Rock N Soul (5 page)

“Maybe not, but I
am
the one who’s sitting in an empty hotel room talking to a ghost while my coworker is probably on the phone with the guys in white coats, so I think of the two of us, I’m worse off right now.”

“How is that worse than being dead?” He started pacing back and forth.

I watched him for a few seconds before answering. “Well, it’s not like you’re getting any
more
dead. But I could potentially be getting crazier and crazier by the second.”

“I think it must vacillate back and forth between more and less crazy,” he said, and for some reason the fancy GRE word sounded natural in his voice.

I raised an eyebrow. “How do you figure that?”

“Well, you were screaming,” he pointed out. “And then you were pretty chill with the whole thing for a little while. And then you started screaming again. And now you’re back to chill. So you’ve gone from crazy to not crazy and back to crazy and now you’re back to not crazy.”

I thought about this for a moment. “Well, maybe. But I think maybe the screaming was the not-crazy part and the chillaxing is the crazy coming back out.”

“That could be true,” he conceded. “So . . . good-bye, I guess.”

I blinked. “What? Good-bye? Are you, um, moving on?”

He stopped pacing and turned to face me. “Not that I know of. But if you take the ring off and it launches me into whatever afterlife I’m headed for . . . good-bye.”

“Yeah,” I said, drawing out the word. I put my fingers on the ring again, but still didn’t pull it off.

Poor guy. He’d just learned he was dead and now he might be getting even deader, despite what I’d said earlier. That must suck. I’ve always thought it might be better to die suddenly, without any warning, because although it would be shitty to die without saying your good-byes, at least you didn’t have to lie there dreading the last moment. I raised my eyes to meet his and felt like maybe I should, I don’t know, say a few words.

“You were a good musician, you know.” It was really all I could say, since I didn’t know the guy personally. But maybe it would be enough. “Your music and your life meant something to a lot of people.”

He swallowed, even though that must be pretty useless for a ghost. “You’re a fan?”

“Not really,” I admitted, then felt bad, both because maybe it would be better for him to be talking to a fan right now and because it’s not
strictly
true that I’m not one. “Well . . . I’m not a hardcore-psycho-screaming-in-the-mosh-pit kind of fan. But I like Incite the Masses, yeah. And my girlfriend was a
huge
fan.”

He tilted his head. “Was?”

“Yeah, was.” I paused, then realized what he meant. “Well, she still is a fan. She’s just not my girlfriend anymore. Hence the past tense.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, I guess it’s good. That people appreciated me.”

“They did,” I assured him. “And you know, the fans went crazy when you died. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth. Some kids ran out and got tattoos in memory of you. There are fan sites and oh my God, you should have seen the crowd outside the cemetery where they buried you.”

He blinked. “I’m buried?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Why? Does that surprise you?”

“A little, yeah,” he admitted, hugging his arms to his stomach. “I mean, it shouldn’t. I’m dead.” He blinked hard, then sighed. “How many people get to stand there saying ‘I’m dead’ and mean it literally?”

“No idea, man,” I said, shrugging. “I really don’t know how widespread ghostism is.”

“So you’re not Haley Joel?” He laughed awkwardly. “I mean . . . you don’t see dead people all the time? Walking around like regular people? Who don’t know they’re dead?”

“Not all the time, no,” I answered. “You’re my first. But who knows? Maybe finding your purple corpse awoke some latent psychic powers in me or something.”

“Maybe— Wait. Purple corpse?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. What, you thought after you shot yourself up with that much smack you’d look pretty?”

“I kind of hoped I wouldn’t look
dead
,” he snapped. “Or even
be
dead, for that matter.”

“Well, when you die of a heroin overdose you’re purple. The more you know.” I shot him a pointed glare. “But you looked okay otherwise, I guess. Well, and the fact that you’d puked yourself. So that wasn’t very attractive either. And your makeup was everywhere.”

He grimaced. “I really didn’t think I took enough to die of it.”

“The entire medical community disagrees with you,” I said. “And you know what they say about heroin, dude. Not even once.”

“You mean you’ve never tried it? Not even once?”

“Um, no,” I said, letting the contempt creep into my voice. I mean, sure, I’ll be nice to the guy to help ease his transition from life to afterlife so he doesn’t become a vengeful ghost and rethink the whole not-drowning-me-in-the-tub thing. But I wasn’t going to sit there and defend hard-drug use to him like it was a good idea that went tragically wrong.

“I find that hard to believe.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall, slowly and carefully like it was an experiment.

I raised my eyebrow again. “Dude, not that many people actually do heroin. I mean, pot, okay. Meth. Even crack. But heroin is a pretty small subset, as far as I know.”

“Just about everybody I know has at least tried it.”

“Well, you’re a rock star. You have a skewed sample,” I pointed out. “I bet everybody you know has boned Zoe Saldana, too.”

He laughed. “Not her specifically. But I guess I see what you mean.”

I offered him a smile, then let it slip back into a less amused expression. “But seriously, dude. Why’d you do it?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I tried it because I wanted to try new things. Experiment, you know. And then I just didn’t stop.” He opened his eyes again and gazed past me, unfocused and distant. “Eric told me to stop. But all I could think was, you know, fuck Eric. So I did what I wanted and now I’m dead.”

“I thought you and Eric were best friends.” And I really did. They acted like besties in all their interviews, elbowed each other and smiled and giggled and told stories about shenanigans and hijinks they’d gotten into. I’m pretty sure there’s a subset of fans who are convinced that they had been doing it too.

Chris pondered that for a few seconds. Finally, he sighed. “We were. But that was over a while ago. We’ve been barely civil to each other for a long time now.”

“So the interviews where you said you were like brothers . . . that was all for show?”

“No, we’re still like brothers,” he said, chuckling bitterly. “Just brothers who don’t like each other and only hang out when we’re obligated to.”

I nodded slowly. “Hence the separate hotels.”

“Yeah.” He tried to push away from the wall and almost fell backward through it.

I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did. He just looked so ridiculous, flailing for balance as his limbs disappeared into the wall and out of it, and then the dark glance he shot me set me off more.

“It’s not funny.” He wrinkled his nose and crossed his arms. “I nearly busted my ass.”

“Your ghosty ass!” I said, laughing even harder.

“Shut up,” he demanded, but his mouth twitched.

“Okay, okay.” I took several deep breaths and managed to compose myself. Barely. “So anyway, should we try the ring thing? See if that sends you on into the hereafter?”

“I guess so,” he said, his voice getting a little soft and vulnerable again. “Thanks, man.”

“For what?” I asked, my fingers pausing on the ring.

He worked his jaw for a moment. “For . . . I don’t know. I guess for explaining what happened. Could you, you know, pass on a message for me?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “A message. To who?”

“To Eric. And to my sister.”

“That you love them? That you’re sorry?” I guessed.

“Yeah, tell Allison that.” He grimaced. “And tell Eric . . . I don’t know. To go fuck himself. Or that he was right. Or that if he gets Nathan Vale to replace me, I’ll find a way to come haunt the shit out of him.”

I raised both eyebrows. “Um. Well, this is awkward.”

Chris’s mouth dropped open. “He did
not
.”

“They said it was only for the rest of the tour,” I pointed out helpfully.

“He did
not
,” he said again, louder this time. “That fucker!”

“Don’t drown the messenger in the tub.” I spread my hands in the universal “please don’t kill me Mr. Ghost” gesture.

“I’m going to find that asswipe and
haunt
him. I’m going to make his life miserable. He’ll regret doing this.”

“Hey, now, don’t go all vengeful spirit on me.” I gave him an exaggerated wide-eyed look. “I don’t want to have to shoot you with a salt gun.”

“With a what?” He stopped grinding his ghosty teeth and frowned at me.

“A salt gun,” I said. “Because you’re a ghost and, you know, salt . . .” He still looked completely in the dark. I rolled my eyes. “And then I’d have to burn your bones.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” he demanded.

Jeez. Richard didn’t get the Star Trek references and Chris Raiden had never watched
Supernatural
. I was surrounded by cultural cripples, all the time. “Never mind. If you didn’t watch any decent shows when you were alive, it’s too late to start now.”

“What show is that from?”

“
Supernatural
. It’s pretty good. They hunt ghosts and monsters and shit.”

He tilted his head again in what I was already starting to recognize as his thinking stance. “They hunt ghosts? Let’s watch it.”

I blinked at him. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, as a heart attack,” he said, then went to the bed and sat down facing the TV.

“Or as a lethal dose of junk,” I muttered, then picked up the remote. “It’s probably not even on, anyway. And the hotel TVs don’t have internet access.”

“Just find it on pay-per-view.” He flipped his hand like he was saying “any time you’re ready. Slowly McTakesforever.”

“Um, no,” I said. “Richard will kill me if I use pay-per-view in a guest room.”

“Then charge it to me.” He smiled like this was the greatest plan ever. “You still have my credit card information on file, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But. You’re. Dead. I’m pretty sure they cancel your credit cards when you’re dead.”

“Oh.” He paused and looked lost for a second.

And there was no way I was going to deal with a crying ghost if I could possibly help it, so I smiled super brightly and patted his ghost hand as best I could without being able to feel it. “Well, let’s just try the ring thing. Maybe you’ll go to heaven and then God can get you Netflix access or something.”

“Or I’ll go to hell,” he grumbled.

“Then you can watch
Rock of Love
,” I said. “Surely they play that one in hell on repeat.”

He laughed. “I like you, Tyler.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just because you’re stuck with me right now.”

“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “But you seem all right.”

“‘All right’? I can live with that.” I gave him a half smile. “So . . . are you ready?”

“Yeah.” He stood up. “If I disappear, can you put the ring back on before you just get rid of it? See if I come back when it’s on your hand again?”

“Sure. But if you don’t . . . well, it was good to meet you.”

“Same here.” He took another deep breath.

I watched him for a few seconds, then slipped the ring off of my finger.

Chris Raiden was a tall guy. Not freakishly tall, but easily six feet. A little taller than me. He had dark hair, almost black, and dark-brown eyes. He was slender with decently muscular arms, and he liked to wear tight T-shirts on stage to show off his biceps. He was the sort of guy who was attractive enough on his own, but fame suited him well. However, the most unusual thing about Chris Raiden was that he was still there.

I looked at the ring in my hand, then put it down on the bed beside me so that I wasn’t touching it at all. He stood there in front of me with his eyes squeezed shut.

“Any day now,” he said after a moment.

“I already did it,” I told him. “And you’re still here.”

He opened one eye and peered at me. “I didn’t disappear?”

“Nope. Not even a flicker.” I pointed at the ring on the bed.

“Well,” he said, opening his other eye. “That explains a lot.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What exactly does it explain?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “But if we knew what the hell was going on here, I have a feeling it
would
explain a lot.”

“That’s extremely helpful,” I said sarcastically. “But it doesn’t help the situation.”

“What’s the situation exactly?” He started pacing again.

“That apparently you’re just, you know,
here
. And you’re not seeming to go anywhere.” I leaned back onto the bed and held myself up by my elbows. “Still no light to go toward?”

His eyes slid out of focus, and he gazed off into the corner of the room for a few seconds. “Nothing. I get the feeling that I
can’t
leave. Or at least that if I tried, something bad would happen.”