by Vi Lily
Moans and groans greet me, and I call back, “Is everyone okay?” I can’t believe how calm I sound, especially considering the seatbelt is damn near choking me. Surprisingly, the girls all call out that they’re okay, although Tabby says she thinks she broke her arm.
The first thing I need to do is get out of the stinking belt, but it won’t unclip. “Maddie,” I call, “can you find my purse? I have a knife in there. Get me out of this freaking belt!” Okay, I don’t sound too calm now, but I’m getting a little panicky from not being able to move.
I hear rustling, followed by more moans. “I can’t find it,” Maddie says.
My brain feels jumbled, but I try to think. My purse was on the passenger seat. Since I can barely move, I’m no help looking for it. Still, I squint, trying to see in the darkness. Apparently, when we rolled, we knocked out the van’s power.
It dawns on me then that the van’s roof is a lot closer to me than it should be, which means the top was smashed down. It’s a real miracle that we weren’t all crushed. I honestly can’t believe we’re still alive.
“Maybe it fell out,” Tabby offers from somewhere behind me.
Yeah, if you hadn’t opened the freaking door, it wouldn’t have fallen out. Oh wait, we wouldn’t have wrecked either. Yeah, we’re definitely all are great candidates for that campaign against teen drinking.
I manage to keep my thoughts to myself.
My legs are hurting where the lap belt is cutting into them. I wonder if I can wiggle out of it, but it’s really tight. I guess that’s what it’s designed to do, to keep a body in place. But dang, I don’t know why it has to freaking squeeze me to death.
“Why isn’t anyone helping us?” Addison moans and I wonder the same thing. Joe and the guys should have been here by now. I mean, I understand why we’re not hearing sirens, because we’re out in the middle of BF Texas and it’ll take a month of Sundays to get anyone out here. But, dang… I guess chivalry really is dead. The guys are probably half-way to the bonfire by now.
I see light then and turn my head to try to see out the few inches of my window that isn’t crushed. Headlights are coming our way and if I could get enough air, I’d breathe a sigh of relief. Help is coming.
“Hey girls,” I croak out, “help is—”
My words are cut short when I realize that what I’m seeing is a pair of headlights coming really fast — and not slowing. They’re high up and far apart, which means it’s probably a semi.
And then I realize we’re upside down, with no lights, in a gray van matching the color of the asphalt… and we’re in the middle of the road.
“Oh sh—”
Chapter 2
I WAKE UP TO eyes the color of the sky on a clear spring morning. I blink a few times, because I’m not sure what I’m seeing, to be honest. I mean, I thought I was dead for sure when I realized a semi was barreling at us full speed ahead. But now, here I am, staring at one of the most gorgeous guys I’ve ever seen.
Hmmm, maybe this is heaven, cuz this guy sure looks like an angel.
The thoughts I’m having about him are definitely not angelic, though, as he reaches out to take my hand and help me up. The fact that I can stand is pretty amazing. I mean, if I didn’t wake up dead, I figure I’d at least be maimed and in pain. I glance down and see that I’m not only intact, but I still look cute. My clothes aren’t even messed up. Thank God, cuz I’d hate to be with such a heavenly hottie looking like death.
For some reason, that thought makes me pause. I remember being sure that I was going to die just moments ago. There was a truck coming right at us…
Confused, I look around and see that we’re standing next to the wreck. Hottie angel dude and I are standing outside of it. The van is unrecognizable, it’s so destroyed. How in the world I survived is beyond me.
I hear a noise and turn to see a guy who I’m assuming is the driver of the truck that hit us. He’s standing outside of a big hay truck, holding his face in his hands and sobbing. My heart goes out to him because I hate to see anyone cry, especially guys. But why is he crying?
The hottie guy is just standing next to me, silent. I wonder if he was with the driver or something. I look up at him mouth the words, but no sound comes out.
I frown. That’s seriously weird, but then I wonder if maybe I injured my throat or neck somehow. I mean, come on, that is a really bad wreck I’m looking at. It would be kinda impossible not to have suffered some kind of injury.
Pieces of the van are scattered all over the highway and even on the median. Hell, it looks like there are pieces on the other side of the road. There’s debris everywhere and I even see…
Bodies.
There are bodies on the road. One on the far side, two in the median and another next to us, so close that I can touch it. I see that it’s a blonde and she’s still strapped to a seat. I don’t know how I didn’t notice them before. Maybe because I didn’t want to see them. I mean, ugh, gross. I am absolutely not one of those looky-loo people who slow down to check out accidents.
I never want to see blood. At. All.
Despite not wanting to see it, I can’t help but notice that the bodies are really mangled. Their relatives are going to have a hard time identifying them. I wonder if maybe they can use their clothes to i.d. them, like that girl still strapped in the seat who’s wearing a cute red organza dress that looks exactly like the one I was wear—
Wait just a cotton pickin’ minute…
My eyes take in the scene a little closer. That girl looks just like me… well, if I were having a seriously bad day and lost half my face. Ewww. I quickly look away before I lose that bean burrito I scarfed earlier.
But, crap, that other body in the median looks just like Tabby, or at least the clothes she was wearing. Same with the other one that’s wearing clothes like Addison’s. I can’t see the body on the other side of the road from here, but I bet she’s wearing the same thing as Maddie.
Which means four girls happened to get in an accident at the same place, at the same time as we did, and they’re all wearing the same or similar clothes as my friends and me. It’s possible, right?
Yeah, okay, maybe not. So… am I dead? I don’t think so, because everything seems pretty normal, I guess. I mean, I’m upright and I think I might be breathing. I’m pretty sure my pulse is intact, judging by the way I feel like my heart is racing at the moment because I’m pretty sure I’m about to have a panic attack.
Angel Hottie takes my hand and pulls me toward the closest body in the median. I want to struggle, to pull away, because I really don’t want to see it up close. For one thing, that’s gross. For another… I really don’t want the confirmation that I’m pretty sure is coming.
Yep. It’s Tabby. I think, anyway. The hair is pretty recognizable, since it’s pink. The dude holding my hand pulls me a few steps closer and then waves something I hadn’t noticed him holding before. It’s a sharp-looking thing on a long pole and it’s familiar, like one of those things from a Halloween costume, but I can’t quite place it.
Then something weird happens. Okay, it’s not like the past few minutes haven’t been hella weird, but this is really off-the-freaking-scale weird. Tabby stands up. But it’s not Tabby, because I can still see her body lying there on the slick median grass. But it is her, because in just a second, she’s standing next to me. And we’re both giving each other wide eyes.
She looks down at the Tabby body, then over to the Chloe body in the seat, looks back at me and mouths What the hell? I just give her a helpless shrug. I got nothing.
Hottie dude then leads the both of us to the Addison body and does the same waving thing with his tool. Middle school me wants to laugh at “waving his tool,” but I can’t laugh. I can’t make a sound.
The wide-eyed Addison ghost joins us and then we move over to Maddie. Or what’s left of her. I cringe when I see that she’s suffered the worse — well, I’m pretty sure we’re all dead, so we all suffered, but her body is so mangled that
pieces are, um, all over the place.
If I could, I’m pretty sure I’d be puking right about now.
When the Maddie ghost thing joins us, the hot dude turns to us, then waves his thingy — snort — and in the blink of a ghost eye, we’re… somewhere else.
“My name is Samuel,” the hottie tells us once we’re wherever it is that he’s brought us. It’s some sort of building, with ugly gray walls and really hideous linoleum floors. They look like they might have been white at one time, but now they’re sort of an icky yellow.
“I’m the Reaper assigned to collect you.” Reaper, as in Grim? Whoa. I always pictured the Grim Reaper as some black cloaked skeleton dude, but that definitely does not fit the tall, muscular, blond cutie patootie standing so close I could run my fingers up his shirt, circle them around the back of his neck and pull him down for a molar count.
And then I remember where I’d seen that weapon thing of his — yep, it was a Grim Reaper costume.
He stares at me for a few seconds. It doesn’t escape my notice that he doesn’t even glance at the other girls and that makes me want to preen, but I manage to contain myself. Not sure if I could fluff ghost hair or whatever. He then turns abruptly and starts walking down a hallway.
I feel compelled to follow, even though I really want to dig my heels in and demand he give us all the answers to our questions. But I don’t seem capable of not following him, so digging my heels in isn’t an option. Then I wonder if I even have feet. I look down and I’m thankful to see my silver platforms. Short girls like me have to make up the vertical difference somewhere.
“And to answer your questions,” Samuel continues, like he’s reading my mind, which freaks me out cuz if he can, then he totally knows I was checking out his butt a minute ago. It’s an adorable bubble butt, by the way.
“Yes, you’re dead. Well, your physical bodies have died. Obviously, death isn’t the end,” he chuckles as he sweeps his hand down his yummy body. My eyes follow his hand’s path and I wonder if I can drool in this state.
He turns then and continues walking. I open my mouth to ask another question, but no sound comes out. Again.
“By the way,” he says without turning, “you won’t have your power of speech restored until after your assessment hearing. It’s easier that way. No arguments.”
Assessment hearing? What the heck is that?
Samuel turns down a hall and we follow, like sheep following a shepherd. I turn back and look at the others, then narrow my eyes when I see that Tabby is staring at Samuel’s bubble butt. I want to hiss at her that she’s not stealing another one from me, but of course, I can’t even do that.
“An assessment hearing is to determine where you’ll be spending your time in the afterlife. And no, this is not the final judgment. This hearing will just decide what your job will be until the final day.”
Huh? I glance at the other girls and they all look at me with bewildered looks. I’m mostly still worried that Samuel can read my mind.
“And, no, I cannot read your mind,” he adds. I think he’s a liar, honestly. What else would explain that he’s answering questions as they pop into my head?
“I’ve done this for a very long time,” he tells us as he glances over his shoulder. His gorgeous blue eyes catch mine and I could almost swear there’s some sort of… interest? … there. Is it possible that I had to die to finally be able to snag a hot guy?
Thankfully, he doesn’t answer that question.
Samuel leads us to a set of big double doors at the end of the hallway. It’s weird, because, in contrast to the dreary ugly hallway, the doors are beautiful. Dark, gleaming wood intricately carved with scenes from what looks like an old painting I saw once in an art book. From Dante’s Inferno, I think. It’s kind of eerie and gruesome, but still cool.
There’s a plaque on the door, three lines stating this is “Afterlife Service Selection.” I snort — to myself, obviously — and wonder if these guys realize what the acronym is.
Our angelic host holds the door for us. I sure hope the guy isn’t really an angel, because the devilish thoughts I’m having about him would probably land me somewhere hella hotter than even south Texas in July.
I let the others go before me and I make it a point to catch Samuel’s baby blues as I walk up to him. I think I wink, but I’m not sure. I may have visible feet, but for all I know my face is a blank slate.
Probably not, though, because the girls look the same as they did before all this craziness happened. I figure I probably look the same too. Short, kind of squatty, long blonde hair, green eyes. Nothing super awesome, believe me. My besties get a lot more attention cuz of their looks.
But surprisingly, I again think I see some interest coming from Samuel. I pause in the doorway, so close to him that I swear I can feel his body heat, but I’m not sure if I can really feel anything in this Casper body, to be honest. I reach out to put my hand on his arm, but it goes right through.
Damn, I am a ghost.
It’s weird, though, because he touched me before, when he pulled me up from my body. I’ll have to ask him about that when I can talk again.
He smirks at me then and leans forward. “Right now, you’re just an image of yourself, lass, which is why you can’t talk, can’t touch. But you’ll get your body back after your assessment too. From what I can tell, it’s an amazing one,” he murmurs, for my ears only.
I figure it’s a good thing that I am a ghost then, because my cheeks would be on fire. I think I smile at the guy, at least I hope it’s a smile, and I walk into the A.S.S. room to find out what’s going to happen with the rest of my life.
Hopefully, it’ll include Samuel, cuz damnnn…
Chapter 3
T HE JUDGE OR whatever he is who’s presiding over the hearing is about a bazillion years old and has this monotone voice that I know would put me to sleep if I were in a body and not just this doppelgänger thing. Probably another reason we don’t have our real bodies yet.
The room is packed with people of all ages. Apparently, we’re all waiting to hear what’s going to happen to us now that we’re dead.
It’s still hard to wrap my bleached blonde head around it. I’m having deceased denial.
So far, I’ve learned that when you die before your allotted time — like my girls and I did — then you have to spend the rest of those allotted days in some sort of earthly service. That’s what the judge dude is for, deciding the what, where and why of it all.
One would think how you spent your life would determine what you do in your afterlife. That’s what I thought when the hearing started, and I’d hoped I would end up working at some sort of heavenly mall in a cute little boutique selling awesome vintage ghost clothes or something.
But nooo… it’s what you were doing when you died that makes the determination. Which means I’ll probably be the Uber driver for drunk ghouls for eternity.
Awesome. Not.
There are a lot of people here who are already old, ancient even. Like my mom’s age, forties or something. Crypt Keepers. The get assigned to work with “service principals,” which I’ve figured out are the bosses. Like captains of an army or whatever.
So far I’ve heard people getting assigned to the Leprechaun principal, in charge of “guarding hidden treasure from being discovered by people with immoral agendas”; the Fae, who take care of the little creatures; werewolves and other shapeshifters who protect the creatures of their kind; trolls, who actually freaking hide under bridges, but for the purpose of helping prevent jumper suicides; Father Time, in charge of, yes, time; the Sandman, who helps people sleep (and where the heck was he when I had insomnia?); and the Merpeople, who are like the shapeshifters, but stay in their shift form, for obvious reasons. Kinda hard to breathe under the water as a human.
It’s kinda shocking to find out that fairytale creatures really do exist.
Apparently, the people who die “before their allotted time” by just a little bit get to hang out in the
earthly plane and take it easy until their time is up. They get sentenced to super easy stuff, like basically taking a vacation. Samuel whispers to me that it’s because they already suffered enough while living, so they get to take it easy in the afterlife.
One old guy died from hypothermia three months before his time was up and he got sentenced to the Merpeople principal, “testing the warmth of the water off the coast of Maui.” I had looked at Samuel and rolled my eyes, which made him grin at me.
Dude has a gorgeous smile.
Even though the room is packed, Samuel said that all the souls here are just those who died at the same time as my girls and me. Kinda shocking to realize how many people die before their time every single day.
Making this long ol’ meeting better is the fact that Samuel has stayed right by my side through the whole thing. If I could feel anything, I’m pretty sure I’d have tingles from where his arm and his knee keep brushing against mine. Not that we’re really touching since I don’t have a freaking body, but a girl can fantasize.
The judge is going through the “barely departed,” as he keeps calling us, oldest to youngest. I notice that there isn’t anyone younger than their teens here, which is weird, because I know that kids die all the time. It sucks, but it’s life. Or death, I guess.
After an eternity — an expression that now has a whole new meaning — we get down to those who are younger, like maybe in their twenties. It makes me wonder how old Samuel is, and if there’s an age of consent in the afterlife. I mean, I’m seventeen, which is legal in Texas, but my girls and I have a rule that we won’t date anyone five years older.
Hell, Samuel could be seventy for all I know. And I just realized that’s seriously gross to think about, so that’s the last time I’m going down that thought road. The psycho little voice in my brain doesn’t obey me, of course.