This is Your Afterlife Page 2

  I’m too dazed to say Dan and I used to be friends. I just nod, floored that Jimmy even knows my name.

  Gingerly, he presses a hand against a deep gash on the left side of his head. A thick burgundy mess clumps his hair.

  “Oh, my God, sit down!” I step toward him, tissues in hand. My inner paramedic automatically takes over. But when I try to apply the makeshift bandage my hand swings through the air. Of course.

  He screws up his face. “First aid isn’t gonna help.”

  I put the tissue to good use anyway, swiping away tears pouring out of my eyes like the Hoover Dam. The back of my throat starts to swell. Jimmy wasn’t a close friend. But Dan was, and part of me still cares about him. Losing a family member is devastating.

  “How did it happen? Did you fall?”

  His mouth twists before he answers. “Beats the hell out of me. I woke up in the woods. I knew I had to get back home, but I didn’t know where I parked my car. Christ, and I thought concussions were bad.” He laughs sheepishly, maybe at the idea of driving under the influence of death. He pats his jeans pockets and his brow furrows. “Where did I put my phone and keys? Could’ve sworn...”

  His voice trails off as he turns his empty pockets inside out.

  I use all the tissues in my hand and pluck a few more from the box. My nose honks like a ship’s horn, but this is no time to be delicate. I’m struggling with the idea that Jimmy’s gone. And I can see him. I don’t understand why he’s here. Jimmy is...was a good guy. He should have been beamed directly to heaven.

  Unless Jimmy’s soul is paying the price for his misdeeds and my bedroom is purgatory.

  “You shouldn’t be here like this,” I croak. “You shouldn’t be dead!”

  “Damn, right, I shouldn’t.” His expression turns stormy. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if lightning bolts shot from his eyes. “I need you to help me get home.”

  “You want to see your family?” A tiny fissure opens in my heart as he nods. It’s only a matter of time before that crack splits wide open.

  “I was told everything would be all right once I get home.”

  “Um, sure. Everything will be fine,” I say with a confidence I don’t feel. Who told him that? “So you...you don’t see any other, uh, options?”

  “Like pearly gates?” he snorts cynically. “No.”

  “Why can’t you find your own way home?”

  “Why do you have to ask so many questions I can’t answer? I’m in a parallel universe here. I don’t know what the fuck is happening to me!”

  His tone hits me like a jab to the gut. It even brings tears to my eyes.

  “Sorry,” he says. He tries to shift the curtain aside, but he can’t quite grasp it. His grimace is hard to miss. “Do you ever have dreams where you’re trying to get somewhere and you keeping hitting roadblocks?”

  “Sure. They’re the worst kind.” Along with dreams about going to the bathroom in public or showing up at school butt-naked. They don’t compare to Jimmy’s nightmare, and he’ll never wake up.

  “That’s how it feels for me right now. I can’t find my way home. But the old lady said you could help me out.”

  “Old lady?”

  “She came from out of nowhere and walked with me...on the road. Led me here.” He screws up his face again like doing so will help jog his memory, squeeze his synapses into action. “She said the girl inside—I’m guessing that’s you—would help me out. Then she disappeared like that.” He clicks his fingers.

  My knees buckle. A strong feeling of who that old lady might be rattles my bones. The one person I miss more than anything. More than the father I’ve never met. Grandie. Why is it that I can see Jimmy and not her? Why can I see Jimmy at all?

  I. Am. Not. Clairvoyant.

  Grandie knew that. What was she thinking? How am I supposed to help Jimmy?

  I swing the door open and peer down the dim, narrow hall. “Where is she? Why didn’t she help you?”

  He shrugs. “She told me she had other important things to do.”

  That doesn’t sound like something Grandie would say. I was her favorite granddaughter, the center of her universe. It’s inconceivable that she’d pass up the chance to talk to me now.

  “What did she look like?” I ask with an ounce of suspicion.

  “Short. Like you. Gray hair. Not like you. And she had that soapy, old-lady smell.”

  “Lavender.” I used to hate the way that scent clung to my senses for hours, but after losing Grandie, I found myself stealing into her old room and sniffing her bottle of L’Occitane bath salts. Death changes everything.

  “You’ve got her nose,” Jimmy says, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Kind of cute.”

  If I weren’t grappling with Jimmy’s passing and my dead grandmother’s snub, I’d be dizzy after a compliment like that. Right now, I have to help him. Somehow.

  Grandie’s talks didn’t cover anything like this. She spoke about dying, floating into the “light,” taking that next step on the soul’s journey. Of course, then, she couldn’t tell me how it was done. She could now, if she would just reveal herself.

  “So are you like one of those psychics on TV? Can you figure out what I’m doing here?”

  I answer both questions with one sentence. “I have absolutely no idea.”

  A shimmering halo around Jimmy’s body catches my gaze. He winces like he’s in intense pain. How is that even possible?

  He charges through me, and for an uncomfortable few moments, I feel like I’m swimming in an ocean of icy, viscous water. I gasp as the chill sends a violent shiver deep into my bones.

  Jimmy paws at the wound on his head. Strangely, the blood seems to be crusting over the injury like it would if he were alive. “I keep getting these weird headaches ever since I... You know, died. Why is that happening?”

  “I really don’t know,” I admit, feeling as useful as a deckchair on a submarine. How could someone as vital and beloved as Jimmy die so young? I can’t wrap my head and my heart around it. I can only imagine how he feels. As the coldness thaws, I spy Jimmy’s look of despair.

  “How did I end up dead?”

  Sitting down beside him, I try to put an arm around his shoulder. “I don’t know, but I wish it wasn’t true.”

  He looks around my room. The leather-bound books I inherited from my grandfather take up one wall. I’ve read almost every title. Aside from my laptop, that collection is one of my most prized possessions. This isn’t Buckingham Palace, but it’s comfortably shabby. Not a place for a guy to spend his afterlife, though.

  “Dying wasn’t part of the plan. There’s gotta be a way out of this.” He pummels a fist into his left palm. “Can you drive me home?”

  “But...you don’t need me to drive you...” I allow him to draw his own conclusion to that statement. Unlike the living, ghosts have no use for cars. His jaw clenches as he thinks my words over.

  “I guess.” Though his lungs no longer need air, he sucks in a deep breath. An act of someone trying to get a grip. The Jimmy I watched from afar was confident, never showed fear. He slowly brings his gaze up to meet mine. “So...do I just walk there? Will you walk with me?”

  I give him a reassuring smile. He doesn’t need to know I’ve never assisted the dead before. I have to put aside my own internal freak-out. Helping Jimmy might also bring me a little way closer to my grandmother. That’s what I want more than anything.

  “Jimmy Hawkins, I’d be honored.”

  Chapter Three

  Our little town was named Northern California’s Most Livable four years running. But now that I’m walking a ghost to his former house, Halverston’s quiet streets seem Most Spooky.

  We pass under a streetlight. Jimmy stalls and stares up at it without even squinting. I shield my eyes. Gnats throw themselves at the flickering blub, bounce backward, and then smack into it again. Suckers for punishment.

  “What are you thinking?” I whisper. Even then, my voice echoes in the thin mountai
n air. Most houses, the ones that aren’t set back from the road, are dark. It is after midnight, after all.

  “Is that...the Light? The one you see in TV shows when the dead guy moves on to heaven?” He sounds equal parts fascinated and hopeful.

  I love those shows. Never thought I’d experience anything like them in real life. Ever. “Um, no. That’s your average, everyday streetlight.”

  His jaw tightens. “Good.”

  “Eventually, you will have to go.” That much I know. Grandie had mentioned about how important it is for spirits to move on, continue their otherworld adventure. Obviously advice she hadn’t seen fit to follow when it came to her own passing. A deep and troubling thought brings shivers: What if Grandie isn’t at peace?

  Jimmy contemplates my words for a few moments, then realization crosses his features. He breaks into a huge smile.

  “What?” I ask, uncertain about what’s suddenly made him so happy.

  “If I don’t see the Light, then maybe I’m not totally dead.” He pumps his fist triumphantly. “Maybe I was in a car accident and...and I’m in a coma, hangin’ by a thread, but there’s a chance I’m gonna make it!”

  I try to erase any signs of doubt from my expression. Poor Jimmy is deluded. But then, what do I know? He might be onto something. It’s possible I’m an eyewitness to his out-of-body experience. “Did you see your...body before you came to my house?”

  “No. I don’t know where I left it.” His eyes flicker slightly. “Let’s go to the hospital first. Find out if I’m there. That’s logical, right?”

  He pulls my arm, startling me because I can actually feel the tug. My skin turns icy. Almost involuntarily, I catch another glimpse of his skull. A four-inch gash exposes a pearlescent skull and something soft and bumpy-looking. The pea soup makes a return journey up my throat before settling back down again. I’m no brain surgeon, but there’s no way he could survive an injury like that.

  What if he finds himself not hooked up to life support but on a cold slab in the morgue? That could totally devastate him. Then again, seeing his lifeless self might give him closure.

  “All right. We’ll need to go back to my house and get my car. It’s too far to walk.”

  Bending forward, he puts his hands on his knees as if he’s in a huddle on the field. His jaw twitches, contemplating his next play. He looks to the left, then to the right. Nothing but empty highway in both directions. “Nah, fuck that. I hate hospitals. We’re going home. Let’s get this whole mess straightened out.”

  He slaps my back. It feels so real I trip forward.

  “Hey, I’m not one of your team buddies!”

  “You are now.” Jimmy clenches his meaty fists. “Can’t stand around here wasting any more time. We’re going to my house and we are going to look after my brother.”

  My body shudders with a fresh burst of grief. Dan must be imagining the worst, and unfortunately, the worst has happened. And no one but me knows it. The question is whether Dan would want me to comfort him. He’s not exactly my number one fan.

  I’m the wrong person for this job.

  Chapter Four

  “I can’t do this. Your brother hates me.”

  Jimmy gapes. “Is that really a good reason to bail on me? This isn’t just about you, and my problems are way worse than yours. Now go up to the front door and ring the doorbell. Better yet, take my key... Shit, I don’t have keys anymore. What the hell did I do with them?”

  “How would I know?” I move into the shadows afforded by a giant pine rooted into the Hawkins’ front yard, while Jimmy pats his pockets frantically. Ahead of us, his redwood-and-glass mansion looms in the moonlight.

  “Aren’t you psychic?” he taunts.

  “Being psychic would mean I could see into the future.”

  “Then what do you call this...this thing we have?” He gestures at the space between us.

  I frown at that space. “You have what is called the afterlife. I have what appears to be clairvoyance.” Grandie was pretty clear on the distinction. “Psychics see the future. Clairvoyants and mediums see dead people. And argue with them, too, it seems.”

  How did this even happen to me? Last time I checked, I didn’t have the Gift. I haven’t been struck by lightning, haven’t taken any hallucinogenic pills or eaten magic mushrooms. My sixteenth birthday would have been a prime time for spirits to make an all-singing, all-dancing debut in my world, but that day passed quietly three months ago.

  Unless there were signs I missed. But what counts as a sign? Randomly sensing Grandie’s lavender perfume in the Bugle office? Could it be that she was trying to communicate then?

  What bugs me is that I’ve been invisible to Jimmy for years. Now that he’s dead, he finally sees me. There is no justice in the world. I should be accustomed to disappointments. This is right up there with learning I have a dire allergy to chocolate—or rather, a component of chocolate. The tiniest indulgence could send me into anaphylactic shock. Death by chocolate.

  “Well, now’s the time to use your clairvoyance to talk to my brother.”

  My heartbeat stutters. To talk to Dan, I need courage, not clairvoyance.

  Dan and I are two living, breathing people, more than capable of a face-to-face conversation. Yet we have a barrier between us anyway, one neither of us has tried to break down in a long time.

  “Tell him what happened to me,” Jimmy begs. His jaw wobbles, then firms, like he’s trying so hard to keep his emotions in check. “I don’t want some stranger knocking on his door and telling him I’m dead.”

  “But...I’m a stranger,” I whisper.

  “You’re in his class.”

  I nod. We’re juniors. We share four classes, a lunch period, and Bugle duties—I subedit, he takes care of layout. You would think, with all this daily contact, we’d have so much more to say to each other than “Hi,” “Bye,” and “Where’s that piece on cafeteria bacteria? I need it now!”

  Our relationship fractured way back in eighth grade. Becky Halloran threw a birthday party and forced everyone to play seven minutes in heaven. Dan and I got stuck with each other. There were worse frogs I could have kissed that night. As it turns out, I didn’t get kissed at all.

  My voice bristles. “He doesn’t want to see me.”

  Jimmy throws me a curious look. “I bet you’re wrong.”

  “Then clearly you don’t know the whole sordid story.” Long ago, I stuffed my feelings about Dan in a virtual box marked Danger: Do not open. Put a hefty lock on it, too. Despite that, the memory of how I killed our friendship bursts out easily.

  Dan and I stood half a foot apart amid Becky’s T-shirts adorned with Bedazzled unicorns, and damp-smelling sneakers. If I had to describe him in one word, it would be intense. There’s always something going on beneath the surface. We’d drawn each other’s names out of a bowl. I entered because I was convinced I’d get Jimmy. Convinced.

  Until that night, Dan and I’d had an easy friendship. We talked about life, about art. Everything. One time, walking home after school, we were in such deep conversation that we overshot my house and ended up in the next town. He drew funny cartoons and slipped them in my locker every day. One of my most treasured possessions was a flipbook he’d made for me. When you flick the pages rapidly, it gives the illusion of a giraffe galloping across a savanna.

  But something about that closet made us both mute. Strangers. A bare bulb swung behind Dan’s head. I didn’t know where to look, and he seemed terrified.

  A rumor had gotten around that Keely Wilson and Justin Pierce had actual sex in the closet earlier that night. Whether or not the story was true, no way was I ready for that. I was freaked out enough about kissing.

  Standing that close to Dan made my heart pound so hard I thought it would explode. Conflicting thoughts crowded my head. Jimmy was the hero in my daydreams, not his quieter younger brother. But being within kissing range of Dan made my skin warm and tingly. The heat was starting to short-circuit my brain cells. Why
was I feeling this way about Dan when it was Jimmy I’d been crushing on for so long?

  “D-do you want me to...start?” Dan stammered without looking at me.

  “Start?” It was kind of a question, but he took it as an invitation. He leaned closer and closer, and I felt hotter and hotter, barely able to take a breath. With his long artistic fingers, he touched my face, poised to kiss me for seven whole minutes.

  I thought about the half-dozen people standing on the other side of the door. I thought about Keely and Justin. Most of all I thought about how kissing Dan would somehow change my whole world. And Jimmy would no longer fit into it.

  In my haste to slow things down, I blurted out the stupidest thing in history: “Isn’t it funny how we ended up together? I was hoping it’d be Jimmy.”

  I must have been possessed to say something so hurtful. My words had put a match to a powder keg. No matter how hard I try to suppress the memories of that night, I’ll never forget the devastation, the defeat written on Dan’s face.

  He backed away from me as if I’d stabbed him. In a way, I had. “You wanted my brother?”

  “Well...” I didn’t have a better answer than that. What could I say? That I’d fantasized about this moment, but with a different Hawkins brother in his place? That this reality with him was scary and exciting at the same time? Face burning, I stared at my shoes wishing I could erase the whole night. Better yet, erase myself from existence.

  “I thought we were, you know, heading in this direction, hanging out at lunch and after school,” Dan said. Then his eyes widened. “You thought you could get to him through me, didn’t you?”

  “Dan, I would never use you. Believe me. I’m so sorr—”

  He cut me off. “You’re not the first girl to try, Keira. Thanks. It’s been real.”

  Then he banged on that door so hard I thought he’d knock it off its hinges. When we were finally released, he charged out like a horse from a starting gate at the Kentucky Derby and never looked back.

  After a few weeks went by, I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter. That we’d work it out some day. I’m still telling myself that. Fact is, we went into that closet as friends and came out enemies, and there was nothing I or even the United Nations could do to end our cold-shoulder war. I wanted to go back to the way we were BC—Before Closet—but he made it clear I was dead to him.