Forever After - By David Jester Page 0,17

moments before the event, giving him a matter of minutes to get to get to the scene and transport the soul. Although it didn’t matter if he was late. More than once he had taken his time to drag his weary self to the scene after being woken by the dreading chirp of the timer.

He glanced around. He expected to see the soul hovering over his body, but there was no one there. If he had wandered off he would return. Like a murderer to the scene of the crime, they always came back, but Michael couldn’t afford to wait around. He had been around enough murder scenes to know that people had a way of ignoring him; it wasn’t that he was invisible, they could see him and he was sure they had, but they seemed almost entranced by his presence. He could step back, blend in with a waiting crowd and chat amongst the people there, but if he was found standing over the body looking suspicious, he was ignored.

It made his job a lot easier, but he still didn’t like to hang around. There was much emotion around death and when it came to murder that emotion was usually unbridled fear and morbid curiosity, two of the human emotions that made Michael feel sickly uneasy.

He peered into the forest, lit from all sides by the breaking afternoon sun. In the undergrowth something writhed against a mass of fallen leaves. It popped up a curious head, sniffed the air and then bolted up a tree. A rat or a squirrel, it didn’t matter, neither were on Michael's agenda.

The body couldn’t have gone far. It was resigned to a restricted radius. Michael didn’t know the exact rules, another aspect he wasn’t sure of, but he had enough experience to guess at the proximity. He searched that proximity three times, even peering under bushes and up trees, despite the fact the spirits couldn’t interact with their environment enough to climb or hide, but he still couldn’t find him.

Taking one last glance at the body, Michael halted his search and prepared himself for the inevitable long day ahead.

****

There were a few people in the waiting room when he arrived, reapers preparing confused and sedate souls for the afterlife and whatever lay beyond those black doors. Michael recognised a few faces, colleagues he had seen many times over the years, most of whom he never spoke to. It was a depressing, dull business and it created depressing and dull people. There were exceptions of course, Seers being one, but they were even worse.

Michael nodded a smile in the general direction of the seated population, a generic greeting that covered all bases. He went up to the receptionist who sat alone behind her desk. A short, miserable woman who wore a permanent scowl on her wrinkled, aged face.

“Looking lovely today Hilda,” Michael said without feeling.

She had been writing, but stopped when Michael approached. She lay down the pen and sneered at him. “Cut the bullshit Holland.”

Michael thought about resting his elbows on the desk and leaning in, but he didn’t like the idea of being so close to her. There was a chance her breath was poisonous, her eyes almost certainly were, he could feel them boring into him as she spoke.

“As charming as ever I see,” he said, sticking his hands into his pockets.

“There’s only two foot of desk between us,” she said with a glare. “How about you keep up with the smart talk and I show you just how charming I am.”

Michael grimaced, “Fair enough.”

He looked behind him, checking no one was paying any attention. “I have a problem,” he said softly, keeping his voice low.

Hilda shook her head disinterestedly, looking back at her desk. She was eager to continue her work and for Michael to leave her alone. “Discuss it with the shrink. I’m not interested.”

Michael shook his head. “Not that kind of problem.”

The hint of a smile crept onto her bitter lips. “Is it the haemorrhoids again?”

“No,” Michael raised his eyebrows, studied the hideous figure momentarily. “How did you...never mind,” he shook the thought away, took another glance around to make sure he wasn’t being watched. “Look, I’ve lost someone. A soul. I was due to pick him up fifteen minutes ago, maybe more. He wasn’t there.”

Hilda raised her eyebrows inquisitorially. “Are you sure it was the right one?”

“Positive.”

“Because you’ve made that mistake before.”

“This guy was dead, he was the guy. And can you stop mentioning that please?”

“We