Death in the City by Kyle Giroux Read Free Book Online Page A

shots in me and then I’ll be the most fun you’ve ever had.” She was stumbling over her words as she eagerly blurted them out, sending saliva all over Death. As he wiped it off of his face, he laughed.
    “That’s great,” he said.
    “I’m so happy, happy happy happy,” said Sheila in a sing song voice. Death clapped along, taking immense pleasure in Sheila’s company. And suddenly, this venture did not seem so fruitless.
    “Me too,” said Death. He was laughing along with Sheila as she bounced from one side of the chair to the other.
    The two exchanged phone numbers (Death proudly so, since Brian had only just shown him how to use a phone), and a romance was in bloom. Edgar’s whistle blew for the final time. “I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait for our date,” said Sheila. She got up and did a little dance, stumbling into the leg of the table and pushing it across the room with a great screech. It knocked a newfound couple into the wall as Sheila laughed heartily and got to her feet again.
    “Well, I guess I’ll see you again soon,” said Death.
    “You know it, Dee-Dee,” she said, waving a hand at him and blushing.

    Death walked to Freepay to pick up his paycheck. Remembering what Tim had told him about money, he gave the check to the woman at the service booth and she handed him a stack of cash ($219). He gazed at the green paper, unsure of what exactly made it so important. But he figured if Tim told him it was essential, he could not have been lying. He plopped two-hundred of the check into the man’s cup outside and kept nineteen for the next trip to the HaffCaff. And, more than ever before, Death felt like a living, breathing human being.

    A Day Off

    The first Horseman to learn of Death’s retirement was Pestilence. He was in the middle of working out a new super-flu that he was sure the media would take hold of and use to terrorize the world. But when no one died for three months, the media dropped the story and Pestilence grew suspicious. When he found out that Death was planning on living out the rest of his existence in an apartment complex in urban New England, he was fairly peeved.
    Pestilence arrived on Death’s doorstep on a Saturday morning, when Death was not scheduled to work at the deli. He startled Death at first, standing in the doorway and running his fingers along his bald head as a cockroach scuttled from the bottom of his eye socket, along his cheek, and into his ear. A normal man would be disgusted by Pestilence’s corporeal form, with veins protruding like river pathways up his neck and eyes like pools of mercury shining deeply across their paths, but Death was no ordinary man just yet. He looked at the Horseman, clad in bloody khaki pants and a white t-shirt that looked as though it had been shredded by a rabid dog, and invited him into his home as an old friend.
    “Death, it has been too long,” said Pestilence in a gurgling, biting voice. “Lately I’ve been long gone before you come around. Not like the plague days, eh? We have to bring that back sometime. I’ve never had so much fun—or been so drunk.”
    The memory put a smile on Death’s face, but he was too preoccupied with Pestilence having found him in his retirement home for it to last very long. “I suppose you’ve heard of my resignation,” he said warily.
    Pestilence also put away his grin. “I did. I have to admit, Death, the higher ups aren’t too happy. There’s been a lot of talk about how much this is going to throw everything off. You know how close the Apocalypse was approaching.”
    “I know, I know,” said Death quietly, stroking his chin with his hand and staring out his window, his eyes fixed on a billboard for Shellock Aspirin. “Why don’t you come in? I have some beer for us.”
    Death and Pestilence walked into the kitchen and Death cracked open two beers. Pestilence took a sip and cringed. Death let the liquid slide to the back of his throat to avert his taste buds.