Prompted Shorties

The Reaper Knocks

Prompt: There's a thunderous knock at the door. You open it to find an improbably tall, black-robed figure towering over you with a scythe in one bony hand. The figure peers at you for a long moment, then looks down at a clipboard in its other hand. Then back at you. Then back at the paper. It has no apparent face, but you sense that it is puzzled.

Story:

A loud pounding on the door woke Linda from her deep sleep on the couch, with the TV blaring at an almost maxed volume, grumbling incoherent words as she struggle to feel for her feathery slippers. She was surprised she heard someone knocking at the door when the doorbell works just as fine.

The pounding got louder as she slowly stood up, her startled cats have started running about her tiny old apartment.

"I'm comin', hold your horses." She almost shouts. "What? Who is it?" She nags as she opens the door.

Death, in skeleton form covered in a black hood like he just went to a cult meeting ten minutes ago, held firmly at his scythe, his clip board and read the name out loud.

"Linda?" Death spoke.

"Who's asking?" She almost screamed. Death looked at her in the eyes. She was blind as a blind person could be. He thought that it be best for her if she didn't knew why he was there.

"I'm here to fix the faucet." He lied, obviously.

"Oh goodie, the fixer up-er. Come in, come in!" She stood aside to let the very meaning of the end of life into her humble old smelling apartment. "The faucet's been a nuisance these past few days. It keeps spraying me with water every time I open it. I've called Brian a dozen times ever since that darn faucet broke but no one showed up. At least it'll be fixed, now that you're here. Right? Uhm.."

"Garret." Death lied again. The cats hurriedly scattered away from the Death as he entered the apartment.

"Garret. Yes." She closed the door and slowly straddled to her beat up couch. "There's cookies at the counter. Just help yourself. If you need me I'll be on the couch."

If Linda only knew that lying down a little bit longer would stop her heart, she wouldn't have done so and Death would've been in more trouble with HR than he already is now for delaying her death just by knocking at her door a little too early.

This was the only time he was too efficient at his job and yet he's already in trouble for it.

Not even one minute later, he looked at his clip board, there was five seconds left shown for Linda's life span. As he got closer to the old lady, Death wondered how would a blind old woman with cats watch TV?

As soon as Death was about to do his job, Linda coughed.

"L-linda?" Death was startled as he looked at his clipboard one more time.

"Yes?"

"Linda Watts?"

"No, Andrews. Watts is on the next floor."

And right on cue, a loud thud coming from upstairs echoed through the old walls of Linda Andrews' apartment.

"Not again." Death spoke to himself.

This will be his second strike with the HR for late delivery.