Death

The One Horseman of the Pre-Apocalypse had done his job well. So had three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; now all that remained was for Death to go down and collect the souls of the dead, and send them to the afterlife. Of course, it’s never just as simple as that, as this meaningless story will show.

Things had been reasonably quiet; no insane angels trying to kill all humans, nor was the Devil assaulting the gates of heaven. So one day, to the utmost surprise of Disaster, One Horseman of the Pre-Apocalypse, he received a small paper note which read:

“Pre-Apocalypse to begin now.”

Disaster’s moment had finally arrived!

You see, apocalypse is very, very hard to pull off. Exhaustingly so. Even for one with the skills of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I mean, 6 billion people on earth, right? Bring on floods, disaster, nuclear war, whatever you want, but that doesn’t solve the problem of there being human beings all over the goddamn planet. Imagine you wipe out everything, and then realize you’ve forgotten Australia. And there are always survivors. And you can’t have survivors, not in apocalypse. All it takes is two humans to survive, and it’s not the apocalypse; it’s just mass genocide. The hefty task of the apocalypse, basically, is the systematic killing of six billion people. Supernatural powers aside, the Four Horsemen had their hands full. So, to make their jobs easier, the One Horseman of the Pre-Apocalypse was hired.

So, within a day of Disaster receiving his note, the earth scientists reported with grim faces that an enormous meteorite was heading straight for earth, and was going to hit the small islands of New Zealand. At first, no one really cared, except for the New Zealanders, of course. Ha! But then the scientists claimed the initial blast would pretty much wipe out most of the southern hemisphere in one gigantic bang, whilst the rest of the world was doomed to a slow death by nuclear winter. Not to mention the giant tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes that the impact would create.

Humanity, of course, tried to foolishly save the world by sending a rocket up to blow the comet up. Due to a minor miscalculation, the spaceship and its entire crew was hit by the comet at a very high speed and…well…let’s just say there wasn’t a sequel to their tragic and foolhardy tale. Besides, had they succeeded, it would only have meant that instead of one big meteorite hitting New Zealand, several smaller ones would have struck all around the world, killing off most of the world in the initial subsequent blast, and saving most people the slow torture of the nuclear winter.

Most people couldn’t accept their fate, and believed that some manner of god would come down and save them. What they didn’t realize, of course, was that it was God’s signature at the bottom of the Earth Destruction Notice. The humans were viciously crushed when the comet hit. That is, if they lived on the south side of earth. Those on the north tried to stave off death by fleeing to the center of their respective landmasses, whilst those that remained on the fringes drowned horribly.

The One Horseman of the Pre-Apocalypse’s job done, he went back to his home and lived happily ever after, living off his fat government pension. Enter the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. With earth’s population number at an all-time low, Famine, Pestilence and War settled on the survivors, and within a few months, every single human being had died.

In an attempt to put a humorous feel to it all, I am happy to report that the last human’s final words were: “This sucks”.

So, now we come to the present, which is currently in a small dimension in which Death lives. Death had, for social reasons, invited all his family to help him reap the souls of the dead (the task was quite daunting, he had to admit, and ever since the Angel of Death had passed away, Death’s workload had doubled in size).

Salay and Kyll Death had turned up, with their three little terrors Tod, Mort and Murna Death, whilst Uncle Lynch da Cease’d had also decided to come. Even Cousin Slorter and Cousin Kali de Mise Death had decided to join in, bringing Grandpa Daniel Edd with him. Mostly they just called him D. Edd. It sounded better.

So, lame puns aside, with most of the family assembled, Death patrolled back in forth in front of them, as though he were a general of some sort. “Look, you all know why we are here, and you lot don’t need an inspirational speech. So, thanks for coming, and let’s get to work.” Death didn’t get invited to many parties. He usually arrived unannounced, and you didn’t see him until it was too late, and you’d already choked on that overly large prawn.

In an effort to be impressive, Death and his family burst out from a dark cloud, and swooped down on mankind cackling insanely. The 10 Deaths quickly positioned themselves in their pre-decided zones, and summoned the souls of all mankind to them.

Death stood on an overturned car and held his sickle before him, and looked very awesome indeed. Lightning flashed behind him, and his cloak waved eerily in the wind.

“People of Earth!” he announced grandly to the mass of spirits that had appeared around him. Most of them looked pretty disgruntled; death could do that to you. The action, not the person, though he was pretty annoying as well. At least, he was inconvenience, most of the time.

“You are all, as you may have noticed, dead.” he began, as the number of spirits increased. His summoning spell was rather powerful, and the spirits were only new ones, and were confused and weak. Spirits can fly at a terrific pace, though, so soon enough Death’s entire zone was gathered around him, almost stretching as far as the eye could see.

“I have come to send you to either heaven or hell. It is too late to repent, or anything like that. Don’t bother struggling. It’s inevitable.” Several people began to moan and groan, but Death ignored them. He was used to it. Death produced a sheet of paper from nowhere, and placed a fine pair of spectacles in the place his nose used to be (the spectacles hovered in place).

“When I call your name, will you please step forward, and I will send you on.” He scanned the list for a moment, and then called out

“Aaron Aaronson!” No one moved.

“Aaron Aaronson!” he repeated again. Still no reply.

“Look,” Death said impatiently.

“I’m only doing it this way because I want to be neat about it. I can also just do this,” he said, and swiped a nearby spirit with his sickle. The surprised specter vanished as soon as the scythe touched it.

“See? Now he’s gone to hell. So Aaron Aaronson, come here NOW.” Still no one moved.

“Why do we have to go?” someone called. Death swung around.

“Because that’s the way it’s always been. You can’t stay here!”

“Why not?” asked someone else, and Death spun back around.

“Because! You’d…you’d…” he paused, and thought about this for a moment.

“Well, life is like a test to see if you’re good or bad. You can’t go back now, there’s nothing for you here. It’s for your own good, you know.”

“But I don’t want to go to hell!” someone else shouted.

“Well, you should have been a bit nicer, then!” Death shouted back, indignantly.

This sort of thing had happened before, but not often. Mostly people just accepted their fate. Death was slightly nervous; he had never had to do so many people at once. And he would hate to have to chase each and every one of them down.

“Look, don’t you people want to go to heaven? Eh? Heaven? It’s a lot better than this place.”

“But what about hell? How do we know we won’t go there?”

“Well, uh, if you’ve been bad, you know, you’ll go down, but…”

“What’s the criteria? How is it judged? How many of us are going down, then?”

Death seemed unable to answer properly. He spluttered and coughed, and finally said

“Well, a few of you will be going down, of course, there’s always someone who goes…”

“But how many? Roughly?” Death shifted uncomfortably. He couldn’t very well lie now, could he? He was going to send half of these people down for lying!

“Well, actually, more than half, but that’s not the point!” A roar of anger drowned out whatever he tried to say, and he only managed to quiet everyone down by banging his sickle on the car bottom and making a loud thunder noise at the same time.

“EVERYONE SHUT UP!” Death shouted, before realising everyone had quietened down.

“Look, I’m sorry, but you have to go. There’s no other option. Either we do this quickly and painlessly, or it’s going to be agonisingly slow.” He didn’t mention that it would be agonisingly slow for him. For them it didn’t matter if it was done orderly, or if he had to hunt them down one by one.

“We’re not going!” some brave soul shouted.

“Everyone’s dead! If we leave, who’s gonna be here?”

“It doesn’t matter! You’re all dead! What can you do, anyways?”

“This is our world, and we aren’t leaving!” came another shout.

“No it isn’t! God created this world, and he created you! So will A. Aaronson come forwards, or He’ll be very, very angry! Every moment you refuse to co-operate is another one down in hell!”

For a moment, everything went quiet as people contemplated this new development. “GET HIM!” someone in the crowd started, and everything, figuratively, went to hell.

Spirits, when they are newly formed, are small and wispy beings. If they manage to stay on Earth long enough, then they slowly become larger and more dense, and are able to throw over inkwells, and ruffle papers, that sort of thing, and generally scare anyone unlucky enough to witness it.

So, since most of these spirits were new, they weren’t very dense at all, which means they were all pushed together in a way no humans could. In a place that one alive human would normally occupy, at least five spirit humans could comfortably fit. So when the mass of humans rushed towards Death, it wasn’t really like a mass of humans, but an actual wall of spirits. A river, really. Death got hit hard in the back by about a hundred spirits, and he lurched forwards. Another hundred or so were instantly sent to either hell or heaven as they rushed straight into his sickle, but this was enough to dislodge Death’s grip.

The sickle fell, banishing another hundred spirits, whilst Death fell off his car due to the amount of spirits swarming him. One spirit grabbed the handle of the sickle, and instantly became a whole lot more corporeal as the sickle’s powers flooded into him. He lifted the sickle (again, banishing countless other humans) and swung it at Death, clearing a path through the spirits before it hit the cloaked figure (who lay on the floor, frantically wrestling with the remnants of the human race). With a screech, Death disappeared, too, and the spirit with the sickle climbed up onto the car, and the other spirits quickly moved away from the dreaded scythe. Jack (the scythe-spirit) then shouted, a tad unnecessarily:

“Earth! Earth! Earth!” and soon the multitude was chanting with mindless joy, having finally defeated Death.

The chants of Joy turned into screams as Death re-appeared an instant later, looking absolutely furious. He couldn’t manage facial expression too well, but he had done the works; aura of darkness, and his robes were billowing around him in a wind that wasn’t there.

“Give me that sickle back, THIS INSTANT! I’m the laughing stock of all heaven! I can still hear bloody St. Peter laughing from down here!” Everyone paused to listen, but Death kept on ranting, thereby drowning out any laughter they might or might not have heard.

“Can you even begin to imagine the embarrassment you’ve caused me? I appear in heaven, scythe-less, with several spirits clinging to me! Now give me that scythe.” Death said, stepping towards Jack, who swung the sickle at Death once more, and he disappeared again.

He re-appeared a minute later, and was instantly sent back up to heaven by the scythe. He came down again, this time more cautious, and remained a bit away from Jack, who glared at him, holding the scythe ready.

“Look, can I have it back please?” he asked, a pleading look on his skull-face. He grabbed a spirit next to him with his skeletal fingers, and the surprised ghost vanished instantly.

“See? I don’t need my sickle to send you people up there. You’re upset, I understand that. End of the humanity can do that to people. But you’re all going to the afterlife one way or another!” he lunged for another spirit at his side, and Jack sent him straight back up to heaven.

This time, Death met his nephew, Mort, who was without his enchanted craft-cutting knife.

“You too?” Death asked, resolutely ignoring the booming laughter of St. Peter. A moment later, Death was back on Earth.

“Ok! Stop!” he shouted, and Jack advanced upon him. The two stopped a short space away from each other, the spirit eying Death with dislike.

“You’ve got my weapon. Good on you. But this has to stop. I can come back, you can’t. Once I catch you, it’s all over! So don’t be idiots and come to the afterlife. Who knows, maybe you’ll go to heaven!” Jack took a step forwards, holding the scythe threateningly. He was clearly in no mood to argue.

“Ok, ok, you don’t want to come quietly. But listen to this: I have family. They’re coming to help me, and they’ll soon put an end to you lot! So you’d better stop or-“ Jack slashed again.

“No.” he breathed, cooly.

When Death came back this time, he discovered, to his horror, that Jack had figured out how to use the sickle, and was summoning the other humans of the world to him. A large figure, he saw, was holding Mort’s craft-knife, and was advancing towards his comrade-in-arms.

“Give that back!” Death shouted indignantly, but he was sent straight back up to heaven by his own scythe. This was really getting quite tiresome.

Up there, he saw that Mort, Tod and Murna where also there, Tod missing his scissors, and Murna missing her corkscrew. Furiously Death summoned the rest of the family. When they appeared a minute later, they all looked disgruntled and annoyed. “They won’t listen!” Salay, Death’s sister, was shouting furiously, waving her spear around.

“They’ve rebelled.” Uncle da Cease’d lamented, his whipper-snipper slung over his shoulder.

“Look, let’s storm them, and then we can get our weapons back.” Death finally decided.

When they returned, they saw that all the humans had gathered in the ruins of New York. There was a huge amount. A veritable sea of souls lay at their feet. And the four lucky humans who had managed to grab hold of the deathly artefacts stood in the centre of it all. Faltering slightly, the Deaths descended, shrieking, flailing their weapons wildly, feeling foolish.

They arrived on the ground, and instantly began swiping at humans.

“ATTACK!” someone shouted, and the wave of spectres surged towards the Deaths, who were in circle formation, sending all the ghosts that came towards them to the afterlife. The Deaths, you see, weren’t really used to combat. Generally, all they had to do was stab someone, and they went away. A bit of chasing was sometimes required, but that was just a bit of exercise. And none of them had had to stab so many people, in such a short time. So then one of the spirits with one of the Death-Weapons stabbed the corkscrew into Kyll’s foot, just as another spirit grabbed his axe, and the battle tide tipped in the favour of the spirits. Kyll disappeared, and Mort, who had been standing next to him, was caught by surprise from the side. Cousin Slorter, who was slow and fat, was caught a moment later by the spirit wielding Kyll’s axe, and yet another spirit grabbed his butcher knife as its owner disappeared.

After that, the Deaths were overrun, and the circle was broken, so the remaining

Death’s were pinned down by the spirits until one of their own enchanted weapons sent them back up to heaven. Soon only Salay, Cousin Neco and Grandpa D. Edd were the only ones left, for they had formed a small circle, but even D. Edd’s mighty warhammer and Kali de Mise’s crazed sword flailing could not hold off the masses and masses of humans, and soon all the Deaths had been defeated, their weapons claimed by a few lucky spirits.

“Damn.” Death blasphemed glumly, when de Mise, D. Edd and Salay appeared, weaponless.

“I’ll try reasoning with them once more, and then we send in the cavalry.” Death said, and disappeared with a pop. He re-appeared down on Earth and hovered above the crowd, out of reach of the weapons.

“Congratulations. You beat the Deaths. We’re a bunch of softies, really. Not prepared for combat at all. But now, NOW you’ve pissed God off. He’s sending in the reinforcements. His angels are tough, and when they get you, it won’t be quick and painless like it is with me. So, surrender now, or face the wrath of the Almighty.” The ever-stubborn humans replied by shoving Uncle da Cease’d’s whipper-snipper into Death’s skeletal face.

Angelo grinned, as he surveyed the defeated Deaths.

“You’re telling me that a bunch of humans – no souls beat you guys up and stole your weapons?” he laughed unpleasantly and Death glared at him.

“Yeah, only the entire human race is down there. Nothing to worry about,” growled Death, but Angelo turned, ignoring him, and ordered his team of angels down to earth.

“We’ll be back in five minutes, tops.” he boasted, grinning. Death sighed loudly.

Angelo is a great archangel. Powerful, wise, he’s a good guy. He does have one little problem though. At times, he is a tad arrogant. And he has a short temper. So when he and his crack team of elite angels swooped down on the humans, he expected to see a rabble, a bunch of humans with a few magical trinkets. But when he dived down, he was met by lots, and lots, and lots of humans. All of them, really.

His sword flashed with a bright light, and the humans below were blinded. So when he landed, the first few spirits were easily dispatched. But then, despite the archangel’s formidable powers, a single touch of a Death-Weapon could send him straight back up to heaven….

Death wore a satisfied smirk on his face. Well, he would be wearing one, if he still had skin. He compensated by generating an aura of smugness.

“You got them, then?” he asked, smugly, as Angelo and his dozen angels appeared in heaven suddenly, looking very ruffled indeed. At least they still had their swords. Not that humans would be able to wield angel blades, anyway.

“We shall have to keep storming them; eventually they’ll run out of people.” Angelo said angrily. Death sighed.

“No, I have a better idea. Just wait here. I think this was what I was supposed to do, anyways. Free will and all, give them one last choice. Or something, I don’t care.”

He appeared again. Alone. With his hands above his head.

“Listen, people! We are immortal. We can’t die. We can keep coming back, no matter how many times you hit us with those weapons. You guys, on the other hand, do not come back. So eventually, we will win. I’m only trying to avoid trouble. There is no battle, you can’t win. You’re only stalling the inevitable, and making us more angry. I’ll be filing a recommendation to the boss about your lack of behavior, and it’ll probably go onto your permanent records.”

“Besides, what is there left for you? What are you going to do here? Earth is gone. Dead. You’re ghosts, for God’s sake! What the hell are you going to do here? You can’t eat food. Or drink water. Or play sports. Or board games. Or any types of games. You can’t have sex. Can’t even properly touch each other. Can’t experience anything, anything at all. All you can do is talk. And that gets pretty boring, when you can’t do anything else. So come on. Be reasonable. Heaven is a great place. Hell isn’t that bad either, after the first few years. I mean, sure, it hurts, but you learn to live with it.”

“Die with it, you mean. We’re all dead,” Quipped some smart-ass. Death promptly grabbed the offender by the throat, and he instantly was sent to the abyss.

Despite Death’s skilled oratory…skills, the crowd of specters remained stubborn. Typical human behavior. It was how they had been made, after all. The mood had definitely changed – Death wasn’t being frantically rushed with his own scythe, at least - but they weren’t all convinced yet. Death inwardly sighed. This was his last job, right? No more humans to collect after this. He might as well go out with a bang, damn the consequences. He had hoped to avoid this, but what the hell. Retirement was a short step away. Besides, the Big Man wasn’t intervening, so he figured it was ok.

“Fine. How about this. I will ensure that heaven relaxes its good-bad standards by 10.” The crowd was, in a word, stunned.

“Can you even do that?” someone asked.

“20!” some young enterpriser yelled, a second later.

“12! No more!” Death shouted back.

“18!” shouted the spirit-woman holding Salay’s spear, and banged it on the floor. The earth shook. Death winced. Those weapons could do a lot of damage in the hands of the untrained.

“15. My very last offer. Take it, or I’ll personally send you all to hell.” Death said, looking around, daring anyone – anyone - to disagree with him.

“Fine.” someone said.

“Ok!” Cried someone else dramatically, and soon everyone was cheering wildly. Crazy bloody humans, Death thought, sighing in relief.

“Now, will A. Aaronson please come forwards?”

And so the last of the humans left planet Earth, and the poor, battered planet got back into good shape, and everything was happy. A lot of ‘em still went to hell, of course. I suppose one could say the moral is that violence never solves anything, because, you know, Death managed to sweet-talk the humans into submitting in the end. But violence is also led to heaven’s good-bad policy being relaxed by 15. Like most things, it all depends. Besides. God is omnipotent. I’m sure he had it all planned out like this for a reason.

Right?