Chapter Two:

George checked her watch impatiently. 3:33, and the reap was nowhere in sight. Normally, she'd be relieved that the reap had missed his appointment, and thus escaped death, but this wasn't a normal reap. She was tired, cold and wanted to go back to bed.

"L. Malinowski, get the fuck here, so I can go home!" she shouted into the night.

"What's that, little lady?" came a slurred voice from behind her.

At that moment, her heart (or whatever passed for it) chose to jump into her throat. Whirling around, she came face-to-face with a drunken businessman, whose breath reeked of alcohol.

"Are you L. Malinowski?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I got sent here by the office to make sure you were all right," she replied right away without thinking.

"That so? You can tell those sons of a bitches that Leslie Malinowski isn't one to come crawling back on his knees! Bob Harper can go fuck himself."

"I'm sorry about your job, but Rob in accounting was worried about you, so he sent me."

Leslie staggered from one foot to the other as he tried to comprehend what she'd told him. "Rob? I don't know any Rob in accounting..."

Putting on a sheepish smile, George reached out and brushed her hand against his arm to pop his soul, and was greeted by the characteristic whooshing noise and golden sparkle that only the dead or undead could see.

And at that moment, Leslie Malinowski threw up all over her.

"Jesus!" shouted George as she realized what was happening and backed away from him, but not before her clothes were covered in vomit.

"Sorry," he mumbled as he staggered out of her way. As he did so, his toe caught on the curb and with a drunken cry, he fell; his head hitting the street with a thud.

A second passed. Then five. Ten.

No soul, realized George. What the hell was going on here? Was the universe fucking with her again?

It was then that she spotted a Graveling running down the street. With a leap, the Graveling landed on the controls for a cement mixer that had been chugging away to prepare the concrete aggregate inside for an early morning pour.

With a squeak of metal, the mixer's tube swung over and began disgorging wet concrete onto the unconscious man's head, quickly burying him in seconds.

As George stood there blinking in disbelief, the Graveling turned away from the the controls, and faced her with a nervous look on it's face, shrugged it's shoulders, and disappeared into a cloud of vapor.

"Okay..." she muttered, trying to regain her bearings. "That was new."

"What's going on?" came a voice from beside her.

Finally.

"Look, I hate to break it to you, but you're dead."

"I am?"

"Yeah, see that slob under that pile of cement? That's you."

"Damn."

At that moment, the twinkling light show began.

Thank Christ.

As she watched, L. Malinowski walked into what looked like a giant train yard straight out of the days of steam trains, an older man with a vague resemblance to the reap waving him on, dressed in an old-style locomotive engineer's outfit.

As the lights faded, George realized then that she was standing in the middle of Seattle at 3:35 in the morning; with her clothes soaked through with vomit, and she was due at Happy Time at six.

"Fuck. My life fucking sucks," she muttered to the night without the slightest trace of irony.