Geoff and Naomi are dead, and they're depressed, but when Geoff's cat Bernie dies as well, they embark on a wild journey to find it in the underworld.
*****
When Geoff dies, along...
He didn't know why the workers kept coming in. It's not like they needed the money. He supposed that working at the checkout at Kmart was about as good a thing to do as anything else.
A pair of bright blue pyjamas with a shark motif caught Geoff's eye. Sharks were Naomi's favourite animal and as far as he could tell the repeating shark pattern dyed into the flannelette pyjama material depicted a great white jumping out of the water. Naomi's favourite shark. He picked up a pair and looked around for her.
Naomi came walking back slowly in a jerking rhythm, waist hooping with a big plastic hula hoop as she moved towards where Geoff was standing.
"They have board games now," she called out. She kept moving her hips rhythmically back and forward, keeping the hoop afloat.
"I miss boardgames. We should get some." Geoff said. "What have they got?"
"Mostly just different versions of Monopoly," Naomi said.
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He wasn't a massive fan of monopoly. He loved it as a kid, but now the games just seemed to go on for so long. Somehow, the magic had gone.
"look what I found," Geoff said.
He held up the flannelette shark pyjamas. Naomi squealed with excitement.
"Yes," she said. "They're perfect".
She grabbed the hanger from Geoff and peered closely at the sharks.
"These are great whites I think," she said. "That's even better. Look at their little faces. Everyone always makes sharks out to be so scary but look at this baby." She rubbed the pyjamas against her cheekbone as if she was snuggling with a puppy.
"You know what they say about sharks," a voice from behind Geoff interrupted. He turned to find the three panda-headed skeletons from earlier, standing uncomfortably close. They were all holding baseball bats. The bats were shiny, made of metal, still with little plastic price tags attached.
Naomi clutched the pyjamas to her chest.
"They're nasty creatures," one of the men at the rear said. He sounded like what you'd expect from someone as tall and thick and brutish, even in skeletal form, as he was. He sounded like he'd ridden to the underworld on the back of a burning cigarette pack.
"They're sweet. The violence is a myth." Naomi said quietly.
"It's not always easy to tell who has the potential for violence, is it?" said the third panda, in a much softer voice.
Maybe it was the gentle tone of his voice that made what happened next so surprising. Although it would have been surprising anyway. There was no warning.
A bat swung downwards so fast it was a blur at the top of Geoff's vision, and it was all he could see, as big as a tree, blocking out the light, a lightning crack sound as the soft-voiced panda drove the bat into Geoff's skull with sudden force.
