Don't Fear the Reaper (3 page)

“If only I could,” Banning said. “That’s not within my power—”

“Then take me to someone who can. God. Lucifer.
Anyone.
”

“That’s a no-go on my end. What do you have, Banning?” Daniel had his head down, rubbing his temples in slow circular motions. I guess my parents grieving over my dead body was too much for him. I hoped there wasn’t anything like aspirin in hell.

Banning shook his head. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way, Keely.”

“Screw that! People come back from the dead all the time. I’m just having a near death experience. Put me back.” A glance in the mirror told me that my eyes had already started to get puffy. But even red and tear-stained, my face was still considerably better than the
me
lying dead on the bathroom floor.

The clock was ticking. I had to get back to my body before it was too late.

“If I can see them, then why can’t they see me?” I asked.

“Because... Let me think,” Daniel replied. “Because you’re dead?”

Banning faced me, his eyes full of sorrow.

I shook my head. “No, I won’t believe it.” I turned to my mother and cried as I helplessly tried to get her attention. I couldn’t move her arms, a lock of her hair, nothing. No amount of hugging or touching made her aware of my presence.

Banning left the bathroom, his black duster billowing around his feet. “Might as well let her cry it out,” he said.

Daniel shrugged. “I don’t think she liked the physics lesson,” he said as he followed Banning out of the room.

Cry it out? I could shed an ocean of tears, enough to sail a fleet of ships without ever
crying it out
. I tried to shake my body lying on the floor, but it wouldn’t budge. Yes, this
was
just an out of body experience.

But my skin felt like winter, and deep down I feared Banning had told me the truth. I didn’t fully understand the mechanics, but it didn’t stop me from burying my face against my mother’s shoulder. “I’m here,” I implored. “Please, I’m right here with you. I’m not dead, Mom. I’m not. Just wake me up.”

I began to realize this was going to be a very long night. Time seemed to move slower, like minutes caught between dimensions. My mother continued to sit vigil with my body. When Monday came, her psychiatrist would increase her meds.

The afterlife wasn’t what I’d imagined. For starters, I believed God would accept my remorse, acknowledge my suffering, and guide me through the gates of heaven. I hoped that God would offer comfort to my grieving parents. And, if God didn’t exist, there should be nothing—no heaven or hell or existence of any kind.

Banning and Daniel returned. Banning gave me another pitying look. Daniel simply looked at me as though I were completely crazy. And, maybe I was. Did the afterlife have an insane asylum for the dearly departed? If this was some sort of afterlife, how come Banning and Daniel were the only ones to greet me? Where was Jordan? Couldn’t she see our family needed her?

“Where is everyone?” I whispered hoarsely. “Where’s Jordan?”

Daniel resumed his post at the bathroom doorway. “You were expecting a welcoming committee?”

I almost gave him the finger, but my mother was in the room. How odd that I found it impossible to manage such a gesture even though she couldn’t see me. Instead, I took the higher road. If I couldn’t be tough, I’d act tough. Been there, done that. Got the sarcasm to prove it. I’d found it effective at school and, sometimes, with my parents.

“That’s almost funny, Hellboy. Is there a special award for being Lucifer’s court jester?”

“Sunshine’s got ’tude!” Daniel crowed. He sniffed and cocked a presumptuous smile at Banning. “You know, you’re right. If she weren’t such a prima donna I could almost like her.”

Yeah, that was me, all right. Happy to be here! Jerk. I’d made a horrible mistake. I even tried to undo it—tried to take back my actions.

“Isn’t someone I know supposed to greet me?” I asked. “Please, I just want my sister.”

“I am sorry, Keely,” Banning said. “Truly. Your sister isn’t here right now.”

Of course not. Angels probably had her off someplace where she was helping kittens down from trees. Because if she knew what had happened, she’d have been here.

Daniel clapped a hand onto Banning’s shoulder. “You want a welcoming committee? That’s what we have reapers for. Until he turns you over to me, he’s the only committee you’ll get. How’s
that
for tact?”

I looked at Banning.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let you go to hell,” he said.

Part of me wanted to make better sense of it all. Instead, all I could manage was to try to reassure my Mom that the flat, staring eyes she continued to look into weren’t mine any longer. I wanted her to know that the body she lovingly caressed was only a shell.

“Hey, look. Keely, is it? Even if your mom could hear you, she’d feel the same,” Daniel said. “She’d still be heartbroken.”

I shot him a dirty look. “Thanks for sharing.” My voice faltered and I turned my face from his. A flood of hot tears moistened my cheeks.

Banning knelt next to me. “Take your time. We’re here if you need us. I know you’ll have more questions.”

“Loads of them,” Daniel said.

My mother clung to my corpse and I clung desperately to her. Dad made a call to my aunt—it’d been one of the first phone calls he made after reporting Jordan missing, and again after the police found her body. Aunt Jen was my mom’s older sister by a couple years. They were close, almost as close as Jordan and I had been. I wondered who’d get there first: Aunt Jen, the police, or the paramedics.

The police arrived first. Dad let them in. My body had now taken on a waxy, fake bluish-white hue. Mom continued to dry off my legs as the officers walked into the bathroom. A female officer attempted to coax my mother from my corpse. At first, Mom ignored her. Then after a few minutes she allowed the policewoman to help her to her feet and out of the room, although she began humming the lullaby again. Dad talked to another officer, a balding, round cop built more for desk duty than patrol. Dad handed him the note I’d written.

Downstairs, the paramedics had arrived and were talking with the female officer. I went to the landing to watch them. The paramedics attended to my mother, taking her pulse and checking that she was okay. Couldn’t they see? She was
not
okay. She would never be okay again. Ever.

Banning and Daniel sat quietly on the sofa across from her. As I came downstairs, they merely watched me like some minor curiosity. Like none of this was any big deal. Well, at least Daniel acted like it wasn’t any big deal.

Someone knocked gently on the door and one of the paramedics answered. A man with a bristly silver beard entered, the word
Medical Examiner
stitched in white on his blue jacket. The men talked briefly, their voices low so my mother wouldn’t hear. With a respectful nod, they passed my mother as the paramedic led the medical examiner upstairs to my parents’ bathroom. After a few minutes, they returned. Then, the paramedics helped him wheel a stretcher into the house and carry it up the stairs.

After questioning my parents, taking photos, and officially announcing me deceased, the paramedics wheeled my body out the front door. A thin white sheet had been placed over the black body bag. I don’t know how my father managed to watch them stuff me into it. I know I couldn’t. I stayed downstairs. Maybe Dad waited in the bedroom or in the hall. But there I was, strapped to the stretcher and zipped from head to toe.

Some of the neighbors had collected on their lawns, hands cupped over their mouths. Others stood huddled in groups. Mrs. Anderson from next door tried to come inside. One of the cops blocked her path, telling her it might be best to leave the family alone and that my aunt was already on her way.

The hardest part came when they loaded my body into the medical examiner’s vehicle, which had once been an ambulance but had since been painted navy blue instead of white. The emblem on the side read: Fulton County Medical Examiner. They slammed the rear doors shut.

I was torn. What to do? Go with my body or stay with my parents? When I was alive, I wondered why ghosts might choose to stay with their decaying corpses. It seemed like a stupid thing to do. Now, I felt that if I let my body out of my sight, I’d never get back inside. That somehow, if I stayed close, I had a chance of being alive again. Holding on to my body seemed logical, a way to never let go of life.

In the end, I stayed with my parents. I watched through the windows as the medical examiner and the paramedics drove away, slow and with their emergency lights off. I stared after them until they turned the corner. As the medical examiner’s van faded from sight, so did my life. I stared into the darkness, desperately listening for the last sounds of the engine.

Sometime after midnight, Aunt Jen excused herself, going into my parents’ bathroom and closing the door. I heard her sobs from the other side as she cleaned the tub and the floor. The medical examiner had suggested that my parents hire a professional cleaning crew specializing in biohazard clean up. Instead, Aunt Jen offered to do the work. Suddenly, I was thankful I hadn’t blown out my brains, and that it wasn’t anything a mop, a bucket, a sponge, and some bleach couldn’t take care of. I slumped against the other side of the door and listened to her sobs.

Banning and Daniel moved from room to room, one or the other always keeping a close watch on me. Daniel stayed quiet, clearly unhappy about the babysitting gig. From what Banning told me, I’d have to stay here on earth, in purgatory, with both of them until my funeral. I rubbed my eyes, too tired to ask why I had to stay in purgatory so long or why they couldn’t just leave me alone. Maybe this was my punishment—like Intro to Hell 101.

“Don’t worry,” I said sarcastically as we sat in the living room. “It’s not like I’m going to do something stupid and kill myself. Again.”

Daniel shrugged. “Whatever.”

I got up and went upstairs to my sister’s room. Banning followed. I lay on Jordan’s bed and curled around her pillow. My body made an indentation on its soft cotton. Without even lifting my head I asked, “If I’m dead, then how did I do that?”

“Because you can only move inanimate objects when no one living is around. Even then, it’s not always easy. It’s Phantom Physics, you might say.”

I pressed my nose into the pillow and inhaled. “After two months, I can still smell her.” At least, I imagined my sister’s familiar scent still clung to the linens. “After Jordan died, Mom refused to change the sheets. She comes in here sometimes, too.”

I had no idea why I was telling him this. Banning stood and left the room, leaving me alone with my pain and memories.

I remembered after Jordan’s death, night upon night, I lay in my bed like I did in Jordan’s now, trying to fall asleep, trying to dream of her. Of course, the dreams never stayed. They’d slip away into the night and I’d awake feeling even more alone. Another day. Life goes on, even if I didn’t believe it was really life at all. I suspected that’s how things would be now. Another day. Life would go on—for everyone else.

I caught a glimpse of Banning heading down the hall. I thought of my parents and leapt from the bed, running after him. Suddenly, I was defensive—I didn’t want him or anyone else near them. Banning stood outside the double doors into their bedroom, watching them. I stepped past him, carefully putting myself between him and my mother, who lay crying on the bed.

“Don’t. Leave them alone.” I had no idea how to prevent it, should he decide to take my parents next, but I wouldn’t let him touch them without a fight.

“I’m only here for you, Keely. It isn’t their time.” He stepped toward me.

I turned my head, but kept my eyes on his. His words did nothing to comfort me.

“Just. Don’t. Stay away. Please.”

He nodded and walked away and I waited until I was sure he was gone before I moved. He wouldn’t leave the house, of that much I was certain. At least he’d left my parents alone. For now. I sat gently on the bed beside my mother as she held her face in her hands, crying. I stroked her hair, her shoulder, drinking in the feel of her although she couldn’t feel me. There weren’t any words to console her, and she couldn’t hear me even if there had been, so I stayed quiet as she sobbed. Dad sat on the other side of her. They held each other and their cries worsened—each shuddering violently with their sobs.

Helpless, I curled up on the settee Mom bought a couple years ago. I watched my parents until the early hours of the morning when Dad finally gave Mom some tiny white pills, which she solemnly accepted. Dad took one, too. I recognized them instantly as the same anti-anxiety pills she’d taken ever since Jordan’s death. Without thinking, I’d selfishly taken all her sleeping pills. For some odd reason, it had never occurred to me that either of my parents would need them after my death, too. Dad tucked her in, then shuffled to his side of the bed and slid under the covers next to her.

I sat, vigilant, watching for Banning and Daniel. They passed by a few times, but neither of them spoke or entered. I watched as the dawn crept into my parents’ room when sleep finally claimed them. I let out a sigh of relief.

Sleep, as I now knew, was the only place the pain couldn’t follow.

By seven-fifteen Sunday morning, I decided to venture from my parents’ room. It had been awhile since either Banning or Daniel had wandered by. It was foolish, I told myself. If they’d wanted my parents, they’d have already taken them. Somehow, I realized this, but Mom and Dad looked so fragile, so broken, that I couldn’t let anyone other than Aunt Jen near them. Hypocritical as it sounded, I didn’t want any form of death to touch them ever again.

For awhile, I hoped Banning and Daniel would give up and leave for good. I knew they wouldn’t. They’d come for me and I expected that I’d never be free of them. Never be free of death.

I knew I was a ghost and yet, I refused to accept the finality of it.

They’d taken my body away last night and I’d been left here. I vowed to stay until I was forced to leave my parents’ side. Staying with my parents during the night felt safer for me. As long as I remained here with them I could pretend that nothing had happened except some horrific nightmare—just like when I was a child.