Reapers With Issues

By H.E. Ellis

Death and the other Reapers have a challenge. Earth’s population has made soul collection a big problem, and according to Death’s figures, it will only get worse. Death is a skilled but reluctant bureaucrat who tries to enlist help before Human souls start backing up.

But since no good deed goes unpunished, Death and the other Horsemen will have to put up with a whole new approach to management from Heaven.

What is an entity to do?

• Language: English
• Publisher: H.E. Ellis
• Release date: Aug 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476428079

H.E. Ellis

Writer of questionable talent seeks readership with an appreciation for the fine art of mocking. Interests include candlelight dinners, long walks on the beach, and Abe Vigoda. Must love New England. Author of REAPERS WITH ISSUES and THE GODS OF ASPHALT series. www.heellisgoa.com www.reaperswithissues.com

Book preview

Book One of the REAPERS WITH ISSUES Series:

REAPERS

WITH

ISSUES

by,

H.E. Ellis

SMASHWORDS EDITION

ISBN- 13: 978-1476428079

Copyright ©2012 by H.E. Ellis

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

HEAVENLY RESOURCE MEMOS

LEVEL ONE

LEVEL TWO

LEVEL THREE

LEVEL FOUR

LEVEL FIVE

LEVEL SIX

LEVEL SEVEN

LEVEL EIGHT

LEVEL NINE

LEVEL TEN

LEVEL ELEVEN

LEVEL TWELVE

LEVEL THIRTEEN

LEVEL FOURTEEN

LEVEL FIFTEEN

LEVEL SIXTEEN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

MORE FROM THE AUTHORS

***

I dedicate this book to people who dedicate things everywhere.

- S. Quinn Shaw

***

HEAVENLY RESOURCE MEMOS

MEMORANDUM FOR: God, Supreme Being, Head Dude, Commander-In-Chief of the Universe

SUBJECT: Request for Additional Staffing

1. Purpose: To gain approval of additional Reaper personnel to manage explosive human populations.

2. Background: Office of Human Death (OHD) analysis shows that current human population trends will rapidly exceed the current Reaper Office staffing of four Reapers.

3. OHD requests 10,000 minor angels to serve as temporary Associate Reapers. Period of service is not expected to exceed five (5) years.

4. OHD, if required, could alternately train and employ Associate Reapers from current Souls In Hold Status (Purgatory).

//Signed//

Death

Head Reaper-In-Charge

***

MEMORANDUM FOR: Death, Head Reaper-In-Charge, Office of Human Death, Purgatory 00000

SUBJECT: Denial of Additional Reaper Staffing

Death,

Given the current fiscal constraints on the Heavenly Office of Budget and Management, and after long consultation with the Archangel Board of Directors and Heaven COO, Gabriel, I must regretfully deny your request for additional staffing of the Office of Human Death. In spite of this denial, I have full faith and confidence in you and your three excellent associates.

Keep up the great scything,

//signed//

God

SB, HD, CinC-U

***

MEMORANDUM FOR: God, Supreme Being, Head Dude, Commander-In-Chief of the Universe

SUBJECT: Request of Review of Denial of Additional Human Death Office Staffing

1. Purpose: To gain review and readdress request for additional Reaper staffing of the Human Death Office.

2. Background: Human Death Office analysts strongly urge additional staffing at this time. Failure to approve this request may result in prolonged human deaths that will, in turn, cast severe negative attention on the Offices of Heavenly Affairs, the Archangel Board, and ultimately Your Most Awesomeness in Commanditude.

3. OHD reasserts its request for 10,000 minor angels to serve as temporary Associate Reapers. Period of service is not expected to exceed five (5) years.

4. OHD admits that it could easily train and employ Associate Reapers from current Souls In Hold Status (Purgatory) should minor angels not be readily available.

//Signed//

Death

Head Reaper-In-Charge

***

MEMORANDUM FOR: Death, Head Reaper-In-Charge, Office of Human Death, Purgatory 00000

SUBJECT: Additional Reaper Staffing

Death,

Upon review of your strident and insubordinate request for additional staffing, the Archangel Board has admitted there is potential for crisis, and that this crisis could have a negative impact on our strategic communications.

Given the very real lack of funding this fiscal millennium which you fail to acknowledge, the only viable course of action available to myself and the Board is to provide you with management oversight. My personal representative for all matters below the Heavenly Plane will be in contact soonest.

No further reconsideration of this matter will be pursued, and such actions on your part will only degrade my perception of your ability.

Reap on,

//s//

God

SB, HD, CinC-U

LEVEL ONE

Death killed time rereading God’s memo while he waited for his dealer to show. Semi-baked, he decided, would be the condition necessary to inform his staff that their department would not be receiving the help they so desperately needed and that someone else, an outsider, would be put in place to oversee their operation. As far as Heaven and the Archangels were concerned, the Horsemen were officially on their own.

There had been a time when Death, Grim to those who knew him, could singlehandedly reap his entire department’s quota of souls and still have time left over to indulge in some high quality herbal recreation. The reality of reaping a population closing in on seven billion left Grim no choice but to seek his recreation locally. It didn’t take long for him to discover that local weed, like local Purgatory, was mediocre at best.

Lack of free time and quality pot were merely symptoms of a larger, growing problem. Reaping while short-staffed had robbed his Horsemen of any kind of life outside of the job, and lately Grim had noticed cracks beginning to show. Pestilence developed a nasty habit of calling in sick with a new exotic illness at least once a week, and an incident over a cage dancer forced War into court-ordered anger management classes. Only Famine had been able to withstand the pressures of the job, although Grim did notice that he’d been shedding copious amounts of hair lately.

It was on behalf of his Horsemen that Grim requisitioned the Archangel Board to reassign five thousand Angels to his department for Reaping duty. A requisition that Gabriel, Head of the Archangel Board, repeatedly denied. Grim’s decision to go over the Board’s head to the office of Heavenly Affairs yielded nothing but a Heavenly Liaison, and God only knew who the Hell that was.

Unable to make sense of God’s decree, Grim stuffed the memo back into his pocket as he scoped out his surroundings which were, at the moment, in the alleyway behind his office building and the home of the Office of Human Death (OHD for short). Talk about shitting where you eat, Grim thought to himself as he checked for souls milling about. The last thing he needed was for word to get out that the once great Reaper of Death had been reduced to buying sub-par pot behind his office building in the lamest ‘burb of the Universe.

Paranoia getting the better of him, he walked to the end of the alleyway which emptied into Purgatory’s corporate district, a massive office complex comprised of row after row of generic buildings, each one an exact replica of the one that came before.

Finding no one, grim laughed to himself. Total waste of time, he thought. He couldn’t remember the last time anything bad happened in Purgatory. Then again, he couldn’t remember the last time anything good did, either. Just the same, Grim thought it best to cloak himself in a human disguise, namely the dead body that until an hour ago belonged to the organic hemp farmer that was his latest reaping assignment. Meat suits, as the Horsemen liked to call them, were a necessary evil now that the Archangel Board cut the OHD’s travel expense budget, forcing Grim and his staff to reap by bus instead of horse. All it took was one bad road trip on a bus bound for Newark to make him rethink wearing his cloak while on assignment. Mortals, he discovered, were a lot faster and stronger than they looked.

Grim listened as the clock tower in Purgatory Square chimed one o’clock. Pedro, his dealer, was late. Out of both time and patience, Grim walked back to the rear entrance of the OHD just as the door swung open.

Jesus Christ, Pedro! Grim shouted. Scare me to death why don’t you?

Pedro stepped out into the alleyway, his eyes darting up and down the length of it. How’d I scare you? he asked. You’re the one in the Jesus suit.

Jesus? Really? Grim asked as he smoothed down the late farmer’s long, sandy locks. I kinda thought he looked like Clapton.

Clapton or not that’s some scary shit, man, Pedro said, looking Grim up and down. Someone said they saw Jesus walking around here this morning. You know he’d tell my Pops if he caught me dealing again. My old man believes every word that fool says.

Though he may have been known throughout the Universe as Saint Peter Junior, Pedro earned a reputation in underground circles as the prime procurer of black market merchandise. It didn’t hurt that having a Father who manned the Gates of Heaven gave him access to all the best incoming contraband.

I don’t know what to tell you, kid. Apostles die hard. Now are we going to do this thing or not? Grim asked, hoping to get back to work before