his point of death - and this guy had one, but it was murky and unsettled. Perhaps it was as yet undecided as to who would get to him first and kill him. Trying a different angle, I switched my view to see all people in the city dressed in Reaper costume. Turned out there were two hundred of them and the effect of it nearly knocked me over.
“Son of a Bitch!” I raised a fist, forgetting that I still had my deadly silver-knuckled gloves on. A stray bolt flew from them and struck a man emerging on the marbled steps of a nearby building. He had no chance to scream. Cooked, he fell to the cement.
Walking over I noticed the building sign said it was the Supreme Court, and as I tossed the man's spirit into the black velvet of a temporary holding pit, I gathered that he was a judge. His body looked like a rather large and burned roast, the blood still bubbling up. Gazing at him, it saddened me that my mistake was much like many of his rulings - arbitrary and deadly. Now the poor chap would just have to wait in the holding pits with the rest.
Deciding it would be better to think things out over a drink; I turned back and went over to the hotel. Sirens were screaming over near the square, the hotel bar seemed safe, but as I got through the first set of doors, I found myself confronted by a bouncer and an armed task force cop.
The cop raised a Remington rifle - “Don't even think of moving.”
“Drop dead,” I replied, and they both did and I stepped over them and found my way to the bar.
The dark paneling oozed dampness and smoke, the lights flickered. Invisible, I drifted in the visions of my shades, studying the various people in Reaper costume. My target finally came into view in a house in the north part of the city. He was a muscular guy grinning at his mirror. I would've passed him over but a telltale woman's scalp hanging from a nail on his closet gave him away.
Taking a moment, I read his mind, and found that his New Year was to be celebrated with a killing. Since I've never really liked big parties, I decided to join him. To profile him, I would say he was handsome, a solid build, and he had all those friendly and traditional qualities of the psychopath that American publishers enjoy. After his death, he would live on in books titled either Grim or Reaper. But let's keep in mind that I am Grim Reaper, and I don't write for American publishers. So in spite of his heroic charm, I can say that to me he was just a nuisance and in need of punishment.
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His lair wasn't in his home. It was located in a dead portion of sewer beneath an abandoned silo on the waterfront. I chose to get there at 11:30, fifteen minutes ahead of him.
Looking around I found his base choice of atmosphere good, but his taste in detail effeminate. A small altar of rose marble was used for animal sacrifice. Daggers were decorated with grinning imps. He even had a miniature chainsaw with a pearl handle. The place smelled pretty, herbs and dead flowers everywhere. He kept the corpses somewhere else.
The chainsaw was a nice little weapon - I tried a few sample slashes with it then kept it and toyed with it as I waited on a stool behind a black linen curtain off from the altar.
A minute later, the killer showed with an unconscious blond victim in tow. I listened as he tossed her down on a straw mat and undressed her. She came to and screamed as he was arranging his knives and humming a sort of rap tune to himself.
This disturbed him and he turned to her and threw a dagger into the wall beside her. His golden curls fell foppishly in his face as he put on a nasty grimace. “Scream and scream, my lady. Because soon your head will be gone.”
And he was correct in that statement - in reading his mind I had noted that he was a very dull serial killer who first cut the victim's head off with a chainsaw. Sort of like a butcher, he preferred to work with dead meat.
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His pre-death ritual was long and boring. The decisive moment came when he decided to seize his chainsaw and discovered that it wasn't there on its stand.
A ghastly look got stamped on his cold-carved face as he realized that someone had been there, defiling his lair. He began to look around suspiciously, and then he walked over and pulled the curtain open.
His jaw dropped.
“Looking for this?” I said as I raised the chainsaw.
He countered by backing off and raising two daggers - I pulled the cord and tossed the buzzing weapon. Dropping the blades, he caught the handle, nearly chopping his balls off as he tried to balance the saw, then his angry eyes widened as he stared at me.
“What's your game?” he said. “And how did you find me?”
“My game is death. If I found you, guess that means you're dead.”
The captive lady heard this and whimpered and cried.
But he didn't - he just restarted the chainsaw and charged.
A crude killer, he moved in with force to thrust the saw through my chest. Blood gushed from the wound and I went back against the wall, groaning before releasing a death wheeze and rattle. Then I slid to the floor and the animal kept cutting, staring into my open but dead eyes.
Tossing the gore-soaked saw aside, he put his hand right into the bleeding hole in my chest. “I'm going to eat your heart,” he said, hot saliva spraying my face. But you don't seem to have ... a heart.”
My eyes ignited. “Grim Reaper has no heart,” I said, black pupils sucking him in, and then he was falling as he flew back and crashed into the altar.
I rose, chainsaw in hand. “Now, let's see if you have a heart. Cause if you do you’re a fake Grim Reaper.”
He shook. He stuttered. “You really are the Reaper.” Then he grinned. “So this is a warning, right. You can't kill me and you can't save her. I know the rules. The Grim Reaper collects people who are already dead. You can't play God.”
Pausing, I popped the cork off a slim silver flask and took a swallow. “Theologically and morally you are correct. But who said you had to die?”
“What?” he said.
“This,” I replied as I threw the chainsaw. It buzzed into him and stayed humming as I stepped over. Throwing down my shades, I froze him in a wave of darkness. Then I grabbed the saw and cut him open. Violet organs and tubes spilled out and hung. I removed his heart and put it in his open hand.
Turning away, I lifted my shades and smiled at the lovely blond lady. “Later,” I said, and she vanished and reappeared somewhere in the dark city night.
Spinning around, I roused him and said. “There you are - theologically and morally correct. You are alive. You feel no pain and you no longer have a heart. Unless you count the one you are holding in your hand.”
“Duh, duh,” he said, horror on his face as he looked down at his gutted chest and the heart in his hand. “I can't live like this.”
“Ah, I see. You can't live without a heart like the Reaper. Then die, you fake!”
Silver in the abyss. The scythe swung and he fell in darkness. “And hold onto your heart,” he heard me say. “Cause it's a hell of a long way down.”
And down echoes with him, in the pit … forever.
Then I resolved to be theologically correct in the future.
“I won't kill people anymore,” I said to myself as I leapt up and out. “Time to hang up my lightning gloves.”
Only I forgot to dematerialize into the night and I knocked down the sewer wall and about half of the concrete silo. About ten policemen were out there, preparing to raid the place. The debris came down and crushed them all.
New Year's resolutions never did work for me - It’s a cruel world isn't it? Life itself is long way down. Better to be dead in the first place.
. . . . . . . . . . .
There is no Rest for the Stupid
By Gary Morton, December 2013
I arrived at work fashionably late as usual. Snowflakes were in my eyes and as I walked up the hill, the Christmas lights of nearby houses melted to a colourful blur. A few steps more and I turned and looked up at my place of work. The castle looked grand with sudden gusts of snow blowing out of the sky and around high crenulated
walls. The keep to the south faced the storm from the hilltop like a great battlement. Yet down below was desolation. The parking lot was empty except for one small car; there were no events at Casa Loma this Christmas Eve.
The only event would be me … a midnight security guard, sleeping on the job, raiding the pantry and having dreams of sugarplums, Santa and sexy ladies.
Many stories have been written about lonely people at Christmas, but it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I walked up to the back entrance jingling my keys like it was jingle bells because it was an easy night ahead.
I found Ramone inside waiting by the back security desk. He’d already changed out of his cleaner outfit and was waiting to pass on command of the castle to me. I had a present under my arm that I passed to him and he pointed to a card and a bottle of wine he’d left by the coat rack.
“You can go,” I said. “You don’t have to wait for me to change.”
“The bottle will make you feel better, no,” he said. “You won’t have to worry when he comes out.”
“I quit drinking six months ago, Ramone. Perhaps the master of the house will want some wine. It’s almost midnight,” I said, pointing to the clock.
Sudden fright showed in Ramone’s narrow eyes. “I’m getting out of here, before he comes. Oh, I forgot to tell you. There’s another security guard at the front. Indian fellow named Harjit. He was here for the early evening carol thing. For some reason they told him to stay until his relief arrived. I told him