This is Your Afterlife (5 page)

I glance outside as spring rain beats down on the shingle roof. The bleakness outside matches the mood that settles over me. I've never heard a bad word against Jimmy. His broad appeal and friendly nature attracted all kinds. So did he slip? Go for a swim and hit his head accidentally?

Or did Jimmy Hawkins, depressed by a career-ending injury, kill himself?

“I wish I knew what the hell happened to me,” he says.

I try to pat his shoulder. Instead of whooshing right through his “body,” my hand hits a kind of barrier. It isn't so solid that I can't penetrate it, but there's a definite change in the air where Jimmy's physical body would be if he had one. My fingers tingle and chill. Grandie believed all objects—even the inanimate ones—have a life force, an energy field. Maybe this is what I've struck.

“Me, too, Jimmy,” I say in a soft voice. “Why are you still here, anyway? As in, in my room. Can't you go anywhere else? Have you seen
the
Light?”

“No light.” His expression flickers. “You said I didn't need a car, so I…I concentrated real hard on going home. You know, if I focused on my house, I'd magically end up there.”

“Did it work?”

He shakes his head. “Everything went dark. I felt like I was getting sucked down a waterslide.”

I gulp. “Down?”

“I had to claw my way back here. It was like playing ball on a muddy field, you know? Hard to make any gains. The ground was slippery. Cold.”

The way he talks, it's almost like he's a sports commentator watching a game. Kind of detached. Only his clenched jaw shows me a hint of emotion. That bit of vulnerability drives a stake through my heart.

“I want to do something normal today. Something to make me feel like I'm alive for a little bit longer.”

To me, he
is
alive. I glance at the schoolbooks on my desk. They were in a neat stack before I fell asleep—Jimmy must have bumped them. What could be more normal than going to school?

“I have a history midterm this morning. Does that sound like…fun?” Last night seemed to span an eternity. The facts and figures I'd crammed prior to Jimmy's arrival are being held hostage by my neurotransmitters. I don't remember a thing.

He brightens a little.

“And you know what? We'll leave as soon as I get dressed, then drop by your house and see if Dan's there.”

“Appreciate it.” He brightens even more. Glows. “Can I watch you get dressed, too?”

I throw a pillow at him.

Through him.

School is a weird place at the best of times. It's even stranger when you've got a ghost in tow.

For the first five minutes, Jimmy completely forgets that he's dead. His team buddies Tony Hoffman and Josh Lyons walk through him. They don't say boo. Possibly because they're not as sensitive to his energy field as I've come to be. I cringe at the dismay scrawled all over Jimmy's face. When a bunch of linebackers ignores his “Hey, guys,” my heart pings.

I fumble with my locker combination. Jimmy's backed up against the wall next to me, his body all tight like he's trying to make himself as small as possible. We'd gone to his house, only to find it empty.

“We shouldn't have come here,” he says, eyes dark. “You didn't tell me how depressing it was gonna be.”

“Of course it's depressing. It's school.”

“You're telling me,” replies someone other than Jimmy.

I jump as the scratched blue locker door beside me slams shut. It belongs to a blonde senior who happens to be one half of the school's golden couple.

Jimmy's girlfriend.

“Aimee!” Jimmy shoots past me. He stops short of holding her, or even touching her. “Shit, I...I just remembered something.”

“What?” I say out loud. Instantly, I clamp my lips shut.

“What?” Aimee frowns.

Her hazel eyes are heavily made up as usual, but they're bloodshot, like she's been rubbing them.

Or crying.

“Nothing,” I mumble. “I was just talking to myself.”

“We broke up last Friday,” Jimmy says, slumping. “For good this time.”

My jaw drops. Why wasn't this news shouted all across the universe? Have we just stumbled onto a motive for murder? I desperately want Aimee to go away so I can ask Jimmy who broke up with whom.

“Are you...okay?” I ask her.

We've never really had a conversation before. Just polite greetings. If she's with her friends, she ignores me. I have no problem with that. Cheerleaders and me are like oil and water. The only thing Aimee Barton and I have in common is shortness. And now Jimmy.

Her face hardens as if my question over her welfare offended her. “Why wouldn't I be?”

“I h-heard about Jimmy, and I thought...I thought...”

A girl calls her name, but Aimee's frozen, her gaze locked on me. “What have you heard about him?”

I throw a helpless glance at Jimmy.
Do I pull her aside and tell her you're dead? Shouldn't your family be the first to know?

“That he...he's missing.” I stare at a piece of paper lying on the floor. It's imprinted with a dirty sneaker tread and infinitely easier to look at than Aimee.

An audible choking sound rips from her throat. “You think he's dead, don't you?”

Is my newfound clairvoyance written all over my face? My mouth drops open but I can't make words come out.

“Don't tell her. Not here,” Jimmy says firmly.

A perfumed posse rushes up to us. Or rather to Aimee. They all speak at once in high-pitched voices, and not-so-subtly elbow me out of the way.

“I passed a news crew on my way to school. I bet they're coming here. You should go out and talk to them!” says one breathless girl, clearly more concerned about getting on TV than she is about Jimmy.

Another grabs Aimee by both arms and marches her into a nearby classroom. “He's trending on Twitter...”

Jimmy makes a move to follow the girls before realizing it's pointless. He can't talk to Aimee or touch her. He lets out another of his big sighs that I'm starting to associate with extreme frustration. “She came over to my house before school on Monday and begged me to take her back.”

“Why did you dump her?”

He crosses his arms. “It's no one's business but ours.”

“Is it a sex thing?” I ask, really curious now. Those two were always pawing at each other. It was kind of repulsive.

Spluttering, he says, “I don't talk about that stuff unless it's with the guys in the locker room.”

“Charming, but so typical of guys.”

“Aimee only wanted me for one thing, and it wasn't sex.”

I flatten my lips and try not to move them as I talk. “What was it? A shot at prom king and queen? Money?”

He shakes his head. “I felt like I was part of a brand. You know, the Golden Couple. Everything we did was for show.”

“But you
were
like the Brad and Angelina of the school.” Without the paparazzi and the kids. Though both Aimee and Jimmy's families are wealthy and not afraid to show it.

“It was an image,” he says firmly. “Anyway, she was about to kill that image all by herself.”

“How? How was she going to do that?”

“Let's just say I did her a favor by calling it quits.” He peers at me. “You're kinda nosy. Anyone ever tell you that? This is none of your business.”

“Yes, it is. I'm trying to understand what happened. Maybe this break-up has something to do with why you're stuck with me. You've got unfinished business with her.”

In the back of my mind is the anonymous article about Jimmy. Surely, as his girlfriend, Aimee knew he was injured. But then if she's concerned about appearances, why would she seek to destroy his image?

“Being stuck with you isn't that bad,” he says. “Could've been worse. What if it turned out the only person who could help me was Eddie Briggs?”

“The guy who's never been introduced to soap and deodorant?” I'm buoyed by the revelation that he likes hanging out with me.

All the rules I thought I knew about ghosts are wrong. For one, they can engage in real conversations, not just zombie-like moans. They have a sense of smell. If they're anything like Jimmy, they are still vain enough to check their hair out in my locker's mirror.

“Huh. I guess that makes me lucky to have you as my coach in Team Afterlife.” He looks sad for a fleeting moment. “Why weren't we buddies when I was alive?”

Swallowing a lump in my throat, I say, “You're a superhero in school, that's why. Untouchable. Now be quiet. We can't talk like this when people are around. You'll make me look like an idiot.”

He grins. “A superhero? You want to expand on that?”

“No, because it'll make your
head
expand,” I retort.

It's funny what brings people together.

And awful. Jimmy loses his smile when a student without a care in the world walks through him.

In homeroom, he sits on a windowsill, surveying the class. Silhouetted against the sun, his body shimmers eerily. I catch him snapping his fingers in front of some kids' faces. He looks amazed, then amused, and finally, forlorn. When the teacher, Mr. Craven, calls my name and I answer, Jimmy glances over at me with a sad smile.

“I'm here, too,” he says, waving his arms.

“Dan, uh...Dan Hawkins?” Craven asks. The entire classroom falls silent. Craven clears his throat and immediately goes on to Ted Gifford.

Jimmy drifts to Dan's empty seat. Even as a ghostly figure, he looks too big for the chair. He palms the desk, trying to extract his brother's life force from it, perhaps. He glances my way. “Where the hell is he?”

I can only give a tiny shrug, but I'm full of worry. My awareness of Dan is usually acute. It's like I know when he enters the room. He doesn't have to say a word. Even when he's standing on the opposite side of a crowded cafeteria, I can feel his presence, feel his gaze burning into me. Maybe that's another sign of clairvoyance that I ignored.

After getting through roll call, Craven looks at his watch and shifts from foot to foot. In his weedy voice, he says, “We'll now stand by for a special announcement from Principal Huan.”

The whispers start right away. Jimmy and I lock gazes.

“He's gonna talk about me, isn't he?” Jimmy says without an ounce of conceit. More like regret.

I look at the faces around me. To a lot of the kids here, Jimmy is, or was, Mr. Nice Guy. Tough on the field, but friendly, even to his opponents after a game. That's what I heard anyway. Even the non-sports-obsessed kids knew who he was, knew what he was like. He had the perfect life, and his death is going to devastate a lot of people.

A short electronic buzz hits the airwaves.

“Good morning, students, faculty and staff,” the principal announces in a subdued, measured voice.

“Some of you may have already heard senior Jimmy Hawkins disappeared Monday, and as of this morning, remains missing. The sheriff's department will be circulating through the school today asking questions. They and the Hawkins family will appreciate any information you may have on Jimmy's movements. Even if you think it's insignificant, I urge you to tell the authorities.”

Liz, the girl next to me, sniffles. She sees me staring and quickly looks away. I hand her a clean tissue from my purse.

“I would ask that you refrain from spreading gossip and conjecture,” Principal Huan continues.

“Like
that's
gonna happen,” Jimmy scoffs.

He's right. The gossip grapevine at this school is impervious to the sharpest of axes, the most potent of pesticides. As soon as the principal signs off, the kids start talking. Liz is crying openly now, as are a couple of other girls. Jimmy pats one of them on the shoulder.

“It's okay, everyone,” he calls out. “I'm still around. Kind of. Just do what the man said. Better yet, tell Keira over there.”

Everyone seems to be swimming around in their own deep thoughts.

Swimming.

In the water.

The words leap into my mind with little warning. It's not my own inner voice.

Grandie?

I swing around in my seat, looking up, down, side to side for her. My vision blurs. The class seems to melt together into a kaleidoscope of colors and patterns. Spinning, swirling into undulating shades of blue. I clutch my desk with two hands as a crushing sensation threatens to knock the air out of my lungs. A cloying scent fills my nostrils. It's sort of earthy, sort of like decaying lettuce.

No, no, I know that smell. It brings up memories of a school trip to the kelp forests off the Big Sur coast.

Algae. Acres of it.

And some of it seems to float in front of my face. Right there in the classroom. I try to bat it out of the way, but it just comes over me in ever-increasing clouds. Murky water rises beneath my feet through the linoleum floor tiles. First a trickle, then a surge. Desks, chairs, the kids around me—they get sucked out the room. An anti-drug poster tears away from the wall.
Ecstasy can lead to agony,
warns the tagline.

Drugs would explain why I'm hallucinating right now.

But am I hallucinating? Dreaming? The water is icy against my skin. Algae whips around my ankles and wrists, tying me and the chair down. Panic rises along with the water level, which is now way above my head. My lungs scream as I hold my breath. Every sensation is real and immediate. This is no delusion. Am I living Jimmy's death? How could that be?

In the maelstrom, Jimmy tries to swim against the tide. He looks around blindly, but he can't see me. I open my mouth to scream at him, but water floods into my throat. Lungs seizing, I choke and cough. Jimmy turns my way. A crack opens up in his skull and blood pours out. His eyes roll backward. Then the water flips him off his feet, flinging him against the ceiling.