“Can you hear me? I must kindly ask for you to open your eyes. Nod your head now if you comprehend what I’m saying”

Saylee opened her eyes.

A man was staring down at her, hand held out towards her.

Saylee slowly nodded her head, then took his hand.

She stared at the stranger, who was looking back at her with a genuinely concerned look.

Saylee, unsure how to respond, gave a halfhearted smile, “Thanks”

The man nodded in satisfaction and gave a comforting smile back, “You took a bit to respond, I was worried I messed up the spirit retrieval process. I’ve done this before, but even pros can make a mistake once in a while”

The man was bald, wearing jeans, velcro sandals with socks, and a faded red hoodie that had a band logo that Saylee wasn’t familiar with.

The man’s smile slightly faltered. He nodded in the direction behind her, “I’ll give you a moment”

Saylee turned and was startled to find herself surprisingly close to a semi-truck. The truck’s trailer was slightly leaning over at an angle.

Looking down, she noticed a vehicle. flattened beneath the weight of the trailer.

Her vehicle.

The silence in the area finally hit. She glanced around at the pedestrians and traffic around her.

There was no movement.

Time was at a standstill.

Nothing moved, except for her and…

The bald man walked up and gently touched her shoulder, “Looks like your car ran a red light and the semi-truck won”

Saylee turned and glared at him, “What are you talking about?”

“Well…”, the man pulled out a small tablet from his hoodie pocket. He tapped the screen a few times; “It says here that it all started the moment you were startled by a pothole. The tire hit the pothole and your phone slipped between your eye and shoulder. You tried to quickly grab it with your left hand. That left elbow of yours bumped into the steering wheel hard. Which caused the coffee to spill from the cup holder, the spill, the turn of the steering wheel and your phone fumble took your eyes off the road long enough to not notice the red light… and that’s where the notes end”

“You’re telling me…”

“Oh yes, you’re way done with this life. No coming back from that-” he pointed to the vehicle that looked like a large clump of wrinkled tinfoil under the semi’s trailer, “-mess. I had to close my eyes and quickly grab out your spirit from your meat puppet. Your spirit was a mess, you looked like a fly after it stuck into the windshield. I dragged it out quickly”

“um”

“Dragging out that spirit of yours was like grabbing leftover chum slugging around at the bottom of a bucket. There ain’t no coming back from that, even grosser to tough”

“Okay, a little sympathy right now would be, actually no, right now a little empathy is what I need right now. I just died and I feel like I’m about to lose it”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve been doing this a long time and you have no reason to lose your cool, well, at least not all of it. No reason for it ‘cuz you’re not even done with your journey. Follow me”

The man started walking away, fumbling his hands in his pockets, looking for something.

Taken aback, Saylee followed him, “I have lots of questions, wait”

“I know you do, but please, save it for the trip”

The man pulled out from his hoodie pocket, what appeared to be a key fob.

From the corner of her eye, Saylee saw movement.

Facing the movement, she saw a distant silhouette of a man running down the road in their direction. The man was too far to get a look at his face, but he was running at a steady pace. At that pace, he would reach them in a few minutes.

“Excuse me, strange stranger, some guy is running towards us”

The bald man glanced over in the direction Saylee was facing. His face went solemn, “Just when I was in a good mood, now I’m pissed off. Seriously, what are the odds”. He pressed the button on the fob firmly.

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After a few moments of silence, he pressed the button a few more times.

The bald man grumbled, “They need to hurry with the new fob replacement, this is ridiculous”

Saylee could hear the running man yelling something. As the man was closing in, Saylee heard a few of the shouts were profanities.

As the bald man kept pressing the fob button, Saylee walked in front of him, staring at him with an expression of impatience and concern.

“Are you avoiding that man? More importantly, are you…a you know…a reaper?…”

“Yes and also no”

“Explain,” Saylee said more sternly than intended. She closed her eyes for a long moment and exhaled before folding her arms. She looked away, “please”

The bald man pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly frustrated.

The running man was getting closer.

There was a distant echo of a familiar beep beep sound that she’d heard countless times in her lifetime.

“Thank fob.” The bald man said, “Please hold your questions. I’m starting to get a migraine and I’m already behind schedule thanks to that ass-clown”, He angrily pointed toward the running man.

Saylee turned to look at the running man, who was about a minute’s distance from closing in. She could make out the man’s face, bright red with fury and from over-exertion.

The bald man put his hand up in the air that held the fob and did a series of fist pumps then aimed the fob out in front of him.

Saylee shrieked, as a white van appeared right in front of them.

Saylee was taken aback. It was a modern passenger van, the commercial-sized one that could easily fit about fifteen people. Saylee could see from the windows, that there were several silhouettes of passengers already sitting inside. The man walked towards the driver’s side and bellowed, “Let’s go”

Saylee walked towards the front passenger door and stopped. The seat was already taken by what appeared to be a teenager. The team, appearing to play a mobile game on their phone, had glanced in her direction, shook her head, and pointed her thumb toward the direction of the back of the van.

Saylee walked over to the double doors on the side of the van. Swinging one of the doors open, she immediately felt uneasy as an assortment of faces looked back at her, ranging from sad, scared, and angry. As she climbed in, the other passengers suddenly averted their eyes. There were two vacant seats, one behind the driver and one towards the second row to the back. She awkwardly made her way towards the back of the van, squeezing past the rows.

She found herself saying Excuse me and sorry a few times before sitting down. In the same row, to her left were two other passengers. By the window seat, a man appearing to be in his fifties had rested his elbow on the armrest, with his chin on his fist. The man stared out the window, deep in thought. The other person, between her and the man by the window, was a young man who she guessed must have been in his early twenties. The young man, his forehead pressed onto the back of the seat in front of him, ignored her entirely. he had semi-long tousled hair, worn-down clothes, and a few tattoos and piercings.

The bald man she met at her death, grumbled as plopped into the driver’s seat. He reached over to take a baseball cap off the dashboard and placed it on his head by the brim. The mysterious man put on his seat-belt before bellowing towards the back, “Everyone, make sure your seat-belts are on. The drive through the belt can be a little bumpy”

The young man next to Saylee, without lifting his head, spoke up, “What? Why?”. He lifted his head, his sarcasm heavy, “Hey everyone, let’s make sure you put on your seat-belts! You might get hurt, or worse…you could die!”

The bald man ignored the snide remark and started up the van. The young man beside Saylee smacked his forehead right back onto the seat in front of him.

Saylee raised her hand, waving, “Excuse me, sir, I still don’t know your name. Please, where are we going, also, who and what are you? I wanted answers. I’m starting to get a little unsure about all this”. She waved her hand in a full circle for emphasis.

The bald man lifted a finger and pointed at a pinned sign that was right above his head. The sign, barely pinned onto the roof, read; “Don’t distract the driver, please save all questions for the captain of your upcoming voyage. Passengers who disrupt the driver repeatedly will be dropped off before the destination at the discretion of the driver. Continuation Inc. is not responsible for travelers lost in space between destinations”

Saylee bit her tongue. A part of her wanted to hop over the seats to strangle the driver’s neck for some answers. While the other part of her felt dread for what waited for her at the destination. She was about to ponder what may be waiting for her at the destination but a lanyard caught her eye.

Hanging from the rearview mirror, was a faded lanyard. At the bottom, hung an employee ID, showing a smiling bald man. She squinted, she was able to barely make out the name on the badge. It read; Carl Ebb.

Saylee was about to call out the driver’s name but jumped back in shock as she noticed a face pressed up against the glass of the window on her right.

The running man’s face, a sneer on his face and fire in his eyes stepped back and started pounding both fists on the window. Demanding that they open the doors.

The van started to lift off the ground. Floating upwards as if it were weightless like a newly filled helium balloon caught in the wind.

The man outside jumped onto the back of the van, standing on the back bumper and holding one hand onto the roof railing. Used his free hand to pound against the back window, “Let me in! You can’t leave me. You can’t do this to me. You-”

The driver Carl pulled the van steering wheel towards him, and it began to lift at an angle.

The man constantly hit the back window. The other passengers looked back. They watched the man in silence. Some had expressions of dismay, others looked amused.

The man outside lost his footing, now only holding onto the van with one hand. His face was now a contortion of anger and concern.

Carl turned the steering wheel a full 360, several times. Then, he quickly spun it around several times in the other direction.

The van spun faster as it slowly ascended above the clouds.

Thankfully, everyone inside the van was buckled in.

The man outside, however, was not. He lost his grip on the van’s roof. He was abruptly flung off.

The falling man, looked up, staring at her. His face was in a deep sneer. He was shaking one fist angrily in the van’s direction, before hitting the ground hard below.

The sound of the van groaning in first gear gradually grew louder.

Carl Ebb placed his hand on the stick shift, “Everyone, hold on tight”

Carl put the van into second gear.

The van’s groaning immediately stopped.

Carl smiled, “Faster than a pop”.

He grabbed the stick shift, pulled the gear back, before shoving it more forward.

The van shot up towards the stars.