Feeling slightly annoyed, Patrick patted his mother’s knee, hand sinking through her skin like it was nothing more than air. She shivered and scooted closer to his father.
“That’s interesting,” Patrick mused. He couldn’t wait to get to Heaven – he wasn’t the most talkative person on the planet, but he didn’t like not being able to talk to his parents, tell them what was going on. Maybe God was just waiting for a few more hours before coming to get him. Not having a direct route to the afterlife was a little bit of a let-down, though – he’d not given death a ton of thought, but he’d expected immediate white robes and dead relatives and shit. At the very least, none of his injuries from the header on the stairs had followed him into death. His neck didn’t hurt, and neither did his shoulder. He didn’t even have that wicked brush burn on his hip.
With the lingering thoughts of what the afterlife really meant still looming, he tentatively touched his father’s shoulder. His dad absently rubbed at the spot where Patrick’s fingers had just been, much to his surprise. Both his parents leaned into each other when Patrick jumped up, walking through their legs to get to a spot wide enough to pace. And then he chuckled. Why was he getting out of the way of the coffee table? He could easily just walk through it – at least he thought he could.
“He was so tiny as a baby,” his mother muttered, his father’s arm now around her shoulders.
Patrick simultaneously rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the punch of guilt in his ribs.
He knew this speech. When he’d brought Ginny over for dinner for the first time, his mother had hauled out the white, vinyl photo album stuffed full of his baby photos and began exactly like that. Soon she’d be talking about how he was born with bright blond hair, which promptly fell out a month later and grew in dark brown and laughing over that time he set the carpet on fire when he was seven.
Well, maybe she wouldn’t be laughing about that
today
.
Patrick took a cautious step into the coffee table, not surprised to feel an unpleasant sensation move through his shin bone. Making a grimace of distaste, he pulled his leg away and began pacing in the open space of the living room while his parents silently cried. He really
could
walk through it, but the sensation was pretty gross. But what about other things?
He poked at the hanging plant in the corner of the room, but his finger passed through it, and no amount of thinking or concentrating changed it. He ran his hands straight through the knick-knacks on the mantle, eyebrows drawing together in concentration. Nothing.
It was when his mother’s crying turned to loud, wracking sobs again that he couldn’t take it anymore. Patrick fled the room, cruising through the foyer, skirting around the spot where his body had taken its last breath on the landing, and running up the stairs. His bedroom door was closed, although he couldn’t remember shutting it when he’d left his room that morning. Of course, his thoughts had been preoccupied with the smell of food, followed by flailing down the stairs like a rag doll.
Patrick’s shaking fingers barely touched the metal of his door knob, but the sensation of moving through gel hit him immediately. Shit… he’d have to go through it. He needed the comfort of his room. Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and pushed through the door as fast as he could, shaking off the nasty, oppressive feeling before flopping onto his bed. His body slow sank an inch into the surface before he remembered to concentrate on lying atop the bed. His descent stopped, and he blinked owlishly, face prickling with tears held in check… although maybe he couldn’t cry at all now. He had no idea, but no moisture came from his eyes. Were all his bodily functions a thing of the past?
Maybe not – he still breathed, although it was freaking him out. Why he needed to do it anymore escaped his understanding, but his body kept on: long inhale in, stuttering exhale out. Maybe it was a reflex; he held the air in his lungs just to see what would happen, but he let it out with a loud gasp after a few moments, panic overwhelming him.
He was too keyed up to do anything but lie there, wide-eyed and staring at the ceiling. He considered pacing to let out the nervous energy, but the bed enveloped him, comforting and normal, and it smelled like fabric softener and his shampoo, the combination of which calmed him.
“This is so screwed up,” he moaned.
Silently, he contemplated what all of this really meant.
The Bible
talked about ghosts – he was sure of it. At that point he wondered if
The Bible
had it right. Had his mother heard him admit that, she would have screeched at him for being a heathen, but so far death had brought him nothing discussed in church or his youth group classes. There had been no choir of angels waiting to greet him with loving arms at the gates of Heaven, no white lights, no Jesus Christ or lambs or whatever. Not even his cranky Great-Aunt Pearl, who had died several years ago. It was just him and the house and his crying parents.
THE HOURS PASSED BY at the same pace as when he was alive, much to his chagrin. He was bored, counting the chunks of the popcorn ceiling of his bedroom. With each passing hour, he grew more agitated, wishing someone - God, Jesus, the Easter Bunny… anyone - would tell him what to do or tell him the rules. It was obvious no one could hear him or see him, and it was clear he could walk through things and people. What about psychics? He’d never believed in that kind of thing, although Ginny’s mother swore by some palm reader in town. He’d give anything to find someone who could at least sense that he existed.
It was by accident Patrick discovered he could sleep. After hours of wondering about what could possibly be coming next and where God was, his eyelids grew droopy. His limbs developed a heaviness, a lethargy that made it hard to move. Despite the fact that Patrick was very, very freaked out and his mind seemed to be on overdrive, calmness clung to him, and he woke with a start, bedside clock showing it was the middle of the night.
“Well, Goddamn,” he muttered, sliding legs over the edge of the bed. The silence of the house hummed overwhelmingly loud, almost a perfectly quiet static hanging in the air as if something were about to happen to shatter it into millions of sharp pieces. Patrick glanced around, walking carefully across the floor to avoid stepping on the wooden plank that creaked. Halfway across the room, he stopped and shouted out a short laugh. Why did it matter? He could shout at top volume, but no one would hear it. He could probably hop up and down on his parents’ bed, and it wouldn’t matter.
“This is just great,” he shouted. “For all I know I’m stuck here for eternity with nothing to do.”
Patrick froze, listening for any indication he’d been heard, but only the clanking ping of the oil heater coming to life answered. He threw his hands out in exasperation, fingers sweeping across the flat of his desk. A dull thud on the floor and a solid surface against his skin stunned him, and he stared at the book that had fallen over. Had he done that? Was it just his imagination? Coincidence?
He extended his arm slowly, nails barely brushing the spine of his copy of
The
Turn of the Screw
. It did move. Just a centimeter. Just a little bit. Enough to make him swear and poke the book again. It butted up against his knuckles, and the cover slid across his desk, hanging precariously over the side. He watched as it tilted, tipping toward the floor. It appeared to fall in slow motion, and without even thinking, Patrick reached out to catch the book… and it landed in his palm, the smooth heft of it the best thing he’d felt… ever.
“What the Hell?”
He set the book on top of the other that had tipped over – a tattered copy of
Slaughterhouse-Five
– and fingered another book, this time his Algebra II text. It skidded easily across the wood. He laughed, surprised and excited.
Over the next few hours, he tried moving everything in his room. Books, pens, tablets, clothes… he even managed to open the drawers of his dresser, carefully moving as quiet as possible, so he didn’t wake his parents. There were things that eluded his touch, though. The sheets on his bed wouldn’t move, but his comforter and pillow would. He couldn’t figure out why. There was so much he didn’t know, and it annoyed the crap out of him not to have all the answers… almost as much as it scared him that he still walked around this house instead of hanging out in Heaven.
The dim light at his bedroom window crept over the sill, the rising sun casting a glow through his room. He tried to open the window but couldn’t undo the lock. Another mystery - why he could physically move some things and not others? Patrick stood in front of the pane and watched the neighborhood come to life. Jerry, the kid from two streets over, peddled down the sidewalk, tossing newspapers into yards. A red Chevy Malibu drove up the street and turned right onto Elm Lane.
Nice car.
Oh, shit
. Patrick’s hands pressed against the glass of the window, craning to see into the driveway that ran from the street to a side door. His car still rested exactly where he left it, the rays bouncing off her turquoise blue hood. He’d saved up every penny he’d ever earned to buy the ‘68 Chevelle SS just three months ago. What would happen to his car? Now that he was dead, his parents would have no reason to keep it, but he hoped they wouldn’t sell his baby.
If they got rid of the car, maybe they’d get rid of the rest of his shit too. He was dead, so he probably didn’t need anything - it had been nearly twenty-four hours since the paramedics had wheeled his body out of the house, and he hadn’t been hungry or thirsty. He hadn’t needed to piss or take a shit. Hell, he hadn’t even so much as burped. Even though Patrick had felt the moment his heart stopped when he’d died on the stairs, the body he was in now… whatever it was… it still felt human. He felt like himself but without–
The turning of Patrick’s doorknob interrupted his thoughts. His first inclination was to hide in the closet, but that would have been idiotic; no one could see him, so why bother. His next thought was to grab a book and float it through the air – another idiotic idea unless he wanted to spook the Hell out of someone. For a second it sounded like a good idea. He could prove his existence, but something in him stilled his hand, halfway to his desk.
His mother stepped into the room and made his bed, pulling up the sheets and smoothing them over the mattress. Her sigh turned into a ragged sob.
“Aw, Mom,” Patrick muttered.
Her tears dripped onto the comforter as she ran her hand across it, placing his pillows in a stack in front of the headboard. The bed sagged under her weight as she sat, staring at the wall as her jagged breath filled the space.
He hovered over her, hands almost but not quite touching her shoulder. He wished she knew he was there, and at the same time he knew it would freak her out, make things worse for her.
“Arlene?”
She wiped her face against the sleeve of her sweater. “Yeah?”
Patrick’s father poked his head through the crack in the door. “We have to go.”
“God, Jack,” she wailed, throwing up her hands and letting them fall back to the comforter like fall leaves falling from a tree. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Do what? Patrick moved closer to his father. Instead of wearing the usual jeans and a flannel shirt, his dad was in dark dress pants and a short-sleeved, button down shirt with a wide, striped tie. Dressed up for him.
“Pal’s waiting for us. We have to.”
Pal? Pal Banks? Dad’s fishing buddy? It hit Patrick seconds later – they were going to the funeral home. No wonder his mother was so upset.
His grandparents had died a decade ago, and he’d had to tag along with his mother to the Banks Funeral Parlor. Mr. Banks had met his mother in the receiving area, and Patrick had waited there for what seemed like forever. The funeral home office was just off the reception nook, though, and Patrick could hear every word. The chair scratched his skin; the fabric was stiff and smelled weird, like cleaning chemicals, but not the lemon kind his mom used. He overheard whether he wanted to or not – it was all about picking out coffins and talking about the service.
He wanted to go. He wanted to go with his parents to the funeral home. It wasn’t like he could do anything if they opted to plant him in a pink coffin with gold trim, but he was curious. He also felt as though he should be there with his parents as they planned what would happen to his body.
Patrick’s mother heaved herself to her feet and smoothed the comforter again, holding her hand out to his father. Pulling his dad through the door, they clung to each other for a moment before his father turned and led her out into the hallway. Patrick followed, relieved neither had closed the door. Even the thought of the heavy, gelatinous sensation he associated now with moving through it gave him the shivers.
His jacket was still draped over the table in the hallway, and his fingers twitched toward it, only stopping their trajectory when the fabric of his coat sleeve shifted under his hand. He couldn’t put his jacket on. Well, he
could
… it moved when he touched it. But he didn’t think his parents would react very well to seeing his windbreaker come to life and float through the hallway. There might be screaming and running, and there would almost certainly be tears. He couldn’t do that to them.