Chapter Three
“Proposition - An offer of a private bargain. A plan suggested for acceptance; a proposal.”
Dex
Something wasn’t right. Being hit by a bus should cause excruciating pain.
I should be floating between consciousness and unconsciousness in varying degrees of “why me?” and “give me some drugs!” But, surprisingly, I felt fine.
I didn’t feel my shattered bones. I didn’t hurt so much I wished I were dead.
Maybe it was because I was frozen, numb from lying here on the ice and in the snow.
Maybe along with my many other injuries, I also had hypothermia.
Slowly, I opened my eyes. I expected to see her face, the girl I stole from. The girl that should be lying here instead of me.
She was gone.
Probably reached into my pocket and took her money back, then left me here to die.
Except… I wasn’t lying in the street.
I moved to sit up, and when I did so without screaming with the pain I should have felt, I looked down.
And looked some more.
My body was gone.
Like, gone, gone.
Where my legs and torso used to be was nothing, nothing but a translucent purple mist outline of where my body should be.
Well, that just explained everything.
Not.
I looked up, concentrating on more than myself, to see where I was exactly.
It appeared to be an office of some sorts.
The room itself was huge and I felt like the rug I sat on (was I really sitting?) was an island floating in the center.
It reminded me of the pictures I had seen of sand on a beach.
Behind me was a massive leather couch with pillows in golds and oranges, a huge wooden coffee table with a bowl full of white stones in the center, and two end tables with lamps.
In front of me was a giant, almost bare black desk.
Another bowl of white stones sat off to the right and on the left there was a metal tray with a glass decanter filled with an amber-colored liquid and four empty glasses beside it.
In the center of the desk was a neat stack of papers, but no pen.
Behind the desk was a wall of floor-to-ceiling, cherry-colored paneled doors trimmed in black.
Before I could do or look at anything else, I noticed the chair behind the desk—black leather and about as wide as a football player’s shoulders. It faced the doors, which I didn’t really notice until it began to spin around. I watched as a man revolved into view.
He was dwarfed by the chair—or maybe he just wasn’t very big—but his utter stillness was chilling.
When the chair completely faced forward, it stopped moving and the man stared at me for several long seconds.
I immediately began to take stock of him—wanting to know what I was facing.
He had a long face with sharp features. His cheekbones were well defined and he had a very long, pointy nose.
His thin lips pressed in a line and I knew his sharp eyes missed nothing.
His hair was dark but peppered with grey and he slicked it back from his wide forehead, which only made his face seem that much more prominent.
I didn’t speak as he brought up his hands and steepled his very long, bony fingers beneath his chin.
I moved to stand, but, instead, the translucent mist seemed to waft out around me—giving me no shape at all. On instinct, I tried to grab at it, to pull it back in. I wanted a shape. I didn’t want to float away. My sudden movements only caused the mist to spread farther and make me even less.
Am I a ghost?
If there were one way to become a ghost, getting hit by a bus would probably do it.
“You are not a ghost.” The man spoke, still watching me with his bird-like eyes.
Could he read my mind?
“You are simply, shall we say, between forms at the moment.”
He could say that, but it didn’t mean I understood.
I glanced again at my less-than-solid form. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to speak if I tried so I decided, for now, saying nothing was probably my best option.
“I’m sure you are wondering who I am,” the man said, finally dropping his hands into his lap. “I’m a dealer, and I have a proposition for you.”
A dealer? I spent a lot of time on the streets and I was more than positive drugs caused death… They didn’t bring you back from it.
And I was certain I was dead.
The man looked at me like he thought I would leap with joy at this “proposition.” When I said nothing, he continued to stare. Finally, I decided being silent wasn’t my best option.
“I don’t do drugs,” I said, surprised when my voice came out clearly.
The man smiled. Unfortunately, it didn’t make him look friendly. “I don’t deal drugs. I deal life and death.” As if on cue, behind him the doors sprang open. Most people kept clothes and shoes in their closets. Some people used them to hide their junk. But this… this wasn’t normal.
This man kept bodies in his closet.
They weren’t piled on one another. They weren’t crammed in at odd angles.
If they were, it might be less creepy. These bodies were organized.
They were hanging—on hangers—and in rows like suits.
I had a sudden, vivid image of this man opening his closet every morning and pondering which body to wear.
Each one was limp and surprisingly thin looking as it hung there. They weren’t naked, but each was fully dressed and groomed with care.
The man pushed out of his chair and stood.
He couldn’t have been more than five foot seven and he was thin…
almost bony. He went over to the closet and pushed through the hangers like he was searching for a particular shirt, stopping when he found what he was looking for.
He pulled the body off the rack and turned, lifting it up so the feet didn’t drag the ground. This body was clearly taller than him.
My body.
The one that just got crushed by a bus.
But it didn’t look that way. It looked normal…
aside from the fact it was on a hanger with the chin lying against the deflated chest. My hair was dark and messy, my skin smooth and unbruised.
The only thing that wasn’t normal (besides me examining my own body from across the room) was the clothing.
I wore khaki pants, a button-up shirt, and dress socks.
I don’t think I ever owned a pair of khakis… or socks without holes in them.
“You were killed almost instantly when that bus hit you.” The man began, still holding up my body.
“The ambulance came, put you in a body bag, and drove you to the morgue. You had no identification and only twenty-four dollars in your pocket. I didn’t think the morgue attendant would miss you much if your body disappeared. ”
“You stole my body out of a morgue?” Then hung it in a closet…
“What if I told you that you could have another chance at life?” he said, and as he spoke, he placed my body back into the closet.
For most people, a second chance at life was probably a great opportunity. But when he dangled the offer in front of me, I realized it wasn’t that appealing for me.
When I was alive, my life sucked.
I was born into poverty to a too-young mother who didn’t know what to do with a kid.
She had a different boyfriend every month and none of them wanted me around.
I spent a lot of time on the streets—cold, hungry, and angry.
When I was eight, my mother decided to be a better parent and she got a job and moved us to a new apartment.
The apartment was still in the crappy end of town, but it was her way of trying to give us a better life.
She even went three months without a boyfriend.
We still had next to nothing, but sometimes there was food.
Then she got a new boyfriend.
He was the worst yet. He moved in and Mom was all excited that we’d be a two-income household… but she was kidding herself. The guy spent all his money on liquor and then he’d come home drunk and beat her… then me.
One night, he was being especially vicious and I decided I had enough. Mom was unconscious on the floor and I grabbed a knife. At the age of ten, I became a killer.
When Mom came to, she called the cops and shocked me when she took the blame. The cops labeled it self-defense based on Mom’s black eye, the lump on her head, and her broken rib. She didn’t bring home any more boyfriends after that.
Still, things didn’t get much better, and I took to the streets. Life taught me how to survive, but death taught me living wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“I think I’ll pass. You can just send me to hell now.”
The man—I couldn’t help but call him Mr. Burns because he looked like that guy with the crooked nose on The Simpsons—didn’t seem shocked by my refusal. Maybe I wasn’t the only person who preferred death. “What makes you think you would be sent to hell?”
“Well, this sure ain’t the gates of heaven.”
“So you would rather burn for an eternity in hell than accept my offer?”
“My life wasn’t anything I’m anxious to get back to. I might as well get a head start on hell. At least it’s warmer than Alaska.”
The man tilted his chin down. “Yes, I imagine living on the streets and being a pickpocket wasn’t that glamorous.”
I wasn’t shocked he knew stuff about me. I mean, if he had the ability to steal my body, somehow turn me into a ghost, and then hang my body in his closet, knowing I was a pickpocket wasn’t really impressive.
“Hell isn’t much better. You won’t be cold, but you will be hungry, just not for food.
Your soul would be slowly eaten away by the confines of hell.
You’ll begin to shrivel and twist until you’re completely empty, and then there’ll be nothing but the stretch of time and the endless sounds of tortured cries from those around you. ”
So… if what Mr. Burns said was true, then life and death suck equally.
“What if I told you your life—if returned to you—would be very different than before?”
“Different how?”
“You would have money, a home, a car… You would never be hungry.”
“Go on,” I said, warming to the idea.
“Opportunity would be abundant and you could create a whole new identity for yourself.”
I looked down at my misty form. I was tempted, sure, but still something kept me from accepting right away. “What’s the catch?”
There’s always a catch.
“In exchange for your life, your new and improved life, you would work for me.”
“Doing what?”
“You will be an Escort.”
On the streets, another name for escort was prostitute. “I don’t think I would look good in a dress and heels.”
“You joke. You’re funny,” Mr. Burns said, smiling. “Not that kind of escort. This is more exclusive. More important.”
“So what exactly will I be escorting?” I asked, more confused than before.
Mr. Burns’s little beady eyes gleamed with excitement and he smirked, causing his cheekbones to jut outward.
“Death. You will be a Death Escort.”