Don't fear the reaper

[Tess D.]

The boss’s office was small. I had a hard time believing it you were really in an office and not a broom closet. Not that it was the size of a broom closet. It was much bigger than that, but everything else in this palace was so grand that the office just seemed kind of puny.
It was a single back room with grey walls and florescent lighting. The desk in the center of the space wasn’t made of oak or mahogany, but cheap metal with a thick plastic top made to look like wood. The blinds covering the window were noisy, outdated slits and in the corner stood a lone filing cabinet. In the other, a bubbling office water cooler that I was pretty sure was just there for ironic purposes considering there was a kitchen not two doors down, stocked with all kind of drinks.
But as unexpectedly normal as the office was, it was not as surprising as the boss herself. First surprise: the boss was a her. I had heard the boss referred to as a she before but I’d never really believed it. She had a friendly look about her that I wasn’t expecting. With frizzy red hair tied back in a loose pony tail and bright freckles all across her face. She wore cowboy boots and a flannel shirt and was smiling. A guileless smile that involved squinting and made her freckles shift a bit. And none of it fooled me.
“What can I do for ya, Nite?” the boss asked in a cheery southern accent.
The voice she used was not the least bit intimidating, yet all I could think was oh God. She knew my name. Out of all the other people she dealt with in her business, she knew my name. I hadn’t even met her before this. Oh God. Oh Jesus. I’m doomed.
I forced myself to take a deep breath, trying to remember why I was here. “I think I have this place figured out,” I said, unable to hide the shake in my voice.
The boss’s eyes sparked with interest. There was no name plate on her desk, I noticed while waiting for her to respond. When she didn’t I found enough courage to ask, “Grim?”
The boss laughed a big booming laugh that you only see in country folk. “Don’t flatter me, boy?” she chuckled, “the name’s Darcy. Now tell me, son. Why are ya here.”
“I… um…” I stuttered. Why was I there. Clearly I didn’t know anything, but what could I do. I couldn’t go back, I could already feel Maggie’s death glare behind the wall.
I swallowed and clenched my fist. My voice still came out weak. “I used to think this place was magic, because that’s what you wanted me to think. But that’s not it, is it. It’s not the house, it’s not you. It’s us, the people that work for you.” I swallowed, my throat still dry. “It’s me.”
The smile left the boss’s face. Her eyes darkened. For the first time that afternoon she actually looked sinister. “Explain.”
I closed my eyes and clenched my fist, as if not looking at her would make her go away. “We’re all dead.” I told her.

It all started with a dream, or maybe it wasn’t a dream. I honestly have no clue.
I found myself in a fortune teller’s shop, with no real memory of how I got there. Probably because I was dreaming, but after what I’ve been through, there could be a million reasons why I ended up in Madam Rosanna’s shop of fortune.
The walls were covered from floor to ceiling in thick, smelly carpet and colorful fabrics, billowing in the invisible wind, keeping the shop in a state of constant motion. Innumerable charms hung from the ceiling, the front desk, and pretty much everywhere else, some clanging noisily in a din that hurt my ears. A million different Incents burned from the tables and made my nose itch. I hated these kinds of places, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
“Come in,” a voice called from the back room. It was only slightly craggily with the air of some strange accent that I couldn’t identify. I didn’t move.
“Come in,” The voice said, this time with more force. My legs moved off their own accord. I walked through the remnants of a doorway, draped over with strings of sparkly beads, and into the parlor.
The parlor room smelled even worse, if it were possible. The only source of light was a series of scented candles circling the room, held up by a golden mantel that stretched wall to wall on all four sides. The chain was broken in some places by overloaded tables, brimming with miscellaneous fortune reading items. Madam Rosanna sat in the center of it all behind a big round table. She nodded to the seat in front of her and I took it. The old chair creaked under my weight.
The fortune teller wasn’t old, as I had expected. Though, I wouldn’t quite call her young either. She dressed in an array of scarves and beads that jingled with her slightest movements. Her face was darkened by the poor lighting in the room, but from what I can tell, bore no wrinkles. The most distinguishing quality of her, though, was the way her eyes shown. They were ageless hypnotic blue-green that held my gaze and made it impossible for me to look away. “Why are you here,” she asked harshly, rolling her Rs.
“I… I, uh,” I really didn’t know myself, but I didn’t want to say that. The fortune teller glared at me judgingly, lips pursed in disapproval.
She scoffed: a hacking sound somewhere between a cough and an annoyed sigh, and said in her strange accent, “How old are you?”
“22,” I answered.
“A job?” she asked.
“No.” I answered. I was still a student.
“Then you want to know your future,” she said. It wasn’t a question but the fortune teller held my eyes as if she expected an answer.
“Um, yes?” I said, pretty sure that wasn’t the reason why I came. But it seemed as good an answer as any. The madam was still staring at me. I didn’t know what else to say.
Madam Rosanna held her glared for another second, skeptically. Like she knew I was lying. She shrugged. “We read your cards,” she said finally. The fortune teller reached under the table and pulled out a box of what looked like oversized playing cards. She removed the deck from its case giving me a glimpse of the colorful illustrations that decorated them, taking the place of spades and diamonds.
Madam Rosanna shuffled the deck and laid them face down on the table. “Pick a card,” she instructed.
I reached for one. Before I could get close, the fortune teller slapped my hand away. “ne—” she yelped, “you must not touch the cards,”
I rubbed the back of my hand where she struck it, feeling slightly annoyed at the lady. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Hold your hand out above the deck.”
I rolled my eyes and held out my hand.
“Now focus on the cards,”
“I am focusing.”
“Quit yer whining,” She snapped, “now, slowly bring you hand forward.”
I did as she asked, and to my surprise, it worked. A single card wedged itself out from the middle of the deck, facing up. I looked up at Madame Rosanna. Her hands were still, crossed on the table. There was no way she could be doing this.
There was something else too. Something odd in her expression.
I continued to move my hand back, the card inching out of the deck. My heartbeat quickened. Off its top I couldn’t tell what the card was. It was about 3/4ths of the way out before I could make out the picture; a shadowy figure wielding a massive scythe. My breath caught, but I continued. Finally I could just make the word DEATH inked out in an old fashion cursive.
I looked up to the fortune teller, questions on the tip of my tounge. But before I could ask anything. the card moved its last centimeter out of the deck. It flew through the air twice before making contact with my skin. My hand erupted in searing pain. It was more than just a sting, my whole hand felt like it was on fire. I screamed, standing up and knocking my chair back. Madam Rosanna did not move.
“Witch!” I spat but any other curses took a backseat to the pain. An electric shock ran down my spine. My heart raced as I desperately clawed at my palm, but touching the wound only made the pain worse. Bolts of fire ran up my arm. I gritted my teeth, spots appearing in my vision. The pain became too much for me. I fell to my knees, clutching just below my wrist as my whole body starting to ache in echo of the throbbing in my hand. I turned it over. The card had melted into my skin leaving a black tattoo of the Grim reaper and the word DEATH imprinted on my wrist.
I caught one last glimpse of Madame Rosanna’s hypnotic blue-green eyes before blacking out.
But of course, that was most likely just a dream. Here is where the real story starts.

I woke up the next morning with a killer headache and a sour taste in my mouth, rubbing my palm reflexively. It was blank, of course, and no longer hurt. But I couldn’t shake this odd feeling in it. I could smell Madam Rosanna’s incents in the back of my nose.
When the light stopped hurting my eyes, I opened them and looked around. I was in a majestic lobby of some sort, totally unfamiliar to me. The floor I was laying on was a cold, solid marble, that continued up the staircase and down the halls I could see. The staircase itself was defiantly grand. The steps wrapped around the space, topped with red carpet and the railings painted gold. A large chandelier hung above me, dripping gold and silver prisms in a deco fashion. Where the heck was I?
“You’re going to need this,” a girl’s voice said from behind me. I felt something cold and plastic hit my arm. I turned my head slowly. It was a bucket.
“What am I supposed to do with—” then I figured it out. I vomited in the bucket, heaving up bitter alcohol. The girl waited patiently. She was short; height brought up a little by a pair of knee high combat boots. She had short spiky hair, recently dyed black. The dye stains on her neck still remained, blending in with her black choker with a little clover charm hanging from the front. Her eyes were a stunning emerald green that was probably as bright as the fortune teller’s from my dream. but her eyes were a forest green with a youthful spirit behind them. She wore a green plaid skirt that brought them out even more and complemented her dirty army surplus jacket, covered in Celtic punk patches. Messy un-even brown stitches held them on loosely. Chest wise, she was pretty flat.
I spat a couple of times. Celtic punk girl tapped her foot impatiently. “you done?”
I coughed one last time, “sorry,” I said, shifting through my drunken memories for this girl. I couldn’t find anything, but that didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t even remember going to the bar last night. And for all I knew that may have been a good thing.
Celtic punk girl bent down to talk to me, “can you walk? There’s a lot you need caught up on and you’re kind of blocking the door.”
Was I? Behind me were two huge oak doors and a maid waiting to open them. She gave me a look of disapproval. I turned back to Celtic punk girl, who extended her hand politely. I took it, leaving the bucket where it was. The maid was defiantly not going to like me very much.
Walking wise, I thought I was doing pretty well. Apparently not because Celtic punk girl had to catch me when I almost fell. I put my arm around her shoulder and she helped me up the stairs. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Maggie,” Of course it was.
Halfway up the steps I remembered how to walk. Maggie’s hand fluttered around my back just in case I fell. We took a left, into a large hallway. Our steps made footprints in the lush red carpet. Maggie pulled me into one of the rooms.
It was a bedroom. A nice bedroom. The walls were coated in a shimmery red paint, accented by gold vertical stripes. This particular room we were in had a bunk bed, both top and bottom unoccupied. They each had a red comforter to match the walls and what were probably supposed to be gold sheets. They looked more like a mustard yellow without the sheen. In the back of the room was a tiny sofa, and T.V. A nice wooden desk sat towards the front of the room, across from the bunk bed. Maggie dropped me on one of the beds and took the chair from the desk. “So what do they call you?”
“Nite,” I told her.
“hm?”
“I couldn’t say Nate when I was little, alright. The nickname kind of stuck.”
Maggie chuckled, “Nite is fine then. Fitting too.”
“What?”
“So you probably have a lot of questions.”
“Just one,” I massaged my temples. The headache had yet to subside. “what’s the damage?”
“Around 5 million,”
I cursed, “How does that even happen?”
Maggie shrugged, “I’m not sure exactly. Gambling probably. You broke a chandelier too. And a piano.”
If I was in better spirits I might have laughed. My head was still killing me. “God, do you have any aspirin?”
“You’re better without it,” she told me. I didn’t believe it, but telling her that wouldn’t get me the aspirin.
“Who did I play?” I asked Maggie.
“Mafia”
“Damn”
“Yeah, you’re in a real tight spot.”
I wanted to assure her that I’d been in tighter but I really hadn’t. I didn’t have the brainpower to calculate the tightness of my spot anyways. All I knew was 5 million was more than most people get in a lifetime. “They know I’m not good for it, right?”
“I don’t think they care.”
“Damn,” I cursed again. I wasn’t an avid drinker, though saying that I was a virgin to alcohol would be a lie. The thing is, whenever I drink things like these tend to happen. Not this bad of course but nothing ever good comes from it. I held by alcohol about as well as an underweight guinea pig that unfortunately made a really fun drunk. You would think that at least the mafia would be polite enough to realize I wasn’t myself and kindly throw me in a dumpster. “You work for them?” I asked Maggie.
“Naw,” she picked at a Flogging Molly patch that was coming loose. “We’re more of a private company here. The work ant the most pleasant, or the most legal, but it pays well. The Mafia’s only looking for half of what you owe them. You’ll earn the money in no time.”
“And I’m stuck here until I do?”
“Pretty much.”
“Fuck, well at least the rooms are nice.”
“Food is free too.”
“That’s good,” some non-hungover part of my brain knew I should be kicking and screaming and planning my escape but free food was good. “So what’s the work? Drugs? We’re not hit men are we? You should know I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to fighting and I have the aim of a drunken baboon.”
“Yeah I figured.”
“Oh, well thanks—”
“kidnapping,” Maggie cut off my sarcastic complaint. “I mean, it’s all a bit more complicated than that, but kidnappings all you’ll be doing.”
That sucks. I’d almost prefer being a hit man. At least you didn’t have to worry about keeping victims alive. I couldn’t see myself working for these people at all, really. I mean, what did this girl want me to do? Drive around town in a white van and offer kids candy if they get inside? I knew I probably shouldn’t be laughing but I did anyways. Ever studious Nite, kidnapping for the mafia because he got a little drunk one night. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen. I mean, who did these people think I was? I laughed and laughed. Maggie frowned. “God, how do you guys stay off the radar,” I said between chuckles, “I mean, doesn’t anyone notice when children start going missing.”
“Not just children,” Maggie said defensively, “though, you’re the newbie so that’s all you’ll be dealing with. Trust me; no one will be looking for them.”
I kept on laughing. Some part of my brain must have still been drunk.
I could see patience wearing think on Maggie’s face. Finally, she snapped. “Listen!” Maggie stood and slammed her hand against the top of the bunk bed, “Understand now that things in this house, or this job, won’t always make sense. From here on out this is a different world than the one you’re used to. Follow my instructions and you’ll be fine. Don’t,” Maggie’s eyes sparked with malice “and it can be more dangerous than you can ever imagine.”
I stopped laughing then. Something in my brain clicked and I realized what deep shit I was in. This girl wasn’t joking. Shit! Fuck! I was literally trapped here. Claustrophobia kicked in, suffocating me to the confines of this unfamiliar house, screaming for escape. My mind turned to desperation. “You have to get me out of this place,” I begged.
I saw a glimmer of pity in her eyes, but only just, “I can’t,” she told me, a hint of her own pain hiding in her voice. That’s when I realized how screwed I was.
I fell back onto the bed. My headache was still blowing full force, now accompanied by the crippling mind fuck I was suffering.
Maggie stood, leaving me to stare at the top of the bunk bed blankly. “It is noon now,” she pointed to a clock just above my head. Both silver hands pointed to 12. “I’ll be back at three. Your headache should be gone in a few minutes but I’m guessing you’ll need some time to settle in. There’s a shower and some clothes in the bathroom. It’s nothing special but there will be time for shopping later. See you then.
All I could manage was a weak nod. Her words flew over my head, nothing really sticking. “Maggie?” I asked, “is this all for real.”
Maggie bit her lip and looked back at me, pity clear on her face this time. “’fraid so.”
With that, she shut the door, leaving me in darkness.