The Afterlife Academy (6 page)

“Y
ou're
what?
” Charlie's lips pulled into an uncomfortable grin. He felt nauseated. Okra and onions always did that to him, but this felt different. Not wasting any time, Charlie hurried down the hallway, but he hesitated before knocking on his parents' bedroom door.

“I'm not playing any games,” the boy's voice said calmly. “My name's Walter Prairie, and I'm a spirit, and I'm inside you.”

A pasty gob of saliva slid down Charlie's throat as he swallowed. The doorknob, though less than a finger's width from him, seemed a mile away. Shades, a creepy floating woman, and spirit visitations? What had Charlie gotten himself into?

“Okay, let's say I believe you. What kind of spirit are you?”

“Uh, I'm a dead one. Duh.”

Charlie blinked. He could hear the murmuring snores of his parents just beyond the door. “Are you some sort of warning spirit, like a…Are you my conscience?”

“Like Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket?” Walter laughed. “I don't think so, man.”

“Okay. You're not my conscience. But only I can hear you?”

“I think so,” Walter said. “But let's test it out, just to make sure.”

“How are you going to—”

“Wake up, losers!!!”
Walter's voice boomed in Charlie's ears.

Charlie held his breath and stared at his parents' bedroom door, listening for any movement. The shouting should've sent them crashing out of bed.

“See? It probably has something to do with me being inside you. I don't know for sure. So, where do you go to school?” Walter took on a casual tone.

Charlie once more considered waking his parents but then thought about his dad's reaction. Voices in his head…His room swarming with shades…He'd be grounded for sure. “Cunningham Middle School,” he answered. “Why?”

“Are there any cute girls at Cunningham?”

“I'm sorry, is that really important right now?” Charlie tiptoed back to his bedroom and closed the door with a soft click.

“Girls are always important. At my school, Yorkshire Middle, there are tons of cute girls.” Walter sounded more like a buddy at a sleepover than a ghost. But Charlie didn't have buddies, and he didn't have sleepovers, so he was only guessing.

The top drawer of Charlie's bedside table held a stack of magazines containing pictures of zombies and vampires. As Walter rambled on, Charlie went to get one and flipped through until he found the article he was looking for. Holding up his hand with his pointer and middle fingers curled downward in hexing position, he suddenly shouted, “Demon, begone!”

Silence.

Charlie puffed out his cheeks in relief.

“What was that supposed to do?” Walter asked.

Charlie jumped. “It was supposed to get rid of you,” he said with a groan.

“Get rid of me? I'm not a demon!” Walter's voice rose in anger. “I'm an Afterlife Academy Agent, and I've been sent here to protect you.”

“I've never heard of the Afterlife Academy, and why do I need protecting?” Charlie tossed the magazine on the floor.

“Did you not see what was going on in your room? Lucky I showed up when I did.”

Charlie pounded his hands against his head. “Please stop talking for a second, and let me think.” He needed to find a more peaceful location, one where he could gather his thoughts.

Charlie walked to the study and opened the door.

“What's with all the birds?” Walter asked.

Ignoring him, Charlie poked his finger through the wires, allowing the small creatures to nibble. He always found refuge among his feathered friends. Their soft fluttering and chirping soothed his mind after a troubling day at school.

“If you're telling the truth, there has to be a logical reason for why you were sent to me. And why those things tried to attack me.” Charlie stroked the head of one of his finches. “For starters, it's obvious the cloaked black creatures were—”

“Wraiths!” Walter blurted out.

Charlie shook his head. “No. Not wraiths. Wraiths are much bigger and more dangerous. Those were shades. Wraiths can't enter homes—not without an invitation.” He rattled off a memorized definition from one of his magazines. “Shades are nothing more than minions of more powerful creatures like demons. And all Underworld creatures are subject to the law of demons.”

“And you know this…how?” Walter asked.

“I read books and magazines.” Charlie had devoted most of his young life to the study of paranormal creatures. His extensive collection of literature had proven its value. “But I don't have a clue what that other thing was. That woman.” Whatever it was, it was powerful.

“It's a banshee,” Walter said.

Charlie smiled dismissively. “Don't be stupid. You have no idea what you're talking about. Banshees don't exist. That's just what people in places like Ireland believe.”

“Whatever. It was a banshee. That much I do know. My pamphlet called it a Dark Omen. And I think I know more than you on the subject. I am an Afterlife Agent, and your Guardian Agent, after all.”

“Fine. We'll call it a banshee until I can discover its real title. What's this pamphlet you keep talking about?” Charlie checked the level of the canaries' water container by tapping the bottle with his finger. A few drops fell to the bottom.

“It's a ready-reference pamphlet for Afterlife Agents like myself.”

“I'm going to need to see it,” Charlie said. “Maybe it can help us figure things out.”

Charlie heard Walter grunting and straining. “Uh, I can't reach it. I'm kinda stuck inside you at the moment.”

“Then why don't you get out?”

“Believe me, I've been trying to do that for a while now,” Walter said.

With his birds sufficiently fed, Charlie sat down in the desk chair. He connected to the Internet and then wiggled his fingers above the keyboard.

“Hey!” Walter said suddenly.

Charlie yelped. “Would you stop scaring me?”

“What am I supposed to do if I want to talk?”

“Try saying things calmly. Like in a whisper.”

“Can you check something for me on the computer?” Walter whispered using a very creepy voice. Charlie's skin turned cold from the sound of it, but at least the spirit had taken his advice.

Within a couple of minutes, per Walter's request, Charlie brought up the online site of the
Poleman County Times,
the main newspaper of Walter's hometown in Virginia. An article about a tragic lightning storm accident appeared on the screen.

“You were struck by lightning?” Charlie asked in a solemn tone once he finished the article.

“Yeah. Bummer, huh?”

“That was just a few days ago. Then you came directly here?”

“Well, not exactly. First I went to a Categorizing Office. Then I was supposed to go through four years of training at the Afterlife Academy before I got assigned to someone. But”—Walter sighed—“I'm a bit of a natural.”

“What does that even mean?” Charlie hovered the cursor over the black-and-white school photo of Walter Prairie, a tough-looking kid with a confident smile and what looked like either a cold sore or a cut on his lower lip. The chances of the two of them hanging out in a normal situation seemed highly unlikely. Of all the spirits to be possessed by, why did Charlie have to have someone like Walter?

“It means I have a knack for this type of stuff even if I don't know what I'm doing in the beginning. I just have to use my instincts.”

“So you don't have any training?” Charlie asked.

“Nope.”

“Perfect.” Charlie didn't believe in relying wholly on instincts. And he seemed to know more than Walter did. If the shades came back, how was Walter going to help him at all? Charlie navigated to SpiritSpy.org and typed “spirit possession” into the search bar.

Several images flashed on the screen, all of them displaying people either sleeping or sitting in chairs with their eyes closed while faded representations of ghosts hovered above them. After reading a few paragraphs, Charlie clicked on one of the video links.

Black-and-white and laced with static, video footage of a supposed spirit possession blipped on the monitor. The date in the bottom right corner of the screen had been blurred out deliberately. A boy waist-deep under his sheets writhed in his bed as several adult onlookers circled him. Charlie turned up the audio as a man's voice chanted through the computer speakers. It was shoddy work. Poor lighting and sound. Not one close-up of the boy in the bed. He was the main attraction, for crying out loud!

Charlie snickered. “Who filmed this? It's so fake!”

“Turn that junk off,” Walter whispered.

Charlie leaned closer to the screen. “The guy can't even hold the camera still.”

“Did you hear me?” Walter's voice rose shakily. “I said, turn it off!”

“I heard you,” Charlie answered. “But I'm not finished watching. Ah, come on! That boy's not even acting believable. He keeps looking at the camera! Amateurs.”

“I don't care. It's freaking me out!”

“Who ever heard of a ghost being scared of other ghosts? Who are you, Casper?” Charlie sighed. “We're going to have to find a better instructional video. This one's worthless.”

Suddenly, Charlie's hand yanked forward out of his control, clicked the mouse, and X'ed out of the video. As if sensing the disruption, all seven birds, including Doris the parakeet, erupted with a cacophony of unsettling squawks.

“How—how did you do that?” Charlie blubbered, flexing his fingers.

“I
told
you to turn it off. I don't like watching weird ghost videos. And I don't know how I did that. I'm trying to do it right now, but I can't.”

“Well, please don't.” Charlie scooted his chair back from the computer.

“Charlie,” an eerie woman's voice whispered from the doorway.

Charlie and Walter screamed at the top of their lungs in harmony.

T
he birds joined in as the boys' screams echoed through the small apartment like screeching tires at a demolition derby.

Charlie's mother stood in the doorway wearing a nightgown, arms folded in front of her. “Do you realize what time it is? You're going to wake your father!”

“Too late,” Charlie's dad muttered from the hallway.

“What have we told you about playing on the computer after bedtime?” she asked.

“But, Mom, this is different,” Charlie tried to reason. “I was just—”

“Don't tell her anything about me, stupid,” Walter said in Charlie's ears.

“Shut up!” Charlie snapped.

His mom's jaw dropped, and his dad's stern face appeared in the doorway. “You do
not
talk to your mother like that!”

Charlie put his hands up in submission and backpedaled. “Oh no, I wasn't talking to her. I was talking to—”

“Watch it,” Walter warned. “I don't think you should be telling them about me just yet.”

Closing his eyes, Charlie swallowed. “I was talking to my birds. They were about to get noisy again, and I know how much you hate that when you're trying to sleep.”

That got him off the hook for snapping at his mother, but he was still banished from the computer for the rest of the week—with the threat of much worse if he didn't go to bed immediately.

“Man, you got off easy,” Walter said, once Charlie had nestled down under his covers.

“Easy? We just lost our ability to research what's going on,” Charlie whispered. “Thanks a lot!”

“So? It's only for two days. What about your cell phone? Don't you have Internet?”

“I don't have a cell phone.”

“What? How old are you? Everyone in middle school has a cell phone.”

“Would you please stop shouting? I can hear everything you say.” Charlie rubbed his eyes and yawned. None of this made sense. Where had Walter come from? Why had he possessed Charlie? And most important, when was he going to leave?

“Hey!” Walter shouted once more. “Oh, sorry.” He lowered his voice. “What does your dad do for a living?”

“My dad? What does it matter?”

“I just remembered something important. Demons and other Underworld creatures are attracted to kids because of their parents' jobs.”

Charlie sat up and rested against the headboard. “Did you make that up just now? That's really worthless information.”

“It's not worthless,” Walter protested. “Just answer the question.”

“He drives an armored car.” Charlie dropped back down onto his pillow.

“Like a tank?”

“What? No! An armored car. He picks up money from businesses and delivers it to the bank.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“I guess. He has to carry a gun.”

“Maybe that's it! Does he have to shoot people from time to time?” Walter probed.

“Seriously, would you please just be quiet for a few hours? I need to get my sleep. It's the only way I'll have a clear head tomorrow so we can figure out how to get rid of you.”

Walter didn't argue. Charlie rolled over and tried his hardest to fall asleep—a task made extremely difficult when Walter turned out to be a heavy breather.