After Ever (12 page)

“Winnifred, Winnifred, Winnifred,” says Sam, clucking his tongue. “What came first, the chicken or the egg?”

“Huh?”

“What came first, the chicken or the egg?” he repeats. “The chicken is born from the egg, but to get the egg you have to have the chicken.”

I am certain I have heard this riddle before. “That’s easy, the chicken was… well, first you had to have the egg and…” I falter. Try again. Give up. “Whatever. Tell me more about the levels and what they mean.”

Sam must sense I am getting more annoyed by the second because he doesn’t laugh or make fun of me. Smart boy. “Like I said, there are five levels in the After. Each level you go up frees your soul a little bit more from the restraints your physical body imposed on it.”

“But you said my physical body is rotting away in some hole,” I say, exasperated.

“First of all, you’re the one who brought up rotting bodies in holes, not me. Second of all, your soul doesn’t
know
it is free. At least not yet. Have you ever heard those stories of wild animals kept in captivity? Lions and birds and stuff like that, brought in when they’re injured or orphaned. Ever wonder why they can’t be released back into the wild?”

I shrug and wonder what point he is trying to make now. “Not really.”

“It’s because even when you open their cage and give them their freedom, they’ve been held in captivity for so long they don’t recognize it. Your soul is like that. It has been held inside your physical body for so long it has forgotten what freedom is like.”

“I was only alive for sixteen years,” I point out. “That doesn’t seem like very long.” No, it doesn’t seem like very long at all.

“For a soul a second in a mortal body is an eternity,” Sam says gravely.

“And when you go to another level? What happens then?”

The longing in his voice is tangible as he says, “Every level you go up your physical limitations are stripped away. You don’t get tired. You don’t have to sleep. You have super strength. Super speed. Everything that once held you back slowly ceases to exist. I’ve only ever met one person above Level Two before. She was a Level Three and she was pretty amazing.”

I recognize the little twinge of jealousy for what it is and ignore it. “So how do I get there?” I ask.

“Get where?”

For someone who sounds so smart, Sam can be awfully stupid. “To Level Three. Duh. If I’m going to be dead I might as well be able to do cool things like leap fifty story buildings in a single bound.”

His eyes roll. “You don’t just
get
to another level. You have to earn your way there.”

“Like pass a test or something?”

“Or something,” he says vaguely.

Closing my hand around a fistful of dirt, I throw it at his chest. “Come on, tell me. You’re my guide. You have to.”  

Sam sweeps the dirt off his shirt and sits up. “I don’t
have
to do anything. And I can’t tell you because I don’t know, okay? No one does. Usually it’s some kind of sacrifice, but not always. Sometimes it just happens. I moved up to Level Two when I became your guide.”

“What do you get to do when you’re a Level Two?”

“Help ungrateful brats,” he says without skipping a beat.

The alive Winnie would have been annoyed with Sam’s comment, but the dead Winnie finds it amusing. I like it when he sticks up for himself, even if it is at my expense. No one else did. Not my friends at school, not my dad, not even Brian. No one wanted to insult the girl whose mom had just died. So they felt sorry for me instead, and made excuses for when I was rude and acted out until that was the only way I acted and instead of making excuses everyone just started to leave me alone.

Slowly I recline backwards until I am lying on the ground. The leaves smell fresh and earthy. They cling to my hair and curl up over my hands. I look up, past the trees to the blue sky beyond. The thought that has been chasing me since I watched the television play back my life and untimely death tickles at the corner of my mind, annoyingly persistent.

It is not so much a thought as a question; one I am terrified to ask. Nerves do a tap dance in my belly. I try to think about something else, anything else, but I can’t. I can’t think about anything but
the question.

“Sam?” My voice comes out whisper soft, but he still hears me.

“Yeah?”

“Can I… I mean, I don’t know how all this works but do you think… that is… Can I see my mother?”

Silence. I lay perfectly still, not even breathing. For the first time I notice there are no birds in the trees or flying through the air. It is strange being in a forest without birds. And quiet. It’s too quiet. 

“You can see her,” Sam says after a long pause.

Air rushes out of my nose like someone popped a balloon. I turn my face blindly into the leaves. Burrow into their scratchy softness until I am nearly covered.

I hear Sam get up and start to walk around. He comes towards me, hesitates, and goes the other way. I am grateful he is giving me this moment. This moment to mourn the life of a sixteen year old girl who never really got to live. Who was selfish and rude and took things for granted. Who was sad and broken and hurt all the time, even though no one noticed.

Tears burn the back of my eyelids, then run down my face, across my nose, between my lips. I don’t make a sound. I learned how to cry silently after Mom died. Night after night I would sob into my pillow without a whimper while my father’s wails echoed through the house.

Now, for the first time, I cry for myself. For the life I will never have. For the college I will never go to. For the man I will never meet. For the children I will never raise.

I am dead.

CHAPTER TEN

If Sam notices my puffy eyes when we start walking again he doesn’t say anything. I am starting to like him more and more, and I am glad he is my guide, even if he sucks at explaining things. I still have so many questions.

Why did the door in the hallway take us to my old classroom?

What knocked down the wall?

Who was the man in the lobby?

Am I a ghost?

Can living people see me?

Where are the other dead people like us?

When can I see my mom?

Where are we going?

I settle on asking the last question first. With ever step we’ve taken since we stopped by the ravine Sam has grown more and more agitated. He keeps looking over his shoulder, all secret like as if he thinks I don’t notice, but of course I do. I look behind us too, but I never see anything. Just trees and more trees. There are still no birds or any other sign of wildlife, which is beyond strange. Great. Something else for me to ask.

“So, uh, do you have a destination in mind or what?”

“Yes,” Sam says tersely without looking at me.

I climb over a fallen tree. The edge of my sweatshirt catches and I have to stop to untangle it. It’s so warm I don’t really need to wear it, but I also don’t want to leave it behind, so I compromise by wrapping it around my waist. By the time I’m finished Sam is nearly out of sight. “Hey, wait up!” I call, forced to break into a run to catch up with him.

He still doesn’t look at me, not even when I pull alongside him. He just keeps walking, faster than he was before, so that I have to jog or risk being left behind again.

“What is your deal?” I complain, wheezing the words out between gasps of air. I am so out of shape.

“We need to get out of the woods.” He glances behind him for the thousandth time and my patience reaches its breaking point. 

“That’s it!” I slam on the brakes.

“Come on,” Sam hisses, making a grab for my arm. I snatch it out of reach.

“No. Not until you tell me what we’re running from. We are dead, aren’t we?”

He gives a short, annoyed dip of his head.

“Then why do you look like you’re about to piss your pants?”

His eyebrows slash down. “I do not look like I’m about to piss my pants.”

“You do. Just a little.”

I have never seen Sam so nervous before. He rakes his hand through his hair, pulling at the short tips. “Someone is following us.” He peeks sideways at me as he adds, “I think.”

“You mean someone like us?” I ask, intrigued by the idea of meeting another dead person.

“No, no, no,
not
like us.” Again he pulls his hair, this time so hard he gives himself a natural facelift. He looks so sincere in his terror that I am beginning to feel a little apprehensive myself.

“Who then?” I ask.

“One of the…
Unknown
,” he whispers. His eyes dart left and right, as if he’s expecting something to reach out and grab him. Rather unimpressed, I slouch back against a tree and use the bark to give myself a good scratch.

“Sounds like the name of a bad rock group.”

“They aren’t a joke!” he says fiercely. 

“Whoa.” I stop scratching. “No need to get all crazy. You know, for someone who is dead you’re pretty serious all the time. I mean, you did face plant off the side of a mountain. What’s the worse that could happen to you now?”

Instead of answering, Sam looks over my shoulder yet again. Rolling my eyes I turn around, prepared to point out for the umpteenth time that there is nothing behind us… except this time there is.

It reels drunkenly between the trees, dragging its left leg behind it at an angle that makes my stomach turn. Blood, dark and wet, runs down its face, or at least what remains of its face. I can make out two squinty eyes and what I think is a mouth. The rest has been bashed in beyond recognition. A shirt hangs off its broad chest in tatters and jeans cling to its crippled legs, the only evidence that this thing – man? monster? something in between? – was once human. It swings its tree trunk sized arms from side to side as it walks, slapping its own chest with a sickening
thud thud thud
.

I start to back away slowly. My heel catches on a twig. Snaps it. The sound echoes like a gunshot. Sam curses under his breath. The thing – what did Sam call it? an Unknown? – lifts its battered head and snarls like a rapid dog.

“Still want to stick around?” Sam asks.

I might be dead, but there is no way I am going to tangle with this creature. “I think we should run now.”

“You think?”

Who knew Sam could be sarcastic? He yells something else, something that sounds suspiciously like ‘I told you so’ but I can’t hear him clearly. I’ve already spun around and am sprinting away at warp speed from the thing with the bleeding face and ham sized fists.

I think we have a pretty good chance of outrunning it – the creature is big, but it doesn’t look too agile – until I throw a reckless glance over my shoulder and see it is actually
gaining
on us.

“Sam,” I gasp out his name. He is running slightly ahead of me, blazing a trail through the woods with alarming speed. Adrenaline and a healthy fear of being torn apart have given his legs a new lease on life.

“Come on Win, faster!” he urges without breaking stride.

I grit my teeth and bear down. My feet fly across the forest floor, churning up leaves and sticks. I come abreast of Sam and in unison we leap over a fallen log. A few heartbeats later there is a terrible
crunching
sound as the thing chasing us runs right through the fallen tree, obliterating it into matchsticks. It is still gaining on us, faster than I ever believed possible.

“A door,” Sam pants. “Think of a door. To someplace it can’t follow.”

“What… the… hell…” I spit out the words between gulps of air, “are… you talking… about?”

Sam doesn’t answer immediately. We burst out of the woods and into a field with waist high grass. I fall behind Sam, letting him mow a path through the crisp yellow wheat. Running through the field is like running through water: torturously slow and physically draining. Seeds erupt in the air, coating my hair and face. A few shoot up my nose and down my throat, making me gag.

“Just think of someplace it can’t follow!” Sam yells.

A place the monster can’t follow? Like what, the moon? “You do it,” I demand before dissolving into a fit of hacking coughs as seeds shoot out my nose. My foot catches on an exposed root. I stumble, flail my arms, somehow manage to catch my balance. Begin to teeter again. I can feel the monster behind me. It’s awful smelling breath, a mixture of trash and rotten eggs, seers a path across my neck. Instinctively I arch my back inwards and hear the
whoosh
of a clawed hand as it misses its target.

“Sam, help me!”

Sam spins around. Launching himself forward, he shoves me sideways and the wheat swallows me up. I land hard on my hands and roll to my side before I fight my way to my feet. The wheat is all around me. Disoriented, I spin in a circle, yelling Sam’s name.

Growling and hissing fills the air, intermingled with Sam’s screams. There is a thud of flesh meeting flesh. Another terrible growl. A drawn out yell. If I don’t do something now, Sam will be ripped to pieces. What did he want me to do? Something about a door and a safe place. 

Door. Door. Think of a door.

“WIN, A LITTLE HELP HERE!”

Door. Door. Think of a door.

Then, unbelievably, there
is
a door. It hovers a half foot above the ground as if it has always been here, just nestled amidst the wheat in the middle of the field. I holler Sam’s name at the top of my lungs and nearly leap out of my skin when I feel fingers wrap out my shoulder.

“I’m here,” he pants, visibly exhausted. His shirt has been ripped away from his body and hangs off one arm. Red scratch marks cover his bare chest. Blood drips from a nasty cut above his right eye. It looks like he just came through a cheese grater.

“Look, a door,” I point out helpfully.

“What are you waiting for? Open it!”

I jump to do as he asks. Wrapping both hands around the gold doorknob, I wrench the door towards me. It opens with surprising ease and without warning I am teetering on the brink of absolute nothingness. Arms spinning, I gasp and reel back. “Sam! Where does this–”