Cody awoke to the sound of someone ringing his doorbell. He checked the clock next to his bed. It read three in the morning.

"Now who in the bloody hell wants to have a chat at three in the morning?" Cody cursed to himself as he tugged on his pants. He'd had an-off tasting egg salad that his boss had given him for dinner and it had made him feel kind of sick, so he had gone to bed early. And now some jerk had interrupted his sleep. A pretty bad night so far.

Now, Cody was a cautious guy. He wasn't paranoid, but he knew that there were bad people in the world, and that the day may come when one might have to defend oneself. So he had recently purchased a pocketknife, a pretty little thing with a genuine wood handle and a silver blade. He drew it quietly as he went downstairs, and held it behind his back as he opened the door.

The guy at his door was some oversized jerk in a black hooded robe carrying a scythe. The hood came down so far you couldn't see the guy's face. It was probably just one kid standing on another's shoulders playing an early Halloween prank.

"Come on, kids, Halloween's not for four days. Now let Mr. Cody go back to sleep before I take that silly hood off myself."

The guy--kids, Cody reminded himself--reared back and stared down at him. Then, in a voice quite unlike any child's, he said, "Well, fine then, I'll leave you to be a ghost the rest of your life, if that's how you're going to be." It would normally be considered a pleasant voice if its owner wasn't slightly irritated.

Cody snorted out a life. "Yeah, right. What are you, Death? Get lost."

Cody could hear the visitor suck in air through his nose. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am Death. You've died, and I'm hear to take you on to what's next."

Cody shook his head. "You're crazy. Prove it, then, if you're Death."

The man calling himself Death pointed his scythe at a nearby cat, there was a bang, and it lay dead.

"Holy--you shot my neighbor's cat!" yelled Cody.

"Shot?" said the guy indignantly. "I willed it to happen!"

Cody realized this guy must obviously be crazy, and that could be harmless sometimes. But this was a crazy guy with some sort of concealed gun, and crazy plus guns is never a good combo. So Cody jabbed the knife right where the guy's eye would have been.

"God!" said Death with the air of a long-suffering person, "Why do people always do things like that? I'm Death, okay? I'm death incarnate! You think you can kill me by poking me in the eye with your little thug sticker?"

"I thought--"

"NO!" screamed Death hysterically. "You can't! But you can sure give me one mother of a headache!"

"But--"

"But what, huh? But what? How would you like it if I gutted you like a fish, or peeled the corneas out of your eyes? Because I can do that, you know." Death leaned forward, as if to speak confidentially to Cody. "Even though you're dead, you can still feel pain. Check this out." And with a quick motion, Death pulled out the knife and stabbed Cody in the eye.

"Ah! Ah, God!" said Cody, trying to pull the knife out. "That really hurts! Ah! Ow! Geez!"

"Yeah!" yelled Death, poking Cody in the chest. "Now you know how it feels!"

"Geez, you didn't need to go that far! OW!" said Cody, and with a grunt, he yanked the knife out of his eye. "I get your point, all right?"

Death nodded. "Okay, now that that's cleared up, you ready to go?"

Cody did a double take. "Wait, I have a choice?"

"Well, yeah. Didn't you hear my comment about the ghost thing? Listen, you ever had a poltergeist?"

"Uh, no."

"They were people in life that did things like called people kinda rude names, made fun of people behind their back, were just generally nasty to everyone and everything in their vicinity. I curse them to not only being stuck here forever, but also to cause chaos wherever they go. Not much different from how they were in life, really. But good or okay people like you get a choice."

Cody shrugged. "I dunno. Want to have a cup of coffee?"

Death seemed to sigh. "Haven't been able to taste anything for millennia. But we can talk if you want. Always nice to get some conversation."

So they started talking. Cody found that he couldn't really taste the coffee, and that Death was a fan of the Xbox 360. "Always nice to learn new things," Cody said to himself. And he still hadn't truly made his decision.

Finally, it came down to this question. "What comes after?" asked Cody.

Death looked away for a while. He then said, "It depends on the kind of person you were. I knew you were an okay guy because it said so in the papers I got on the way here, but the more subtle details are what really count."

Cody thought. "I'm going with you." And they walked out the door.

As they were walking down the street, Cody turned to Death and asked, "Just out of curiosity, what did me in?"

"Egg salad," said Death, and said no more.

End.