Creep: Karma Inc. Case 4

by Gillian Zane

  “If you don’t get off your ass and get back to Afterlife, you’ll find yourself getting one Hell of a demotion, Cassandra.” Brandon’s voice was harsh with frustration and he emphasized the word hell to drive the point home.

  “No!” I screamed at him.

  “You leave me no choice. You’re acting like a spoiled child.” Brandon grabbed me by the arm and yanked me toward him. The world tilted and the scene changed. We left everything. We left the motel parking lot. We left Drake lying there, dead.

  “Let me go!” I tried to pull away from him, but he was too strong. I beat against his stupid chest, but all he did was glare at me.

  “I thought better of you, Cassie,” Brandon whispered. We were almost nose to nose as he held tightly to my biceps. “I thought you had it all together.”

  “Ditto.” I looked away, hiding my face from him. Brandon roughly turned me around, reached around me and opened a door, pushing me roughly through. The door opened to a long white hallway that stretched out forever in the distance.

  He stepped around me and dragged me behind him, down the hallway. He counted off door after door until he stopped in front of one with a simple orange dot. He moved his wrist over the locking mechanism and it opened, revealing a stark room with a cot and some neatly folded sheets piled on top.

  “I wish it hadn’t come to this, Cassie. I can’t believe this guy’s death made you act like this. I thought…well, I thought you were more.” He pushed me into the room so hard I landed on my hands and knees in the center of the room. I screamed when I heard the lock click in place. I was alone, again.

  2

  The White Room

  I had no way to measure time. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. Minutes could be hours. Hours could be minutes. Nothing ever shut off. There were what I thought were long periods of time where I blanked, but I was always aware of where I was. At some point I lay on the cot. I might have cried. Not for Drake. I felt stupid crying for him. I cried for myself. For the life I now lived. If one could call it a life, considering I was technically dead and didn’t live at all.

  Brandon had been right. I was a spoiled little girl. I deserved the fate I was given. I only thought about myself. I had gotten Drake into this mess because I selfishly had to find out who killed me. And here I was, not sad because of Drake losing his life, I was sad because I was in this fucked up situation. Because I was alone.

  I was alone. Drake wasn’t really dead. Death wasn’t what it used to be, at least, what I had thought it was. He would go somewhere else. His physical body gone, but his soul still intact. Or at least as much of it as possible. He’d still be Drake. Just Drake in Afterlife. Or at least I hoped.

  Drake without me.

  Me without Drake.

  What if he lost his memories like I had? I wasn’t the same person I had been when I was alive. I was nothing like I used to be. He would be different. All he had to do was lose a couple weeks and I would be gone from his life.

  I didn’t want to think about that. We’d stumble across each other. We would go on, resume where we had left off. He’d once again…

  What?

  We would pick up where we left off? Where was that?

  There was a moment, a moment where I could feel his touch. I could feel his mouth on my body. We lay tangled, naked, as he awoke things in me that had been dormant for centuries. I rose over him, I took him inside of me as I buried inside of him. I moaned his name as my body tingled with awareness, as it woke from the coma it had been trapped within for so long.

  The new feelings. The physical and the emotional.

  The way he pushed me, challenged me.

  I opened my eyes. I had been so lost in the fantasy it could have been real. When I closed my eyes again I could almost smell him. I tasted the salty tang of my tears. And gave in. I couldn’t do this anymore.

  I couldn’t feel.

  Moments, or maybe days later, I came back from under the haze.

  I had been pacing the room. I had beaten my fists against the door until my knuckles had bled. I had sat in the corner and tried to find a seam. I had finally lay back on the cot and closed my eyes, wanting to find that moment again. But, I couldn’t sleep, or dream, or whatever it had been. I felt lethargic, my arms and legs heavy, but I wasn’t tired.

  Decades passed. At some point I didn’t know my name. Why I was here. If I even existed. Oblivion. It was amazing.

  Change. There was a change. The light was different in the room. Something had changed. I sat up so fast my head spun. I had existed within the sameness for so long. My head swam with difference. My eyes were drawn instantly to the wall across from the cot. I didn’t want to look anymore. I didn’t know what this was. I had been within the white room for so long. I couldn’t look, but my eyes would not look away.

  3

  Lethe

  There was a glass door where before there had only been a wall. Beyond the wall was a world. A world made of every color but white. Green grass, the dark brown trunk of trees, lush with pink flowers. The bright green grass led to a shimmering blue lake, and on the lake was a pier. It was overwhelming, magnificent, horrifying.

  I cringed within my cot, hiding my face from the sight of it, but curiosity niggled at the back of my hands until I turned and faced the door again.

  I stood, placing both of my feet on the floor. Cold traveled up from the soles of my feet to my calves. I didn’t shiver. I walked to the door.

  The glass door was seamless without any obvious hinges or handle, but as I neared it, a pneumatic hiss sounded and the door slid into the wall. The smell of honeysuckle was the first thing I noticed. It washed over me like a blanket and I took a deep joyful breath. I couldn’t remember my name, but I knew what honeysuckle smelled like, or was it jasmine?

  A calm I hadn’t felt in a long time seeped into me and I stood there for a few moments letting it soak into my skin. My memories swirled under my consciousness, pushing at the back of my brain, but I swatted them away. I didn’t mind being empty. Memories brought dark emotions, I didn’t want that now. It was okay, everything would be fine.

  I hadn’t been aware of what I was wearing, but when I looked down at my toes, I realized I was barefoot and I wiggled them in the soft grass. There were no weeds, no stray sticks, or burs that would harm the bottoms of my feet. I glanced behind me. The door was gone, the little white room a thing of the past. About fifty yards behind me was an impressive raised house with an inviting porch that wrapped around it. I had never seen this house before, but it looked like a place I had visited, maybe in another life.

  I studied the house, the familiar lines of the eaves, and the shape of the windows. Should I go to the house? No. Something drew me away from the house. To the lake. I wanted to go to the lake. Something drew me to the lake and the pier. There was something there, and I had to go.

  I made my way down the expanse of grass to the lake.

  I paused as grass gave way to the muddy banks of the lake and looked out at the crystal blue expanse. The water of the lake went on forever, but I could see along the northern border that it ended in sheer cliff faces that climbed to impressive snowcapped mountains. I couldn’t remember if I had ever been to the mountains before. Was this a real place, or a figment of my imagination? Was I still lying on that cot in the white room, or was this really happening to me? I could feel a breeze on my skin. I could feel the slick mud under my feet. If this was a dream, it was the most detailed dream I had ever had.

  Movement caught my eye and I noticed there was a bench at the end of the pier and on it sat a female. I could only see the back of her head. Her long dark hair caught the wind and fluttered around her. It was the only motion in this scene, aside from the slight wave of the water as it lapped against the pier’s columns. I stepped onto the rough wood of the pier. I was supposed to talk to this woman. I knew this with all of my being, just like I knew I had been here before.

  The pier went on forever, deep into the water. There was no
railing, and the expanse of pier was only a few feet wide. I kept my eyes on my feet as I made my way to the end. It felt endless, but it was only a moment before I reached the end.

  “Cassandra,” she greeted. Her voice was melodic, like water on river rocks. She said my name. My name was Cassandra.

  She shifted to face me and I swallowed a breath that seemed too big for my throat. My world tilted in a dizzying riot of awareness as I beheld what was truly her.

  “Sit,” she ordered and I collapsed onto the bench next to her and became transfixed by her eyes. The color matched the water around us, and like the water, their depths were unknown. Her skin was without flaw as it rippled over her face like the tide. It was an odd sensation and I had to grip the wood of the seat to brace myself, to steady my being. I might fall over.

  I knew someone who had said something about this feeling.

  Brandon.

  God struck.

  She was a goddess.

  “Lethe,” she said by way of greeting.

  “The river of oblivion,” I said, the knowledge coming to me with little effort.

  “I am represented by a river, but that is not what I am,” she said in a singsong voice and she smiled a watery smile. “Or at least I don’t think.” Her smile ran fluid across her face and melted into a frown.

  “Why am I here?” I managed to whisper even though my throat felt like I had swallowed something large that was now lodged there.

  “The question is why are you here—again?”

  “Again?” I asked stupidly. She only smiled and nodded. “Where is here?” I asked.

  “We are beyond the doors of death, in a little portion of…” She trailed off and smiled at the sun. “I don’t believe I’m supposed to speak of it with you.”

  She raised her palm and waved her hand back and forth in the light. Little vials hung from her wrists and they glinted with refracted light, shimmering like crystals. Each one held a colorful liquid that matched the patterns in the handkerchief dress she wore. They were quite pretty and I found myself fascinated with the way they reflected the light.

  “One is yours. Meant for Cassandra.”

  “One of what? Those vials?” I asked.

  “Yes. But, they don’t work for Cassandra. She was disappointed.”

  “Who? I was disappointed?” I was confused with how she was referring to me, like I’m not Cassandra. But I was Cassandra. I remembered. Or I thought I remembered.

  She smiled and shook her head like she couldn’t explain, or maybe I just wasn’t getting it.

  “You’re not supposed to remember Cassandra. To be reborn, the dead must forget. Not everything…” She pulled a vial off the chain on her wrist. “But, things. The things that burden the dead. The things that make it complicated for them.”

  “But I’m not being reborn, I’m still dead,” I frowned at her, the feeling of being off-kilter fading slightly.

  “You’re wrong.” She slipped her fingers over mine and turned my hand over to place the vial in my palm.

  “You are reborn. You are one of the living still. Only a part of you has died, and really that part matters only to some.”

  “I don’t understand,” I gave in, staring at the vial in my hand.

  “We spent a long time together, Cassandra, I miss those days. You were refreshing.”

  “I’ve never met you before,” I frowned, lost in figuring out the words, in the conversation that was more confusing by the minute.

  “You are not supposed to remember being in the world beyond death, unless it’s your time to make it your final place. You forget because you must. But you do not. It’s a quandary.”

  “Is this where I was after I died?” She nodded in response.

  “I tried to make you forget your life. It took longer than…she…well, it was not what we expected. Or really, it was not what They expected, the ones that know, sometimes they forget too.”

  “Who is this she? Who are the ones that know?” I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice. She spoke in riddles, and at my questions she shook her head sadly.

  Did she want to answer me? Was something keeping her from telling me?

  “Well, can you tell me why I’m here again?” I tried again.

  “They want you to forget again. So, you can go back to your busy life.”

  “They want me to forget Drake’s death?”

  “And other things.”

  “This will do it?” I held up the vial.

  “Probably not, you are different. Some know why, others do not. I have an idea.” She smiled and pulled off another vial and placed it next to the one in my hand.

  “This one will do the opposite. Again, I do not know if it will work.” The liquid in the second vial was a blue color, the first vial a red, intimidating darkness.

  “I’ll remember? Is that it?”

  “Yes!” Her eyes glittered with excitement.

  “I’ll remember everything? Even who killed me?”

  “Once it’s gone, it could be gone forever. I make no promises. There are some things that should not be remembered. We should not dwell in the darkness.”

  “Why? Why is it so damaging to know the truth?”

  “The truth does not always set you free. Sometimes it binds you to an inescapable and tragic path. You cannot move on if your past lies upon your chest like an elephant.” She smiled at her metaphor, tiny elephants forming in the foam of the waves.

  “Can I choose? Which vial I take?”

  “Yes. You hold the choices in your hand now.”

  I looked at the two vials and a queasy sense of deja vu washed over me.

  “This…”

  “You’ve made this decision before,” she whispered to affirm my thoughts.

  “And I chose to forget.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “That elephant.”

  “So, why again do I have a choice?”

  “Your path is not as clear as it appeared when we first met.”

  “You talk in riddles.”

  “A river has nothing to prove, it is there without being defined.”

  I threw my hands up. The feeling of being overwhelmed had passed. Now I was braced for more disappointment and the usual goddess bullshit.

  “I only talk in riddles because you don’t understand, Cassandra,” she said quietly.

  “And I don’t understand because I can’t remember and no one is telling me what the Hell is going on.”

  “You have been here before, and yet your memories persist. They might all come back in time if—" She motioned to my hand. “You do not choose to find oblivion for a time.”

  “But, you said that might not work.”

  “I must offer it to you,” she said.

  “Must? Is it a rule?” I asked.

  “I did not come to you of my own volition. I was told to bring you here and let you drink, again.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Persephone.” She said her name like a prayer, or a fearful lament.

  “She wants me to get back to work.” I let out an exasperated breath. She probably couldn’t care less that I had lost someone close to me. Death was not an excuse to Persephone.

  “And other things. I think she suspects,” Lethe said, her eyes widening, the thought only now crossing her mind. “What will you do?” She looked at the vials in my hand.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “What does she suspect?"

  Lethe ignored my last question.

  “You do not have to make a choice today, or even in a year. But, keep it safe and keep it secret. A few drops for a few days, the entire vial for a life.” I shivered thinking about erasing my life, the small part of it I remembered, if that was possible.

  “Why can I remember if I drank from the vial the first time?”

  “Your past is more resilient than we suspected,” she said with her uncomfortable smile, holding something back, not telling me everything. I should be used to t
his.

  She turned around in her seat, her attention drawn away.

  “They come. They believe you have forgotten. Do not give them reason to doubt. There is a reason, Cassandra. There is always a reason.”

  A cold breeze blew across the lake and my world shifted. I was back in the white room seated on the stark bed, a tiny spec of grass affixed to my foot. The only sign that I had been anywhere else but this room. I glanced at the two vials in my hand and knew I had to hide that they were in my possession. I had no pockets so I slipped them into my bra, rearranging them so they couldn’t be seen through the thin shirt I wore, just as the door slid open.

  4

  Back to Work

  “Cassandra, I trust that you’ve rested.” A woman dressed completely in white stood in the doorway. Her voice held the lilting tone of the Irish, and her shock of red hair reinforced her heritage. In another life I would have been charmed. Now, not so much.

  “Not really. I don’t sleep.” She frowned and I tried not to show the panic on my face. Was I supposed to sleep after I swallowed the vial?

  “Well, break time is over. Time to get back to work.”

  “Break time?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. You did such a good job on your last case that her Excellency rewarded you with some downtime. I hope you used it wisely.” She looked at me knowingly, not a hint of sarcasm in her tone. Was this supposed to work on me?

  I glanced around the room and had to hold back the reaction I was feeling inside. My stark white jail cell had gone from clinically devoid to perfectly posh. I could have been sitting in a luxury suite at the Ritz.

  “I kind of lost track of the days, what with all this relaxing,” I emphasized the word relaxing without meaning to. “How long have I been here?” I asked, the picture of innocence and oblivion.

  “You’ve been here for a month or two,” she said without a hint of evasiveness. “I’m not really sure. I didn’t look at your processing date.”