Suicide Souls

by Penni Jones

  “No.”

  “You acknowledge the fleeting nature of happiness.”

  Is she trying to trick me? She’s better at this than I am. Manipulating people. Making them feel less than.

  “Stop mooning over Greg. Stop mooning over Luke. Deal with your own shit.”

  “How do you suggest I do that?”

  “Take my job. You’ll have time to work through any of your issues before you start over.”

  “You’ve worked through your issues?” I want to add a “ha,” but I don’t.

  Doris nods and says, “I think you know I have.”

  And then, for a moment, it’s not about me.

  “How do I get to Louisa? She’s about to make a terrible mistake.”

  A sly smile spreads across her face. “And you care.”

  “Yes. I care. Help me, please.”

  “Okay. I’ll help you get to her.” She points to the Mentor’s Handbook and says, “But get your shit together. Don’t let me down.” The way she says it, I know she’ll sacrifice me if I let her down. That I’ve become her special project somehow. That it’s up to me to fix this when I didn’t even remember my nephew’s birthday the month before I killed myself.

  * * *

  Louisa is straddling her dad on the floor of his filthy living room. Her dainty hands are wrapped around his throat. Her face is contorted in pure rage.

  “Louisa, no!” I grab her and try to pull her off but our bodies don’t work like that anymore.

  “Leave me alone,” she says to me or to him, I’m not sure. She leans forward, pushing all her weight onto his throat.

  “You’ll go to Oblivion if he dies like this.”

  She turns to me slowly like she’s not sure she wants to do it and I start to tell her that she’ll be saving the rest of us if she does. But I can’t. I won’t give her the excuse.

  Louisa, for all of her tough-girl exterior and homicidal urges, is a child. She is me and she is Ruthie Mae and I have to try and save her.

  Her eyes focus on me and she relaxes her grip. Her dad lets out a loud gasp and sits up.

  “Nuts,” she says.

  Her dad stands up, moving through her body like she is a hologram. He’s saying “fuck” between coughs. He grabs a glass from a TV tray in the middle of the floor and gulps the liquid. He spits it out, sending a spray of liquid all over the room.

  “Motherfucker!” He throws the glass down.

  “He probably spit tobacco in that one and forgot about it. He does that all the time.” Her delivery is lazy, resigned.

  “Let’s talk about this. Make an informed decision.” I hold out my hand and lead her behind the horrible tweed couch, littered with burn holes. We sit on the crumb-covered carpet, face-to-face. I have no idea how all of these crumbs got behind the couch. “Do you want this enough to forfeit your second chance? To cease to exist?”

  Louisa crosses her arms, squeezing into herself. I’m getting used to seeing her black boy-short underwear and no longer feel the need to look away out of fear of staring.

  “I think I do,” she says.

  “Think is not a strong enough answer. This is too much of a decision for that.”

  The cold envelops both of us at the same time. Louisa pushes into me like she can’t get close enough. She doesn’t know what’s happening, but her intuition is telling her to be terrified.

  “What’s going on?” Her teeth chatter around the words.

  “It’s the Shadow,” I whisper.

  The Shadow approaches from behind her. It’s facing me, sizing me up. The air disappears and I don’t know if it’s my panic or the Shadow’s presence.

  Louisa sees my expression and turns her head. I want to tell her not to, but I can’t find the words.

  The dark cloud is forming into a shape, not human but maybe human-adjacent. It thrusts its head toward us and a face forms. It’s puffy and void of color, scarred and rutted. The face has black holes instead of eyes. It smiles at us, a creepy leer that reveals dripping fangs.

  I wrap my arms around Louisa. She’s trembling and squeezes her eyes closed. She whispers “no, no, no, no” under her breath.

  The face stops centimeters in front of mine and my terror transforms into something else. Anger? Confidence? I don’t know exactly what, I only know that I have to protect this girl.

  “You can’t have her,” I say to the face.

  The Shadow retreats a few inches and forms hands. A long, opaque haze of a finger strokes the left side of her face, the side furthest from me.

  Louisa leans backward, away from its touch and releases a scream. The sound vibrates in my ears so loudly it’s almost like there’s no sound at all.

  The Shadow pulls back and its face twists into an amused grin.

  Louisa falls silent, her eyes wide and face perfectly still.

  “Go away.” My bravado is an act but it’s all I have.

  The form dissipates into smoke. And it’s gone.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. Louisa is stone-still beside me, as if catatonic. Or at least what I’ve learned about catatonia from General Hospital.

  Her eyes move up to my face, focusing slowly and deliberately. She opens her mouth to speak and the pull begins.

  Chapter 20

  Luke

  I miss dreaming. Dreaming was one of my favorite things. I don’t know if it’s because of all the weed I smoked, but I had vivid, fun dreams. Laughing, screwing, dancing, beautiful dreams.

  I wonder if Eben dreams like I did. In vivid color. His dream I managed to be a part of was in color. Wasn’t it?

  I wish I didn’t know about Eben. He’s nothing but a void that didn’t exist before.

  Maybe kids are like that even when you’re alive.

  For some reason, this quasi love-triangle, if that’s what I can call it, makes me want to live more. Even though Naomi misled me, not necessarily lied, but manipulated me for her own use. In this case it was because she wanted me around for company. I was the only person she knew. And that was only because she hadn’t found Greg yet. And Greg was who she was here for the entire time.

  Greg. He’s probably only here because of a minor chemical imbalance that could have been fixed with Prozac.

  It’s easy to go to the simple narrative: she’s just a bitch and all that. But since we’re here, in this fucked up purgatory or whatever, that narrative doesn’t seem to fit.

  But she isn’t willing to sacrifice herself for me, even after I offered to do it for her. I wouldn’t have held her to it. I’m sure she knows that. But she still couldn’t say it. Would she have said it if she had the ability to lie?

  If we’re not going to remember our lives, our families, each other, then what’s the point?

  But maybe that’s by design. We won’t carry the trauma with us that led us to offing ourselves in the first place.

  I shouldn’t put too much energy into figuring it out. I’m either headed to Oblivion or to another body where I won’t remember this shit anyway.

  Maybe there’s a loophole we just haven’t found yet. Naomi is intelligent and manipulative, and if she uses those forces to figure it out, I might get out of this alive.

  “Are you always this mopey?” Nolan asks.

  We’re in his son’s mobile home. I guess I came back to make sure he was getting the job done.

  “Mostly.” But I had just started to do better, hadn’t I? What went wrong? I mean, I know what went wrong. It was finding out that I won’t remember my son or Naomi and that Naomi is here for someone else.

  Fuck this.

  I have to stop letting circumstances dictate my life. Or death. Whatever.

  “Come on, Nolan. Let’s get this done. If you’re not going to volunteer to go to Oblivion, then you need to stay on track.”

  Nolan nods and we turn to his son, who is currently turning on a porno and looking for a bottle of lotion.

  Why don’t women in porn have pubes anymore?

  “Maybe we should give him a few mi
nutes,” Nolan says.

  “Yeah.” I nod.

  * * *

  Naomi sits across from me. We’re back in the café. I can’t stop thinking about the porn I just saw. Round, perfect sphere breasts and no pubes. What is happening?

  Louisa appears and clears her throat.

  “Hey, pervert. We’ve just been through something traumatic so if you could not look at Naomi like a Playboy spread that would be fantastic.”

  I wasn’t really staring at her. I was staring into space and thinking about the weirdly perfect boobs I just saw, but I don’t think that will sound good out loud.

  “Sorry,” I say. “What happened?” My eyes are firmly on Louisa’s face now. I should also look at Naomi, so I kind of dart my eyes between the two and I’m pretty sure I look like a weirdo for it.

  “The Shadow,” Naomi says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  Nolan appears and sits at the table. “Who are you?” he says to Louisa.

  “Louisa.”

  “Nolan.” He holds out his hand and they shake.

  “What happened?” Impatience crawls through my gut. I’ve always hated it when someone starts telling me something important or interesting and stops.

  “It came for Louisa,” Naomi says. She opens her mouth to say more but stops.

  “Why? She hasn’t been at this long. Has she?” Are the rules changing as we go?

  “I was attempting,” Louisa pauses and looks up, “patricide.”

  “Damn,” Nolan says. “You’re one damaged little girl, aren’t you?”

  Louisa flips him the bird without looking at him.

  “You didn’t let it take her,” I say. If Naomi didn’t let the Shadow take Louisa, it’s wonderful and terrible at once. If she had let it, then I would have been saved. My face falls as the realization forms in my brain.

  Naomi must know what I’m thinking because she says, “I have an idea. A way to save all four of us.”

  Hope. It starts in my gut and spreads throughout my soul or whatever I am now.

  “We need to find one of the mentors who played the game against Edgar. That’s who will restore the balance,” she says it like a professor revealing the answer to an equation.

  “But we’d still be sending someone,” I say. The hope begins to shrink.

  “Yes, but someone who knew the risks and played with our fate and their own anyway.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Nolan responds but I don’t see why he has a say in this.

  “I’ll ask Doris who it is.” Naomi nods once, confirming her decision.

  “Why would she help us? She hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about anything.” I’m not being negative. Just realistic.

  Naomi raises her eyebrows. “I think she’ll do it for me.”

  “I don’t want to do this anymore,” Louisa says. “It sucks.”

  “Well, you could have gone with the Shadow. It would save us a lot of trouble,” Naomi says.

  “That’s not what I mean.” Louisa shakes her head. “I guess I’m ready to be done and be in a more permanent situation.”

  “I’m kind of enjoying it,” Nolan says. “I’ve just seen two of my ex-girlfriends. I forgot how lucky of a man I was. Both of them were gorgeous. I got so hung up on Janet. But she wasn’t even all that great in the sack.”

  “Edgar was able to move around at will, right?” I ask, moving on from Nolan’s newly realized joy.

  “Seemed like it.”

  Naomi flips through the handbook. I don’t know how long. Nolan and Louisa are gone again by the time she’s finished.

  “The best I can understand, it’s all manipulating energy. Just like when we were alive. You know how you would make your legs move and go somewhere?”

  “It’s as simple as willing ourselves places?” It doesn’t seem right. If it’s that simple, how come we haven’t figured it out before now?

  “It only works once your grief watch is over,” she says and for a second I’m afraid she’s reading my mind.

  I’m looking at Naomi’s face when everything goes black. Then I’m in my granny’s house. Sitting at an old Formica table with metal legs. The chair I’m on is covered in brown vinyl.

  “Here you go, Lukey. Eat every bite.” She sits a plate in front me. Biscuits and chocolate gravy.

  I take a bite. I can actually taste it. It’s wonderful. Rich chocolate served warm over biscuits and melted butter. Only in the South is this considered an acceptable breakfast food.

  Then I’m back at the table. Naomi is standing over me. “Luke, Luke!”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Where were you just now?”

  “I can taste chocolate, but I don’t know why.”

  Naomi sits down and stares at me. “Your memory purge is starting.”

  “What’s a memory purge?”

  Naomi pushes the handbook across the table and points to the top of a page. According to the handbook, memory purges happen before the soul transitions to a new body.

  “But I’m not even in queue yet.” I’m not ready to lose my memories. Or am I? It won’t be so bad to forget the things that brought me here.

  “You’ve been dead a really long time, Luke. Maybe you’re jumping the line.” She smiles. “This is good. You’re probably safe.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  And then I’m in a new place. I’m on a bench in front of a store in a freaking mall. I hate malls.

  Chapter 21

  Naomi

  “Luke has moved on,” Doris says. No greeting whatsoever. It would be jarring under normal circumstances.

  “Is he safe now?”

  Doris shakes her head slightly from side to side. She’s disappointed in me. And I don’t give a shit.

  “As long as he chooses a body when it’s his turn, yes. And as long as you choose someone for the Death Shadow.”

  “Does it have to be Nolan or Louisa?” I ask.

  “It can be you,” Doris grins her creepy grin.

  “Thanks for the reminder, Doris.” I pull the handbook to my chest. “Can it be someone else? Like one of the mentors who was playing the game with Edgar?”

  Doris steeples her fingers together and tilts her head. “Yes. But only if you agree to take the job.”

  “How long will I have to stay here?”

  “It depends on when your replacement shows up. It took me 40 years to find you.”

  “How did you know I was your replacement?”

  “It’s like falling in love, finding a soul mate. I just knew. And you will, too.” Maybe this should be flattering and sweet, but it just feels manipulative.

  “Fine. What else do I have going on?”

  “I’m glad you’re using your head,” she says.

  “Can we please do something about my clothes?” I can’t be Doris-esque in this tacky dress.

  “Yes. Visualize what you want.”

  I close my eyes and think about my favorite suit. It was black, classic. The skirt was form-fitting and fell about two inches above my knees. The jacket was tailored perfectly at the waist. I wore a plain white t-shirt under the jacket. Simple gold hoops, black high-heeled Mary Jane’s.

  And now I’m wearing it. I would sigh with relief if I could.

  “Nice choice. A blouse would be better, but you still look good.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Just out of curiosity, what would have happened if I had refused?”

  Doris looks at me with no smirk, no grin, and says, “I would have fed you to the Shadow.”

  * * *

  Luke

  There’s a weird taste in my mouth. Kind of earthy and skunky. Why do I keep getting these weird tastes in my mouth?

  I’m on a bench in front of what kind of looks like Hot Topic. There are souls roaming around in there, but I’ve been watching them awhile and no one has purchased anything. I wonder if I can get new clothes.

  I stand up and start walking. A mall isn’t my first choice of destinations,
but I guess I am happy to be somewhere new.

  Then I remember the words “memory purge.” That’s what is happening to me. I’m going to forget everything and start over as someone new.

  There’s a big store straight ahead. It looks like a Target or something like that. Souls are pushing empty carts. A woman with waist-length brown hair is holding up a T-shirt covered in cat faces, stroking it with her fingertips, trying to observe its texture. But texture isn’t really a thing here.

  I keep walking. This place seems to be a giant circle. After a shoe store and a candle shop there’s a tattoo parlor. I’ve never seen a tattoo parlor in a mall before, but I guess there are a lot of things I haven’t seen before in this place.

  There’s a girl sitting on what resembles a dentist’s chair. A woman is bent over her, working diligently with a tattoo gun. The gun is leaving ink on the soul’s calf. She’s writing words.

  “Can I help you?” A bearded man in a T-shirt and leather vest greets me from behind the counter.

  “Yeah. How does this work?”

  The man has words and numbers all over his arms. It looks like names and dates, maybe addresses, too. I want to stare but I’m trying not to.

  He holds out his hand and we shake or whatever. “Rod.”

  “I’m Luke.”

  “Well, Luke. It works a lot like tattoos work when you’re alive.” He smiles and two dimples appear. For some reason the dimples are a surprise. “What I do here is a service. There is a charge, but a small one.”

  “What do you mean by charge? We don’t have money.”

  “But we do have a place in line, correct? What number are you in queue?”

  “I don’t know.” So that’s where I am. The waiting area.

  “Look at the letter, dummy.” Rod points to the front pocket of my cargo shorts. The letter is peeking out of my pocket. How long has that been there?

  I pull the letter from my pocket. I don’t have to read the entire thing, I’m already familiar with the words. I just need the number.

  “I’m number 207.” The numbers fade and reappear while I’m staring at it. “Wait, now I’m 204.”

  “In this place we use line numbers as currency. Each word of your tattoo is five spots in line.” He crosses his arms over his belly. I see the word “loved” on his wrist.