Molly grinned at him. 'D-did anyone else notice Kenny's bald shpot?'
Polite, possibly concerned laughter.
Kenny took aim.
The crowd cheered.
Usually, the noise was bittersweet. Kenny knew he would lose the exchange, forced to absorb the cheers with a dead smile.
On that night, the night The Magnificent Molly died, he felt different.
Next stop, infamy.
She flexed her catching hand.
Kenny squeezed the trigger.
BLAM.
Molly's hand clutched shut near her chest.
Nobody moved.
Molly let out a small whimper and fell to her knees.
The room silenced.
Kenny's body swarmed with relief that this terrible, terrible portion of his life was over. He remembered, maybe too late, he had to act like he didn't want her dead - for the crowd - and dropped the gun, slapped his hands on his cheeks and screamed in a fashion that could be considered sarcastic.
But nobody watched him. As always, their eyes clung to The Magnificent Molly, dying on her knees before a crowd of people who figured she wasn't fast enough anymore.
Grim thought so too, and still hadn't quite mastered the timing of his new job. The bullet fired, and Molly collapsed to her knees. He assumed that was when she died. He assumed the schedule got the time wrong. He stepped on stage.
~
The schedule never got the time wrong.
~
On sight of The Reaper, people connected the dots and panic set in.
Grim had no theatrics at his back. He walked like he always walked: no shuffle, no dark, brooding presence, only the chill in the air and his constantly-on-the-verge-of-falling-over trudge towards Molly.
He stopped behind her and took off his glove because he wouldn't be dumb enough to make that mistake again, no sir! He was ready for the ghost to rise! In front of more than thirty people, he was about to perform a send!
Kenny stepped behind the curtain to allow himself a smile. To shake the shackles off, to take but a moment to savour the death of this horrible woman.
But then Molly spoke. 'Lord...'
Kenny froze.
The audience froze.
Grim froze.
Molly continued, still slurring, 'ish-there anything fashter than me?'
Kenny clenched both fists, shaking with anger.
Grim realised his error and searched the stage for an escape. He started backing up the way he came with a shuffle much more ominous than his forward-facing effort.
Molly lifted her head to the crowd, still clutching the space in front of her chest where, evidently, she held a bullet.
'Ish-there anyone faster than me? Ish-there anyone better? Ish-there anyone out there who comes close to my speed?' She hopped to her feet, thrusting the bullet into the air. 'You'd be forgiven for thinking one day my luck would run out, but to you, I'd say...' She spread her arms out and started to spin. 'Who needs luck, when you've got-'
There was Grim.
'HOLY FUCK.'
~
Grim hit the ground again, having absorbed his third punch in half a day.
Of course, those kids in the crowd recorded the whole ordeal. Not only did they capture Grim getting punched, but also Molly scrambling for the gun and chasing him off stage.
The crowd went nuts.
'THE MAGNIFICENT MOLLY,' she cried to her audience, taking a bow. 'FASTER… THAN DEATH.'
The video was panned as a hoax - a fast-moving cash-in on the latest viral sensation. But when the news reported Molly was shot and killed by her assistant five minutes later, a couple hundred people had to start deleting comments, tweets and posts about it.
It's a fickle mistress, that internet.
~
Twenty-Two
Magnificent Destiny; an Epiphany
Tom gave Grim his schedule back when they were in the car, and Grim asked to be dropped off at the location of his next send. He foolishly felt much more confident in his ability to do the job, now that he had the schedule back. He underestimated how tragic a Reaper he was.
The community theatre hall was on the outer loop of The Whirl, near the old-old buildings like the pub (whey!), library and police station.
One drop-off, Tom thought, and Grim would be a thing of the past.
As Tom drove him to the theatre, Grim fought for the help he needed. 'Please Tom,' he said, 'you want to find Cora just as badly as I do.'
Every time he said my name, Tom grimaced. 'Aw shut up, of course I do.' He pulled up next to the hall and stopped the car. 'Look, is this the way you want to spend your only day here? Huh? Don't you have family who'd like to see you in between sends?'
'Well... my Mum and Dad, but they shouldn't have to see their son die again. Cora needs me. She's the only one that needs me.'
'We can't find her. I told you. Nobody knows anything about her, I have to remind people every time we talk. Even her best pals, the ones there the night she went missing. It's shitty, but she's gone.'
‘Somebody has to know... something Thomas.'
'They don't. Listen, I'll wait on you. Go in there and do your thing, pop back out to meet me, we'll go to the pub and get ruined. Eh? I've never seen you drunk, it'll be fucking hilarious.'
Grim itched at his ear then clasped both hands on his lap. Looking at them, he asked, 'has... has Cora ever seen Star Wars? The new one? I m-mean, the new one in 1999?'
Tom shrugged.
'Right.' A deep breath. 'Listen, Thomas. When May... when May and I... When May found out about the baby... I wanted to be the best Dad ever. I got another job to help support you and even started a savings account to give her a boost when she got to eighteen. Maybe to go travelling or something, or-or start a business? I didn't know what type of girl she would be.'
~
An excellent one, obviously.
~
'I made myself miserable some nights, thinking about new ways to be the world's best dad to her when I couldn't be around all the time. But I died. I... died. I made one mistake and got killed.'
'Aye,' Tom interrupted, 'how did that happen again?'
Grim ignored him. 'I have another chance. One chance to be the best Dad ever, to find my daughter and bring her home. I'm not giving up. I need your help. I don't know anything about the world anymore. What's a Twitter? What is a Kardashian?' He extended a hand for shaking. 'Will you help me? Help me be the best Dad ever, help me find my daughter.'
Tom looked The Reaper up and down, unsure where to start. He snarled, 'I'm the best fucking Dad ever. Now fuck off.'
Grim retracted his hand, opened the door and got out. 'Sorry Thomas, take care of yourself.' He shut the door.
Tom immediately drove away at speed. When he got around the corner, he brought the car to a screeching halt and slammed his hand on the steering wheel.
‘MOTHERFUCKER,' he roared.
~
Around the back of the theatre was a small play park. I use the term lightly because it was an awful place to bring a child. It had two swings, a chute and a lot of broken glass, backdropped by the murky peak of Alisonhill and, of course, streaks of rain. I've never been sure who thought of a play park without a shelter on an island where it always rains, but regardless, Tom sat on one of those swings, rocking himself back and forward, wet and troubled.
His trouble stemmed, he supposed, from that competitive nature of his. Back and forth, he swung, between 'fuck it, she's gone' and 'I'm going to find her first and laugh in that dick's face before he goes back in the ground.'
The memory of the first time he gave up kept him in camp 'fuck it'
The idea of finding me, and finding Mum, and telling her he found me, and the family getting back together, and being the happiest little threesome for the rest of their lives, kept him going for so long.
When Mum left, she had barely slept in weeks and hadn't stopped crying in longer.
Tom let her go, but he promised h
er he would find me. He would hunt every day if he had to. It was his destiny to fix this.
But the hunt destroyed him.
The inspector handling the case told him to stop visiting so often. He had other cases to deal with too. Tom would show up three times a week and shout and scream until they even remembered the investigation.
Soon he traded out visits to the police with visits to a little support group for the families of the other missing kids. Tom had a lovely time, at first. He had never been the most in-touch with his feelings but venting his frustrations helped. Sharing the misery made him feel better... until he realised the group didn't want to find the missing, they just wanted to adjust to life without them.
He skipped the meetings from then on, replacing them with visits to the pub. He developed a tic, a nagging sensation in his skull any time he thought of me.
Tom finally supposed it was guilt.
He was done, beat-up and run-down.
I was never coming back to him, no matter how hard he looked.
But then, Grim.
Fucking Grim.
~
Put it this way, right? Tom put on the same lottery numbers since before he could remember. They weren't any particular numbers, no birthdays or anything like that, just numbers he picked and kept to.
Mum told him he shouldn't use the same numbers every time because he would be too afraid to stop. His numbers might come up that week, and then what would he do? But Tom had been putting them on for too long and doubted he’d ever forget them.
Every week, he had the money spent before the numbers were drawn. The debt went first, then the house, then they booked tickets to anywhere else on the planet and started travelling the world as a family. They never settled for too long, always moving until the day they died.
The numbers came, however, and he didn't win.
On Monday he got himself back into his shitty car that took a massage to start and travelled to his shitty job for another five days.
Every week he quit, and one week he stuck to it.
He never watched the TV for the numbers, he would never like to find out. The money he spent on those tickets could buy him a nice pint, and that's what he did every week instead. Friday lunchtime, instead of putting on his lottery numbers, he went to the pub and had a nice pint.
But then Grim came back from the dead, and what's the first thing he wanted to do? He wanted to put the lottery on. He wanted to put the lottery on with his fucking numbers.
Tom wanted to spend that four quid on a nice pint, but what if on that one day Grim came back, his numbers popped up?
He would never forgive himself.
Around the back of the theatre hall, rocking back and forth on a swing, Tom was desperate to leave and desperate to stay.
And he needed anybody to tell him what to do.
~
'So it turns out he was trying to kill me the whole time,' said a ghost, formerly The Magnificent Molly. She sat on the swing next to Tom, gibbering away about her life. 'After the show, he went mental with my gun! I mean, I still caught two of the bullets but... one must've found a chink in my glove.' She lifted a hand and examined it - her ghost still wore the glove, complete with its new bullet hole. 'If I were still alive, I'd be suing someone.'
'Them's the breaks.'
'Well yeah. Didn't help that he kept shooting, mind you.' She looked back at the hall and shook her head. 'Man, he was going for it.'
Tom didn't care, the little patch of grass on the other end of the park's boundary fence that appeared to be moving distracted him.
The ghost carried on. 'You sure that Reaper's coming for me?'
'Aye, the way his day's going he got caught up rescuing a cat from a tree or some shit.'
'How do you know him?'
'Pal, let's not go there.'
Tom narrowed his eyes at the patch of grass, behaving much the same as the floor in Jo's home. 'Shit...'
'I think he was always going to shoot me...' Molly mused.
'Aye?'
'I mean, he shoots a gun at me five days a week. Had to happen eventually.'
'Well aye... You always think you're dealt the worst cards, but-'
'No, this isn't about luck.'
Tom kinked an eyebrow, a bit annoyed he didn't get to finish his cool 'cards we're dealt' bit. 'How do y'figure?'
'Well it's destiny, isn't it?' Molly stood up and took three steps forward, past a damaged wine bottle moving with the ground beneath it.
'Heh...' Tom remembered destiny. 'Destiny.'
'Destiny. Think about it.'
Oh, Tom had, he had spent years with destiny. At that very moment, he thought about the ghost's immediate destiny if any of the ghouls got a hold of her.
She continued. 'I get all these bullets shot at me, right? On stage in front of cumulatively thousands of people. One of those bullets was designed, specifically, to kill me. That round that put me down was always going to be the one. Every time I got a fresh box of bullets I thought, "one of you might be the one. One of you, on stage, under glorious lights." It was my destiny to die like this, as much as it was Kenny's destiny to shoot me - on this one day in my existence. I was backstage, mind you, and there were four bullets instead of one, but the results were the same.' She turned around and took a bow, smearing the air behind her in purple. 'The Magnificent Molly! Not fast enough anymore.'
Just behind her, Tom spotted a hand forcing its way from the ground. By the fence, two arms and the crown of a head appeared.
He swallowed and tried to ignore it. 'Suppose you're right, like... I've seen The Reaper's list today. There are three folk on it, including you. You were all dead today, regardless. Didn't have to be a gun, mind you.'
'No, no, no, it did.' The ghost leant over and took a step towards him, tapping her temple, showing a particular type of madness in her hollow, violet eyes. 'Think, did I end up on the list so soon because I mess about with firearms every day? Or was I born with my name on that list, on this day, by these circumstances, and something designed my life around it?'
'Doesn't leave a great amount of room for free will.'
'I don't disagree, but I can catch bullets. Why? Why would I have such a ridiculous skill if not to show off? I was designed to be this fast, designed to be this cocky, and this glove was designed to fail on me, today.'
'So it's all part of the plan?'
The ghost took her seat back. 'Destiny.'
Ahead of them, a ghoul hauled itself from the ground and onto two legs.
Tom hadn't yet seen one standing up - made from the grass it came from, with gangly arms and pointed fingers reaching down as far as its feet. Its face pulled taught against its skull, and both its eyes and jagged mouth contained nothing but black. It raised one hand and clicked at Molly’s ghost.
'Oh, what's this?' Molly asked, unphased.
'I think it's here for you.'
'That can't be great.'
The ghoul peeled the last of its foot from the ground and lurched towards them. It walked with a twitch, like a TV changing channel.
It stood behind the fence.
Click.
It stood in front of the fence.
Its jaw chattered up and down, like those wind-up teeth in bad joke sets.
Click.
Another four feet forward.
A little ahead of them, its friend freed itself from the tarmac.
Tom searched for an escape, only to see another two behind the swings.
Molly waited for them.
Click.
She appeared to accept her fate, but if she knew about all the excruciating pain that came with a ghoul's collection, she would think differently.
Before Tom could warn her, one appeared at her back and tumbled over with both arms outstretched.
'Yargh!' She hopped up with a chunk of her calf missing as the ghoul fell into the ground with it. 'What the f-YAGH.'
The one made of tarmac got a chunk of her other leg and disappeared the
same way.
'Fuck...' Tom uttered.
'Is this supposed to be happening??'
'Ehhh...'
The ghoul made of grass made a swipe at her good leg, which she unsuccessfully tried to avoid; she fell to her knees without it holding her up.
Tom grit his teeth, stood up and backed away from the scene. Molly died already, but he felt like a spectator at an execution.
'I don't feel great,' he said.
The ghost glared at him and wailed, 'oh well I'm sorry! Are you okay!?'
'Aye... sorry.'
Click.
Another ghoul of tarmac came for the ghost, it fell through her waist, hip and thigh, and took them off to Purgatory: that awful nightclub where the song never changed.
Fortunately, to a degree, Grim barged in with a glowing purple hand in the air. 'So sorry! So sorry!'
The ghost turned. 'Oh! You're a- OW!'
Click.
Off came an arm.
Grim, by the ghost's side, raised the glowing hand over her, but stopped. 'B-before you go ehm, have you seen Star Wars?'
Molly, with wide and frantic eyes, screamed, 'WHAT!?'
'I'm r-really sorry. I need t-to-'
Click.
'Of course!'
She obliterated under Grim's touch. Into a million little violet fragments, she dissipated.
Tom watched as the remaining ghouls found their way back into the ground, aiming dirty looks at Grim as they went.
Click.
And then it was just Tom, Grim and a lot of broken glass.
'Took yer time,' Tom said.
Grim nodded, between frantic breaths. 'Sorry I was- she had a gun.'
Tom smirked. 'Aye, figures.''
'You, you came back for me.'
'Aye...'
'Th-thank you.'
'Aye.'
~
Tom thought Molly was full of crap, and he was right to.
After all, Molly wasn't designed to die that day at all. I don't know when she should have died, but she was supposed to make it to November 27th at least. Had her glove not failed on her, she would've caught all four bullets, and Kenny would've gone to jail.
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