AFTER/LIFE
A N G E R
Scarlett Whispers
Chapter One
Molly laid on the bed. It was made of the same glass-like material that made up the rest of the room, even the entire building. It was hard as stone and uncomfortable as hell.
She was singing a song to herself. It didn’t have any meaning. She cut from a lyric in one song to another without stopping or often, without changing tune. Anything to stop her having to think about where she was and what she had gone through.
She stared up at the ceiling. There was nothing there. No defining marks, nothing to let her mind wander and make up shapes. Instead, she imagined the glass was the front plate of a picture frame, like the ones she had back home.
Molly could see Sam and Casey, the world, and the places and things she had seen and done. She could still savor those flavors, could still recall what the branch of a Joshua tree felt like beneath her fingertips.
The prison was quiet. No one made much sound. She suspected it was because of the guards that floated down from the ceiling to quell any disturbance. Molly was terrified of them. They were from a time and space beyond imagining. A horror-filled hell where only the most evil resided. She did not want to displease them. She could only imagine the pain and torture they might inflict upon an inmate who did something out of line.
With nothing to do but think, that was all Molly did. She suspected that was what their punishment here was. To think back over everything they had done during their lives. The sins they had committed, from the very small, to the ones so big they couldn’t be knocked over with a sledgehammer.
In the past, Molly had planted evidence when there wasn’t enough to convict. The criminal had already confessed to her, but they also said they would never admit that on record. They enjoyed tormenting the police officers, knowing they’d get away with whatever disgusting crime they had committed.
It was still difficult for Molly to believe she had done the wrong thing. Yes, planting evidence was bad, but what about all the lives she helped save? All the injustices the criminal would have carried out had she not planted the evidence and had him locked away?
And yet, Molly knew that if she had been warned that this would happen, that she would get incarcerated in some Halfway House up in the sky after death to attune for her misdemeanors, she wouldn’t have done those terrible things.
If she’d attended Sunday school she would have gotten all the warnings, but none of the evidence. And that was what the world needed about this place—evidence. Anyone could make up an afterlife story. No one could come up with any real evidence.
She thought about Max Dennings, who they had found with an underage girl. It was obvious what he had been doing with her. The girl was shaken and, thankfully, it hadn’t gone as far as they had feared. But that wasn’t because of Dennings controlling himself. It was because the police turned up early and stopped him. They had interrupted his sin.
The girl might still be able to rebuild her life thanks to their intervention. And Dennings, as he hadn’t really committed any offense, had been allowed to go free. Would he end up in this place for that crime, or not? Did the fact Molly had interrupted his sin reduce her sentence? Or did it only reduce his?
Molly had been in this cell for, as far as she could tell, one day. What with no clock or light shift from day to night it was difficult to tell. She hadn’t slept a wink and yet didn’t feel sleepy in the slightest. She also hadn’t eaten since she’d arrived. And she wasn’t hungry. It was all part and parcel of being a spirit.
She often lay down and closed her eyes. She wanted to sleep, but her body would not allow her to. She suspected this was also part of the punishment. No sleep to avoid time spent here. No food to slurp and enjoy. No distractions.
Body. She remembered what it felt like to have one. Though she had a kind of presence here, it didn’t feel solid. It felt light and airy as if she could fly away on the slightest gust of wind.
Prison was a place of routine and habit, and that hadn’t changed in this place. The cell doors opened and closed at the same time during the day; in the morning, and in the evening. They were allowed to wander around and do whatever they wanted.
Molly was too scared to go far. There were both male and female prisoners. This presented no problem, as everyone was much too afraid of the guards to do anything that might incur their wrath.
There was no breakfast or lunch either. That was odd because it felt to Molly that lunch was the key event in the day. Everyone organized their lives around it. It was a surprise at first until Molly realized she didn’t feel hungry. She never needed to eat. Ever again.
There was a large room used as an exercise yard. Not for exercise to keep fit, but to keep themselves entertained. But there was no equipment, nothing to aid them with their games. They had to get creative if they wanted to play.
The prison was huge. The biggest building Molly had ever seen. Beyond imagining. Everywhere she went she saw people like her, women in a variety of garb. Some were dressed in fancy cocktail dresses, others almost naked. Despite the odd looks they received, they had apparently come to terms with it.
Molly supposed there was no need to be coy. No one could change their clothes. There were no other clothes and no way to remove the ones they were wearing. It was like their clothing was a part of their makeup. Neither were there shower or bathroom facilities. It was simply a collection of rooms. They were incarcerated and would be for a long time.
Some of the inmates wore old clothes, like they were part of some kind of fancy dress party, except these clothes looked worn and lived-in. Some of the oldest clothing she saw came from the 17th century, though she was no expert.
One thought above all others dominated Molly’s concerns. It was the idea of what was happening back on Earth right then. Lopez had shot her and gotten away. He would be out there somewhere now, plotting how to get his precious shot glass back, tinted with that attractive red sheen.
Lopez would get desperate. He would kidnap Sam again, or even Casey. Molly was certain of that. Lopez would force the information out of them. Casey didn’t know where the item was, but Sam did.
Would he tell Lopez? Molly didn’t think so. Not after what Lopez had done to her, murdering her in cold blood. Whatever this item was, it was clearly worth a lot to Lopez.
Molly had never spent much time in prison herself. But she had been there many times to question inmates, or else further her inquiries. She had spent her entire lifetime trying to put away dangerous people. And now she found herself in here with them. Fate was not without a sense of irony.
She suspected many of the prisoners did not think they ought to be here. In their eyes, they were innocent. The thought that terrified her the most, was what would they do if they knew she was a police officer? Would they be the same as those on Earth? If so, she would be stabbed and brutalized before she even knew what she was doing. But could she even be attacked here? She was a ghost. It wasn’t like anyone could kill her again.
Or could they?
She couldn’t accept her fate. Not like this. She had done some bad things in her life, but she’d done a lot of good too. Surely the good outweighed the bad. There must have been a miscalculation along the line somewhere.
She would speak to the Warden, she decided. What did she have to lose? After all, there was little they could do to her now.
She figured the most likely place the Warden would reside was at the top of the building. Today, once the doors opened, she would run up the stairs to the top of the building. Considering the size of the place, she couldn’t imagine it was going to be a qu
ick journey.
Luckily, she had nothing she needed to pack or prepare. When the doors clanged open, she ran out and took off up the stairs.
Chapter Two
Molly first began at a walk, thinking she needed to conserve energy. But as she climbed the stairs, she found she did not lose her breath. She could have maintained a conversation with someone at her shoulder with ease. She began to walk faster, building up to a jog, and then finally a run.
She was careful where she placed her feet, afraid she might trip and fall. But moving as fast as she was, she was always going to have an accident. She tripped and fell, smacking her knee hard on the lip of a glass step.
A flash of pain and she dropped to hug her knee with both hands before realizing it actually didn’t hurt. At all. It was in her mind. She had spent the previous thirty-two years of her life worrying about injuries. Now, she was a ghost. There was no pain. With a new sense of strength, she got to her feet and ran faster up the stairs.
“Hey!” a man wearing a top hat said as Molly blasted through him.
“Sorry!” Molly said.
She felt a little unsteady on her feet at the sensation of passing through another ghost. It was like running through a sheet of icy mist. She was pleased there were at least a few benefits of being a ghost.
Sam and Casey would be the next targets on Lopez’s list. She needed to get a message to them. Or get her afterlife file looked at again so she could get out of here and return to Earth herself. Only the Warden could grant her that power. She ran up the stairs toward the top floor.
It took the better part of five hours of continuous running for Molly to get to the very top. She had a system. She hopped up two steps at a time and used the banister to hurl herself around and up the next flight of stairs.
She hadn’t noticed it was the top until she collided with the wall, knocking her back onto her ass. She shook her head and rubbed it, but again didn’t feel any pain. She would need to learn to get over these automatic instinctive responses.
Molly got to her feet and dusted off her knees. It wasn’t necessary—there was no dirt here. She might not be able to injure herself or feel tired, but she could clearly feel dizzy. She braced herself against the wall and shut her eyes. Running up and around the spiral stairs had made her unsteady.
Once she refocused, she opened her eyes. What she saw took her breath away.
She was on the upper-most floor. Other than the fact there were fewer prisoners here, it looked like any other part of the prison. But there was one crucial difference.
The view.
Out the large front plate glass window was the most breathtaking scene Molly had ever seen in her life. The universe.
The stars glinted, a miasma of light. It beat having a blank white wall to look at down on her level. She knew immediately that if she failed to get out of this place—which was certainly a possibility—she would come here every single day. No matter how long it took her to climb those stairs.
There was too much beauty in the universe to ignore. It was too large, too big, and filled with limitless possibilities. Here, she could lose herself to the mysteries and depth of space.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a small voice beside her said.
Molly turned to see an older lady, perhaps in her nineties, beside her. Her face was shriveled, her figure hobbled and bent. She looked at Molly with watery blue eyes. Her hair was gray and white in patches, straggling around her face. If there was ever a ghostly appearance, this was it.
“Yes,” Molly said. “It is.”
“Makes you think, doesn’t it?” the old lady said. “About the world, your place in the universe. How small we are. And yet we are here. So perhaps not all is lost.”
She extended her hand.
“I’m Ada,” she said.
“Molly.”
Ada did not seem dangerous. She seemed lonely. As much as Molly might have wanted to become friends, the last thing she needed was to get stuck with a hanger-on. Especially one who would not leave her in peace for the next few years. She needed to be cautious. Friendly, without getting too close.
“I come out here sometimes,” Ada said. “To gaze upon the stars. Get a handle on what’s important.”
Standing there now, taking it all in, Molly felt more relaxed already.
“How long have you been here?” Ada said.
“Two days,” Molly said.
“And you discovered this view already?” Ada said. “It took me twenty-two years to learn of this place. And that was thanks to an overheard conversation. Now I come here every day.”
Molly would do the same, she knew. With nothing but white walls to look at in the other areas, who wouldn’t?
“How long have you been here?” Molly said.
“One hundred fifty-six years,” Ada said.
Molly blinked.
“One hundred fifty-six?” she said.
Ada blinked her watery blue eyes. Perhaps it was some kind of joke. Molly couldn’t believe someone as calm as Ada could have done something so terrible that she would be sentenced to that length of time.
“One hundred fifty-six years?” Molly said.
She couldn’t even conceive of the number.
“How could you stand to be here so long?” Molly said. “Why didn’t you do something to escape?”
“Do what?” Ada said. “Commit suicide? How does a ghost commit suicide? There is nowhere else for us to go from here. Except to the great bright white light in the sky. And even if there was somewhere else to go, how do you know it wouldn’t be worse than this place? At least here, we’re free. In a way, anyway.”
One hundred fifty-six years. Was it even possible? It was a ridiculous question. This world existed by a set of rules unlike anywhere else. Anything was possible.
“Perhaps you can help me,” Molly said. “I’m looking for the Warden’s office.”
“The Warden’s office?” Ada said. “Why would you want to speak with him?”
“I think there’s been some mistake,” Molly said. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Ada smiled.
“If I had a farthing for every time I heard that,” she said.
“There must be some way to speak to him, isn’t there?” Molly said.
Ada nodded.
“Speak to him, sure,” she said. “Getting him to listen? Not so much.”
“Have you tried?” Molly said.
“No,” Ada said. “But many others have. I suppose there’s nothing to lose. There’s nothing he can do to you now, besides extend your sentence.”
So, there was a way he could punish her. He could extend her six-year sentence into an infinite one. She would need to tread carefully.
“If you must speak with him, follow me,” Ada said.
Ada turned and moved down the corridor. It turned out Molly was right. The Warden’s office was located on the top floor. There were fewer cells here, each larger than the ones on Molly’s level. These prisoners seemed like regular people, though the majority wore old clothing.
“Why are there fewer people up here?” Molly said.
“We’ve been here the longest,” Ada said. “You enter with the same people, serve your time, and as the years go by, those who committed fewer crimes leave. This building regenerates each time someone leaves, giving you a larger cell. Whoever is last on his row gets all the floor space.”
“How much longer do you have left?” Molly said.
“A while,” Ada said. “You’ve seen the board?”
“With the list of prisoners and their sentences?” Molly said. “Yes.”
The thought of it made her cringe. She could sit there, watching the seconds tick down, her sentence ending one moment at a time. Just sitting there would feel like a waste of life to her. If life was what they had. Besides, she needed to get back to Earth to Sam and Casey.
“You must have met a lot of people if you’ve been here for over one hundred fifty years,” Molly said.
“After a while, this place becomes your home,” Ada said. “It becomes a part of who you are. When I first came here, I was not popular. I swore half the time and started fights the other half. People actively kept out of my way. You see, when you misbehave here, they give you the only punishment that has any real effect: they increase your sentence.”
“But aren’t you excited about going home?” Molly said.
“Go home?” Ada said. “There is no returning home.”
Molly slowed to a stop.
“You said after you serve your sentence, you leave,” she said. “On Earth, when you finish your sentence in prison, you get to go home.”
“This isn’t Earth,” Ada said. “Home here means something very different to what we’re used to.”
“Home where?” Molly said.
Ada pointed at the sky with her gnarled finger.
“Heaven?” Molly said. “That’s where we'll go after this?”
“It’s the only place left to go,” Ada said.
Molly had assumed she would return back home, back to Sam, once her time here was up. She would haunt him for the rest of his life. It could be fun, she thought. But if she returned to heaven, she would never see him again. At least, not until he made his way up to heaven himself. By then, he might have met someone else and want to spend his afterlife with her.
“Home here is the place where we all began, and where we will all end up one day,” Ada said. “You see, we are not the best people. We made mistakes in our lives. But you’re paying for them. We’re not the worst people. There is an opposite reflection of this prison on the other side. The place where the real bad people go. We may have committed sins during our lifetime, but we did not openly harm others. That’s where the others go. I don’t know what it looks like, only that it’s there. And the beings that guard those prisoners? They’re the opposite of what we have here too. They’re angels. As white as these walls. They keep the evil in line.”
Molly didn’t like the sound of that one bit. It was a relief she wouldn’t have to go there.
After/Life: Anger: A Paranormal Ghost Romance Page 1