Mortie
By J. L. Young
(writing prompts Lemon and Laptop)

The window beside me shattered. Sharp cubes incised flesh. The acrid stench of burning rubber seared my nostrils. A cold, altogether alien to me, gripped me. The metallic taste in my mouth remained never to be washed away.

I found myself standing. Firefighters rushed around me as though I wasn’t there. When I turned to see why they were running, I saw my car I had rebuilt. I stepped forward and a flash of memory struck me. A semi-truck slammed on his brakes and broke traction. In an attempt to save the driver in front of him, the driver turned the wheel as fast and hard as he could. The truck slipped into the median and its inertia carried it to the southbound side where it collided with my Chevelle. The steel was no match for the force that the truck imparted.

I blinked to assuage the images from my mind. Some of the firefighters were foaming the diesel fire that had engulfed the cab of the truck. The others were cutting through the B pillar of my car. Once the peeled open the car door, paramedics set to work. One of them reached in and he closed his eyes and shook his head. They set to work removing my body. Every one of them was silently mouthing words as they worked.

“Hi,” a jovial voice came from behind.

I turned and sitting on the extended, brightly polished, diamond plate steel bumper, was a young, petite woman. She was dressed from head to toe in the darkest black I have ever seen. The only color I saw was a little lemon charm dangling from a choker. She wore a knitted long sleeve top, a pleated leather mini skirt, torn fishnets, and combat boots. Her gaze was directed at a laptop. I looked back at my body being zipped up in a black bag and back. She just seemed out of place.

“I never get used to it,” she said as she hopped down from the bumper and tossed the laptop over her shoulder. It disappeared. She stepped up beside me.

“Get used to what?” I asked.

“Somebody with a good sixty-five years left on their life just snuffed out like that,” she snapped her fingers. “You had a sweet car, too.”

“Yeah. Who are you?”

She shifted and held out her hand, “I’m Mortie.”

“I’m dead, aren’t I? Is there something you can do? I have a--.”

She nodded empathetically, “I know, you and Devin were expecting. You two worked so hard conceiving her.”

“It’s a girl?”

“Yup.”

I looked down and breathed a stuttered breath. “I guess I’ll be there in spirit.”

Mortie’s empathy gave weight to her words again, “I wish it worked that way.”

“I thought death was supposed to be a tall skeleton wielding a scythe.”

“Nope, he retired almost a thousand years ago.” She looked over her shoulder. “He got his body back and headed off to somewhere sunny, Tahiti or Bora Bora, I think. He had a reputation of boning the ladies.” she chuckled.

“How did you get your job?”

“I sat down and filled out an application, the old fashioned way.” She tapped her wrist, “We gotta go.”

“Go where?”

“I’ll explain on the way,” Mortie replied and grabbed my wrist. She scanned the area and her eyes locked on a man exiting a pickup truck. The man’s hair was white as freshly fallen snow and his skin bore no pigment. He wore a three-piece suit that bore no hue. The iris and sclera were one color, blue.

“You see him?” Mortie asked and she pointed toward the anomaly.

“Yes,” I answered.

He’s coming for you. He’s a courier.

“Like you?”

“No, not exactly. Run!”

The courier approached and Mortie withdrew a pair of daggers from the air. The blades had waves of black swirls and lines. They were Damascus steel with pearl grips. As a collector, I would love to have them.

“Run,” Mortie insisted. “I’ll find you.”

I took off. Some distance away I turned. The courier drew a sword and initiated an attack. Mortie trapped the courier’s blade and kicked his abdomen. The impact pushed him back. He repeated the same attack only Mortie parried with one dagger and slashed his chest with the other. The man in white leaped back to examine his wound, it appeared superficial.

Discipline held Mortie. The courier leaped at her. She deflected his attack, slipped past him, and plunged a blade into his back. This stunned him long enough for her to sink the other in. He dropped to his knees as the sword clamored to the asphalt. Mortie pressed her boot to the courier’s back and pushed freeing the daggers. She quickly wiped them on the suit jacket and tossed them into sheathes on her back. She collected the sword as the courier turned to ash and blew away.

She reached me, “I thought I told you to run.”

“I waited to see if you needed help.”

“If somehow that courier had bested me, you’d be--.”

“In hell?”

“Hell is just a word.” She held the blade before her and tossed it away. Like the laptop, the sword vanished.

“Why did you throw away the sword?”

“I had no use for it,” She replied.

“I can hold my own in a sword fight.”

“That courier would have bested you in three moves. Now come along.”

“Where are we going?”

“If I don’t find you another receptacle, your soul dies as your body did.”

“Another receptacle?” I asked.

“Reincarnation. Buddha was on the right path, but he wasn’t exactly right.”

“Well, the Allied General Hospital isn’t far from here. We could just go to the maternity ward.”

“Are you deranged? You want to give some cute baby multiple personality disorder? What are you a monster?”

“It was just a suggestion.”

“A terrible one at that. No, your soul has to be implanted into a soulless and we don’t have much time.” She began walking away.

“Where do we find a soulless?”

“The comatose make good layovers until a more suitable receptacle is found. The couriers can’t get you once you’re in one.”

I squinted slightly, “I’m sensing a but.”

“Couriers like to hang out and catch a detached soul trying to get to a soulless. So it’s best to find them elsewhere.”