Struggling With the Afterlife

by Ronald Stanley Jr.

  ©All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-54398-696-9

  Contents

  Troll, And Boy

  The Healing Ball

  Church

  Jenny Goes On A Date

  Johnny Hatches

  Troll, And Man

  The Doorway

  Troll, And Man, Part 2

  Billy

  Restoring Balance

  Chapter 1

  Troll, And Boy

  “I’ve been waiting for you, boy!” a familiar voice said to him from somewhere in the abyss.

  He’d heard this voice many times in his dreams - in his past life. Telling him he was waiting for him on the other side when the time was right.

  All he knew was there was a time in his life that he was happy.

  How the boy being cut down from the noose he was hanging from knew that he didn’t know, any more than he knew how he’d gotten there in the first place(or what this place was for that matter). All he did know was that the noose was tight and hurt him so bad he couldn’t breathe. The troll had saved him by going up there and cutting him down.

  The troll had the knife in one hand(a big hunting knife, the boy saw),the boy in the other. He/it had a beige trench coat, Safari hat, tan hair, olive skin with freckles, beady black eyes.. and a large nose that looked like a pickle.

  Picklenose, the boy thought, even in a half dead state, and would have chuckled to himself if he was able. Picklenose continues to sing out of tune as he entered his house. It was an olive green in need of a serious paint job - chipped in various places with yellow sidings. It had a familiarity to the boy, though he wasn’t sure where exactly the memories came from; as far as he knew he was just a boy in this world and new here. Where oh where would these memories have come from? Picklenose was about 6’3” and very strong. Despite his funny and dorky look, the boy sensed there was a darker side to him.

  He was right. Johnny was very right. Yes - his name was Johnny. He remembered now.

  Picklenose opened the screen door at first without success. Then, sighing inward with frustration, practically ripped the door off its hinges. The next door - same thing. So, with his boots, he practically kicked the door in.

  “Fucking door,” Pickle nose said, carrying the half-dead boy in and putting the knife on a nearby table. He then did something that frightened the boy horribly.

  He took the boy through a nearby door leading into total darkness in the cellar. Somewhere, he heard a click as a light came on. A very dim light that showed very little.

  As the troll took him down further, he saw fragments of things scattered here and there in the darkness. An old raggedy Anne doll, dusty bowling pins, a knickknack of a man with balloons..

  Who did these belong to? Not the troll, not the boy.

  Then who?

  Then, in the corner of the cellar, the boy wet his pants at what he saw. The coffins. Many of them side by side in the darkness.

  A blue one with chipped paint, a pink one at the end..

  And the one in the center - a shiny black one with an image of a bird flying, gold painted, with 2 semi - circles in the center.

  That one was for him.

  The troll methodically un - knotted the noose for about 10 minutes, finally managing to do it. Johnny could finally breathe, but he used that breath to scream.

  Scream so loudly as Pickle nose put him in the coffin.

  The boy tried to fight but could barely even move - he was still half- dead and in a weakened state.

  Even if he could fight, he would lose against the bigger, nastier beast. But in this world, the boy thought, weren’t there other, bigger, nastier beasts than this monster?

  He had time to think so before the lid closed on him and he was in total darkness.

  -------------------------------------

  No dreams , no consciousness - just a huge time gap when he had woken days later to find Pickle nose greeting him with a big smile as the coffin was open and he was carried out of it. “You are my gift, boy, from the delivery of The Bird!” the troll said, beady eyes gleaming. What gift? What bird? The boy thought.

  The trench coat and safari hat were gone now, replaced by a checkered shirt, tan pants and belt, shiny shoes and somewhat combed hair (looking like the wind got the best of the comb at some point).

  Then, with a tongue the boy despised, the troll happily stuck it out and made a farting noise, spraying him with spit , but happily(for the troll anyways , not the boy). The boy was still too weak to wipe the spit off, but the troll did it for him as best he could.

  The boy saw his coffin open, as well as a new one added (light green). All except his were closed.

  There were others, the boy thought.

  What happens to the others?

  What happened to the others? In the darkness, the boy saw something he hadn’t before among the pins, knickknack and raggedy Anne doll.

  Among the shadows was an old-fashioned quilted highchair.

  It had curli - cues and a rundown look. Dust covered it. Lots of dust. Barbed wire was woven in and out of it -the last chair anyone sane would want to sit down in. And was that blood he saw dried within the interwoven teardrops and barbed wire?

  He thought so.

  Was the chair always there, or had he missed it when he was first brought down here? He thought not.

  “Johnny.”

  The voice had a familiarity about it that the boy knew from somewhere but had no memory to put the finger on.

  Not yet anyways.

  It was a sinister voice, one that made his skin crawl. One word that came from the chair calling his name - that was it. But that was all it took. Then the growl of a dog. An angry, mean dog.

  The chair moved forward slightly in the darkness towards him as the troll took him up the stairs. The boy screamed. The troll laughed. “That’s nothing,” Pickle nose said to the boy.

  “Wait ‘til you see the toilets!” Pickle nose then chuckled. The chuckling turned to laughter. The laughter turned to hysterical bouts of shrieking.

  The boy tried to scream but his voice was so hoarse nothing came out.

  The boy also had to pee.

  Wait ‘til you see the toilets, the troll had said.

  When they got up the stairs, the boy also realized something: he was hungry.

  The smell of nicely cooked turkey and ham filled his nostrils. His stomach churned and growled - worse than the furniture had done just moments before.

  “Johnny..”

  At this point he didn’t care how terrifying the furniture and toilets were.

  He was fucking hungry and wanted food now.

  As the troll brought him upstairs, to the left he saw a table with lots of food on it. There were what looked like bizarre, multi - colored drinks with different layers of color on it - 2 out (one for the Troll, one for the Boy).

  To the right, he saw a hallway with a bathroom on the left. The hallway led out to a living room. There was a piano, an old -fashioned radio in the center, more of those curli - cued quilted furniture (these looking newer with no dried blood or barbed wire in them).

  A big, thick black book lay in the center of the room next to the old-fashioned radio. It had the same shiny black his coffin had - with the golden image of the bird flying in the center of 2 semi - circles his co
ffin had as well.

  Pickle nose let the boy down, and he felt a little strength start to return to his legs. Enough to explore a little, and pee.

  Despite the fact that the troll had scared him with the news of the toilets, the one to the left in the hallway was nice and normal. A white marble one and sink - very nicely cleaned and shiny.

  Someone else must do the cleaning - surely not the ugly fuck of a troll that thought this boy was his gift from a goddamned bird, the boy thought. Now - these were his own thoughts, returning to him. He was maturing mentally as well as physically. How to get out of this fucking shithole? He wanted the fucking food but was damned if that ugly bastard troll would fuck with him his whole life.

  He wasn’t always a child.

  “Johnny.”

  The voice of the chair rang in his head.

  He knew that voice.

  The voice knew him as well.

  Johnny pissed a fucking river in the normal looking toilet. Probably one of the few in this world that looked this normal. He guessed it was bullshit politics - toilets reserved for the special people in this world that pleased the bird just the way it liked. People - or living beings - like this troll that did things and favors for the bird.

  Like what? The boy thought, going over to look at himself in the mirror. His face definitely was dusty and needed cleaning. His hair as well - he needed a shower. He washed both as best he could with the clean water and soap there.

  Like kill, the thought returned to him.

  Kill for the bird, when the call came.

  That’s why they don’t last here. The thought came to him almost like that old familiar voice from the chair did in the dark corner of the cellar. But some stay alive just long enough to clean.

  As he came out of the door, he felt his strength starting to return. And with the strength came the rage.

  That old rage that had led him here to begin with.

  Johnny saw something in the corner of the room that brought that rage back to him even more. An old, folded up wheelchair.

  He didn’t know why, but it did.

  Johnny looked down and saw a three piece suit that he hadn’t been wearing before he’d been put in the coffin(he couldn’t remember exactly what it was he was wearing, but it was ripped and dusty; he’d just remembered feeling it slightly with his weakened hands).

  This suit was fresh - all he’d needed was..

  “Here’s your glasses, boy!” Pickle nose said , coming over to him excitedly and handing them to him. “You can take a shower now or-”

  “I want to eat!”

  “Thought so! You need your strength back!”

  It’s coming back Johnny almost said but didn’t. Something about this troll told him to play dumb until he was strong enough to overtake him. He wasn’t going to be this ugly fuck’s slave forever. Or gift.

  And he wasn’t here to clean and be killed off either. Fuck him.

  He ate like a mad man, no manners, which the troll had expected and laughed at. At least he let him eat instead of intentionally asking him senseless questions just to aggravate.

  Some people out there do that, believe it or not. Who these people were was distant to him - but his memories were coming back little by little. Or rather - the rage of things that he saw here connected to his past.

  He wasn’t always a little boy. The troll only asked him during his meal if he remembered who he was in his past life - and that he hadn’t been given the documents yet, but little by little, he would be.

  Johnny had just said no, he was just hungry - that was it. To which the troll with the big nose nodded in understanding as it bobbed up and down like a balloon.

  After dinner, something startled Johnny. It was the rattling of a doorknob being turned. Johnny turned to see a girl with a pink dress and curly brown hair come out of the other side of the door leading to the cellar. The pink coffin, Johnny thought. She came from the pink coffin. “I just awoke - I’m here to clean!” she announced, to which those beady eyes of the troll gleamed and a smile returned to his ugly face.

  But something about this girl wasn’t right. Not to Johnny anyways as he studied her going over to his plate, then Pickle nose’s , and cleaning the stuff up in the sink.

  No questions of how did I get here. No surprise that she’d been in a coffin for days, weeks or possibly months. Just the normal routine of waking up from a nap in a coffin and going to work in the sink.

  “I’m Jenny by the way,” she said to Johnny after cleaning, to which the troll just smiled, studying the two.

  “Johnny,” the boy said. “Johnny

  Washburn.”

  His last name rolled off the tip of his tongue, but up until that point he hadn’t known it. What else hadn’t he known yet? And what else could roll off the tip of his tongue?

  They shook hands and made eye contact. Yes - something about the girl was off as he looked into her sparkling, happy green eyes and she into his baby blue ones. What it was he didn’t know. Not yet.

  “You look like you need a shower boy,” the troll said, now looking up with reading glasses (he’d been reading that thick black bird book Johnny had seen on the table earlier). “I do,” the boy agreed, but that old rage was coming back again, and he couldn’t put his finger on why. “The shower is upstairs,” Jenny said, going over to him with a towel now. “Thank you!” Johnny said, then caught something in the trolls eyes he didn’t like but couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

  Any more than he could put his finger on what was wrong with the girl.

  Not yet anyways.

  But it will come back Johnny, a voice from somewhere in his head said to him. This was the voice that came to him often enough to keep his sanity in this world.

  It will come back, and you will learn to conquer it. Conquer all evil in this world.

  But was he evil as well? Not enough memories yet, but enough rage to tell him that yes, that was very possible.

  But first, a shower.

  Moving into the living room, he saw something there that intrigued him. Or rather, some things. One was a holy Bible, another was a book with lots of art on it. Demons battling angels and people in between, some of those monstrous high-chairs and other things in the background he couldn’t make out. All interwoven within each other to the point where making them all out individually was impossible.

  “Struggling With The Afterlife” was the title. The author was Marcus Rowen.

  Both the bible and the book brought back a flash of emotions in the boy.

  The bible - rage. The book - happiness and nostalgia. Both were on separate mini tables. Johnny went over to the bible and flipped through it. He remembered liking the Psalms, being inspired and terrified by the end of the world, eternal damnation and Jesus coming back and catching him with porn. Despite that, Revelation had fascinated him. But the rage he also felt he couldn’t quite pinpoint the why of it. Not yet.

  Johnny put the Bible down and picked up the book by Marcus Rowen. It was 635 pages, and a “series of books by the author,” according to the back. The author he went to see in the back, and when he did, a familiarity came over him.

  He’d known and met him at some point but couldn’t remember where. The man had pale white skin, jet black hair and black pupils that matched his almost wicked looking eyebrows. Almost, but despite the man’s “evil” look, there was also something there that was mysterious and a hidden happiness. A happiness the man had he knew the world couldn’t take away from him, even if it condemned him to hell for all eternity. A gift that was given to him through writing that brought him joy.

  Which was why the boy had connected with him so much in his past life.

  Marcus Rowen wasn’t his real name either. That was just a fake name he’d given out to the public.

  Johnny looked to the second page in the front.


  “To Johnny - hope you are one of the lucky ones who gets the prize! M.R.” It was signed. To him!

  Johnny looked on some of the pages in the back to the other books in the series. “Toilet talk” “Furniture Not Meant For Sitting,” “Shawn Franklin’s

  3rd Resurrection ” ,“ Walking Among

  The Robots,” “Facing The Night In

  Elsewhere,” “The Creepy Crawlers That Come Out,” “What Happened

  To Jenny?” “The Preacher,” “The Woman With The 1000 Tongues,”

  ...then it stopped there.

  Johnny looked farther in the back,but not too back.

  Marcus Rowen - June 3rd,1965 - August 5th, 2017. Marcus left behind a string of books but had died unexpectedly of a heart attack while writing the final book of the series . There were also others found in his attic later on.

  The whole point was - some were finished, some weren’t.

  Which left the mysteries of this world unfinished as well.

  So the world Marcus had wrote about in Johnny’s past life, he was now in. “Hope you’re one of the lucky ones,-

  Johnny.”

  What happened to Jenny?

  Fragments of Johnny’s life started processing back to him - but only fragments. The excitement of meeting his favorite writer and the rage of being taken to church by his hypocritical alcoholic stepfather, acting nice in public and playing “spider” with his hand, then being a total douche and drunk later on in the week.

  He was actually grateful all the memories didn’t come back at once; maybe they weren’t supposed to. For now, he needed a shower. The troll was studying him from the hallway with a mixture of amusement and understanding. Johnny saw he had what looked like documents in his hands. He figured most people that came to life here in coffins had records/documents given to the troll to update him on what their past life was like.

  Johnny at that moment was so curious, he practically wanted to beg for the troll to hand them to him. Yet did he? The memories that did come back to him while looking at just the two books on the table brought back flashes of memories he both loved, dreaded and hated all at once.