Grim

by Gavin McCallion

  Regardless, an assessor sat behind him, so he would treat the applicant with the utmost respect. It didn't matter how he felt about him at first glance, he would get a full and fair half-hour interview.

  So he thought.

  'Please, sit.'

  Dad dropped his folder when he pulled out his chair.

  'Oh,' he stated.

  He bent over to retrieve it, but forgot how tall he was and thumped his head on the desk.

  'Nng,' he grunted.

  He took a step back, but not one far enough, and repeated the process with a similar thump.

  'Nng.'

  On his third try, he managed to retrieve his folder. Rubbing his reddening forehead, he took a seat.

  'Are you alright?' Derek asked.

  Dad nodded half-heartedly. 'Hello, yes, yes I am. Thank you.'

  Derek gave him a slow nod. 'Good morning, then.'

  'I'm sorry about your desk.'

  'It is quite fine.'

  'Okay.'

  Derek extended a hand over the desk, Dad tried to shake it.

  'The folder.'

  'Oh. Oh right, sorry.'

  The mix-up would've been understandable, had Derek not offered his hand with the palm facing up. The handshake Dad went for was closer to a dog offering his owner a paw.

  Dad passed the folder over.

  Derek accepted it, opened it at the first page and pretended to read. While he had to go through the whole interview process, reading the man's folder wouldn't be efficient. Efficiency is the sign of a professional. 'M-hm.' He nodded at the page. 'Okay.'

  'Thank you,' Dad said, and Derek didn't know why.

  ‘I interview fifty people a day for this job. It is an open application, anyone who knows of it can apply. Most people, expectantly, do. When a constituent Reaper opts for retirement, the applicants are added to the talent pool for a chance of resurrection. Now, an opening for your constituency hasn't been available for...' he glanced back at the page and actually read a part. 'You're from Wilson's Well, so fifty years or thereabouts.'

  'Yes, fifty-three years.'

  'Indeed. So with that in mind, what skills do you have that set you apart from the other, let's say, thousand people who've applied from Wilson's Well?'

  Derek always thought the question was a bit horrible, especially at the start of the interview. What could the candidate possibly say that a thousand other people hadn't?

  After a minute of staring at the table, Dad came up with a terrible answer: 'I'm a hard worker.'

  'M-hm?'

  'Yes. And I eh, I'm a perfectionist. I don't do things wrong, very eh, often.'

  Derek resisted a scoff at the idea that a man who wore a suit quite as poorly as my father could ever consider himself a perfectionist. He made a note of his answer and waited. He didn't know Dad had finished talking.

  They shared a stare for thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of complete, awful silence.

  Derek moved on. 'I see. Given that, again, the job offers a second chance at life, an immortal one, we are invested in the reasoning for which-'

  'Actually, if I could interrupt you before you go much further.'

  Derek lifted his head from the form. 'Yes?'

  Dad scraped his chair forward and pawed his collapsing hair-do back over his head. 'I just want to clarify a detail or two. Eh, you said resurrection. I would just like to confirm that one has to- well, I have to die before I can be considered for the spot?'

  'Well... yes, of course.'

  'Well, that's fine. I just, it's never made explicitly clear in your reading material is all. So I thought I'd check. But that's fine. P-please, carry on.'

  'Okay, well as I-'

  'No wait, sorry. I am. Can I just double-check one more thing that isn't quite, eh-' he tapped his nose '-on the nose, in the reading material.'

  Derek didn't say anything.

  'Okay, so just to confirm that if I'm picked to come back, yes? That I will be truly immortal? Like, nothing will be able to scrape me from this earth without my say-so?'

  Derek's mouth opened a bit.

  'I'm sorry for interrupting again, but I'm just- I won't be able to concentrate on the rest of the interview until I find out. I have been made frighteningly aware of my own mortality since the birth of my- it doesn't matter. Sorry.'

  Derek considered cutting the interview off there. Manners were crucial to him. 'Yes, to answer your question, immortality is part of the job.'

  'Okay. Thank you.'

  'So, if you're quite finished...'

  Dad nodded.

  'Why do you want to be a Reaper? Why do you want this opportunity? What do you have to live for that the thousand other candidates don't?'

  'Oh.' Dad adjusted himself, smiling as though he had the answer. 'My daughter. My new-born daughter, Cora. I would do anything for her, I don't want to ever be taken away.'

  Derek wasn't sure why he was trying anymore.

  'I see, so the thing you want to be brought back for, more than a thousand other people who applied for the position, is one daughter.'

  '...Yes?'

  'With all due respect Mr...' he didn't know Dad's name. 'With all due respect, sir, I've heard that one before.'

  Dad shrivelled from the answer and scratched at his left ear like a dog for a couple of seconds. 'Ah...' he said, and then he reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He produced something, placed it on the table and slid it towards Derek. It was a photograph of an infant with "Cora, four weeks" written at its base.

  Derek lifted an eyebrow.

  Every so often, candidates pulled out baby photos during an interview. It was a bribe of sorts, an emotional one. Derek was impervious to such tactics.

  Dad, with strength in his tone, said, 'and I'm sorry, but with all due respect to you, I can personally guarantee that I have more love for my child than the thousand other applicants do.'

  'Oh, a personal guarantee?'

  'Yes, indeed. I'm going to be the best Dad there ever was, and I can't really do that if I die. I want one of those mugs on Father's day, the ones with World's Best-'

  'I understand.' Derek shut the folder and shuffled the mostly incomplete form over to the end of his desk. 'That will be all.'

  Dad shut his eyes and lowered his head. 'Thank you for the opportunity.' He folded the photo twice and put it in his back pocket, where it would stay - undisturbed - for eighteen years, and then he would give it away to someone who needed it more.

  Derek observed his walk as he left the room - a shuffle not unlike that of a traditional Reaper. Had he entered like that, he might've stood a chance.

  'Well!' The assessor announced from the back of the room.

  Derek had forgotten all about him. He hoped he had made the right decision. It might've been the safe choice to go through the whole interview with him, but it certainly wasn't the best. That bumbling wreck of a man didn't stand a chance of being a shallow entry to the pool.

  Terrified, Derek got up and turned to meet the noisy gentleman at the back of his office.

  Oh, and what a sight he was. Six foot of smirking charm with slicked-back hair and a well-kept moustache. He wore an open-collared shirt, white blazer and ridiculous tartan trousers.

  Derek wondered how he hadn’t noticed those when he entered.

  The “assessor” popped a nut in his mouth. 'He was a tad useless!'

  Relieved, Derek nodded. 'Not an ideal client at all, no sir. I'm happy to be evaluated on my next interview if you would like an idea of-'

  'Oh-ho! No need for that, friend, the evaluation was simply a box I had to tick, the shorter, the better.' He clapped the dust off his hands. 'I'm hiring you! You're my new man!'

  'Really!? Thank you! Wait are- I'm serving you?'

  'But of course! I saw your application, and I said to the staff, I said staff! Call off that assessor, this man is getting the job and I'm going down there to tell him. I'm going right now, I said, you get me a driver immediately!'

  Derek ga
wped at his new employer. 'Well... thank you! Thank you so much!' He extended his hand for shaking - chin up and chest out. 'Derek Michael, sir. I look forward to serving you.'

  The Judge swept a hand in and met Derek's with a clap. He shook it with gusto. 'Judge Hugh Rabbit, man-servant!'

  They shared another chuckle before Derek's curiosity took over. 'Can I ask what made you so sure you would be hiring me?'

  'Well isn't it obvious?'

  'No sir.'

  'Why your photograph, of course! You're positively hideous! You'll make a perfect man-servant!'

  It deflated Derek slightly, but not enough. It washed over him in an instant, and off they went to start a new life together.

  ~

  Derek would find out on his first shift on the job that Judge Rabbit was a psychopath who deeply enjoyed murder.

  Derek learned to deal with it.

  I did say he was a monster.

  ~

  Four

  Me, later on

  Seventeen years passed, and a lot of shit changed:

  I was raised well, with a father in Tom who never seemed to like me that much; I did well at school, but mostly drums; I developed a “healthy” ego, dubbing myself the most excellent girl who ever lived at the age of nine; I grew a need for adventure and a desire to die young and in love; I fell in love with my best friend, the girl-next-door; we attended the wedding of my parents; for four years, we were blissfully in love; we got into different universities; she left me; the shit hit the fan; about a year of solid drinking; and then - this is important - I was kidnapped in the middle of a black-out drinking session and kept prisoner in a basement.

  So... Yeah.

  I wasn't the only one, to be fair. Over the course of six months, fourteen teenagers vanished from Wilson's Well. Fourteen kids - all roughly the same age, all skilled musicians - gone. Authorities lost the trail. People forgot. People assumed we were dead. Who would be keeping fourteen teenagers alive for a year, right?

  He kept five of us alive.

  I'd love to tell you all about the other nine and the past year of my life as I befriended each of them before a giant murdered them, but this story isn't about that. It's not about getting up every morning and practising the same thirty-three songs three times a day. It's not about the number of band members my captor cycled through to settle on the five that excelled enough to perform at his Gala.

  No. This story is about me getting the fuck out of that scenario.

  It happened on the 26th of November 2016. The day of The Reaper’s Gala. The grand performance. The day of our escape.

  ~

  I woke up in the bottom bunk of a damp little room lying next to my vocalist. She had the most delightful snore.

  I wish it were what it looked like.

  Her name was Vox, and she had a habit of sleepwalking. A couple of times a week, she'd clamber down off the top bunk and slink into bed beside me. A couple of times a week she did this to me, and a couple of times a week I considered jumping on her as a result. I struggled to fall back asleep after her little invasion, but I managed on most days.

  That morning, I didn't.

  I lay there, next to a snoring beauty, and stared into the sheet of darkness hanging around us. Somewhere amongst it were stone walls and a ceiling we couldn't see even with the lights on. A single weak bulb hung down into the middle of the room, creating a little sphere of light in which we lived. In theory, there could’ve been anything lurking in the corners, watching us. Like spiders, for example. Giant, nasty spiders, mutated by the stifling, foggy oxygen we inhaled every day.

  I thought about those spiders for a bit, relinquished the idea of getting any sleep and decided to go get my cold shower over with.

  As I clambered over the top of Vox, I let myself smell her hair. I didn't linger; that would be creepy.

  She stirred, blinking up at me through a glorious mess of black curls, and quickly identified what had happened. 'I... did it again.'

  I tried to sound annoyed to paint the illusion I didn't adore her. 'You did.'

  She pawed the curls out of her face. 'Maybe we should swap bunks.'

  'Nah, you'll kill yourself trying to climb in your sleep.'

  She smiled.

  'Back to sleep, it's early...' I glanced at my surroundings. 'Probably.'

  I picked up my zipper, wrapped myself up and retrieved my wet towel from its spot on the floor. I hadn't showered with a dry towel in nearly a year.

  'Y'nervous?' Vox asked.

  'Nah, we haven't fucked up in months. We'll be fine.'

  I heard her shuffle around the bed, resettling herself. She mumbled, 'm'nervous,' and a second later, she started snoring again.

  I left the room.

  The living space shared a lot of its characteristics with the glorified shoe box in which Vox and I slept. It was bigger, big enough to accommodate a table, a few armchairs and two sets of bunk-beds for the rest of my band. It also smelled much worse, because boys are awful.

  I crossed the room delicately. At the other end, just ahead of the bathroom door, I caught the agenda on the wall. It was a small blackboard scrawled with lazy handwriting. I had memorised the writing because it rarely changed, but this morning it was different. It was too dark to read, but it didn't look right.

  I unhooked it from the wall and entered the bathroom ahead.

  In the little light-sphere which stretched from the sink to the shower, I examined the agenda:

  9-12, rehearsal

  3-6, sound-check

  7-8, clothes

  8.30 - 11.30, The Reaper's Gala

  There was an ominous blank space beneath the writing. An area asking to be filled in with words like 'death row' or 'firing squad' or 'a giant's angry feet.'

  In my head, I rewrote the agenda as follows:

  9-10, rehearsal, where I'd make the first mistake of my career in this basement

  10, hopefully he doesn't stand on me until I stop breathing

  3-4, sound-check, where my band escape

  4, this time he'll probably stand on me until I stop breathing, but if not I'm free

  I nodded. 'That's the plan.'

  ~

  Five

  A Lovely Morning Walk

  The night before, Tom got drunk.

  He didn't have much else to do.

  He propped himself on a stool in a clatty little local called The Whirlpool. It was dark, smelled off, and the wooden floor had long since rotted. He'd been there since dinner time with his charming blonde labrador, Paddy. People loved Paddy. People were so preoccupied with the dog that Tom thought he wasn't comparable to the slew of lonely drunks that lined themselves up along the bar on a Monday afternoon.

  But make no doubt about it, in 2016, Tom was one of those drunks. Gone was his life, gone were his family. Just Tom and his dog, left alone in a big house full of reminders that made him go to the pub.

  'S'called the biscuit,' Chris slurred from three men down the bar. He swished a pint glass around in which a blonde, gelatinous deformity sloshed against its sides. 'It's half a pint of Guinness and a double Baileys. Let it curdle. Lit' that.'

  Chris put the glass down.

  Tom watched as everyone else refused to drink it, not even at the prospect of a free pint. Tom declined too, but only because he knew the stakes could go higher.

  'Right then.' Chris dug into his pockets and retrieved his wallet. He picked out a note and planted it on the bar beside the drink. 'Tenner.'

  Tom considered the tenner. A tenner would buy him a pizza.

  'Give it here.' Tom beckoned the drink towards him to the delight of the pub.

  It went down like a fat, stale jelly shot made of a dirty pint, but it went down and stayed there. For now.

  When an adequate amount of time passed - an amount of time where Tom had to convince everyone he wasn't about to chuck the glob back up - Chris rewarded him with his tenner.

  An hour later, Tom had eaten the entirety of his double-jalapen
o, spicy chicken and donner meat pizza without sharing. People called him things like 'fat gutsy fuck.' Other people said things like 'he used to be thin, y'know.'

  He managed to convince himself they were jealous, but they weren't. Tom was the fattest. General fatherhood, a craving for a couple of pints after a job he didn't enjoy, and particularly the events of the year prior had not agreed with the figure on which he used to pride himself.

  When the insults got heated, Tom thought he might end up barred from the pub (again) and decided to take his dog and go home. Because he chose to spend his taxi money on one more pair of pints, he and Paddy had to walk through Amber Park - notoriously dodgy at night - in the pissing rain.

  They didn't have an umbrella with them.

  'Listen, I know yer ragin' at me fer - hic - not sharin' my pizza, but could you try to look scary? This park in't - hic - the best area.'

  Paddy didn't reply. Not only had Tom dragged him to a pub all day, refused to share a pizza with him and walked him home in the rain, he had also spent the dog-food money. I'm not trying to say the dog actually knew any of this and deliberately walked at half pace through a park that could get Tom stabbed, but there didn't seem to be another reason.

  They made it to the other end without too much hassle. From there, they were a further ten minutes to the McKay house.

  Half an hour later, when he eventually managed to unlock the door, he let himself into the house with Paddy at his back. They talked about deep shit on the kitchen floor for an hour while Tom polished off the previous night's Chinese. Afterwards, they wandered into the living room where Tom spent a ridiculous amount of time choosing a pornographic film to play, and then he fell asleep in the middle of a wank.

  On the morning of the 26th, while I thought about my Grandpa's arse in a freezing cold shower, Tom woke up to the sound of Paddy whimpering for his walk.

  'Aye, aye...' He pushed the dog's face away.

  Paddy fought back with his tongue.

  Tom's mouth was open.