"Well, my mother is Muslim and my dad was Catholic."
"But what do you believe?" Death asked.
"I believe that I'm dead and talking to the bloody grim reaper. And despite the fact that I'm the one wearing the hijab, I'm showing more skin than you are...
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"Do you live in your car?" I asked in an attempt to change the subject. Death was still kind of broken up about the last guy who killed himself; suicides always hit him harder than other deaths. After that, he had taken to being the dark, brooding type that didn't talk much. In some ways being a reaper in training was like babysitting a depressed teenager with an anxiety disorder.
I should know, I've done plenty of that in my life.
"I sometimes haunt an abandoned apartment building on the edge of town," he replied quietly. "Take the next exit."
"Aren't we going to stake out the hospital?"
"Souls can coast for a little while," he replied in forlorn. "I think I need a nap."
"Well, alright then." I gently applied pressure to the brake and spun the wheel to the right. Before I knew it, we were driving through an average sized suburban city. The type with random expanses of forest and some large plots of land between each of the major roads. It wasn't too bad of a place – in fact I wouldn't have minded growing up here.
Death sighed like a depressed teenager and leaned his hood against the passenger side window. I considered slamming the breaks at the next red light, then promptly thought against it. That wouldn't help anyone.
"Left on Maple," he spoke out of the blue. "Then take the unmarked road until you get to an overgrown gate with a bunch of KEEP OUT and PRIVATE PROPERTY signs. You'll know it when you see it."
I turned to raise my eyebrows at him, but Death was still gazing out of the window like they do in sad music videos. "Okay, then." I sighed and decided to concentrate on my driving. There were going to be no lively conversations with the reaper today.
The rest of the drive was ridden out in uncomfortable silence. Death was depressed (and face it, he had every right to be) and I was just sitting here not sure what to say to him. What was I thinking? He didn't need me, he needed a therapist.
As soon as that thought entered my head, I shook it away. No therapist alive would even allow this pile of cloak and skeleton into their building, much less council his mental states. They'd probably call a mortician, a priest, and the FBI. Not necessarily in that order.
After driving down what seemed like four miles of woodland on a bumpy dirt road, we came to stop in front of a wrought iron gate that stemmed off a brick wall so high, that I doubted that even my kid brother could climb over it. My teeth sank into my bottom lip, but I didn't give the thought another glance (speaking of people who have the right to be depressed. Yep, this girl!).
Thick chains and padlocks roped the signs to the gate. KEEP OUT. PRIVATE PROPERTY. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. BEWARE OF HELLHOUND. GARAGE SALE with an arrow pointing back into the forest.
