After Ever (11 page)

I turn the door handle, but it holds firm, the sleek metal unyielding. Weird. I try pulling up. Nothing. I turn my shoulder into the door and push. Nada. Glancing at Sam over my shoulder, I say, “Why is this door locked?”

He drops his head on his arm and looks at me sideways. “Because I haven’t explained the rules yet. It’s like a big puzzle. Or a video game. You have played video games, right?”

I cross my arms and lean against the door. “Yes,” I tell him, not liking his snide tone one bit. “I have played video games. What’s your point?”

“So this place is like a video game, only bigger. Life size. There are levels you have to get through. Within each level there are certain steps that have to be completed. Just like in a video game. Complete enough steps and you unlock the next level. Unlock all the levels and you win.”

“Win what? Money? A cruise? A lifetime supply of candy bars?” I would have kept going, but Sam’s eyes have gone all sad again. Crap. Being mean to Sam is like kicking a puppy. If the puppy was three legged and starving.

Feeling like a jerk, I walk back over to him and perch on a desk upwind of my lovely vomit. “Sorry,” I mutter, looking down at the carpet.

“It’s fine,” he says, but I can tell it is anything
but
fine. Great. I’ve finally worn him down with my bitchy attitude, just like I do with everyone else, and in record time too.

“Just… explain whatever you can. I’ll try not to interrupt.” It’s the best I can do.

Sam’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Well, you already know that you’re dead,” he begins after a long pause, as if testing to see if I’ll stay true to my word.

I draw in a deep breath and nod. Yes, my death has been established. Death by drowning. I didn’t exactly go out in a blaze of glory, but that’s something I’ll have to come to terms with later.  

“That’s the first step,” he says, sitting up straighter as he warms to his topic. “Acceptance. Sometimes it takes people a day, a week, a month. You caught on pretty quick, though. Maybe even set a new record something.”

Records are nice. The only thing I’ve ever set a record in before now is the one hundred meter dash in gym and that’s only because my competition was Rebecca, the fat girl with asthma and Ricky, the kid who had to walk with a cane.

“I told you the number one rule,” Sam continues. “You can’t change the lives of the living. That’s really important, okay? No matter what. You can’t interfere. With anyone.”

“You interfered with me,” I point out.

“I did not interfere, I
introduced
,” he says, like there is a big difference. “They found out it helps people get pass the acceptance phase a lot easier if they see a familiar face when they cross over. That’s why the whole guide system was established. Kind of like a big brother, big sister kind of thing.”

“What about the levels?” I interrupt again. I know I’m breaking my promise, but I can’t help myself. The questions are just bubbling out, one after the other. There is no way I can hold them back. “What do I have to do to pass them? And who are ‘they’? Like angels or something? Are we ghosts? Can people see us? How do we get out of here?”

Sam straightens in his chair. He blinks twice at me, starts to say something, changes his mind. Shakes his head. “Is there something
wrong
with you?”

“Besides being dead?”

“Ha ha,” he grumbles. “Very funny. To answer your first question, there are five levels in the After. And just so you’re clear, that’s what we call it here. Not Heaven, not Hell, nor Nirvana or Elysium or Valhalla or whatever else you’ve heard it called. Just the After. And before you ask why I don’t know why, okay?”

My mouth snaps shut. Sam smiles thinly.

“Unless you’re some kind of saint, which, let’s face it, you’re not, you start off at Level One.”

“What level are you on?”

“Two,” he says smugly.

“You’ve been dead for seven years and you’re on Level
Two
?”

“Time works differently here.” His shoulders hunch defensively. “It passes much more slowly. A day here is almost a–”

Whatever he was about to say is drowned out by the long, low tolling of a bell. I ignore it, but Sam leaps to his feet like his jeans have caught on fire.

“We have to go,” he says. 

I cock my head to the side. “Huh? You said like five minutes ago the door is locked. You can’t be done explaining the rules. You barely told me anything.”

“I’ll explain the rest later. Come on.” Sam grabs my arm in one hand and a chair in the other. Left with little choice, I let him haul me to the back of the classroom. We stop in front of the large sliding glass door. Through the glass I can see the soccer fields, and beyond them the woods that flank the entire school.

“Stand back,” Sam warns. He raises the chair high above his head, his jaw clenched with determination.

“Wait!”

The chair drops a few inches. Sam’s eyes flash. “What now?”

“Maybe this door isn’t locked.” I dash forward, tug at the wooden door handle with one hand, then two. Well, don’t I feel stupid. “Uh, yeah. Definitely locked.”

Something starts to pound against the front door of the classroom. It sounds heavy, heavier than a human fist. Heavier than
ten
humans fists. Eyes wide, I spin back towards Sam. “What
is
that?”

“You don’t want to find out,” he says grimly. He raises the chair over his head again. I duck behind a desk and cover my face, anticipating shards of glass flying everywhere. With a half grunt, half warrior yell Sam throws the chair at the glass door with all his might. A sharp cracking rips through the air, not unlike the sound of ice breaking. The chair bounces back towards us and hits Sam in the shins. He goes down in a tangle of chairs and desks, cursing and flailing. Unharmed, I pop back up to inspect the damage.

A large crack has splintered across the upper left hand corner, but the glass remains intact. I roll my eyes towards Sam. “Nice work, Hulk.”

“Shut up,” he mutters as he finally manages to haul himself back to his feet.

Behind us the pounding on the front door has intensified to an earth shattering level. I know it must be my imagination, but it seems as if the wall itself is beginning to shake. Sam and I exchange equally nervous glances, which I take to be a very bad sign. I have a right to be scared – for multiple of reasons, the least being some unknown monster that is trying to break into the classroom – but Sam? He’s been dead for seven years. He should have the routine down and the fact that he is visibly terrified of whatever is trying to get in the room is not exactly reassuring.

“You throw like a girl. Out of my way,” I demand as I head for the front of the classroom, jumping over Sam’s mess of fallen chairs and tipped over desks as I go. The guy really is a klutz. It’s no wonder he died running into a tree. 

“I throw like a girl? You are a girl!” Sam yells.

I ignore him.

The TV cart is heavier than I anticipated. Gritting my teeth, I manage to turn it sideways and find a clear path to the sliding door. The remote goes flying off the top of the VCR as I break into a run.

Sam dives to the side, his eyes wide in disbelief. I charge past him, pushing the cart in front of me like a battering ram. I think I yell something really cool, like ‘hiiiiiyyyaaaaaa!’ but I can’t hear my own voice over the roaring in my ears and the pounding at the door.

The cart crashes through the glass door and topples over the edge of the concrete slab outside, nearly taking me down with it. I catch myself just in time and, arms wind milling wildly, manage to stay on the slab. Sam appears in the open doorway, his mouth gaping open.

“Holy
shit
.”

“Holy shit,” I agree breathlessly.

“You just… The TV… and the glass… You just… Wow.”

I curl my fingers around my hips and rock back on my heels. “Let that be a lesson to you, oh wise guide. I may be a girl but I throw like a boy.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Come on, we have to get out of here before–”

Dust, brick, and wood flies everywhere. The force of the explosion sends me flying back off the slab. I land hard on the ground and scramble to my feet as Sam jumps down next to me.

“—that happens,” he finishes.

“What
was
that?”

“No time to explain. Win, we have to run. NOW!” Sam grabs my wrist and pulls me after him.

Together we head for the woods.

CHAPTER NINE

Gasping, I pull up short inside a thick cluster of trees. To my left the earth drops sharply away to form a deep ravine. A shallow stream trickles along the bottom, the same stream we have been following for the past however many miles.

Equally exhausted Sam drops to his knees beside me and rolls to his back to lay spread eagled on a carpet of leaves. “Ugh,” he groans.

“I have a side stitch,” I complain, doubling over and holding my waist. “How can I be dead and have a side stitch?”

The hint of a smile flirts with one side of Sam’s mouth. “Your body is still the same as it was before you decided to go for a dip in the lake. Better, actually, seeing as you’re not all blue and frozen.”  

“You’re hilarious.” I use sarcasm to hide the chill that races through me. I don’t want to think of what my body looked like after I died.

 Drifting through the lake, my eyes open and unseeing. My skin slowly draining of all color. My limbs stiffening and locking into place. Will they even be able to find me with all the ice? Will I sink or float? Are there fish in the lake? Fish that will nip at my flesh and feast on my eyeballs? With a shudder I dispel that
lovely
image from my mind and try to concentrate on Sam who is still talking, oblivious to my temporary brain paralysis.

“…your scars disappear and your –”

“Start over,” I interrupt.

“What?”

“Start over. I can’t hear you. You’re mumbling.”

Propping himself up on one elbow, Sam shoots me a narrow eyed glare. “I wasn’t mumbling. You’re not paying attention. This stuff is very important and if you’re not going to pay attention then–”

“Save the lecture, okay Dad?”

“You’re kind of a jerk. You know that, right?”

“Just start over,” I say between my teeth.

Sam sighs, long and low, but because he is a nice guy and not a jerk like me, he complies. “Like I’ve said
twice
already, there are five levels in the After. I already told you that you’re a Level One. As a Level One you enter the After with the body you died in, minus any physical ailments or deformities. Did you have any scars?”

Automatically I look down at my left middle finger. Right above my knuckle there used to be a little wiggle line of raised skin from where my finger got pinched in a door when I was a kid. Now the skin is smooth, the finger perfect. “That’s crazy,” I breathe in disbelief. Bending down, I shove my finger in Sam’s face. “Look! There used to be a mark there.”

He bats my hand away. “Besides any scars going poof or any limps vanishing you stay pretty much the same. Your age. Your looks. Your hair. Tattoos. Any ugly piercings you may have given yourself.”

I manage to swallow my sharp retort and sit cross legged on the ground next to him. My hands burrow in the leaves to the fresh earth beneath. We’re deep in the woods now, further than I’ve ever been before. The soccer fields and the school are far behind us, as well as – hopefully – the mysterious thing that managed to break down an entire wall.

“If my body is the same then why can’t I feel pain?” I ask.

Sam reaches up to the bridge of his nose and adjusts his glasses. “You can feel pain, just not in the same way as you did before. It holds you back more than it hurts. Little things won’t matter anymore. Paper cuts. Splinters. Twisted ankles. You’ll still feed the big stuff, though. Broken bones. Knife wounds. You know.”

Broken Bones?
Knife
Wounds?! Sam says it so matter-of-factly I get the impression he’s talking from personal experience.

I never gave a lot of serious thought to what would happen when I died, but I did have a vague idea of singing angels and floating clouds and endless amounts of ice cream. Guides and pain and levels never much factored into the equation. It’s kind of a big let down.

“And my side cramp?” I ask. “What was that about? I mean, I still got tired from running, the same as I would have before. You got tired too.” I definitely did not miss the way Sam huffed and puffed his way through the last few minutes of our desperate sprint through the woods.

“The limitations of our bodies are still the same as they were before.” Sam folds his arms under his head and stares up through the trees. “We have to sleep when we get tired. Eat when we’re hungry. Drink when we’re thirsty. Go to the bathroom when… well, you know.”

I play with the dirt, scooping it up in my hands and letting it run through my fingers. “Then what’s the point?” I ask finally when my mind has had time to wrap itself around the idea of everything being the same in death as it was in life. No harps. No singing angels. No fountains of soda. No nothing. 

“The point?”

“The point of being dead. If everything is the same as when you were alive, then why come back at all? Why not just rot away in some hole in the ground?”

Sam tips his head to the side to look at me with an expression that can only be described as condescending. “Your
body
will rot in some hole in the ground, but not your soul. Your soul is here and now. It is everlasting. Souls cannot be made, or destroyed. When your physical body can no longer host them, you wind up in the After, the only place where you soul can exist outside of your physical body.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense. If souls can’t be made, then how was I even born?” I took an elective on theory once my sophomore year of high school. It was a lot like this. Souls and death and creation and what happens after you die and what not. It sounded like a bunch of crap then and it sounds just the same now. After all, how can any one living know what happens when you die? The simple answer is they can’t. It’s impossible. So why try to theorize? Why speculate?