Rambles | A Short Story Collection

Deadlines

Time might be a flat circle, but I'm still fucking late. Goddamn it. If they made lattes this good in Ghost Town, I wouldn't've had to jump into some hipster at Starbucks. But the afterlife's got shit for coffee, so here I am. In line. Possessing some mortal. In a goddamn Starbucks.

Jess is going to kill me when she finds out.

The espresso machine hisses, steam snaking from it. In the glass pastry display, my reflection takes on a blue tinge: Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Paranormal Possession.

The line crawls forward.

I drum my fingers against my thigh. They itch to reach into my purse and open up Scythe, but the app has to be burning an angry late late late red at this point. I don't check it.

The barista calls my order, but before I've even sipped my coffee, my phone's buzzing like crazy. Jess. Gotta be Jess. I tear through my bag until I find my cell, fumbling with the unlock screen.

It's not even up to my ear, and Jess is already barking. "Where are you?"

My eyes dart around the room—cream tiles, heat from a dozen human bodies, and the aroma of fresh dark roast. For this, I'm twenty minutes and a couple millennia behind schedule. If I wasn't already dead, Jess would do me the honors. Damn it.

I wince. "I'm on my way—"

"Don't, Lauren," she says. "This is the third time, and they're going to lock you up. They're going to put you back in the box where dead girls belong and—"

This is about the eighth time I've heard this lecture: Shit reapers go back in coffins. Got it. I grimace and slough off my borrowed bones. Can't take bodies on time skips. The girl stumbles when I peel out of her, and my grip turns ghostly. Espresso splatters on the linoleum.

What a fucking day.

I check Scythe. Time in Astral doesn't work like mortal time, and jumping two thousand years is no joke, so there's no way I'm making it to 216 B.C. There's no way I'm even making it to Italy in time.

"Cover for me, and I'll take your next shift." I chew on my lip. "Next two shifts."

There's a sigh on the other end of the line. Metal clashing, too, but I do not have time to worry about that.

"C'mon, where is it? It's not like you want to go to Iowa or whatever."

Jess always gets stuck reaping in the worst places. And dead or alive, Iowa is hell.

The silence deepens, and I want to hurl myself through the line, but it's too late for that.

Jess sighs again. I can almost hear her pinching the bridge of her nose. "Middle of nowhere, 2017. Trade me Paris next time you get it."

"Deal. Just send me the pin."

Scythe blinks green—new location, new time. I could kiss Jess. Next time I see her, I will. Honest to Death.

Two taps on my phone, and I've winked my way through Astral and back in time a couple years. Middle of nowhere, 2017: Population +1.

I swipe through Scythe to make sure I've landed right. Without the app, there's no way to navigate time skips, and I really can't fuck this up again. Right now, though, a smiley green countdown ticks, the words "You've Got Time To Kill" scrolling beneath it.

For once in my death, I'm early.

When I glance up, I'm greeted by a pale stretch of walls, and it doesn't take a genius to realize I'm in a hospital. There's a familiar crawl up my spine—the bleach stench, the glare of fluorescents. The markers of death by a thousand cuts of boredom.