brew. He then proceeded to upend the contents over Varney's head before walking off.
Dripping wet, Varney picked up his tankard and swiveled around to survey the room. Now, where to begin…?
"VARNEY! Of LON-DON! Scourge of Belfast? Surely you've heard of me!"
The young woman seated at the table flicked him a chillingly cold glance. If a syphilitic flatulent nobleman suffering from generations of horrific inbreeding had approached her, she could not have looked less interested. She ran a hand through long raven-black tresses before going back to reading her copy of So You've Joined a Cult.
Undeterred, Varney slouched in his chair tapping a restless finger on the tabletop. He leaned closer to get a peek at the tome's title. "Magic, eh?" The bloodsucker fixed her with a sly smile. "How'd you like to learn some real sorcery?" His voice dropped to a husky rumble. "Like, death magic!"
In response the girl closed her book with a snap. She then signed to a waiter, who immediately brought her a bottle of brandy. Popping the cork, she calmly tore a strip of fabric off her dress, soaked it in brandy, slid it into the bottle's neck, and used a candle to light it on fire.
Holding this old-fashioned Molotov cocktail, the pale beauty turned and looked at Varney with an unreadable expression. The fire flickering in her dead black eyes, however, spelled out a very serious threat.
Varney stared at the improvised incendiary device, then back at her emotionless face. "You wouldn't dare!" he snarled.
A werewolf, a minotaur, and a dullahan were about to walk into a bar, when suddenly the doors burst open and Varney came staggering out engulfed in flames. He fled flailing past them and disappeared down the street. They watched him go.
The werewolf sniffed. "He actually smells worse when he's on fire."
His companions voiced their agreement, and they all went inside.
Two vampires sat drinking in a tavern, when one of them turned to the fellow next to him and said, "You ever think we're too hard on Varney?"
"No," his companion responded instantly.
When the other bloodsucker continued to regard him, though, he heaved a sigh and said, "Look, it's like Original Sin, see? Humans don't have to actually do anything evil to warrant being sent to Hell, right? Original Sin means they're damned from birth. You with me so far?"
"Yeah?" The first vampire gave an uncertain nod.
"Well, it's the same with hating Varney. He doesn't need to do anything to you personally. We're all just born hating him! Like Original Sin, man. No need to question it." He then took a hearty quaff of wine mixed with blood.
His partner still seemed uncertain. "Okay, but…"
The vampire philosopher heaved a sigh. "Here, maybe this'll help." As he spoke, a little blonde girl wearing a green dress who had been kidnapped to serve as a waitress timidly approached their table in search of any empty glasses. Before she could, he addressed her casually. "You there, girl."
The kid froze and stared at the undead monsters with fearful eyes.
"What do you think of Varney?"
A look of confusion passed over her pale face.
"Varney of London," he clarified.
Immediately she spat upon the ground. "Bugger that filthy cocksucker, I hope he dies choking on a bag of garlic while being flogged with a Vampire Slayer whip and a donkey's cock in both eye sockets!" And she spit vehemently again for good measure.
"Run along, now."
The tiny waitress proceeded to do so. Meanwhile the vampire turned to his friend. "See?" He then looked across the table. "Right?"
Sitting across from them, Varney glowered while clutching his tankard. If a mongrel zombie dog vomited into a beer glass and blew its nose to make the foam, you–
"Alright, I get it!" Varney snapped. He then stood up, drained his cup, wiped the back of a hand over his mouth and said, "You can go straight to hell, Lestat."
Both vampires threw their drinks in his face and gave him the finger. For his part, Varney turned and marched off, pelted by food and ducking flung bottles.
"I don't get it," Death muttered.
The incarnation of mortality sat on the banks of the River Styx petting Cerberus the guard-dog. One of the mighty beast's heads was enjoying getting scratched behind the ears, while another kept relentless watch on the souls of the dead both coming and going, and the third occupied itself busily gnawing on Death's shinbone. He didn't seem to mind.
"The deck's stacked in my favor," Death continued to speculate to his canine audience while taking periodic sips from a wine flask. "They die like it's nothing! There hasn't been a single goddamn second in history when a hundred people weren't being stabbed, choked, bludgeoned, drowned, eaten, burned at the stake, or literally shitting their guts out! By all rights, their whole damn species should be dead ten times over by now! But they're not!" He threw up his arms in a gesture of total disbelief. "Somehow, they just keep making more of each other!"
When Cerberus nuzzled his free head against Death's knee, he resumed scratching the monster's scalp, and Hell's watchdog submitted to this happily while he continued to rail.
"It's like there's this huge appetizing banquet spread out before me! Only I can't eat all of it at once. Oh, no, I've got to just nibble at it! A nibble here, and a nibble there, maybe a mouthful every few decades when there's a huge war or an earthquake. But it never gets me anywhere! The banquet just keeps getting bigger! I might as well be chopping down a forest with a toenail clipper, or wearing down a mountain with a nail file, or cobbling a whole hill of shoes with just my hands! And I'm so bloody hungry all the time!"
Cerberus just gave a snort while continuing to masticate the spectral being's legbone.
"So here's what I've decided, Cerbs," Death swore darkly, glaring at the pitiful trickle of dead souls waiting patiently to enter the underworld. "I'm not going to be chewing my own bitter gall for however long it takes the damn sun to explode. Not this function of the world! Spit in God's eye, I say! I'm going to find some way to get a truly fulfilling meal! By the time I'm done, I will be standing atop a literal mountain of corpses! And there is not a single creature on Earth, whether angel, vampire or man, who can stop me!"
Death stood up afire with resolve, and promptly fell over. He then spent the next half hour chasing Cerberus around trying to get his leg back, only to finally give up and go storming off.
"Who needs legs anyway? Not me!"
"Just remember! Treyfor… is a terrible name!"
Trevor Belmont had never felt so exhausted in his life when he turned to face the empowered specter of Death incarnate alone. Yet he had also never been so sure of anything. This was the purpose he had been trained for since childhood; to do battle with forces and entities no ordinary man could hope to defeat. And as he marched toward that towering monstrosity, the heir of House Belmont did so knowing he had found his place in the world. It was time to fight the good fight once again.
"Oi!" he growled, voice thick with pain and rage. "Death! I want a word with you!"
"Could you keep your fucking voice down, please?!"
Trevor paused. Before him, the gigantic immortal hovered in midair clutching a tremendous scythe topped with human skulls. But its other hand was pressed against its hollow brow. It made no move against him.
"I was barely speaking above a grumble," the vampire-hunter retorted with a frown.
To this Death only gave a mighty groan. For the life of him, it almost looked like the thing was…
"Wait a damn minute." Trevor's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Are you sodding drunk?!"
Death dropped his hand. "No!" Immediately he flinched and clapped a skeletal claw back over his face. "Why is it so goddamn bright out? It's the middle of the bloody night!"
Trevor, however, wasn't buying any of that. "Oh, don't you try to pull that shit on me! I'm Trevor Belmont of House Belmont! If there's one thing I know for sure, it's when someone's suffering from a screaming hangover!"
"Just give me a minute to pull myself together and I'll feast on you like I did your pox-ridden parents, Belmont!" Death snapped irritably.
Watching him hanging there cursing and groaning, an absolutely wicked thought came to mind. "Oh, I'm sorry," Trevor crooned in mock sympathy. "I didn't mean to be so… LOUD!"
Death's head snapped to one side. "Quiet, you sodding little…!"
"Not feeling well? Here, let me SING you a SONG!"
"Stop it!" the Reaper hissed while pinching the bridge of his absent nose. "Just stop…!"
"ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT, GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM…!"
Every tone-deaf word felt like a flaming whip striking into the very core of Death's throbbing cranium, and he writhed in unbearable agony.
"… MERRILY, MERRILY, MERRILY, MERRILY, LIFE IS BUT A DREAM!"
Death reared up hoisting his scythe in both hands, burning with absolute eons of hungry rage. "YOU MISERABLE LITTLE…!"
He then froze. Standing on the floating platform, Trevor Belmont now held the handle of an iron cooking pot he had produced from somewhere. In his other hand he hoisted on high a simple wooden spoon. And on his face was a smile of pure mean-spirited relish.
No other weapon in existence, whether dagger, axe, or antique pocket-watch, could have instilled such horror in Death as the sight of that common cooking implement. His empty sockets locked with those of Belmont, and he spoke in a chilling whisper, "You… wouldn't… dare!"
Trevor waggled his eyebrows playfully. And with that he began to beat upon the base of the metal drum with all his strength.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
"AAAAARRRRRGGHHHHH!"
The barrage of noise pierced his skull, and Death simply exploded.
Scraps of grave shroud and bits of smoking bone pattered around him. Trevor looked about and gave a satisfied sniff.
"Well, that's alright, then." And he went off to get absolutely roaring drunk.
FIN.