Forever After

7


Michael gave a solemn shake of his head as he looked down at the corpse. First Martin Atkinson and now Angela Washington. Two bodies; no souls.

The woman before him looked no older than forty-five. She had a kind face and gentle features that reminded Michael of his own mother. A mother who had cried relentlessly over the death of her son, not knowing that he continued to exist, in one form or another, just a few miles away.

He bent down and checked the frail corpse. She didn’t look like she could hurt a fly, yet she looked like she had been fighting before her demise. She had been executed. Shot once through the chest and then once through the forehead.

He checked his timer.

“Bang on time,” he told himself. “Where the f*ck are you?”

He had already checked the house and the garden. Ghosts rarely left their body so soon after death, but he checked anyway -- she was nowhere to be seen.

In the Dying Seamstress, a dark and cosy shack-like pub on the edge of town -- hidden underneath a former newsagents and accessed through a backstreet and an ominous staircase -- Michael attracted immediate attention.

Rusty chimes above the door jangled an eclectic tune when Michael entered. Everyone inside peered up from their drinks and conversations. They all looked at Michael, gave him a quick once-over and then resumed their activities.

The bar was staffed solely by an aggressive little man who had to stand on a stool to see over the top. He glared at Michael as he approached, his unibrow arched towards the top of his swollen nose.

Michael greeted the bartender, a man who constantly looked like he was moments away from growling or humping your leg.

“Mickey,” he replied with a simple nod.

“What’s all this about?” Michael asked, indicating his scrutinised arrival.

Scrub grunted to clear a glob of thick phlegm from his throat before swallowing the offending expectorant.

“Everyone’s a bit on edge.”

Michael waited for an explanation, but didn’t want to push for one when it didn’t come. “Fair enough” he said. “Give me a pint would you?”

Scrub hopped off the stool and scuppered over to pull a pint glass from a dusty rack where a milieu of insects and dust mites gathered.

“You ever thought of getting the floor raised?”

Scrub turned and glared at Michael, his tiny face peering up at him like a demonic imp.

“What you tryin’ to say?” he said aggressively.

Michael held up his hands defensively. “Never mind.”

He saw Chip sitting in the corner of the room, huddled forlornly over a pint of dark ale. Naff, their mutual friend, was sitting next to him, looking a little happier and prouder, his neck straight; his arms folded across his lap; a tumbler of whiskey on the table in front of him.

“So, what’s all the commotion about?” Michael said, turning back to Scrub and trying again.

To Michael’s surprise the little man was staring back at him, waiting expectantly for their eyes to meet like a mythical murderer in a horror film. Michael nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned to see that grim face peering back.

“We have mortals in,” Scrub said grimly.

The little bartender watched the final drops of beer slip into the top of a brimming pint glass. He took it away from the pump and plonked it down on the bar, not budging from his stool the entire time.

“Again?” Michael said, taking a sip from the foamy top.

“Something here attracts them.”

“I can’t imagine what.”

“Third time this week,” Scrub continued, undeterred. “Walking in here like they have the f*cking right. This place isn’t for them, it’s for us. This is our haven; they have no right to--”

“You feel strongly about this huh?”

“Mortals piss me off,” Scrub explained succinctly.

“Is that because you never got the chance to be one?

“Possibly. Not like I would want to be one anyway, filthy f*cking--”

“If I get rid of them will you shut up?” Michael interjected again.

“Of course.”

Michael switched into haggler mode. “If you let me drown my sorrows on the house with a double whiskey, you’ve got a deal.”

“Deal,” Scrub said without faltering. “They’re over there,” he explained with a distasteful nod of his grubby head. “Get to it.”

“I saw ‘em.”

He picked up his pint and headed to the other side of the room where two young men wearing athletic attire and simpleton smiles were trying to converse with the locals at a nearby table.

The most eager looking of the two was a muscle-bound blonde. He wore a hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, exposing sun coloured arms and an expensive watch. He had started up a conversation with Adder, a colossal man whose biceps were the size of Michael's head, while his friend gazed vacuously around the room. Clearly the blonde wasn’t deterred by Adder’s size, or his unwillingness to converse.

“You’re a big guy aren’t you?” he said happily. “Do you play rugby at all?

Adder grunted a barbaric reply. It sounded like his throat was crushing metal.

“I see,” the blonde replied, taking a long drink from a pint of cider. “It is very quaint in here isn’t it?” he noted, looking around. “Very English. Almost medieval.”

Adder’s throat crunched more metal, the youngster seemed undeterred. Michael held back, wondering just how far their persistence would stretch under Adder’s fearful glare and unrelenting grunts.

“Do you work around here?” the blonde continued.

Adder grunted more impatiently this time. Whatever was brewing in his throat was about to be unleashed in a cataclysm of noise and aggression.

Michael decided to intervene. He put his pint down on their table, attracted their attention and then ducked in between them, wrapping his arms around their shoulders. They both turned inward, their faces inches from his.

“I think you guys are in the wrong establishment,” he said simply, keeping his voice low and his eyes on the other patrons.

The quieter of the pair spoke first. “Why would you say that?” he asked. “We were rather enjoying ourselves here.”

“I agree,” the blonde chirped. “I was just chatting to this big fellow here,” he said, indicating Adder.

“That big fellow, as you put it, is one of the reasons this place isn’t for you.”

“He seems quite friendly.”

“He is. So is everyone else here. But, don’t you notice anything odd?” He straightened up and watched their heads rotate on their bulky hinges as they surveyed the pub.

“No,” they chirped simultaneously.

“You see any females?”

“We assumed this was a working man’s club.”

Michael leaned in again. “You ever heard the expression ‘bear’?” he asked to some gentle head shaking. “We use it in the gay community to refer to larger men.”

“Oh.”

“And our friend here,” he said, nodding towards Adder. “Is what we like to call a f*cking beast, and I think he has an eye on you.”

A wave of realisation hit the duo. They both drew sharp intakes of breath and when the blonde spoke he did so under the veil of an abhorrent exhalation. “You mean this is a club for homosexuals?”

“Spot on,” Michael said with a wink.

The wayward travellers drank their drinks so quickly that most of the liquid missed their mouths and ran down their tops. They left the bar to smiles and gentle cheers of jubilation before the fog of glumness re-hugged the miserable room like a black shroud.

Michael turned to Adder, who had held a face of stern intimidation for the entire conversation. His thick jaw was set aggressively on his hardened face. His protruding forehead lined with a thick, blue vein. His eyes burned into everything they glanced.

He grunted, almost complimentary this time.

“You can stop that now,” Michael said calmly.

Adder deflated. The vein on his forehead disappeared. His clenched jaw relaxed. The evil in his eyes unveiled; his posture slumped.

“Thank you so much. You’re a gent.” His tone was slightly effeminate, lacking any of the heightened testosterone that his intimidating grunting had implied. “I was giving myself a sore throat and I think I have a headache coming on after all that scowling.” He lifted a monstrously delicate hand to his forehead. “You don’t happen to have a couple of paracetamol on you do you?”

“Afraid not.”

Adder sighed. His huge hand gently rubbed his big temple. “It’s OK. I’ll survive,” he said with a smile and a dismissive wave of his hand.

Michael patted the big man reassuringly on the back, picked up his pint, collected his whiskey from a mildly amused, but silent, bartender, and joined his two friends at the corner table.

“Chip. Naff.” Michael acknowledged his friends as he sat down. Chip sluggishly lifted himself up from the table, giving Michael a place to rest his drinks. “How’s things?”

Chip groaned.

“Same old, same old,” Naff said. “Heard you had a few issues today.”

“Already?” Michael rolled his eyes. “Word travels fast.”

“I work in the records department mate. It’s our job to keep account of, well, your job.”

Michael smiled meekly. He drank the whiskey, enjoying the burn as it traced a heated path to his stomach. He slammed the glass down, instantly feeling better under the visceral glow of the alcohol.

“What about the grumpy f*cking tooth fairy here?” Michael nodded to Chip who was holding his head in his hands, weighed down by his own boredom. “Surely you can’t keep track of what he’s doing and still let him continue doing it.”

Chip livened up at that. He lifted his head and gave Michael The Eye. “Hey!” he snapped.

Michael stared straight back at him. “You drink and smoke all day.”

Chip’s eyes rose to the ceiling in thought. He nodded, scrunched up his mouth. “True,” he conceded.

“We cut him some slack,” Naff offered. “Or rather, I do,” he corrected. He received a thankful, but half-arsed glance from Chip before the tooth fairy resumed his slumped posture. “And the tooth game is different,” Naff continued, shaking off the uncharacteristic gratitude, “what he doesn’t collect will only be picked up by someone else. If you miss a soul, no one is there to claim it.”

“I didn’t miss it.” Michael said defensively. “It wasn’t there to collect.”

“Did you look properly?”

“It’s not a f*cking quid down the back of the sofa for f*ck’s sake,” Michael snapped.

Naff held up a hand, “Chill” he said calmly. “I’m just saying.”

Michael calmed down in the heat of an impending argument. “F*cking hell,” he said softly into his pint, hunching his head over the rim of the glass. “It’s been a shitty day,” he grumbled soberly. “I lost another one before.”

“Another soul?”

Michael nodded solemnly. “Angela Washington,” he clarified. “Shot just like the other guy. I showed up a few minutes after and there’s no sign of her.” He took a long, slow drink, delaying the story of his own misery. “If I knew it was going to happen I could have been there, I could have seen it. I would know what happened to her, where she went.”

“It’s never that cut and dry. Even if you had foreseen it, it’s never always that clear and definite. You can’t spend your life following around the potential dead on the off chance that this is their time.”

“But sometimes it is clear, sometimes there is only one outcome: all roads lead to me. And even when it isn’t so clear,” he gave a simple shrug, “I like to see what happens. I like to keep track, to know the outcomes, which possibility the universe, fate or whatever, chose. And if someone’s going to rob me of a death I like to know who, so I can enjoy the moment more when it’s their time to die.”

“Bit harsh.”

Michael groaned and gave an apologetic nod. “I know. I don’t mean it, I don’t really care, truth be told. If someone finds the path and the possibility that doesn’t lead them into my hands then great, good for them. I’m just being an unnecessary bastard. It’s been a long day.”

“Angela’s Washington,” Naff said with a thoughtful frown. “That name rings a bell. She’s a werewolf right?”

Michael shrugged.

“I remember reading her file. I’m sure she is.”

Michael shrugged and took another long drink. “What’re you talking about?” he wondered.

“What are the odds?” Naff quizzed. “The first guy was a werewolf. I was on duty at the time, I checked his file. Two people show up dead on the same day, both shot and both are missing their souls. This can’t be a coincidence.”

“I don’t care,” Matthew said apathetically. “Whatever it is it could cost me my job.” He checked his watch; his eyes sank at the sight. “I should have reported in after that,” he explained. “I couldn’t bear to face them. The ridicule. Or worse.”

Naff was looking increasingly animated, even Chip had started to pay attention and had lifted his head to take a drink.

“But don’t you find it weird?” Naff pushed.

Michael stood. “No,” he said simply. “Let it be. I’m going for a piss.”

Naff wrinkled his nose. “I prefer to hold it in until I get home,” he said, reluctantly changing the subject. “It’s hell in there, and trust me, I’ve been to hell. Less fire, more piss, but I can take them in equal measures.”

“Too many shakes,” Chip said suddenly.

“What?” Michael asked.

“They say shake it once or twice that’s okay, shake it three times and you’re playing with yourself.” Chip recited some of his encyclopaedic knowledge of the obscure, pointless and disgusting. “Judging by the floors we have a lot of excessive masturbators in here.”

Michael paused with an open mouth, ready for a reply, but it shrugged it off for sanity’s sake.

“I don’t understand that phrase,” Naff said as Michael worked his way around them with increasing speed, trying to get away from the conversation.

“What’s not to understand?” Chip wondered, seemingly perking up now that the topic was urine and masturbation. “One shake: fine. Two shakes: fine. Three shakes: not fine.”

“But what constitutes a shake? Is it one movement up and down, thus spraying yourself? Or is it left and right, spraying the floor and the poor idiot standing next to you.”

“You’re putting too much thought into this.”

“Well, what do you do?” Naff wondered, taking a sip of whiskey.

“I wipe my cock on the hand-towel.”

Naff nearly choked on his drink. Michael left the table, and his friends, with a smile on his face.