Fear, Loathing, and Zombieasaurs in Las Vegas | ONC 2021

The Blue Screen of Death (Second Draft)

Death tapped away at her computer, only half-listening to the sounds going on behind her. She had one last section of the Cretaceous period to go catalog, and then the dinosaurs would be fully reorganized and uploaded with this new backup software Charon installed.

Slurp, ding, BANG! Slurp, ding, BANG!

Charon sipped his morning coffee while checking in the line of spirits awaiting admittance. He loved personally checking in everyone who arrived on Death's Doorstep, said it was important to have a personal touch in an otherwise impersonal business. The doorstep was a metaphor, though they'd redecorated for a bit to lean into the pun.* It had evolved over time as they'd gotten more efficient.

They started with a large river and several ferry-men, a lot of reapers, four soul-weighers, and a three-headed dog in charge of security. Now it was a long line of turnstiles stretching as far as the eye could see in either direction, Charon - who was in charge of intake, outtake, and security - and her. Much more efficient, like he said. She didn't have all those personnel worries or HR to deal with. Though she missed Cerberus. He had been a good boy.

DING! DING! DING! DING! A turnstile somewhere in the line registered an anomaly.

Oooh! Something to do besides filing. Finally! Death moved the files faster, desperate to get done with this time period so Charon couldn't say her ADHD was acting up. She was the only one who could do the file work into the backup system, but gosh it was a tedious task. Was it a problem that occasionally she wanted to do something different? Maybe she did have ADHD - she didn't exactly know what that was - something to do with jumping from project to project, Charon said. She grasped the last few sets of files and shoved them over into the new folder all at once, and hit the backup button to initiate the new software. It was more than usual, and Charon had warned her about trying to back up too many files at once, but did anyone actually care if an Abelisaurus was cataloged out of order with the Albertosaurus? They'd all been dead a long time, their souls long-since reborn in the circle of life, so it shouldn't be a problem if a few of them got jumbled together. Anyway, she wanted to see to this anomaly.

The turnstiles flew by, a different spirit in each one, as she walked over to where Charon stood at his podium slurping his coffee. It smelled rich and harsh. "Done already? I thought you said the Cretaceous would take you all morning. Not cutting corners again, are we?" Charon said, eyes fixed on the souls flying by.

"Which coffee did you pick this morning?" Death asked, ignoring his question. He shot her a look and she tensed, but he didn't push the issue.

"You know that one humans are paying a whole lot for right now? The one where the beans are filtered through bat poo or whatever?" Charon said, not taking his eyes off the spirits speeding by. The computer in his podium flagged turnstile #1492, nicknamed The Columbus because so many colonizers seemed to filter in through that one randomly.** "I wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

"Are they really paying money for coffee made from poop?" Death was constantly astonished by humans, even after all this time. Charon always had the latest news, even though she was the only one who was technically allowed to talk to them. He had his sources, he said. And she didn't push it.

The turnstiles came to a stop at #1492.

"Who is it?" Death peered over Charon's shoulder at the screen, which flashed a red ERROR notice. Charon swiped at the error notice as Death walked up to the spirit in question. It was a middle-aged white man wearing a suit and looking around very confused, his image blurred, coming in and out like a weak signal.

"Hello," Death began, "What's your name?"

"What?" the man asked rather loudly, his words slurred as his image blinked in and out "What do you waann—-? —er am I? I was —a party. —'s going on? Do you —ow who I —?" Death tried to get a word in, but the man kept on ranting, and she sighed, going back to Charon. There was no trying with some humans; it wasn't worth the energy.