Death in Spades Read online

  Death in Spades

  By Abigail Collins

  For Eden, my reason.

  Chapter One

  It takes me a little while to adjust to being dead.

  It’s not as simple as some people try to convince themselves it is. There are no admittance papers, no orientation meetings, no friendly guide waiting with a suit and a smile. Not even a spark of light or my life flashing before my eyes. I remember darkness, but that’s about it.

  Cliché? Yes. True? Unfortunately.

  How did I end up here – wherever here is? The romantic version is that I died, and then I woke up ten feet in the air with my body in a bag under my feet. And that is the truth – just not all of it.

  It just doesn’t sound as glamorous to say that I wrote a note, cried a little, took a penknife to my wrists and waited about an hour and a half before my sister found me and called for an ambulance. I don’t remember being conscious enough to look her in the eyes and tell her that I loved her, but that’s what she’s been telling anyone who will listen. I think I might have written something like that in my note, but I’m not sure. See, that’s the thing about being dead –

  your mind is the last thing to go and the last thing to come back. I’m still waiting for all of my old memories to return to me.

  But I do remember dying. I remember what it felt like, what it looked like; Hell, even what it smelled like. I think that’s the one memory I wouldn’t have minded never getting back.

  That’s me, on the table down there. I can’t help but look, even though my stomach churns when I do. It’s strange, really, that I can still feel queasy when I technically don’t even have a body anymore, let alone a stomach.

  My autopsy was harder to watch. I’m not even sure why it was necessary, since my cause of death was so obvious. But my body seems to be pulling my soul – is that what I am now? – along with it, so I don’t have much choice but to follow.

  The man below me is dressing me up, making me look prettier than I ever did when I was alive. He puts me in a dress that I resent, paints my face with the kind of makeup I would not have been caught dead – haha – wearing, and strings my neck and wrists with jewelry. My jacket, which I assume my father chose for me, has sleeves that reach down far enough on my arms to cover my cuts, but I can still see the tips of them poking through underneath a silver bangle.

  I wish he wouldn’t cover them. I want everyone to see what I did. What they did to me. Was I vindictive when I was alive? I can’t really remember what kind of person I was, but I know that I’m a pretty bitter ghost. Even if I don’t know why I died or if anyone is to blame, I still want people to know. There’s something so liberating about not having to hide my feelings anymore.

  I’ve got a nametag around my freaking ankle. Terra Elizabeth Spade. Like they’d lose me in the masses if they didn’t have me tagged.

  I mean, seriously, how many other sixteen-year-old wrist-slitters are there in this place? I should be easy enough to identify. Plus, I’ve got the kind of face that people remember, even if it’s not for the right reasons – brown hair, brown eyes, chunky in all the wrong places. Olivia used to tell me that I’d be prettier if I tried harder, but that mostly made me want to stop trying altogether. And that’s kind of what I did.

  I died wearing an army-green jacket and leggings that were torn at the knees. My boots were scuffed with mud and my fingernails were painted a chipped black that looked more like dirt than nail polish. I guess that’s one thing you take with you when you’re gone – your sense of fashion. Even as a ghost, I’m still wearing the same thing I was when I died. I’m stuck looking like a hobo for the rest of my afterlife. Great.

  After I’m all dressed up like a porcelain doll I am left to sit – lay, technically – until my casket arrives. The wait stretches on and seems to take forever, though I really shouldn’t be complaining now that I have an eternity’s worth of time ahead of me. I had told my father – in my note – to have me cremated; it’s easier, cheaper, and a lot more final. I want my body to disappear, to burn down to ashes and fly away with the wind. I do not want to haunt my friends and family with a half-rotted corpse in the ground that they visit because they feel obligated to.

  But my father thinks that a funeral is a step in the ‘mourning process.’ That’s what I heard him talking to my sister, Olivia, about. He told her that it was his way of grieving, and I guess I should be glad that he’s found a way to let out his emotions without destroying himself.

  I wish I could do that. But I suppose that’s why I’m here. Because I couldn’t.

  But the interesting thing is, I don’t regret it. I’ve heard stories about people who have tried to kill themselves, failed, and then later regretted having ever done it in the first place. But I don’t feel that way. Clearly – for whatever reason; I haven’t retrieved that particular memory just yet – I wanted to die, so I figure that I probably wanted to stay dead. I’m not the kind of person who does things half-heartedly; once my mind is made up, it’s nearly impossible to change it. I may not remember much about myself, but I know that for certain; I can remember the moment I chose to take my own life, and the feelings that pushed me towards it. There was absolutely no hesitation in my actions.

  I try to focus my attention on my body, but after a few minutes I start to feel sick again and I have to look away. It’s not because it’s a dead body; that fact doesn’t bother me very much, especially since it’s my dead body. But I hate the way I look. I always have, but at least when I was alive I still looked like myself. I hate that the man who made me up tried to make me look like an angel.

  If I was an angel, I would be in Heaven right now.

  So, where exactly am I? Limbo, maybe. Or even Hell. After all, I’m already bored to death – pun totally intended – and I’ve only been dead for a couple of days. I think I’d actually rather be in Hell than stuck here for eternity, but I’m not sure I have the option.

  I look down at my body – my current body, avoiding the corpse below me adamantly. I don’t look like a ghost. I’m not extraordinarily pale, and when I wave my own hand in front of my face I am surprised to see that it isn’t translucent. I clap my hands together, and they meet with a muffled slapping sound; though, I’m certain I am the only one who’s able to hear it. I try to speak, and my voice comes out loud and clear.

  The only exception to my otherwise unchanged form is my sense of touch. I pinch my arm, bite the inside of my lip, even hit myself in the knee, but each time I feel nothing. I’m sure it’s the same with pleasant sensations, though I don’t test my theory. I assume my sense of taste is gone, too, but at least I can still see and hear just fine. And smell, for some reason. And right now all I can smell is rotten meat, overlaid with a perfume that does little to mask the odor.

  There is one thing about my appearance that has changed, however. My arms, when I study them, are completely bare. No blood, no cuts. They bear no indications that I even killed myself, let alone how I did it. But I suppose this makes sense. If, for example, someone was killed by a guillotine, they probably wouldn’t take kindly to coming back as a headless spirit. And I would really rather not think about people whose bodies were shredded apart when they died.

  I am forced to attend my funeral, though I am able to pull on the invisible thread connecting me to my body just enough to allow me to watch the ceremony from a safe distance. My father and sister are both crying, holding on to each other like their lives depend on it. I can remember them, but only in flashes. My sister is wearing a black dress that looks like was made for a porn star, not an eighteen-year-old mourner at a funeral.

  Where is my mother? I can’t remember. Her face sticks out in my memory, as well as some sporadic moments of her from my childhood
, but I can’t figure out why she isn’t attending my funeral. Maybe she and my father are divorced. Or maybe she’s dead, too. Does that mean I’ll get to meet her soon, or am I doomed to spend the rest of eternity alone?

  I could be the stereotypical suicidal teen and say that I spent my life virtually alone, so why not my death too? But I really don’t want that. It’s boring, and I’m starting to get lonely; even when I was alive, I had my father and my sister. Now they don’t even know I’m here.

  A preacher gives a speech that I try not to listen to, and then a few people I recognize – and some that I do not – stand up and say things about me that I know aren’t true. I barely even remember myself, but I know enough to recognize a lie when I see one. I’m pretty sure I was not as ‘lively and spirited’ as my sister tells the congregation of people that I am. If I was, I probably wouldn’t have killed myself. The ceremony feels like it takes forever. I perch myself on a low tree branch on the edge of the cemetery, surprised when I’m able to stop floating long enough to sit down. I briefly

  wonder what other things I will learn about my new form – some superpowers would be cool – but from what I’ve seen so far it seems like I’m pretty much the same as I was when I was alive. Just, without the whole breathing and feeling thing.

  My casket is lowered into the ground, and everybody takes turns throwing flowers on top of it. Then dirt is shoveled in the hole, and before I know it my body is buried six feet deep.

  I feel a sudden tug in my stomach, unpleasant enough to pull me from my seat. I flail my arms for a second before I realize that I can fly and I level myself out. It feels like there is a string inside of me, yanking me forward.

  And then, just as quickly as the sensation had come, I feel the cord snap, sending me reeling backwards. Without thinking, I know what just happened. Since my old body has been properly laid to rest, my new body is no longer connected to it. I’m free to go wherever I want now.

  Testing my theory, I push myself back a few feet, then a few more, until I am floating a block outside of the cemetery, watching the crowd of mourners pack themselves into their cars and drive home. I no longer feel myself being pulled towards my grave, which must mean I’m finally free. I feel both elation and dread in my chest.

  Now that I can go anywhere, where should I go?

  My first thought is, back home. But what would that solve? I barely remember anything about the place, not to mention the people who live there. Though it would probably help my memories return if I go there and search for familiar things, I’m admittedly kind of afraid of remembering too much.

  I mean, I killed myself, so my life obviously wasn’t all that great. And I’d really rather not know what drove me to slit my wrists. Although, I obviously can’t commit suicide twice, and I assume all of my memories are going to come back eventually, anyway. That’s not a very comforting thought.

  I debate looking around the town, but I’ve already seen most of it. It’s not very large, and the hearse that toted my corpse to the cemetery drove through a reasonable chunk of it, with my soul riding shotgun.

  I could try to hop a plane to another country, but I really have no interest in travelling. As it turns out, I’m not a very motivated person. Was there anything I liked doing? Anything I might have added to a bucket list that I now have the opportunity to complete?

  In the end, I settle for practicing honing my flight abilities and trying to discover if I have any other cool new ghost-powers.

  When I fly, I am able to just about reach the top few branches of a fairly tall tree before I lose my balance and float back down. Luckily, I’m weightless, so falling and hitting the ground isn’t really an issue. Moving from side to side is a bit trickier, and I have to really focus in order to do it without changing my vertical position.

  I practice floating upside-down, which is fun, and doing summersaults in the air, which is a lot less fun. And since my body isn’t tangible anymore, I can fly through trees and even buildings without bumping into anything. Though, when I stand on solid ground my feet don’t sink into the earth. That’s strange. I can’t move objects with my mind; to be honest, I’m kind of disappointed by that. I am also unable to telepathically communicate with people, or touch

  solid objects even if I concentrate as hard as I can. Maybe these skills take a little more time to learn. I hope so, because being a ghost would really suck if all I can do is fly over tree branches and stick my face through walls.

  I hover over the edge of a nearby roof and concentrate on sitting down without falling through the tiles. It takes several attempts, but at least I eventually manage to perfect the one set of skills that I’ve attained through all of this. So, death has given me the ability to fly and walk through walls – not entirely worthless, considering what I’m probably leaving behind.

  Still… There has to be more. Not that I’m the world’s most optimistic person – because, obviously, I decided that death was better than whatever future I may have conjured up for myself – but it’s just that I’m… I don’t know. Disappointed?

  I must have killed myself with the hope that whatever came afterwards would be better than where I was in my life then. Was I depressed? Did I have a boyfriend who beat me? Was my family so dysfunctional that I couldn’t even see past my angst-riddled teenage years to an adulthood that might have been happier? Whatever my reason, I must have been convinced that I was doing the right thing.

  Maybe I was a religious person; I might have thought that I would somehow get into Heaven – even after committing suicide – and that all of my problems would be solved. Or maybe I expected to fade away into nothingness and cease to exist altogether. But whatever life I was living is going to come back to me sooner or later, and now I’m stuck in limbo with no place else to go and no future whatsoever.

  And now I’m getting depressed. Again. Really, if this is going to be a pattern in my life – and my afterlife – then I might as well work on finding a way to make sure I die and stay dead next time.

  A rich, feminine voice speaks up from behind me: “Ah, but would that really solve anything? Maybe that’s why you’re still here – because you have a reason to stay in existence. You probably just got stuck between Heaven and Hell. It happens more often than you’d think – trust me.”

  I swear, if I still had skin, I would have jumped right out of it.

  Chapter Two

  There was snow on the ground the day I decided to die – not enough to freeze to the trees and ice over the sidewalks, but more than usual for this time of year. I don’t know why I remember the thin blanket of snow that clung to my jacket when I made my last trek up the steps and into my house; I wasn’t even paying attention to the weather then. I don’t know what time it was, or even what day of the month, but I remember the snow.

  It fits, somehow. Maybe I was more observant than I imagine myself to be, or maybe it’s just death that’s putting things into perspective.

  I look up at the trees flecked with stray snowflakes.

  “You’re awfully calm, considering.”

  I honestly didn’t expect to meet anyone else in this… wherever I am. I mean, between my body being discovered and my uneventful funeral, at least a few days must have passed, and I still hadn’t run into a single person who could actually talk to me – let alone see me. But the woman in front of me – feet hovering just a

  few inches above the ground – is staring straight at me with sky-blue eyes and the kind of curly red hair you only ever see in movies. She’s at least ten years older than I am, judging by the frown lines on her cheeks and the curves of a body that’s clearly gone through more puberty than mine, but she’s wearing a short black dress and matching heels like she just got back from prom or something.

  I shrug, shooting her a small grin that I hope doesn’t convey just how excited I am to finally be communicating with another person. Maybe she can tell me where I am – and how to get out.

  “I’ve had plenty of time to freak out,�
�� I say. “I’m kind of used to it by now. And it’s not like my death was a surprise or anything.”

  A strange look passes over the woman’s eyes; I can’t quite place it, but it’s almost like sympathy. Empathy, maybe, but she doesn’t look like the kind of person who would have ended up here the same way I did.

  “Where are we, by the way? This can’t be Heaven, right? Because if it is, I’m more than a little disappointed.”

  The woman smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

  “There isn’t really a name for it,” she says slowly, thoughtfully. “I’d call it Limbo, if I had to pick a name, but it’s still the same Earth you were on when you were alive. It’s sort of like the last stop between Heaven and Hell. Most souls don’t even stop here for more than a few minutes, just long enough to make sure their bodies stay dead, but some of us are the exception.”

  Us. The word sticks in my brain. Something tells me it’s important, knowing that there are more people – ghosts –

  out there like me.

  I nod like I understand what she’s saying. None of it really makes sense to me, though. “How long have you been here for?”

  “At least ten years,” she says without a beat of hesitation. She frowns and furrows her eyebrows like she’s trying to think of something, but then shakes her head and replaces her smile. “Although I’m really not sure. I’ve been stuck for a lot longer than most, though. I wouldn’t worry about it; you’ll probably be out of here in no time.”

  Ten years. I can’t imagine what that must have been like. I’ve been here for just a few days and already I feel like I’m going crazy. How she put up with this for so long, I don’t know, but I imagine she didn’t exactly have a choice.

  Does that mean I don’t have a choice either?

  “Your name is Terra, right?” she asks, and I nod mutely. “I’m Mellie. Short for Melanie, but nobody calls me that anymore.”