Struggling With the Afterlife

by Ronald Stanley Jr.

  Speak softly and carry a big stick, as a wise man once said. Only in this case, it was a ball.

  Johnny threw the ball on the wooden floor. It cracked and bounced into the darkness. The sinister voice of the woman inside the chair turned to a screech of terror and fear. Johnny saw the material rip open and feathers spurt out of it.

  You’re lucky those feathers aren’t blood, you cunt, he heard himself think.

  He’d learned this word mainly from his stepbrother, whom he looked up to. The nut doesn’t always fall far from the tree, he’d also thought. As if it heard him, the ball bounced back to him out of the darkness.

  Johnny squeezed it in his hand. The chair that sounded like a dog barked a high screech also, like a dog that has gotten its paw stepped on. The feathers on the old lady’s chair turned to blood. The blood spurted up onto the ceiling.

  A few minutes later, it covered the floor and started dripping on him from the ceiling.

  “Alright, that’s enough!” he heard himself say in the dream.

  In response, the old lady chair let out one last tired gasp, and Johnny heard what sounded like a heart (it had been there before but vague, now getting louder) suddenly stop. The chair fell over onto the floor with a loud

  THUMP!

  The dog retreated back into the darkness.

  Johnny turned and saw one that had come out of the shadows near him now, from behind.

  This one was blue quilted with golden tear drops. It had what looked like painted red eyes with black pupils, seeming to stare at him.

  It also made a growling noise, but this one didn’t retreat into the shadows or fall over dead like some of the others. Then, Johnny woke up. But not before the chair bit him in the dream and startled him out of his sleep.

  Johnny had woken up around 3am that morning. He’d fallen asleep with the book beside him. He was also covered in blood and something painful was on his right hand that felt like a bee sting only 10 times worse. He turned and saw a bite mark on him, five rows of cuts across. Immediately he went to the bathroom to wash it off, also careful his alcoholic asshole stepfather didn’t awake.

  The blood he was able to wash off with most success, but not all. He stepped into the shower to wash the rest. He took a mental note that if anyone caught him taking a shower - much less this time of morning - they would be alarmed.

  It was best to just say he met a pretty girl and wanted to make sure he was fresh for her today in case he woke up late.

  The cut .. the cut...

  The cut - he scratched himself out of frustration playing a video game. By the time he’d gotten out of the shower and dug through the First Aid kit in the cabinet, both the cut and blood were mostly taken care of. Everyone was asleep and no one had heard anything. By the time he went back to bed and woke up for school, looking around his room , it was as if nothing had ever happened.

  Then Johnny panicked. His ball was missing. Honeysuckle bug fuck, his fucking ball was missing!

  And who the fuck could he tell - as far as anyone knew, he didn’t have a ball. Or wasn’t supposed to. Who’d given it to him? What did it do? He suddenly felt the need to have his inhaler again.

  He retrieved it from his bureau before walking to school that day. He inhaled it when he saw the assholes he didn’t like gathered around. Fucking jocks that were big on sports that picked on kids like him that had asthma and were different. “Hey look - it’s asthma boy!” one of them called. Then they all chuckled. His name was Sam Winthrow. Johnny fucking hated the kid.

  They all laughed as he got out his inhaler and took another breath. They laughed at his glasses too, calling him 4 eyes.

  Jesus fuck, Johnny thought. Turning the other cheek has gone out of style despite the bullshit they teach at Sunday School.

  But I’m out numbered.

  Still, he didn’t care as Sam came up to him to taunt him once again.

  “Hey four eye-”

  Johnny punched him before he could finish with strength he didn’t know he had. The kid fell back 2 feet. The others looked on with a mixture of fear and respect all of a sudden. The bell rang for school to start. Johnny felt something in his left pocket.

  The ball. It was back.

  Johnny took off his glasses, casually wiping them off with his shirt before putting them back on. He then regarded Sam, who was now by himself. His friends had left him there, going towards the school. They wanted no part of Johnny. Not anymore.

  Something about him now..

  “I’m not done with you Sam,” Johnny said to a puzzled and frightened kid, who still was on the ground trying to get up from the fall. He tried, then fell again, then tried and finally got up. He then ran from Johnny towards the school.

  Johnny felt the ball in his left pocket. He took it out, holding it in his hand and regarding it for a bit.

  Then he was called by a teacher.

  He then put the ball back into his pocket and went to school.

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

  It was a Sunday, it was hours after church and Johnny was giggling with his stepbrother, sister and stepsisters. His stepfather took a fit and called them all in for making too much noise (and what the fuck were kids supposed to do at that age, sit around getting shit faced?).

  Johnny was the last one in as the asshole stared at all of them pissed. Johnny was just about to get in the house when his stepfather grabbed him and dragged him down the stairs.

  Johnny screamed and cried in horror.

  He remembered the goddamned Burger King shirt. He remembered the asshole screaming at him - something about him thinking that it was funny.

  Later on in life, the only thing funny, Johnny thought, was seeing that bastard dead.

  He couldn’t remember what happened that night - only that he was crying and scared and getting yelled at.

  Months later, he got pinned to the bed after kicking the stairs, being told he was a little brat.

  There were things he didn’t want to remember about that time in his life. Getting picked on and dealing with his asshole stepfather. He clung onto the good memories.

  Playing video games, catching bugs (and feeding some to spiders). Writing his own stories in the hope of being the next Marcus Rowen. And days out in the sunshine and rain alike - bouncing his wooden ball over and over again as it came back into his hand - in a parking lot, in his driveway, at a campground - wherever he felt peace.

  “I’m not done with you Sam,” he’d told the kid that had made his early years very shitty.

  After that incident, they still picked on him, but it was lighter and from a distance. They knew better - but they were still assholes.

  Something had to be done.

  Johnny would bounce the healing ball over and over in his driveway, thinking about Sam and all his goonies.

  One day, the blacktop cracked. Not a big crack, but big enough where he felt the power of the ball getting stronger.

  The dreams had gone away for the most part. They were filled with regular dreams (some of which were of a girl he did like - Nancy Fishwell). But the night the ball broke the driveway, they came back again. He was in that same dark room again with the dim lights and polished wooden floor. He vaguely saw the furniture, but it was there in the corner of his eye.

  Then up ahead, he saw curly yellow hair that looked almost fake. Whatever it stuck out from was much taller than himself - he guessed 30 feet taller. He saw an oval shape in the shadows - the head of the hair, but it was out of range to see what the beholder looked like.

  Then - a porcelain hand came out of the darkness holding something. The porcelain hand dropped something wooden on the floor that Johnny recognized at once. Johnny reached into his pocket in the dream. His inhaler wasn’t there, but the ball was. He took it out and threw it gently at the porcelain hand. It caught the ball in mid-air, then dr
opped it onto the floor with the many others that now dropped with it.

  Many balls hopped and rolled towards Johnny. They filled the floor, so much so that he couldn’t walk enough towards the porcelain giant to fully see what it looked like. All he knew was that it was huge. Of the many balls that came at him in the darkness, Johnny picked out the one that was his. He didn’t know how he knew it was his (a bible verse came to him briefly, something about a sheep knowing its masters name) but it rose up from the many into his hand from the others.

  Johnny caught it in his hand, staring at it. Then he looked ahead and stifled a scream.

  A dirty-blonde haired kid lying face down covered in blood was lying on top of fresh new balls that were rolling towards him out of the darkness. The porcelain beast was gone. In the distance, a loud horn blew. The horn was joined by many sad sounding violins playing in unison.

  Sad, yet sinister sounding as well. The body of the boy rolled with the balls towards Johnny. He didn’t see the face of the boy; it was turned down. But he knew who it was.

  Sam.

  The violins and horn got louder in the distance. Soon the sounds of them got closer as the body did. Soon they filled his eardrums as the body of the boy turned over.

  A giant hole was where the kid’s eyes, nose and mouth had been. Many of what looked like bees were eating away at what was left. But they were bright red and yellow colored and had many more segments and legs than your average bee.

  The creepy-crawlers, Johnny thought vaguely.

  As the creepy crawlers ate at what was left of his rivals face and the balls carried the carcass away, the violins and horn got louder and louder. Then, as the last of the balls carried the body away into the darkness, they started fading out.

  Johnny awoke with a scream. As he did, he saw his closet door shut. But not before a few of those balls rolled back into it.

  Frozen in fear, Johnny reluctantly went over to the closet.

  He opened the door after mustering his courage for a few minutes. Clothes greeted him. Clothes and coat hangers. That was it.

  Johnny closed the door, feeling relief now.

  Maybe it had all been a dream after all.

  But damn that felt real...

  He reached into his pocket. The inhaler was there. The ball wasn’t. As he played with his Animator at recess, he looked on that day with unease. Sam wasn’t here today. There were talks of him missing. His folks had even come into school asking if anyone had seen him.

  No - no one had. No one except Johnny, who had seen him get eaten alive by monstrous bugs in a dream.

  Does that count?

  Of course, Johnny never said that. But to answer his silent question, something tapped against his sneaker as he was playing with his Animator and looking on at the worried nerds and jocks alike.

  Johnny looked down. His wooden ball was lying beside his sneaker. He stifled a silent scream as he saw it was covered in dried blood.

  He quickly put it in his left pocket. Then thought better of it and threw it into the woods.

  It would be back. He knew.

  It was.

  That night, he was about to slip away into sleep. He heard the violins, seemingly in the distance, then getting closer. From somewhere far off, he heard the sound of water running. The cut that had once healed months ago now throbbed in his skin. A loud CRACK startled him from his sleep. It was a series of cracks, the first one loud - very loud - then got less and less audible as whatever it was bounced over to his bed side.

  The ball.

  Johnny got out of bed, going over to it. It was just covered with dried blood just 12 hours ago. But now, gleaming in the moonlight, it was clean and well- polished. Johnny looked ahead and saw the closet door, half a crack open, closing on him.

  He went back over to it. Opened it. Nothing - nothing but clothes and coat hangers. But he knew better.

  He went back and grabbed the shiny ball and put it into his left pocket. He went back to bed. No bad dreams. Life had gone on normally for years after that - save for days later when they found Sam’s body mutilated in the woods and the hunt for a serial killer started for years to come. A serial killer that awaits people in bathroom stalls and brutally murders them, one made of porcelain , quilt and barbed wire.

  A serial killer that Johnny had unknowingly summoned into this world using his ball.

  At some point, he’d even lost the ball and stopped giving a fuck.

  All he gave a fuck about for years to come was getting laid and playing his Nintendo.

  It wasn’t until years later that the ball returned into his life.

  And with it, the loud horn and violins...

  Chapter 3

  Church

  “Time for church, boy!” the troll said gleefully to the boy as he came down the stairs. Johnny saw he had that thick black book with the bird in the center with the 2 semi - circles on the top and bottom. Replacing what would have been a bible for most (though they didn’t need one; there were many in the pews. Johnny wondered if the same was for whatever “church” this was as well). He also wondered if his 3 -piece suit, polished up glasses and cologne the troll had actually found for him from his past life could hide the rage he felt.

  Probably fucking not.

  Any more than when the memory came back to him suddenly as he headed downstairs for breakfast and saw the wheelchair again that he remembered why it brought him an ugly feeling or two when he’d first saw it.

  It was because his stepfather threw him down the stairs that same year, having him end up in a wheelchair. They both had silently agreed to lie about it. Thomas had tried to make up for it later on by giving him tickets to wrestling events (he was actually cheering on the heel King

  Kong Bundy and had been disappointed when he’d lost to Hogan at Wrestlemania 2). But the tickets didn’t help any more than everyone turning a blind eye to why he’d gotten in the chair in the first place. And the best therapy that year had been tossing his ball against the concrete and catching it in mid-air every time as it always came back to him. The doctor had said his recovery had been quicker than he’d expected.

  Much quicker.

  One day, I will kill you, Johnny had thought as they ate dinner at McDonald’s and Thomas played the Good Stepfather in front of his church buddies.

  I can’t ever hope you’ll choke on a McWhopper, so one day when I get bigger, I will fucking kill you.

  That same day, he remembered going into the bathroom. One of the stalls had an awful smell to it. Suddenly, a large puddle of feces came pouring out of it. A moment later and the feces turned to blood. The blood and brown puddle made its way over to Johnny. Then he a mass of yellow hair that looked like a mop come down and spread across the floor with it. Now it didn’t remind him of a mop at all, but lively yellow snakes.

  He heard the horn again like he had in his dreams. They were coming from what sounded like a speaker in the stall. Then a kid’s screaming voice - it was Sam’s. He was being tortured, and a moment later the sound of angry bees getting louder and louder until they were the only thing’s audible above all else.

  Then, just as quickly as they had come, the yellow strands of hair seemingly got sucked back into the stall with a SWOOSH - ing sound as the feces and blood disappeared into a nearby drain just feet away from Johnny. The angry bees, violin and screams faded out also.

  But curiosity had gotten the best of the boy in the wheelchair.

  He strolled over and looked into the stall.

  All clean and normal, save for the yellow mop - like strands of hair on the tiled wall above the toilet, giving it a lively look. Painted below the hair and above the toilet were cartoon eyes.

  Written in chalk above the hair were the words: The Porcelain Beast Is Alive And Well On Planet Earth! This made him think of a similar book he’d seen at a local bookstore, only about
the Devil. Both were similar, Johnny thought.

  Then, he had to take a shit. So bad at that moment he didn’t care what was alive on planet earth or what had just come out of the stall. Fatigue and having to take a shit make cowards of us all.

  He’d wheeled himself out feeling lighter that day, going back to his fake half - assed stepdad with his fake half - assed friends.

  And had a fake half - assed happy meal and wished the bastard had choked on his Whopper. No such luck that day, Johnny thought as he looked at the folded-up wheelchair lying in the corner of the trolls house.

  Jenny had cooked them a delicious breakfast, consisting of giant bacon ,sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches with lightly toasted English Croissants . With these, instead of the rainbow flavored drinks, there was the fresh aroma of coffee! It didn’t JUST fill his nostrils and perk him up when he drank it; it filled his head with actual GOOD memories instead of the ones he’d wanted to flush down the toilet.

  Memories of going on dates with cute girls as a teenager and young adult. Drink coffee, get laid , he thought with a chuckle.

  Memories of drinking coffee and reading his favorite books, or going to one of his favorite movies, or just sitting at Dunkin’ D’s and being left the fuck alone.

  Just about every good memory he’d had in his past life that came back to him in a flash, consisted of a hot or iced coffee with it.

  Johnny smiled as he drank this one. It was almond roasted; he could already tell.

  After drinking it, he now thought that yes, he was ready for whatever Church this world had for one, as brutal and shitty as it may be. He felt more strength return to him now. Felt his clothes once again getting tighter, to the point where it was starting to rip in some places. From the corner of his eye, he saw that the troll also saw this and was frightened a bit.

  “Let’s go boy!” Picklenose said. “You ate and drank well - 10 minutes til church time! I’ll meet you out in the car!”

  Johnny then watched the troll hurry excitedly out the front door keys in hand.