Reaper (13 page)

She sat opposite him, blocking his view of
the line and the people moving through it. He darted a glance at
her glass, then focused on the giant gold star mounted above a
server’s head.

“It’s not like we’re going to get service
over here. The passengers get free booze. She’ll never miss
it.”

Oz shrugged.

“Hungry?” Cora asked.

She nudged her plate forward, piled high with
various confections in every shape, size, and consistency known to
man. The woman could eat.

When he didn’t respond, she impaled a large
shrimp on her fork.

“You can relax. It’s not going to happen
tonight,” Cora said after she’d swallowed the crustacean.

“How do you know?”

“One of those things that happens after a
while. You just know.”

If Cora was right, he had all night to try
and figure out a way to stop the ship from sinking, to keep
everyone alive. He allowed himself to believe he could do it.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about
the other night? I know it can be a really jarring thing—to see
someone die like that.”

“He stabbed the woman in her chest. That’s
not just ‘someone dying.’ He killed her. Killed. Her. I’d say
that’s a little more than
jarring
.”

Cora sighed. Sipped her wine. “We need to
talk about the other night.”

Oz pretended to be really interested in a
non-existent hangnail. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She sighed. “Then you listen and I’ll talk,
because I don’t like this ugly thing between us.”

“It’s forgotten. Let’s just drop it.”

“I can’t, because I care about you, Oz, and
you don’t get how major that is. This job or whatever you want to
call it is hard. It’s beyond hard. You lose people every day.
People you care about and people you barely know, but they’re
always leaving. You and me? I could let that happen, and I was
tempted, to be honest. I’m not interested in that way, but we all
need comfort now and then, so one warm body is as good as the next.
Even if I did want to sleep with you, I can’t.”

“It’s clear you’re a dyke, so don’t tell me
you want me. I’m not an idiot.”

She cringed and he instantly felt bad.
Christ, he’d become a pussy. Bard was right.

“Gay, straight, whatever; that’s human stuff
and it’s not the issue here, because we’re not human. You have to
realize that and stop deluding yourself into thinking you can
behave like they do, or even feel like they do. We don’t have that
luxury, Oz. We could have sex, but I can’t let that happen because
every time I look at you, I see myself. Your actions, your words,
and the way your feelings are written all over your face are all
familiar because I used to be just like you.”

Oz snorted but didn’t look at her. “It’s all
right, Cora. You like chicks. That’s fine. I don’t care if you
sleep with me or not. I just—don’t tell me you’re any better than
the rest of them.”

“No, I’m not, but the rest of them aren’t
bad. They’re doing what they have to so they can survive. We don’t
have any second chances, nothing comes after this. Reaping is it
for us all. No one wants to fuck it up. If anyone forms a bond, or
manages to feel real emotion for someone else, reaper or human, the
guys upstairs stomp all over it. When they smell any hint of
feeling or attachment, one of the parties has to go, and it isn’t
to another job. It’s to somewhere really bad.”

“So you’re telling me not one of you guys has
ever fucked someone else?” Oz met her gaze finally, and regretted
it. Tears glistened in her brown eyes, ripping a hole in his
already twisted gut.

“Sure we do. But I know me, and because
you’re so much like I used to be, I know you too. Even if I was
straight, we wouldn’t keep things purely sexual. It’d be a mess
from the start.”

He wanted to believe her, but if he did, then
he’d have to accept that he’d be alone for eternity. In The
Department, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Out here, with real
people, the possibility was horrifying.

Oz glanced toward the buffet. Bard had
reached the front of the line, his cheeks puffed with food. Bard
could keep it purely sexual. Maybe it already was. He eyed Cora,
sickened by the thought of those burly, scarred hands on her soft
skin.

Cora laughed. “If you think for a second that
I’d do that, then we’ll have to break up right now.”

“How do you—”

“It’s plain as day on your face. Gross, Oz.
Just gross. I like Bard, love him like an annoying Uncle, but
beyond that nothing else.”

“Sorry.” Still, Oz couldn’t let go of the
vision of Bard wooing Cora. He had the tools, the fancy words and
the macho attitude; he could seduce her if he put his mind to it.
Oz had nothing. No tools. No fancy words.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Cora
scolded, tossing a shrimp tail at him. It hit his shoulder and
stuck. “I just need you to understand why I turned you down. It’s
not you. It’s not me. It’s this existence, if you can even call it
that. We can’t afford to be happy. Got it?”

“Yeah. No happiness. This just keeps getting
better.” Oz pushed his chair from the table and stood. “I’m gonna
get some air.”

“Just think about what I said, okay?”

Oz waved her off. A server wheeled a cart
filled with covered plates out of the dining room, bound for those
that chose to dine in their cabins. He followed him out the open
door and felt Cora’s eyes boring into the back of his neck.

* * *

He knew he had to get into the engine room
again, but that was the extent of his plan. His new instinct told
him that the engine room held the answer, but what he’d do once he
got there... Fuck if he knew.

Every hall was illuminated, but the emptiness
made them eerie. It reminded Oz of a horror flick, where the killer
waited just outside of the main character’s vision and the audience
peered through their hands, urging him,
Turn around! He’s right
behind you!

Before long he stood in front of the engine
room door with his ear pressed to the cold steel, hoping someone
would be on their way out. After a few minutes, he gripped the
handle to alleviate some pressure from his head and knees. It
turned, the door swung open with an agonizing groan, and Oz fell
through. If not for his hands instinctively catching his body, he’d
have landed on his face.

Steam tumbled into his face, coating him in a
hot mist. The vibration from the engines traveled up his arms,
along his neck and rattled his teeth.

Oz pushed himself up from the ground, his
forearms achy from supporting the brunt of his weight.

Another “reaper perk” he supposed, being able
to just waltz (or fall) into any room of a ship doomed to rest at
the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

The engine room was bigger and more complex
than Oz had anticipated; a web of metal and synthetic pipes
spidered from boxed-in machines that whirred and clanged. From
where he stood, Oz saw a small network of narrow aisles that
separated the rows of engines and computers but couldn’t see how
far they extended. He didn’t know where to start, or what to look
for.

The man in the elevator mentioned something
about size versus engine power, but what was the proper ratio? What
was too big or too small? The machines in this room were giant,
easily twice his height and several times his weight. They didn’t
sound as if they struggled to propel the ship, but Oz had nearly
blown up his car engine when he was twenty-five because he didn’t
recognize the sound of his clutch refusing to switch gears.

He shuffled along the main aisle, mentally
autopsying the room. About halfway down the length, he spotted a
meter attached to one of the engines. It looked like the electric
meters outside his apartment building. The needle quivered
slightly, kissing an area of red striping. He didn’t know much
about anything he saw in the engine room, but he knew that anything
red wasn’t good. He looked to the ones beside it. To the naked eye,
they were identical. Oz gripped the safety bars that barricaded the
engines. He considered climbing it to see if he could discern
something out of the ordinary when he heard the door to the engine
room huff open.

A young man in a plastic jumpsuit walked
past, paying him no attention and the engines little more than no
attention. Nothing showed signs of exploding, and that seemed to
satisfy him.

Oz followed him on his half-assed inspection.
He tried to catch the man’s eye. He waved, yelled, picked up and
threw a towel that lay over another metal barricade at the man’s
face. It grazed his nose and fell to the floor, but the man didn’t
notice. He made quick work of walking the aisles before peeling his
suit off and leaving it on a rack next to the door.

Oz ran back to the meter. It might’ve been
his imagination, but it looked half a centimeter closer to red.

“If I didn’t know any better,” a voice said
to his right, “I’d say you were meddling with shit that ought not
to be meddled with.”

Bard.

Oz didn’t bother to look at him. He gripped
the bars of the barricade and hoisted himself up a couple of feet.
He still couldn’t see the top of the tank.

“You’re not meddling, are you Oz?”

“Fuck off, Bard.”

“You know,” he began, “You remind me of
someone.”

Smoke swirled above Oz, mingling with the
steam delivered in more persistent jets from the tank.

“There was this kid, a few years back. Cocky
motherfucker. Good instinct, but didn’t have much sense. Figured he
knew it all she he could do what he wanted. Little shit always
thought he was right. Never considered he might be wrong.”

Oz stood on the highest rung of the barricade
and braced himself on the ceiling inches from his head with his
hand. He could see the tops of the tanks but it didn’t make much
difference. Were they steaming too much? The tank directly beneath
him was scalding hot, but he had no idea if that was normal.

“What’s your point, Bard?”

“Point is he was dead wrong and now he’s
paying for it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Every fucking day.” There was that crack in
Bard’s voice Oz heard earlier.

“That a threat?”

“It’s a piece of advice, you fuckwit. You
can’t change what’s already been set in motion, so just let it go
and do your fucking job.”

Oz looked down. Bard stood with his arms
crossed, a cigarette protruding from his mouth, emitting urgent
puffs of smoke. He looked more disheveled than normal; his jacket
hung off one shoulder and his jeans twisted ever so slightly to the
left.

“No,” Oz said and leaned further over the
tanks, willing some sign of abnormality to show itself. “I
can’t.”

“Suit yourself. But you have about ninety
seconds before you’re blown to pieces along with the tank you’re
studying so intently.”

Bard flicked his cigarette upward. The end
singed the hairs on Oz’s forearm.

Then he was alone again.

Ninety seconds.

Come on, Oz. Think.

Think of what? He knew exactly nothing about
anything, and even if he spotted something that might look off,
what the hell was he going to do about it?

He leapt from the barricade and landed with
an echoed bang. He couldn’t stop the explosion, but he could get
the passengers as far away from the engine room as possible. Maybe.
He had to try.

The hallway outside the engine room stretched
a good thirty feet before it hit the doors leading to the passenger
cabins. He knocked on every door that he passed; loud, panicked
knocks that no sane person could ignore. Not a single door opened.
Either no one heard the knocks of a reaper, or they were all still
at dinner.

Oz sprinted toward the ballroom. He had,
what, thirty seconds left? Twenty?

He stopped in the doorway and locked eyes
with Bard just as the first explosion shook the ship.

Dishes sloshed from the buffet table and
splattered like individual gun shots to the ground.
Bang, Bang,
BANG.

The chandelier rattled, its glass pendants
clinking together like rain.

The few passengers who hadn’t been knocked to
the ground froze with their eyes fixed on the door, as though they
expected Grendel to burst through and devour them all. Another
explosion, and the doors did burst open, and a swarm of crewman
poured into the ballroom to escort the passengers to awaiting
lifeboats.

The lights flickered then went out
completely.

Passengers screamed.

“How long?” Cora’s voice.

Oz could barely make out her voice over the
shouts and the crashing of tables and chairs as they stampeded for
the hallway. Let the nightmare begin.

“An hour. Maybe two. These people will be
fine.” Then, “We need to head below!”

Bard. “Oz?”

“Yeah?”

“Move it!”

Arms outstretched, Oz felt his way toward the
door, catching a handful of jacket here, a tuff of hair there, to
guide him until he squeezed into the hallway where faint emergency
lights illuminated the floor. The panicked faces of the passengers
looked ghoulish in the afterglow. Passengers wound up the stairs to
the upper deck, where, hopefully, lifeboats were being uncovered
and ready for launch. They had a long climb. The ballroom was on
the third deck of fourteen.

Oz and the other reapers marched in the
opposite direction, with Bard at the lead, to the lower decks where
explosions still rocked the ship. Smatterings of blood brushed the
ceiling and floor like someone had played paintball using internal
organs as ammunition. Oz palmed the walls as he walked to keep
himself upright.

There was no telling how many people were
still trapped in the lower decks. The ballroom hadn’t looked that
full in comparison to the hordes of people he’d seen boarding the
ship. They reached the door to Deck Two and listened. A woman’s
muffled scream forced its way through. When Bard yanked open the
door, a whoosh of heat and heaviness plowed into them.