Disclaimer: "Dead Like Me" and all related subjects, places, characters and names are copyrighted by MGM. I do not own Dead Like Me or anything related to it. All the Characters used in this are fiction, any and all similarities with reality is a pure coincidence. Also if you want to use any characters in your own story/stories please tell me before you publish the story.
Dead Like Me: The Days After Life
"C'est la Mort… Such is Death"
Damn him! I hate him! Damn him, let him die and rot in hell. Ok that is not going to happen, we all know that. But at least let him feel the same hurt as he did on to me. Why the hell would somebody crush you like that? First shove a note with a dead man on it in my hands and then come to my place, my own apartment, and tell me it's not meant to be. And he doesn't even believe in that destiny bull crap.
I don't believe in it either, not anymore, not after what happened 4 months ago, or perhaps it was three. Young and dumb, no idea what life should've been. Taking the leap of faith is what the reapers now mockingly call it. It has been like this all my life, always doing rash things and trying to stay away from the things that might hurt me, be it immediately or in the long run.
Damn him! I wished he had turned around, it was only three steps to the door but that was enough to turn around and say sorry, perhaps I should've called him back, shout out his name, make him stay and persuade him that there was nothing wrong with trying.
But he left closed the door behind him and down the stairs. I'm Faith, yes, and heartbroken, very heartbroken. And I know I should've stopped him, I should've told him. To proud, to darn proud. Frank shouldn't have left me and I shouldn't have let him go.
Slowly I walked to my bed and let myself crash onto my pillow, all the cries I had held up all this time, and not only the last five minutes, the last weeks, months. The pain and horror I witnessed in my life as a reaper it all just busted out, as if the dam that held it all back suddenly broke, and the water came crashing down. Nothing could stop all this pain coming out. I cried so hard my eyes were hurting, burning.
My conscious slipped away as I sunk into a sleep, water still running from my eyes, unstoppable as the pain of Frank was supported by everything I suppressed during the last four months. I felt the bed fall from under me and was lifted in a numb and timeless black hole. They called it sleep, but I never found rest, even in my sleep I suppressed the doom and gloom that surrounded me. Even in my sleep I had the feeling I had to keep up the smile and have the "I think I feel good and thus I feel good" philosophy, but it got harder by the day.
The pillow I had rested my head on this night was cold, the tears had become real cold, like morning dew would. My face was freezing, as were my arms and calves, which were uncovered in my three quarter pants and t-shirt. I sighed deeply but didn't bother to get up yet. Spreading my arms to the edges of my bed stretching my muscles, I sighed again and decided that it was time to go back to that bar, back to that shitty job. And off course back to Frank, I really had to tell him how I felt, I needed to tell him we should try. I wanted him in my life, well afterlife.
I shook off my sleep as I walked down the wooden stairs and into the clear outside, it was quite chilly and the skies were crystal clear and bright blue. All I could hope is that it would become a bit warmer when the sun came up, I didn't at all like winter, it was cold and wet, I didn't like the winter at all.
Luckily for me the bar we always hung out in was warmed by the central heating, it made a bit less cranky and I was able to put up a smile on my face, a genuine warm smile, at least that's what all the other reapers were supposed to think. They probably didn't know what happened between me and Frank and I wasn't going to be the one telling them, it was none of their business.
I was there fifteen minutes early, I hoped Frank would have one of his 'first-one-in' days, unfortunately there was nobody there yet. "this is my luck" I whispered to myself, just one day I needed Frank to be in early and he was probably going to be late.
The doors opened again when I was barely seated, I looked over my shoulder and as soon as I saw who it was I didn't know how to feel, happy or angry "Hey" I said casually. Frank sat down on the stool next to me before he replied with an equally casual "hey Faith". An uncomfortable silence followed, for almost four minutes nothing was said.
The silence was broken by the violent opening of the bar doors, Alex must be in one hell of a foul mood. He didn't even bother to say anything to us, he just ordered a black coffee and rested his head in his hands awaiting his order. Neither me nor Frank dared to ask what was wrong, I didn't want to hear the bad news. Alex was probably in foul mood over something that just happened or something that was about to happen and I had a gut feeling it was the latter, that could only mean one thing, Death En Masse.
"One reap each today, before five that is, then you go home and get some rest. After that you get into some warm clothes and back here before nine" Alex said after he took a first sip from his coffee. As I feared, deaths that went into the double digits and is was going to happen tonight.
I heard a dull bang on the bar, to my left, when I looked I saw Frank face down on the bar. I heard him mutter something along the lines of "damn this" it was a bit longer but I couldn't fully make that out. Just when I wanted to reassure him a bit by placing my hand on his shoulder the doors opened and two loud talking girls walked in and I quickly pulled back my hand.
"Hey everybody" M.J. said seeming rather jolly today, she had all the reason to be, Chloë just bought her an entirely new wardrobe. Frank, Alex and me all reacted in similar cranky fashion, all being pissed off for the same reason and probably several other, more personal, reasons as well.
Alex immediately started writing his notes with the info for the afternoon reaps, he handed notes to Chloë and M.J. "a double death" he stated as Chloë reached for the notes "get it done and go home, have some rest and come back here in warm clothes by nine" Alex added as Chloë pocketed the notes and immediately wanted to be on her way. In reaction to Alex's instructions Chloë nodded, she knew what was going to happen, just like the rest of us – not including M.J. probably – and she didn't like it any better then any of us.
I stood up from my stool and put out my hand awaiting my death of the day. "routine job" Alex said giving me the note containing the information. I looked at it briefly and then put it in my pocket. "see you tonight" I said to Alex not giving Frank even the slightest look.
When I got outside it got even colder then ten minutes ago, even the sun didn't really help with the warming of it all, it must've been the wind delivering cold air. A routine job Alex had said, well I hope he's not mistaking, last routine job he gave me was a bit less routine then he thought, it nearly ruined my clothes then, actually it did ruin my pants.
Double checking the address rapidly going back and forward from the memo to the building I opened the door, it seemed to be a homeless care centre, I wondered how the hell I could get in and out unnoticed. They were serving the lunch when I walked it, it was rather full and nobody looked up when I walked in, so the unnoticed part was quite easy. No how to find mister or misses Gapthar.
I decided to just join in the line, I am ten minutes early anyway. I didn't pick up a plate I just stood in line and when I got to the counter I asked the girl if she knew anyone named Grapthar. "Yeah sure I know Martin, he's working in the back, is this important?" she reacted. "I am a good friend and I wanted to talk to him about helping out here" I reacted, I didn't actually want to help out here but I needed an excuse.
"Well get out of line and to the door, I'll send him to open it up, I'm sure you can help out" two friendly brown eyes stared at me, they really needed any help they could get so I was like an angel in the winter months. "yeah sure, I'll wait at the door" I said stepping out of the queue and towards the door the girl pointed out.
It took a short while before the door opened and when it did a middle aged man looked at me questioningly, "I was told I knew you" he said not letting his eyes off me, as if he was wondering where the hell we had met before. "Well we met once and we talked a bit nothing special" I reacted, "I'm Faith DeGraw" I added putting out my hand.
Luckily for me the man grabbed my hand and introduced himself as well. I had the right man and his soul was just removed, I gently stroke my hand down his arm. "I was wondering if you needed any help" I said, I needed to keep this act up. The guy nodded a being a bit caught of guard by all this, "Come back here" he said. He stepped back in the door and let me in, closing and locking the door behind us. "I'll show you around a bit first, then we can see where we need you" he stated looking over his shoulder.
He showed me around the kitchen explaining what everybody did and how long they had been here, introducing me to everybody around. When we got to the very back of the kitchen, where the soup was made, he was asked to keep an eye on it by somebody, probably needed a break or something. So I stood next to him leaning to the wall. "So you've been doing this long?" I asked him trying to start some small talk.
But before the man could react to my question I saw a graveling jump into the soup splashing it up a little, the man was burned by the warm fluid and I saw the pot shaking a bit, Grapthar had gotten some of the soup in his eye and desperately tried to grab on to something as he had lost his grip was about to fall back, probably hitting the counter behind him in the process.
Finally he grabbed on to the pan of boiling hot tomato soup, but even a pan as big as this wasn't heavy enough to keep him up, the pan toppled over splashing it's contents all about. Some of it splashed my way and even before I knew what was going on I was covered in tomato soup. "Dammit!" I shouted as Grapthar hit the counter behind him with reasonable force and the back of his head. The blunt trauma snapped his neck and as he fell to the ground he still had some nervous twists before the body completely died off.
I knelt down to the man and felt his neck, "Oh My God He's Dead!" I shouted out loud, trying to make it seem genuine, I had a lot of examples in this so I think I pulled it off. Still fully covered in tomato soup that just ruined my clothes and would probably make me freeze my ass off on my way home Sir Grapthar looked at me almost bursting out in laughter.
"Hahaha who did that to you?" he said both laughing and trying to remain serious, I stepped aside making his body visible for his soul "You did" I said, I was truly pissed off, a routine job Alex had said, damn him, I should never trust him. Grapthar instantly stopped laughing "Oh man isn't that the silliest death you've ever seen?" he said being depressed immediatly.
"Actually…" I said thinking back off all the reaps I had done the past four months. And I needed to walk the man to his light so I placed a hand on his shoulder. I couldn't think of any other silly deaths at this moment, my clothes! They were ruined! I led the guy out of the kitchen and out of the building and luckily there was a light for him, he must've been thinking it was all a dream, I know I did when I died, although I jumped off a building I had still hoped it was just a dream.
I needed to walk in tomato drenched clothes and it was freezing outside, it was almost three o'clock and no matter how hard the sun would shine or how bright the skies were it didn't cool down. I was freezing and the tomato soup was slowly crystallizing, getting even deeper into my clothes, eliminating any hope I had for washing them out, Alex was going to pay for this, literally. "routine job" I whispered to myself as I pushed open the doors of the bar, hoping that Alex was there and not back home or on the way to a reap.
"You Bastard!" I shouted across the rather empty bar, Alex looked over his shoulder and I saw he tried to hold in his laughs but he failed resulting in a rather funny hiccup like laugh. When I got closer to him I said "Don't Laugh you, A routine job! Look at me!" I sat down beside him and waited for a very good explanation. Alex shook his head with a broad smile on his face "It happens all the time" he said trying to remain as genuine and serious as possible.
"Why is it that every time I get a 'routine job' I get smeared in stuff that won't go out of my clothes after a good wash" I said, I was really pissed at him. I felt the corners of my mouth curl up but I wanted to stop it. It didn't work, how could I stay mad at him, I mean it wasn't his fault. "I am not taking any more routine jobs from you, you ruined my clothes twice now" I said to him now to with a broad smile on my face.
We laughed a bit more at some random stupid death, a guy putting his hand in a running lawnmower being one of honorable mentions. Some people really needed a label on everything telling them what and what not to do, I mean why else would a bag of nuts read 'warning contains nuts' I mean come on, who died before they put that on the packets.
"But you should get changed and get some rest before tonight, it's going to be a long night" Alex said finally coming back to his senses. He took a deep sigh trying to get back to reality and death, "trust me you'll need it" he added looking at me awaiting my departure.
I just nodded, he was right and the night job would probably make us very, very, tired and beaten. It made it even worse when you realized that the next day we would have to be back in time as well, no vacation, spare time or other special treatments for us, such was death, no rest for the undead.
Arriving at home I threw off my clothes almost before I even closed the door. The clothes I was wearing went straight into the dust bin, there was no saving them now. Damn it that was my favorite shirt, but at least I had another amusing story to tell if my reaper friend asked me for some laughs.
I needed a long shower and some sleep before going back to the bar. Ow and maybe some food, I finished undressing and got under the warm stream of water pouring from my shower. All the cold and freezing fell off me as the water ran down my spine and towards the floor. The water took all the worries of being a reaper, but it didn't last long enough, it never did.
When I finished showering I got into some baggy clothes and already put the warm clothes I was going to wear tonight on the couch, this would give me an extra five minutes to be in bed before I had to leave again to do a graveyard shift on the job.
This time I fell asleep rather easy, it didn't take long for me to fall back into that bottomless pit and feel all the material world fall away around me. Unfortunately I couldn't sleep for very long this time but it was the greatest bit of sleep I had in a long time.
I woke up when my alarm clock screamed out, it must have been on for some while since it would start at a rather silent beep and graduately go up in volume, it probably took around 5 minutes to make this amount of noise. I hit the snooze button on top of the clock with my hand slowly sliding it off after the noise died off, I didn't want to get up, I didn't want to be reaping tonight.
After hitting the snooze button at least three more times I looked at the clock and realized that it was getting rather late, I would easily make it in time but normally everybody would be there at least thirty minutes early, it was tradition, I wouldn't ever be able to make that now. I rushed into the clothes I put on the couch before I threw myself on the bed.
I didn't think it was even possible but the weather outside had gotten even more frightful, the sun was down and the moon was now reigning a starry sky. It was even colder then this afternoon and I had a feeling it wasn't getting any better soon.
When I got back into the bar everybody was there talking and laughing about stuff. All wrapped up in warm clothes and scarves and mittens and almost everything else that was made to keep you warm. I joined them at the bar, they were waiting for me, that never really happened before, I was never in first but never in last either.
I sat down and everybody was laughing, "what are you guys laughing about?" I asked them, I just wanted to be in on the joke really, although it probably wasn't funny unless you were there. When the laughter subsided Chloë took the time to explain to me what was so funny.
"You still know Daisy? Daisy Adair?" she started, I just nodded in acknowledgement. Daisy was rather infamous for the tricks she pulled off with the souls of her deaths, she scammed several relatives of the dead into paying her for relaying a final message for them, off course the emotional damage Daisy would get from the talking with the dead would had to be compensated with a rather large amount of cash.
"Well she is transferred, Paul kicked her out" Chloë continued after allowing me to think about it for a second or two. Paul was the leader of the second reaper group that covered the city of New York, it was a large city and there were a lot of people. "And she joined the squad of Rube, now Frank had heard something funny about the latest addition to that group of reapers" Chloë finished the introduction to the story and now looked at Frank to finish it off.
Frank was always glad to tell the punch line in a joke, unfortunately this time I held a grudge against him and he knew it. "Ehm… yeah there is this girl in that squad… she died when the Mir space station was taken out of orbit" he started a bit hesitantly, I just looked at him raising an eyebrow "and you know what happened? She was struck by the Toilet seat from the Mir! That's what killed her!" he immediately started laughing again and although I found it rather amusing somehow I didn't laugh, somehow I couldn't stand Frank anymore.
I just nodded with a polite smile "yeah that is funny" I said with a faked chuckle, I sighed wanting Alex to finally explain what the hell was about to go on tonight. But he kept quiet just a minute longer, both M.J. and Chloë were drinking a glass of whiskey, they probably needed the liquor to get their mood up a bit, I could use some of that as well.
But alas just when I wanted to order Alex started explaining what we were about to do "As you might have noticed it's getting rather cold outside, and although the weather forecasts and warnings for the homeless it's still perilous, a Deep Freeze people. They warned all the homeless but some are to stubborn to get inside, some will not make it through the night" he said. Dammit, I should've seen the signs, clear blue sky, freezing cold, little to no snow, Deep Freeze, off course.
"It is not our jobs to get the people inside, it is our job to make the passing a lot easier, now don't get me wrong but we are probably not able to take all the souls in time, there are just to many" Alex continued his little speech. He got his agenda from his pocket and opened it up, there was a really big stack off memo noted strapped together by a plastic band. "I sorted them by region" he said as he showed five stacks of memo notes.
He gave all of us one stack off memo's "Chloë and M.J. your reaps are close together, and so are yours" Alex said looking at me and Frank, I wasn't happy with this "could I trade with you?" it was out before I realized it. Alex looked at me raising an eyebrow, but then gave his stack to me and I gave mine to him. "thanks" I said curling up the right corner of my mouth.
I know he had sorted them on purpose, he wanted M.J. and Chloë to be together and me and Frank, I mean to support each other. But Frank and me had a fight and I didn't feel like being close to him tonight, I didn't feel anything relating to him really, everything was gone, everything but anger. I really appreciated Alex wanting to keep us together, but people change… C'est La Mort… Such is death.