Deader Still

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  I handed over the pastries and travel mug, then pulled myself up onto the baggage shelf so I’d be out of the livie drivers’ way. Charon set the pastries aside and frowned as he examined the travel mug.

  “Does this mug have tombstones on it?”

  “I thought it was apt. And the lid will stop it from spilling with your psychotic driving.”

  Charon’s face split into a smile so wide it took up most of his face. “Why, my little Bridget, that was incredibly thoughtful. Thank you.”

  The way he said “thank you” made me think it wasn’t all that often he had something to be thankful for. I watched him play with the lid, sliding it open and closed and open again.

  “Does that mean I’m forgiven for not telling you Watson wasn’t dead?” he asked without looking up.

  “No, that’s just because I saw it and thought you’d like it,” I said. “Because friends do things like that.”

  There was a long moment of silence as Charon flicked the lip open and took a sip from the mug.

  “I made them give you a century of community service,” he said. When he finally looked up at me, his stare was challenging. “Is that something friends do?”

  I frowned at him for a long moment. “Why would you do that?”

  Charon shrugged and sipped from his mug again. He avoided my eyes and glanced down the bus at the wailing passengers. I followed his gaze. I recognised his expression. I’d seen it on my own face enough times. He was lonely. I knew what that felt like. I’d been excruciatingly lonely when I was alive. I just hadn’t realised that was what it was until I died and found myself surrounded by people who cared. Suddenly, I just couldn’t be mad about that anymore.

  “Urgh.” I twisted my lips at myself in disgust.

  “What?” Charon scanned the bus for the cause of my expression, no doubt expecting vomit.

  “I’ve just realised the afterlife has turned me into a sap.” I shook my head at Charon’s laugh, light and relieved. I pointed to him. “You better be ready to spill every afterlife secret you have and be prepared for multiple ice cream breaks.”

  Charon grinned at me. “You better get to work.”

  “Urgh,” I said again, thinking of Anna.

  “Thank you for my mug,” Charon said, and made a show of taking a sip. He pointed towards the doors. “You might want to go outside to tunnel.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why?”

  “It’s a beautiful day,” he said with a one-shoulder shrug.

  I frowned at him but climbed down the stairs and out into the sunshine. It was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky and a warm breeze. Charon revved the engine and The Bus of Death went careening through traffic with a carelessness that always turned my stomach.

  I turned back to the view of the beach and smiled. It really was a beautiful day. I was lucky I was a facilitator and not an office worker like Sabrina. I shaded my eyes as I looked down at my assignment sheet to double-check the location of my first assignment. Unexpectedly, a shadow passed over the sun. I knew the English weather was changeable but it never changed quite that fast. I looked up straight into Oz’s unhappy face. He loomed over me like a thundercloud. He stood with his arms folded, his feet hip width apart, and a scowl that looked as if it had been chiselled into his face.

  “Enjoying your day at the beach?” he asked.

  I held up my hands and took a step back. “Okay, now, I can explain.”

  Anna peered over Oz’s shoulder. “Oh, I doubt that, hon.”

  Read on for an extract of A Little More Dead.

  Dear Reader,

  So we meet again! Once again I hope you’ve enjoyed the book. If you did then keep reading because there’s a short sample of A Little More Dead, the third book in the series, for you to have a peek at after this letter.

  Whether you did or didn’t enjoy Bridget’s adjustment into the afterlife I’d love to hear your feedback. You can find me at www.JordainaSydneyRobinson.com Once there, if you sign up for my mailing list you’ll get a free Bridget novella called Just a Touch Dead which chronicles the moment she died up until she makes it to work.

  If you’ve already signed up for my mailing list and read the novella then please send me an email at enquiries@JordainaSydneyRobinson.com and let me know if there are any characters you’d be interested in hearing more about. I’m thinking about starting a novella series (which would be free for newsletter subscribers) so you guys need to tell me who you’re interested in.

  If you just want to snoop and see what I’m up to then there’s always trusty Facebook www.facebook.com/JordainaSydneyRobinson.

  Or you can just leave a review. For good or ill, I read all those too.

  Thank you so much for reading Deader Still. It’s been a pleasure having your company. I hope to hear from you soon and to see you on Bridget’s next adventure.

  Until we meet again …

  A Little More Dead – Excerpt

  “Bridget?”

  I heard the voice but it was coming from so far, far away and I was enjoying my day too much to listen. I was lying back on the most comfortable sun lounger I had ever known on a blissfully deserted beach. My right arm hung off the lounger, my fingers dangling into the tantalisingly warm ocean that lapped all the way up the white sand around me.

  I was in Acapulco. Or was it Aruba? Or somewhere else that began with “a”? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. The breeze was warm enough to cool the feel of the blistering sun on my skin but not too much to chill me. This was what Heaven felt like. I had finally died properly and this was my reward for enduring the heinousness that was the afterlife. Even real life hadn’t been that bad.

  “Bridget.” The voice came again. More insistently this time. Maybe it was God and he wanted my attention. Maybe to utilise my awesome event planning skills to throw a party. What type of party would they throw in Heaven? It was Heaven so maybe everyday was a party. Hmm. I didn’t like the thought of having to plan a party every day for eternity. Heaven suddenly didn’t sound so heavenly. Maybe I could just pretend I hadn’t heard and God would find some other party planner.

  “Bridget.” The voice was more insistent this time. Maybe I was the only party planner he knew. And I could’ve sworn the voice had an Australian accent. Maybe God was Australian. Not to perpetuate the stereotype but Australian’s had barbecues a lot, right? How much work could they be to organise. He might be male but surely God could manage that. He was God after all.

  Something about that whole train of thought struck me as wrong but I was just too comfortable to care.

  “Bridget!”

  I threw my arm over my face, my forearm covering my eyes. The voice was like a mosquito. Buzzing incessantly. Someone lifted my arm from my eyes and my beach faded into darkness. Surely that should’ve been the reverse. The sun should’ve blinded me. A handsome, tanned face with a strong jaw covered in stubble and ocean blue-green eyes stared down at me.

  “God?” I squinted at him. “Why did you turn the sun off?”

  “Are you drunk?” God asked, heavy disapproval in his Australian accented voice.

  “No. I’m tired.” I pulled my arm back and covered my face again. “Please turn the sun back on.”

  God lifted my arm from my face again, placed it by my side and shook my shoulders gently. “Bridget.”

  “What? What? What?” I batted his hands away and then sat up, rubbing my face. Admittedly that probably wasn’t the best tone to take with an omniscient being but he’d disappeared my sunny beach and replaced it with a dark room. That made me grumpy.

  I yawned and looked around. Oz, my parole officer, was standing by the side of the bed, his bed, hands on his hips, frown on his face. I groaned and flopped back down, covering my face with my arm again. I wasn’t doubly dead, I was just plain old one time dead. My beach had just been a beautiful dream. I was still trapped in this dismal afterlife with a job, with over a century of community service, with housemates like barnacles, with Oz, until I died aga
in.

  “You stole my beach.” I pulled the duvet over my head.

  “You’ve stolen my bed.”

  “I didn’t steal it,” I said from under the duvet. “I’m sleeping in it.”

  He didn’t sigh exactly, it was more a long exhalation. That was a sign he was trying very hard not to lose his temper. I was pretty accustomed to those signs now. “Why are you sleeping in it?”

  “Because everyone else is sleeping in mine.”

  He pulled the duvet down from my face. “You can’t stay here.”

  “Then get everyone out of my bed,” I said and pulled the duvet back up over my head.

  He pulled the duvet down again. “I thought you were getting along.”

  “We are getting along. We’d get along a lot better, though, if they didn’t climb into my bed every other night.”

  “They just—”

  “Want to be my friends. I know. What they don’t understand is that friends don’t have sleepovers every other night.”

  “So how would you want to fix this?” Oz gestured to me with an open palm as if inviting my opinion. It was a new tactic he’d been trying out on me lately. Trying to get me to solve my own problems in a supervised manner.

  We’d had a little trouble finding our rhythm as parole officer and parolee so he was attempting to adjust his approach. He was trying not to be so dictatorial and I was trying not to disagree with everything he said. It was tough. Mainly because even his attempt at being less dictatorial was actually still pretty dictatorial since he was “supervising” how I solved my problems and guiding me to the outcome he thought was best. But we were trying to make it work.

  “Well?” Oz asked when I hadn’t come up with a solution.

  “Well, I think you, as their parole officer, should respect my wishes and gently explain the situation to them. They like you better than me anyway.”

  “You know how I know that’s not true?” he asked.

  I swirled my finger in the direction of his head. “Your handy little emotional surveillance radar?”

  As a parole officer Oz had some weird emotional connection to all of his wards so he could sense if they were in danger, or upset, or lying to him.

  “No. It’s because they’re not trying to have sleepovers with me.”

  “That’s true,” I said with a nod. “Maybe you should use this opportunity to bond with them.

  “Bridget.”

  I rolled over and pulled the duvet back up. “Please, I just want to get back to my dream.”

  “You can’t stay in here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s my room.”

  “You’re letting them sleep in my room.”

  “Yes, but this is inappropriate.”

  “Right, me sleeping in your empty bed is inappropriate but me sleeping in a bed with three women is perfectly acceptable.” I pointed a finger at him over the top of the duvet. “You have odd standards of acceptability.”

  “Bridget—”

  “Look, I just want a good night’s sleep, that’s all. I just want not to wake up with someone’s arm strangling me or with arms coiled like a snake around my knees or being suffocated by a blanket of hair. So the way I see it you have three choices here.” I counted them off on my fingers. “You can oust the others from my room so I can go back in there. You can sleep in here as long as you promise not to get frisky or you can sleep on the sofa.”

  Oz leaned forward and flipped up another of my fingers implying a fourth option. “Or I could drag you out and dump you in the hallway.”

  I shook my head and bent that finger back down. “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I bite.”

  Oz blew out another breath. This time he covered his eyes. Yep, definitely holding his temper by a thread.

  Officer Leonard appeared at the foot of the bed before Oz could respond and took in the scene. “Well, isn’t this inappropriate?”

  I pointed to Oz. “That’s what he said.”

  Officer Leonard smiled at me. “He’s right.”

  “Please don’t say things like that,” I warned the Ghosting Buster. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “What do you want?” Oz turned and moved to the foot of the bed forcing Officer Leonard to back up a few steps which he did so without trouble or challenge. Oz stood directly in front of Officer Leonard and blocked him from my view. Though I think Oz’s intention was to block me from Officer Leonard’s view.

  A little while ago I’d been involved in a couple of dead ghost finding sprees. Yes, a couple. Detective Johnson of the general afterlife police had wanted to arrest me both times but Officer Leonard of the super afterlife police, the Ghosting Busters or GBs for short, had presumed my innocence. At least that’s how I saw it. Oz saw it as Officer Leonard using me as bait to find the killers.

  But then Oz was my parole officer/guardian angel so he could be a little over protective/suffocating at times. Also he might have been right but I would absolutely never admit that to his face if I could help it.

  Still in the bed, I leaned to the side to see around Oz’s back and speak to Officer Leonard. “If you’re going to chat can you please do it elsewhere? I’m trying to sleep.”

  Officer Leonard peered around Oz to speak to me. “I don’t mean to interrupt …”

  “You’re not.” Oz glanced over his shoulder at me and flicked his eyes towards the door. “Bridget was just leaving.” That was his serious tone.

  “Fine.” I threw the covers back and slid out of bed, trying to smooth my hair over. “But don’t expect me to be all shiny and happy in the morning.”

  Oz’s eyes narrowed on my choice of bed wear. “Is that—”

  “Are you wearing your parole officer’s t-shirt to bed, Ms Sway?” Officer Leonard asked.

  “Yep.” I looked down at the faded black Rolling Stones t-shirt. It was very comfy.

  Officer Leonard folded his arms, his always amenable smile on his face. “And why are you sleeping in his bed? In his t-shirt?”

  I shrugged. “I have nothing to sleep in, or wear in general really, other than my uniform. So I stole this from him. And my housemates want to sleep with me but I don’t want to sleep with them so I’m hiding in here. ”

  “She means her three female housemates,” Oz clarified with a pointed look at me. “And they want to stay in her room with her because they’re friends.”

  “Is that an accurate statement?” Officer Leonard asked me.

  I shrugged again. “Depends on your perspective, I guess.”

  “Doesn’t everything?” Office Leonard asked and then gestured to the scar on my thigh. “That looks like it’s healing well.”

  Oz moved and once again stood directly in front of me, blocking Officer Leonard from my vision. Arms folded, feet hip width apart and, even from behind, I knew he had a frown etched on his face.

  Oz had made me visit a psychiatrist once because he felt I wasn’t adjusting to the afterlife vey well. Off the back of that session Watson, the psychiatrist, had included me in a adjustment assessment. She’d then proceeded to fake her own death, murder all the other leaders of the assessment and try to frame me for it. When that didn’t pan out so well she’d shot me.

  I placed my hands on Oz’s shoulders so I could lever myself up to peer at Officer Leonard. “Doesn’t really matter how it’s healing since the shorts someone promised me have yet to appear.”

  “Oh?” Officer Leonard raised his eyebrows. “Is Mr Salier failing to meet your needs, Ms Sway?”

  I was fairly certain I could hear innuendo in Officer Leonard’s voice and was tempted to respond in kind but Oz’s shoulders tensed beneath my hands.

  “Mr Sailer is very efficient at his job,” I said and tapped Oz’s shoulder like you would pet a well-behaved dog.

  “I’ll reserve the right to remind you of that, Ms Sway.”

  “If you’ve both finished talking about me like I’m not here …?” Oz
directed his comment at Officer Leonard before turning around to face me. He used his body to block Officer Leonard from my vision for the third time. He didn’t say anything – just flicked his eyes toward the door.

  I pursed my lips at him in case his emotional radar didn’t properly interpret my sulky agreement.

  “Can I get you some tea or coffee, Officer Leonard?”I asked as I moved to the door. “Maybe some cake?”

  “That’s very kind, Ms Sway, but I really just need a moment with Officer Salier.”

  “Okay, well I’ll head on up to my crowded bed then. If you hearing screaming don’t worry, I’m just murdering the trespassers.”

  “Bridget,” Oz warned and subtly nodded towards Officer Leonard.

  Officer Leonard checked his watch. “If that’s really the case, Ms Sway, I’ll give you an hour’s head start.”

  I pointed to Officer Leonard but spoke to Oz. “Told you he was my friend.”

  Oz didn’t say anything else. His eyes didn't dart to the door or back to Officer Leonard. He just waited for me to leave.

  “Spoil all my fun,” I mumbled and opened the door.

  “Officer Sailer is very efficient at his job, Ms Sway,” Officer Leonard called after me with the smallest smile.

  I pointed at him. “You just lost cake privileges,” I said and closed the door on his smiling face. I made it four steps along the corridor before the door opened again. I turned at the noise and Officer Leonard stuck his head out

  “Did you change your mind about the tea?” I asked.

  “No, thank you, Ms Sway. I thought I heard somebody knock, Officer Leonard said and ducked back inside the room.

  I hesitated. I hadn’t being going to eavesdrop since I figured it was just some sort of boring work stuff but now Officer Leonard had checked I wasn’t eavesdropping made me want to eavesdrop. Although he might have just been playing me and trying to get me to listen in and catch me in the act for some reason.