The Afterlife Series Omnibus: Heaven, Hell, Earth, Wasteland, War, Stones Read online

  I tried to peek out the window, but the glass was so thickly glazed that I couldn’t see anything past the pale light fighting its way inside. I tried to open the window; it wouldn’t budge.

  The room didn’t reveal any clues as to where I was. The bedside table, the small wardrobe, and the bathroom were all empty. I had no idea where my clothes or any other belongings were. I breathed deeply to quiet my screaming insides, but that just encouraged the panic.

  I looked into the hall again, this time noticing small footprints that had made a path down the hall and around the corner. I followed at a jog, my gown flapping around me, kicking up puffs of dust.

  When I turned the corner, the hospital showed more signs of life, and sanitary life at that. The well-lit hallway was nearly cheerful and a radio played pleasant 80’s soft rock in low tones – I think it was Air Supply. The hospital staff was still missing, but I wasn’t alone. A small girl stood in front of a patient’s door, peering inside.

  She was maybe eight, with short curly brown hair and brown eyes. I didn’t recognize her, but I did recognize what she clutched; lollipops covered in white tissues with faces drawn on them: little Halloween ghost treats. Her eyes widened as she stared into the room at something I couldn’t see. I heard a crash and a thump. The girl shrieked, dropped the little ghosts, and tore down the hall away from me and around the corner.

  A feeble voice called out, barely audible. I looked around, reconfirming that I was alone. I took a tentative step, but my head swam suddenly. What was I doing out of bed? This wasn’t my problem. Still, I continued to walk until I reached the room where an old man, impossibly old, lay on the floor. Crinkled folds of skin disguised his face from any semblance of youth. His arms and legs were skeletal. He floundered and thrashed on the floor, his foot flopping on the end of his right leg in a worrisome way.

  The hospital gown fell open and exposed him. It was not salacious or sexual; his shriveled sex was pathetic. I backed away slowly as his cries got louder and more desperate. He didn’t see me in his struggles to right himself.

  I knew I should get help. Somehow I had to find someone who could help. But then I thought, I’ll bet that’s what that little girl was going to do. It wasn’t my business. I shouldn’t exert myself; I was a patient here as well.

  Where the hell was Daniel? I could imagine him and Perfect Kayra taking action, demanding my help, Kayra judging me because I stood there paralyzed, unsure of what to do.

  But he wasn’t there. And the little girl wasn’t coming back. I took a tentative step forward, and Daniel’s exasperated voice came to my ears again, “You can’t catch old age, you idiot.”

  I took another step into the room. My hip twinged, and the next time I took a step it started to give out. I scratched an itch on my arm and saw it dotted with liver spots. What was wrong with me now? I took another step-limp, and the man finally saw me through runny, cloudy eyes.

  “Help me,” he said.

  I held my hands in front of my face. Arthritis swelled the knuckles and my nails were yellow. My heart no longer hammered; it struggled. Another step and I’d either be at his side… or dead.

  The man began to sob. I took the last step and knelt with difficulty at his side, my knees screaming. “Shh, it’s all right,” I said, fear welling in my heart, my voice coming out as a croak.

  I reached up and grabbed a blanket and pillow off the bed and as they slipped off I smelled the stale old man scent that came with them - nothing like my grandma’s lovely lavender scent. I put his head on the pillow and covered him with the blanket. He reached out his hand and I took it.

  “My foot,” he said.

  “I know.” I had exhausted my medical knowledge with “make the patient comfortable.” I knew splints were involved, but the old man’s room was as bare as mine had been.

  A minute passed and the little girl still did not return with help. I swore and struggled to my feet. Something popped in my hip and I gasped. I limped towards the door and finally collapsed, breathing hard. Pains shot through my chest and hip again and I called out, “Someone help, a man is hurt here!”

  A strong female voice drifted down the hall. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right there!”

  Someone would take over. Someone would help. I smiled and lay down on the floor, which soothed the pains in my chest. The clean floor was cool against my face and I closed my old, thin eyelids for just a second. Help was on the way. He was saved.

  And so was I.

  #

  Next thing I knew, a breeze woke me up. I stood outside the hospital on a dusty road. I was young again, dressed in the t-shirt and jeans that I had worn when I died. I was no longer alone; a woman stood beside me, clucking at a clipboard. Wings stuck out of the back of her yellow cardigan. She reminded me instantly of the women who would volunteer as treasurer or secretary at my grandmother’s church. They were thin with sharp faces and always ran around wearing grim looks that clucked, “I guess I’ll have to do this myself.” She clutched at the clipboard as if it were her badge of office; even her wings looked tense.

  “Very lucky you died on a night you were charitable, Katherine. Very lucky indeed,” she said, sighing.

  “It’s Kate,” I said, my confused mind attaching with irritation to the familiar pet peeve. Once my brain recovered, I added, “Wait - I’m dead?”

  “Most assuredly,” the angel said, flipping through her clipboard.

  We stood with the hospital at our backs on a dirt road that stretched into nothingness. The sky, a uniform white, reminded me of cloudy afternoons that promised rain. It was a big sky, bigger than I’d seen in Texas or any of the other plains states. The horizon seemed to be thousands of miles away.

  “Congratulations, Katherine. With your scores the way they are, you qualify for entrance to heaven. You show as agnostic but secular Christian, so you’ll take residence in that heaven.” She pinched her mouth closed and lifted a sheet of paper on the clipboard, clearly not agreeing with the statistics there. She squinted as if trying to find a loophole to damn me.

  “So I’m dead,” I said. The words didn’t feel alien to me. I didn’t feel frightened or upset, just calm. The only anxiety that touched me concerned Daniel - where was he? Had he survived? A brief thought flashed by, wishing he’d died too so I wouldn’t be alone, but I squashed it, ashamed. I tasted the words again, getting used to them.

  “I’m dead.”

  The angel’s eyes were very big as she gave me the full force of her stare. I blushed and took a step back. “Yes, Katherine. You were hit broadside by a truck going forty-seven miles per hour. You were killed instantly. And now, you’re going to heaven.”

  I cleared my throat and looked down to avoid meeting her stare that clearly told me I was an idiot.

  “What about my family?” I asked

  “They’re all very much alive. You can check in on them as soon as you’re settled.”

  “Okay.” I gulped, fearful of the thought of my grandmother crazy with grief. I pushed the thought away and resolved to check in on her as soon as I was able. I looked up and down the road. “So…which way?”

  “Bless your heart, you must have been quite traumatized by your final test.” Her voice dripped with the Southern hypocrisy I associated with some members of my family. My grandma used that tone of voice when she spoke to my Aunt Vicky, whom she hated. Again, I pushed her memory away. “Heaven is in any direction,” the angel continued. “The important thing is the journey.”

  “I’ve heard that somewhere before,” I muttered.

  “Then it must be true,” she said. Without saying anything else, she unfurled her wings to at least ten feet in length and flapped them, stirring up dust. I coughed and shielded my eyes.

  “Wait!” I yelled. “What about Daniel? Where is he?”

  She climbed higher, forcing dust into my nose and mocking me with her brown sensible shoes - why did angels wear cardigans and shoes? Still not answering, she flew into the desert, perpendicular to
the road. I had a feeling that following her would be instant death. Almost instantly, I remembered that I was already dead, but it still seemed like a bad idea.

  “And it’s Kate!” I yelled after her, a small part of me happy to get in the last word.

  With no clue as to which direction I should go, I decided to simply start walking.

  The important thing was the journey. Where had I heard that before? This journey was a bore, though. No wildlife, insects, cattle, or even other wayward souls wandered along with me. Was this what I could expect from the afterlife? I hated being alone. I was always the kind of person who couldn’t stand to eat or go to the movies alone, and now here I was, alone in Heaven, unable to assist or interact with those on Earth ever again. I cursed my luck, wondering if I’d done something to deserve this. After one or two hours of increasing anxiety, I began to feel my sanity unravel.

  “And here is where I start talking to myself,” I said. “I don’t know if this is the right way, or if that angel was even an angel. She seemed pretty bitchy to be all holy. Or maybe that’s what holier-than-thou is supposed to mean.”

  I didn’t get tired or hungry as I walked, but the dust coated the insides of my nostrils and throat, and the thirst started to bother me. I began to cough.

  How could I cough? I was dead; I didn’t need oxygen or food to survive. At least, I didn’t think so. I wasn’t too keen on finding out. Dying once – twice if you count the hospital - was well enough for me for the day.

  The never-changing horizon annoyed me. Was I even moving at all? When would I get some answers? I recalled stories from my childhood about the devil appearing as an angel and misleading you. Remembering the sharp words of church women from my youth, I could easily believe that the devil might take that angel’s form. In a panic, I picked up the pace, starting at a jog and then a flat out run.

  I ran as hard and as fast as I could past the unchanging landscape until my legs nearly gave out. Finally, I pulled up, panting. What about prayer? Would that work?

  “Uh, God?” I felt like an idiot, but no one was around to laugh. “Where the hell is heaven?”

  The familiar voice startled me. “Baby, you’ve been here the whole time.”

  I looked up – gates stood where there was nothing before. They weren’t pearly, but they were glorious, made of towering wrought iron entwined with ivy. The stone wall bookended by the gate was at least twenty feet high and stretched out toward both horizons. I could see no end.

  Daniel stood at the gate, grinning at me. I smiled back, happier than ever to see him. He caught me in one of his bear hugs, and I no longer felt sweaty and dusty, but perfect. I clung to him, only letting go when he pulled away.

  Out of instinct I took the customary step back; standing too close to him had always been agonizing.

  “You’re okay?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Well, not exactly. I’m dead too.”

  I punched him in the shoulder. “You know what I mean. How did you get here before me? Did you have to go through a test? Did you die instantly? What’s heaven like?”

  “Shhh,” he said, placing a finger on my lips. My face flushed. He’d never touched me like that before.

  “This is a place for honesty, Kate. No more hiding things.” And to my surprise and utter delight, he kissed me.

  And if the story could end there, I’d have been the happiest woman in heaven.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When I was a child, I would often lie in bed and wonder what heaven was really like. Exactly how could it be paradise - the ultimate reward - forever? Doesn’t everything get boring after a while, no matter how wonderful? I would try to wrap my brain around the idea of “eternity,” and in those rare instances that my brain actually began to grasp it, I would feel a moment of vertigo. It scared the shit out of me.

  Now I was dead, at the gates of heaven, and had already been handed my greatest desire. I had denied my unrequited love for Daniel since eighth grade, when I’d realized he clearly preferred, well, any other girl to me. This had made life as his best friend a little like flexing a sore muscle – deliciously painful. I never thought he knew, and I was damn sure he didn’t feel the same way.

  But they say heaven was paradise, right? He was all I’d ever wanted.

  Things got blurry after that first kiss. We married soon after - I think it took a week or so. The wedding was attended by Grandpa Earl, Grandma Melissa’s husband who’d died before I was born, and a handful of other relatives and old friends. When I saw a strange face in the crowd I was startled to find it was Kurt Vonnegut, our mutually favorite author. When I saw Daniel at the end of the aisle, I thought I’d died and – well, you know.

  We moved into a large house on a country road. The neighbors, Judy Garland on one side and all of the dead Kennedys on the other, were comfortably close without being on top of us. Jackie O. threw fabulous dinner parties. Our house held a library of all of the books I’d wanted to read and was frequently updated with new books being written in the living world. The house also boasted a computer room with Internet access, a fully stocked kitchen that rivaled the beautiful setups on the food channels, a swimming pool that never got dirty, a greenhouse full of plants, and a gorgeous garden in the back. It was my dream house, the kind of house Daniel and I used to joke about buying when we got rich. They were always “if you and I haven’t found spouses in thirty years, then we’ll get old together” conversations, ultimately bittersweet.

  But now I had it all.

  Life, or existence, rather, was often surreal. I was incredibly happy, but still had questions. My head would swim when these questions came up, but Daniel was always telling me to just enjoy things, distracting me with games, food, movies, or sex. Sometimes, though, after shutting down the computer, or after eating the third cheesecake of the week, or right before dozing off in his arms, I would have a moment of clarity. The questions I’d always had about heaven still weren’t really answered. Sure, it was paradise, and I was happy. I had everything I’d ever wanted. But still.

  When I had been alive, I’d wondered what happened in heaven to people with more than one spouse in their lifetime. My Grandpa Earl had died before I was born, so Grandma Melissa had remarried Daddy John when I was six. He’d died unexpectedly when I was ten; I’d always wondered which husband she’d spend the afterlife with.

  The Internet in heaven came with a set of bookmarks on our families and how close they were to death. The first time I checked it, I was shocked that Grandma Melissa wasn’t on there. Apparently, she had died a couple of weeks after my death. Why hadn’t I seen her? Why didn’t anyone tell me? How much time had passed since my death, anyway? Everything seemed fuzzy, seen through a lace curtain.

  There is shopping in heaven, although there isn’t any money. In heaven, shopping’s more of a social experience, where everyone gathers outside a grand market full of anything you could possibly want. I was shopping with Daniel, looking for some fish paste to make Thai food that evening (Kurt Vonnegut had become a dear friend, and was coming over to tell us about the novels he never wrote), when I saw Grandma Melissa and Daddy John approaching. I ran so fast I had to keep myself from knocking her over. We embraced for a long time and finally caught up – it turned out that Grandma Melissa had died of a stroke, and that my inattentive parents had been watching TV with the sound too loud to hear her calling for them.

  She reminded me that Dad had been pretty torn up about my death and was dealing with it with more booze than usual. I felt sorry for him for a moment, but that was no excuse to let Grandma Melissa die.

  The heavenly euphoria dampened my anger toward my father, though, and soon I felt only concern. He missed me. We parted after setting a dinner date for the next evening. My head swam, memories flowing away like spilled water on a smooth tabletop.

  On our way out of the market, we passed Grandma Melissa again, wearing a different dress and looking considerably younger, walking with Grandpa Earl.

  “Wait �
� what’s going on?” I asked Daniel. “We just saw Grandma Melissa with Daddy John!”

  He smiled. “Does it matter? They’re happy.”

  “Yeah, but who is ‘they’? Is there cheating in heaven?”

  “Of course not. Does anyone look remotely guilty here?” he asked.

  No one did.

  That afternoon I asked Daniel to make dinner while I puttered around the garden. I wanted some time to think without him being wonderful and confusing me. I wandered through the greenhouse and looked at the nine bonsai trees I’d been cultivating. I’d always had dreadful luck with bonsai, but there was no way I could kill one in heaven. I had miniaturized an oak tree, an azalea, and a species of elm that had gone extinct on earth. I touched each of them in turn, checking their moisture levels and health. When I touched the oak, one of the tiny branches snapped off in my hand, dry and brittle. I looked at it for a moment and blinked.

  God. Where was God? Daniel had told me He would be available now that we were in heaven, but I hadn’t seen Him. I realized with surprise that I had forgotten about Him. I’d always wanted to go to heaven and ask God all the questions everyone had as a kid. Now I was here, but it hadn’t come up.

  I exited the greenhouse, excited to run it past Daniel, but stopped when I noticed a man standing in my garden.

  There was no questioning who it was. He looked like a Renaissance painting: white flowing robes, white beard. His head even glowed a little bit. He looked at me with infinite kindness and sadness in His eyes. He didn’t open His mouth, but I heard His words inside my head.

  “Hello, Kate.”

  I immediately squashed my first instinct, which was to ask Him where the hell He had been. “Uh, hi.” It was God. Really God. I tried to control my breathing. What did one say to Him?