This is Your Afterlife (7 page)

Slabs of granite surround the waterhole, massaged smooth by centuries of water rushing down the mountain. The thirty-foot waterfall sprays us, pooling into a deep hole before trickling toward a smaller, less spectacular waterfall. Mini-rainbows project over the falls. The two of us stare into the rippling water. Mine is the only face that reflects back.

“This way,” Jimmy says, tugging on my arm.

My gaze sticks to the ground, but every few feet it strays toward the water. I half-expect to find Jimmy's body floating on the surface, but instead, it's clear of any kind of debris. Everything looks as it should. Dragonflies hover. A few leaves spiral down from the trees.

Jimmy points toward the lower falls. There's no need for any more words. Sidestepping carefully, I make my way downriver along the water's edge. Soaring cliffs rise up on either side of the waterhole, making me feel like I'm in a giant bowl. Sequoias shade the area, making it an ideal breeding ground for that God-awful algae.

Jimmy gets closer to a fallen branch that's dangling over the water. “You don't have to look. Just find Deputy Charlie. Tell him where I am.”

Wincing, I step closer to Jimmy. Or rather, his body. It's caught up against the branch. From three feet away, I spy what looks like withered twigs. From one foot away, I realize they're his fingers. Some bent at impossible angles. I glance back at the upper falls, at the natural stone “staircase” daredevils use to climb up to the top so they can dive into the deep water. Did Jimmy jump?

His blue plaid shirt moves with the ebb of rushing water. There's no blood. No life. He's face-up in the water. Glassy, hazy pupils are dilated almost to the size of dimes. An odd, fetid smell comes at my nostrils in waves. It overpowers the algae.

“I look like an extra from
Dawn of the Dead
,” he says.

My stomach roils at the sight of tiny fish picking at the gash in Jimmy's head. His skin is a pale blue, like marble.

“My folks can't see me like this. Better to wait till I'm fixed up and in a casket,” Jimmy says dully. “Tell my family to dress me in my Wolves uniform. Helmet, pads. Everything. That's how I want them to remember me. Not as fish food.”

Together we stand, unable to look away for the longest time. The sound of sudden violent snapping catches our attention.

“Dan!” Jimmy shouts.

Dumbfounded, I watch Dan trudge from the trees, about fifty yards away. His pale face is smeared with dirt. It seems he doesn't notice me at first, but when he does, his eyes go completely round.

“Keira?” Two bright splotches of color bloom on his cheeks. He moves more purposefully toward me. “What are you doing here?”

In a flash, Jimmy steps in front of me. “Stop him. I don't want Dan or anybody seeing me. Not like this. Not with me bloated up like some...some blimp.”

Nodding rapidly, I yell out, “Don't come any closer, Dan!”

He stops short and pushes a fringe of dark blond hair out of his eyes. Emotion simmers underneath his fine cheeks as he raises a trembling finger at the water. “Is...is that what...who I think...it is?”

Jimmy, the
real
Jimmy, drifts behind his brother. He holds Dan by both arms in an effort to hold him back. An effort that goes unnoticed. Jimmy's hands strike through the air. “Keira, help me out.”

I run to Dan and use all my strength to spin him around toward the wooded path. The crow circles, its button-like eyes zeroing in on Jimmy's body. “I'm sorry, Dan! I'm so sorry. Please. Just stay where you are.”

“I've been searching for him all night.” Dan fends me off easily. “If that's Jimmy, I have to see for myself.”

My hands slip down his goose-pimpled arms as I try to lead him away. “Jimmy doesn't want you to see him like that.”

His blue gaze scorches my face, and I realize my mistake. “What?”

Backtracking, I stammer, “I...I mean, he
wouldn't
want you to.”

“Let me pass,” he growls.

“He was badly injured. You just have to trust me. Please.” I push against him so hard my feet slip on the rocks. Dan steadies me. Tears gather on my lashes. I blink them away rapidly but not before a salty drop slides to the corner of my mouth.

For a second Dan falters, then he stalks right by us. “You wouldn't know what my brother wants.”

Jimmy strides after Dan, grabbing futilely at his brother's shirt. “Help me stop him!”

How can I do that, short of tackling the guy? He's determined and pumped full of adrenaline. If our situations were reversed, nothing would stop me from looking at the body, no matter how grisly the scene. I get that Jimmy wants to spare Dan the pain and the finality of seeing his body, but just because he's dead doesn't mean Jimmy's right.

I whisper, “Sorry, Jimmy. I can't.”

Jimmy stands alongside his brother. Identical expressions of anguish contort their handsome faces. The sound of ragged breathing cuts right into me.

“Oh, Christ, no!
No
!” Dan's tormented voice reverberates off the falls. He collapses sobbing on the rocks. Jimmy looks away, perhaps knowing there's little he can do to comfort Dan. Can't put an arm around him. Can't talk to him. “We've gotta get him out of there.”

Reason and logic born from years of watching crime dramas jump into my head. “No, we need to call the police. We can't disturb the scene.”

“The
scene
?” he says in an incredulous tone. “Screw it. That's my brother.”

Dan leaps into the water without bothering to remove his shoes or clothing. Jimmy dives in after him. The current fights them as both boy and ghost throw their strength into freeing Jimmy from a heavy branch. I kneel on the embankment. Moisture from the moss seeps through my jeans.

From my perch, I pull on the branch as hard as I can. I fall back. “It won't budge. We should get Charlie.”

Exhausted, Dan nods. He refuses my hand as he drags himself out of the water. He shakes uncontrollably, but he makes an effort to stand up straight next to me. On his other side, Jimmy does his best to prop him up.

“How did you know?” Dan says in a strained tone. He can't keep his eyes off the body, so I move between him and the water. Finally, his fiery blue gaze meets mine. Burns my skin. “How...the hell did you know where to find him?”

I glance at Jimmy as if to ask his permission to speak. He's preoccupied, kneeling by the water with his back to me. Would he want Dan to know he hasn't left the earthly plane yet? Does Dan believe in life after death?

“Keira. Answer me.”

Studiously watching ants struggle over an obstacle course of moss and rocks on the ground, I say, “I...I just happened to...to be...here. For, um...research.”

“What kind of research?” he demands.

“A-algae.”

Jimmy stands and gives his brother a sorrow-filled look. “You're a really bad liar, Keira. Tell him the truth. He deserves that much.”

I gulp back a boulder-sized lump in my throat. “The truth?”

The boys answer in unison. “Yes.”

My eyes dart from Dan to Jimmy, who nods before heading back to into the water. A normal person might attribute the movement of the body to the current. Only I can see Jimmy's spirit wrenching uselessly at his dead arm.

I take a deep, courage-summoning breath. “Jimmy guided me here.”

Dan squints. “He
guided
you? What do you mean?”

“Jimmy's spirit, his ghost, came to me last night. He's been with me ever since for the most part.”

Dan's expression makes me want to run away to the other side of the world. It's a picture of fury, of resentment, of complete disbelief.

“He needed my help so his body could be found, you see.” I nod at Jimmy. “And now he'll be able to move on with his life...his afterlife.”

Hands flexing with tension, Dan asks, “Are you telling me you're psychic?”

“I'm a medium. There's a difference,” I say weakly. Searching for moral support, I glance at Jimmy, who's clambering onto dry land. “It's... a new development.”

Dan looks far from impressed. “You're insane.”

I splutter and protest, but a jarring thought needles me. What if my brain is misfiring and it's created the ghost of Jimmy as a coping mechanism?

“I can't believe you're stooping this low.” Dan shakes his head and reaches for his phone. He shoots me an icy glare. “What are you really doing here? Did you have anything to do with my brother's death?”

“No!” My shrill shout echoes across the clearing. “I told you. Jimmy led me here.”

He snorts. “Hope you've got a better story than that lined up for the cops.”

Jimmy steps toward Dan and tries to pry the phone away. He fails. “Hey, hey, bro. Keira's trying to help.”

“It's okay, Jimmy. Let me handle it.” With a steady gaze, I tell Dan, “Then I'll tell the sheriff about the fight you had with Jimmy the morning he died. A fight about an article exposing Jimmy's football injury. I bet he'll find that
very
interesting.”

Blood leaches away from Dan's face, making
him
seem like a ghost.

His voice is tight and edged with danger. “Jimmy and I had that
discussion
in private. There was no ‘fight.' Who the hell told you about that? And the injury?”

It looks like I've trampled on a raw nerve. This is a clear signal that Jimmy's ghost is real, that I'm not delusional. My chin jerks upward in defiance. “Your brother. He's standing right beside you.”

Dan and I watch the cops set up a perimeter around the site. He's rigid as granite. A look of total disbelief is carved into his features. His brother's dead. And there's a crazy girl insisting that Jimmy's ghost led her here.

Dan hasn't said a word to me since placing a call to 911. The coroner and an assistant zip Jimmy's body into a shiny black bag. It's a scene I've watched in countless crime shows. In real life, it's like a horror movie. Five people struggled in the shallows trying to drag Jimmy out. One of them kept slipping and falling over the body. The act of sliding him into the bag was an equally graceless and unsettling act.

Charlie approaches us. He pats Dan on the shoulder. “Again, I'm sorry about Jimmy. He was a great, great guy. Great player. I just... Why don't you go on back to the parking lot and wait for your mom and dad. They're on their way from the airport.”

Dan shakes his head vigorously. “No. I'm staying right here with my brother.”

“I'll take you back, Dan,” I say in a soft voice.
Me and the real Jimmy
.

He glances from me to the body bag, then back to me again. With my eyes, I implore him to come with us.

“Okay,” he says finally. But it takes him a full minute to put one foot in front of the other.

I make a move to follow, but Charlie hooks my elbow. His sunglasses are off. And so, it seems, are the gloves.

“Not so fast, Keira.” His eyes bore holes into me. “You're gonna answer a few questions.”

I freeze on the spot. Logically, I know it's reasonable that he wants to question me, since I found the body. What I need to figure out, though, is how much to reveal. I know now that Jimmy's ghost is not an imaginary friend. He's
real.
I just can't see how anyone would accept that I can suddenly communicate with the dead.

“Am I under arrest?” I try for defiance but my voice comes out weak and timid. “I-I-I didn't do anything.”

Charlie crosses his arms. “I wasn't gonna cuff you at least until I questioned you, but if you're just gonna confess outright, maybe I
should
read you your rights.”

Dan hovers a few feet away, grief-stricken. Or guilt-stricken, depending on how you look at it. Jimmy stands with him, though he can't take his eyes off the stretcher holding his body.

“Now, we're gonna go through one thing at a time. Why did you skip school and come here?” Charlie asks, pen poised over a small spiral notebook.

“I...I did go to school. I had a midterm.”

“But you cut class. Was there a good reason for that?” Charlie assesses me coolly as I struggle to find an answer.

Pressure builds up behind my eyes. Gallons of tears are just waiting to pour out. But I refuse to let them loose. No one likes criers. Especially the cops. “I just... I'm collecting... things...data for a science project. Yeah, data on algae.”

“Huh. When did Mr. Simpson assign that?” Dan asks.

I throw him a dark look. Is he actually trying to get me arrested? In a squeaky voice, I say, “It's for extra credit.”

Charlie's gaze darts around. “Where's your equipment? Pen? Paper?”

A lizard darts between rocks. I wish I could shrink myself down and hide, too. Hand shaking, I draw out my iPhone. “I...I record all my observations on this.”

“I see. Amazing what you can do with those things, isn't it?” Charlie says, and writes a note of his own. “I might have to take a look at that myself if you don't mind.”

“Mind?” I repeat in a high voice. “No, no. Don't mind at all. Whenever you're ready. Just say the word. After you get a subpoena.”

Quit while you're ahead,
suggests my internal critic
.
But if I were to change my story, tell him the truth, that'll look just as suspicious. Best to say as little as possible.

He glares, then jots a few words and firmly underlines them. “Did you know this is a place he frequented?”

“All the seniors hang out here,” I say, wary of volunteering any more information worthy of underlining.

“When did you last see Jimmy?”

Dead or alive?

“Um... Monday. In the cafeteria.”

He was sliding his lunch tray alongside Mara. I remember thinking they were just the right height for each other. With Aimee, he practically had to double over to kiss her, even if she wore four-inch platform heels. Mara's face lit up at something Jimmy said. He shrugged modestly and kept moving in line.