Struggling With the Afterlife

by Ronald Stanley Jr.

  Once in a while, he’d get a preacher talking about end times. Others, the robots rehearsing their favorite bible verses as they trotted on the nearby beach.

  “The Pirates Of Armageddon draw near,” they would often say after reciting a psalm from the Bible.

  “Keep watch - the Pirates of Armageddon draw near!”

  Johnny turned the knob back and forth, trying to get some decent station that may hold his interest. The old fashioned tv in the room didn’t work at all; just static and not one channel. Maybe it was supposed to be that way, he thought.

  Or maybe he just needed a new tv.

  Maybe the troll didn’t like tv, or.. “I’m back, boy,” an old familiar voice said to him from the old-fashioned radio.

  Johnny jumped back. But he wasn’t totally surprised. He grabbed his shotgun and reloaded it.

  “I’m waiting for you, Picklenose!” he said back to the radio.

  The troll chuckled.

  “I hope so,” the raspy Winnie The Pooh voice said to him. ”Because -I’m not coming a lone, boy.”

  Johnny stepped back a bit, musing at this. What did the troll mean by that?

  Then, another chuckle. One that made his arms tingle. It was his ex-wife. His ex from his past life, Tara. “Hi Johnny!” she said in a taunting way, then chuckled with the troll. Then, another chuckle joined the trio. It was his “best friend” that cheated on his wife with him in his past life.

  All 3 were back from the dead. In this world, things like that weren’t just possible; they were expected.

  Johnny’s hand balled into a fist. They all started laughing at him from the other side of the radio.

  Johnny took the radio and ripped it from its chord. With all his might he smashed it on the quilted rug in the center of the room. He kicked and stomped it into as many little pieces as he could, cursing a hurl of obscenities as he did so.

  “Fuckin’ slut, fuckin’ dick!” he bellowed, stomping more pieces into smaller ones.

  “Are you okay Johnny?” he heard Jenny say from behind him. Johnny sighed. Then he turned towards Jenny, wiping his glasses on his shirt, polishing them, then putting them back on his face.

  “I was - just moments ago - before hearing my ex and ‘best friend’ that betrayed me on the other side of the radio,” he said, his fist clenching, then unclenching. “Supposedly, they’re coming back as well.”

  He then grabbed the shotgun and put it in front of his face. ”I will be ready.” Jenny smiled at this, holding her right hand to her upper lip.

  “Johnny - calm down!” she said. She went over to him, putting her right hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down.

  She had grown too, he saw, in the short time he had spent here. She had gone from the cute, innocent mechanical girl to a grown woman - who she had been in her past life also, he’d guessed, before..

  Before what? He’d wondered. All he did know was she was a little bit less mechanical and a little bit - well, a lot bit bang-able now.

  “We can’t let them fuck up our future together” he said to her, going over to her. “Not in this life either. Whatever happened to you - to us-”

  “I was murdered,” she said to him.

  “I was murdered by a porcelain beast posing as my date.”

  Johnny went over to her and they kissed and embraced. That night, both boy and girl had matured into man and woman. They went upstairs to Johnny’s room (before each had separate rooms and would say good night before heading to bed) and made love.

  As he caressed her naked body, he felt or saw no signs of the mechanical robot she once was.

  They would make it in this world. They would conquer the beasts of the water - they would conquer the trolls that tried to ruin them.

  “Are you ready for the end?” he said to her after they put back on their clothes.

  She gave him a smile.

  “Johnny,” she said. “Don’t think of the end. Think of the new beginning. Let’s go find our new house.”

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

  They held hands and walked the darkened streets together. Johnny held the shotgun in his hand. He’d gotten some extra rounds of bullets from the trolls shed. He had a feeling he might need them. One can never be too careful in this place.

  He was right.

  One jealous Sad Clown approached them. The couple both saw the envy in those sad eyes; it wasn’t every day in this world that anyone felt that kind of love for each other (or got it). It gritted its teeth at Jenny, and as it did so, its belly expanded. It’s teeth were made of shiny porcelain, Johnny saw.

  Before the macabre clown had a chance to touch his girlfriend, he blew it’s face and porcelain teeth to smithereens.

  As he did, black blood oozed out of it as it hit the concrete ground. But then both gasped at what else they saw ooze from its body.

  More of those shiny gold coins the troll had given him that time came flying out of what once was the clown’s stomach as it burst from Johnny’s shotgun.

  About 100 of them if not more now littered the concrete.

  Johnny and Sarah smiled and looked at each other. They then burst into laughter and bent down, greedily picking up the gold coins from the ground and putting them in their pockets. They then kissed and moved on.

  By the time they got to their destination, Johnny had blown to bits 2 more clowns , 3 giant porcelain beasts(Jenny shrieking at the tongues as they withered on the ground like snakes, and Johnny hugging her tightly each time)and 2 gurgling high chairs that called both of their names with obscenities.

  By the time they found their dream house, they had well over 2000 of those shiny coins.

  “How will we know where to find it?” Jenny asked him at some point. He then held her hand and walked onward. Then looked at her.

  “Do you feel it?” he asked her. She paused. Then, after a minute or so:” Yes! It’s like a pull of energy leading us both when we are together.” “Exactly!” he said. “It’s when we are together, holding hands and focus. We can both feel it. Up a couple blocks from here and to the left, that’s what I feel.” “Me too,” she said.

  As the smell of sea salt filled both of their nostrils, they had time to think if maybe the robots walking along the beach were giving them directions subliminally.

  They mused at them, some big, some smaller - their heads shaped like a giant typewriter, only with bible verses going along in glowing letters in the front made up of peg-like parts.

  Johnny thought of a toy he used to have as a kid. It was Glow Light where you’d put different glowing parts to form words and pictures that lid up at night. That’s what their heads reminded him of.

  Their arms were mechanical, going up to their typewriter shaped heads and turning their round “ears” to produce different bible verses. Their feet were duck-like and they trotted likewise.

  But I wouldn’t want to piss one of these things off, Johnny thought. The thought of one of them coming after them frightened him, even though he had the shotgun and had taken many porcelain giants out with it.

  Harmless though, he thought as he observed them walking along the beach, yelling bible verses mechanically, trotting along like ducks. Then, a seagull came a little too near one of them. It stopped chanting its bible verse (one from Revelation he was vaguely familiar with from his past). It’s torso, which seemed to be made of steel, opened a slot inside. Its mechanical arm reached in and grabbed a giant fire extinguisher. It sprayed at the seagull, who dodged the robot, flew up and shit a big wad of white onto its head.

  “Asshole! Asshole!” the robot chanted, trying and failing miserably to spray the bird as it flew off.

  Johnny and Sarah laughed in unison. “So much for today’s favorite bible verse,” Johnny said, to which she giggled again.

  The robot put the giant fire extinguisher back in the slot o
f its steel torso.

  Up ahead past the robots looked like an abandoned carnival. There was what looked like an abandoned McDonalds and a giant Ferris wheel beside it.

  To the right of them was a giant 2 story shack with rusty windows, some with windows that had been smashed in with rocks. Through some of the windows on the first floor, both could see it was a giant bathroom stall. White hexagon tiles made up the floor. There were giant sink’s (one, Johnny saw with horror, seemed to have a rottweilers head in it).

  Different colored toilets were attached to the walls of the shack. Each were huge, had the cartoon eyes and fake hair on top of them. Some looked friendly, but others looked downright scary.

  One brown one seemed to be dead staring right at them from inside (and probably was, Johnny thought, gripping his shotgun tightly).

  They made their way past the abandoned carnival and shack (they would explore it later; it was getting dark and they wanted to find their house before sunset).

  They took a left on an old abandoned street. Tracy Road, the sign said. “That’s it!” Johnny said excitedly, pointing to a giant golden toilet sticking out like a sore thumb on the road of broken pavement and concrete.

  The couple hurriedly walked towards it.

  As they approached the shiny golden porcelain toilet, they saw their house. It was huge - a golden painted house that seemed to shine in the approaching darkness.

  The door in front had bolts on it.

  Both knew when they saw what must be done without having to say it. Jenny and Johnny both got all of their bright golden shiny coins from out of their pockets and put them in the giant golden mouth of the porcelain toilet.

  CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! with a SHLING! noise, every once in a while as the greedy mouth swallowed up the coins.

  Both Jenny and Johnny’s hearts were beating fast as they neared the last of the coins they’d collected.

  There was one last SHLANG! as the last of the coins was dispatched into the golden porcelain toilet’s greedy mouth. It swallowed it up, and both could see it actually breathing in, almost as if it wanted more.

  And maybe it did.

  Both Jenny and Johnny stood there for what seemed like an eternity. A breeze from the ocean came in, blowing their hair gently. Somewhere, a robot chanted a verse from Genesis about Adam and Eve.

  Then, another robot chanted aloud the familiar John 3:16 verse. The robot’s verse faded in the distance. Darkness was settling. Both Johnny and Jenny looked at each other.

  “Should we go back?” Jenny asked. Johnny was just about to answer, when a loud SHLING! was heard coming from the giant golden porcelain toilet’s mouth.

  Both heard a loud BANG! From the door, the padlocks bolted open and the chains fell to the ground. Johnny gave his girlfriend a look. “Fuck no! Let’s go inside our new home!”

  Jenny smoothed her hand over one of the white picket fences aligning alongside their new home. In that moment his lover seemed more human and like the person she was before the shit hit the fan than ever. Johnny smiled at this, she looked and smiled back, and they kissed. From somewhere far away there was the crashing of waves and more robots shouting their favorite bible verses.

  Even in this world, there’s balance, Johnny thought as he made his way towards his new home. He stepped over the broken chains and padlocks and turned the knob. As he did so, he thought of the day he visited his favorite writer. This house was very similar - if not, built exactly the same, only in different places. As the thought came to him like the smell of fried dough on a saltwater day, he heard the same upbeat music that he’d heard the day he’d met Marcus again.

  Then he opened the door and lo and behold, Marcus was there to greet them.

  “Holy honeysuckle bug fuck horse shit, I knew I should have expected this!” Johnny said excitedly, going over with his girlfriend and shaking the man’s hand.

  Jenny blushed as well.

  “I remember my brother being so excited to get an autograph in ... in my past life,” Jenny said to him. The words sounded weird rolling off her tongue, but not to Marcus, who smiled and shook her hand as well. He was wearing the same red linen suit and tie he’d been on the day Johnny met him before. It felt like de ja - vu, the only difference this time was that it was their house. “Oh, good to hear!” Marcus said to Jenny. “Maybe he’s still around, wanting another one!” They both chuckled at this, Jenny wondering if her brother really might be in this world somewhere. Hopefully in better spirits; he’d hung himself in his room after his high school sweetheart broke up with him in his 20’s. If his high school sweetheart was here as well, she’d kill her in this life too.

  Honeysuckle bug fuck, she surely would.

  “Let me show you around your new home!” Marcus said excitedly. Everything was clean and well-polished. Johnny knew his lover would keep it that way, while he would protect them from any lurking danger (like trolls and exes from the past, for example).

  There were even new polished guns in one of the closet’s (a Glock and shotgun with many rounds of ammunition and shells; guess Marcus knew Johnny might be needing them). The house had two stories in all, nicely polished marble toilets (one room was a giant stall with all friendly toilets, neatly polished with golden tiles. It also had some polished bathtubs with cartoonish eyes on them, none in bad spirits).

  The furniture was also new and clean - a quilted one here and there, but most simply red, blue or gold. Johnny counted a spare room downstairs,4 normal bathrooms, a living and dining room and 8 bedrooms.

  Not quite a mansion, but pretty close. It was more than enough to keep them both happy, the bullets more than enough to protect them from the monsters of this world.

  The only thing missing was the writing room that Marcus had had in his house. Yet that room wasn’t necessary for Johnny; that was Marcus’s job. To write and rewrite balance in this world. Johnny wasn’t sure if the Writer had everything to do with it, but he was sure he played a part.

  As if in response to this, Marcus excused himself after showing the couple around.

  “There is plenty of food in the refrigerator. You both should be hungry by now,” he exclaimed. As if in response to this, Johnny’s stomach growled.

  “Yes!” both said in unison.

  “Well then - enjoy the sights, but always keep guard -as you well know. I am off to write another book - Restoring Balance. Had this one been published in your other world the critics and fans would probably have come down on me for turning into a softie. It’s actually a positive book that has a good ending, unlike some of my other books.”

  Johnny and Jenny gave each other a look and smile at this, then smiled at Marcus, who smiled back and shook their hands one by one once again before heading off.

  “Stop by sometime!” he called to the couple. They both waved back, saying they would. They then closed the door, hugging and kissing each other. Then they flew into the kitchen, grabbing plenty of food and Jenny cooking them a nice baked ham, turkey and vegetables. There was also plenty of coffee (Dunkin’ Donuts! both saw - in a Keurig pod multi supply, the Keurig maker in the cupboard as well).

  They ate, drank, danced to music and made love that night.

  It was one of the many, many normal and good nights the couple would share for some time to come in this scary world. Johnny at times completely forgot he’d been a serial killer in his past life. Jenny at times completely forgot she’d been tortured and killed by one.

  Restoring Balance. That was the goal. “Get your groove on!” Johnny would yell at night, shaking his tush and dancing with his now pregnant girlfriend.

  Get your groove on they did.

  Chapter 9

  Billy

  Little kids and suicides never made the paper. But at 12, Billy Henchwick had taken his life, overdosing on his mother’s sleeping pills before going to bed on a school night.

  He�
��d done so when his mother died in a car accident and he would have to spend the rest of his miserable life with his asshole stepfather if he were to live.

  No more X-Box, Facebook or the hope of losing his virginity to a girl he liked, Helen Mansfield. But no more dealing with asshole either. Had he had more time to think, he would of chose to stick around longer just to jerk off over Helen at least one last time.

  Not only that, but if he had lived another day, he would have found out his rich grandmother would of taken him in and he could play all the X-Box he wanted to and inherit her house when she passed on. But the pills took over, and here he was, brushing and flossing giant toilets in a run-down shack on a daily basis.

  Like a bee when it’s first born and knows right what to do, so did he when he woke up in this world having to take a shit and seeing the giant bristled brush at the same time leaning up against the wooden wall of his room.

  He went to take a shit, grabbed some food in the fridge downstairs, made himself a sandwich, had some fruit punch from the refrigerator, then went back up the stairs, grabbed the bristled brush and headed to the stall he’d seen across the street from his room/ window. Just like that - he’d known what to do and what was expected of him, though he couldn’t explain how. All he did know was that yes - this world gave him the fucking creeps. Yes, the robots trotting along the beach shouting bible verses that he’d heard a million fucking times in his past life drove him nuts. But at least he was a live and his asshole stepfather wasn’t around to abuse him and his mother.

  Plus, every time he’d clean one of these giant shitters, they’d spit out a shiny coin with a bird flying mid-air in the center with 2 semi circles. They were different colors (some gold, some blue, some purple) but it felt like among the shit in this world, he was in a Mario game getting ahead on points somehow. He would put them in his bureau on the top shelf (the bottom shelfs would have new clothes folded for him every time he woke up).

  Most of the giant toilets (and later on, on the top floor, giant bathtubs) Billy didn’t mind washing. But there were a few that freaked him out. One was a dark brown with curly black hair and mean looking eyes (unlike the cartoony eyes of most). The sponge cake for its nose was a dark brown as well and snorted out this yellow puss every time he came close to it. Kind of like it had the flu but was also flushing out it’s coke habit at the same time.