Grim Crush (Grimly Ever After)

GRIM

CRUSH

S. L. BYNUM

Grim Crush

S.L. Bynum

© Copyright S.L. Bynum 2015. All rights reserved

Cover Art: Leiann Bynum

Editor: Kerry Genova

Ebooks/Books are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

To anyone who has a dream—

Work hard and always follow your heart no matter what

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul.
You have a body.”
-C. S. Lewis

Chapter 1

He was taking too long to die.

Sometimes it seemed like these things took longer than usual. I guess I shouldn’t be
too
eager to collect a person’s soul, but the waiting and anticipation drove me nuts.

I stepped up to the precipice of the cliff until the tips of my boots hung off the edge. Leaning forward, I stared down the fifty or so yards to the ground below. When I shifted my feet, tiny rocks tumbled down the red-orange crags of the cliff face.

Yep, a fall from here will do it all right
.

Sighing, I stood up straight and crossed my arms, staring off to my left. I hated that I had to be here early. Death had some pretty stupid rules. I could be doing something else rather than waiting for this guy to kick the bucket.

He was probably in his mid-twenties. A guy of average build, with black hair like mine. He had on a backpack and held a camera; an expensive one with a large lens like photographers used. He was taking pictures of the birds in the trees, while standing way too close to the precipice.

A nature buff. Great. I’d picked up another one of these last week. They needed to learn to be more careful.

The nature guy took another step back, his foot inches from the cliff edge. He continued taking pictures without paying attention to the sheer drop behind him.

At times like this, I wanted to shout, “Watch your step! Look behind you!” But, even though I was standing only five feet from him, he couldn’t see or hear me.

Here it goes
, I thought, watching the guy’s foot shuffle closer to the edge.
In five, four, three, two…

The guy shifted his position, and stumbled over a rock. His scream pierced through the air as he fell backwards, tumbling down the rocky cliff face. The camera flew from his hands and bounced along with him, smashing to pieces against the crags. Within seconds, he landed with a sickening crunch on the dirt at the bottom. Silence followed as orange dust stirred around him.

I grimaced.
Well, time to go to work.

I leaped off the precipice and into the air, dropping quickly at first. As I approached the ground, my body slowed. Gravity couldn’t kill me, since I wasn’t alive. I wasn’t really dead either, but I was a
part
of Death.

I landed gently on my feet beside the guy’s fresh corpse. His ghostly counterpart was standing up from his body. The dead soul’s transparency made it easy for him to stand out.

“Welcome to the afterlife,” I said in my customary greeting. “You are Chad, right?”

The spirit studied me with curiosity in his eyes. “Yeah. What happened–?” He looked down and saw his lifeless body. It was a repulsive sight. The corpse’s head was twisted and his legs were bent at hideous angles. “What…the…? Is that–?”

“Yes, you fell off that cliff. You’re dead.” I had learned there was no point delaying the truth when it came to the recently departed. “I’m here to guide you. My name is Xia, and I’m your grim reaper.”

Chad continued staring down at his body. Finally, he tore his eyes away to look at me again. “Wh-what? You’re my…grim reaper?”

“Yes.”

I watched him take in my figure, from the slim black dress I wore to the thin braids I kept pinned up on my head. “Um…I thought a grim reaper would be–”

“A man? A skeleton? Wearing a black robe? Carrying this?” I willed my scythe to appear in my left hand, and Chad jumped at the sudden appearance of the weapon, with its long wooden handle and shiny sharp blade. I grinned. Sometimes it was fun to taunt the dead. “I only take this out when a soul gives me trouble.”

“Whoa. Um, I thought a grim reaper would be…scary.”

“Do you
want
me to be scary?” These assumptions people had about grim reapers were so ridiculous.

“N-no. Never mind. So…what happens now?”

“Now I send you to Purgatory.” I waved a hand, using my mind to open a portal. A swirling gray vortex appeared in the air, about eight feet tall and five feet wide.

“But…do I
have
to go?” Chad asked, his voice shrill.

“No, you don’t have to go to Purgatory if you don’t want to. You can stay here and haunt the earth as a ghost for eternity.” I strained to keep a straight face.

Chad paused as though he was seriously considering it. “Really?”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. There’s no such thing as ghosts.” I gestured to the portal. “Go on. I’m due to pick up another soul soon.”

Chad glanced down at his body again, swallowing. Despite promising myself I wouldn’t this time, I felt the usual tinge of sympathy. I strolled up beside Chad, using my scythe like a walking stick. I shook my head as I stared down at the corpse too. “You don’t want that body anymore. It must have a hundred broken bones. You wouldn’t look very flattering to the ladies.” When Chad didn’t even crack a smile, I added, “You lived a pretty good life. You did a lot to help out the environment. You’ll be heading to a better place, trust me.”

Chad stared at me. “How do you know what my life was like?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes I learn a thing or two about the soul I have to collect. It makes my job easier to know what kind of person you were like. If you had turned out to be a deranged psychopath, I would’ve had my scythe out before introducing myself. Anyway, are you ready?”

Chad sighed as he glanced down at his body one more time. Then he walked toward the portal, and stopped. I came up beside him.

Chad pointed to the portal. “I just walk in here?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“What’s in here?”

“You’ll see. Goodbye, have a nice afterlife.”

Chad bowed his head, and stepped into the portal. Gray light flashed as he disappeared inside, and the portal closed automatically.

Phew, that was an easy one. Not much complaining or whining or defiance from the spirit. Calm souls weren’t very common.

I made my scythe dissolve away and turned back to Chad’s corpse. I hoped it wouldn’t take too long for someone to discover him. He deserved a proper burial.

Before I could leave, I heard grass rustling across the clearing where I was standing. Then, a boy stepped out of the nearby woods. I swear, it seemed like he stared right at me, but I knew that was impossible. He wasn’t dead.

He had deep bronze skin, with black hair that traveled past his shoulders. He must’ve been Native American or something. After staring in my direction for a second, he noticed Chad’s corpse. A horrified look came over his face, and he ran over to kneel by Chad’s body. Instantly, he whipped out a cellphone.

“No point in calling for help,” I muttered to myself.

The boy looked up and seemed to stare at me again with his piercing brown eyes, as if he’d heard what I’d said. “Did you already call 911? Did you see what happened?”

I jumped, startled. He couldn’t be talking to me, but it was so strange the way he was staring right into my eyes. I turned around and looked behind me to see who he was talking to. But there was no one there.

“Hello, I’m talking to
you
,” the boy said. “Do you know what happened?”

I squinted at him. No, he wasn’t transparent. He was still alive. So this couldn’t be possible. Still, I pointed to myself, questioning the boy with my eyes.

He nodded. “Yes,
you
. Who else could I be talking to?”

Oh. My. Gosh. How could a
living human
see me? This isn’t supposed to be possible. I’m a reaper! Even if my eyes are playing tricks on me and he
is
dead, I would be able to
feel
it. My superiors would’ve alerted me so I could retrieve his soul. This isn’t right.

I took a step back. The boy watched me with furrowed eyebrows for a moment, then went back to what he was doing. He dialed 911 and put the phone to his ear while checking Chad’s pulse. His face fell.

If I weren’t in total shock, I probably would’ve said, “I
told
you
it was pointless to call for help.” And if it were normal for me to talk to the living, I might’ve said something. But it wasn’t. It was against Rule Three to
show
myself to humans, let alone hold a conversation with one.

I took another step backwards. What should I do? Should I leave? Should I ask the boy why he can see me? That question would sound crazy if he thought I was human. He couldn’t know about grim reapers. I had to keep my mouth shut.

My decision about what to do was made for me. I felt a strong pull on my consciousness. It was a Summons. I had to leave.

I eyed the boy a little while longer, then turned and ran through the trees.

“Hey, where are you going?” I heard the boy cry. And I knew, even though it wasn’t supposed to be possible, he was calling to me.

I kept running, until I was sure I was out of sight from the mysterious boy. Then, making sure the coast was clear of any other reaper-seeing humans, I teleported back to base.

Chapter 2

Reapers don’t really live anywhere. Although if there
were
a place we’d call home, it would be our base, The In-Between. It’s the place where we congregate, to talk about our work and meet with our superiors.

The reason it’s called The In-Between is because it’s like a dimension between the living world and the dead. Dead spirits are always passing through, some even linger for a while till there’s a decision about where they will be spending their afterlife.

The In-Between is endless. There are no walls or ceiling. There’s the ‘sky’, a purplish abyss filled with flying dead souls, giving the air above a wispy quality. The ground is flat, but it shimmers and ripples like it contains molten iron, dark and gray. It’s strewn with misshapen formations that would be described as boulders if they weren’t soft and cushiony.

All reapers take orders from the same being who ‘created’ us. That’s the
main
grim reaper, the Angel of Death himself. So all reapers are like siblings. One of my reaper sisters is what humans would call a best friend.

I found her at our usual meeting spot when I arrived in The In-Between.

“Hey, Xia,” greeted Jayza as I made my way over to where she reclined on one of the cushioned formations.

“Hi,” I said, not really focusing on my friend. I was still thinking about the human boy who saw me.

“Are you all right?” Jayza stared at me with her dark eyes, like all reapers have. Her skin is really light, almost white. Mine is about as light as hers, though my black hair is frizzy when it’s not in braids, unlike her straight brown hair. Not that there’s such a thing as race when it comes to reapers, but if I was human, I guess I’d be classified as black and white mixed.

I blinked and regarded Jayza. “Of course I’m all right. Um…what is the Summons about? Why did we have to come here?”

“It’s another huge emergency, in Japan this time. A lot of us are needed, just like when that earthquake hit Haiti last year.”

“Oh…what happened this time?” I asked, absentmindedly. I could still see the boy’s striking brown eyes in my mind. The eyes that could see a reaper. Maybe I should’ve talked to him.

“It was another quake,” Jayza answered. “A massive one. Like eight point something. Maybe even a nine. But that isn’t the worse part. There was also a tsunami.
So
many people were killed, and more are still dying…by the way, Japan was also invaded by aliens…” She placed her hands on her hips, frowning at me.

“Really…that’s horrible…” I said, still deep in thought. I wonder, what if I’d accidentally let that boy see me? I’d never had that problem before, but it was the only explanation I could come up with.

“Xia!”

“What?” I finally focused all my attention on Jayza.

“You weren’t listening to a word I said!”

“Yes I was! You said something about…wait, why did you mention aliens?”

Jayza sighed. “That proves my point. What in the world are you thinking about? We have work to do!”

“R-right. I know that. Tsunami in Japan, you said?”

“
Yes
. We have to go help out.”

“But I was due to pick up a soul soon…”

“Someone else will cover for us in America. Our superiors want us in Japan.”

“Fine. Let’s go.” Jayza and I focused on our location and teleported.

* * *

Death isn’t a problem for me. How could I be a reaper if it was? But still, massive loss of life and devastation gets to me. Responding to major crises is definitely the worse part of my job.

My heart tugged as I bent to pick up a muddy, soaked stuffed animal under a pile of boards. I hugged it to my chest and took a moment to look out at all the destruction.

In this part of town, nothing was standing anymore. Houses had been leveled. Debris lay broken and scattered everywhere. Cars had been overturned. Everything was wet and covered in muck. There was a horrible stench in the air.

“Gosh, I wonder why Death can’t predict this stuff?” Jayza said from beside me.

I shrugged. “Our boss has no control over disasters like this.”

“Yeah, I know. When we were little, we learned that the Angel of Death only regulates death, not causes it.”

“I used to think we had the power to make or stop death. But all we do is respond when it happens.” I dropped the stuffed animal to the ground again. “I guess the initial souls have been reaped?”

“I believe so. A lot of the bodies were washed away into the sea, and their souls are being rounded up as we speak. We need to find the remaining stragglers.”

Jayza and I started trudging amid the destruction. Snow began to fall, the flakes melting as soon as they landed on our ethereal bodies. We could adapt to any weather, so the wintry atmosphere didn’t affect us much; we only felt a slight chill. Our feet walked on top of the mud we treaded over, without leaving footprints in it. The world reacted strangely to beings that were neither living nor dead.

I found an elderly man’s spirit under the roof of a house, where he was wailing in anguish. After coaxing him out and calming him down by speaking Japanese (reapers had to learn every main language on earth), I sent him on his way. Meanwhile, Jayza found a family of souls in a car. She dealt with them while I continued searching, discovering a new dead soul every few minutes.

It broke my heart when I found two kid’s souls, clinging to each other. They looked to be sister and brother, the girl seven years old and the boy four. Their faces were tear-streaked, but they seemed relieved to see someone older when I arrived.

“You’re going to a really fun place,” I told them in Japanese as they walked slowly into my portal, holding hands. “There’s going to be lots of toys and candy…maybe even some ice cream…” It was easier to get children to cross over when I told them things like that. Heck, I could be telling the truth and not even know it.

After the kids had disappeared and the portal had closed, I brushed two braids away from my face and turned to see Jayza stepping through debris toward me.

“How many have you found so far?” she asked, stopping beside me.

“Eight,” I replied. “You?”

“Fourteen. We should keep going. We’ll probably have to do constant sweeps of this area. I passed by a couple people who weren’t quite dead yet, but they will be soon.”

I sighed. “The thing about these disasters is that we don’t know where the next soul will appear. Or when.”

“I know.”

Jayza and I continued walking. We passed by a couple of other reapers along the way, so this area was mostly clear. Since there were no nearby spirits to worry about, my thoughts went back to that mysterious human boy from earlier.

“So, are you going to tell me what you were thinking about before we came here?” Jayza asked. “I haven’t seen you thinking that hard since the time you were figuring out how to get Aquil back for always scolding you.” Aquil is one of our superiors.

“Uh…” I hesitated. Well, it couldn’t hurt telling my friend about the human. I needed advice anyway. “Something weird happened during my last reaping assignment.”

“Something weird? You mean our kind of weird?”

I grinned. “Yeah, besides seeing a ghostly spirit. Someone–” I stopped, looked around, and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Someone
saw
me. A
living
human boy.”

Jayza looked skeptical. “No way. That’s impossible, unless you
let
him–”

“I didn’t! I never do! He looked right at me and asked me something, and when I ignored him, he said, ‘hello, I’m talking to
you
’ so I pointed to myself and he said, ‘yes, you’ and I was so freaked out that I just ran away when I got the Summons.” I stopped to catch my breath.

Jayza’s eyes had widened. “Oh my gosh.” She paused to think. “Are you going to tell our superiors?”

“I don’t know…I mean, the boy must not have known what I am. I think he thought I was human. But…how can he see a reaper? He wasn’t dead!”

“If he thinks you’re human, maybe this whole situation is harmless. As long as he doesn’t know what you are, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I thought for a moment. Then I stopped in the middle of a road, where a long crater had been made due to the earthquake. “I need to check something. Come with me.” I began running down the road.

“Hey! Xia!” Jayza sprinted after me. “What are you doing? Where are we going?”

“To find some living humans.” The two of us ran around a filthy piano laying on its side.

“But why are we
running
? I hate running. Let’s teleport–”

“No! If humans can see me, I can’t just appear out of thin air!”

Jayza grumbled under her breath and fell behind as I ran on. Although reapers couldn’t gain weight, she relied so much on teleporting that she was badly out of shape. Me, I liked to run and walk. Sometimes crazy spirits kept me in shape too, attempting to run away to avoid me. It never worked.

I slowed as I approached a group of rescue workers combing through the rubble. They weren’t transparent.

I stood in front of one. “Hey, I found someone trapped under debris. Can you–?”

Before I could finish, the rescue worker walked right through me. The tingling sensation I always felt when that happened made me cringe. The worker continued pushing aside wooden boards, unaware of my presence.

I went up to another worker and waved my hand in his face. No response. I tried talking to a couple of others. None of them could see or hear me.

“See, running was pointless,” Jayza said, finally catching up to me. She placed her hands on her knees, panting.

“Okay, so humans still can’t see me,” I said. “Good.” That still left a huge mystery about the living boy who
did
see me.

“You should probably just stay away from the living boy who saw you,” Jayza suggested. “And tell our superiors about him.”

“I…will.” But first, I needed to find that boy myself again. I needed to know who he was.