A Very Reaper Romance

Chapter Four - 360 Days Left

After his afternoon with Zoie, followed by Death’s impromptu visit, Jack continued taking trips into town, hoping to see Zoie again and stopping at The Coffee Stop daily to see if Raven getting his name correct had been a fluke.

It wasn’t.

Despite still being startled by his reflection in the mirror, and unable to find the cheese grater in his new home, Jack found a rhythm to his days and began to settle into his new afterlife.

All told it was pretty boring.

When you don’t have a job, and no one in town knows who you are, there isn’t a great deal to fill your days with. Jack wandered aimlessly, finding a spot for lunch or a place to sit and watch the world go by for a while. The highlight of his week had been striking up a conversation with a local pensioner, Mrs Bailey, who invited him in for a slice of cake and spent an hour telling him about her competitive baking club.

The baking club, it turned out, was less Bake Off and more Blue-Rinsed Gladiators. The members were fiercely competitive, deeply suspicious of one another and all operated under the unspoken understanding that accidents happened when sugar was high and blood pressure higher.

She told him this with a smile, listing past incidents as though they were amusing anecdotes – a near miss involving a rolling pin, a mysterious laxative incident during judging, and one ill-advised flambé that had required the fire brigade and a brief ban on alcoholic desserts.

Jack nodded along, trying not to think about how many ways a woman in her late seventies could feasibly weaponise a cake tin. Mrs Bailey made Jack promise to come back and see her again then packed him off with a lemon sponge, which left him feeling lighter than he had all week. He finally had a friend – even if she was over fifty years his senior.

Jack took his lemon sponge home and had another slice with a cup of tea before deciding to head to the pub. Mr Carruthers had said it was where he liked to sit at the weekends and Jack resolved that if it was good enough for Mr Carruthers, it was good enough for him. It was where he and his friends would hang out usually when he was alive and a small part of him hoped he could befriend them in his new body. He knew he could never tell them who he really was, but they liked him before, and his personality was the same, right?

Walking into the old pub was like stepping into a memory that wasn’t his. The bar that had felt like a second home when Jack and his friends celebrated or commiserated football results, played darts or recovered with a hearty breakfast after a night of drinking, no longer felt like a part of him. The ceiling beams hung low enough to inconvenience anyone over five foot nine, the carpet had given up on holding its pattern sometime around the mid-nineties and the air smelled of old ale, furniture polish and chips.

The bar was exactly as it had always been; scarred, sticky and shining faintly under the lights as if proud of its injuries. Pump clips advertised ales with names that sounded less like drinks and more like warnings – ‘Bladdered Badger’ and ‘Dead Man’s Drink’. A chalkboard promised Pie of the Day, though Jack wondered what day the pie in question had come from.

Regulars occupied their usual positions, deep in conversations that had clearly started years ago and would, in all likelihood, continue indefinitely. A darts game was underway, played with a life-or-death intensity, despite no one accurately keeping score. Somewhere near the fire, a man was explaining football tactics to the room at large, whether the room’s occupants wanted him to or not.

Jack paused just inside the door. No one looked up. And for a strange, hollow moment, that was a relief. But this once sacred place hadn’t noticed he’d died. It hadn’t noticed he was back. The pub carried on exactly as it always had – warm, loud and familiar – and Jack realised that was both comforting and quietly devastating.

Jack carefully laid his jacket over the back of the barstool, paid for his pint and tipped the change from his palm onto the table without thinking. He separated the coins into small piles – all the silvers together, then the coppers – before he nudged them into tidy stacks with the edge of his thumb. He frowned, adjusted one of the piles so it lined up properly, then swept the lot back into his pocket.

Behind him, someone laughed a familiar laugh.

“Jesus. Jack used to do that.”

Jack’s hand stilled halfway to his pocket. He knew that voice.

“Do what?” another voice asked. Another voice he recognised.

“The coins. Sorted them every time. Like he was running the bloody Treasury.”

Jack forced himself to finish what he was doing, while his heart pounded in his ears.

“Miss that weirdo,” someone said fondly. “Never met anyone so stressed about loose change.”

Jack lifted his glass and drank; the taste of the beer was bitter in his mouth. He longed to turn around and greet his friends the way he used to but realising that wasn’t an option was a pain he hadn’t been prepared for. He stared at the screen showing a football match, but he wasn’t in the least bit interested – everything felt overwhelming all of a sudden.

He hadn’t considered how hard it would be so close to his old world without being able to be part of it again. He sipped at his beer morosely; this was going to be the worst year of his life. His death? He wasn’t even sure anymore. Jack resolved to finish his beer and leave, but as he was coming to the end of his glass he felt the air shift. The ledger in his pocket was buzzing, slowly at first but growing in intensity.

The barmaid came and took Jack’s glass, asking if he wanted another. Jack shook his head, not even really looking up at her as he pulled the ledger from his pocket and flipped through the pages to see the latest doodle. His stomach dropped as he saw a new image had indeed materialised – a heart and the number fifty-three. Jack glanced around the pub, hoping he would get lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time as Mr Carruthers had suggested, but it quickly became apparent Jack was going to have to go searching for his first official escort. Client? Customer? He would figure that out later.

He thanked the barmaid and grabbed his jacket off the back of the stool, making it rock wildly with the force, then rushed out the door, regretting the slamming sound it made as he barrelled out onto the street. He looked left and right along the street, hoping for some kind of commotion that would clue him in to where he needed to be. Again, no joy. His instincts told him to go right, and Jack decided that was as much of a clue as he was going to get so he walked as quickly as he could in the direction of the centre of town, praying something would tell him where to go.

Jack listened to the blood pounding in his ears and the sound of his feet pounding the pavement – he was walking as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself and was grateful that town seemed to be mostly empty. His head swivelled in every direction as he searched for any suggestion of someone in trouble. It made him feel guilty in a way, that being successful in his new job relied on someone’s death, but that was something to unpack another time.

Just as Jack was beginning to feel hopeless, an ambulance whizzed past him up the hill, lights and sirens blaring. Jack’s heart leapt both with surprise and elation that he had a clue at last, and he took off running in the direction the ambulance had been heading. It could only lead to one place really, as beyond the small council estate lay nothing but fields and the main road to the next town over. He strained his ears, trying to work out if it had turned into the estate or not. Jack’s lungs burned as he pushed his legs harder and faster, determined to keep up and keep the paramedics from doing their job, which was a weird thought.

As Jack rounded the corner he wanted to fall to his knees in gratitude when he saw the ambulance had stopped at the second house on the road, and he watched as a young female paramedic went into the back of the van to collect some piece of equipment. Jack took off running again when the thought struck him – how was he supposed to just walk in and claim someone’s soul?

‘Great job paramedics, I know you worked really hard here but I’m afraid I just need to snatch this man’s soul.’ He could just picture the looks on their faces.

His pace slowed as he approached the house, still trying to formulate a plan. Jack stood at the gate, watching through the open door as the paramedics connected defibrillator pads to a woman’s chest. His own heart lurched, she looked to be about the same age as his mum and the horror of having to escort a loved one settled into the back of his mind. Jack decided he would need to write a note to Death and find out what the protocol for actually approaching a soon to be dead person was.

The male paramedic rushed out the door, but Jack was so lost in thought he didn’t spot the guy coming until the last second. To his shock, the paramedic passed straight through him, hiccupping violently as he did so. Jack stared at the man, dumbstruck as he watched him try to get his hiccups under control so he could return to the dying woman. Was this man’s reaction the norm? or was it just an unfortunate case of timing? Would he always become invisible right before he reaped a soul?

Rather than ponder it out, Jack remembered that he had arrived to do a job, and slowly approached the house, worried he would rematerialise at any moment and be chastised for being a nosy bastard, but it soon became apparent that no one could see him. Jack watched on as the paramedics performed chest compressions and rescue breaths on the poor woman laid on the floor. He was pretty sure he heard a rib crack at one point. He listened to them counting and The Bee Gees earworm of Staying Alive soon crept in as he counted compressions with them. Jack was bopping along to the song in his head when a voice scared the life out of him – so to speak.

“It ain’t gonna work is it, lad?”

An involuntary shriek ripped from Jack’s lungs. He turned, mouth wide, to regard the woman standing slightly behind him. His jaw was slack as his head whipped between the two versions of her – the one before him and the one laid on the floor, still being worked on.

“What are you doing in my house anyway?” the woman asked.

“I-I-I—”

“Spit it out, son,” she chastised.

“I, um, I’m here for your soul,” Jack said quietly.

The woman cackled. “You’re the Reaper? You’re a child!”

“I’m twenty-two!” Jack snapped indignantly.

“Wait a minute, I know you…” her finger jabbed in Jack’s direction. “You’re the lad who snapped his neck in the park! Yeah, your face was everywhere for a while. So, the old wives’ tale is true then?”

“My name is Jack, and yes, it’s true,” Jack confirmed.

The woman stood a little straighter and fluffed her hair. “Does that make me the new Reaper then?” she asked proudly.

“I’m afraid not.”

“What? But I’m the next to die after you!”

“Yes, but I have to keep the job for a year, and I’m only five days in. I still don’t know what I’m doing to be honest. I wish I could hand it over to you,” Jack said honestly.

It was occurring to him that he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with the souls he reaped, or where he was supposed to take them. He pulled the ledger from his pocket, hoping for some kind of clue. The page after the vows he took had a single page of instruction.

1

If you can see them and the living cannot, begin.

2 Introduce yourself. Use your name if you still remember it.

3 They may ask questions. You do not need to answer them all.

4 When ready, turn away from the body.

5 If they follow, you are doing it correctly. If they do not, wait.

6 When they are with you and no longer looking back, your part is finished.

Jack stared at the page. “That’s it?” he muttered.

The woman peered over his shoulder. “That’s your training?”

“Apparently,” Jack said. “It assumes I know what I’m doing.”

She sniffed and looked Jack up and down. “Bit optimistic.”

“I guess we just… start walking,” Jack said, hoping his gut was steering him in the right direction. He didn’t want to f**k up his first reaping.

“That’s it?” she asked, looking around.

“That’s what it says,” Jack replied, voice thin.

“No tunnel? No dead relatives?”

“Not on the first page.”

She snorted. “Figures. Nothing in this town ever comes with any kind of flair.”

Jack laughed but anxiety tugged at him. “Shall we do this then?” he asked as he held the gate open for her.

The woman took one final look back at her body. She walked into the house and wrapped her arms around her daughter, who stood sobbing quietly as she watched the paramedics still desperately trying to get a pulse. She placed a kiss on her daughter’s cheek and walked back to Jack.

“Let’s go, before I change my mind.”

“I’m not sure you’re allowed to,” Jack smiled.

The two of them began walking up the road together in silence. The sun was setting on the horizon, drenching the clouds in dramatic pinks and oranges. Jack thrust his hands in his pockets, looking up to watch the birds making their commute south for winter, their silhouettes silently gliding in the strawberry-coloured skies. It was peaceful, and Jack waited for the woman to speak, not wanting to interrupt her thoughts as she processed all that had just happened.

Suddenly, the sky seemed to glow a little brighter, the air felt a little crisper, and from beside him, Jack heard the woman speak.

“Ah,” she said softly. “Right then. I suppose I’m off.”

Jack turned to look at her. She had the same gentle glow that had surrounded Mr Carruthers, and she was slowly fading out of focus.

“Good luck with the reaping job, Jack,” she smiled, then she laughed loudly. “Ha! Jack the Reaper. Oh, that’s too good.”

The skies returned to their soft tones once the woman had faded away entirely and Jack chuckled to himself at her realisation. He hadn’t spotted it before, but she was right – Jack the Reaper was pretty blood funny.