Catherine

"It's a lot to take in huh?" Benjie was standing beside me. You know the hot one. (Not me though,she-Benjie)

"Well you fellas just happened to be dead people. And I'm living with a not-dead reaper. Nothing to get scared shizless about." Facing the glass window on Damon's office, I can see almost everything from here. I guess this is his way of overlooking things. I can imagine him saying 'No, the murderers are on the tires' stockroom.'

"You'll get used to it." he-she patted my back. Okay I'm really confused. What do I call him?

I give up. I'm calling her Gina.

"How did you die?" Hah. Never thought I'd ask that question.

Gina smiled. "Was a soldier. Got no place to go and just joined the army at eighteen. Served for more than thirty years. Base got bomb. Everybody died. The usual." I nodded and saw Mikey and Raph come out from two different doors at the far end of the garage.

"How did everybody else die...?"

Gina pointed at a tall lanky man who just got up from under a car. "Thomas over there, drowned." She then pointed to a balding man, holding a mug. "Peter got hit by a car, driver never took responsibility. Poor fellar."

Gina waved as another man looked up to smile at us. "Jonas got kidnapped. Parents didn't have enough money. He got killed after the phone call." she murmured before a man holding a dog entered the Garage. Must be clients. You know, living clients.

"That's Greg and eve. Greg's blind, some fuckers mugged him. Beat the shit outta eve afterwards. Bastards should go straight to hell."

I couldn't breathe. She hasn't even told me how the others died and I felt sick already.

"You're all different." I whispered, placing my hand against the cold glass separating us from all of these...souls.

"It's better this way. Assures the soul that we take here that we know how they feel, and that they're going to be okay."

"So...this is like some sort of purgatory then."

She chuckled. "In a way, yes. It's more of a department."

I saw a glimpse of Damon talking to a woman, three cars away from Bradley. Probably just like Benjie.

"Department? You mean, there are other purgatories?"

She laughed. "If you haven't noticed yet, all of us here died because we got killed, either by other people or while on duty. There's a department for people who died old, people who died young, people who died from a certain illness and those who committed suicide."

"Then why are you guys still here? Aren't you supposed to be in heaven? Or hell?"

"We're here to collect those souls. Once the Big Guy thinks we've done enough, he lets us go. It all depends on how we perform our duties if we're going to end up in heaven or hell. Like another chance on the after-life. Then we get replaced by other souls. It's a cycle."

"Why don't you call him 'God'?" I interjected. Come to think of it, Damon doesn't call Him that too.

"We don't know what his name is. Nobody does really. He has different names for different religions. Depends on the department if they want to call Him a certain name. Same goes with heaven and hell. We don't like criticizing 'em. I mean, what the fck do we know right?" she walked towards the door and gestured for me to follow.

"So...where do the bad guys go?" we were walking down the stairs when I saw three men carrying a huge box.

"Raph and Mikey takes care of 'em. They sort the souls if they're worthy or not."

"How did they die?" we were walking around now.

"They're not human." I stopped walking when I heard her.

"What do you mean they're not human?"

"I can't tell you Catherine. I'm just trying to explain what we do here since Damon's going to be stuck with you for an indefinite period of time. We don't want you fainting. You're lucky the nasties got locked in before you fellas got here." she winked at me before we continued our stroll among reapers and animal ghosts.

"I thought you guys were supposed to look like some gang. Tattoos and all."

I felt a couple of heads turn our way. "We don't have to look the part. Why do people personify death as an evil entity? Death doesn't necessarily mean darkness Catherine. It's as natural as giving life. The only reason people hate death is because it doesn't benefit them. As to life, you can try new things; you can make things happen while death doesn't really give you anything to make you want it. The people who commit suicide, the ones who faced death rather than life, go to divine counseling. My mother told me they have to wait to get to heaven. Guess she wasn't kidding." A couple of guys who heard us started laughing. "Couldn't blame them. Sometimes life gives you too much sht and some of us just can't take any more." I looked around to see if anyone would dare laugh at what he said but the look on their faces told me they knew what he said was true.

All this information should've been enough to make me leave this place and never look back. It was, after all, the smartest thing to do. But how many times in your lifetime will you meet someone who was sent especially for you.

It's crazy how fascinated I am on how things actually worked around here. Damon knew all of this at a young age. If I were him, I would've gone bonkers.

"How long has he been with you guys?" Gina paused to look over a man who seemed to spend serious money on his mustache.

"We found him i front of a church when he was twelve. Glared at us when we tried to help him out. Called me an old man and baam. He's one of us. We knew. He kept staring at a soul we were hunting for a week."

I snapped my fingers and a couple of men stopped working. "I knew it! You're Ghostbusters! You're the real deal!"

Silence.

I'm in deep horse manure now.

A man on a greasy jumpsuit slowly made his way towards me. I barely reached his shoulder. I didn't even have the chance to move back when he gripped my forearms.

Well this really is it Cat. You and your big mouth.

I turned wide-eyed when he suddenly lifted me and started laughing. Soon enough, most of the guys who heard our exchange were laughing and came forward. They didn't take my soul but by the way they were patting my back, they might as well have.

"This is Damon's girl?" The man who held me up asked. Gina laughed and nodded.

"Ain't she purty? Hey fellas! Ain't she a purty little thing!" I winced. It was too hot but I tried to laugh it off and asked him to put me down. He did and Gina asked the men to make room. I looked down to see that my blouse had grease on it. Ain't I a purty little thing.

"Alright alright. Show's over. Leave the poor girl alone." some of them gave me a hug, asking me to take care of their little boy.

When the crowd finally cleared, I excused myself. I need to clean this up while it's still fresh. I'm a bit of a neat freak at times and a yellow blouse with grease on it is making my hands itch. Making my way up the stairs, I saw the guys smiling at me. Guess I'm some sort of VIP now.

I should have a diary. My first entry would probably be: Dear Diary, I knew how the after-life worked today. The guy I've been sharing an apartment with just happened to work on the I-Got-Killed Dept. a.k.a IGKD.

I entered Damon's office and locked the door. No more hugging and patting for me thank you.

***
He's here.

How can I tell, you ask?

Have you ever heard a broken CD? But instead of the problem being the repeating lyrics, this one's got a problem with the singer. I mean the song barely had high notes. I can hear the actual song playing and he doesn't even sound like he's singing. He was like reading poetry on a poor impersonation of Justin Timberlake and Adam Levine's voice. I know. How dare me. But it was true. He's awful. He should consider being a stripper. He'll literally suck the soul out of his clients.

Tonight's Special! Damon Grace: The Reaper Stripper

...

I'm going on that show. No questions asked.

I sat down on the big red couch and waited patiently for him to finish his karaoke session. Looking at his table, I noticed all the papers carelessly thrown over it. I walked towards the paper mess and sat on his swivel chair. Fluffy. I looked down and saw receipts. Receipts. Receipts. Electricity bill. Receipts. Where's the logbook? Ye know where they put the names of the souls. I started opening cabinets and instead of finding folders, there were clean shirts in it. The man really did live in his office. I was placing them all on his table, intent on letting him pack most of it.

Then the bathroom door opened.

***

I'm not sure what I saw but they were...globes. And they were purty. I squinted my eyes and saw a mark on it. It looked like someone burned a cross near one of the flesh-colored globes. Now that I looked at it, it kind of looked like ...cheeks.

This is one of the times when my brain decides to not close my eyes and my vocal chords needed exercise.

"You son of a devlin! You're naked!" I screamed, throwing the shirts I neatly piled on his desk.

"What the-" he had this confused look on his and turned to face me.

"Turn around! You're naked!" I ran out of shirts to throw and I resorted to covering my eyes.

Eye.

"I locked the door!" He was holding a red shirt on his midsection now.

"No you did nooot!" My throat hurt.

He started walking towards me and I closed my eyes shut. I felt my chair move and I risked a tiny peak and realized that he turned the chair around. I heard the bathroom door close and men suddenly barged in. They looked at the clothes on the floor, then my flushed face then finally, Damon coming out of the bathroom, clothes on, and drying his hair.

Why. And I mean why are they calling him a little boy?

I saw a frick fracking-

A frick fracking-

Elephant.