Damned If You Do Read Online Free Page B

was looking for. I removed it and read a random selection of headlines: FALLING DOWN A WELL, FALLING INTO AN UNENDING ABYSS, FALLING INTO A VAT OF BOILING OIL, FALLING OVER ( GENERAL ), FALLING OFF A CLIFF ( VARIOUS ).
    â€˜Which reference do you want?’
    â€˜Can you see Falling from a Great Height? ’
    I ran my finger down the page:
    FALLING
    from a great height
    x-ref 1 : Diving, Dropping, Leaping (into, from), Plunging, Slipping, Tumbling
    x-ref 2 : Aeroplanes, Buildings, Cliffs, Towers, Trees, Parachutes (Failure to Open), etc.
    x-ref 3 : Accident, Murder, Suicide.
    â€˜Is this it?’
    Death took the sheet and nodded. ‘Just as I suspected. Completely useless.’ He tossed it away. ‘We’ll have to improvise.’
    He showed me the thick folder he was holding. It contained around a hundred sheets of biographical information about the woman he described as our ‘client’. I scanned it briefly: age, favourite foods, changes in hair colour, sexual partners, medical records, likes and dislikes of all kinds.
    â€˜This is the Life File,’ Death explained. ‘Read as much as you can as we go along.’ He smiled pleasantly and patted me on the back. ‘It’s a routine start to the week. A rather formulaic termination. But we can make it more interesting.’
    I had no idea what he was talking about.
    *   *   *
    One of the cars parked outside the office belonged to Death: a rusty, beige Mini Metro. We climbed in and he pulled rapidly away, tyres screeching, burning rubber. As he raced up the slope towards a T-junction, he explained that most Agents now used inexpensive vehicles, that like everyone else he had to move with the times, and that a horse was no longer a suitable mode of transport.
    I was too distracted to concentrate fully on what he was saying. Disappointed, too: The four car drivers of the Apocalypse just didn’t carry the same weight.
    If they only knew, back in the cemetery.
    *   *   *
    We drove towards the city centre along streets that were increasingly familiar. And this is where my story – the story of how I died – really begins.
    We passed a large square which, for the first fifteen years of my life, had been the site of the old bus station. It was redeveloped in the 1980s: the bus station remained, but it was surrounded on all sides by new offices, restaurants and flats. Anyway, as we passed the entrance, I looked up from the file and caught a glimpse of one of the new residential blocks on the far side of the square.
    And I remembered.
    *   *   *
    Sliding.
    Sliding rapidly towards the edge of a grey slate roof, the steep, slippery slope accelerating the slide, the wind and rain whipping into my face; slapping my hands and feet against the wet tiles, trying to gain a hold, hoping to slow the descent; releasing a long, loud cry of terror.
    Suicide and sherbet lemons
    Death parked on a double yellow line outside the library, a depressing block of dirt-streaked concrete at the edge of the main shopping centre. He expertly applied a little rouge to his pallid cheeks, smoothed his hair with his bony fingers, then turned towards me. ‘When we get out,’ he said, ‘look straight ahead, try not to shuffle, and keep your mouth closed. We don’t want people seeing those teeth.’
    We left the car and walked up a paved incline towards a distant crossroads. It was a warm, blue day and the city centre was alive with bodies. Against Death’s advice I instinctively bowed my head, fearful that someone might notice the zombie amongst them, scream with terror, and rustle up a lynch mob. Even then, and despite my efforts to protect myself from this surreal carnival of humanity, details forced themselves upon me – details so vivid and so isolated, it was as if they were in colour while everything else was in black and white.
    I saw shoes like strange fruit, in which thick