'This man. This man. THIS MAN is our new Reaper.' Judge Rabbit thrust the folder into the air with such gusto he almost fell off the desk. A moment passed, and then he slapped Derek on the chest with it. 'Get that out the door.'
Derek, as he left the room, took a look at the application.
'Shir, I feel like... I know his name from... from somewhere...'
And that is the last thing he remembered.
But it was enough.
Derek told David they'd be there as fast as they could and leapt to his feet. He collected the debris of his suit, littered around the room, and staggered into the hall. Judge Rabbit's repeating smile in the portraits mocked him. Portrait after portrait after portrait told him how fucked he was. His hangover blurred them into one endless, shining grin.
In The Judge's lobby, folders were strewn everywhere. The whole talent pool for selection - literally thousands of applicants of which eighty percent were more suitable for the job than Grim - scattered across the floor.
Derek stomped through. His heart beat too fast and his sweats came thickly. He thought of his medicine as he clenched and unclenched his fists and forced long, slow breaths to bring his heart-rate down.
He buzzed The Judge's intercom once, and then he buzzed another three times when he didn't get an answer in a reasonable amount of time.
'Who does this?' The Judge eventually spoke back.
Derek nearly let his panic overtake him, but he remembered his supposed professionalism. He stopped himself before he said, 'sir, sir, we made an adverse selection sir. We made an adverse selection and now we're in trouble. We shouldn't have picked him. I recognised his name. We're ruined sir, we're ruined, oh dear, oh no, oh bugger. I think I'm falling over.'
He instead said, 'sir, sorry to wake you. We have something of an issue.'
~
Outside Rabbit Manor, without an umbrella, Judge Rabbit and Derek lumbered down three high stone steps to the drive where sat The Judge's car. It sported a lovely dent in its front which answered the question of how they got home the night before. The Judge ignored the damage for now, and Derek let him into the car without it being mentioned.
He circled around to the front of the car and climbed into the driver's seat, where he suddenly became aware of how unfit to drive he was. He sat at the horrible worst-of-both-worlds area between drunk and hungover. He could spew but also neck another four cocktails.
He pushed the ignition button on the car and allowed himself a prayer for road safety.
He forgot to take his pill. He wasn't right without his pill. He needed his pill.
'Chop chop, Derek, we're in a hurry!' The Judge slurred from the backseat.
Derek swung the car out of the drive.
There were two ways down the hill from Rabbit Manor: the road and the trees. The trees were faster, and so the decision was made for him. He tore through a small opening in the woods surrounding the mansion.
The car reacted terribly to the terrain. It always did. Up and down and left and right it bounced its passengers. Each of them wired their mouths shut, determined not to ruin the car further with their fluids. The trees lashed against the windscreen, tangling the wipers that were taxed enough with the onslaught of the island's patented rain.
The car erupted from the woods at the base of the hill and skidded onto the road at the other side. They shaved five minutes off their journey. Derek felt like he had shaved five days off his life.
He stopped the car at the bottom to give himself a chance to get his bearings back, scraping breath into his lungs.
From the back, Judge Rabbit spoke without a hint of his charisma. 'Boot's open again.'
Derek checked the rear-view mirror and saw the boot of the car bouncing on its hinges. 'Yessir.'
He got out and hurried around to the car's rear. The trick-boot on the car had become famous between them. It came off the showroom floor with that boot malfunctioning, regardless of what the complaints department of the manufacturers said. Derek slammed it shut as a drive-by operation and got back in.
Just before Derek took off again, Judge Rabbit spoke. 'Derek, good lad?'
Derek calmed his heart and ironed the frantic kinks out of his voice. 'Yessir?'
'It's not likely, seeing as how we're in a dreadful hurry, but is there any chance you brought some car whisky?'
Derek, smiling to himself, opened the glove compartment, retrieved a small flask of the stuff and handed it back to his employer.
'Oh-ho!' The Judge cried, accepting the drink. 'What a gentleman!'
'Welcome, sir.'
Derek and Judge Rabbit proceeded to have one of those car rides where everybody in the car knows that the driver isn’t sober, and nobody more so than the driver. Every corner was a tense affair, every set of traffic lights disappeared and reappeared at will, nobody spoke.
~
Oh man, I’ve been in that car a lot. I’ve spewed in that car a lot. I’ve been kicked out of that car a lot.
I’m pretty cool to be friends with.
~
Derek rolled them down Alisonhill with two white-knuckled hands clutched to the steering wheel. He took them around and around the empty (thankfully) streets of The Whirl before cutting off and heading to the port.
The ferry ride to Hadleigh saw Judge Rabbit spew over the side of the boat, but Derek was much too professional to do that in front of his employer, so he politely swallowed a half gallon of it until he excused himself to the bathroom.
Back on land at Hadleigh, Derek drove carefully. The city was a busy place and much more heavily policed on a Saturday morning. He didn’t have far to go, but it seemed that every road came with three people who had to be somewhere quickly. So quickly, that it was somehow acceptable for them to run out in front of his car.
Each time Derek had to slam the brakes, his insides lurched and Judge Rabbit muttered something about murder.
Not soon enough, the grand cube of the Courthouse popped up ahead of them. Derek did his best to park straight and then tumbled out of the car to let The Judge out.
Judge Rabbit got out with hesitation, as if he were stepping off of a merry-go-round onto solid ground. Derek shut the door at his back as The Judge righted himself and strode towards the entrance.
Before he followed, Derek sighed at the passenger side door.
There was something under the seat that, while he wasn’t explicitly instructed to collect it, he knew he would have to bring into the Courthouse.
It was the way his day was heading, sadly.
A minute later, Derek caught up to The Judge with a gun box under his arm.
~
The White Room existed at the end of a white corridor in the Courthouse. At its door stood David Hunter, a skeleton of a man with a long ponytail, dressed in grey trousers and a tight-fitted blue shirt. He clasped a thick book to his chest, a tome big enough to knock a man out and bound in deep, brown leather.
'What happened??' he whined.
Judge Rabbit patted at the air. 'It's fine. Young Derek and I had a bit too much to drink last night and missed the mark a bit on the selection.'
'A bit?'
'A tad. Now is The Reaper up?'
'Well yes, of course!'
Derek wasn't impressed by David's demeanour. He was panicking too, but he was much too professional to show it.
He looked down his nose at the Writer. 'Nothing to be concerned about.'
'Exactly.' The Judge smiled back at his faithful man-servant. 'Derek here has the right- you have a lightning bolt on your face.'
'Sir?' Derek said, frowning.
'You have a lightning bolt on your face, like Bowie. A Ziggy Stardust lightning bolt. On your face.'
Derek knew absolutely nothing of it. He kept his chin up. 'I apologise, sir, I wasn't aware.'
'Good God man, do you know how unprofessional you look? Yes, we were in a hurry, but wash your bloody face.'
Nothing cut Derek deeper than accusations of unprofessionalism. 'A
pologies again sir, it is never my intention to embarrass you.'
The Judge rolled his eyes and turned back to David. 'Who's this Reaper’s - er - his, his-'
'His guide, sir?' Derek tried to win points back.
'Indeed.'
David answered. 'A first-timer, a young man named Matthew.'
'Oh, dear...' Judge Rabbit clicked his fingers. 'What a shame. He can't be let out the door if he knows of our error. Write him dead.'
‘Oh. Dead?’
‘As a doornail.’
‘Sir, we’re…’
A brief moment of hopelessness flashed across David's face. A look that suggested they jumped right to the absolute last resort as opposed to considering any non-violent solutions to their problem.
‘Sir, we’re in Hadleigh, that’s outwith our jurisdiction, I-‘
‘Boring, David. Make it happen.’
David sighed, folded to his knees, flipped his book open to a marked page and started to scribble.
Judge Rabbit turned to Derek. 'My gun, Derek.'
Derek produced the box from under his arm and opened it for his boss.
The Judge retrieved his weapon, made entirely of bronze and with a barrel length that could be considered overcompensating. It fit him perfectly, like an extension of his hand instead of something he held.
David spoke from the ground. 'Right, ready to go?'
'Oh yes! Let's - wait.' The Judge turned to Derek. 'Wait until the boy is dead before you enter, would you? I'm aiming for grandeur, threat and imposition.'
'Yessir.'
'Bowie was an icon, you aren't threatening in his paint. It actually improves your appearance.'
'...Yessir.'
'Grand.' He turned back to the door. 'David.'
'Records altered… the boy dies in ten.'
The Judge approached the door. Derek watched him shiver as he put his hand on the doorknob. The Judge started counting out loud, but not for anybody's benefit. He wasn't on the clock. Matthew would die in ten seconds regardless of how it happened. He had been put on the list.
No, The Judge counted down because he liked the thrill.
Derek didn't doubt The Judge only thought he got to kill someone in ten seconds.
He got to kill someone in nine seconds.
He got to kill someone in eight seconds.
He entered The White Room, counting.
~
Nine
An Unnerving Frappuccino
The gunshot shook Derek down to his guts.
BLAM.
'Jesus...' David said. He hadn't stood up. The book still lay open in front of him. 'Derek, we're in trouble here. There's no Reaper to send that boy.'
‘Yes.’ Derek forced himself to sound calm. ‘I know…’
David got up. 'Oh, do you? Do you know? Then what do you suggest we do about the body in there that's about to sprout a ghost? Where exactly is that ghost supposed to go? Eh?'
Before Derek thought of an answer, Judge Rabbit emerged from The White Room with the trembling remains of Grim under his arm. He appeared to be at the tail-end of an enjoyable conversation.
Chuckling, he addressed his man-servant. 'Derek, we're going for frappuccinos.’ He aimed a thumb over his shoulder, at the door. ‘David, you can take care of that, yes?'
'Sir.' David nodded.
'Yessir, I'll be right down.' Derek added as he presented the open gun box to his boss.
Judge Rabbit casually deposited his pistol. 'Don't be long!'
They pottered off down the corridor and around a corner.
As soon as they vanished, David lurched at the door and pulled it shut.
'What are you doing?' Derek asked, frowning a crease into the bowie-bolt on his face.
'We'll have to let the ghouls take him.'
The idea took Derek's breath away and tugged at his professional mask. With The Judge no longer in earshot, he supposed it would be okay to let a bit of panic out. 'Y-you can't do that. It is cruel.'
'We need to, Delboy. We don't trust any other Reapers enough with an on-the-fly sending, for murder, of a Hadleigh resident, in The White Room. Do you? They'll talk to someone, and then we're all fucked.'
From behind the door, they heard a voice. 'Hello?' the ghost of Matthew called. 'What's happening?'
Derek's little heart started beating quickly. 'If the ghouls take him, the rest of the Judges find out, there are alerts set up for-'
'I can cover that, I can cover… I can cover all of this. I made a mistake. I got the timing of a new Reaper wrong or something. I got this boy’s name mixed up with one of ours, it’s happened before. But I can't cover another Reaper flat-out reporting us, right? The ghouls are taking him.'
The voice came again. 'Am-am-am I dead?'
Derek looked past David at the door. 'We can't.'
'Listen to me, this is your fault.' David stated with a smattering of aggression. 'You dropped the ball here. You need to get him in check.'
Derek baulked at the idea. 'Be serious man.'
David ran a hand down his face and puffed out his cheeks. 'Want me to be serious? It's getting worse, isn't it? More sudden deaths, more public deaths, more deaths where he couldn’t give a fuck about the cover-up. It's getting worse. Now you're telling me you can't even hire a Reaper we can blackmail. You're losing control.'
'David I... I've never been in control.'
The pleas on the other side of the door intensified suddenly. Both men stopped talking.
The ghost of Matthew met the ghouls.
~
When he felt comfortable going back into the White Room, Derek collected the important suitcase, the bloodied folders and the leftover forms, then he left the building in a hurry.
He tried to pay no attention to David's words, but they got to him.
Judge Rabbit had a flair for murder. It was part of his charm, Derek supposed. He was a sick man. He was a man with bloodlust and the financial means to enable it.
He just paid the right people to do the right things: he paid a Writer to keep Death’s books balanced, to make sure someone suitable got to live in place of The Judge’s dead; he paid a "guy" to deal with the bodies; he paid Derek to follow him around telling him he was spectacular; and importantly, he paid a Reaper to send the ghosts of his victims without telling the authorities about how they were murdered.
If he were missing a single member of his staff, then getting away with murder became much more challenging. That morning, when Judge Rabbit executed poor Matthew, he did it without concern for the fact that he didn't have an active Reaper to do his part.
David was right. It was reckless. Judge Rabbit was getting worse.
~
Know what else was reckless? Hiring Dad as his next Reaper.
Why? Why did Derek recognise the name on Dad's folder? Why, when David reminded him, did he scurry straight to Judge Rabbit's door to tell him what a dumb mistake they'd made? Why, when The Judge learned about it, did he scrape himself from his pit, drive to a different island and shoot the only other man aware of the selection?
Well because Judge Rabbit was keeping me in his basement, of course!
I lived under his house and had done with a shit-load of other kids he’d kidnapped for nearly a year. And when he got around to killing us all - which he obviously would - he would need a Reaper to send our ghosts, wouldn't he?
Blackmailing Grim was hard enough. Being the good, upstanding centre-point of right and moral things from his birth to his death, it'd cost more than The Judge's worth to keep him on his staff of enablers.
But even if he could somehow corrupt Grim and drag him kicking and screaming onto his payroll, he would definitely never send his own daughter.
That's why Grim couldn't be Wilson's Well's next Reaper.
Plus, he walked funny.
~
Back on Wilson's Well, ten minutes from the port, there was a twenty-four-hour bar called Height. It was a coffee bar by day, a sports bar by night. It wasn't the firs
t time Judge Rabbit fancied an impromptu frappuccino, so he knew where to go.
The bar stank of leftover sick and the lights were low enough to illuminate the tacky glow-stars stuck to the walls.
When they entered, The Judge asked Derek to enquire if they would be served a whisky.
He said yes, but the barmaid said no because it was nine in the morning. Two frappuccinos and a vanilla skimmed latte would do them, then.
Derek put the drinks down on the table at which Judge Rabbit sat with Grim. He picked the table next door for himself. If Judge Rabbit wanted him at the same table, he would say.
Derek sat down, settling himself as Judge Rabbit picked up his frappuccino. Grim ignored his.
Derek enjoyed the contrast between them. Judge Rabbit - ruined eyes, howling of drink and in need of a tidy-up around the face - still managed to carry himself with a distinct pride. A cream suit jacket, open-collared shirt, tartan trousers, a pristine moustache and slicked-back hair held him together like a man of expensive vanity. His rings clacked on his glass when he picked it up. He sat with his legs crossed, leaning back.
Grim, on the other hand, didn't fit his suit, his hair flopped around, and he just saw a man die (it was written all over his face).
The Judge put his drink down. 'Mm! Good stuff! This won't be needing a spike, Derek.'
'Yessir,' Derek replied, and with that cleared up, he sifted through the paperwork he had taken from The White Room. He ignored all the blood. While Judge Rabbit explained a frappuccino to Grim, Derek hunted through the ruined papers for a particular form.
Typically, when a rebirth takes place, the Guide explains to the new Reaper which of his family are still around and the current state of their affairs. Maybe a spouse had moved on, maybe their parents had died, maybe their kids had moved out of the constituency for which The Reaper applied. Some things could change a Reaper's mind on the job before he or she even got out the door. It happened rarely, but it happened.
Derek found the form for such circumstances amongst the pile and put it at the top: the opt-out form.
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