Forever After - By David Jester Page 0,18

still talk about that you know,” she said fondly, recalling the time when Michael tried to escort a living soul through the doors of purgatory. “It helps us pass the time. In fact you’ve come up quite a lot in our conversations; office talk would be so dull without you.”

“Thank you, you’re so kind,” he replied bitterly. “Now, can you please fucking help me?”

Hilda reluctantly lowered her head to the glaring blue screen in front of her.

“Name?”

“Martin Atkinson.”

Michael handed over his timer. Hilda’s eyes scanned the small layout for a few moments. She placed it to one side. Her grubby fingers, sprouting hair around the knuckles and holding grime underneath the fingernails, began to patter away on the keyboard.

“Murder?”

“Yes.”

“Were you there on time?”

Michael shrugged his shoulders unconvincingly. “Sure.”

Hilda paused, lowered her frantic fingers and looked up at Michael. “Once more with conviction,” she pushed.

“No, okay?” Michael conceded, knowing he was going to find himself the subject of many more banal office conversations in whatever Hilda classed as her office with whichever unlucky idiots she classed as colleagues. “I was a little late. More than a little actually. An hour or two, maybe.”

“Did your appointment with the shrink run over?” Hilda quizzed slyly.

“None of your business.”

“I guess there was a lot to talk about.”

“Look, I didn’t have my timer. I didn’t see,” he groaned. “Can you please just get on with it?”

He was growing increasingly agitated. A few of the guardians behind him had heard the conversation and were trying to suppress giggles. Their faces were alight with hilarity when he turned to look. In a world of strict rules and regulations any mistake, especially from someone as loathed as Michael, was something to be enjoyed.

He sagged on the spot, sighing heavily. He didn’t particular care what the others thought of him, but he also didn’t need more reasons for them to think less of him.

“OK,” Hilda declared with a heavy exhalation, enjoying the barely audible giggles far more than Michael. “One soul, missing. Unknown method of death.”

“He was shot. A few times,” Michael explained calmly.

Hilda raised her eyes from the screen. “Are you a doctor?”

“No.”

“No method of death,” she reiterated, her attention back on the computer.

“He was shot. I saw the fucking bullet holes.”

Hilda handed him a printout from the computer. “No method of death. Bureaucracy is a bitch ain’t it?” she asserted with a grin, clearly enjoying herself. “Now, hand that in. No credits for you this time. Anymore failed souls and you’ll have to report to the boss. We can’t have the world filling up with ghosts now can we?”

“Whatever,” Michael said dejectedly.

“Have a pleasant day.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

****

The waiting room wasn’t quite heaven or hell, it wasn’t limbo or purgatory. It seemed, as far as Michael could gather, to be a mixture of both. He bypassed the waiting room without a glance and ducked inside one of the many uniform doors.

The room beyond was dark and seemed to go on forever. Michael took two steps and stopped before a small desk, the top of which lit up at his approach. A buzzing machine, almost organic in its frenetic mechanical nature, levered out of the table top with an incessant whirring sound before halting with an expectant click. A small shutter flipped open across its surface like a Jack-in-the-box preparing for a jovial surprise.

Michael placed his timer inside. The shutter closed, the machine whirred. A succession of electronic sounds followed, overlapping the background purr.

An automated voice leapt from the invisible walls, bouncing around the room like an echo with no origin.

“Failure to collect souls will result in a warning and deducted pay,” the gender neutral voice announced in monosyllables. “Repeated mistakes will result in demotion.”

Michael sniggered under a snarl. “You can’t demote me any fucking further,” he mumbled under his breath.

“The deceased remains unaccounted for,” the voice continued.

The whirring stopped, one final beep, like the sound of an arriving elevator, sounded and the shutters of the noisy box sprang open, revealing Michael’s timer.

Michael took the device, dropped it back into his pocket and exited the room before the automated voice could offer its preprogramed message of salutation.

5

Martin Atkinson’s body festered where it lay, feeding the maggots and have-a-go scavengers on the edge of the park. The whereabouts of his soul was as big of a mystery to Michael as the people who killed him. Human victims were clear, their hidden lives, their potential deaths and their darkest secrets were usually revealed just as quickly as their eye colour or