Better Off Dead (3 page)

“I wasn’t texting,” I ground out.

Jason shrugged as if whatever I
was
doing was trivial and beside the point. “Unfortunately, your angel was MIA and now here you are.”

I leaned forward, not quite believing my ears. “I have an angel?”

Jason nodded. “Everyone does. Some are just a little better than others.”

I shook my head, wondering if there was a limit to how much information my small brain could process before it went on overload. “So, let me understand this, not only do I have a guardian angel, b
ut mine isn’t a very good one?”

“That about sums it up. Your angel
…” He paused. “His name is Bill, by the way.”

“Bill?”

“He’s been on probation for … failing to do his duties for you and a few others.”

My hands tightened on the arms of my chair as I wondered at what point my non-comprehending brain would simply implode with all thi
s ridiculousness. “Probation?”

He nodded. “Yes, it seems he’s had a bit of t
rouble with alcohol recently.”

“My angel is an alcoholic?” I slouched into my chair, the words “angel” and “alcoholic” swimming through the air
as I began to doubt my sanity.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

Jason parted his thin lips, but that exhausted look resurrected itself on his face. I was quick to interrupt, shock and anger suddenly warring within me until I couldn’t contain them any longer. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Alcoholic angels? I didn’t even know they could drink!”

“They can do everything humans can,” he said in an affronted tone, like he
was annoyed that I was annoyed.

I sat back into my chair, not feeling any better with the situation, but also figuring my outbursts were finished for the immediate future. Well, until I could come to terms with what was really going on. But flipping out wasn’t going to do me any good. I needed to stay in control of myself and in control of my emotions. Wayne Dyer’s words, “it makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them,” floated through my head as I tried to prepare myself for whatever I had coming.

Jason Streethorn, the office manager of death, folded his hands in his lap and leaned forward. “Since your angel, our employee, failed you, we do have an offer of restitution.”

Apparently, this was where the business side of our conversation began. “Restitu
tion?”

“Yes, because this oversight is our fault, I’d like to offer you the chance to live again.”

I had to suspend my disbelief of being dead in the first place and just play along with him, figuring at some point I’d wake up and Jason Streethorn, the orange-haired woman and this DMV-like place would be nothing more than the aftermath of a cheese pizza and Coke eaten too close to bedtime. “Okay, that sounds good. What do I …”

He rebuffed me with his raised hand. “However, if you accept this offer, you’ll have to be emplo
yed by AfterLife Enterprises.”

I sank back into my chair, suddenly wanting nothing more than to pull my hair out.
“What does that mean?”

He sighed, as though the explanation would take a while. “Unfortunately,
AfterLife Enterprises is a bit on the unorganized side of late. When the computer system switched from 1999 to 2000, we weren’t prepared, and a computer glitch resulted in thousands of souls getting misplaced.”

The fact that death relied on a computer system which wasn’t even as good as Windows XP was too much. “The Y2K bug didn’t affect anyone.”

Jason worked the stress ball between his emaciated fingers, making multiple knuckles crack, the sound imbedding itself in my psyche. “On Earth, it didn’t affect anything, but such was not the case with the AfterLife.” He exhaled like he was trying to expel all the air from his lungs. “Unfortunately, we were affected and it’s a problem we’ve been trying to sort out ever since.” He paused and shook his head like it was a great, big shame. Then he apparently remembered he had the recently dead to contend with and faced me again. “As I said before, due to this glitch, we’ve had souls sent to the Kingdom who should’ve gone to the Underground City. And vice versa.” He paused. “And some souls are locked on the earthly plane as well. It’s been a big nightmare, to say the least.”

My mouth was still hanging open. “The Kingdom and the Underground City? Is that like
heaven and hell?” Why did I have the sudden feeling he was going to start the Dungeons and Dragons lingo?

“Similar.”

I rubbed my tired eyes and let it all sink in. So, not only were there bad dead people in heaven, aka the Kingdom, but there were good dead people in hell, aka the Underground City? And to make things even more complicated, there were bad and good dead people stuck on Earth?

“Is that still happening now? Or did you fix the computer glitch?” I asked, wondering if maybe I’d been sent to the wrong place. I thought this place seemed like
hell from the get-go. And though I was never a church-goer, I definitely wasn’t destined for the South Pole.

“We fixed the glitch, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are still thousands of misplaced souls. And the longer those souls who should be in the Kingdom are left in the Underground City, or on the earthly plain, the bigger the chances of lawsuits against
AfterLife Enterprises. We’ve already had a host of them and we can’t afford anymore.”

I didn’t have the wherewithal to contemplate
AfterLife lawsuits, so I focused on the other details. “So how are you going to get all those people, er souls, back where they belong?”

“That’s where you would come in, sho
uld you accept this job offer.”

“I would bring the spirits back?” I asked, aghast. “I’d b
e a ghost hunter or something?”

He laughed; it was the first time he seemed warm and, well, alive. Funny what a laugh will do for you.

“Yes, your title would be ‘Retriever’ and we have hundreds who, like you, are currently retrieving souls.”

An image of the Ghostbusters jumped into my mind and I had to shake it free. Whatever this job entailed, I doubted it included slaying
Slimer. “And if I don’t agree?”

Jason shrugged and turned to the computer again. After a few clicks, he faced me with a frown. “Looks like you’ll be on the
waiting list for the Kingdom.”

“The waiting list?” I
asked, shocked. “I think I’ve led a pretty decent life!”

He shook his head and faced the computer again. “I show three accounts of thievery—when
you were six, nine and eleven.”

“I was just a kid!”

He cleared his throat and returned his attention to the Word doc. “I also show multiple accounts of cheating when you were in university.”

Affronted, I launched myself from the chair. “I’ve
never cheated in my life!”

He frowned, looking anything but amused
. “No, but you aided a certain Jordan Summers by giving him the answers in your Biology class and I show that happened over the course of the semester.”

I
sat back down and folded my arms against my chest. “I would think helping someone wouldn’t slate me for a waiting list!”

“Cheating takes more than one form.” He glanced at the screen again. “Shall I go on?”

“No.” I frowned. “So how long will I be on the waiting list?”

He leaned back in his chair and resumed working the stress ball. “You’re fairly close to the top of the list since your offenses are only minor. I’
d say about one hundred years.”

“One hundred years!” I bit my lip to keep it from quivering. When I felt I could rationally conduct myself again, I faced Jason. “So where would I be f
or the next one hundred years?”

“In Shade.”

I frowned. “And what is that? Like Limbo?”

“Yes, close to it.”

“What would I do there?”

He shrugged. “Nothing, really. Shade exists merely as a loading dock for those who are awaiting the Kingdom
… or the Underground City.”

I didn’t like the so
und of that. “What’s it like?”

“There is neither light nor dark, everything exists in gray. There’s nothing good to look forward to, nor anything bad. You j
ust exist.”

“But if those people who are going to
hell,” I started.

“The Undergroun
d City,” he corrected me. “Those destined for the Underground are kept separate from those destined for the Kingdom,” he finished, answering my question before I even asked it.

I felt tears
stinging my eyes. “Shade sounds like my idea of hell.”

Jason shook his head while a wry chuckle escaped him. “Oh, no. The Underground City is much worse.” He paused. “The good news is that if you do become a Retriever and you relocate
ten souls, you can then go directly to the Kingdom and bypass Shade altogether.”

“So I wouldn’t have to go to Shade at all?”

“As long as you relocate ten souls, you bypass Shade,” he repeated, nodding as if to make it obvious that this was the choice I should make.

“What does
retrieving these souls mean?”

He started rolling the stress ball against his desk. “We’d start you with one assignment, or one soul. With the help of a guide, you’d go after that soul and retrieve it.” He paused. “Are you interest
ed?”

I exhaled. Did I want to die and live the next century in Shade? The short answer was no. Did I want to be a soul
-retriever? Not really, but I guessed it was better than dying.

“Okay, I guess so.”

“We could start you out and see how you do. You can always decide not to do it.”

“But then I’d die?”

“I’m afraid that’s the alternative.”

“Why can’t you
let me go back to my old life?”

He shook his head. “It’s not possible. Your soul has already left your body. Once the soul departs, the body goes bad within three seconds. Unfortunately, you are way past your three seconds. That and the coroners have already pronounced you dead and the newspapers are preparing your obituary. Your
mother was notified, as well.”

Mom has been notified
…
Something hollow and dreadful stirred in my gut and started climbing up my throat. I gulped it down, hell-bent on not getting hysterical. Tears welled up in my eyes and I furiously batted them away.

“I never got to say good
-bye,” I managed as I tried to rack my brain to remember the last conversation I’d had with my mother, the only person (besides Miranda) with whom I was close. Truly, my mother and Miranda were my best friends. And right about now, both of them had to be traumatized.

Jason nodded, but it wasn’t a nod that said he was sympathizing. It was a hurried nod. “I’m sorry; but you need to make a decision soon. Time is of the essence and Shade will be calling soon to fi
nd out if you’re joining them.”

I forced my tears aside and focused on his angular face, trying to ignore my grief so I could come to a decision which would completely change the course of my life
… or AfterLife. “So, if I take this job and choose to live, I can’t do so in my own body?”

It wasn’t like I was thrilled with my appearance: I was short, overweight and plain. I was the woman who
m no one ever noticed—the one always behind the scenes. I’d had one major boyfriend in my life and that had lasted all of two months. Yep, anyway I looked at it, I was basically hopeless—a twenty-two-year-old workaholic virgin with nothing but the redundancy of a stress-inducing job to force me to wake up each morning. But, I was me, and the idea of coming back in another body left me cold. No pun intended.

“You would not be able to come back as yourself,” Jason said. “You’d have
to come back in another body.”

I glanced down at myself. As far as I could tell, I still looked the s
ame. “But, I’m in my body now.”

“You’re here in spirit only.”

The phone on his desk rang and he faced me with impatience etched in his eyes and mouth. “That’s probably Shade calling.”

He picked up the phone. “Jason Streethorn,
AfterLife Enterprises, how can I help you?

After a few nods, he glanced at me. “Yes, she’s here. She’s just deciding what she wants to do. Yes, I understand it’s be
en over an hour.”

He muffled the end of the phone with his palm and faced me again. “You need to decide now.” He faced the phone again. “Yes, I’ve informed her. You’re going to send
someone over within the hour?”

“Wait,” I
interrupted. “Tell them I’ll take the job. I want to live.”

“
So bitter is it, death is little more."

—
   
Dante’s
Inferno

Two

Jason Streethorn hung up the phone and gave me a big smile. I figured he wanted me to make this decision—to become an employee of AfterLife Enterprises. And me? Well, even though the words just sort of vomited from my mouth, I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision. Frankly, I’d just come to terms with the idea that I was dead, and this wasn’t some prolonged and awful dream. And then there was the part about my mom having just been notified of her only child’s demise.

More than anything else, I wanted to tell her how much I loved her. Reassure her that I was going to be fine
…

I turned away from Jason, feeling tears welling in
my eyes. I focused on the pristine white of the office walls, trying to talk my tears into retreating. The fact that there were no pictures, no smudges or spots of any kind to interrupt the milky white of the walls suddenly infuriated me. How could someone spend the majority of his time in a room that looked this unlived in? I scanned the wall, searching for some sort of flaw—an insect, a scratch, anything! But there was nothing.

Jason clapped his hands together and I begrudgingly faced him again.

“We have much to do,” he said, spearing his tongue against his teeth a few times like he was trying to suck out something left over from lunch.

“Did you have a will?” he asked.

“No,” I said with a shrug. “All I ever owned was my car.” And I think I was overdrawn in my bank account. Overdraft charges? Ha! I got the last laugh on them.

Jason nodded. “Okay, then that makes things a bit easier. We’l
l just open you a new account.”

“A new account?”

“Yep,” he nodded emphatically. “This is the best part … the benefits for working for AfterLife Enterprises. You’ll get company housing, a company car, a company credit card and company allowance.”

Wow, this wasn’t sounding half bad
… well, if I could get past the being dead part.

“First things first, we need to find you a new name.” He turned to his computer and started typing like a madman. I watched the screen as a database of names popped up. He moused through them so quickly, I felt like I was
reading a book on fast forward.

“A new name? Why can’t I
…” I didn’t finish my sentence before realizing the answer. Lily Harper was dead.
Lily Harper was dead.

I felt a pang of nausea churn my gut.
It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them,
I told myself, recalling Wayne Dyer’s advice again.
There’s nothing you can do about them …

“You can keep your first name, but as for your second…” Jason’s voice grew quiet as he hit “enter” and the database stopped spinning. One name w
as highlighted among the rest.

“O’Shaughnessey,” Jason announced
.

“What? I’m Irish now?”

He laughed. “Well, your name is.”

“Lily O’Shaughnessey,” I said, trying out the flavor on my tongue. “I guess it
sort of has a nice ring to it.”

“Hilda will take care of your new legal documents while we finish up the rest of this. By the time we’re done here, you’ll have a new birth certificate, social security card, driver’s license
, passport and green card, if you require one.” He paused and glanced at me. “But more on that later.”

I’d never had a passport before. That was sort of cool. But as to the green card
…

“Okay,” Jason said, turning to face me again. “Now, where you’re going to live
… We have corporate housing all over the world.”

“I want to live abroad,” I said quickly, suddenly wanting this new life of mine to be totally new. If I was going to start fresh, I didn’t want any reminders of my old life. I didn’t think I had the emotional strength to handle it. Instead, I wanted to embark on a completely new
voyage, leaving everything I knew far far behind.

“Okay,” he said as he brought up what looked like a real
estate multiple listings page.

“So, how does this corporate housin
g work? Do I have to pay rent?”

Jason didn’t turn around, but continued searching through the listings. “No, we cover your room and board. We give you whatever you require, and in return, you work a fe
w jobs during the year for us.”

“A few jobs during the year?” I argued. “At that rate, it will take me
years to relocate the ten souls!”

Jason shrugged. “So take on more jobs.” Then he glanced over at me again. “Besides, you won’t age.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so chose not to respond, instead turning to other questions swarming my mind. “So I don’t get a salary?”

He shook his head, still intently scanning through the house listings. “You’ll get an allowance, but not a salary. The allowance is to cover things you can’t use a credit card for. Just think of it as a bank account that maintains a high balance.”

Hmm … a consistently full bank account didn’t sound half bad. Sort of like repeatedly passing “Go” in Monopoly. “So, do I use a debit card?”

He nodded. “Yes, and you also get a corporate credit card. Whatever you need, you can use one or the other, though we prefer you use the credit card—it’s easier to sort out any fraudulent charges.” Jason stopped typing and turned back to me
, shifting the screen so we both could view it. “Okay, looks like we’ve got several properties available. We’ve got a penthouse in Barcelona, Spain; a cabin in Quebec, Canada; and an elaborate apartment in Edinburgh, Scotland; just to list the first three …” he started scrolling for more listings, but my mind froze on the apartment.

“Th
is one in Scotland,” I started.

Jason clicked and pulled up the listing. I’m not sure the word “apartment” did it justice. From what I could se
e, it was at the top of a four- or five-story brick building, overlooking a vast sea of green grass, scored by walking paths. Hugging both sides of the paths were mature and densely foliated trees that acted as umbrellas over the walkways.

“A charming apartment facing the Meadows of Edinburgh,” Jason read. “Conveniently located near the city center, the Meadows is one of the nicer areas of Edinburgh. Enjoy free golf,” he glanced up at me, adding, “apparently, you just bring your own clubs and balls.” Then he looked at the listing again. “With views of the Edinb
urgh Castle and Arthur’s Seat.”

“What’s Arthur’s Seat?” I asked.

Jason shrugged and read through the rest of the listing himself before facing me again. “Apparently, it’s a well-known mountain that you can also hike.”

“Oh,” I said as I started fidgeting. The weight of this decision suddenly dawned on me. Was I really going to move so far away? To another country? Granted, Scotland wouldn’t be too bad a location—I mean, they did speak English there, and I had to admit I was fond of men in kilts. Plus,
Braveheart
was my all-time favorite movie …

“As to the apartment, itself,” Jason continued
, “it is two bedrooms, two bathrooms, has a view of the Meadows; and apparently, each unit has its own private garden. It features: wood floors, high ceilings with crown molding, fireplaces in the living room
and
the master bedroom, tile in the kitchen and bathrooms ...” He paused for a moment or two. “You know, you don’t have to live in an apartment. We have homes available as well.”

But I didn’t need a lot of space. I had no interest in pomp and circumstance. “The apartment sounds perf
ect,” I said in a small voice.

Jason glanced at me. “Want it?”

I nodded dumbly and he clicked a red button that said “reserve.” Then he exited the webpage. He leaned back in his chair and gave me a smile, as if waiting for something. Suddenly, what sounded like a vacuum emanated from the top of the long, plastic tube beside his computer. Before I had time to take another breath, something metallic dropped down the tube, landing on Jason’s desk.

“Two sets of house keys
,” he said, handing them to me.

I just stared at the gold keys in my open palm, wondering if I was going to wake up. This was just too
… unbelievable.

“Now, we have some corporate cars available, if you’re interested. Or you can s
imply go out and buy your own.”

“What have you got?” I asked, feeling more like I was asking what flavors of ice cream he had available, not wha
t vehicles he had in his fleet.

He pulled up another webpage and pored through a long list. It looked like the pages of
Autotrader
. “We have quite a selection. What do you like?”

I shrugged as I remembered my
reliable Volvo. If only it could see me now. “Maybe an Audi?” I shrugged, hoping it wasn’t too much to ask for; then something dawned on me. “Don’t they drive on the other side of the road in Scotland?”

Jason glanced at me quickly. “Yes, but it won’t take you long to get used to it. Those damned roundabouts, though, now they’re another story.” Then he chuckled at his own joke, which wasn’t funny at a
ll.

“Okay,”
I said with a hesitant smile.

“We have eighty Audis on file with the steering wheel on the right
-hand side. Can you be more exact as to which model you’d prefer?”

Hmm, I didn’t know anything about cars. All I knew was Audis were nice, but as far as models? I was clueless. “Um, I don’t really know.
I’m not much of a car person.”

He smiled and shook his head, li
ke it was a shame. “Okay, SUV?”

I did like SUVs. They were big
… and safe. And safety was suddenly more important to me now than it ever had been before. “Yeah, an SUV sounds perfect.”

He hit “enter” and a list of SUVs popped up. “How about the first one?” Jason asked. “It’s not too
big to maneuver, and lots of women buy them.”

Jason clicked and a silver Audi popped up. I read the headline: “
Audi Q5”
and paused to consider it. It wasn’t too boxy or overpowering. “I like it.”

He clicked “reserve” then waited for the keys to pop out of the plastic tube. Once they arrived, he hand
ed them to me.

“Now comes the truly fun part,” he said with a grin that reminded me of the Cheshire cat. “Yo
u get to choose your new body.”

Despite Jason’s apparent delight, this was the part I liked least—it just seemed so weird, to be picking someone else’s body, to su
ddenly look like someone else.

“Now, this is going to be tougher than choosing the car or the house because you’ll have exactly
three seconds to make your decision.”

“Three
seconds?” I repeated, my voice laced with doubt. I’d never been good with deadlines.

Jason nodded. “Yes, all the pictures you’re about to see are people who are going to die within seconds. The body, once the soul leaves it, remains inhabitable for
about three seconds; so you’ll have to act quickly. Then once you decide, we have about two seconds to give you the animation shot. After that, you’ll be good to go.”

“Okay, hold it,” I started, my stomach feeling as if it just dropped to
my toes. “The animation shot?”

Jason nodded. “Yes, when the body you choose dies, it has a couple of seconds before it arrives at our morgue unit here. We’ll take your soul into a syringe and then inject it into the body be
fore it starts to deteriorate.”

I could feel my brain start
ing to pound … sort of like an ice cream headache. “But the body is still on Earth, right?”

Jason nodded. “A clone. It would be a very difficult thing if the body disappeared from the scene of its death altogether. So we just replace the real body with a fake one—it looks exactly the same as the original, made of
flesh and blood.”