The Dumpster

Old Wattpad Story

Chapter 1 -

Death. It’s kinda like water. Sometimes it hits us with buckets. Even then, there are those with umbrellas. And there are those that are drenched. The drenched ones often get pitied by the dry, umbrella-laden ones. But pity is all they do. Meanwhile, the drenched ones keep on as if they were dry. Some do that better than others. Trust me. Go to New York and you’ll witness about twenty-five percent of the people bitching about being wet. The other twenty-five percent, just move on. In case you didn’t get it, that was a euphemism for those that did and didn’t pass on. I kinda didn’t make the passing on list.

My parents were great. They tried their hardest for me and my siblings. It was the eighties. We didn’t have much, nor did we need it. I don’t think. I was decent in school, but a middle child. All my teachers knew my three older siblings. Particularly my older brother. They always compared me to him. Especially my downfalls. He was the guy everyone wanted to be. Except he wasn’t.

In case you were wondering, I’m dead. But the afterlife is kind of...iffy. Like, not everyone moves on to bigger and broader pastures, contrary to prior beliefs. We linger and wander around aimlessly until we can move on. But some of us wander into a certain cathedral in a certain part of New York and make a pretty selfless decision, if I do say so myself. In that cathedral is an organization called The Hunt of the Dead. And what they do, is keep the living alive. More specifically, they deal with all the supernatural occurrences in the world. Sometimes demons. Okay. Mostly demons.

But demons aren’t really the worst that are out there. They’re merely corrupted human souls. You know the lore. They lingered a little too long. No. The worst things out there are the Fallen. Mean, immortal sons of bitches. As their name suggests, they are the one-third of angels that fell with Lucifer and took over Hell. They created the nephilim, succubi, and demons, which they use as pawns in a drawn out war.

Most of the succubi are harmless. They’re just really frustrated at the fact that they are used. They don’t really like that even though that’s their defining characteristic. If you know what I mean. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Don’t tell Lee or Kris I said that…

Anyways. Where was I? My brother was secretly a world class prick. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, he effectively murdered me. Brother issues are the new daddy issues, amiright? We had a fight over something stupid, probably whether ABBA was cool or not (they totally are) and/or whether his crippling psychosis was legitimate. And he frickin killed me over it. I’ll admit that I have a horrible taste in music, but Christ. And the worst damn part was that it didn’t seem like the first time. Like, I watched him dispose of my body after dismembering it and removing everything identifiable. It was the most godawful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Well, afterlife. I guess with great genius comes great instability. Borderline psychotic instability.

“Watch it Mae! Dämon!” Lee called out, dodging the tail of a demon. They are not at all humanoid. She killed it quickly. It disintegrated around her large buck knife.

“What?” I looked up. Immediately I was hit with a stray forearm and thrown forward, undoubtedly getting whiplash in the process. I cursed as I drove my blade into the demon’s chest.

“Nice going genius,” Lee shoved me.

“Screw off,” I retorted.

“Stop flirting and help me please,” Silver cried out, pushing back on a large dog-like demon. Silver wasn’t exactly dead. A witch brought him back after an impromptu trip to the afterlife, courtesy of his ex-fiance’s overbearing mother. But you know, after you go missing in the late 1700s, you don’t go back because they’d have already assumed you were dead.

Lee’s brother Kristopher beheaded it without batting an eye. He looked like Lee, except with a darker demeanor. The same raven black hair, same blue eyes, the same angular features.  He’s been in the game a long time. He had an air of stoic confidence, even though most of the things he said were derogatory. Since I was the low man on the totem pole I got the brunt of it.

“You have to watch out more Silver,” he frowned. “Mae, you really need to watch out. If my sister gets hurt while you’re spotting her, you will never see the light of day again.”

“Newsflash, I don’t see the sun. I’m the only human on the night crew thanks to one of Darius’s brilliant ideas,” I snapped. “So you have got to work on your threats.”

“You guys, don’t start,” Lee sighed. I couldn’t tell which one of us she was talking to, but her tone was tired.

“Yeah, mate. Don’t go down that road,” Silver added. His Geordie accent was impeccable. It’s a wonder it’s lasted all these years. He’s probably just stubborn.

“Speak for yourself. You’ve fought him more than I have,” I retaliated. Silver looked down almost dejectedly before slugging me across the face. Kristopher lunges at him, preparing to hold us back. I frowned and swished around the blood, “I deserved that.”

“Well, are we good here then?” Kris asked, patting Silver’s shoulder in interesting gesture of something. Silver’s my best friend, but that’s not something you bring up. Dirty laundry.  “Demons slayed, emotions resolved?”

“Let’s go home. This place is damp,” Lee declared. Our home wasn’t damp, but it was musty. Which is one step up from damp, and that was good enough for me. She started off and I followed. Silver stayed back with Kris for a while and then wandered to us.

Another thing about being dead. Normal people can’t see you. You’re invisible. I spent at least five minutes wondering why people just avoided me after I was dead. In New York, that’s not uncommon unless you’re blocking the sidewalk, but I would yell and nobody would listen. My own private Hell. The others haven’t experienced that yet. The perks of being a succubus, an incubus, and a literal zombie. You don’t have to be in the water. You’re in a building. Better yet, a desert. If life were a currency, you’d be rich.

“You weren’t terribly bad today,” Lee commented at dinner/breakfast. It was odd how half the food was breakfast, and the other half dinner. I wasn’t completely used to the dinner in the morning thing even after forty-something years, so I mainly got breakfast.

“Thanks,” I murmured. My face still hurt. Silver had an impossibly good left hook. Probably from brawling a lot.

“Hey, Mae. I know my brother can come off harsh, but he really tries his best for everyone. So just...remember that,” she explained. “Cause he’s gonna be pissed.”

“What for?” I asked.

“You ruffled up Silver. He’s probably twice that,” she laughed. “Hey Eighties, how much you wanna bet Darius is passed out in his office?”

“Okay, but passed out from what? Liquor? Exhaustion? Both?” I asked, my face getting brighter.

“Both,” she grinned.

Chapter 2 -

    Silver trudged in looking stricken. Or maybe it was smitten. You can never tell with him. He’s kind of the only NOT sexual person in our group. Lee and Kris are a succubus and an incubus, respectively. And I was as healthy as a dead teenager could be. Being interested in the sex thing isn’t bad, and vice versa. Actually, I respect Silver for it. Either that or he’s closeted, which may seem odd, but is entirely probable. I don’t think he spends all his time fistfighting Kris, who gets the award for “Most Asses Kicked” almost every year.

Boy, oh boy. Where do I even begin with their relationship? It is half respect, half abuse. They are both in the Top Five for age here at the Hunt. The oldest is always the Chief Organizer. Technically, it’s this guy named Darius from Persia, but he’s passed out most of the time so Kris does the administrative work. That should be done by a kid named Micah from the Mediterranean, but he works at this restaurant downtown to buy and sell secrets to demons. He’s a bit renegade, so Kris pretends that he doesn’t know that he’s there.

Speaking of renegade, Kris was precisely that for ten years. He basically dropped off the map for ten years. Turns out that he was in Munich, Germany at his home, starting a German branch of the Hunt. Now that I say that, it seems pretty obvious that he was out for business reasons.