whertetrbs

[whertetrbs]

Scrap

Today was a silly day, Jerry knew that much. First of all, because he wore his formally inappropriate Hawaii Shirt with a pineapple motif, a fisher hat, which would match his red hair, sandals, shorts and sunglasses, which where shaped like the year 2609. The glasses were a thing he had on him when he died, so it held a special place in his no longer beating heart. Number 6 and 0 were once the containers for the dark screened windows but now they were filled with nothing except air and occasionally, the eyes of Jerry. Sometimes Jerry had to pop those suckers back in, he didn't mind that though. For a Zombie, he had it good.  The return of the dead was already a few weeks old and everyone and their mother were still talking about the weird ways some people (and animals) came back. Jerry pitied the ghosts that returned, being noiseless and invisible at a distance seemed downright annoying to him. Ironically,a transparent ghostly woman, dressed in a white business suit scared the hell out of him. Jerry jumped in surprise and let a ton of metal trash down on her by accident. “Oh shit!”, Jerry exclaimed and raced out of the crane's operator cab to the garbage hill that the women was buried under. “Hello? Maam? Are you ok?”, he shouted while looking around the pile. “Yeah, I'm fine, sorry that I spooked you.”, a soft female voice replied. Shortly after that the spectre of the woman came through the trash pile, unharmed.

“I still have to get used to being like... this.”

“What are you doing here? This isn't a safe area.”, Jerry asked.

“It's not like anything could happen to me anyway.”, she said and looked to the ground. Jerry repeated his question: “What is it that you want?”

“I've been in a crash last month, I'm looking for the car I was in.”, she explained.

“Really? Why's that? Did you leave something in there?”

“Well, you could say it that way. Anyway, I tracked it down to this junk yard. Perhaps you know where it is?”, the woman asked.  

“I'm afraid that I pressed your car into a compact cube. It's destroyed, sorry”, he apologized.

“It doesn't matter what form it is in,”, and Jerry saw hope sparkling in her eyes,

”do you still have it?”

“Umm, not really, It's with the other scrapped cars which got picked up by the garbage truck. Sorry-”

“Where did the truck go?”, she asked while grabbing Jerry's collar.

“Hey, you're not actually planning to go after them, right?! What's with the car anyway?!”, he retorted and freed himself from her grasp.

“I just have to get there. Where did it go?”, she requested once more.

“Ok, I get it. The disposal facility is in the other end of this city, can't miss it.”, he answered irritated, turned around and walked to the crane to proceed with his job.

“Thanks, but how do I get there?” Jerry looked at her again and said: “Hell if I know. Take a bus or something. Walk. Go nuts.” The woman replied:

“I don't have money. And if I go by foot, they'll have melted it already. I don't wanna ask-”

“Then don't.”

“Could you drive me there?”, she pleaded.

“No.”, he responded and headed towards his crane again.

“You have to help me, that's all-” Jerry interrupted:

“No, I don't HAVE to help you. I can't abandon everything, only to get you to your wrecked ride.” He said this as he got into the operator cab. Nevertheless that didn't stop the woman.

“Please, everything I have left is that compressed junk. Why won't you help me?”

“Cause I have a job to do.”, he answered and closed the door. The ghost cared little about physical barriers and put her head right through it. “Please help me... or else!”

“Or else? Ghosts don't have much control over matter. Make me!”, he gave back and went on to his job. Suddenly the woman screamed in the highest pitch imaginable, Jerry flinched and covered his ears, but she just kept screaming and screaming. “STOP IT!”, he shouted desperately. “So, will you drive me now?”, she asked with a triumphant smile. She looked quite pretty, with her blue eyes, reminiscent of blue quartz, her short, golden hair and just a hint of red on her lips.

“Fucking fine.”, Jerry accepted and went into his front office. He informed his partner, John, who now noticed the ghostly woman. “Uh, Jerry, who is she?”

“You don't wanna know. I'm gonna drive her to the disposal facility or Miss Banshee will make my eardrums explode!”, Jerry explained.

“It's Miss Alexandra Falker to you!”, the woman explained

“Ok. So, Jerry, you're taking a, er, earlier lunch break?”, John asked and looked towards Jerry.

“Yes, you can put it that way. Keep the suits out for me, ok?”, he answered and grabbed his keys.

“Will do, partner.”

“Good, see you later.” Jerry left for his car. It was an old Toyota AE86. “Do you like my car?”, he asked Alexandra jokingly. She was not amused. Jerry unlocked his vehicle and got in, while Alexandra just glided through the door, onto the seat. Jerry shook his head and put his seatbelt on. Jerry started the engine and drove onto the road. He switched on the radio and Jerry started to sing along. He noticed that Alexandra was not a fan of his performance. She had screamed right in his ear, he felt like he deserved to annoy her just a little. That was the moment when she started her banshee scream again. “Fuck, fine I won't sing, Jesus...”, Jerry promised. Alexandra was ticked off by the last uttered word:

“Hmph, Jesus. That basta... that man is responsible for this whole mess.”

“Well, I personally liked the resurrection, why are you so upset?”

She didn't answer. After a few minutes of silence, Jerry tried again: “Why do you hate him?”

“Him?”

“Jesus.”

“Do you really wanna know?”, she asked with a raised eyebrow. Jerry nodded and Alexandra took a deep breath before she explained: “In the car crash that killed me... I wasn't alone. My daughter was on the back seat. Of course, I don't know what happened to her, I just woke up right where I had the accident. First, I went home, but she wasn't there, then I checked if she was at her school, next I looked by our old home, still nothing. The only place that's left is the car. She must be there. And Jesus couldn't possibly have a good reason to do this to us, could he?”

“First of all, I'm sorry for that, I couldn't imagine what I would do if one of my kids...

I'm sure of one thing though: you two will meet again.”, Jerry answered after digesting everything Alexandra had thrown at him.

“You are a believer?”, she asked him with a cold gaze in her eyes and a hint of disdain in her voice.

“Do you despise them that much?”

“Let's just say that I had my share of troubles with them.”

“No doubt about that, we do have some fuckers in our midst”, he admitted, ”that's not all of us though. Give me a chance, will ya?”

“I did, but you said: 'I don't have to help you.'”, she replied coldly.

“The reason for that is that junk yard of mine could be taken away soon. .You see, when I died, my sons took over and they weren't experienced business people, and they wound up knee deep in debt. Now I'm back and I can't afford to play the chauffeur for every worried ghost I come across. Although, you do have a point. Perhaps I should have helped you nonetheless. Sometimes the right thing to do and what you actually need to do, can be miles apart.”, he said after being quiet for a while.

“Maybe so.”, Alexandra commented, as she was looking outside through the window.

Opposed to Jerry, who felt confident that Alexandra's daughter was waiting at the trashed car, she thought: “He's wrong. That's the last place where she could be. She wasn't anywhere up to this point, why would she appear now?” As she was thinking that, Jerry had found a spot near the disposal facility and he informed Alexandra: “Time for a family reunion, right?” To his surprise, Alexandra wasn't listening, she was absorbed in her thoughts. “Umm... Miss Falker?”

She suddenly awoke from her world of thought: “What?”

“Come on, let's save your car and get your daughter back to you.”, he explained with energy radiating from his eyes.

“Ok, sure. Let's go.”, she said and slid right on through the car. As Jerry exited on his side and locked the car, Alexandra mentioned: “By the way, don't call me 'Miss' anything. I'm Alex.” Jerry nodded and returned the favor: “Hi, I'm Jerry.” The undead duo made its way into the garbage destroyer. It's rustyness and old towers were already unpleasant to look at, the smell was not very welcoming either and the front office worker seemed to have absorbed both properties. He said:

“State your business.”

“Well, where do you melt the cars?”, Jerry asked nonchalantly.

“Firstly, tell me your name. Secondly, state your intentions. Then I can-”

“Listen, I just want to get to the leftovers of my car, is that impossible?”, Alex interrupted.

“Did you think you could waltz in here and do whatever you want, like the other undead fuckers?”, he responded and frowned.

“Screw this and you.”, Alex insulted the worker and squeezed right through the locked metal doors to the right of the office. “You know what? Knock yourself out, I don't care at this point!”, the front desk worker shouted. All of the sudden the giant doors opened. Jerry wondered what had happened, only for the doors to slowly reveal Alex, who was pressing a button on the inside that on the wall next to the doors.

“Get in!”, she called out. Jerry hurried as fast as his half decomposed legs would allow.

On the outside, the office worker was sitting on his chair again, reading a newspaper. He mumbled: “Undead people again, breaking in here in search of some old cursed crap. Fourth fucking time this week. And it's fucking Tuesday. I won't put up with this any more.”

In the meantime, Alex and Jerry made their way deeper into the facility. Alex asked: “How will we find the right trash cube? It's no different from any other cube except it's blue color and-”

In that very moment they came across a small pile of trash cubes. At the foot of that garbage pile, there was a sign that said: “Cursed Rubbish”

“What the hell...”, Jerry mumbled and examined the mountain from top to bottom.

“I think I see my car. It must be!”, Alex exclaimed and tried to grip a blue cube on the left of the pile. Jerry quickly went and helped her. At last they had arrived where they wanted to be. The cube stood freely before them now. Alex kneeled next to it and started talking: “Ella, can you hear me? Are you there? Please answer. Please be there.” Her voice started breaking up. She put her arms around the cube that used to be her car. “Come on, sweetie. Don't do this to me.” Alex tried to be strong but tears started running over her face. Out of nowhere the voice of a girl reverberated through the air: “I'm sorry that you had to suffer.” Jerry and Alex looked around but the source of the voice was nowhere to be seen. Then out of the top of the cube pile, a girl ghost slid out. Alex couldn't take her eyes off of her.

“Sorry, I'm not the one you're searching for. I was waiting here for quite some time. Many people came here in search of their loved ones, I'm the last one left. Not everyone found them.

The one you call Ella was never here.”

With that information, both undead left the place. When they were getting out of the doors, the desk worker said: “Hmph. Fucking dead people.”

Jerry snapped back: “You're the one to talk, you work an office job.” Jerry tried everything to comfort Alex, to no avail. When they made their way back to Jerry's car, he proposed something: “How about I show you one of my favourite places here in Los San Chicagos? You'll like it,

I promise.” Alex did not object, in fact, she didn't say a word at all. Soon after they arrived at a promenade, where a few people were taking a walk. Jerry took his lunch box with him and encouraged Alex to come with him. Not knowing any better, she followed him. From the promenade, she could see almost the entire city. The sun was already setting bathing the skyline of Los San Chicagos in an sanguine orange light. Jerry had his arms resting on the balustrade and he took a good look at the panorama. “Tell me about Ella. What was she like?”, he started.

Alexandra hesitated but after a while, she told Jerry everything surrounding her beloved offspring, her face and eyes lit up and radiated and aura of energy. “...and when she was seven years old, all the other girls in her class were swooning over that one boy, I can't remember the name, but she clearly said to me: 'Boys are icky, there's no way I'll like them, never ever!'. As a matter of fact, she never did like boys, she came out to me last year. At first I thought it was a phase but Ella always insisted that it was a part of her that would never go away. Well, it took me more time to accept that than I care to admit but I never treated her any different, I never stopped loving her...” Stopping at that point, Alex expression changed from the happy energetic aura to the silent sadness she had since they were at the disposal facility. “Do you think that's the reason she didn't come back? Because she was...” Jerry quickly stopped her: “No, that wouldn't make any sense: if that were true I wouldn't be standing here!”

“So you are...”, she asked timidly.

“Let's just say that love can go lots of different ways. Ella is fine, I'm sure of it. She's in a better place now, I know it.”

“You mean you believe, right?”

“No, I know.”, he reassured and winked at her.